The man crouched in front of her so that they were the same height. So close, his face was big. ‘What’s your name?’ His eyes seemed to search hers as he waited for her to reply.

  ‘Cherub.’ She said it too quietly and worried he would ask her to say it again. He didn’t, and instead thanked her before standing up and turning to stick lady.

  ‘Cherub,’ he said to her and she handed him one of the two remaining pieces of paper. As she passed it to him, Cherub saw her glance down at Rosie, who she was still clutching in her hands. The lady’s eyelashes fluttered and she threw her gaze to the floor. Cherub, too, looked away.

  When he was ready, the man directed Cherub onto the scales. She watched as the red needle swung back and forth, until it settled on a number. The man nodded and scribbled something down on the paper. ‘Here now, Cherub,’ he said, manoeuvring her to the pole with the numbers on it. She stood next to it and he helped her to straighten her back with his hand. ‘Thank you. That’s very good,’ he said when she was still. Once again he wrote something down on the paper. Next came the ribbon with numbers on it: around her waist, across her chest, underneath her chin, up and down the lengths of her legs. His face was close to hers as he worked and Cherub could hear him quietly humming. When he was done, he returned to the paper. His dark brown eyes ran the length of the page, his lips straight.

  Waiting for the man to finish, Cherub looked over her shoulder at Filly. She was alone in the line now, the blonde-haired lady standing next to her. She tried to smile at her friend, but the attempt was feeble. In her hands, Rosie felt warm.

  ‘I’m almost done,’ the man said, looking up from the paper. He smiled at her before turning his eyes back to the page. A minute more and he handed it back to stick lady. ‘The right, please, Cherub,’ the man said, extending his arm in the direction he wanted her to go.

  A breath of relief. No Jessica! Cherub squeezed Rosie as she hurried to join Willow and the other girls in the right corner of the room. When she turned around, she looked at Filly and waved. Her friend nodded, before stepping forward to give her name to the man.

  The man instructed Filly to do the same things he had asked the other girls. Each time she completed a task or did as he asked, he thanked her, before noting something down on the piece of paper. After tucking the ribbon into the pocket of his coat for the final time, he turned his eyes to the words on the page. From where she was standing, Filly craned her neck and read over his arm.

  ‘Ro-sa-cea,’ the girl mumbled, stretching the syllables over her tongue as she said the word for the first time. ‘What does that mean?’

  The man stopped reading and looked up. His eyes were wide. ‘What was that?’ he asked.

  Filly shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she said.

  Without breaking eye contact with the girl, the man put the piece of paper down on the table. ‘What did you say?’

  Filly was frozen and didn’t respond.

  The man moved closer to her. ‘On the paper,’ he said, his words slow and soft, ‘the word,’ he paused and contorted his features, bemused, ‘did you read it?’ He was smiling.

  Again, Filly was unresponsive. The man kept his eyes on her, his lips parted and his teeth showing. When it became clear the girl wasn’t going to say anything, he withdrew. Straightening his posture, he rested his chin on his hands, which he clasped, fingers enmeshed, in front of himself. Silence. ‘Okay,’ the man finally said to Filly. ‘Please stand with the girls on the left.’

  On the other side of the room, Cherub’s heart skipped a beat. No. She squeezed Rosie. Filly. She watched as her friend shuffled over to Jessica and the other girls. Her heels dragged on the floor as she walked. In her mind, Cherub willed Filly to look across at her. She didn’t. Neck bent, shoulders slumped, she slipped behind the huddle of girls and out of sight.

  The man and stick lady walked over to the girls on the right. Cherub stepped back, bumping into Willow as she tried to conceal herself deeper in the group. Another girl caught her elbow as she tripped over her foot.

  ‘Girls,’ the man said, addressing Cherub and her new companions. ‘You’ve all done so very well.’ His eyes softened as he smiled. At his side, stick lady’s face was cold. ‘Today you have graduated.’ The words were expressed with a lightness that could have only meant good things. Once again, Cherub tried to look for her friend, but her view was blocked by another girl’s head. ‘I would like you to follow me again,’ the man said. He opened his arms and gestured to the space in front of him. The girls bustled to form a line. When they were suitably arranged, the man nodded at stick lady, who positioned herself at the back of the girls. Keeping in step with the man, they followed him, in single file, out of the room. As they left, Cherub turned her head. Filly. She still couldn’t see her. The blonde-haired lady was standing with the other girls, talking to them. Someone bumped into the back of her so she had to keep moving.

  That day, Cherub saw more of the world than she had ever seen before. Rooms she had never been to and corridors she hadn’t known existed. With every step, she kept Rosie close to her chest. Ahead of her, the man guided them through a door that led to the outside.

  ‘Please keep together, girls,’ he said as he propped open the door and encouraged them through it. They did as he said, remaining in single file as the Sun kissed their skin. Cherub shielded her eyes with her hand and looked at the sky. The Sun was lower now.

  There was a dip in the land and in it sat a wooden building. Sheltered by the trees, it looked lonely and Cherub wondered if Filly was coming here too.

  ‘Watch your footing, girls,’ the man called from the front. A branch had fallen over the path. One by one, they stepped around it and followed the man to a door at the back of the building. He opened it and waved for the girls to enter.

  If Cherub had ever been inside an elevator — which she hadn’t — she would have considered herself to have been entering just that: a small enclosed space with plain metal walls. Overhead there was a dim strip light, and several round holes had been cut into the walls like portholes. The metal box room appeared to be suspended in a shaft, with the space outside the holes in the wall dark and hollow. There was enough room inside to stand up, but the man told the girls to sit down as they entered

  Cherub sat on the floor next to Willow and arranged Rosie in her lap. There were about a dozen girls and when the last one was ushered inside, the man smiled and closed the door, he and stick lady on the outside.

  Almost immediately, the metal box room started to move. A couple of the girls let out a yelp of fright, the unexpected and unfamiliar downward motion of the space having startled them. Above, the light continued to shine. Cherub caught Willow’s eye, and the other girl offered her a reassuring smile. Then, all too quickly, the smile faded.

  Mouth opening in panic, Willow reached, desperately, her hands out in front of her, as if trying to steady herself.

  Cherub wanted to ask the girl if she was alright, but then, she felt it too. Air. In her chest, her heart felt funny and, in her mouth, her tongue detected a strange taste. Using her hands, she pushed herself up off the floor and pulled herself to one of the holes in the wall. Air. All around her, the other girls were also panicking. One with frizzy black hair was shouting as she reached for another of the holes, her fingers prying at the metal. Willow was screaming now, her face twisted in a fit of terror.

  Slumped against the wall, Cherub threw her hands to her neck — air — and massaged the soft skin of her throat, gasping in deep breathless gulps as she struggled to find oxygen. Her legs were heavy and cold, and the left started to tremble, until the convulsions spread up into her torso and she found she could no longer stand. Sagging down onto the floor, a frantic hand fought for Rosie, who she had dropped when trying to stand. Ferociously, her mouth opened and closed, pink lips munching the air, hungry for oxygen. Face now pressed against the metal, her eyes began to glaze as unconsciousness swept across her body. Next to her, also on the floor, was Willow, her jaw open and her tongue out. All around, the sound of agonal respiration choked the room.

  In total, the girls suffered for thirty seconds. Carbon dioxide flooded the chamber quickly, with the maximum concentration being reached in a matter of seconds. Heavier than air, the lower the metal box room descended, the faster the gas entered their little bodies.

  They panicked, of course, but their distress was momentary — Robert made sure of that. Besides, the strong emotions the children exhibited — the screaming, the terror, the gasping for oxygen — were largely reflex movements and not signs of true distress. Their consciousness — if it had ever truly been there to begin with — was imparied by the carbon dioxide and was therefore not a welfare concern. A few arrhythmic beats of the heart and it was over.

  After they fell unconscious, the girls were kept in the chamber for a further two and a half minutes. It was imperative they did not recover when the box ascended back into normal air. From there they would be removed and stuck and bled and butchered, the girls’ hair scalded from their carcasses with hot water.

  Frank thought it was strange when he lifted the child with the thin brown hair out the room. In her hand, her fingers cold and rigid, was an old hairbrush. It was tatty and had a scrap of fabric tied around the middle, held in place by a length of green ribbon. A quick shake and it loosened and fell from the hand. With his boot, Frank kicked it away and continued his work.

  Thirty-Nine

  Despite the blood it was only a superficial wound.

  ‘How did you manage this?’

  Samantha shrugged her shoulders and leant her head back against the examination couch.

  ‘You really should be more careful — especially in your condition.’ Robert glanced up at her as he inspected her arm.

  A jagged laceration about four inches long marked the skin above Samantha’s left elbow. It stung and was painful to touch. It’d been even more painful to do it, Samantha thought, recalling how her hand had shook before she had slashed her own flesh with the sharper half of the DVD she had broken in two. Imagining Mary — her pretty neck shredded and spurting — had made the task easier. Blood dripped onto the black vinyl upholstery of the examination couch.

  Robert shuffled on the stool and sat more upright. ‘It doesn’t need stitches,’ he said, ‘but I will need to clean and dress it.’

  Samantha said nothing and turned her eyes to the ceiling.

  The first aid kit was kept inside a locked drawer. Robert stood up and retrieved it, carrying the green plastic box over to the couch and setting it down next to Samantha’s legs. She shuffled over to accommodate it.

  Robert put on a pair of gloves and opened the box. ‘How are you feeling otherwise?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine.’

  He ripped open a sachet that contained a saline cleansing wipe. ‘I imagine baby is very active.’

  Samantha continued looking at the ceiling.

  ‘It won’t be long now,’ he said and moved Samantha’s arm so that it was better positioned for him to treat. ‘This may hurt a little.’ Robert started to dab the wound, holding her wrist with his other hand so that she didn’t move away. Samantha winced, but made no sound.

  ‘It’s quite a sizable lesion,’ Robert said, pausing to dispose of the wipe, ‘I will need to wrap a bandage around the whole of the upper arm.’ He opened a second wipe and continued cleaning the wound. Samantha bit her lip and moved her other arm over her swollen abdomen. Underneath her skin, she could feel her baby moving.

  As Robert finished with the second cleansing wipe, an electronic ringing sound came from the other side of the room. Without saying anything, he threw the wipe, along with his gloves, into the stainless steel dish he was using for the waste and walked to the tall chest of office drawers that stood against the opposite wall. Unlocking the top drawer with a key attached to his belt, he pulled out a flip-style mobile phone. It was silver and had a ugly stub aerial at the top.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, answering the phone. He waited for the person on the other end to finish speaking before replying, ‘Okay, I’m coming.’

  A push of the button and he closed the phone, before returning it to the drawer. He locked it and crossed the room back to Samantha.

  ‘I apologise for leaving in the middle of this,’ he said as he pulled on his white coat, which he had taken off and draped over the stool, ‘but it seems as though one of your friends needs me.’

  Samantha would have sneered and made a comment about the relevancy of the word ‘friends’ when describing the women who were, in essence, her cellmates. Yet, in this instance she let it pass. Besides, the woman who required Robert’s attention was indeed a friend. Samantha had told Evelyn to wait at least ten minutes after she left the room before pretending to have terrible, scream-the-place-down-it-hurts-so-much contractions.

  Fuck you, Samantha spat inside her head as she watched Robert leave the room. After he closed the door, she heard the lock fasten.

  Seated on the examination couch as she was, her back was to the door and the red-eyed camera that lurked on the wall above it. Twisting her body slightly, she reached for the first aid kit which Robert had left open on the couch next to her legs. The box was filled with paper sachets and medical supplies in clear plastic wrappers. Gel impregnated burn dressing. Non woven triangular bandage. Hypoallergenic washproof plaster. Samantha strained her eyes and rifled through the box some more, careful to keep her body still so as not to attract any attention from the camera. Sterile eye pad. 70% isopropyl alcohol swabs. She stopped. Isopropyl alcohol. She wrapped her fingers around three of the paper sachets and pulled them out of the box. Ever mindful of the camera, she used her left arm to shuffle the fabric of her smock. Just underneath her baby bump, she had tied a length of fabric around her body like a belt. Every night that week, whilst pretending to sleep, Samantha had torn away at her bedsheet. Then, yesterday, in the corner of the bathroom that wasn’t covered by the camera, she had fashioned the furtively acquired cotton in a makeshift pouch. Into it, she slipped the alcohol swabs.

  That done, she arranged the fabric of her smock and pulled herself upright. Her baby was heavy and constantly sought to restrict her movements. Two weeks until her due date, she and Evelyn were long past the point of having an easy attempt at escape. It’s now or never. Pregnant or not, they were leaving tomorrow.

  The tiles were cold against her bare feet and it took her a moment to get her balance after standing up. Samantha tucked her hair behind her ears and walked to the desk. It was hard to believe she had once done this before, all those months earlier, when things had been so different. She rubbed her stomach and opened the top drawer of the desk. Oh Robert. Samantha smiled and reached inside. Only human after all. She pulled out the chocolate bar — the same sort as the one she had taken last time — and took it over to the stool. Sitting on it in the centre of the room, she looked up at the camera as she bit into the aerated dark chocolate. She wondered if anyone was watching and took another bite.

  It didn’t take her long to finish it. It had been many months since Samantha had tasted chocolate — Robert’s previous bar in fact being her last — and she had hoped she would have been able to savour the moment more. But this is not why I’m here. When the food was gone, she smoothed the foil wrapper between her fingers. She folded it into four and took it with her to the examination couch. When she was lying back down, she once again shuffled her smock and hid the wrapper inside the pouch, next to the alcohol wipes. Fuck you, she spat again, thinking of the man in the white coat and all that he had done to her. Massaging her abdomen, the blood from her arm stained her smock. She didn’t care.

  It was another fifteen minutes before he returned. His face was as calm as ever when he unlocked the door and entered the room. Samantha kept her eyes on the ceiling, listening to the sound of water as he washed his hands in the bathroom. When he sat down on the stool, wheeling it across the floor with his feet, he apologised.

  ‘A false alarm,’ he said, smiling and pulling on a fresh pair of gloves. Samantha presented her arm to him, which was still weeping blood, and he dabbed it with a wipe. After he had cleaned it, he wrapped a bandage around her arm, taking care to eschew the safety pins provided in the kit for tape.

  ‘Wouldn’t want me loose with one of them, would you?’ Samantha said as he cut the tape.

  Robert looked up at her, his expression plain.

  Samantha shook her head and laughed. ‘A life without freedom, right?’

  Robert pulled on the bandage to make sure it was secure. ‘I’m done,’ he said and stood up.

  Samantha declined his offer of help as she pulled herself up off the examination couch. Wrapping her arm around her stomach, she walked to the door and waited for him to open it. When it was unlocked, she, without saying anything, moved past him and down the corridor to the room she had been confined to for the past several months. The electronic locks clicked and she was inside. Before going through the second door into the room, she turned to look at him through the window. Gentle brown eyes and one of the nicest smiles she had ever seen.

  Evil takes many forms.

  Samantha pushed open the second door and entered the room. Evelyn was waiting for her on the sofa. Approaching from the side, Samantha placed her hand on her friend’s shoulder and squeezed. ‘I’m back,’ she said and sat down beside her.

  Evelyn looked at her and nodded. ‘How’s your arm?’

  Samantha touched the bandage and shrugged. ‘Alright,’ she said. ‘Chocolate helped with the pain.’ A smile spread over her face and was matched by her companion.

  ‘No doubt,’ Evelyn replied, chuckling.

  ‘And you?’

  Evelyn glanced over her shoulder. The other women were over by the beds talking. ‘Scared a few of them,’ she said, her nose twitching as she spoke, ‘Jade was supportive though.’