A Date with Death

by K Pierce

  There was the slam of another door in the distance and the faint melody of someone whistling. Emily held her breath, pulse racing and stomach knotted. The whistling faded and she heard an engine, the spray of gravel and then all was quiet once again.

  Emily closed her eyes as the jackhammering in her head got worse. Her mouth felt like it was full of thick cotton. She reached for the hinges holding the door up, hoping against hope that she could dislodge the pins and shift the door. She felt rust against her skin, but she tried anyway, her short nails failing to gain any kind of purchase against the ancient iron. She swore, sobbing in pain and frustration when the nail on her index finger ripped away from the skin.

  Moving back against the far wall Emily took stock of the room. No furniture, nothing she could use as a weapon. She had no phone, no keys, not even any shoes. She slumped to the floor and a sharp pain stabbed against her ribs.

  ‘Ow! Shit!’ Emily muttered. She reached up to rub her side and it stabbed her again. Pushing a cold hand under her hoodie she felt to see if there was a wound she’d missed. Something jabbed at her fingers. She grabbed and tugged, squinting in the darkness. Between her fingers she held the wire from her bra. The moulded plastic had come off, exposing the sharp end. She considered the thin flat metal. Moving over to the door again she tried to use it as a makeshift screwdriver. She felt for the screw at the top of the hinge, slipped the wire into its groove, and tried to turn it. It bent. She tried several more times with the same result.

  The sound of a car stopped her. There was the slam of a door and the same jolly whistling she’d heard before. Emily tried to figure out how long the car had been gone. The pain in her head made it almost impossible to think.

  Emily knew that the man who’d abducted her would return. Her mind began to play her a slideshow of the photos she’d seen of the other girls and what he’d done to them. There was no way she was going to end up like that.

  Emily sat in the middle of the floor. He’d come for her and she’d have to fight. He was a big guy and she’d never outrun him without hurting him first. She rolled the wire around in her hand, running her fingertip over the sharp end, feeling the scratchy pain and using it to stay alert. She picked away at the plastic on the other end until it was sharp too. Reaching beneath her top she tugged at the material on the opposite side until it released its own sliver of metal. She picked off the plastic and held both pieces in her hand.

  Fiona had once sent her on a basic self-defence course. At first it had been something that she was adamant against, never having liked violence, but once she was there she found it fascinating that everyday objects could be used as weapons. She thought back to how the instructor had taught them to walk with their keys pushed out between their fingers, like talons. She wished she had a bunch of keys right now. She wrapped the wire around the fingers of her right hand and pushed the ends out between her knuckles. Christ, I’m like the poor man’s Wolverine, she thought. It would have to do. Pulling her sleeve over her hand she waited.

  27.

  The ringtone of Barry’s phone was almost drowned out by the babble of the incident room. Everywhere Nat looked people were talking, either on the phone or to each other, and the clattering of several keyboards punctuated the air. They’d been here for hours. The atmosphere grew more tense with every moment and Nat was beginning to lose hope that they’d find Emily at all. She watched Barry glance at the display before answering. ‘Hello?’ He listened to the reply and wandered out into the hall pulling the door closed behind him.

  Ryan watched her carefully from the chair by the window. ‘How you doing?’ She shrugged. ‘We’ll find her.’ His voice lacked conviction, but Nat was grateful that he was trying.

  ‘I have no doubt that we’ll find her.’ Nat said. ‘Whether we find her in one piece is another matter.’

  Before Ryan could respond the door re-opened. ‘We just got DNA results back from the semen in Emily’s bedroom.’ Barry loosened his tie and picked up his mug. ‘No ID as yet though. They’re running it through the system.’ He drained his tea.

  ‘So, we have nothing.’ Nat said.

  Neither man spoke. All of them knew that the situation was verging on dire. Up to now, as far as they could tell, their man killed each girl almost as soon as he met them.

  Barry stepped up beside her at the whiteboard. His broad shoulders were hunched as though he was carrying the weight of the world. ‘We have to find her.’ Nat said.

  He squeezed her hand. ‘We will.’

  ‘I have to find her.’ Barry turned to look at her, took in the worry lines etched across her face. The bloodshot eyes. He said nothing. ‘I promised her,’ Nat continued, ‘that I wouldn’t let anything happen to her. That I’d protect her. She trusted me.’

  ‘And we’re going to find her.’ He took her by the shoulders. ‘Alive.’

  28.

  The thud of metal against wood stirred Emily back to consciousness. She didn’t know how long she’d been asleep but her right side was cold and cramped from the floor beneath her and it was daylight outside. She kept her eyes closed against the bright light that flooded through the doorway. There were the sounds of boots on concrete and then a nudge of her foot.

  ‘I know you can hear me.’ It was the man from Nat’s hallway.

  Emily tightened her fingers in the sleeve of her hoody, relived to feel the slivers of metal between her knuckles. She cracked an eyelid and squinted up against the silhouette by her feet. The man cocked his head. ‘I didn’t think you’d give me so much trouble.’ A chuckle. ‘If I’m honest it turned me on a little bit, made me want to hang on to you for a while. You’re different than the others.’ Emily said nothing, but her stomach let out a loud rumble. The man laughed again. ‘I tell you what, you roll onto your back and give me what I want and then when we’re done, I’ll give you what you want. Deal?’

  Emily’s eyes adjusted to the bright morning light. The cool breeze that wafted in through the open door cleared the cobwebs that had tangled her thoughts since the moment she’d first woken up in this wretched place. She gazed at the big man towering above her and considered her options. He wasn’t ugly, and he was younger than she thought he’d be. With his pale blue eyes and his sandy hair, he looked like every other buff young man she came across. What were you expecting? She scolded Freddy Krueger? The more she looked at him the more familiarity niggled at her overworked brain.

  ‘Come on. There’s a glass of water and a piece of toast in it for you. Plus, I don’t have to beat the shit of you if you do as you’re told.’

  It was then that it hit her. The police station car park. The young man who had leaned in her window to ask if she was ok. They’d spoken, and she hadn’t even suspected. She closed her eyes at her naivety, under no illusion that he wasn’t a police officer and she’d been so easily fooled by a fake ID and uniform. She rolled over.

  ‘Now that’s what I like.’ His smile was toothy, almost boyish. ‘Cooperation, respect and some mutual agreement. Tit for tat. You’re the first one that seems to understand that.’ He grabbed his belt buckle and tugged. ‘I’m Alex, by the way.’

  Emily remained silent. She had many things she could say to this man, but she really didn’t want to antagonise him. Aside from that, the jovial way he chatted made her think that nothing she said would have any kind of effect on him at all. He didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with holding a woman hostage in an outhouse and raping her at will.

  Alex began to drop his jeans then stopped. ‘We should probably close this door. It’s not the warmest day of the week, and anyone could see us.’

  Emily’s heart sank. ‘Wait.’ She croaked through her dry throat, the wheels in her brain desperately turning, trying to come up with a plan that wouldn’t get her killed. He turned and looked at her expectantly. ‘Leave it open,’ She said, ‘please.’

  ‘Why?’ Suspicion coloured the word.

  Emily took a chance on the kind of man that this was. ‘I lik
e to be watched.’ She tried for sultry, but it wasn’t the easiest thing to pull out of the bag when you were cold and dirty.

  Emily almost cried with relief when he broke into a grin. ‘I knew you were a filthy minx!’ He sounded like a kid at Christmas. ‘And, I knew you’d love it if you gave it a chance. Now let a real man show you what you’ve been missing.’

  He stepped towards her again, this time dropping his trousers completely and showing her just how excited he was. She resisted the urge to throw up, pretending instead to admire him. He knelt between her legs and she let him undo the fasteners on her own jeans. As he leaned down to grasp her waistband she brought her right hand up, the bra wire sticking dangerously through her fingers, and landed a blow to his face. He reared backwards with a scream and his hands flew to his face, blood trickling between his fingers. She kicked out with all her might. Her foot connected with his crotch and he let out a howl, unsure of whether to grab his throbbing groin or his damaged eye.

  Emily pushed herself off the floor and careered towards the open door. She ignored the ache of her legs and the sharp pains in the soles of her feet. The air was crisp in her throat as she half ran, half stumbled across a field. She looked around frantically, not seeing anything at all familiar or anywhere she might hide. From what she could see she was on a farm. Low buildings were spread out on one side, open fields on the other.

  Afraid to turn around she just kept going. Her feet slipped on wet grass as she made for a clump of trees ahead. There was a shout behind her, but she paid little attention and carried on running. Her lungs began to burn, and her heart threatened to burst from her chest.

  The trees were close enough she could smell the dampness of the wood and she allowed herself a brief moment of hope. She could do this. She could escape. She could survive. The roar of an engine and a spray of gravel made her heart sink.

  29.

  ‘We’ve got a hit.’ Barry moved quickly for his size, grabbing his coat and his keys from the countertop. ‘Ryan, the details are coming through to you. I’m driving.’

  Nat was already halfway out of the door.

  They sped across town and out into the countryside. Hedgerows and trees flew past the window forcing Nat to keep her eyes in front or risk throwing up in the foot-well. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Alex Machin. Twenty-nine years old, privately educated, very rich parents.’ Ryan said.

  ‘Why is he in the system?’ Barry asked.

  ‘When he was nineteen, he was arrested for raping a girl at college. She turned him down for a date in favour of his best friend’s sister. He said he could turn her straight again and when she refused, he tried anyway.’

  Ryan continued, ‘She dropped the charges and moved away after a rather large pay out from Alex’s parents.’

  Barry drove too fast around a bend, narrowly missing a cyclist. He muttered something under his breath and tapped the brakes.

  ‘This should be it on the left.’ Ryan said from the back seat. Nat saw a large house in the distance. It looked to be the only house for a good stretch. How the other half live. Barry slowed and swung onto the driveway, stopped by a pair of wrought iron gates that were flanked by tall walls. There was a Range Rover and a Bentley parked ahead.

  Nat was first out of the car, warily taking in the surroundings. She stepped up to an intercom at the side of the gate and pressed the bell. When nothing happened she pushed it again, this time keeping her finger on it until the speaker crackled to life.

  ‘Who the hell are you and what the hell do you think you’re doing on my drive?’ The tinny echo of a man’s voice came out of the box in front of her. He sounded pissed.

  ‘Good morning, sir.’ Nat was all business. ‘Police. Sorry for the early intrusion. Can you open the gate please?’ The speaker stayed stubbornly silent. Nat pressed the bell again. Nothing.

  As Barry and Ryan joined her at the gate the front door opened. A woman in a salmon twin set stood in the doorway. After a brief hesitation, she walked slowly up the driveway and stopped six feet from the gates. ‘Can I help you?’

  Barry held up his warrant card. ‘We’re looking for Alex Machin.’

  The woman regarded them carefully. ‘He’s not here. He hasn’t lived here for almost a decade. I’m Evelyn. His mother.’ The latter part of the sentence was more a confession than anything else and Nat was sure that it left a bitter taste in the woman’s mouth.

  A man stepped up behind her. He peered at them over the thick black rim of his glasses but said nothing. His face was marred with deep frown lines and his temples were white, a sharp contrast to the rest of his thick black hair. The crease is his trousers was razor sharp and Nat would bet a week’s wages that his shirt was starched to within an inch of its life.

  ‘They’re after Alex.’ Mrs Machin said quietly.

  The man finally spoke. His voice was hard but clear. ‘You won’t find that animal here. We gave him his inheritance and threw him out.’

  ‘Can we come inside, please?’ Barry asked.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Mr Machin spoke again, and Nat could see him edge in front of his wife. ‘We don’t know where he’s been for the past ten years and we don’t want to know. We have nothing to say to you.’ With that he placed a large hand on his wife’s shoulder and steered her back up the driveway.

  ‘Please!’ Nat pleaded, slamming a hand against the gate. ‘We need your help. He’s taken a woman and we need to find her before he hurts her.’

  The front door closed with a solid thud.

  When they reached the station, Nat was out of the car and inside before Barry could even release his seatbelt. He could feel the frustration rolling off her in waves.

  The incident room was packed with bodies. Pictures of a man and a woman had been tacked to the whiteboard and sheets of paper were being passed around. Nat checked her phone for the millionth time, conscious of time passing faster than she wanted it to. Panic welled up inside her.

  ‘Where are we up to?’ Barry asked loudly.

  A female officer looked up from the laptop she’d been tapping away at. ‘Gail Montgomery, the girl that accused him of rape, killed herself a little over a year after they paid her off. Apparently, Machin tracked her down through Facebook, she blocked him and made complaints that he was hacking into her accounts and stalking her.’

  ‘Did anyone follow up?’ Nat picked up a photograph from the desk. It was of a pretty girl smiling widely for the camera. Her eyes shone with the naivety of youth. Beneath that picture was one of the same girl, this time on the mortuary slab. Nat turned away.

  ‘A couple of officers went to visit him and he denied any wrong doing. When they checked Gail’s computer the disk drive had been wiped remotely. No evidence, no case. He was warned to back off. There wasn’t much else we could do.’

  Barry was rifling through a folder. ‘He study computers at Uni by any chance?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘Where did they go to visit him?’ Barry asked suddenly.

  The female officer, PC Davis, turned in her seat. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘His parents kicked him out. Where did the two officers find him?’

  She turned, and her fingers flashed across the keyboard. ‘According to this he was living with some friends on a farm about ten miles from here.’

  Nat leaned down and squinted at the monitor. Barry turned to address the room. ‘Everybody listen up, we have an address for our suspect. We –’ He turned to Nat. She was gone. ‘Shit.’

  30.

  The rumble of the engine got louder, drowning out Emily’s gasping breaths. There was a crack like thunder and the stone wall in front of her exploded into bits. She screamed and veered to the right. There was another crack and clumps of grass jumped around her feet. She reached the wall and yanked herself over it, not caring what was on the other side. She landed on thick bracken, momentarily tangled in it before she rolled onto her back, chest heaving.

  The engine stopped.

  There were voices
on the other side of the wall. One she recognised as Alex, but the other she didn’t know. She looked up. The drop on this side of the wall was about five feet, higher than the field but still low enough that if she stood, they’d see her. She scooted as far away from where she’d jumped over as she could and tried to stay low in the foliage. A head appeared over the top of the wall and she froze.

  The man was skinny and gaunt looking. His skin was sallow and almost as greasy as his hair. If he turned, he was sure to see her. He twisted to say something to Alex and his eyes locked with hers. Emily’s heart stopped beating. Then everything seemed to shoot into fast-forward. She took off running along the wall, hearing one of the men drop awkwardly into the scrub behind her; there was a grunt of pain and muttered cursing. Emily stumbled, veering off through trees, trying her best not to trip on the numerous fallen branches. Her chest was on fire with the exertion and her legs felt like jelly. Her feet screamed out in pain, like she’d walked over hot coals and then broken glass. There was a bang and a chunk of tree caught her in the temple. She staggered but kept going, desperately trying to ignore the warm trickle of blood making its way down her face and the dizziness that came with it.

  Suddenly the ground disappeared beneath her and she was tumbling down an embankment at breakneck speed. Her hoody rode up allowing twigs and rocks to shred any exposed flesh that it met. Her skin felt like it was on fire. Finally, her feet hit solid earth and she was launched forwards into a mass of foliage. Her head bounced off a rock. White hot pain lanced through her temple and then there was only darkness.

  ***

  Nat had no idea what she was doing. She knew she should’ve waited for everyone else, but Emily was running out of time and Nat was damned if she’d let anything happen to her while the others were busy talking about it. She’d noted the address and slipped away, every instinct telling her to get to Emily.