by Val McDermid
And then there was some kind of wide sticky tape smacked into place across her mouth. Bev had no choice but to shut up. She looked up at the man who was doing this to her. Blue overalls, scuffed black work boots. Quite tall, brown hair, blue eyes, bulbous nose, long straight mouth, square chin. Her first thought was to memorise these unremarkable features. But in a split second her determination gave way to dismay. She’d watched enough crime series on TV to know that if they let you see their face, it was because they were planning to kill you. A wordless moan came from behind her gag and this time he slapped her hard. ‘If you did what you were told, I wouldn’t have to hit you, would I?’ His tone was reasonable, as if he were explaining to a child why they shouldn’t stick their hand in the fire.
He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her into a sitting position. Then he gripped her upper arms and yanked her to her feet. She heard a metallic rattle as she struggled upright and looked down. A shiny metal cuff was secured to her ankle with a heavy padlock. A sturdy-looking chain trailed backwards from the padlock. He forced her forward and the chain came too, a heavy drag on her ankle.
From somewhere, Bev dredged up a shred of determination. What about all those cases where girls and women had been taken captive and ended up escaping? She could be one of those. She wasn’t a quitter, she was a survivor. Whatever it took, she could find it in herself. Without making it obvious, Bev checked out the room she was being marched across. Cement floor, workbench, blank walls covered with hooks that held tools and garden equipment. A garage, then. He was pushing her towards a door that stood ajar in a side wall. He shoved her hard through the door, making her stumble and fall. Polished stone tiles, wooden cupboards, a fridge. A kitchen, then. Bev tried to get to her feet, but with her hands fastened behind her, it was impossible. She heard the rattle of the chain then slid across the floor as he pulled on it. The skin round the cuff tore, giving her a new centre of pain.
When she came to a standstill, he kicked her thigh, so hard she felt the muscle numb. ‘You’re mine now,’ he said. ‘Do you understand? You’re my wife. If you do what you’re told and you behave like a good wife should, everything will be fine. But if you give me any grounds for complaint, I will hurt you. Is that clear?’ He spoke with an educated Northern accent, at odds with his working man’s outfit. She couldn’t pin his origin down precisely. Never mind. It was something else to store away for the future. Bev didn’t know how, but it might be useful.
He picked up the slack in the chain and waved it at her. ‘You see this? The other end is chained to the wall. There.’ He pointed to a solid metal eye screwed into the door frame. ‘Don’t even think about it. Four screws, each one three inches long. You’ve got free range for the length of your chain. There’s no knives within reach. Nothing you can hurt me with. And I’ve got this.’ He took a slim black object from his trouser pocket. ‘It’s a taser. That’s what I used on you when I took you out of your kennel. Remember how that felt? Well, that was just a taster. A taster of the taser.’ He smiled at his own cleverness. ‘I can disable you from twenty feet away.’
All at once, her hands were free. He stepped smartly clear of her. Bev looked round to see him dangling a pair of pink furry handcuffs, the novelty kind sold in sex shops. His lips were turned up in a parody of a smile. ‘Don’t be under any illusion, Bev. I don’t want to hurt you, but if you make me, I will.’ He backed away from her, putting some distance and a breakfast bar between them. He pulled out one of the high stools and set it against the far wall. She wasn’t good at estimating distances, but even she knew they were less than twenty feet apart.
Bev looked around her, trying to work out whether she had any options. A dining kitchen in a modern house. The rear wall had been opened out to lead into a conservatory. All the blinds were drawn and they were effective. She couldn’t even tell if it was day or night. She couldn’t see out and nobody could see in.
She was shackled at the far end of the room, nearest to the garage door. She could reach the appliances – cooker, hob, dishwasher, fridge. But she wouldn’t make it past the island in the middle of the cooking area. All the doors of the ground-level cupboards had childproof fasteners. There might be potential weapons inside but they would take too long to get at, she reckoned. By the time she’d unfastened the locks, he’d be on her, taser knocking her over, boots flying.
The worktops were clear of appliances and there was no sign of chef’s knives or utensils that had anything approaching an edge. On a thick wooden chopping board sat a fillet steak, half a dozen chopped mushrooms, a sliced onion, a plastic bottle of olive oil and three new potatoes. On the stove was a heavy frying pan and a small saucepan. A wooden spoon rested against the frying pan. She couldn’t quite take it in. Did he want her to cook his dinner? Had he gone to all this trouble to have her wait on him? She’d seen plenty of crazy people at her hospital counter but this was madness of an order she had never previously encountered.
‘So get on with it.’ He sat on the stool, looking perfectly normal and relaxed, apart from the little black box that rested casually on his thigh. She wasn’t fooled, though. She knew he was alert for the slightest reason to hurt her again. She shrugged and spread her hands wide, as if to indicate she wasn’t sure what he wanted.
‘Cook the fucking dinner,’ he shouted, exploding into sudden loud anger. ‘I can’t make it any more clear, can I?’
Bev lowered her eyes. Avoid confrontation. She picked up the saucepan and crossed to the sink. There was just enough play in the chain to allow her an awkward reach to the taps. She half-filled the pan with water and returned to the stove. It was a gas hob, similar to the one she had at home, but she pretended to struggle with the ignition. Maybe he’d grow impatient and come over to light the gas himself then she could deck him with the frying pan.
‘What’s the problem?’ A mocking drawl from the other side of the room. ‘Are you too stupid to light the gas? Do I have to beat the instructions into you?’ The sarcasm darkened to threat as he tapped the taser against the breakfast bar.
Scrap that idea. Bev lit the gas under the pan and dropped the potatoes in. She poured a little oil into the frying pan and put it on a medium heat. Fear and incredulity were taking turns in her head. Why would anyone pick her if they were looking for the perfect wife? She hadn’t been that good a wife when she’d had a husband, and Tom at least had professed to like his women with a mind of their own. If her kidnapper had bothered to find out anything about her, he’d have learned pretty quickly she was never going to make housewife of the year. Well, if she was going to stay alive, she’d better start working at it. She stared at the bleeding meat, trying not to think how it got that way. Thank goodness she was a half-decent cook, according to her ex, her son and her friends.
When the potatoes came to the boil, she added the onions to the hot oil and stirred them around with the spoon. At least the frying onions killed the smell of piss that hung around her. But how in the name of God was she supposed to know how he liked his steak? There was a world of difference between blue and well done. She picked up the steak and turned to face him, shrugging a question at him.
He laughed, sounding genuinely delighted. ‘Medium rare,’ he said. ‘Good girl. The last one didn’t even ask. She turned my steak into shoe leather. Useless cow.’
The last one. Bev blinked back tears as she turned her attention to the stove, trying not to show a reaction to those distressing words. She remembered a poem she’d learned at school that had the same murderous chill. What was it? ‘That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive.’ Scary then, scarier now. Blindly, she tossed the mushrooms in the pan, mixed them with the translucent onions and cleared a space for the steak. She slapped it into the pan and started counting in her head. When she got to a hundred and eighty, she flipped it over and began the count again. She lifted a potato and tested it by squeezing. Almost there.
Bev was startled by the sound of a plate hitting the granite top of the i
sland behind her. She whirled round. He was on the far side of the island, just feet from her, pushing a dinner plate towards her. For a mad moment, she thought about grabbing the pan and swinging for his head, but common sense prevailed. She wasn’t fast enough, he wasn’t close enough. If she was going to make it home to Torin, she needed to choose her ground well.
Instead, she picked up the plate and turned back to the stove. She switched off the heat under the pans, drained the potatoes as best she could at full stretch, then served up the meal. She placed it on the island then stepped away, lowering her eyes, determined to offer him no excuse to criticise. Bev tried not to hate herself for becoming so cowed so quickly. It was a strategy, she told herself. A strategy for staying alive.
He took the plate to the breakfast bar and started eating. After a couple of mouthfuls of steak and vegetables, he glared at her. ‘You cooked the steak properly.’ He ate another chunk of meat, frowning. Then he cut into a potato and his face cleared. ‘You stupid bitch,’ he snarled. ‘How can you not know how to cook a potato? Fucking children in primary schools know how to cook a potato. These are like bullets.’ He picked up a potato, took aim and hurled it at her. Bev tried to dodge it, but it caught her on the shoulder, surprisingly painful, then skittered across the floor.
‘Pick it up, you lazy slut,’ he yelled. She tried but it was beyond the limit of her chain. ‘You can reach it if you lie down, you thick cow,’ he said, turning back to his steak.
Bev did as she was told. She had to stretch full length, straining with her fingertips to reach the potato, driven on by his sadistic grin. But she finally managed to tease it within reach. She picked it up and pushed herself to her feet. She held the potato up, raising her eyebrows in a question.
‘Shove it up your arse for all I care,’ he said, finishing off his steak and pushing the plate away from him. ‘Now, what does a good wife do to please her husband after dinner?’ As he rounded the breakfast bar, she could see his erection tenting the front of his overalls.
Oh Christ. It was going to get a lot worse before there was any chance of it getting better.
20
Paula watched Tony cross the cobbles and climb aboard Steeler. She waited till he was safely below and the hatch was closed. Not because she feared for his safety but because she wanted a few moments to gather herself before she headed home.
When he’d recognised Nadia Wilkowa in the photograph from the corkboard, Paula had assumed that he’d made the same mistake she had. That he’d been tricked by the superficial resemblance to Carol Jordan into thinking that he knew a woman who was in fact a stranger. When she’d said, ‘We know exactly who she is. She’s the victim,’ she’d thought she was kicking a misapprehension into the long grass.
He’d looked confused. ‘That’s Nadia Wilkowa? Then I must have encountered her at some point.’
‘You don’t think it’s your mind playing tricks?’
‘What do you mean, my mind playing tricks?’
‘Tony, she looks like Carol.’
He’d taken a step back, as if she’d poked him in the chest. ‘You think so?’ He looked again. ‘No, you’re wrong. The haircut’s the same, but that’s all. Look.’ He thrust the photo at Paula. ‘Her face is a different shape. Cheekbones, totally different angles.’
‘The jawline’s similar, so are the eyes.’
Tony shook his head stubbornly. ‘She’s… I don’t know, ordinary. You wouldn’t look twice at her in a crowd.’
Paula turned away. ‘For a moment, for a split second when I first saw the body… I thought it was her, Tony. The hair, the legs, the line of the shoulders. Then I realised the body shape was wrong.’
‘But her face was wrecked, Paula. If you’d seen her in life, you wouldn’t have taken her for Carol. You’re overlaying your first impressions on this picture. And she doesn’t look like Carol.’ His voice changed, bitterness creeping in. ‘Believe me, Paula. I am the man who sees Carol Jordan everywhere. And I don’t see her in this woman’s face.’
Paula turned in time to catch the shadow of grief cross his face. She put a hand on his arm. ‘I’m sorry.’
He gave a harsh little cough of laughter. ‘I don’t even know where she’s living. All those years when I knew where she was sleeping every night, even when she was undercover. Even when she went to ground after Germany. And now, I don’t even know what bloody country she’s in.’ He hung his head and sighed. ‘The one time I needed to be good at my job, and I failed her.’
‘You couldn’t have known what was in Vance’s mind. Nobody could.’
He raised his head, his eyes wide and angry. ‘My job is to work with probabilities, Carol. That doesn’t mean discounting the improbabilities. And I didn’t even give them house room during that investigation. I was blinkered because I was convinced I knew Jacko Vance so well.’
The silence between them was like the air before a thunderstorm. ‘You just called me Carol,’ Paula said.
He looked thunderstruck. ‘God help you, then, Paula.’ His voice was husky with emotion.
‘I miss her too, Tony.’
Hesitantly, he reached out and put an arm round her shoulders. They seldom touched, he and Paula. Never hugged as a greeting or as a farewell. This was a moment that mattered to them both. ‘She’s got no bone to pick with you, Paula. She’ll be back in your life one of these days.’
She leaned her head on his shoulder and tried not to cry. After a while, she cleared her throat and stepped away. ‘You really think you know her? Nadia?’
Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘I think so. It’s not coming, though. I’m going to have to tuck it away and make my subconscious do the work when I’m asleep. What we do know about her, looking at this picture, is that she liked to go out and have fun, and she had mates to do that with.’
‘How do you know it’s not just a one-off and she’s been stuck with Brittney and Bubble from Accounts for somebody’s camera-phone shot at the company Christmas party?’ Although her tone was teasing, deliberately trying to shift the mood, Paula genuinely wanted to know.
‘None of them is self-conscious or awkward with each other.’ He swung round and flicked through the menus. Tucked away behind the rest was another shot, on ordinary printer paper. ‘And look, there’s another one of the three of them. Different night, different outfits, very relaxed on a banquette.’ He was right. She’d missed that on her first cursory look at the board. ‘You need to find these women and speak to them. But you don’t need me to tell you that.’ He wheeled away and headed for the hallway. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here, pointing out the obvious to you, Paula. Is this the investigative equivalent of the pity fuck? “Poor Tony, I should give him something to think about.”’
Her first reaction had been to feel insulted. ‘Of course it isn’t. It’s not about you. I want to crack this case and I don’t have anybody to bounce ideas off, OK? It’s about me, feeling lost without my old team. I’m sorry if you think I’m wasting your time. I wanted another pair of eyes that I could trust, that’s all.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He sighed again. ‘I’m not at my best right now. Let’s take a look at the bedroom and see if there’s anything there that rings my bell.’
But there hadn’t been. The room was neat, no piles of laundry on the floor, no half-worn outfits thrown over the single chair. The duvet cover, a bright abstract, was the only splash of colour in the room. It had been straightened up, the pillows plumped. There was nothing in the wardrobe that didn’t fall into the category of work, casual or night-on-the-town. No fetish outfits, no fantasy props, no sex toys. On one bedside table sat a paperback with a Polish title. It looked more chick lit than Booker Prize. Beside it, a half-empty sports bottle of water and a pair of glasses. Three pairs of understated earrings nestled in a tiny wooden tray beside a small gold crucifix on a fine chain. ‘The kind of girl every mother wants her son to meet,’ Paula muttered.
Tony snorted. ‘Maybe not mine.’ He opened the dressing-
table drawer. A box of tissues. A tub of peach-flavoured lip balm. A scatter of condoms and a half-squeezed tube of lubricant. ‘Sexually active.’ He picked up the lube and tested the cap. ‘But maybe not recently. See, it’s hardened round the cap.’
‘Or maybe she’d been having the kind of sex that doesn’t need lube,’ Paula said drily. ‘It happens.’
‘So I’m told.’ He turned to the small chest of drawers in the corner. The top drawer contained a wide selection of inexpensive make-up. Second drawer, practical but pretty lingerie. Third drawer, T-shirts. Bottom drawer, a couple of thick sweaters. ‘I think Nadia might have been on the intersection of nice and dull. Which is interesting, because that’s a combination that reduces her risk factors significantly. Most victims have chaotic elements in their lives. That’s usually how their killers cross their paths. But Nadia seems the opposite of chaotic. Which makes your job that bit harder.’
And that had been the sum total of Tony’s insights. She’d tried not to feel disappointed, but she couldn’t escape the realisation that she’d hoped for more. She’d wanted something to drive the investigation in a new direction, something that would show her new boss that she was someone worth watching.
Paula straightened up in her seat and started the engine. She’d stop off at Skenfrith Street on her way home and put a rocket up the uniforms. Get them to take Bev’s disappearance seriously, not just stick it on the back burner and hope it would simmer away to nothing.
‘It’s like the bloody Marie Celeste in here,’ she said aloud as she tried to find someone to direct her to the duty inspector’s office. She ended up descending to the custody suite in the basement in the hope of finding signs of life. A radio was playing softly, a low mutter that sounded like sport commentary. The custody sergeant, a craggy-faced tough in his thirties, looked up from his paperwork and raised his eyebrows.