‘Good.’ He seemed pleased. ‘The bathroom’s through there and you’ll find your clothes in the wardrobe.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’ll give you fifteen minutes.’
The door closed behind him. Curious, I walked over to the huge wardrobe that ran the length of the left-hand wall. Sliding the doors open, I found the clothes that I had sent to the house ahead of me, the ones I hadn’t needed to take to Thailand, hanging there. My T-shirts and jumpers were neatly folded on the shelves and my underwear had been put in specially made drawers. In another part of the wardrobe, my many pairs of shoes had been placed in clear plastic boxes. Everything seemed so normal that once again I experienced a feeling of disconnect. It was impossible to equate the beautiful room Jack had prepared for me and the promise of a shower with what had gone before, and I couldn’t rid myself of the feeling that if I were to lie down on the bed and sleep for a while, I would wake up to find it had all been a terrible nightmare.
I went over to the window and looked out. It gave onto the side of the house, where a rose garden had been planted. Just as I was appreciating the beauty of the flowers and the stillness of the afternoon, a black bin bag, caught in a sudden gust of wind, came scudding around from the back of the house and became snagged in one of the rose bushes. Recognising it as the one I had carried Molly out to the garden in, I gave a cry of distress, turned from the window and hurried over to the door, realising I had wasted precious minutes when I should have been trying to escape. Yanking it open, I was about to run out into the hall when Jack’s arm came shooting out, blocking my way.
‘Going somewhere?’ he asked pleasantly. I stared at him, my heart thumping painfully in my chest. ‘You wouldn’t have been thinking of trying to leave, would you?’
I thought of Millie, about how upset she would be by my non-appearance over the next three weeks and knew I couldn’t risk another punishment. ‘Towels,’ I mumbled. ‘I was wondering where the towels were.’
‘If you’d looked in the bathroom, you would have found them. Hurry up, you only have ten minutes left.’
As he closed the door on me, imprisoning me again, I went over to the bathroom. It had a walk-in shower and separate bath, as well as a sink and a toilet. There was a large pile of fluffy towels on top of a low cupboard and, on opening it, I saw it was generously stacked with bottles of shampoo, conditioner and shower gel. Suddenly desperate to wash away the filth that seemed to permeate from every pore of my body, I stripped off, turned on the shower and, arming myself with everything I would need, stepped under the water. I adjusted the temperature to the hottest I could bear, shampooed my hair and scrubbed away at my body, wondering if I would ever feel clean again. I would have stayed longer under the water, but I didn’t trust Jack not to come in and pull me out of the shower as soon as my ten minutes were up so I turned off the tap and dried myself quickly.
In the cupboard under the sink, I found a pack of toothbrushes and some toothpaste and used a precious two minutes of the time I had left brushing my teeth until my gums bled. I hurried through to the bedroom, opened the wardrobe, pulled a dress off one of the hangers, took a bra and pair of knickers from a drawer and dressed quickly. The bedroom door opened as I was zipping up my dress.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘I didn’t particularly want to have to come and drag you out of the shower, but I would have.’ He nodded towards the wardrobe. ‘Put something on your feet.’ After a slight hesitation, I chose a pair of shoes with a small heel rather than the slippers my feet ached for, hoping they would make me feel more in control. ‘Now for the tour of the house. I hope you’re going to like it.’
I followed him down the stairs, wondering why he should care whether I liked it or not. Although I was determined not to be impressed, reason told me that giving him the positive reaction he obviously craved might be in my interest.
‘It’s taken me two years to get the house exactly as I wanted it,’ he remarked, as we reached the hall, ‘especially as I had to make last-minute changes that I hadn’t accounted for. For example, the kitchen originally didn’t lead onto a terrace, but I had one built because I thought it was an excellent idea. Fortunately, I managed to steer the rest of your desires towards what was already here,’ he went on, confirming what I had already worked out, that the day he had asked me to describe the sort of house I would like, he had cleverly manoeuvred me into describing one he had already bought.
‘If you remember, you said you wanted a toilet on the ground floor for guests to use, but when I suggested a whole cloakroom, you readily agreed.’ Opening a door on the right, he revealed a cloakroom that housed a wardrobe, large mirror and a separate washroom.
‘Very clever,’ I said, referring to the way he had manipulated me.