CHAPTER TWO

It seemed to Emma that she had been asleep for only five minutes, a deep, dreamless slumber from which she was suddenly awakened by the covers being pulled back.

“Get up,” Mrs Bradshaw ordered.

Reluctantly Emma crawled out of bed. She could have slept for another week at least.

“Get under the shower. The cold shower.”

Emma hated discomfort of any kind, so a cold shower was a horrid thought. She hadn’t had one since she had been at school. But as the freezing water splashed on her body, standing up her nipples, making goose-bumps on her breasts, she found at least it was clearing her brain of sleep.

When Mrs Bradshaw said so, she got out quickly and rubbed herself down briskly. Mrs Bradshaw was holding some clothes. She laid them on the bed.

“Get dressed.”

Emma picked up a crisp white cotton blouse. She looked for a bra but there was none. She put the blouse on and did up the buttons. She thought that the brown aureoles of her nipples, still stiff from the shower, were just visible through the thin material. On the bed was a pair of white cotton knickers, generously cut in an old-fashioned style. She put them on, then a navy-blue skirt, which was close-fitting, ending just above the knee. All that was left on the bed were a pair of white cotton ankle socks and some black shoes, with flat heels and straps that buttoned across the instep. When she was dressed Mrs Bradshaw ordered her to follow.

Emma caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the wash basin. She looked like a schoolgirl, though a slightly overgrown one. Was that how Master envisioned her? She trotted after Mrs Bradshaw down the stairs. She wondered what time it was, and suddenly realised that her watch had not been where she had left it, on the little table beside the bed. Was she to be deprived of her sense of time too? She remembered reading how this was a method of disorienting prisoners. Were they trying to break her in some way? But when they got into Mrs Bradshaw’s room she saw the time in the corner of the computer screen: 4.15. She must have slept for a couple of hours.

“Take off all your jewellery,” said Mrs Bradshaw.

“What? Why?”

Mrs Bradshaw took the ruler out of her desk.

“I’m sorry,” Emma said hurriedly. “I’m really sorry. I’m just a little confused by jet lag.”

Mrs Bradshaw looked at her sternly, evidently wondering whether to accept this excuse.

“Be careful,” she said. “Be very careful.”

“Yes, Mrs Bradshaw,” said Emma dutifully. She began to take off the three rings she wore, one on the middle finger of the left hand, two on the index and middle fingers of her right. Then she took off the tiny studs she wore in her ears, silver with little sapphires at the centre. She held them out to Mrs Bradshaw.

“And the bracelet,” M