We’re walking up steps now. Thomas’s footsteps are heavy with our combined weight and the wood creaks. A door opens and we move inside. It’s dark aside from the torchlight then flick. The light switch. A yellow buzzy glow fills the room. I’m facing the door and I can see the windows. They’re covered in thick black fabric, duct taped to the walls. The same sort of duct tape I got at Franprix for the CCTV at Le Voltage.

He drops me on a bed and I lie there as though still unconscious, watching through cracked lids and strands of hair as he takes the big black bag over to a small kitchenette. There’s a rusty-looking sink, one of those gas hotplates for camping, an old kettle and a dirty looking bar fridge. To the side of the fridge is a long wooden counter with three plastic trays on it. There are some metal tongs. Some sort of equipment I vaguely recognise, a drying rack and a small sort of washing line with analogue film hanging from it.

It’s a photographic darkroom.

He’s brought me to a darkroom.

When I saw those books on Henri Cartier-Bresson and Man Ray on his bookshelf, this is not how I saw things playing out.

He moves to the big black bag and the sound of it unzipping echoes in the silence. Every murder documentary I’ve ever watched, every podcast I have ever listened to, flickers in my mind. What the fuck does he have in that bag?

And I don’t know why he’s doing this. I don’t know what’s going to happen.

But I do know this: I must not cry.

I must not scream.

I must not show fear.

Because men who kill get off on one common thing: control. And so the best way to stay alive a little longer is to not give him what he needs.

Then he’ll keep trying to get it. And that will buy me time.

Chapitre Trente-huit

Chapitre trente-huit

I never realised how big Thomas was before now. You could fit three of my biceps in his. Maybe four. And he’s tall, too. Looming over the rusty sink, having to bend himself in half just to put a litre of milk in the buzzing bar fridge. And where the hell did he get milk? Did he stop at a corner store while I was bound and gagged in the boot to buy that? Or did he calmly grab it from the fridge at work when he saw me on his security app and knew he was in for a long night?

But still, a litre of milk is good. A litre of milk means he thinks he’s going to be here for a few days. He’ll need multiple cups of tea. That means he’s not going to kill me tonight.