Killing with Confetti

4

Magda sees enough of her attacker to register that he is male, taller than the six-foot wall, broad-shouldered and wearing a dark tracksuit and a balaclava with slits for eyes and mouth. The weight of his body presses her hard against the rough stone. Her arms are grasped behind her back and pinioned with what feels like a strap being fastened a short way below her elbows. A hood is dragged over her head, execution-style. Unlike the man’s balaclava, this has no openings. When she tries to cry out, the fleece-like material muffles the sound.

In this captive state she is hauled away from the wall and forced to stumble blindly back in the direction she has come. He prods her with the flat of his hand. An extra hard shove forces her to the left, off the gravel path and across the turf. Then her heels start sinking into the soft soil she recognises as her vegetable patch. One shoe sticks in the mud and she loses it. Off balance, she almost drops to her knees, but her forearm is grabbed from behind, steadying her. She kicks off the second shoe to keep her balance. A couple of steps further on, she feels his hand on her shoulder.

He stops her.

What now? She half expects some sort of coup de grâce, a crack on the head or a gunshot that will put an end to this nightmare, but it doesn’t come. Instead she hears the creak of rusty hinges as a door is opened.

The woodshed.

He has decided to bring her here rather than out in the open. She hasn’t used firewood for months, but she remembers the shed is half full of cobweb-covered logs stacked along the two sides. Somewhere inside is an axe, but there is no chance she can use it to defend herself while trussed like this.

A sudden stronger push in her back pitches her forward. Felled like dead wood, she hits the floor of the shed. The main impact is to her left shoulder and hip. Sharp pain, but nothing broken, she hopes. She’ll be left with heavy bruising. Instinctively she lies on her side and draws her knees to her belly, expecting him to fling himself on her. If he’s a rapist he’ll have no difficulty with her clothes. She’s in the loose tartan skirt she wears for work and it has rucked up, showing most of her thighs and probably more. Nothing she can do about that.

She can hear his breathing as he stands over her.

Enjoying her helplessness?

She moans, partly from tension, but also to make it sound as if the fall has injured her. Unless he’s a total sadist he might think a victim with a cracked hip is a turn-off.

That small hope is snuffed out.

He takes hold of her shin.

She moans again and tries to draw her knees right up to her chest but he doesn’t let go. He tightens his grip.

More angry than scared, she straightens suddenly, kicks with her free leg and feels her foot make sharp contact with his arm. If she were still wearing shoes she might have hurt him. As it is, he grunts, loses his grip briefly and immediately grabs her again. This time she feels more than just his hand. A cord is passed around her ankle and tightened. She guesses what it is — braided blue nylon rope she threw into the shed one winter morning after she found some pieces in the garden.

He’s binding her legs together, winding the rope several times around her shins, pressing painfully into her flesh. Kicking him wasn’t such a good idea. Before he has finished knotting the rope her toes are turning numb from lack of circulation.

But why is he doing it? Is it a bondage thing?

Roped and strapped, hot and blind under the hood, she can only lie there and wait to discover what he will do next. She holds her breath.

When the move comes, it is wholly unexpected. First she feels the back of his hand against her thigh and then the soft fabric of her skirt. He has straightened it and restored decency.

Hardly the action of a rapist.

Her heart is thumping, even so.

But she can tell he isn’t looming over her anymore. He’s backed off. He’s finished tying her up and has moved away. Job done, apparently.

Better still, she hears him turn the handle of the shed door. Is he about to leave? He still hasn’t spoken a word and it seems he has dealt with the problem she represents.

Her sensation of relief is overwhelming.

The shed door slams shut and she hears him lock it. How annoying that she keeps the key permanently in the lock.

What was he, then — a thief? Did he want her powerless and out of his way while he ransacked the cottage? He must have been lurking in the garden waiting for her to go to the car and drive off. Instead, she’d come looking for Blanche and found him instead.

He won’t need to break in now. She’s left the cottage door open.

Her bag is in the kitchen and contains her phone, all her credit cards and about £200 in cash. Also her car key. Her Škoda is parked in the road, a good car, less than a year old, the most valuable item she owns, but will he risk driving a stolen car? He’ll find a few antiques in the living room and some jewellery upstairs that she inherited from her mother. Not a lot, but most theft is random and they don’t know what they’ll discover.

Alone now, thank God. No one wants their house burgled and no one chooses to be locked in a shed indefinitely, but either option is preferable to a sex attack.

Wanting to be sure he’s gone, she squirms closer to the door and listens.

Steps on the gravel. He has crossed the lawn and reached the cottage for sure. He’s going to be busy there for some time. Then will he steal the car and drive off?

To her surprise, she hears voices.

He’s talking to someone in front of the cottage. She can’t think who. Nobody ever comes calling at this hour. Too early for the postman.

Impossible to tell what is being said. Male voices for sure, and the tone is business-like rather than hostile.

The longer they talk, the more likely that this isn’t some local person who happened to be passing by. So he has an accomplice.

Magda’s theory of a random burglary is unravelling.

Even as she strains to hear what might be happening outside, a sound much closer hits her with the force of an electric shock: the whimper of an animal in distress.

Blanche.

Somewhere here in the shed.

She catches her breath with such force that she sucks in the fabric of the hood.

She cries out, ‘Blanche, darling?’ and has an instant response, the same unhappy sound, but louder. Is her small dog cowering in a corner? Why doesn’t she come over? Has she been kicked?

This is easily the worst moment of her ordeal, being unable to see what is troubling her beloved pet.

There is a phenomenon known as hysterical strength that in extreme situations allows people to perform astonishing feats like lifting one end of a car from a trapped accident victim. Scientists suggest everyone has some extra energy they can tap into. Magda’s heightened emotional state triggers an exceptional reaction. She bucks and bumps across the floor until her head comes in contact with the stack of logs. By rubbing the back of her skull against the hard edges, she starts trying to remove the horrible hood, damp with spittle and sweat, ignoring the pain in the hope that the fabric will gather and slide over her hair.

Moving her head a short way left, she feels a stab of pain above her ear. Something is projecting from the bark and it seems to be a spike of wood, the base of a broken twig. Ignoring the discomfort, she works the hood against the angle until it hooks on.

One more big effort from her entire body and she squirms out of the vile thing.

Her first need is to breathe some air. She takes several huge gulps. Dazed by her efforts, she blinks, raises her head and looks round. There isn’t much light in the woodshed, but she can see movements from a hessian sack by the wall just inside the door. The top of it has been gathered and tied into a large knot.

‘Blanche!’

The brute has captured the little dog and thrust her into the sack. Blanche must have been an easy catch; she is so trusting. Right now, she’ll be terrified and in danger of suffocation.

Another heart-rending wail.

With her limbs still pinioned, Magda wriggles, maggot-style, towards Blanche, repeatedly calling her name to try and comfort her. She’ll need to untie the large knot without using her hands. Without thought whether such a feat is possible, she props herself against the door, leans over and gets a grip on the coarse sacking with her teeth. Inside, Blanche is in a frenzy, hitting the sides, desperate to escape.

The simple overhand knot is effective enough at keeping Blanche imprisoned and eventually suffocating her, but not impossible to untie if Magda can find a way to loosen it. She bites hard and tugs at the cross-over, rasping her face as she works. The whimpering and struggling inside reach such a pitch that she has to pause and speak some words of comfort. But she can’t stop for long. Head down, she tries again. If this doesn’t work, she tells herself, I’ll bite through the bloody sack.

Finally the knot gives a little. Encouraged, she puts even more into pulling the bunched material. It definitely gets looser.

One last effort.

Arching her back, clenching her teeth, she tugs the thing free and creates an opening.

Blanche emerges, panting and bewildered. After some hesitation, the little Westie looks around, takes in her owner lying beside her, props her front paws on Magda’s shoulder and licks her face. Her tongue feels like a hot flannel.

‘Poor little soul — what did he do to you?’

All of Magda’s distress has transferred to her dog. She is hugely relieved to see that Blanche shows no obvious injuries. Some stiffness in the legs, understandably, and hyper-quick breathing.

The small tail wags furiously and the face-licking seems as if it will never stop.

‘That’s enough, sweetheart, really,’ Magda says, wishing her hands were free to stroke and pet the brave little creature. She can offer no more than sympathetic words. No way can she free herself from the straps and rope. She and Blanche are locked in and stuck here until someone registers that she is missing and comes looking for her. And then she can only hope they have the sense to unlock the woodshed and look inside. The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.

After Blanche has calmed enough to sit a short distance from her, Magda turns her mind to what was going on before she heard those dreadful distressed cries from her dog. Two voices in earnest conversation. Quite probably this wasn’t a random break-in but a planned operation that she’d interrupted by going to look for Blanche. If they knew her timing, they’d be able to break in after she’d left for work confident that she wouldn’t return until late in the evening.

What do they think she owned that was worth stealing?

Or is all this for another reason?

She fears so.