For a moment Hunter stood, unmoving, holding his breath, listening intently, but the only sound he could hear was the rain sploshing in newly formed puddles. He couldn’t even hear the dog barking from earlier and taking a step forward, he slipped the chain out between the handles, twisted one of them outwards and tugged open the door. The ease with which it sprung open took him by surprise, and he almost stumbled backwards, only his tight grip on the handle saving him from falling onto his backside. As he took a step into the container, the stench hit him and he instantly knew what it was, because he had smelt it numerous times before. Death! There was something dead in here, and he could guess what.
Removing the torch from between his teeth, Hunter flashed it inside. The light hit the back of a car that looked as if it had been burnt out, and grey metal beneath blistered paintwork. The rear window was shattered and inside Hunter could make out the charred framework of the back seats. Pinching his nose, he swung his torch beyond the car. The ray hit the back of the container, picking out what appeared to be photographs and several old newspaper articles stuck up on the metal wall. He couldn’t make out any of the details from this distance, but there was a big enough gap between the car and the sides for him to get closer, though first he wanted to check if he had got all the clues right. The smell told him he had. Targeting the boot with his torch, he stepped towards the car, pressed the boot release button and pulled it up.
The smell that hit him this time made him step back. It was horrendous. But what was even worse was the sight before him. He had found Rasa. She was bound by builders ties, hands and ankles, exactly like the doll he had received, and her head was encased in a plastic bag that almost shrink-wrapped her face. Her eyes were wide open, her look a mask of terror, leaving no doubt about the suffering she had endured in her final moments.
Pulling away his torch, Hunter stepped back outside. I need to call out the troops. He had just reached his phone in his pocket when an intense pain shot across the back of his head and he was propelled forwards, flashing stars blurring his sight. As he hit the ground, the lights went out.
All Hunter could feel was a throbbing ache in his head. It felt like it was about to burst with white flashes blurring his vision. He blinked hard, trying to clear his eyes, and that only increased the pain, causing him to stiffen. What happened? His thoughts were as fuzzy as his vision.
He tried to move but couldn’t. His hands and feet were stuck. He squeezed his eyes shut and blinked a second time, swiping away a film of tears, and this time his sight recovered. He saw he was in a long room with dirty cream walls, and he quickly worked out the white flashes were coming from an overhead fluorescent light that wasn’t working properly. When he spotted the grimy windows with grilles, he realised where he was. The portacabin in the dismantlers yard. At the same time, he realised why he couldn’t move when his eyes dropped to his wrists and he saw that they were bound by plastic ties to the arms of a chair. His thoughts quickly flashed back to him finding Rasa’s body and then the explosion of pain inside his head. Someone must have hit him from behind. He tugged at the tie on his right wrist, but it was fastened tight.
‘Ah, so you’re awake.’
Hunter snapped his head sideways, his eyes settling on someone sitting at a desk, a row of greasy green filing cabinets behind him. He was dressed in a blue boiler suit and was wearing a werewolf mask. Hunter could see the man had been working out with weights. He recalled Maddie telling him about the woman who’d been attacked by the man with the mask and knew this had to be the same person. He said, ‘Dylan Wolfe?’ and then swallowed hard. His mouth was dry.
The man slowly removed the mask, grinning as he did. As he pulled it over his head, Hunter saw it was Dylan, though he had changed dramatically since his last sighting of him. His face was criss-crossed by ugly scars, and his hair was thinner — he now had a widow’s peak. Hunter’s eyes rested on the red weals snaking across from one side of his face to the other.
Dylan wagged his finger, a wicked grin playing across his mouth. ‘I knew you’d work out the clues. I wasn’t wrong.’
Hunter’s mind went into overdrive. He couldn’t help but think of what had almost happened to him six weeks ago on Sark when Billy Wallace had pointed a gun at him. That had been bad, but somehow this situation seemed worse. He needed to buy himself time. Licking his dry lips, he responded, ‘You know we can work something out, don’t you, Dylan? If you untie me now, I’ll never mentioned this happened.’
The smile grew wider on Dylan’s face. He slowly shook his head. ‘I can see what you’re trying to do, Detective Sergeant Kerr, but that’s not going to work. You and I have some unfinished business.’ Suddenly, his face straightened. The look he returned was vengeful. ‘You did this,’ he spat out, arcing a finger back and forth across his face. ‘And you’re going to pay.’
Hunter’s stomach emptied and he could feel a band tightening his chest. ‘If you harm me, Dylan, you’re never going to get out. Think sensibly about this.’
‘I am thinking sensibly. I’ve thought of nothing else for nineteen years.’
Focus. Think what you can do. What to say. Hunter said, ‘It doesn’t have to be this way, Dylan. You’re only making it worse for yourself. The police’ll be here soon.’
Dylan let out a sharp, ‘Ha,’ then answered, ‘No they won’t. You came here alone. I saw you arrive. And you never had time to call them.’
Dylan arrowed a finger down at the desk, and Hunter could see he was pointing to his mobile.
‘This is just me and you, Detective Sergeant Kerr. And do you know what’s going through my head?’
‘Whatever it is, Dylan, you don’t need to do this. You don’t need to make things worse for yourself. I know we can work something out.’
‘I don’t want to work something out. You’ve already ruined my life, and now I’m going to ruin yours.’ Dylan pushed himself up and came from behind the desk, reaching into his boiler suit pocket. As he walked towards Hunter, he pulled out a plastic bag, shaking it from its folds.
Hunter’s mind began racing, his heart pounding as fast as his thoughts. ‘Don’t be stupid, Dylan,’ he shouted, straining to get free. His chair began to rock.
Dylan grabbed the back of the chair, halting Hunter’s momentum. ‘Do you know, I’ve watched several people die now, but the greatest thrill of them all came from putting a plastic bag over Rasa’s head and watching her struggle. Boy, was that some buzz.’
‘Dylan, there’s still time to stop this.’
Dylan shook the plastic bag again, lifting it in front of Hunter’s face. ‘I reckon you’ll last two minutes, tops. What do you think? I’m going to get such pleasure watching you suffer.’ He opened out the bag and slipped it over Hunter’s head.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘Hunter!’
The cry was somewhere distant at the back of his mind, and he thought he recognised it. The call came again, and someone, or something, shook his shoulders. This time he recognised the voice and he blinked open his eyes. ‘Grace!’ he cried, as her anxious face broke through the fogginess of his vision.
‘Hunter. Thank God.’
‘What’s happened?’ His head was still stinging and thumping. Then, everything came into focus. He remembered Dylan putting the plastic bag over his head and the panic it caused when he couldn’t breathe. He remembered the taste of plastic as he sucked hard and then nothing else. He must have passed out. He looked around him. He was lying on the floor, no longer tied to the chair. Two young uniform cops were standing over him, concerned looks on their faces. He pulled back his gaze to Grace and said, ‘How?’
Grace answered, ‘I was having a drink with the team when I got your message, so I rang your mobile half a dozen times but it kept going to voicemail and I had a sense that something wasn’t right, so I rang Beth. She told me you’d gone out. Told her it was something to do with work, and I guessed it was to do with those photos you had sent me earlier. I got them to put a trace on you
r phone and saw you were here, so I called for back-up and drove straight here. It’s a good job I did.’ She paused, taking a deep breath. ‘I thought you were dead.’ She gently punched his arm. ‘Don’t you dare do that again. You scared me.’
‘Scared you? How do you think I felt? I thought I was a goner.’ Hunter made an attempt to push himself up on an elbow, but he went light-headed, stars invading the back of his eyes, and he let himself back down.
‘Just stay there, Hunter. An ambulance is on its way.’
‘I don’t need an ambulance. Once I get my breath back, I’ll be okay.’
‘One’s on its way. Now don’t argue.’
Hunter gave Grace a weak smile. He said, ‘Dylan?’
‘We got him. He tried to escape but the helicopter was up. They found him in the next compound.’ She smiled. ‘A guard dog bit him.’
Hunter started to laugh, but his throat was so dry it turned into a painful cough. ‘Summary justice,’ he said, closing his eyes for a moment and thinking what could have happened to him had it not been for Grace’s quick thinking. He opened his eyes, and giving her hand a quick squeeze, he said, ‘Thank you.’
‘You owe me big time, Hunter Kerr,’ she smiled cynically. ‘And now do as you’re told and wait for the ambulance. And don’t argue if you have to go to hospital.’
‘I promise, Miss,’ he answered, crossing his chest.
Sitting up in a cubicle bed at Barnwell General, Hunter watched a nurse fit a blood pressure cuff around his arm. It was 10.30 p.m. In the hour since he’d been brought in, he had been assessed by a doctor, told he had a nasty cut on the back of his head that required suturing and then whipped down to the X-ray department. Now he was waiting for the results. As the pressure cuff started to squeeze his upper arm, he sought out the eyes of the nurse, wanting to ask questions as to his well-being. She was watching the digital read-out on the machine.
‘How are you feeling?’ she asked, not removing her gaze from the machine.
‘Got a stinking headache.’
‘Not surprised. That’s a nasty cut you’ve got. We’re just waiting for the doctor to view your X-rays and see if everything’s all right, and then I can give you some paracetamol for the pain. Do you have any dizziness at all?’
Hunter started to shake his head, but that caused a fresh bout of pain, and wincing, he instantly stopped the movement. ‘No, just a thumping headache.’
‘There’s a possibility you might have concussion, so I can’t give you anything until the doctor’s checked you over.’
The blood-pressure cuff slackened on his arm. The nurse studied the read-out and made a note on his chart. ‘It’s a little high, but nothing to worry about,’ she said, removing the cuff. ‘I’ll take it again in an hour.’ Hooking the chart over the end of his cubicle bed, she said, ‘Is there anyone you need telling you’re here?’
He was about to say Beth, when the cubicle curtains swung to one side and Beth appeared, a male nurse behind her. The male nurse said, ‘Mr Kerr’s wife is here.’
‘Do you have a death wish or something?’ she greeted him, and before he had time to respond, she added, ‘Don’t you think I’ve got enough on my plate at the moment, without worrying about you?’
Hunter noticed both nurses had adopted ‘it’s time for us to go’ looks, which was reinforced when the staff nurse treating him said, ‘I think we can leave you now your wife’s here. I’ll be back with the doctor as soon as he’s free.’ And with that, both nurses left.
Suddenly laden with guilt, Hunter answered, ‘Who told you I was here?’
‘Grace phoned me. Told me you’d been attacked by someone you were looking for. I spoke with the nurse when I got here, and he said you’d got a badly cut head that needed stitches and that you’d been down for X-rays. They’re just monitoring you for concussion.’ In the same breath, she continued, ‘Let’s take a look at the damage, then.’
Hunter lifted his head from the pillow and leaned forward. Beth loomed over him and started rooting gently through his hair. Even though he knew the wound had been cleaned, it stung as she parted the strands. He closed his eyes, holding his breath until she’d finished looking. As he rested his head, he asked, ‘Is it bad?’
‘No lasting damage. Your hair will cover the scar. He should have hit you harder, then he might have knocked some sense into you.’
‘I didn’t ask for this, Beth.’
‘Didn’t ask for this! You go off spinning me a yarn that you have something to chase up for work, and then I find out from Grace that you’ve been found at some godforsaken scrapyard with your head half bashed in, and that you’d gone there on your own, and you have the gall to say you didn’t ask for this?’
Thank God Grace hadn’t mentioned anything about him being tied to a chair and almost suffocated. He said, ‘I thought the place was derelict. I didn’t expect to find anybody there. He took me by surprise.’ He watched Beth shaking her head at him.
‘What am I going to do with you, Hunter Kerr? One day, you’re going to give me a heart attack.’
He held her gaze, suddenly feeling very emotional as it hit home how differently things might have ended. It was a good thing Grace had had the intuition that something wasn’t right and had his phone signal traced. He swallowed hard. ‘I’m really sorry, Beth.’
‘You’ve got a lot of making up to do, Hunter.’
‘I will. I promise.’
Breaking into a relieved smile, she slowly shook her head. ‘Right, shall we see where that doctor is? Then we can get you home.’
Hunter awoke with a start, flinching at the sharp pain that came from the pull of the seven stitches at the back of his head. He rolled over onto his side and looked at the time on his bedside clock. 9.38 a.m. Surprisingly, he had slept for almost nine hours. It had to be the medication, he told himself with a smile. Last night they had got in just before midnight, and after seeing off his mum and dad with a short explanation of what had happened and a thank you for babysitting the boys, Beth had given him two co-codamol tablets with a generous measure of whisky. He had been so wired he thought he would have had trouble dropping off, but the whisky and tablets dulled the pain and relaxed him into sleep.
Now, despite the dull ache in his head, he felt remarkably refreshed, and throwing back the duvet he pushed himself out of bed and headed for the bathroom. He showered carefully, only dampening his hair, and dressed in his suit — he had to go to work, in spite of being told by the doctor he should take it easy for twenty-four hours.
Downstairs he found Beth in the kitchen. She didn’t need to be at work until one o’clock. She turned as he entered, looking him up and down, and then threw him a scornful gaze.
‘It was pointless the doctor telling you to take it easy today, wasn’t it?’ she said.
He finished tying the knot in his tie, drawing it up towards his shirt collar. ‘I can’t. There are things I need to do. Anyway, I’m only sat at a desk. It’s not as though I’m doing heavy manual work.’
‘Sat at a desk? I know you. You’ll be off back to the scrapyard, I’ll bet.’
‘I won’t. They won’t let me anywhere near it. It’s now a crime scene. I promise I’ll stay at my desk. I’ll take a couple more co-codamol and that will see me right. If I start feeling dizzy, I’ll get Maddie to bring me home.’
Beth searched his face for a moment and then said, ‘Make sure you do that, Hunter Kerr. I don’t want you back in hospital. I’ve got enough on without looking after you as well.’ She switched on the kettle and popped some bread into the toaster. ‘What with Sark and now this, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you. You’re more trouble than the boys.’
Hunter let out a sharp laugh. ‘Okay. Lecture over. I hear you loud and clear. I’ll see what’s happening and then get off early, if that’s any help?’
‘And I’ve heard that before as well,’ she snorted, adding milk to two mugs.
Hunter gave Beth a peck on the cheek and took over making the
tea. He remembered his phone was still at the vehicle dismantlers and said, ‘Has anyone rung?’
‘Grace,’ Beth answered. ‘She rang an hour ago and said that she’s gone to the yard and that she’ll be in touch later.’
Hunter nodded as he poured two teas.
Maddie fussed over Hunter the moment he stepped into the office, wanting to know the whole story, and while she made him a cuppa, he shared what had happened, after which he rang Grace on his desk phone. She answered on the third ring.
‘Are you still at the yard?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Forensics are here. They got here half an hour ago. We locked the place down last night, and after briefing this morning me and Mike came down here with the DCI to make a start. Where are you?’
He told her he had just got into the office. ‘What’s St. John-Stevens like?’
‘He’s seething. And on the warpath. He’s been quizzing me as to what I know. I told him I’d just got that text from you last night and showed it to him and left it at that. I haven’t shown him the images from the second package you received. I’ve played dumb.’
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