Like Clockwork

PROLOGUE

The man watches the cigarette burning between the fingers of his right hand. The cuff of his silk shirt strains against his lean wrist, the cuff link glinting in the artificial light. Although the room is hidden at the centre of the house – a warren of rooms and passages – he hears the thud-thud of slammed car doors in the garage. He raises his head, close-cropped and scarred in places, and listens. He waits. He knows how long it will take. Then he uncoils himself from the leather chair. He walks to the door that slides open at a touch. This room and its records are not visible from anywhere. No one ever enters it.

Two strides take him to the room where they have brought the new consignment. She looks at him, terrified. He finds this provocative. He holds out his hand to the girl. Conditioned to politeness, confused, she gives him hers. He looks at it. Then he turns the palm – secret, pink – upwards. He looks into her eyes and smiles. He stubs the cigarette out in her hand.

‘Welcome,’ he says.

The girl watches her heart line, curving round the plump mound of her thumb, burn away. Her sharp, shocked intake of breath breaks the silence.

‘What’s your name?’ he murmurs, smoothing her long hair behind her ear.

‘I want to go home,’ she whispers. ‘Please.’

The man strokes the rounded chin, her soft throat. Then he turns and walks back to his office. He is used to power, there is no need to swagger. He knows that the girl will not take her eyes off him. He punches a number into his phone. The call is picked up at once.

‘I have a little something for you. Fresh delivery. No, no other takers as yet.’ He laughs, turning to watch as the girl is led out, before ending the call.

Many hours later, the girl sits huddled in the corner of a room, unaware of the unblinking eye of the camera watching her. She is alone, knees pulled tight into her body. A blanket, rough and filthy, is wrapped around her. Her clothes are gone. She shivers, cradling her hand in her lap, the fingers trying to find a way to lie that will not hurt the burnt pulp at the heart of her palm. Her skin is tattooed with the sensation of clawing hands, bruised from her brief resistance. She hugs her knees. The effort makes her whimper. She cringes at the sound, dropping her head, unable to think of a way of surviving this. And she is too filled with hatred to find a way to die. After a long time, she lifts her head.

Something that the camera does not see: to survive, she thinks of ways of killing.

The door opens. ‘Dinner, sir,’ announces the maid, transfixed by the image on the screen.

A finger on the remote and the bruised girl vanishes.

‘Thank you,’ says the host. He turns to his guests. ‘This way, gentlemen.’

The maid gathers glasses and ashtrays after they have left the room. She switches off the lights and closes the door and goes downstairs to help serve the meal.