During the flight, Will’s discomfort was exacerbated by the agony radiating from his stomach. He was sure something was seriously wrong. The pain was intensifying and he was terrified he’d have to be hospitalised as soon as they touched down. On the move he’d been able to ignore its nagging, but now his body was stationary it demanded his full attention. He swallowed the painkillers the air steward administered to no effect. He was told if he needed more he’d have to purchase his own medication when they landed.
The red dot on the GPS site had vanished. The same had happened when Libby had taken off for Bangkok. It would be a good few hours before the woman would materialise again.
He tried to concentrate on the contracts and the territories Ingram’s pipes intersected, scanned correspondence relating to objections to the work and the settlements that had been reached. But past the pain his mind could only project what was happening to Libby at that very moment, that very second. No further photo of her or Luke had been posted on the website.
The pain seethed, its every spasm growing more urgent. He needed to be examined soon, but prayed he could remain mobile for as long as he needed to. Sleep only overpowered him for seconds at a time.
Tam had resisted sleep for as long as he could, gripping his black nail and squeezing it to keep his eyelids apart. But when the sliding door slammed open he briefly thought he was curled up in his bed at home.
Morning daylight flushed out the halogen yellow. His parents would know he was gone by now, but why would they ever look for him here? As the chickens stirred and recoiled he switched from sitting to kneeling in the droppings and risked a peek around the side of the cage stack.
Skinny Man was pushing the cage with the immobile girl in it towards the open door. The bottom of it hissed and scraped against the matted floor. The other man was silhouetted by white light.
“She’s out of it. Leave the cage here. I’ll reverse down and we can lift her in.”
The taller man disappeared up the ramp. Tam hadn’t understood what he’d said, but it was obvious they were moving her. Would they leave the door unlocked after they’d left or would this be his only chance to make a break for it?
He watched Skinny Man extract a key from his shorts and unlock the cage. He dragged the girl out by her ankles like she was a sack of feed and stood looking over her, touching his tender eye socket while he waited for the other man to return. The woman seemed to have delayed reactions and from her position of lying on her spine tried to lift her shoulders from the floor. Skinny Man leaned down and struck her harshly with the back of his hand. Tam winced as the impact reverberated around the chicken house.
Cold reality poured over Libby like dry ice. She’d been tucked into the recesses of unconsciousness for hours on end and wanted to burrow back inside. Her instinct told her only pain awaited her outside of it, but she knew she couldn’t hide there forever. Awareness of a physical self and her location in reality sluggishly returned.
Not at home. Penang. Darkened hotel bedroom with Luke?
Her face buzzed as she took some deeper breaths. The sourness of panic and stale air reminded her of what covered her head. She could still hear the chickens; feel the bite in her shoulder and the chill moisture between her legs. Her body reconstructed itself, nerve endings rushing signals to her brain.
Protect the baby.
She had to get them both away from harm. But having lain bound and motionless for so long her body felt like a rusted and reluctant engine.
Libby imagined herself encircling her child with her arms, every sinew contracting and bracing for the supreme effort needed to move.
The girl didn’t make a sound as Tam watched her shoulders rise again. This time Skinny Man knelt over her and clamped the bottom part of her hood so she couldn’t breath. His arm trembled with the exertion and her body started to buck. A scant smile scuttled over his face and Skinny Man only glanced briefly away from his enjoyment of her suffocation to check the other man hadn’t returned.
Tam felt something jar loose inside him as Skinny Man released her face and struck her again. The blow was even harder and her head twisted to one side.
He remembered his father striking his sister and his mother striking his father to make him stop. It was the night Songsuda had been thrown out of the house, when she’d said all those things to him that hadn’t made any sense.
Skinny Man checked the doorway again and then dragged the girl’s head up by grabbing hold of the line around her throat. He was going to hit her again and balled his fist in readiness.
Tam was already out of his hiding place, had the handle of the screwdriver clutched tightly in his fingers. He aimed it at Skinny Man’s calf and felt the skin resistance burst as it went in. Skinny Man howled and his body rolled away from the girl. Tam bolted for the daylight.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
It was much later in the flight, during one of the moments his head nodding whipped him awake, that Will was hit by the realisation. The thought emerged unbidden from the blank void of his mind’s brief shutdown. Was she ahead of him or could she be on the same plane?
Her timetable so far allowed her to release location details after her own arrival. But she’d only left the apartment in Chicago minutes before he had. He’d cabbed it from the park to the airport in under an hour. How many flights had there been prior to his?
At least four different airlines were operating flights out of Chicago so she must have made an earlier departure. The one prior to his had been cancelled, however. He hadn’t checked the GPS at the airport because he’d assumed she’d already left and that he wouldn’t need to track her until he got to Singapore. He turned on his laptop and opened the map, still no red dot.
The idea dug in and, having taken his place in first class after the rest of the plane had been boarded, he speculated as to who was seated beyond the curtains behind him. He considered how synchronising her arrival at the different homes with the presence of the victims would necessitate knowing exactly when she would find them in. The Ambersons had been the easiest. They were first and had been on vacation. But what about Strick’s visit to his ex-wife, Monro’s schedule and whoever had been murdered that afternoon in the Chicago apartment? She obviously knew their routines. Her journey hinged on careful timing.
Molly’s escape had proved the woman was fallible. Had she not been able to find Monro’s daughter or had she run out of time? He weighed the thought for a couple more minutes and then unclipped his seatbelt. He’d drawn it tightly across the pain and felt the ache spread as it was released. He got unsteadily to his feet.
A young, Singaporean air stewardess, wearing a multi-coloured smock, smiled at him through immaculate cosmetics as he made his way past her. He parted the orange curtain and stepped into business class.
The flight wasn’t oversubscribed and only twenty or so people populated the short section of black leather seats. Windows were shuttered and lights were dimmed and many of the passengers were under blue blankets or dozing wearing headphones. Will still had a vivid recollection of the slender profile and build of the woman as she’d left the apartment bedroom. He squinted through the dingy light at each occupant.
There was nobody that vaguely corresponded with his mental identikit so he moved into the standard accommodation beyond. The largest seating area was only two thirds full, which made it easier to glimpse down the rows the inhabitants had spread out in. It was the same scenario, post-meal snoozing and only the occasional reading light switched on. The atmosphere was cool and dry.
With most of the reclining passengers asleep it was easier to look directly at them and eliminate faces row by row. A whiskered pensioner looked briefly up from the glow of his iPad. A woman’s head twitched in his direction as he passed, but her mascara-rimmed eyes remained closed. Will was soon halfway down the cabin.
“Excuse me,” a female voice said behind him.
He turned and then stood aside in an empty row while another stewardess dragged a trol
ley backwards. She passed him, heading towards the curtained area at the tail end of the plane. She smiled and he nodded, waiting for her to get nearer to her station before following behind.
He continued his examination. A teenager wired up to the in-flight movie ignored him, as did a woman whose stark white hair was the same colour as her knitting. There were only two rows left before he was at the curtain. He got a quizzical look from the stewardess.
“The restrooms are the other way,” she advised, while she emptied the trays from the trolley.
Will nodded, but kept on walking towards her, as if he hadn’t heard.
The stewardess knew he had and the smile became a deterrent. Will nodded and opened his mouth as if it had suddenly sunk in. He turned. He’d be able to inspect the last rows on his way back. He glanced left then right as he passed the first. Empty. In the second, however, a woman was under a blanket in the seat nearest the window.
She was lying on her side facing him, but the blanket was over her head. He stopped and examined the only parts of her that were visible – the white, ringed fingers of her hand uncoiled in the seat and the tops of her legs clad in black slacks. He could still feel the eyes of the stewardess on him. Without deliberating further he leaned across and gently tugged the blanket.
The face that was revealed was of a sleeping woman with broad cheekbones, her dark curls tucked up under a black velvet headband. She looked to be mid to late forties. He scrutinised her oblivious features for a moment longer and then felt the stewardess behind him. He started back to first class without turning round.
Before he’d made it through the curtains to business, she appeared from the bathroom.
She saw him, but didn’t react, merely returned her attention to pulling the door closed. Then she casually turned and gauged his expression. It prompted a faint, lopsided smile. His discovery of her presence didn’t faze her at all.
“Pardon me,” she said almost imperceptibly, nodded respectfully and then angled her lithe body to move past.
Will’s senses stalled, his sudden proximity to her allowing him to absorb the human details of somebody far from human. The intense overhead light made her pale features seem anaemic. Even though she looked tired and fragile there was no denying the bony elegance of her face. It was without blemish, but he could see a small group of dark freckles below her right ear, just peeping from the high-necked collar of her fawn suit. It was like somebody had flicked them there with a brush.
He could smell her scent as she tried to move round him: berries and incense. Her slender fingers clutched the canary yellow clutch purse. Was the phone still inside? Her long, dark mane shone glossily as she moved to his left.
As he remained motionless, her elongated eyelashes flicked up. Something was missing, something humane absent from her demeanour. As their pupils engaged it allowed him to see past her facade to what hid behind it – raw, hostile intelligence appraising him.
She returned her attention to the gap beside him. “Pardon me, please.” She spoke slightly louder, but retained a similar politeness to the stewardess. It was the voice from the end of the telephone. American accent.
That the slight, fragrant woman rustling around him was capable of mutilating women and children would have been inconceivable to anyone on the plane. His joints remained jammed.
She addressed his chest. “Ironic that we meet properly on a plane.” Her tone was companionable. “Excuse me…” She waited, a muscle slightly twitching below her ear. Will noticed her eyebrows were pencilled on.
She’d acknowledged their association and Will realised he had no choice but to comply. He leaned his body away from her as she stepped past.
“Please, return to your seat now,” she said without turning.
He watched her walk to hers. An athletic guy in a Foo Fighters tee shirt was dozing at the end of the row. He got quickly to his feet and bowed slightly as she squeezed past to get to the window.
He realised her presence had no consequence. What could he do? Restrain her; attack her? He would probably end up being pinned down by the other passengers and taken into custody. How could he prove anything? Show them the website? Why would they believe she’d constructed it?
Nothing had changed. Whoever she was, she still had the power of life and death over Libby. Nothing he felt compelled to do could result in his daughter’s safe return. The woman may as well have been seated in first class with him.
She leaned forward and plucked a magazine from the back of the seat, opening it casually and tilted her head so her hair hung down one side of her face. She flicked it back. He knew she wouldn’t look up until he’d left.
The manner in which she’d casually navigated past him proved she was sticking to the programme, regardless of any unforeseen events.
She licked the edge of her thumb and turned a page.
She didn’t care that he’d seen her. That in itself was more frightening than where they were headed.
Her instruction had been genteel but categorical and all he could do was obey. Will staggered back to his seat. The plane was experiencing turbulence and the stewardess asked him to secure his seatbelt. The pain throbbed against it.
He visualised her sitting back from him, leafing through the magazine, considered what those fingers had done.
He maximised the website on his laptop and again examined the images of the Singapore address. Whenever the photos had been furtively snatched the rooms had been in the middle of being decorated. Will could identify a small bathroom and kitchen. Most of the furnishings in the other quarters were covered in dustsheets and slid out of the way of metallic stepladders. For the second time the snaps had been taken standing inside the rooms. Was she showing him how easy it was to intrude?
His flight was about to deliver the murderer of whoever lived there. And soon he would be visiting the real rooms to examine her handiwork.
Ironic that we meet properly on a plane.
What the hell did that mean?
The first of Tam’s senses to revive was his smell. He identified an all-too familiar aroma and knew where he was before he opened his eyes. He was inside the cage, a terrifying place that had seemed so far removed from his world even though only thin wire had separated him from it.
The girl was with him. He was lying on his side facing her and through the murk of waking he could just discern the dark material of her hood gently bowing inwards and outwards with her breath.
He tried to sit up, but couldn’t. Blood pumped heavily at his wrists and ankles where they were bound and his cheeks ached around the large bung of cloth in his mouth. He instinctively yelled, but doing so vibrated the mucous at the back of his throat and blocked the air supply through his nostrils. He spluttered and punched some holes through the snot to let in oxygen.
The girl didn’t react, even when he nudged his shoulder against hers. The beating she’d taken had probably put her out cold. Another pain hit him and his scalp clung tighter to his skull with each pump of his heart. The other man had struck him on the head and the injury had been waiting for him to wake. He remembered rolling down the ramp and wondered how badly the fall had injured the other parts of his body. But his bonds were cutting off all sensation and he could scarcely move anything below his neck.
How long had he been lying here unconscious? He thought of his mother and father looking for him and his eyes immediately boiled over with tears. The sliding door was shut again now and probably locked. The halogen bulbs were out. His lashes chopped the tears across the bridge of his nose and he felt them pool cold under his cheek. Fear released itself in whimpers until it eventually subsided.
Then he remembered the cage wire he’d unstapled. If he could just sit up he could push himself to the back with his feet and slither through the gap. His stomach muscles tensed. Dark shapes swooped over him like birds across a skylight. His body wanted him unconscious again. The floor of the cage capsized as he bit down on his gag and hinged upwards.
He hun
g there, a furnace of blood in his ears as he tried to lever himself all the way. The birds flocked around him, sensations draining away. He ground his eyes, clenched his stomach hard and counted to eighteen before he was sitting straight.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Fatigue snatched ever-longer moments from Will. His brain slid into a familiar place and, for a moment, he inhabited the wet body, choked on the bubbles and felt the urgency of the prisoner’s revolutions within the paint pot. He opened his eyes, but still heard its claws scoring the sides.
The crab had dropped from the sky. They’d been anticipating rain but, as they’d waited for the grubby gang of clouds to reach the beach, it had landed on an outcrop of rocks at the shoreline. He’d turned to his parents for an explanation. Neither of them had shifted their gaze to his, but their expressions clearly said they didn’t have one.
Nothing ever happened in their small, private, Dorset cove a hundred and thirteen steps from the bottom of their garden. It had been predominantly his territory for line fishing and building driftwood fires and his mother and father’s presence had been rare. But that afternoon his mother had suggested they all eat together on the beach and had even managed to drag his father from his study for the occasion. They were just about to get a head start on the storm, when the animal had crash-landed a few feet away from where they were seated on a blanket.
The crab had pitched on its back and its legs clawed at the sky until it toppled from the edge of the rock pool and embedded itself on its side in the wet sand. Then the ugly gull had swooped down. It had been huge and had patches of feathers missing and a yellow, misshapen beak. It had flipped the crab onto its back and viciously pecked at its stomach until it had impaled it. It had taken off again, circling and then swooping at the rocks, releasing the crab so the velocity of the fall broke it against the jagged ridges. It had been trying to split it open.
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