“Right, I have to go now.” A blessed relief swept her body. “But, I can’t leave you here can I? You do see that? I can’t have you talking to people and I need you to tell me where my property is. This is not over; I don’t want you to think this is over. I am not going to just walk away; I can’t. You think this is bad, Pauline? Well let me tell you that if my clients get their hands on you you’ll wish for me to come back.

“Now, I have told them I have this all under control, and I do. I do because one way or the other you are going to tell me what I need to know. So, what am I going to do with you now while I go and take care of business?

“Well I have a treat for you. You like to go and walk on the beach don’t you, Pauline? Yes you do, I’ve seen you. Well we’re going on the beach now. You and me are going down to the seaside before anyone else is up and about and we’re going to find a nice quiet place for you to spend the day. You’d like that wouldn’t you, a nice day on the beach? Well, I say on the beach! Ha.”

Her panicked eyes flicked from side to side as he collected her coat and phone and bag and then dragged her upright. He bent and snipped open the cable ties on her toes and the pain as circulation flooded the numbed digits with blood took the strength from her knees. He held her upright with an arm around her waist and forced her forward and out of the room. Through the back door they shuffled in an obscene waltz and then he dragged her across the little lawn and out onto the meadow. Staggering painfully across the wet grass she prayed for oblivion as the gulls wheeled and screamed and the sunrise painted golden sequins across the water.

Chapter 20

Cool sand under her feet; a precious bead of relief in the pool of pain.

He had dragged her beside him, scuttling and tripping over rough grass, down the grit of the dunes and now he marched in the damp hardness of the tide washed beach. Her hands were still fastened behind her and she leaned forward for balance, stumbling when he forced her onward too quickly.

Breath burned in her throat and a stitch caught at her side. Her jaw was a persistent ache and as she tried to swallow, her damaged tongue caught on the hard gag. Everywhere was pain and it melded until all there was in the whole world was agony and evil. No nightmare had ever been so vile; no imagined scenario under the hammer of George’s control had come close to this and she couldn’t see how she would ever bear it.

Now they reached the rocks. Surely he wouldn’t make her climb, not with her hands tied and her feet bare, but he did. He pushed her on before him and steadied her with two hands, one on each arm. Sometimes he missed his footing and dragged on her screaming limbs and she groaned into the early daylight as tears tracked across her wounded face.

When they had climbed six feet or maybe a little more above the beach he dragged her to a halt and leaned to hiss into her ear. “I’m taking the tie off. Don’t even think of trying to run.” White heat seared her hands and as her arms dropped to her sides the fire in her shoulders caused her eyes to flood with fresh tears and stole her breath away. He forced her to her knees on the wet rocks.

He stepped now to the front and dragged a piece of rope from his jacket. Ignoring her gasps and groans he pulled her wounded arms forward and tied them loosely by the wrists. Fisting his hands in her hair he dragged her back to her feet and drove her on and up. The cliff was steeper now. This was higher than she had been before, though she had clambered to the sheep field from the lower levels closer inland. As they climbed they headed southwards out onto the rocky promontory. Would he drown her then? Would she be dashed to a pulp on the Cornish coast and become another statistic in the annals of foolish walkers and irresponsible tourists? So be it; she would have peace at least. Her feet were soled with blood and grit where sharp stones had stabbed and torn. Stumbling and slithering they made their way until at the start of the descent he turned and pushed her to his left.

There was a fissure in the rock. How had he found this place? Of course the stranger in the garden, at the fete and on the beach had been him, watching and exploring and planning and it had come to this. The floor sloped downwards inside the cliff where a small cave had been formed by centuries of rushing tides. So then, this was where she would die. He pushed her onto a narrow ledge and she curled forward and hid her face in bleeding hands and sobbed.

“I didn’t want to do this Pauline. You have brought this on yourself. You do see that don’t you?” He dragged on a handful of hair forcing her to face him “I said, you do see don’t you that this is all your fault?”

She couldn’t speak but just stared up at him in the mild light and was subsumed by hopelessness.

“All you have to do is to tell me where you’ve put the stuff. That’s all.” In truth he seemed anguished and she realised then that fear had some part in what was driving his viciousness. If she could have given him anything at that moment, anything in the world to stop this, then she would. She could not though, for she had nothing he wanted.

He leaned and untied the belt from around her face. The pain in her jaw was expected now, coming as it did after so much and so she gingerly closed her mouth and felt the roil of nausea and rode it and breathed through it.

“Why won’t you tell me?”

She shook her head. It was hard to form the words but a whisper came and found its way through her swollen lips. “I can’t. I haven’t got them. Haven’t got anything. Never had anything.”

He spun away from her with a curse and kicked at the ground. “Right, right. You’ll stay here now and, if the sea doesn’t get you perhaps you’ll see sense.” She gave a small shake of her head, she was done.

He made her stand again and pushed her further into the darkness along the ledge, pressed against the rock wall. He grabbed her hands and tied them behind her and then ran the rope down and round her feet. He dragged the belt from his pocket but after peering at the wounds in the corners of her mouth he growled at her. “There will be no use shouting; nobody will hear you. Nobody comes here. I’ve watched and I’ve been down here and the waves are too loud so don’t even bother calling out.”

He turned and with no further backward glance scrambled into the light and left her alone with the roar of the ocean and the drip of salt water and the enormity of fear.

Chapter 21

When she was sure he was gone Pauline screamed out. The effort tore at her throat and the sound was that of a desperate animal but she continued to yell until pain and exhaustion reduced the cries to a whimpering plea. “Oh please, please, someone. Please.”

He had told her there was no point. He said the cave was too far from the quiet beach and the roar of waves would be too loud but she had needed to try.

There were no more tears left for her to cry now and her nerves were numbed. How was it possible that she was tied with rope in a dark, damp cave? She was Pauline Green. An ordinary person; she was just Pauline. The hard wetness of her perch and the constant drip of moisture argued for truth and in the end all she was able to do was mourn and wonder how it had come to this.

She shuffled and tried to ease the pain in her arms and shoulders, in her back and her neck. After a time she managed to swing her legs round and lay like a trussed chicken on the wet ledge. Shivers came in painful waves and with each one she whimpered through chattering teeth. There were no beach cries, no laughing children or barking dogs. The only sound was the sea, relentless, endless and timeless. It was hell, but then her body and her brain took her away from it. The oblivion that lulled her wasn’t sleep but it was better than reality.