It had been dark for hours, and for a few minutes the silence was absolute. Then, at last, came the faint sound of snoring.

Rachel had waited what seemed an interminable time for Harland to go to bed, listening to her tapping furiously on the keys of her computer. Her new ‘health coaching’ initiative was clearly keeping her engrossed. Eventually Rachel heard the noise of the toilet and basin being used and the tiny crack of light from under the door was eventually extinguished.

Meanwhile, she had put her waiting time to good use. Bracing her feet as hard as she could against the mattress, she had fumbled under its edge with her fingertips and strained to pull out the piece of broken cup she had hidden there. The satin coverlet made her feet slip and slide, and it took her several attempts, but eventually she pressed two fingers around the china in a pincer movement and edged it out. It had been severed cleanly, but with a slight bevel to the crack that had left the edge as sharp as a knife. She tested it gingerly with the pad of a finger. She could tell that if she were to run her finger over it with a quick movement, it would slice through the skin and draw blood. Good. This meant it was sharp enough for her needs.

Bracing her manacled right arm as firmly as she could, she rolled up onto her side and reached the piece of china to the thick plastic tie around her wrist. She attempted a sawing motion, but her porcelain blade just slid off the plastic. It didn’t help that she couldn’t really see what she was doing. Grunting and sweating with the effort, she tried again, but could not get enough downward purchase on the plastic binding with her makeshift tool. Instead, she was going to have to insert the sharp point of the china inside the loop of the cable tie and saw upwards, using a pulling rather than a downwards pushing movement. The risk was that if the china slipped she would sever the inside of her wrist, but it seemed a risk worth taking.

Saw. Rest. Saw. Rest.

Progress was painfully slow, but after around twenty minutes she could see that she was creating a furrow in the cable tie, shedding powdery plastic dust. The deeper into the plastic she penetrated, the quicker the progress, and after the best part of an hour of sawing at it, a sharp tug made the plastic tie snap. Her arm was free.

Rachel sat up and massaged her sore left shoulder and wrist. She did not dare get off the bed, not until she was sure Harland was asleep, but she did some silent leg exercises and some yoga stretches while she waited. She also weighed up how things would play out if it came to a physical confrontation. At five feet nine inches she was taller and heavier than Harland, and she had been trained in self-defence and combat techniques. And she was no stranger to running. On the other hand, she had been handcuffed motionless for nearly three days, which had left her weak and light-headed. The physical advantage she had before had probably been lost. All the more reason to proceed with infinite care, and get out of the building without being detected.

Once the snoring had started, Rachel inched herself carefully off the bed. Her soiled jeans were still in the laundry basket where Harland had left them, but the rental car keys were no longer in the pocket. She put on the jeans, thrust the piece of broken china – her only weapon – into her back pocket and searched around the room for her trainers, groping blindly underneath the bed. They were nowhere to be found. With slow, careful steps she went into the walk-in closet and closed the door behind her, feeling along the wall for the light switch.

The shoes belonging to glamorous size-6 Harland were all high-heeled and decorative, their un-scuffed soles confirming that they had never been worn outside this room. Rachel pictured Harland’s presence at the homes of her victims. She may have been in heels when she arrived, but she couldn’t possibly have disposed of their corpses, done a professional clean-up job and then fled wearing such impractical shoes. There had to be others, Rachel reasoned, but every second she spent searching put her at increased risk of discovery.

Forcing her pounding heart to slow, she scanned the shelves in a logical order, left to right, top to bottom. Eventually she reached a plastic storage crate on a lower shelf, containing a few pairs of flat ballet pumps and some canvas sneakers. They were in a slightly smaller size than Rachel’s own, but they would have to do. She put on a pair of the sneakers and switched off the light before emerging from the closet. Bending over to lace up the shoes had left her dizzy, and her legs felt as wobbly as a newborn foal’s, but she could not afford to waste any more time. She had to get out of the apartment immediately.

Out in the hallway, she paused and listened. The snoring had stopped, but there was no other sound. The front door was locked from the inside, but ever-organised Harland had left the keys on a hook on her hall stand. Breathing with such focused intent that she thought she would pass out, Rachel inserted the two keys in the locks, one after the other, and turned them. The second one made a heavy click. There was a faint movement from the bedroom. Rachel froze, but after a couple of seconds it stopped again. She eased the door open inch by inch, crept out into the communal hallway then pulled the door to behind her, afraid to close it completely unless the sound of the latch woke Harland.

Then she lunged towards the stairwell and stumbled her way down flight after flight until she reached the ground floor.

---

Rachel’s rental car – a pale metallic-blue Mazda – was still in the parking lot where she left it, only now she had no key. She knew that it was nigh-on impossible to hotwire a modern car, but her bag, containing her trusty Swiss Army knife and her passport, was locked in the boot. She should have taken the knife with her: that had proved to be a costly oversight.

Using the point of her all-purpose piece of broken china, she tried to flip open the boot catch. No dice. She made a split-second risk–reward assessment in her head, scooped up a rock from the landscaping around the parking lot, and smashed the rear window.

The noise from the alarm was so deafening it was like a form of torture. Unable to endure it a second longer, and fearful of the attention it would attract, she reached into the boot, grabbed her bag and ran out of the parking lot, heading for the main road. Behind her, the car wailed indignantly.

---

The motel she had stayed in was only around a mile away. If she could reach it on foot as quickly as possible, the twenty-four-hour reception would be open and someone would help her to raise the alarm. She would be safe. But running was much more difficult than she had anticipated. The sort of speed she normally achieved – between ten and twelve kilometres an hour – was completely beyond her reach now that her legs were so weak. She staggered and swayed like a marathon runner with heat stroke, the too-small sneakers chafing her feet raw. After a few hundred yards she was forced to slow to a trot, then a walk.

The occasional car flashed past her on the road, their headlights dipping then blazing. Then came one that wasn’t passing her. This car was slowing right down and crawling behind her, so close she could feel the heat from its engine on the back of her legs. She willed herself to look straight ahead, not to turn back. But she had to turn, and the light from the headlights illuminated the half-familiar number plate. She recognised her rented Mazda. And there was only one person who had the key.

Harland stepped from the vehicle without cutting the engine. She held out what looked like a gun and pointed it directly at Rachel’s body. Not a gun, Rachel’s muddled brain told her, Harland wouldn’t use a gun. Too messy. Far too messy. And when the shattering pain surged through her body, felling her instantly, she knew she was right. It wasn’t a gun; it was a taser. Available cheaply on the internet; easy enough for someone of Harland’s resourcefulness to get their hands on.

Like a predator with its kill, Harland was on her, yanking her hands behind her body and snapping plastic cable ties onto her wrists. More ties on her ankles, so that she was trussed like an animal, and a fabric gag in her mouth. Then, with a surprising show of strength, Harland dragged her towards the car and manhandled her onto the rear seat. Her bag was tossed into the foot well next to her and the engine put into gear. Rachel closed her eyes, terrified and tachycardic from the taser.

‘Wanna know where we’re going?’ Harland called over her shoulder as she drove. Rachel could not see her face, but could tell she was mightily pleased with herself. Rachel did not want to know, and did not ask. The car stopped after a few minutes, and when she was dragged from the car Rachel could see that they were back at the apartment block. But instead of going into the main entrance, Harland took her to a side door, and into what looked like a service elevator. The door clanged shut and it descended before bumping to a stop. They were in the basement.

‘My storage unit,’ Harland told her cheerily. ‘There aren’t enough for all the residents to have one; your name has to go on a waiting list.’ She removed a padlock from a large metal sliding door. The space inside had a concrete floor and was about five feet across and six feet deep. It contained just one thing: a large wire cage. It looked like the puppy crate Rachel’s sister had used for her Labrador when it was young.

‘Dog crate,’ Harland confirmed. ‘Largest one you can get. It’s supposed to take a hound up to one hundred twenty pounds. You’re probably a little heavier than that – one fifty maybe? – but it should do just fine.’

Once she had manoeuvred Rachel into the cage, she removed the ankle ties and the gag, but left the handcuffs in place. Then she filled a plastic dog bowl with water and padlocked the cage shut.

‘There you go.’ Her voice was hard. ‘Nighty night.’

The metal door of the unit was banged shut and the padlock clicked back into place with a rasping sound. Then all Rachel could hear was the sound of Harland’s shoes as she walked away.