file:///F|/rah/Iain%20Banks/Banks,_Iain_-_Complicity_(v2).html (1 of 213) [1/19/03 9:57:00 PM]
You hear the car after an hour and a half. During that time you’ve been here in the darkness, sitting on the small telephone seat near the front door, waiting. You only moved once, after half an hour, when you went back through to the kitchen to check on the maid. She was still there, eyes white in the half-darkness. There was a strange, sharp smell in the air and you thought of cats, though you know he doesn’t have cats. Then you realised the maid had pissed herself. You felt a moment of disgust, and then a little guilt.
She whimpered behind the black masking-tape when you approached. You tested the tape securing her to the little kitchen chair, and the rope holding it against the still-warm Aga. The tape looked just as you’d left it; either she hadn’t been struggling or she had but it had had no effect. The rope was good and taut.
You glanced at the shaded windows, then shone your torch at her hands, taped to the rear legs of the chair.
Her fingers looked all right; it was a little difficult to tell because of her dark olive Filipino skin, but you didn’t think you’d cut off her circulation. You looked at her feet, tiny in the low-heeled black slippers; they appeared healthy too. A drop of urine fell and joined a pool on the tiled floor beneath the chair.
