The Bunker Diary Read Online Free PDF Page B

suppose. It gets to you. Whacks you in the heart. Or
maybe not. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’ve just got something against
adults.
    Whatever.
    I wasn’t paralysed this time.
    I wheeled the woman out first, then called
Jenny and went back for the man. He was big, too heavy to drag, so I started on the
ropes round his wrists. They were knotted tight.
    Jenny came over and cautiously approached
the woman.
    ‘Get some water,’ I told
her.
    ‘Who is she?’ she said, looking
at the woman. Then she looked at the man. ‘And who’s
that
?’
    ‘I don’t know yet. Get some
water, please.’
    She went back into the kitchen, and I carried
on struggling with the ropes. The man was kicking his feet.
    ‘
Nunh uhh
uhh …
’
    ‘Keep still,’ I told him.
    ‘
Norighfurnge … nunh …
’
    ‘Keep
still
, for
Christ’s sake.’
    After a couple of minutes I finally got the
knots untied. The man whipped his arms free and yanked the gag from his mouth.
    ‘
Fuck!
’ he spluttered,
shaking some life into his hands. ‘Why didn’t you take the fucking
gag
off first? Shit! I couldn’t fucking
breathe
,
man!’
    He’s big. A
very
big man.
Tall. Solid. Hard as nails. Greasy hands, short dusty hair. Work jeans, boots, a faded
sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off.
    He sat up and started to untie his feet,
tugging at the ropes and looking around with his one good eye.
    ‘What is this shit?’ he said.
‘Who are you? Where’s the fucking wanker –?’
    ‘Hey,’ I said.
    He stopped talking and glared at me.
    ‘I’m on your side,’ I told
him. ‘I’m trying to help. Why don’t you just shut up a minute and let
me deal with the lady. All right?’
    He gave me a hard look.
Very
hard.
He sniffed a dribble of blood up his nose and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Then he looked over at the woman in the wheelchair. She was beginning to come round now,
groaning and mumbling and holding her head. Jenny was standing beside her with a cup of
water in her hand, staring wide-eyed at me and the big man. Scared to death.
    The big man said, ‘Shit,’ and went
back to untying his feet.
    I went over to the woman. Jenny was helping
her to drink some water, holding the cup to her lips. As I approached, the woman pushed
the cup away, lurched forward in the wheelchair, and threw up on the floor.
    The big man’s called Fred.
    ‘Fred what?’ I asked him.
    ‘Just Fred.’
    Right.
    The woman’s name is Anja. Pronounced
Anya
, like Tanya without the T. Anja Mason. She’s one of those
confident women who always get what they want. Late twenties, well-spoken, honey-blonde
hair, a fine nose, sculpted mouth, perfect teeth, silver necklace round her neck.
Dressed in a sheer white top, short black skirt, tights, and high heels.
    My dad would love her.
    She says she’s ‘in
property’, whatever that means. Selling houses, I suppose. That’s how he got
her. She’d made an appointment to show a Mr Fowles around a luxury ground-floor
flat in a secluded avenue in West London. Ten o’clock this morning. She turned up
alone. Parked her car. Mr Fowles was waiting for her on the front step. He smiled, said
good morning. She opened the door and showed him in. He seemed pleasant enough.
    ‘Did he say anything else to
you?’ I asked her.
    She thought about it. ‘No, not really.
Not that I can recall.’
    ‘Nothing?’
    A hint of annoyance crept into her voice.
‘I can’t
remember
, OK?’
    She showed him the hallway, she told us, showed
him the living room, then took him into the kitchen. While she was pointing out the
parquet flooring, he got her with the chloroform. She says she knows it was chloroform
because her husband works ‘in chemicals’.
    At this, Fred laughed. ‘You
what
?’
    ‘What?’ said Anja.
    ‘
How
do you know it was
chloroform?’
    ‘My husband,’ she repeated.
‘He’s a company manager with a multinational chemical company.’
    ‘What, in the fucking
chloroform
department?’
    She gave him an icy