I hear you like to beat little girls
Daniel swam up towards full consciousness, registering the soft sheets he was lying on, and then blinking up at the ornate ceiling above him. He struggled up to a sitting position and looked around the room in confusion. He was in the main bedroom of his country house. The one he’d bought to impress Katie, that he rarely ever visited now. He had it cleaned once a week and the gardens sorted, but other than that it was left unoccupied.
He swallowed past his burning throat and noticed the glass of water sitting on his beside table. Flinging his legs over the side of the bed, he grasped the glass and drained it in two gulps, then sat rubbing his forehead and willing his memory of how he had escaped to return. The guys must have got him out of there somehow, he thought. His last memory was of that big gorilla dragging him off Katie and punching him in the face, before someone had grabbed him from behind and held the gauze up to his face. He frowned; there must have been two of them. How did Frank and Carl get him away? Shaking his head to clear it, he vaulted off the bed and turned towards the en-suite. That was when he saw her. She was sitting cross-legged on a huge armchair in the corner of the room, her blonde head cocked to the side, looking like a small, curious bird. A huge dog was sitting by her side.
‘What the – ?’
‘Hello, Daniel,’ she said, smiling slowly.
He shook his head. ‘Look, I don’t know why the guys sent you up here, sweetheart, but I’m in no state to …’
She clicked her tongue reproachfully and slid off the chair, walking over to the window and then trailing her fingers along the sill. The dog remained unmoved, ears forward and alert, its gaze locked on Daniel. ‘Women are all whores or Madonnas to you, aren’t they, Daniel? You either put them right up there on a pedestal, or you buy and sell them for profit.’
‘What are you – ?’
‘Well, I’m not a whore and I’m not a Madonna. In fact I expect you would find a woman like meveryconfusing.’
Daniel didn’t know who the fuck this woman was, but she was … disconcerting, and he was not in the mood to stick around listening to any of her bullshit. Maybe she was a stalker or something? (The irony of that thought was of course completely lost on Daniel.) He moved to the door and grabbed the handle but it refused to open.
‘It’s locked,’ the strange blonde put in helpfully, watching him from across the room as he imagined you would watch a bug under a microscope.
‘Who are you?’ he asked, turning slowly from the door to face her.
‘My name is Goodie,’ she told him. ‘Well, actually that’s not really my name. I haven’t used my real name since I was nine years old.’
‘What are you –?’
‘Strange, yes?’ she asked conversationally, and for some reason her voice caused a shiver to run up his spine. ‘Why should a nine-year-old change her name? But then again I was no normal nine-year-old. By that stage I had already known the full range of a human’s capacity for violence.’
‘Who do you work for?’
‘Work for? I work for myself. Always myself. And I work for money. I am – how would you put it? – freelance.’
‘Did you –’ he swallowed nervously, she was really spooking him for some reason ‘– did you bring me here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where are my men?’
‘Arrested, I expect, by now. You, however, managed to escape. Nobody could stop you. You tore away from the aircraft hangar in your Jaguar with its tinted windows – very useful by the way – and drove yourself here to your little country hideout.’
He frowned at her. ‘When are the police coming?’
She smiled. ‘Police? Youwantto get arrested now? I thought you spent most of your time and an awful lot of money on bribes avoiding just that eventuality.’
‘What do you want?’ Daniel was done with this odd conversation; everyone had his or her price, and this Goodie character would be no different.
‘Oh, are you talking money? It’s alright, I’ve already been paid, thanks.’
‘W-what?’
‘We’ll get to that in a minute. Now, I hear you like to beat little girls. Why don’t we have a sparring match right here, right now? Both of us are unarmed, I’m about half your size. What do you say?’
‘You’re nuts,’ he told her, tensing as she walked slowly around the bed and towards him. She shrugged and made a hand signal to her dog, causing it to lie on the floor with its head in its paws.
‘We can get to know each other a bit. Come on, Danny, where’s your sense of fun?’
‘My what? Urgh!’
