by Danuta Reah
Holbrook. Lynne’s mind was jumping around trying to connect the threads. Holbrook, who brought students into the country. Holbrook who had, apparently, tried to mislead Roz Bishop about Gemma’s search. Holbrook, who was implicated in some way, she was sure, in Oksana’s presence in this country, if not in her death. She could hear Matthew Pearse’s uninflected voice: She was very frightened of them. Of one of them. She remembered that Pearse had gone missing, briefly, at the weekend. She remembered the anger in his voice as he talked about the plight of the trafficked women.
The phone on Farnham’s desk rang and he picked it up. He listened for a moment, then pressed the loudspeaker button. ‘They’re in,’ he said.
Lynne listened to the voice speaking at the other end, indistinct and slightly distorted. The flat was empty. There was no sign of Hagan, and no indication of where he might be. ‘He’s left his computer on,’ the voice said.
‘What’s on it? What was he doing?’ Farnham’s voice was urgent.
‘Just a…There’s a picture, a woman…’ Lynne wanted to be there, to check the files that Hagan had been using, to see this for herself. She looked at the computer on Farnham’s desk, and clicked to check the programs it would run. Farnham was watching her as he listened, and he nodded at her as he realized what she was doing.
‘Ask him if Hagan’s got NetMeeting installed on that machine,’ she said. A program that would allow computers to share files, one that was often bundled into a general package. There was a quick exchange of instructions, and then, like a window opening into a dark distance, or, Lynne thought, like a window opening into a diseased mind, the picture that was displayed on Luke Hagan’s machine formed on the screen in front of her. It was the picture of Gemma Wishart reclining on the bed, the one that had been parodied when her body was positioned in the bath.
With a sense of inevitability she moved the mouse pointer across to the pubic area, and the message appeared. Step inside and get to know me better. Lynne clicked on the link, and the picture began to form. But instead of the pornographic sequence she had been expecting, she found herself staring at the body positioned in the bath, the hands pulled above the head and tied, the knees pushed apart, and the bloody ruin that had been Gemma Wishart’s face. She felt the sick touch of madness, and she remembered the statement from the hotel guest: And there was laughing. Someone kept laughing.
The phone crackled into life again. ‘Hang on. There’s a call…No there isn’t. That’s odd. That’s really odd. It didn’t ring. There’s no sound but the answering machine’s moving. The tape’s running.’
Lynne looked at Farnham. ‘Remote dialling,’ he said. ‘My machine does that. You key in the code and collect your messages.’ The phone calls to Luke Hagan’s number! The first one would have been Gemma, phoning from the call box in Glossop, leaving a message as Hagan wasn’t in. He was out because he was riding to meet her on the dark tops. And the second call was Hagan phoning in to collect and erase any incriminating evidence that might be on the machine.
A terrible sense of familiarity was flooding over her. Gemma Wishart had expressed doubts about some unspecified aspect of the Katya tape and had vanished on her way back from Manchester. And now Roz Bishop had found something out, and had left an unintentionally cryptic message for Lynne. She was driving back from Manchester, and she was late. She looked at Farn-ham. ‘Roz Bishop,’ she said.
‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘They’ve sent a car across to meet her. They did that as soon as we alerted them.’
‘Do you know which way she was coming back?’
Farnham spoke quickly into the phone. ‘They’ve checked,’ he said. ‘She uses the Woodhead road.’
So it was just wait. She wanted to be over there, she wanted to be doing something. She could see the same gleam of frustration in Farnham’s eyes. He was about to end the call, reluctant to cut them off, even briefly, from what was happening so suddenly outside his sphere of influence, when the voice started talking again over a sudden babble of sound, doors banging, voices shouting, all distanced and distorted by the phone. ‘It’s…’ the voice became indecipherable. ‘In the lock-up, he’s…’ It was indecipherable again, and Farnham’s face expressed anger and exasperation as he snapped a demand for clarification. ‘Sorry, sir.’ The voice was calmer now. ‘We’ve found someone, in the lock-up where Hagan keeps his bike. The bike’s gone, but…’ Lynne listened as he told them what they had found among the debris of tools and the detritus of mechanical work, dark smears on the floor suggesting that something had been pushed or rolled into the concealing shadow. A man lay on the floor, his head a mess of blood, his face swollen and battered. But he was still recognizable, the officer said, still identifiable. Luke Hagan lay on the floor of the lock-up, his head a bloody ruin.
And then someone was shouting behind her, a voice that was sharp with a sudden urgency. ‘The cell phone is active and it’s moved. Its last location was Glossop.’
The Snake Pass.
Snake Pass
There was bumping and jolting. Her head was rocking from side to side. Her arms were pulled above her head, making it impossible to support her neck. She didn’t know where she was. She tried to move her arms but they were tied somehow – she could feel the tug and abrasion of a rope. She felt sick and her head ached.
It was beginning to come back to her. Her car had stopped, and Luke had come to find her. Luke? Someone had hit her, and she had memories of the ground dragging past her face, of being pulled to her feet, of being able to stand but not able to control her movements, of a voice saying, ‘Use your legs, bitch. Don’t you know what they’re for?’ And her brain was saying Run, but her legs were like rubber that bent and sagged out of control, and all the time the voice was whispering, accusing as he manoeuvred her into the car. ‘Like that, bitch, on your back.’ She was lying on the reclined passenger seat with her hands pulled above her head, tied to something – the head-rest? The voice had become more confident, gloating, giggling. ‘You spend too much time on your back.’ He ran his hand up and down her legs. ‘You know how to spread them though, don’t you?’
And the car was moving. He must have pushed it to start it rolling, and now he was steering it off the road again, where the ground was uneven and rutted and the car lurched, wrenching her unsupported neck. She twisted her head to look out of the window. Darker shadows loomed in the darkness above her. He was steering the car into one of the old quarries or water cuttings, off the road, away from the slightest chance that anyone might come, might realize what was happening.
And her head was clearing. It was going, that feeling of her body not responding to the signals her mind was sending it. Now, now that it was too late, she could move again. He hadn’t tied her legs. She wasn’t completely helpless. She tried to focus her mind on that to quiet the terror that was beginning to overwhelm her. He’d taken his helmet off now, but it was too dark in the car for her to see. Should she try not to look? If she didn’t know who it was, might he let her go?
She knew it wasn’t Luke. That knowledge gave her a bleak comfort. She’d known from the moment he came running towards her, his speed that of threat, not of support. Her subconscious mind had tried to warn her, but she had reacted too slowly, stunned by bewilderment and a terrifying sense of déjà vu.
The car lurched to a halt. ‘That’ll do,’ he said. He turned round and looked at her. His face was in darkness. She saw his hand reaching up to the light, and closed her eyes. She felt his hand on her neck, squeezing just a bit, but she could feel the pressure starting to build up in her head. ‘Open them,’ he said. His breath had the sour smell of excitement. Then he giggled. She opened her eyes. He was leaning over from the driving seat, his face close to hers. He waited until she had reacted, then he smiled. ‘Surprise!’ he said.
A young face, fair hair, a slightly petulant expression. She could see it in her mind looking at her with self-conscious guilt from the other side of a desk, looking sulkily at her as she turned dow
n his invitation, looking pleased as he arrived at her office door. Sean Lewis.
‘Sean…’ she said. And then there was nothing else to say. Her mind seemed to shut down.
‘This is so cool,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t come on a date with me. I could have shown you a good time. And now you’ve got in the way and you’ve got to go. Like Wishart.’ He shuddered slightly, and giggled again. ‘It was so-o-o cool.’ He pushed his face closer. ‘She turned me down as well.’
His grip on her throat was tighter. She tried to swallow. He relaxed his grip, and she coughed and retched. She knew she had to keep him talking, try to distract him, play for time, but her voice shook. ‘It wasn’t because I didn’t like you,’ she said.
‘You don’t think this is because you turned me down?’ he said. ‘Don’t flatter yourself. This is business. You got in the way.’ He put his hand on her breast and squeezed it hard. ‘“Oh, Sean, I’m sorry, I’m married.”’ His mimicry was a cruel parody. ‘“Oh, Sean, don’t talk to me like that!” You spread your legs for Luke Hagan, didn’t you? You and the Wishart bitch both. Was it three in a bed? Well, you got in the way and now you’re in trouble.’
He pulled her jacket open, the force of it ripping off the buttons. He pushed her blouse up. The thought of his hands on her made her stomach heave. Keep him talking! ‘I don’t understand. How did I get in the way?’ She tried to conceal her revulsion. ‘I didn’t mean to get in the way.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘You had to go after that fucking archive!’
‘You gave it to me!’ She said that before she could think, and it made him angry.
He pinched her nipple hard, making her gasp. ‘Do you like that? You like that, don’t you?’
‘I don’t understand how I got in the way.’ He was hurting her and the pain made her want to cry out, to beg him to stop, but she knew that would just make him worse. She could plead for information, give him the sense of power that way.
He moved across on to the passenger seat, straddling her, pinning her legs down with his knees. ‘I’ve got to kill you. But first, we’re going to do it. I’m going to fuck you. You’ll enjoy it. I know what you like. I watched you with Hagan. You didn’t know that, did you? You’d have liked it, though, wouldn’t you? You liked it when he…’ And he told her what she and Luke had done, and she knew he’d been watching them, listening to them. His obscene litany was fuelling his excitement and his rage. She tried to shut out his voice. She could feel anger under the terror, an anger that she tried to hold on to. Her legs were pinned under his weight. If she tried to move them, he would feel her struggling and he would get more excited, more sadistic, more violent. ‘You’re a dirty cunt, aren’t you?’
‘Sean,’ she said, fighting to keep her voice level, ‘you still haven’t told me. You still haven’t said how I got in your way.’
‘Don’t you know?’ His voice was jeering. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know!’ He had a piece of cord in his hands and he was threading it carefully behind her head, round the back of her neck. ‘Shall I tell you? I’ll give you a clue. A party game. Gem recognized the voice, only she didn’t know she’d recognized the voice. So she had to go. Now it’s your turn. Guess.’
The cord encircled her neck. ‘It just pulls through the loop here, see?’ He pulled and the cord bit into her neck. The air cut off and the pressure began to build up intolerably. She could feel her head pounding and her mouth gaped as she reached for air and she started to struggle. He giggled and released the cord. ‘Not too much,’ he said. ‘It can get a bit messy. We don’t want to spoil the party. No one can see us from the road, here, and no one’s going to look for you.’
She choked and gagged. Luke. Luke would know she was late, Luke would know the way she was coming. He had her message. She just had to keep him talking.
He seemed to be able to read her thoughts on her face. ‘Hagan won’t come,’ he said. He giggled. ‘Not any more.’ He could see the tension in her face and smiled, enjoying her suspense. ‘I thought I’d better not bring the car. I thought you might recognize it. I was watching Hagan that night. I knew he was looking for things I didn’t want him to find. I wanted to keep an eye on him. And then you turned up.’ He giggled again. ‘Gagging for it, weren’t you? But he threw you out. I followed you up the road and saw you at the bus stop. So I thought I’d give you a lift. Take you somewhere and give you what you wanted. But you went running back to Hagan, didn’t you?’ He gripped her hair and forced her head back. ‘Didn’t you?’
She remembered the car, the dark car pulling out of the side road near Luke’s. ‘I didn’t know it was you,’ she said, her voice choking with the pain of speaking. ‘I didn’t…’
He let go of her. ‘But never mind. There was Hagan’s bike, all ready to go.’ He looked petulant. ‘I hit him, but he wouldn’t go down. He kept fighting. Thick Paddy shit. Skull like iron. But he went down in the end. Bye-bye, Hagan.’ He was pulling the cord tight again as he spoke, excited by the memory. He smiled and ran a caressing hand over her. ‘So it all worked out for the best.’ He released the cord slightly and said, ‘I’ll take the bike back. It’s only a loan. And they’ll find Hagan’s blood under your fingernails when they find you, and they’ll find the bike smashed into the back of the lock-up. They won’t look too hard.’
Luke. She could feel the tears running down her face. She knew it was the worst thing she could do, but she couldn’t stop herself as the fear combined with the grief and somewhere the will to fight drained out of her. He jerked the cord tighter and lights were flashing in front of her eyes as the pressure built up. He was going to tighten and release it, tighten and release it as he’d done before. He was going to play with her, take her through the experience of death several times while he had his party. He must have done this to Gemma. She tried to pull back against the pressure of the cord. Make him apply more pressure than he realized, strangle her quickly, let him have his party on his own.
There was a blackness closing in round the edges of her vision and her lungs were screaming for air. She couldn’t stop herself from struggling and the pressure in her head and in her chest was more than she could bear. She felt a sudden flood of warmth as her bladder let go, and heard him laughing, a distant, echoing sound. Then the lights were stronger, a flashing, pulsing blue and the pressure on her neck released, suddenly, and she was gagging, retching, and she threw up, her body convulsing as the car door opened and he vanished into the darkness. And there were voices and shouting. Everything seemed far away and distant and all that mattered was trying to breathe as she choked on her own vomit, twisting her body round to cough and clear her throat and lungs.
And someone was saying, ‘Roz. It’s all right, it’s all right, we’re police officers. You’re safe,’ and her hands were free and she was falling out of the car into the arms of the woman who had spoken. The blue lights were still flashing, and in the noise and the chaos, Sean’s face loomed out of the darkness for a moment and she thought she was going to wake up in the car again and hear his voice in her ear, but the face disappeared and the woman who was supporting her, who was struggling one-handed out of her jacket to wrap it round Roz, was saying, ‘You’re safe, we’ve got him, it’s OK, he can’t hurt you any more.’
And then she thought, Luke. And it all went dark.
22
The man they pulled out of Roz Bishop’s car fought for a minute, then gave up the struggle. He said nothing after the obscenities he shouted at the arresting officers, but his wallet contained bank cards and a driver’s licence in the name of Sean Lewis. He agreed by means of a single nod of the head that this was his name. He said nothing else until, two hours later in the interview room in Hull Police HQ, Farnham charged him with the attempted rape and murder of Roz Bishop. Then he told them that it had been consensual sex. ‘It was her idea, playing a rape fantasy game,’ he said. ‘She likes that.’ Then he said, ‘I want my solicitor.’
Lynne Jordan kept in contact with the hospital in Sheffi
eld where Roz Bishop was being treated for shock and minor injuries. ‘They’re keeping her in overnight,’ the police officer who had been assigned to the case told her.
‘Did she say anything?’ Lynne said.
‘She kept asking about Luke Hagan. It sounds like Lewis told her what he’d done to Hagan. But she said – hang on, I wrote it down – she said about Lewis…’ He began reading: ‘“Lewis said that Gemma recognized the voice, only she didn’t know she’d recognized the voice. That was why she needed the archive. He said it was a game.” Then she got in a state and the paramedic shut me up.’
Gemma had recognized the voice. It wasn’t Oksana’s identity that had to be concealed – Gemma, presumably, could link Oksana with Holbrook. Gemma had been very dangerous to Lewis. ‘What’s the news on Luke Hagan?’
‘Nothing yet. He’s still in surgery.’
‘Is he going to make it?’ Lynne wondered how many deaths would lie at Lewis’s door.
‘Touch and go,’ the man said, and Lynne left it at that.
Sheffield, Monday night, Tuesday morning
Roz woke up. She was in a small, bare room with a high window. The bed she was lying on felt both clean and uncomfortable. A hospital bed. A ceiling bulb cast a flat light. I don’t want to wake up in the dark! She could remember saying that to the nurse who had administered an injection. ‘To help you relax,’ she’d said over Roz’s queries. She felt strangely alert, slightly distanced from her surroundings. The dim light reminded her of the light in the car, and her mind began to form the voice and her throat began to ache where he had pulled the cord tight.
But there was something else. She’d asked and asked before she would let them treat her, pushing them away until they told her. Luke had been ‘hurt’ they said. They didn’t know, they said. They couldn’t tell her. But in the end, the police officer who had held her as she fell out of the car had said, ‘Roz, listen. Luke’s alive, but he’s badly hurt. He’s in theatre, and it’ll be a few hours before they have anything to tell you. That’s the truth.’ Now let them get on with it, was the unspoken addition, and Roz had stopped fighting.