He makes no reply. Just stands there, studying her thoughtfully. And it isn’t until that moment, when she notices the regretful, almost sad smile on William Tryste’s face, that her astonishment morphs into fear. She slowly backs away, then turns around and bends down quickly to pick up her handbag from the floor in front of the fireplace. She almost makes it.

As the sound of the front door slamming shut reaches her ears, she spots a movement out of the corner of her eye. Then a hand closes like a vice around her neck and the mantelpiece comes closer and closer, as though in slow motion.

Then everything goes dark.

Chapter 71

71

When she opens her eyes, she can’t see anything. She closes them again, fighting hard to keep the panic at bay.

Then her other senses engage. A faint smell of damp, the realisation that she’s lying on something hard. Without daring to move, she touches what’s underneath her with her fingertips. Rough, cold. A rock? No, smoother than that . . . rectangular slabs. The stone markers at Gudheim Cemetery? Am I dead?

No, these are smaller, all the same size and grouted together. She traces the thin lines with her fingertips. I know this, I know what this is, she thinks. Bricks. With an effort, she tenses her neck muscles and raises her head. Pain. Dull and throbbing across her forehead. And there’s a light, she realises now. A faint, flickering light somewhere. Nausea and relief wash over her simultaneously. Not dead.

She runs a hand over her forehead and feels wetness against her palm. Hesitates, then holds it up to her mouth, licks it gingerly and tastes the iron. Just as her mind registers that it’s blood, her memory returns in short, brutal snippets. The fear, her futile attempt to escape, the hand around her neck, her forehead being slammed into the sharp corner of the mantelpiece. And suddenly she becomes aware of a presence.

She’s not alone in the room.

As quickly as she is able, Karen pushes up onto all fours and from there into a squat. She pauses for a few seconds, then stands up, sways and fumbles for something to hold on to.

William Tryste is sitting in an armchair with his legs crossed and his hand around a tumbler that is resting on his knee. Half his face is illuminated by the seven-armed brass candelabra on the table next to him.

‘So, Karen. What shall we do with you?’

She stares at him mutely. Then her eyes quickly dart left and then right, registering shelves lined with wine bottles and glasses, an oak table and six chairs, wooden barrels over by the wall. She instinctively turns around, looking for the exit.

‘Forget it,’ Tryste says. ‘You’re not getting out of here.’

‘What are you going to do to me?’

Is that really her voice? Faint, rough, unfamiliar.