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them.
    But I am Abbie Devereaux and it’s not fair.
    He came in and slipped the wire around my throat. I was going to count this time. I’d been thinking about this, planning it. How would I stop myself losing count? I worked out a plan. Sixty seconds in a minute, sixty minutes in an hour. That’s 3,600 seconds. I would imagine walking up a hill in a town beginning with A. A hill with 3,600 houses and I would count the houses as I walked past them. I couldn’t think of a town beginning with A, though. Yes, Aberdeen. I walked up the hill in Aberdeen. One, two, three, four … When I got to the top of the hill in Aberdeen, I began again in Bristol. Then Cardiff, then Dublin, Eastbourne, Folkestone and then, when I was half-way up the hill in Gillingham, he was back in the room, the wire was slipped off my neck. Six and a half hours.
    If you are in a hole, stop digging. A stitch in time saves nine. Don’t cross a bridge till you come to it. Don’t burn your bridges. Was that right, two sets of bridges? What else? Think, think, think. No use crying over spilt milk. Look before you leap. Too many cooks spoil the broth and many hands make light work and don’t put all your eggs in one basket and birds of a feather flock together and one swallow doesn’t make a summer. Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight. My delight. But red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning. How many roads must a man walk down, before … ? No, that was something else. A song. A song not a saying. What was the tune? I tried to remember, to put music in my brain and to hear the sound in this dense and silent dark. No use.
    Pictures were easier. A yellow butterfly on a green leaf. Don’t fly away. A river, with fish in it. A lake of clear, clean water. A silver tree on a smooth hill, with its leaves furling in the breeze. What else? Nothing else. Nothing. I was too cold.
    ‘Hello. I was hoping you would come soon.’
    ‘You haven’t finished your water.’
    ‘There’s no hurry, is there? There are so many things I wanted to ask you.’
    He made a faint guttural sound. I was shaking, but perhaps that was because I was so chilled. I couldn’t imagine ever being warm again, or clean. Or free.
    ‘I mean, here we are, two people alone in this place. We should get to know each other. Talk to each other.’ He said nothing. I couldn’t tell if he was even listening. I drew a breath and continued: ‘After all, you must have chosen me for a reason. You seem like a man who has reasons, is that right? You’re logical, I think. I like that. Logical.’ Was ‘logical’ a word? It sounded all wrong.
    ‘Go on,’ he said.
    Go on. Good. What should I say next? There was a sore patch above my lip. I put out the tip of my tongue to touch it; it felt like a cold sore. Perhaps my whole body was breaking out in sores and blisters. ‘Yes. Logical. Purposely.’ No. Definitely the wrong word. Try again. ‘Purposeful. You’re someone who is strong. Am I right?’ There was a silence. I could hear him breathing hoarsely. ‘Yes. I think I’m right. Men should be strong, though many are weak. Many,’ I repeated. ‘But I think you’re lonely as well. People don’t recognize your hopes. No, your strengths, I meant strengths, not hopes. Are you lonely?’ But it was like dropping stones into a deep well. I spoke the stupid words and they disappeared into the darkness. ‘Or do you like being alone?’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘We all need someone to love us, though,’ I said. ‘No one can be all alone.’ I would do anything to survive, I thought. I’d let him hold me and fuck me and I’d even pretend I liked it. Anything, to live. ‘And there must have been a reason you chose me, rather than somebody else.’
    ‘Do you want to hear what I think? Eh? Do you?’ He put a hand on my thigh. He rubbed his hand up and down.
    ‘Yes. Tell me.’ Oh, don’t let me be sick and don’t let me scream out loud.
    ‘I think you haven’t got a clue what you look like at