Prisoner Of Passion

Rico da Silva already looked so different. His jacket and tie had been discarded. His shirt was smeared with grime. His black hair was astonishingly curly, tousled out of its sleek, smooth style. ‘No hysteria!’ he warned with lethal brevity.

‘You said...you have been kidnapped. But I’m here too.’ Bella swung her legs down and slid slowly off the bed.

‘I begged them to leave you behind. I told them you were so thick that you wouldn’t be capable of assisting the police. I told them you were worthless...’

She thought about it. “Thanks...I suppose you did your best.’

‘Do you have a single, living brain cell?’ Rico slashed at her without warning. ‘Am I condemned to spend what may well be my last hours on this earth with a halfwit?’

Bella stiffened as though she had been struck. She was far from halfwitted. Indeed, she had an IQ rating which put her into the top two per cent of the population, but that was a fact she never shared. It tended either to intimidate or antagonise people.

Rico da Silva wanted an argument, she sensed. She understood that. He needed to hit out and she was the nearest quarry. Forgivingly she ignored him and concentrated on exploring their immediate environment and its peculiarities. She touched the wall. ‘It’s metal.’

‘Be gtateful. At least they gave us airholes.’

She wasn’t listening. She scanned the bed, the single chair, the lit battery lamp. It was the only source of light. And she was used to the kind of light that came from paraffin, gas and batteries. She had grown up with it, sat in darkness when there was no money for replenishment. There was no window. She brushed past him to pass through the incongruous beaded curtain covering a doorway which his bulk had been obscuring.

In the dim light beyond she saw a gas-powered fridge, a small table, another chair, an old cupboard, and what looked like a tiny, old-fashioned stove heater connected by a flue to the metal roof. And then she glimpsed the door. She grabbed at the handle, suddenly frantic to see daylight, and was denied. The wooden partition concealed only a toilet and a sink. No windows—no windows anywhere. Her throat closed. She rammed down her panic and drew in a sustaining breath.

‘What are we in?’ she demanded starkly.

‘A steel transport container. Most ingenious,’ Rico explained without any emotion at all. ‘I hope you’re not claustrophobic.’

She never had been until now. Automatically she felt the cold metal walls, stood on tiptoe to touch the roof, felt the airholes he had mentioned, and a long, cold shudder of fear took her in its hold. ‘It’s like a metal tomb.’

‘What time is it? My watch was smashed.’

Somehow that casual enquiry helped her to get a grip on herself. Moving back through the curtain into the other section, she peered down at her watch. ‘Ten past seven.’

‘Time to eat.’

‘Eat?’ Bella echoed shrilly. ‘We’ve just been kidnapped and you want to eat? I want to get out of here!’

‘And you think I don’t?’ Lean fingers gripped her taut shoulders as he yanked her forward. Grim dark eyes held hers. ‘I’ve been conscious for two hours longer than you. I have been over every centimetre of every surface of this metal cell. But for the airholes it’s solid steel. We have nothing here capable of cutting through solid steel,’ he spelt out with cool, flat emphasis. ‘Have you ever looked at the bolts on container doors? That is the only other option...’

She glanced past him to see the doors which were so closely shut that they were almost indistinguishable from the other walls. ‘We’ll never get through those either,’ she mumbled sickly. ‘People have died in these containers... suffocated, starved—’

‘I have not the slightest intention of suffocating or starving,’ Rico cut in with ruthless assurance. ‘And, if one is permitted to take hope from appearances, neither have my kidnappers any such intention. Dead, I’m not worth a cent.’

‘Ap-pearances?’ she prompted jerkily.

‘Someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to plan this operation and take the minimum number of risks,’ Rico pointed out. ‘The necessities of life have been supplied. We have food and water. They have no immediate need to venture into further contact with us. They must be very confident we cannot escape. This leads me to believe that for the moment we are as safe as it is possible to be in such a situation.’

‘S-safe?’

‘I would feel more threatened if one of them was sitting in here with us,’ Rico said drily. ‘Or someone had come along to tell me to stop making such a racket when I was thumping the walls.’

‘The noise—that was you,’ she registered, shaking her head.

‘I wanted to know if there was a guard out there...or even if it was possible to attract anyone’s attention. But, this time, no joy.’ His sculpted mouth tightened to a thin, hard line. ‘However, we will keep on trying. There is always the chance that we could be heard at any time of the day or night.’

‘Yes.’ He was giving her something to hang on to—a slender hope. Bella nodded, almost sick with the nerves that were threatening her wavering composure. He had had the time and privacy supplied by her unconsciousness to come to terms with their situation. She had not had that time or that privacy. She was angry and scared to the same degree. Somebody had deprived her of the most basic of human rights—freedom. But even worse than that was the terror that in the end they might take her life as well.

‘You hear that silence?’ His nostrils flared as he flung his dark head back. ‘Now we listen for some sound of humanity—traffic, a dog barking... anything.’

‘These walls would act like double glazing, I bet. A friend of mine has just got new windows in and you can’t hear the traffic through them...’ Her voice trailed to a halt as she glimpsed Rico’s arrested expression. ‘Sorry, I sort of rattle on some—’

‘Stop rattling,’ he articulated with ruthless precision.

‘You mentioned food?’

‘In the fridge.’

‘Enough for two?’ she whispered as it suddenly dawned on her that his kidnappers could never have planned on having to imprison two people.

‘We’ll conserve it as far as possible. The same with the light. We have no idea how long we will be here,’ he delivered smoothly.

The wild idea that in a strange way Rico da Silva was in his element occurred to her. It doused her urge to scream and shout uncontrollably. Pride kept her quiet. There he was, certainly tense but on the surface as cool as ice.

‘Anybody could be forgiven for thinking that this has happened to you before!’ she muttered with scantily leashed resentment.

‘I have been prepared for this situation by professionals. Although I admit I did not expect to have to put what I learnt into action.’

Bella flashed through the beaded curtain and sank down on the chair by the table. Wrapping her hands together, she bowed her head. She just could not believe that this was happening to her. She just could not credit that she had been kidnapped. That was something that occurred to strangers in the headlines... and they didn’t all come out alive! Her stomach heaved again.

‘How rich are you, Rico?’ she asked in a wobbly voice.

‘Filthy rich.’

‘Good.’

He had said that the kidnapping had been well organised. Hopefully they were not in the hands of maniacs. There would be a ransom demand and Rico’s bank or his family or whatever, she thought vaguely, would pay up and they would be released just as soon as the money was handed over.

‘Will they want money for me?’ she muttered helplessly.

‘I doubt it.’

She was worthless. His own assertion to the kidnappers drifted back to her. And she didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry. She had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, an innocent bystander caught up in something that was nothing to do with her. And it was his fault. But for him she wouldn’t have been in that car park! On the other hand, if anything happened to Rico—if, for instance, stress made him drop dead with a coronary—the kidnappers might just kill her to get rid of her. ‘Surplus to requirements’... Nobody was going to pay for her release!

‘Are you healthy?’ she whispered.

‘Very.’

In silent relief she nodded. But still she couldn’t believe that it was real. Just twenty-four hours ago she had not even known that Rico da Silva walked this earth. Helplessly she pointed out to him that this time yesterday they had not even met.

‘And wasn’t ignorance bliss?’

‘I don’t see why you have to be so nasty!’ Bella snapped. ‘Personally I think I’m taking this very well. I’ve already been threatened and assaulted by you—’