Dead Like You

116

Monday 19 January

There was less light than Jessie had imagined there’d be, which in some ways she thought was good. If she was very, very careful, keeping totally silent, she was able to tiptoe a short distance along the gridded walkway and look down at the camper van.

It sat there, cream and grimy, with its side door open. It was the kind of camper van that used to be one of the symbols of the hippy era – flower power, ban-the-bomb, all that stuff she recalled from what she had read about the 1960s and 1970s.

This creep didn’t seem much like a hippy.

He was inside the van at the moment. Had he slept? She doubted it. Once or twice during the darkness she’d nearly dozed off, and on one occasion had almost cried out when an animal of some kind brushed her arm. Then a while later, as dawn brought with it a weak, grey haze of light, a rat came and took a look at her.

She hated rats and after that incident her tiredness was banished.

What was his plan now? What was going on in the outside world? She’d not heard the helicopter again, so maybe it hadn’t been looking for her after all. How long would this go on for?

Perhaps he had supplies in the van. She knew he had water and maybe he had food. He could sit this out indefinitely, if he didn’t have a job or a life that was missing him. Whereas, she knew, she could not go on much longer without water and something to eat. She was feeling weak. On edge, but definitely weaker than yesterday. And dog tired. Running on adrenalin.

And determination.

She was going to marry Benedict. This creep was not going to stop her. Nothing was.

I am going to get out of here.

The wind was strong today and seemed to be getting stronger. The cacophony of sounds all around was worsening. Good, because that would help cover any noise she might make moving around.

Suddenly she heard a howl of rage. ‘ALL RIGHT, YOU BITCH, I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR DAMNED GAMES. I’M COMING AFTER YOU. HEAR ME? I’VE WORKED OUT WHERE YOU ARE AND I’M COMING AFTER YOU!’

She tiptoed back to her vantage point and looked down. To her shock she could see him, still with his hood off, with what looked like a big red weal around his right eye. He was running across the ground floor, holding a big spanner in one hand and a carving knife in the other.

He was running straight for the entrance of the silo beneath her.

Then she heard him shouting again, his voice an echoing boom, as if he was shouting through a funnel. ‘OH, VERY CLEVER, BITCH. A LADDER UP INSIDE THE SILO! HOW DID YOU FIND THAT?’

Moments later she heard the clanging of the rungs.