Dead Man’s Footsteps

63

Abby was laughing. Her father was laughing too.

‘You stupid girl, you did that deliberately, didn’t you?’

‘No I didn’t, Daddy!’

Both of them stood back, staring at the partially tiled bathroom wall. White tiles with a navy-blue dado rail and a scattering of navy tiles as relief, one of which she had just put on backwards, so that the coarse grey underside was now visible, looking like a square of cement.

‘You’re meant to be helping me, young lady, not hindering me!’ her dad admonished.

She burst into loud giggles. ‘I didn’t do it deliberately, Daddy, honestly.’

For an answer, he patted her squarely on the forehead with his trowel, depositing a small lump of grout.

‘Hey!’ she cried. ‘I’m not a bathroom wall, so you can’t tile me.’

‘Oh yes, I can.’

Her father’s face darkened and the smile faded. Suddenly it wasn’t him any more. It was Ricky.

He was holding a power drill in his hand. Smiling, he squeezed the trigger. The drill whined.

‘Right knee or left knee first, Abby?’

She began shaking, her body still held rigid by her bonds, her insides twisting, shrinking back, screaming silently.

She could see the spinning drill bit. Corkscrewing towards her knee. Inches from it. She was screaming. Her cheeks popping. Nothing coming out. Just an endless, trapped moan.

Trapped in her throat and in her mouth.

He lunged forward with the drill.

And as she screamed again, the light changed suddenly. She smelled the sharp, dry smell of fresh grout, saw cream wall tiles. Hyperventilating. There was no Ricky. She could see the carrier bag lying where he had left it, untouched, just beyond the doorway. She felt slippery with perspiration. Heard the steady whirr of the extractor fan, felt the cold draught from it. The insides of her mouth were feeling stuck together. She was so parched, so terribly parched. Just one drop. One small glass of water. Please.

She stared at the tiles again.

God, the irony of being imprisoned in here. Facing these tiles. So near. So damned near! Her mind was all over the place. Somehow she had to get to Ricky. Had to get him to remove the tape from her face. And if he was rational, when he returned, that’s exactly what he would have to do.

But he wasn’t rational.

And thinking about that now chilled every cell in her body.