‘Yes, I know my Pauley,’ he resumed. ‘That’s why I was able to lure you here.’
‘Lure me?’
Bird laughed. It was a genuine, hearty laugh. ‘Yes. I set a kind of trap for you. A trail for you to follow. You don’t think you’ve suddenly become Sherlock Holmes, do you? Picking up clues, making deductions and tracing Professor Moriarty to his secret lair?’ He laughed again. ‘Actually, I think you do. Well, think again, Sherlock. I set you up! You see, I knew you would visit my house and give it the once-over – the special Snow search. I needed to leave you something there to draw you to me.’
A chill finger stroked Snow’s spine. ‘The invoices in the bin …’ It was almost a whisper – a whisper to himself. Snow bit his lip with frustration. He had been well and truly fooled.
Bird was laughing again. ‘As I was placing them in the bin, making sure one was smeared with baked bean sauce, I couldn’t help but smile as I saw you in my mind’s eye, finding them and thinking “Bingo, I’ve got him.” Unfortunately, the reverse applies: Bingo, I’ve got you.’
‘And what about the girl?’
‘What girl?’
‘You know damn well which girl. Where is she? Have you harmed her?’
‘Now that would be telling.’
‘Colin, think, for goodness’ sake. You’ve been foolish and you won’t get away with this, but if you add murder to kidnap …’
‘Oh, I know all about that. I’ll end up in a nasty cell and be spat at and beaten up by loads of unpleasant folk and never walk the streets again. You never know my luck; I might get buggered inside as well.’
Bird’s eyes rolled wildly now and Snow could see that the man’s slide into madness was exacerbated by his intake of marijuana and alcohol. In this growing state of instability there was no telling what the mad bastard would do.
‘Let me help you, Colin. The situation is not hopeless.’
‘Help me? How the bloody hell are you going to help me?’
‘We could work it out. If the girl is alive, we can sort it. You’re right, I do live in a straitjacket. Perhaps now it’s time to take the thing off.’
Bird sneered broadly at first and then his features darkened. ‘A bit late in the day for that, Pauley.’
Snow shook his head. ‘No, no. You’re right. I see that now. Let me be a mensch.’
‘You don’t think I’m going to fall for this particular line of bluff taking, do you?’
‘You’ve got to listen to me. I’m serious and honest. Come on, Colin, I’m your only hope. Just as long as the girl is all right.’
‘The girl! The fucking girl! That’s all you’re worried about, isn’t it? Let’s save the brat and to hell with me then.’
Snow shook his head. ‘You’re missing the point, Colin. The girl is the key. If she’s unharmed, I can work this, I can work this for both of us. Remember, at the moment I’m the only one who is on to you. If we can return the girl to her family, it will be relatively easy to cover up the traces. You need never figure in the matter.’
‘And why would you do that? Why would you do that for me?’
‘The truth?’
‘The truth!’
‘To save the girl’s life – and to give you a chance. To give us a chance.’
‘Us.’
‘Yes, you and me. You have made me see how … wrong I’ve been in my attitude to my sexuality. It is possible…’
‘Now … now you say this. Now, when it’s too late.’
‘Too late? What do you mean? The girl …’
‘I don’t mean the girl anything. I mean us. How could we get together after all this? How could we trust each other?’
‘We’d have to learn. Time would help. Soon this could just be a bad memory.’
Bird shook his head. ‘No, no, it’s gone too far.’
‘Not yet it hasn’t – but what’s the alternative to my suggestion? Are you going to kill me and that innocent little girl just out of spite, fury? Just because you can’t get your own way? That way madness lies.’
Colin Bird gazed at Snow for some moments, his moist features trembling, and then he sank back in the chair with a groan. He dropped the spliff in an ashtray and covered his face with his hands. Paul could not tell if he was crying or not. His body was shaking with emotion, whether it was with despair or twisted amusement, it was difficult to say. Whatever, Paul knew that he couldn’t sit quietly and wait for Bird to make his own mind up about things. He had to persevere, persuade, cajole, bring the crazy bastard around to his way of thinking.
‘Stop it now, Colin. Untie me and we can start to make things right. I can help you, you know that.’
Bird let out a roar and rose from the chair, waving his arms wildly in the air. His face was damp with tears. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know,’ he bellowed, staggering forward a few steps before slumping backwards into the chair once more. ‘I should stick to my plan. I should,’ he said suddenly, all emotion draining from his face. ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m gonna stick to my plan. I’ve thought the whole thing through. Worked out the details carefully, meticulously. It would be foolish to abandon it now. I’m sorry, Paul, but I can’t trust you. You say one thing now, but if I let you go free, how do I know you won’t turn on me again? Reject me. Try to get me arrested. Sent down for life.’
Snow shook his head violently. ‘No, Colin, I won’t. We can be together. We can work it out. Trust me!’
‘No! No! I don’t trust you. The time for talking is over. I need to kill you and then the girl.’ He shrugged his shoulders almost in a kind of apologetic gesture. ‘You see,’ he said softly, ‘I’ve got to stick to my plan.’
TWENTY-NINE
In the small bedroom at the back of the cottage, Colin Bird’s strident voice had roused Elizabeth Saunders from her drugged slumber. At first she stirred uneasily and her eyes opened wide, the pupils slowly adjusting to the gloom. With some effort she pulled herself up into a sitting position and waited for her vision to stabilise. A feeble flickering nightlight on the bedside table revealed that she was in a small bedroom.
It was not her own.
This fact distressed her, as did the sudden realisation that her hands were tied together in front of her with thin rope. How did that happen? Who did that to her?
Her worried puzzlement grew as her brain cleared. She had no idea where she was or how she had got here. She tried hard to remember and then slowly images emerged in her mind, as through a fog. Her memory began to reform. There she was with her friends Mary and Cathy, leaving school and … Yes, it was coming back to her now. There was the policeman who had approached them. He was a tall man. He had a large nose. She saw his face swim before her in her mind’s eye. He said something to her. He said he had come to collect her. Why was that? What did he want? Oh, yes, her mother. She had been in an accident … At this thought, Elizabeth’s heart began beating faster.
‘Mummy,’ she whispered, a tear forming in her eyes. But then another thought struck her. The policeman had kidnapped her – like that first man. She had got in the car with him but he had stopped a few streets away and placed a cloth over her face. She had tried to struggle but he had been too strong for her.
Yes, he had kidnapped her. There was nothing wrong with her mother. She wasn’t in hospital at all. That was all a story. A story to fool her, to get her to go along with the man. The man in the policeman’s uniform. I bet he wasn’t a policeman at all. He just wore a uniform like one. No, he wasn’t a policeman – he was … She gasped out loud and her whole body trembled as she uttered the words to herself in a grating whisper: ‘he was a murderer.’ Like that first man, he meant to kill her.
Panic now set in and with a sudden desperate movement she tried to get off the bed. She fell with a thump on to the floor. The shock of this actually cleared her brain even more. The dreamlike quality of her experience had disappeared entirely and was replaced with a brutal and frightening reality. With difficulty, she scrambled to her feet. She knew she had to e
scape. She knew her life was in danger and she needed to get away before …
She moved to the door and although she tried the handle she knew in her heart that it would be locked. With both hands she grasped the handle and turned. It twisted easily but the door did not move.
It was locked.
She knelt down and looked through the keyhole. The key was in there at the other side of the door. After a moment’s thought, she knew what she must do. Act like Simon Templar. The Saint. She had seen him get out of a locked room in one of his TV shows. It was a simple trick. If only it would work for her. Raising both her arms, she managed to extract one of the hairpins from her hair and then carefully she bent and twisted it into a sturdy single length. Satisfied that she had she the best she could with the straightened hairpin, she approached the door once more and then poked it firmly through the aperture of the keyhole. It soon met with the obstruction of the key on the other side. With her eye pressed as close to the keyhole as possible, Elizabeth attempted to turn the end of the key straight. At first it resisted, but with further prodding, it began to move. After less than a minute, it looked to her as though she had straightened the key in the lock. A brief smile lit her face.
Dragging the flimsy bedside mat to the door, she slipped it through the gap at the bottom so that half of it was now outside the room. Now came the dangerous and difficult bit. It had worked for the Saint but he was on television and, on reflection, Elizabeth realised that it could easily have been a special effect. With her tongue protruding from the corner of her mouth as she concentrated, she thrust the twisted hairpin with great vigour hard against the end of the key. Remarkably, with one blow the key moved, slipping backwards, almost to the end of the aperture but not quite. Elizabeth’s tummy was now vibrating with excitement and anticipation. One more thrust, she thought, would do it. She was right. Her second attempt dislodged the key and, with a small thud, it landed on the floor on the other side of the door. Gingerly, Elizabeth pulled the mat back. The key got stuck half way under the door but she was able to drag it through with her fingers. She beamed as she held the small metal implement. It was not only the key to the bedroom, but, as she saw it, her key to freedom.
Colin Bird towered over Snow and the policeman could tell by looking at his eyes that his captor had lost it completely. Any shred of reason or rationality that had existed in his fragile brain had gone. For a time he seemed to have been persuaded by Snow’s entreaties, but then something had snapped inside his head and any effect that the words, persuasions and encouragements may have had on him before were useless now. He had slipped into mania and there would be no reasoning with him.
With a grunt of satisfaction, Bird leaned forward slowly, his face muscles twitching erratically while his hands reached out for Snow’s neck. In response, Snow edged away in a desperate attempt to escape, moving backwards, shuffling along the carpet, while trying hard to jerk himself up into a sitting position. But Bird continued to follow and then Snow reached as far back as he could go, trapped up against the armchair. His attacker chuckled, flexing his fingers once more, ready for the kill.
In desperation, Snow kicked upwards with his right leg with as much force as he could muster, his foot catching Bird hard in the crotch. He gave a groan, his hands flying to the injured area and, staggering sideways, he slipped down on to the floor.
In an instant Snow managed to drag himself to his feet and let loose with his foot once more. This time the target was Bird’s face. The toe of his shoe smashed his captor in the mouth. Bird cried out in pain and anger as blood spurted over his teeth in a fine red shower and began to dribble down his chin. However, Snow could see that this was a hollow victory, for while he had obviously hurt his opponent, this had only further fuelled his anger. Like a creature on fire, Bird jumped to his feet and hurled himself at Snow, his fingers latching themselves firmly around his throat. The two men crashed backwards on to the floor, with Bird on top of Snow, the blood from his wound dripping on to the policeman’s face.
‘I’m sticking to my plan!’ Bird exclaimed wildly, as his fingers pressed harder against Snow’s windpipe. He struggled in vain, but the weight of Bird on him and the fierce pressure that he was applying to his throat made it impossible for him to move. Strangely, as sometimes happens in moments of great danger, Snow suddenly felt a moment of calm. It struck him quite simply that this was it. This was where his life was about to end. Already the flow of precious oxygen to his brain was being severely restricted and he hadn’t the strength to dislodge this bloody murderer. Already a thin, grey curtain seemed to be forming before his eyes. Yes, he thought, with a strange feeling of acceptance, I am going to die.
THIRTY
Once Elizabeth had escaped from her bedroom prison, as she thought of it, her bravado deserted her. It was as though she had suddenly realised the full, fierce reality of her desperate situation. She stood still in the darkness outside the bedroom, wondering what to do next. There were loud noises coming from the room at the far end of the corridor. It sounded as though someone was having a violent argument: voices were raised, sharp cries reverberated in the air and there was the crashing of furniture.
Curiosity got the better of her caution and she tiptoed down the corridor; with some trepidation she opened the door a fraction and peered through the crack into the room beyond. She saw two men fighting, growling and roaring at each other. One of them was the blond man she knew. The policeman with the big nose. The man who had kidnapped her. The one who had lied and told her that her mother was ill in hospital.
He was a bad man.
To her chagrin, this bad man seemed to be winning the fight. She didn’t know who the other person was. She couldn’t see his face properly, but she assumed, if he was being attacked by Mr Big Nose, he must be the goody in the situation. Instinctively she knew she had to save him. He might be able to help her to escape. If Mr Big Nose won, he would capture her again. This terrible thought prompted her action.
She moved quietly into the room while the two men continued to tussle with each other. They crashed to the ground, Mr Big Nose landing on top of the other. He gave a strange gurgling cry and bellowed, ‘I’m sticking to my plan!’
She saw to her horror that Mr Big Nose had his large hands around the other man’s throat and was throttling him to death. The victim’s face had gone a bright pink and the eyes began to flicker and close. She had to stop him. She had to stop him killing that man. In wild desperation, she gazed around and her eyes lit upon a whisky bottle on the sideboard. She rushed forward and snatched it up.
Her movement caught Bird’s attention and for a brief moment he froze and turned his head in the girl’s direction. He saw her advancing towards him with the bottle raised.
‘You,’ he cried, before the first blow was struck. It came down hard against his temple and knocked him forward so that he fell limply on to the man on the floor.
Snow was only vaguely aware of what was happening now. Bird’s fingers loosened around his neck and he was able to gasp for air. As Snow looked up, he saw a trickle of blood appear at the side of Bird’s head and run through the fine blond hairs on to his face.
The sight of the shiny red blood somehow seemed to enrage the girl. It brought her visions of the man leering over her when she had been imprisoned in that bedroom. He meant to harm her. She knew that instinctively. Now it was her chance to harm him. She hit him again.
And again.
Snow was now able to disentangle himself from Bird’s limp embrace and, pulling himself up into a sitting position, he quickly assessed the situation. The girl had gone wild as if in some sort of fit, raining a series of blows upon the now unconscious Bird.
‘Stop it!’ Snow’s voice emerged croaky and faint. He tried again and this time he was able to increase the volume. ‘Please, stop it. Put the bottle down,’ he cried. But his words had no effect. Elizabeth did not seem to hear him. It was as though she was now in a world of her own. She brought the bottle crashing down o
n Bird’s skull yet again.
Snow, his hands still bound, struggled to pull himself forward towards her. ‘No, no. Stop it.’ But the girl, her eyes glazed and her mouth set in a fanatical rictus grin, was now possessed and without seeming to see clearly she brought the bottle down once more. This time it connected with the side of Snow’s head instead. He gave out a yelp of pain and the shock blocked his vision with a fierce white light. When the mist cleared, he saw the bottle descend once more. There was nothing he could do to avoid the blow. He was briefly aware of the violent pain it brought him before he blacked out completely.
THIRTY-ONE
A strange rustling noise came to his ears but what was causing it he couldn’t say. That was partly because he was in darkness. But he liked being in darkness. It was safe and secure here. Something told him that in the light there would be more pain – more pain than he was feeling now. The pain that made him feel as though his head was on fire or people were drilling holes his brain. No, he thought, I’ll stay in the darkness. I won’t open my eyes. I’ll just go back to sleep. I’ll be safe here.
And as he drifted off to sleep once more, the rustling sound faded.
Without planning it, or giving it any thought, instinctively he opened his eyes. If he had had chance to consider this action, he would have kept them shut, remained in the security of the dark. But his body had taken the decision to bring him back.
The eyelids fluttered, allowing the light in slowly. It was painful at first, making his eyes water, which helped to increase his blurred vision. He took several deep breaths as he tried to make sense of it all. Where was he? Who was he and what was happening to him? And why did his head hurt so?
Soon, he was able to determine that he was lying in a bed. A very soft and comfortable bed with smooth sheets that rustled at his slightest movement. He gazed above him at the ceiling. It was one he did not recognise. It was plain white with a few fine, spidery cracks in it and a hanging light fitting with a long fluorescent tube. Now, he thought, he must be brave and pull himself up in the bed and try to see where he was. But he couldn’t, he was too weak.
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