‘And?’
‘Walker woke up with a figure on top of him in the bed.’
‘A figure?’
‘A man, he thinks. Dressed in black.’
‘Did you see his face?’ Ryker asked Walker.
‘No,’ Green said. ‘He wore a mask.’
‘What kind of mask?’
‘Over there.’ Green pointed to a sideboard on top of which was a plastic evidence bag. ‘I found it outside the front door.’
Ryker moved over to the sideboard and picked up the bag. Inside was a rubber mask in the mould of a giant snake’s head, jaws open wide to display oversized fangs and a forked tongue.
‘Did he hurt you?’ Ryker asked Walker.
‘No,’ Green said.
‘Cut out his tongue perhaps?’ Ryker said, unable to hide a cynical smile.
‘You think this is funny?’ Green said.
‘Not at all. I’m just not sure why Walker has lost his voice.’
‘Because he’s traumatised.’
Ryker didn’t bother to argue the pros and cons of that one. He certainly knew how it felt to be traumatised. But he could hardly comprehend why Walker had become a muted idiot all of a sudden.
‘No. He didn’t hurt me,’ Walker confirmed.
‘Walker was knocked unconscious,’ Green added. ‘Chloroform we think. The attacker left a note.’
‘He showed it to me before he knocked me out,’ Walker said. ‘That’s why he came. To show me.’
‘When Walker woke up, the guy was gone,’ Green said.
‘How did he get in?’ Ryker asked.
‘Don’t know. The security system wasn’t set. Walker doesn’t use it when he’s home. There’s no sign of forced entry.’
‘You’ve had forensics here?’
‘They’re still upstairs. Found nothing so far – no prints or anything else obvious anyway. Walker said the guy was wearing gloves. The mask will need to be looked at properly but my guess is there’ll be nothing to see there either.’
‘What about the note?’
‘Over here,’ Walker said.
Ryker moved forward. He saw a plastic bag on the floor by Walker’s feet. Walker’s eyes hadn’t left that spot since Ryker had entered the room. Ryker moved over and picked up the bag.
‘Please don’t take it out,’ Green said. ‘Not unless you put gloves on first.’
Ryker didn’t respond. He didn’t need to take the paper out. He could already read the short note just fine. Only five letters were scrawled onto the white paper. Two words: ‘I know’. Written by hand in thick red ink. At least Ryker hoped it was ink.
Underneath the writing was a hand-drawn picture, a couple of inches in size. It was crude, but unmistakable. The head of a snake. A red cobra. The drawing was positioned where others would have signed their name.
Green must have noticed the look on Ryker’s face.
‘You know who left this?’ Green asked.
‘Yes,’ Ryker said. ‘And it wasn’t a man. It’s a woman.’
‘And you know what the note means?’
‘Yes. I know what it means.’
‘Well?’ Green asked when Ryker failed to volunteer any more answers.
Ryker looked down at the forlorn figure before him. ‘Walker, I think you’d better start praying.’
CHAPTER 22
Seventeen years earlier
Two more long and pain-filled years passed by at Winter’s Retreat. Another two girls joined the small band of workers, both teenagers. Older than Anna in years, though so much younger in maturity and world experience.
Viktoria was still there. Maria had disappeared the previous winter. One day she’d been in the house, everything as normal, the next she’d gone. Viktoria mused that Maria had finally built up the courage to run, that she had long planned to do so and was probably already safely away in a different country.
Anna doubted that. Maria was too weak in mind to have ever tried such a thing. Most likely she was dead, killed by an over-zealous Mkhedrioni or, for once in her life, for trying to fight back. Either way, Anna saw Viktoria’s ramblings of heroism as nothing more than a means to help keep up morale among the girls.
But Anna didn’t need any false encouragement.
She’d had a single letter from her father in the whole time she’d been at the house. It had arrived three days before her sixteenth birthday. It was post-marked as coming from Bosnia but Anna wasn't sure she believed he was there. The letter was brief, assuring Anna he was fine and that he would come for her soon. She took comfort in knowing he was alive but felt betrayal at the words he had hastily scrawled. More than anything bitterness was what she’d come to feel when she thought about her father.
On the evening of her sixteenth birthday, Anna was awarded with the now commonplace token treat of a shitty little cake with a shitty little candle. Kankava and the women shared the cake in the kitchen before the Colonel dispatched the other women for their final duties of the day, building up to whatever sordid horrors lay in store that evening.
‘The other girls will be busy tonight,’ Kankava said to Anna when they were alone. ‘We have some special visitors coming. But it’s your birthday, you take the night off. You come and see me instead. Eleven p.m. I’ll be back in my room by then.’
Kankava got up from his seat and walked out. Anna sat, barely moving, her breaths so slow and shallow that anyone passing might have thought her dead.
For more than three hours, she remained seated in the kitchen, alone. Contemplating. Planning. When the hands on the clock above the kitchen doorway edged towards eleven, Anna’s heart thudded with expectation.
Moments later, she heard the faint chimes from the grandfather clock in the main lobby, and she rose and walked casually through the dark and eerily quiet house to Kankava’s quarters.
She knocked on the door lightly.
Barely a second later, Kankava – dressed in a red silk robe – pulled open the door. He smiled seductively at Anna, who brushed past him.
Kankava shut the door then moved past Anna.
‘Get changed here,’ he said, indicating the black ball gown that was spread over a sofa. ‘Then come through.’
Kankava left her and Anna threw off her day clothes, underwear too, then squeezed herself into the two-sizes-too-small dress. The routine, one of many, was becoming habitual.
Anna stood and looked at herself in the mirror for a good while then cursed under her breath. She picked up her clothes and rummaged for the two syringes. She grabbed them and stared at them for a few seconds.
When she was ready, Anna held her left hand behind her back as she sauntered over to the bedroom door. She pushed the door open. Kankava lay on top of the bed clothes. His gown was still on but he’d let it slip open exposing his chest and giving a glimpse of his groin that sent a shudder through Anna. But she had her mask on and he would never have suspected.