‘Just relax,’ says Julia. She types something on her laptop and I smell Emil’s sweat as his body tightens behind mine. Everything goes dark. ‘Oh, look,’ she says. ‘I’ve found your appointment.’

52

My eyelids are heavy.

I wake up alone.

The ceiling is white and there’s an office lamp pointed at my head.

I gasp and sit bolt upright.

Only I can’t. I can’t move at all. I strain my eyes to look down at my body. Silver duct tape secures my wrists to the white plastic arms of a sun lounger. My chest is taped down. My waist. My thighs. My knees. My ankles. I can wiggle my boots but I cannot move my head. Tape around my forehead and around my neck.

‘Help!’ I scream. ‘Help me.’

I start to hyperventilate. To panic.

I go to scream help again, but no noise comes out.

What do they want with me?

I try to slow down my breathing. The air tastes stale. Old. The smell of decay. But everything looks clean and sterile. The ground is covered with dark-green tarp sheets. The stool next to my sun lounger has wheels on its feet.

I strain my arms to break free from the tape but it’s too tight. So many rolls of tape just to keep me here on this lounger. I thrust and kick and thrash but the lounger merely nudges a centimetre. Can I topple it? Can I get it to a wall and rub the tape against something abrasive?

No.

I can hardly move it.

So thirsty. My lips are dry.

The sun lounger has either been attached to the ground or else weighed down. I have so little mobility on this reclining chair. I can’t turn my head. I can’t raise my hand. I can’t turn my hips. Like I’ve been buried in a skin-tight coffin, six feet underground.

Stay calm, Tuva. Think. The police are on their way. You just need to think.

Except of course they are not on their way. Of course they’re bloody not. That’s what Julia told me to lure me here. Nobody’s on their way.

I suck in air through my nose.

My bag. My phone. My knife.

I look around trying to strain at my bindings. If I turn my head a few degrees, the tape pulls at my forehead so much it feels like it’ll rip the skin off and reveal the flesh beneath. But I can see most of the room. Not what’s behind me, though. I can’t see that.

On my left side hangs a white shower curtain. Next to my left hand is a small, round table with a plastic cup of water and a bowl. Then the floor-standing anglepoise lamp. And another lamp attached to some kind of battery pack. Then a candle in a candlestick.

‘Help.’ I scream.

Nobody comes.