50

In her small apartment in Hackney, Katja blinked as she came to. She was lying half-on and half-off the low couch. Her pillow, a knit-covered cushion which smelled strongly of smoke, had left a rough, indented pattern on the side of her face. It was wet with drool, and she moved her head away from its sticky surface in sleepy disgust.

She needed a big glass of water, with three aspirins dissolved in it.

She needed to turn the lights off.

She needed … Oh, God.

Katja sat upright, jolted to full wakefulness as she remembered what had happened before she went to sleep.

She’d shared a couple of joints with the girls after they’d been at the pub, and then Rodic had phoned while she was on the bus home. She’d been too paranoid to relay the information he’d told her to Salimovic immediately, but she’d called as soon as she was inside her flat.

Then her phone had died and she’d passed out.

What had she told Rodic’s dangerous friend?

She rubbed fiercely at her eyes, which were itchy and dry. Shit. She’d never even managed to take off her make-up. Leaving it on was supposed to age the skin.

She’d told Salimovic about his car. But she hadn’t told him the most important fact of all, the one that Rodic had begged her to write down.

Blinking, Katja picked up her handbag from the floor and rummaged inside it.

There. She had written it. In red lip-liner on a white panty-pad. Classy. She stared down at the smudged letters and gave a short laugh, which made her head hurt even more.

Two words. He’d spelled them out for her.

Xavier Soumare.

The police had been asking Rodic who he was, over and over again. Apparently he’d driven Salimovic’s car away from Number Six with some woman, and the police were convinced that the two of them were working with Salimovic.

Rodic had told Katja it was important that Salimovic should know the name.

Katja stood up, yanked her phone out of the charger and stabbed the redial button. She’d hoped that the call would go straight to voicemail like it did the last time she’d called, but to her surprise it started to ring.

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Jade managed to flip onto her stomach and pull herself up onto her knees. Her arms were already aching from the painful position Salimovic had forced her into.

She needed to get her hands in front of her so that she could try to untie herself. Shifting as close to the fireplace as she could get, she managed to slip her wrists under her backside and wriggle her legs through one by one.

Now she was crouched on the floor with her wrists crushed together by the thin length of washing line, which was so tight that her fingers were beginning to swell.

Kneeling in front of the fire as if she were worshipping it.

After a short struggle, Jade realised that no matter how hard she yanked, sawed and twisted, the thin rope was unbreakable.

All she was doing was cutting into her own skin.

She leaned forward, easing the pressure on her wrists, breathing deeply as she considered her options.

She had just one left.

A line like this was impossible to break by hand. You could cut through it if you had a knife, which she did not.

Or you could burn through it.

Jade stretched out her leg and hooked her shoe over the hot coal that Salimovic had dropped. With gentle tapping movements, she manoeuvred it towards her until it was in front of her hands.

It had cooled a little since it came out of the fire. Its crimson heart was paler, but at least it was still glowing. Bending closer to it, she could feel its heat.

She knew that burning the line would mean burning her own skin as well.

She had to do it.

Gritting her teeth, Jade lowered her wrists onto the smoking coal. As she did, she thought of Terence Jordaan.

The hiss of the coal when it touched her skin was echoed by her own muffled hiss of agony. The reek of her own scorched flesh made her want to vomit and the pain was hideous.

She snatched her arms away. Now they were shaking almost uncontrollably. Her eyes were wet, and she was panting for breath.

Despite her efforts, the rope still wouldn’t break.

The heat had allowed it to stretch just a little, giving a modicum of slack in the loop, but not enough to get her hands through.

In the distance, she heard the noise of a phone ringing.

“One more try and it’ll be done,” she whispered.

She lowered her hands, but stopped as soon as she felt the coal’s fierce heat.

Go on, she thought. Don’t be a sissy about the pain.

But she couldn’t make her trembling arms obey.

Then she jumped as, from somewhere close by, a gunshot split the air.

Do it now.

Jade squeezed her eyes shut and forced her wrists onto the coal again. This time the rope broke, so suddenly that her hands slammed down on the floor.

She was free.

Stolen Lives
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