Crocodile Farm

2.

Elliott has no sense of how much time has passed, but the empty growling of his stomach and the goosebumps prickling on his skin say it's a matter of hours. He is starting to feel light-headed from hunger. The light in the room, from the fluorescent bulb, does not shift. For a time, he lies on his back on the floor, looking up at it, until it becomes uncomfortably cold and he retreats to his bench again. He doesn't seem hungover though: he doesn't have that grit around his eyes, the solidified muscle in his back. He didn't think he had much to drink last night, but how else to account for his memory loss?

There is a heaviness growing in his bladder. He noticed the latrine in the corner of the room when he first arrived, and now it is looking a lot more likely that he'll have to use it. He hasn't seen another prisoner, another police officer, or the first man in hours. He glances up at the cameras in the corners of the ceiling. He feels oddly squeamish about the idea of being watched.

He steps over and peers down into the metal bowl. Strangely, it smells like antiseptic: he had expected a more pungent stench. Actually, the entire cell has been meticulously cleaned. It is almost as though it is the first time it has been used: as though it has been built for the sole purpose of holding him.

The man's words go round in his head, again and again. "Of course you can't remember: that's the whole point." And, when he'd mentioned Belle, it was like he'd never heard of her, like finding out Elliott's next of kin had never been a priority. It was like Elliott had unknowingly given him a gift.

*

By the time the man returns, Elliott has used the toilet twice. There doesn't seem to be a flush button and the smell of disinfectant mingles with the smell of urine. His hunger has been overcome by his thirst; he has not had anything to drink in hours. His tongue has swollen in his mouth and he keeps hearing things, hallucinating, drifting in and out of wakefulness. He hears muffled voices now,faint music playing, but they all fade and he knows that they must be his imagination.

He is in the corner of his cell, hunched over, picking at the skin around his fingernails, stinking of his own sweat, and growing steadily more furious, when he hears the click of the lock and the man comes back into the room. Behind him, walking with that solid saunter men have when their muscles are too big, is another guy: burly, like a footballer, with no neck. Elliott has always disdained guys like this: guys who spend more time tending to their muscles than their brains.

"Took you long enough," he says, surly, but his hope for release keeping him from saying anything too hostile.

The man still maintains his slightly superior but patient expression from this morning, but Elliott senses a shift: beneath his calmness, there is more volatility now.

"We had to locate your sister."

Elliott waits, but the man gives no indication that this was successful.

"You must be wondering where you are."

"I'm in a police station." But as he speaks, his confidence begins to fail.

The man smiles slightly, and although he does not speak Elliott realises that he was wrong. He is not in a police station. He is not in a police station. This man is not police.

He feels his muscles tense, a fight-or-flight instinct. These guys don't seem to be armed, but the door they'd come in is locked, a keypad on the side. If they open the metal gate to the cell, can he bolt? How long till he reaches the door? And what hope does he have of getting through it, without the code?

These questions are more pressing, but can not eclipse the more disquieting one: If these men aren't police, who are they? Are these the guys Belle talked about, the shadowy "they" she feared? He's always thought his sister was slightly paranoid, a product of being the sole breadwinner since she was twelve. He'd thought it unfounded, an endearing quirk. As long as they kept their heads down, stayed off the radar, they'd be fine – or so he had believed.

The man in the suit is still watching him, like he is an exhibit in a zoo. The henchman with no neck stands to attention, but his expression is vacant: it is clear that Suit is in charge. Elliott has no idea how to get the upper hand. He is suddenly very aware that the scent of urine lingers from the toilet bowl. He wishes he could have held on, or at least flushed the evidence away, but the dark yellow liquid, pungent with his dehydration, is a symbol of his weakness.

"Elliott, will you permit me to join you?" the man asks now, as though they're in Elliott's home and he's interrupted some important activity. "I'd like to join you in there."

Elliott steps back, slumps onto the bench. He's not going to bolt. He's not going to do anything. Of course he's not. He's going to let this guy into the cell (as though he had any control over that) and he's going to comply with whatever he wants, and he's going to do whatever he can to walk free. If this guy's not police, he might be government, and that means there's no way out except through his say-so.