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underneath her. It made her fingers
bleed.”
    “No, they were
bleeding before that,” Mycroft said, interrupting. He pointed to
the torn bit of bloody fingernail close to where her neck would
have been. Near it were thin wispy strands of a black synthetic
chord. “They've black-bagged her and she was trying to untie
it.”
    “She's not
succeeded.” Sherlock gritted his teeth together, and Mycroft shared
his younger brother's emotion. Despite their attempts at training
her, Amelia just wasn't quite good enough.
    “No, she'd be
communicating with us properly if she had. She'll be gagged
underneath,” Mycroft said as he walked back to his own car. There
was little more they could learn at a glance.
    “Should we be
looking for this Amelia woman? Is she important?” one of the
policeman asked as he hurried after them.
    “No. We'll find
her. Just have the Commissioner forward me the details from
forensics when they're done.”
    Mycroft got into
the car with a minute to spare, and Sherlock was only a few seconds
behind. Daniels had stayed behind the wheel and kept the car
running, allowing them to pull off and get to the Eurostar with
seconds to spare.
    As they bypassed
the waiting cars and drove onto the train, Mycroft settled back.
For a little over half an hour they could do nothing but wait. His
hands were tied in many ways and his only consolation was knowing
that when they pulled off the train on the other side he would be
only two hours and thirty-seven minutes behind Amelia.
     

Chapter 4
    Amelia felt
herself drifting off while she tried to tap out her message again,
still having no idea if anyone was even listening. They'd moved
cars with her twice more, and each time she'd got to suck in fresh
air for a few seconds before she was shoved into another tight
space and enclosed.
    The second one had
been the worst so far. The car hadn't been quite as wide, and she'd
been able to smell some of the exhaust when they weren't driving at
a high speed. To make it worse, it was the car they'd used to take
her under the Channel and into France. For a good twenty minutes,
they'd sat in a queue with the engine on.
    By the time they'd
pulled onto what she later worked out was a train she was only
seconds away from vomiting. She didn't want to know what would have
happened to her if she had. With the cloth in her mouth there would
have been nowhere for it to go.
    Thankfully, while
on the train, the engine had been off and she'd been able to listen
to the chatter of the men in the car while they waited to get to
the other side. She'd listened a little and worked out there were
now three men in the car, but they spoke in Russian to each other
and she'd not learnt the language. Given the last few months, she
was starting to wonder if she had been lax in not learning it
sooner. If she got out of this mess alive she was definitely going
to sign up for a crash course in it. She didn't doubt Myron would
want her to learn Morse code either.
    About an hour
after that they'd paused somewhere again, and she thought she heard
voices as they possibly went through a second border control. Given
where Calais was, she had assumed they were going into Belgium and
fed the information on regardless.
    So far she was
managing to keep a lid on her fear of the enclosed spaces, but she
knew it was only thanks to the frequent changes. Now she was in
Europe and probably driving a long way across it, she knew it could
be many hours between car swaps. For now, the hope that someone
could hear her tapped-out messages was keeping her calm enough, but
she had no idea how long she could cope, and given the mounting
pressure in her bladder and dryness in her throat she also knew her
own situation could still get worse.
    Knowing her mind
was exhausted, she tapped out a quick message about having a nap
and tucked her hands back down under her chin. To stop her mind
dwelling on the various aches in her wrists, fingers, neck and
head, as well as the desire to empty