Savage Night - Allan Guthrie [65]
It couldn't be. Didn't make sense.
He looked down, along the pale throat, down the chest, past the stomach, to the waist. Where the torso stopped abruptly.
Grant said, "Yeah, can I come too?"
***
TOMMY OPENED HIS eyes. Squinted at the sunlight streaming through the curtainless window, shivered as waves of cold rippled down his body. The fever was worse. He sat up on the bed, tried removing the cuff from his wrist again. He'd bruised his fingertips with repeated attempts. It was a waste of time, but that didn't stop him.
It was something to do.
Fear, fever and boredom. Bastard of a combination.
The solid steel chain was about four feet long, if that. A closet chain, Smith had called it. One end was attached to a bedpost at the foot of the bed. The other was cuffed to his left wrist. The chain tightened well short of the door.
He had tried lifting the bed. He'd tried dragging it. Smith was prepared. Both legs at the foot of the bed were bracketed to the floor and the headboard was bolted into the wall.
For the first few days he'd spent a lot of time walking round the bed for exercise, but his arm hurt too much now.
The outside door slammed.
Smith was back. Popped out to get supplies again, no doubt. Hadn't left the house often, just a handful of occasions that Tommy knew about.
He came into the bedroom regularly. To bring food. To check on Tommy. To empty the bucket. Sometimes, they talked. Then he'd leave, and Tommy would hear the shower running or the low babble of voices from the TV along the hallway, or Smith's voice, quiet, talking to someone on the phone.
Footsteps pounded up the stairs. The door along the corridor opened.
Must be dinner time. Tommy wasn't hungry.
Clatter of floorboards in the corridor and the door to Tommy's room opened.
Smith, masked as always, had Tommy's katana in one hand, a laptop in the other.
Tommy wasn't stupid enough to think that he'd be allowed internet access, but he'd kill for a game of Minesweeper. Take his mind off things.
Without a word, Smith plugged in the laptop under the chest of drawers. It was a couple of feet beyond the reach of the chain. But the screen was big enough for Tommy to see from the bed.
Smith fiddled around with it for a bit, then stood back and said, "What do you think?"
***
THE EVENING AFTER Smith kidnapped him, Tommy had been forced to make a call, the phone held away from his ear with the speaker volume turned up so Smith could hear.
Mum answered. When she realised it was Tommy, she said, "What happened? Where are you?"
He was naked, wrapped in a blanket, sitting on a bed with a lumpy mattress in an old house somewhere in the country. "I'm fine," he said. "Just that—" he looked at Smith, watched his eyes dart from side to side through the holes in his ski mask "—something came up."
"What came up? How can something come up? Things don't just 'come up'. What do you mean?"
"Look, Mum," Tommy said, "I need you to trust me." Smith had warned him what would happen to his mother if she suspected anything. "It's just that I have to go away for a while."
"What's wrong? What are you hiding? I spoke to Phil."
He was alive. Thank Christ.
"He tried to cover for you," Mum said. "Pretended he knew where you were."
Yes. Phil would come looking for him.
"Tommy?"
"Yeah?"
"If you don't tell me what's going on, I'm calling the police."
Smith held up a warning finger.
"Don't worry about me," Tommy said. "Just take care of Jordan till I get back. And don't expect to hear from me for a while."
"Tell me what's wrong, Tommy, please."
"Look," Tommy said, watching Smith's eyes through the ski mask, "I just need to stay away for a while. Till things calm down."
"What things? You said everything was fine."
"You don't need to know. Just trust me."
"I'm trying. Give me some help."
"Please, Mum. I don't need the police looking for me, believe me."
"You're in trouble with the police now?"
Smith nodded.
"Yeah," Tommy said. "Bit of bother. But it'll die down. Nothing major."
Silence.