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of her mother. The suit she’d been wearing had been finished off with a matching jacket, and underneath she had worn a thin white tee shirt with a white supporting bra. Minimal make-up and a brush through her hair had given her the elegance that she had always radiated since the age of fourteen. Twenty years on, she could still knock them dead.
    Not today she wouldn’t.
    She hadn’t a mirror to hand, but she imagined she looked atrocious.
    Her suit had gone, well most of it had. The jacket and her trouser legs up to the middle thigh had been removed. The trousers had lost their belt, and her shoes and socks had been removed too. The white tee shirt remained, but the bra had been taken, the thought of someone removing it made her feel nauseous and violated.
    Her jewellery was gone, as were her hairpins, and her make-up had been washed off. She couldn’t feel the foundation on her skin or the eyeliner on her eyelashes. She touched her lips and felt the chapped skin. Heather didn’t wear lipstick, but having a chap stick right now would be a godsend. Her blonde hair was hanging down in strands, randomly, in total disarray.
    Removal of the hairpins had destroyed her hairstyle. Her hands smoothed it back over her head in a vain attempt to make it look better. She knew it didn’t matter. Slipping a hand inside her trousers she checked that her underwear was still there and breathed a sigh of relief when she found it was. However, the waistline was saggy. Someone had removed the elastic from the panties. A rag of the underwear stuck out where someone had snipped the material with a pair of scissors. A wave of sickness came over her again. Heather assumed that the underwear-snipper was the same person who had removed everything else, denying her any tools or weapons in the process. A clever person.
    Whoever put her here didn’t want things to be easy for her.
    Heather looked up, and for a second was bemused.
    The confusion had arisen when she saw the room before her. At first it looked like a meaningless silver room, its walls made of steel, its floor marble tile and all its furniture made of steel too. The centre of the floor had a circular piece of metal in it, with holes punched through. The only steel furniture she saw was a table positioned neatly in the corner beneath a mirror. A tray sat on top of the table and a syringe sat beside it, with a neat manila folder placed in a plastic holder on the wall. The holder held a name saying WILLIS. The name didn’t ring a bell with Heather, but she stepped nearer and took a look at the items closely. There was nothing of interest. The room was very chilly, and when she looked up she noticed an air duct.
    Air conditioning , she thought, great. I'm fucking freezing.
    The realisation hit Heather like a bullet, making her gasp and her eyes widen. Moving over to the table, she saw a second door in the wall beside her. It was reflected in the mirror above the table. The mirror was nearly as big as the wall, the size of an average house window. Heather peered closely.
    Then she ducked beneath the mirror and leaned against the steel wall. Her rump was cold against the marble tiling beneath her. Her preferred environment was an office or her home, but she knew a two-way mirror when she saw one: she was aware that police used them all the time.
    Someone was watching her.
     
    ***
     
    The third man finished his JD and put the tumbler down on the desk. Reaching to his left, he pulled open his desk drawer and paused before taking the fifth bottle of JD from the selection he had there. He unscrewed the cap, enjoying the click of the new sealed lid breaking for the first time. Removing the cap, he sniffed the bottle’s contents and sighed. He poured some into his used glass and shook the half melted ice around in the mixture. He placed the bottle back in the drawer and closed it. He sipped.
    A smile crept across his lips once again.
    The woman was starting to bore him, something he'd