by P. R. Black
For a brief moment she wondered if he would cripple her, as he had crippled her father all those years ago.
As if reading her mind, he pondered hamstringing her, his long knife poised against the meat of her thighs. ‘Shall I? Shall I?’ he exhorted himself. ‘Hmm.’
Then he reconsidered; with one last look at her sister’s face, ruined once more and oozing blood, Becky was thrown in the boot.
He grinned at her, face framed by the edges of the boot. ‘Make yourself comfortable.’
There was a movement in the trees behind him. Then someone yelled, in English: ‘Hold it right there!’
Hanlon. Other voices joined him, speaking in French.
Fullerton’s face fell, and he lurched away. Clara cried out and raised the gun; there was a single crack, and Becky saw her leg jerked away as if on a string, pitching her onto her face.
The boot slammed shut. Gunfire crackled; someone screamed, a young man.
‘She’s in the boot! Hold your fire!’ Hanlon cried.
The engine started; the car roared away.
66
Wriggle room. Becky had very little. But tucked tight in her hand was the ring of keys she’d taken from Clara’s pockets.
Gently, ignoring the rocking of the car, she groped for the key which felt the right size, then transferred it to her other hand. She could move the other hand just enough, wrists strained fit to tear in half, to scrabble the key against the lock.
Sweat soaked her face and stung her eyes, though she had no light whatsoever to see with. Music pounded through the vehicle, indeterminate at first. Then she picked out the haunting drear of steel guitar and realised he had tuned the radio to a country station.
‘Just one more indignity,’ she muttered to herself.
Hope flared as the key slithered into the lock. One turn and she was free… But it would not turn. It was the wrong key, after all.
Becky rededicated herself, extricating the key and trying again with another, every physical and mental agony intensified. She had compartmentalised the pain, already thinking through to the next stage. Figuring out how to move the back seat of the car from inside the boot. This was surely how he had managed to get out of the boot and into the back of the car in the first place. His hypnosis might have distorted Becky’s perceptions, but they had not made him invisible, and the boot was the only way he could have stayed out of sight, escaped from the forest and then crept into the car.
So there had to be a way. Something he had studied and practised. A mechanism to exploit, or a knack a regular user would have.
Look for opportunities, no matter how small.
Meanwhile, Becky’s hands searched for another key – a smaller one, one she’d automatically discounted before. She’d try them all if she had to, systematically.
Then the car slowed down. She picked out a faint whining sound. It grew louder as the car slowed.
A siren. And the roar of a motorcycle.
The country and western was stilled a moment after the car stopped, and in her cramped pocket she imagined the chilly blue lights flailing over the entire scene. She wondered how Fullerton’s bloodied face would look in the officer’s torchlight. She kept quiet, continuing to fight at the keys, relishing the opportunity of an unmoving foundation beneath her for a moment.
‘Sir – can you show me your paperwork, please?’ The French police officer sounded young.
‘Sure,’ Fullerton said, amiably. Then came two gunshots, jolting her.
The front door of the car opened; she heard Fullerton pacing outside, cursing. Something slid across the road; then came the sound of a bike being wheeled away, then the crunch of undergrowth.
Fullerton got back in the car and they sped off, faster than before. The steel guitar resumed.
Becky fed the key into the lock. It turned smartly; the cuffs separated. Hope surged.
Next she tugged at her wristwatch. Part of the strap came away, revealing a spring-loaded hatch which she prised apart with ragged fingernails. Inside was a blade, no larger than that found in a pencil sharpener, but keener yet.
You don’t know about all my toys.
The rope coiled round her legs was cut thoroughly quickly and cleanly, and she howled against the gag in silent agony as her legs cramped up, suddenly freed.
Next, her hands searched the edges of the chair facing onto the boot, looking for a way in. She found it almost immediately, a long slit in the lining which allowed access to the gauzy stuffing inside, wrapped round the metal superstructure. Her fingers found the lever quickly.
No sense in making it complicated, Becky thought, grimly. She pulled the switch and felt the seat shift forwards.
She gave herself a few moments to allow circulation to re-inflate her burning veins. She braced herself for sudden light, and action. Then she hammered the seat forward with the flat of her hand.
Becky saw his eyes flare in the mirror. Then she was upon him, a rat sprung from a trap.
She smashed an elbow into the corner of the jaw, spinning his head nearly 180 degrees and cracking the window opposite. Not sure if he was unconscious or not, she snapped a punch at him with her other hand, flattening his nose with an eggshell crackle.
The car veered across the road, splintering a barrier; their headlights sliced the lanes to the left, into the path of an oncoming car.
Becky gripped the wheel; shocked faces were lit up by the headlights as the other vehicle swerved out of their path just in time.
Fullerton’s hand hooked into her hair and pulled her head back as she tried to clamber over the seat and force her foot onto the brake. No handbrake; it was one of the newer models, an automatic mechanism.
His free hand grasped for her throat but she twisted her head away, then drove the heel of her free hand into his right eye socket with a quick, sharp snap of her wrist.
He screamed above the steel guitar, but kept hold of her hair, jerking her back. She went with the momentum, sagging, using the extra space this generated to bring both her legs round the front seat and into the driver’s compartment.
Her head touched the passenger door. Then she hooked her legs round his neck.
Becky flexed her hips, and his roaring and yelling ceased instantly; the hand entangled in her hair went limp.
Becky struggled to a sitting position and saw with horror that the car was continuing on its path across the opposite side of the road, veering at a less severe angle. Another crash barrier was skittled; the car glanced off a tree, and Becky and Fullerton were hurled together in a mockery of an embrace.
Then the dark, moon-dappled lake filled the windscreen. Becky finally reached the middle pedal, but it was too late. They fell, bodies levitating briefly from the seats.
Then, with a roar, the car was gulped down into black water.
67
The car angled down, engine gurgling to a stop, headlights illuminating a steep descent into about ten feet of water. Weeds waved as the car reached the bottom, sudden and green amid a puff of startled mud as all four tyres anchored in the silt.
Water surged in through the cracked windscreen, gushing over Fullerton’s face as he lay against the door, unconscious. Becky took a breath, felt the water reach her shoulders, her chin, her nose.
The pressure had to equalise, she thought, trying to control her panic.
When the water’s cold fingers reached her eyes she pulled the door handle.
The black tide was like a bomb going off, encompassing everything. Becky panicked for a moment, head striking the roof of the car as the remaining air was stolen and replaced with frigid water. Her fingers found the edge of the door and she pulled herself out, bubbles tumbling from her mouth. She kicked hard, mindful of the sodden miserable drag of her jeans and her boots and jacket. Becky struck out, crossing the beam of light as, incredibly, the headlights persisted.
Her feet found the roof of the car; she tensed her thighs, then launched herself upwards.
Her head broke the surface
, and she screamed into the darkness.
The headlights were an ominous twin glow on the surface, as if an immense creature encircled her from below. Becky dragged her damp hair off her face, took two or three gasps, then dived down, heading for the glow.
Visibility was poor, the lights her only guide. This time the drag of clothes and boots helped; her fingers found the door frame, and she could just about make out the face, the blank eyes, swaying in the water as she took hold of his shoulder.
He would not budge; seatbelt, of course. She reached in, finding the mechanism by instinct. Becky’s lungs burned as she tugged the limp body free, braced her feet on the car bonnet and windscreen, and leapfrogged up towards the surface.
Her face only just cleared the water, and she gasped, almost losing her hold on the dead weight below. Then she kicked towards the sandy bank, where the tyre tracks still glistened in the muck, trailing down towards the water.
It grew shallow very quickly, and she heaved the body out.
The face was blank, the eyes sightless, the neck and jawbone twisted at an uncanny angle like a toy treated poorly by a truculent child.
Becky took a deep breath and pinched the ruined nose. Then her lips locked with his.
68
They found clothes for her – way too big, old jeans roll-necked above heavy boots, a pullover several sizes too big that might have been better employed as a continental quilt. Becky wondered who they’d belonged to; why the police had kept them.
She still shivered in Hanlon’s car, despite the dry clothes and the coffee in her hands. She’d been given painkillers which had soothed all but the dull aches. She dared not look at herself in the car mirror just yet.
‘I want to thank you for saving my bacon,’ she said.
Hanlon drew his hands down his face. Becky saw that he had badly-bitten nails, almost painful to look at. ‘You can thank Marcus for that. He suspected something. He told me she’d been behaving erratically. Not calling things in. Too willing to go off-message. Said she’d been shooting you down in private, disregarding what he thought was good intelligence. He suspected she was involved. He was listening to you.’
‘He was a good copper. An arsehole, mind you. But a good copper.’ It was hard to believe she’d watched him die; one more jolt. ‘What’s going to happen to her?’
Hanlon sipped his coffee. ‘She’s been charged with… just about everything. I’m betting she’ll claim all kinds of things. I suspect an insanity plea is coming. Maybe justifiably, I don’t know.’
‘She’s sane, all right. Sick, but sane. I don’t want to… I can’t even think about that at the moment.’
Hanlon cleared his throat. ‘If I was you, I’d take a long holiday, Becky. Far, far away. I wouldn’t think about anything. You got him. Be satisfied with that. It’s over.’ He laid a hand on her shoulder. She wanted to sag against it. ‘It’s over.’
No, it isn’t. Not quite.
*
His daughter had committed the sin of wearing dark glasses so as to appear inconspicuous. She was tall, slim and gothic, so the effect was more akin to painting a target on her back. Becky watched her moving through the mall, waiting until she bid farewell to a similarly attired boy her own age before making her move.
‘Zoe?’
The girl turned. Becky could see the frown crease her brow above the glasses. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Becky Morgan. I’m the one your father tried to kill. I’m the one whose family he slaughtered. I’m the one whose sister he kidnapped.’
The girl turned, alarmed, and fished in her jacket for a phone.
Becky held up her hands. ‘I just want to talk. We’re out in public. There’s probably a video camera on us, right now. I’d have to be crazy to do anything to you.’
‘Crazy is right.’
‘Look. There’s a girl out there. This one.’ Becky showed her an image on her phone; a smiling girl with long, fine curly hair. ‘She’s the daughter of a Russian businessman who went missing along with his family recently. I’ve a feeling she might still be alive. This is something your dad likes to do. Your dad’s movements match up with hers. She might not be the only one. He kept lots of girls, over the years. He held some back. He kept some of them alive, after he’d killed their families. He likes to play a long game. He spends years torturing them, brainwashing them. My sister was one. He did it to me, too, in his way, over a lot of years.’
‘I’ve told the police everything I know.’
‘I know what you told the police. But I have to know if you’re telling the truth. Where does he keep them?’
‘Leave me alone. There’s an officer within two minutes of here, and you’ll get arrested.’
‘I don’t think you’ve told them everything,’ Becky said. ‘You’re his daughter; you must know some of his little secrets. You must have a suspicion.’
‘Why don’t you go and ask my mother?’
‘Your mother’s unwell. She genuinely didn’t know a thing. Maybe you think you’ll be blamed. But you won’t. You can’t be. You can tell me, and I’ll fix it. I’m not with the police. I don’t have to follow any rules. I’ll say I figured something out. They’ll believe me. I figured everything else out. I’ve been trying to find him for most of my life; I’ll make it sound plausible. I know they tore the house apart, but he wasn’t stupid enough to leave any traces where he lived. I think he might have kept his prisoners close by. It makes sense for him to do that. Do you have any idea?’
The girl took off her dark glasses. Her eyes were clear, but unfocused. Becky wondered if she’d been drinking. ‘You got a pen and paper? I never told you this. We never spoke. Got it?’
Becky nodded eagerly. ‘Please. Anything.’
‘There’s a place he goes to in the woods. There’s something up there. My boyfriend tracked him one day with his drone. For a laugh, you know. Actually, I wondered if he was having an affair.’ She smiled at that. ‘He disappeared into the trees, and we lost him. It’s about a mile and a half down the road from the house…’
*
Becky pulled up in a lay-by. It was disconcerting to emerge from the cool interior of an air-conditioned car into tinder-dry, hard-baked summer air.
She checked the map saved to her phone, tightened the laces on her boots, and set off up the path.
The steeper it got, the more confident she became. Wasn’t this just like him? she thought. This was the middle of nowhere, not part of a walking trail marked on any map – and yet, what a risk he had taken.
That was if what the girl had told her was true, of course.
The wooded area where his daughter and her boyfriend had lost track of him with the drone wasn’t too dense – she could see through the trees to more open, hilly country, where the sunlight overlaid the emerald with gold. But in here, among the woods, it was dark.
Here, among the standing stones. Less than six miles from his front door.
Becky’s eye was drawn to the right spot before she’d consciously processed it. She stood at a line of bushes which were at odds with the summer verdant forest round her – bare branches, hawthorns, nettles.
When she came forward for a closer look, the ground became hard, and hollow.
There was a trap door under her feet, right in the forest floor.
She wondered idly if he’d booby-trapped it; a parting gift, to be sure. Maybe a crossbow bolt between the eyes, or perhaps a funhouse lever that would throw her onto sharpened stakes. One last laugh.
But underneath the trapdoor there was a bricked-up space, the walls slimy with earth and moisture. Flies butted her face, and a stench of human waste caused her to flinch.
Something moved in the filth down below, something large. Becky thought it was a badger, or something larger still – maybe a wild boar, given this part of the world. She saw filthy, clotted hair and muck. It was only when her eye picked out hands and ragged cloth over a bare ankle that Becky realised she was looking at a person.
; ‘Hello?’
Two eyes widened amid a mud-encrusted face.
‘I’ve come to rescue you. You’re safe. The man is gone. He can’t harm you any more.’
Becky dropped down a rope; the figure beneath scrambled up it, terrifyingly fast. She seized Becky’s hand, but before Becky could take hold of her, the girl found her feet, and sprinted away from her, wailing at an unbearably high volume. She sprinted down the path, parting ferns and ignoring the snapping nettles.
Becky ran after her, gaining quickly. The girl sprinted into the forest, glancing back occasionally, eyes bulging in sheer fright and panic.
‘It’s okay,’ Becky said. ‘You’re safe, I promise. You’re safe.’
The girl burst into the sunshine into the open hillside. The sudden, strong afternoon light shocked her. Then she sank to the floor.
Becky approached slowly, hands raised. She felt an ancient panic rise in her throat, seeping out of her chest. ‘I promise… I promise, I’m here to help. I’m going to make sure they take care of you. Oh, you poor lass.’
‘No!’ the girl wailed, hands flailing, as Becky approached. ‘No! Leave me alone! Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!’
69
‘Your uniform doesn’t fit you,’ said one of the patients. He had a cheek; he was wearing an ancient set of star-spangled pyjamas. The man was being escorted out of the toilet by another nurse as Becky passed them. The nurse who was accompanying the patient, a beautifully clear-skinned girl with dark red hair, merely wrinkled the corner of her mouth and shook her head at the man.
‘You’re a charmer to the last, Richard. Come on.’
Becky smiled understandingly and moved on down the corridor.
Entry to the high dependency unit was strictly controlled, and getting access to a pass was a risky business. Bernard had had to work hard to clone one, then mock up a fake ID that might pass muster. But he was good at what he did.
Becky had to give her spiel to the ward sister, a tiny Scottish woman with eyes like bore holes in a glacier. Despite facing near-feral levels of suspicion, her paperwork and pass checked out. As did her story about studying terribly difficult patients.