The Medway Runs cold.

In the sterile office, Linda watched with a look of bored satisfaction as David, the auditor, finished his clumsy, desperate coupling with Mark. The young man, spent and humiliated, quickly rearranged his clothes, his eyes unable to meet Linda's gaze as he all but fled from the office. Shelly unlocked the door, her expression a mask of innocence. Mark remained on the floor, a used and discarded tool, until Linda flicked her fingers. "Get up. Go home."

As David was making his hasty exit, Linda picked up her phone, her thumb scrolling idly through her messages. A frown creased her brow. She tapped the screen again, then again, her impatience growing. "Clara isn't answering my texts," she said, her voice sharp with annoyance, cutting through the post-coital quiet. "She should have been back from that tenant's by now. She knows not to ignore me."

She glared at Mark, who was still struggling to pull himself together from the floor. "Get dressed," she commanded, her tone leaving no room for argument. "You're going home. If she's not there, I want you to go next door and find out what's taking so long. Talk to Roger. Find out when he last saw her.

Mark, his body aching and his mind a fog of degradation, simply nodded and scrambled to pull his trousers up. He left the office without a word, the weight of Linda's command a heavier burden than the auditor's body had been.

He walked the short distance home, his mind racing with a mix of dread and a sliver of concern for Clara. He got to his house and texted Linda, who in turn opened the door with the ap. It was silent, still. "Clara?" he called out. There was no answer. He tried her phone, but it went straight to voicemail. A knot of unease began to form in his stomach. He walked next door to the tenant's house and knocked on the front door, his knuckles rapping against the wood.

The door was unlocked from the inside and swung open a few inches. "Roger," Mark called out before stepping in.

He found Roger standing by the fireplace. "Hi, sorry to bother you," Mark began, "but have you seen Clara? She was supposed to come over, but she's not answering her phone, and Linda's getting worried."

Roger shook his head, his expression one of concerned confusion. "No, not lately, she was here earlier to check on a leak, but I had to run an errand, and I left her to it.

"Linda's a little concerned," Mark started

"Look, why don't you take a look upstairs? Maybe she went up there and got... distracted."

As he reached the bottom step, a figure stepped out from the shadows of the dining room. It was Eleanor. Mark's blood ran cold. He opened his mouth to scream, but before a sound could escape, Roger was on him. In one swift, practised motion, Roger threw a black hood over Mark's head, plunging his world into darkness.

Mark struggled, his arms flailing, but it was useless. He felt the cold click of metal cuffs being ratcheted onto his wrists behind his back. A thick leather belt was looped around his neck, over the hood, and pulled tight, pinning the sack in place and cutting off his air just enough to make him panic. A rough rope was then wrapped around his head, over his mouth, and pulled brutally tight, forcing the coarse material between his lips and creating a makeshift, agonising gag. His muffled cries were choked off.

They pushed him into a back bedroom, and he fell heavily to the floor. His world in a suffocating blackness. He felt them grab his legs, and a rough rope was used to lash his ankles together. He struggled weakly, but his resistance was pathetic. He heard the sound of a drill, a high-pitched whine, and then a metallic clink as a heavy ring was bolted to the wall just above the skirting board. They grabbed the rope binding his ankles and pulled, stretching his legs out and tying the end securely to the ring in the wall. He was trussed and tethered, unable to stand, unable to see, a prisoner in the dark.

He could hear another person's frantic, whimpering sobs nearby. Clara. He was trapped, a new prisoner thrown into the cage with the old one, left to keep the bound Clara company in the suffocating darkness.