There was no light in the storage unit, so Rachel couldn’t be sure how much of Monday had been and gone. Surely someone in London would have missed her by now? The searing pain from the taser barbs and the spasms in her limbs had subsided, but she felt like the living dead. The floor of the crate was hard chipboard and she could only lie down with her legs curled up tight to her chest. Having her arms restrained behind her back had set up a burning pain between her shoulder blades. Her thirst was so severe it made her shake.

She shuffled onto her knees, bent her head down and lapped water from the plastic dog bowl. Then she collapsed onto her side again and gave way to sobs. Rachel was not a crier, but now she cried so hard her whole body ached. No point trying to work out an escape route: there was none. At least in Harland’s apartment there had been the possibility someone would find her, but not here. She was done for.

After some time like this – it could have minutes or hours; she couldn’t tell – Harland unlocked the storage unit door.

‘Oh dear,’ she observed, ‘you are in a sorry state.’

‘How else would I be?’ Rachel croaked.

‘It’s your own fault you know. I was planning on letting you go. Eventually. You just needed to be patient a little longer.’

‘You have to let me go. Now.’ Rachel shouted the last word, although it came out as a strange rasping sound.

‘I can’t, not now. It’s too late for that.’

Harland refilled the water bowl with a plastic jug, then disappeared again. When she returned, she had her laptop with her.

‘It’s finished now – see?’ She held up the screen against the bars of the crate, but Rachel’s eyes were so sore and so unaccustomed to the light that all she could see was a blur of dancing colour.

‘All I have to do is press this button and Your Health Angel goes live.’

She waited, but Rachel was no longer listening. She was sweating, and her body felt first icy cold, then hot and damp with sweat.

‘One… Two… Three…’ Harland clicked a button on screen. ‘Go! I’m live. Let’s see how long it is before I get my first client.’

‘Harland, I’m ill. I need medical attention.’

‘Drink some water, and get some rest.’

‘I. Can’t. Rest. I’m in a fucking cage.’

Harland ignored this. ‘Maybe I’ll bring you some Tylenol later.’

The door of the unit slid shut and Rachel was enveloped in darkness again.

---

Rachel must have slept, fitfully and feverishly, but woke feeling exhausted. Was it still the same day, she wondered? If it was Tuesday, then she had now been missing for three days. She forced her brain to use logic, when all she wanted to do was howl with misery and self-pity.

Someone must surely be looking for her, right now. Apart from anything else, she had failed to attend her promotion board. Patten would know she’d never do that willingly. So someone would eventually start searching for her. All she had to do was hang on somehow until help arrived. She had to keep going. She drank the rest of the water and managed to roll over, awkwardly, so that she was lying on her other side. She recited the colours of the rainbow, the words of the police phonetic alphabet – Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot – and her times tables. Anything to keep herself focused. Anything to stop herself from screaming.

She needed Harland to return, because the alternative was being abandoned without food or water. And yet she dreaded her return too, unsure what form of torment she would dream up next.

‘I have good news,’ Harland announced triumphantly when she eventually pulled back the metal door. She had shed the fat suit and was dressed in wig, full make-up and a size-6 Harland outfit of tight white jeans and fitted striped T-shirt. In one hand she held a small blue plastic box, which she placed on the floor next to the cage.

Rachel’s heart leapt. Harland was clearly heading out into the world, so had probably decided it was time to release her prisoner. She was tired of tormenting Rachel like this, wanted to move on to a new victim.

‘I’ve got my first client. Already! Isn’t that amazing?’

Rachel stared at her with blank eyes.

‘She’s very anxious for me to begin coaching her on her wellness journey. That’s what she told me. So I’m heading up there to meet with her at her house. She says she can’t wait to have her first session.’ She laughed happily.

‘What about me?’ croaked Rachel.

‘Well now, that’s the thing.’ She checked that the padlock on the cage was secure. Rachel saw that she was also wearing latex gloves. Her heart started hammering.

‘I can’t just go off on a trip out of state and leave you here. I could be gone days. Weeks maybe, if things go well. So I’m afraid it’s time for you and I to part ways, Detective.’

‘You’re letting me go?’ Rachel knew as she said this that it made no sense. Why would she be released now, just as Harland embarked on a new spree?

‘I guess, in a way, I am.’

She opened the blue plastic case and took out a syringe, a glass vial and a needle sealed in a clear plastic wrapper. With deft movements she attached the needle to the syringe and inserted it into the vial, pulling up a measured dose and holding it towards the light to check it.

‘Jesus Christ! What’s that?’ Rachel was trembling so fiercely she could barely speak. Her tongue felt huge and thick in her mouth.

‘Potassium Chloride. It’s what they use in voluntary euthanasia. Also execution by lethal injection. After administering anaesthesia first, of course. They keep it in a locked box in the labs, but as a senior tech I can access the key, no problem.’

Rachel had never heard three sentences that were more measured, or more reasonable. Or more terrifying.

‘Harland, you don’t have to do this. Please. Don’t do this. Just talk to me, please.’ Rachel edged back against the back wall of the crate but it made no difference where she positioned her body: she could not get away this time.

‘It’s me that gets to make the decisions,’ Harland said in a low voice. ‘Me. It’s not me that’s at the mercy of others any more, it’s the other way around. I get to decide things.’

There was a bang and a scuffling noise. Someone else was in the basement. Harland darted round the side of the cage, thrust the needle through the wire and held it up ready to plunge it into the back of Rachel’s exposed upper arm.

‘Joe,’ whimpered Rachel, her only thought now for her son. ‘Joe!’

As Harland brought the tip of the needle to her skin, the door of the unit slammed open. From where she huddled, Rachel could see an oddly familiar pair of shoes. Their owner lunged at Harland, grappled with her and dragged her backwards, away from the bars of the cage.

‘Christ, Prince, look at the fucking state of you.’