I have read the two books many, many times, so many times I have absorbed the words and they live inside me, although they are mixed up with my own words, which, when I open the pages, are sitting there, sliding and blurring into each other. Now, neither girl escapes, now, the man who imprisoned her holds her forever, so even if she’s still feeling a pulse in her veins, she’s not really there, she’s left herself. Gone. There’s a strange comfort in this. I think of the stories Papa used to tell us of the vampires, the living dead, who suck the life-force from the living. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I bit into a man’s neck. Could I fill myself with his blood, his essence?

But then, is this not exactly what they do to us?

38. Sammy

38

Sammy

On this particular night, a night like any other, after God knows how many of the same have gone before, we’re brought to a party in a tall Georgian townhouse, somewhere in the centre of town, near to Hatchet’s house I think. Well-coiffed and scented men and women are milling about on the stairs, long-stemmed glasses in hand. I notice one of the women clock us as we are pushed into a room and a key is locked in the door. We must have come in the wrong entrance or something. I have a moment of hope. Maybe she’ll report what she saw? Nah, she’s not going to risk exposing her crew that way, her life, God forbid: her man. No. She won’t do anything about what she saw. What did she see? Did you notice young working girls being locked in a room at a private member’s club? Don’t be preposterous. Things like that don’t happen in our country, certainly not in our circles. No. I saw nothing.