Death Trap: Rosie Gilmour 8

by Anna Smith

  ‘You boys sorted in the back there?’ Jonjo half turned to Geordie and Aldo.

  ‘Yep. Doing it now, boss.’

  He watched as Geordie took a revolver out of the silver attaché case and handed it to Aldo, then put together a sawn-off shotgun. Geordie worked expertly, the way he’d done since they were lads on the rob, teenage tearaways, right until the big heists, the payrolls and bank jobs. Aldo caressed the revolver, opened and checked the chamber, clicked it back. He stared out of the window, his dark heavy Italian features always showing the same expression whether he was happy or sad. You never knew what he was thinking. Deep as the ocean, was Aldo Jaconelli. He kept his anger contained and always appeared passive. The perfect hitman for any job. He would give his life for Jonjo, the bond sealed from when they were teenagers, when Jonjo saved him from certain death after bullies in their housing scheme hung him by the feet out of a window. Aldo loved him like a brother. It wasn’t up for discussion, though; Boag was Jonjo’s. But right now, they had to work out where the fuck the psycho was.

  ‘Where exactly do you think this reporter bird was, Jonjo?’

  ‘Trying to work it out, mate. I know the old sewerage works, so let’s make for that. I used to go up there as a kid and she did describe the road up to it. So let’s just keep going.’

  On the road ahead they could see flashing lights and a line of traffic.

  ‘Fuck! It’s a crash. Fire brigade are there. Cops. And two ambulances.’

  ‘Shit! We’ve no time to sit in this. Take the next left out of this before we get near them.’

  They could hear the police helicopter whirring overhead.

  ‘They’re everywhere. Do you think she phoned the cops as well?’

  ‘I don’t know. But let’s get as far away from them as possible.’

  They drove up Pollokshaws Road, conscious of one or two patrol cars, then up towards the quieter road and the tall trees Rosie had described. Jonjo tried to phone her, but it was ringing out. In the distance he could see the top of the old sewerage works as they climbed the hill. He rang the phone again, but nothing. Then, at the top of the road, they turned into a lock-up area and he spotted a car shunted to the side of the road with the rear windscreen smashed. Someone was moving inside it.

  ‘Get close to that car, Danny. I think it might be Rosie’s.’

  They drove up to the car, and Jonjo saw Adrian. He’d only met him once before, with Rosie. He barely recognised him he was so pale, but it was definitely him.

  ‘Christ. It’s the big Bosnian. Stop. Let me out. Keep me covered in case it’s a trap.’

  Jonjo got out of the Range Rover and slowly went around the back of the car.

  ‘Adrian! Big man! It’s me. Jonjo.’

  He saw Adrian’s head wobble a little and he heard groaning.

  ‘Jonjo! He took Rosie.’

  Jonjo was at the side of the car and opened the door. He could see Adrian’s leg, the torn flesh, some of the blood had congealed, but it was bleeding through his fingers where he had applied pressure to the wound. It looked bad, as though he’d severed an artery. His face was also covered in blood from a head injury.

  ‘Oh fuck, man! What happened?’

  Adrian tried to pull one leg out.

  ‘Quick. Get me out of here. I lose a lot of blood. Do you have any medical things? Bandage or something.’

  Jonjo looked over his shoulder and motioned for the boys to come and they all piled out of the car.

  ‘You’re all right, big yin. We’ll get you sorted. I’ve got some kind of medical kit in the car, I think. Can you move your leg?’

  ‘Yes. But is bad cut. A machete. Boag. He took Rosie.’

  ‘Bastard. When?’

  ‘She was on the phone to you. Then he rammed the car. He grabbed her. I was dizzy from the crash – I hit my head. Then he slashed my leg. I don’t know where he is. He dragged her away.’

  ‘Fuck,’ Jonjo spat, looking around. There was an eerie silence except for the sound of the stream.

  Danny and Aldo took hold of Adrian by his arms and helped him onto his feet. When he put his foot down, more blood pumped out.

  ‘Jesus,’ Aldo says. ‘He needs to go to a hospital, Jonjo.’

  ‘No.’ Adrian glared at him. ‘No hospital. Just take me to your car. I can clean it. I can fix it if you have things.’

  Danny gave Jonjo a surprised look.

  ‘Whatever you say, pal. Come on. Into the car.’

  They got him in the car and Danny handed him a hip flask from the glove compartment and told him to drink it. Then he went to the boot and took out the medical kit. He unfolded it on the seat and pulled out bandages, pins, tapes.

  ‘Did you see him go anywhere at all, Adrian?’ Jonjo asked. He poured some alcohol from the hip flask over Adrian’s leg. ‘Sorry, man,’ he said as Adrian winced in pain.

  ‘I’m not sure. But he dragged her backwards, and the only place to go from the car is these things, like garages. You see them?’

  Jonjo looked across at the lock-up units – they were the kind of places people used to store drugs and stolen goods before police got wise to it. He counted five of them. Take your pick. He walked over to them, Aldo at his side, his eyes on the ground.

  ‘Check the dust, Jonjo, see if there are any marks of her being dragged. You’d see her shoes or footprints or something maybe.’

  ‘Good shout, wee man.’

  They studied the ground. Four lock-ups. Two looking like they’d not been opened for years, rusting, another one, new bright blue, then the black one at the end.

  ‘Look,’ Danny said. ‘Drag marks. Like someone being huckled in there.’ They walked closer to it. ‘And fresh footprints.’

  Jonjo looked at him and almost smiled.

  ‘Cheers, Tonto. I knew all them mornings watching Lone Ranger would pay off.’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Rosie was drifting in and out of consciousness. She’d been hit on the side of the head and could feel caked blood there, and that the area around her eye was swollen. A sudden draught of air came from somewhere, and daylight spread into the room. She glanced around. There was nobody here. She focused now that she could see properly. She was in what looked like a pit mechanics used in garages, only deeper. Perhaps this place had been a workshop before. She turned her head and saw that the light was coming from what looked like a concrete door that had opened a little. The door was built into the wall of the pit, as though it opened into a crawl space. Above the pit she could make out some tools and equipment. On the wall there was a spade, hammers and a long-handled axe. She tried to move her arms a little and could feel the rope. But suddenly, when she tugged at one of them, it felt quite slack. Then she manoeuvred it again. It felt slacker. Had Boag really made a mistake and not tied her properly? Had he loosened it while she was passed out? Perhaps it was a trap. She left it in case he came in. Her mind was firing on a surge of adrenalin. Where the hell was he? Had he opened the trapdoor and just gone off and left her here? She raised her head and felt a thumping pain as she looked around. There were a couple of old glass bottles, and a small overturned stool. She could see two big butcher’s knives, lying too far away from her to do anything with them. She lay back, tugged at the wrist tie again, but she was too afraid to try to untie herself in case he came in – that’s if he wasn’t up there watching her. She wriggled on the pallet, feeling her blouse soaked with sweat. She was weak from shock and pain, and the desperate prospect that she had no way out of here. But her mind was working overtime. She closed her eyes, then opened them again, peering up. Then she saw Boag. He was standing at the edge of the pit, a shaft of light falling on his face, dark shadows under his eyes.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ Rosie could hear her voice echo a little in the pit. ‘Why are you torturing me like this?’

  He said nothing, but she could see him still standing staring down at her. She waited for a long moment, hoping he would answer, hoping that maybe she could have some di
alogue with him. She remembered reading somewhere that kidnap victims would try to strike up some kind of relationship with their captors as a form of self-preservation. But in her gut, she knew there was nothing she could say to this monster that would reach him. She had to try, though. At least to buy herself some time.

  ‘Thomas,’ she heard herself saying. ‘Who made you like this? Who did this to you, that you would kill and torture people like this? Tell me. You’re going to kill me anyway. So just tell me.’

  Silence.

  ‘You’ve done terrible things, Thomas. But you can’t always have been like this. There must have been a time when you were a little boy. What happened, Thomas?’

  Christ, Rosie thought. I’m sounding like a bloody shrink, asking him this, as if he’ll even be taking it in.

  He said nothing. Then after a few moments, he spoke. ‘They all did it,’ he muttered.

  Rosie lay stunned that he had even answered, not sure what to say next, but knowing she had to say something. She could hear her heartbeat.

  ‘Who did it?’

  He said nothing, and Rosie held her breath, waiting.

  ‘School. The boys. Beating me, punching me every day, laughing. Bastards.’ His voice trailed off, and she could hear him breathing. Then he spoke again, this time sounding agitated. ‘You think it’s funny for someone to pee in your school bag, in your lunch, and make you eat your sandwiches, all soaking wet in pee? In front of everyone? Laughing. Always laughing. Fuck!’

  ‘I’m sorry that happened to you, Thomas.’

  ‘Shut up!’ he shouted. ‘Shut up! You’re not sorry. Nobody is sorry. Nobody was ever sorry.’

  ‘Did you tell your parents? Could they not go to the school? Make them stop?’

  ‘Shut up. I made them stop. You know how? I went to Joe Black’s house one night – he was the worst bastard – and I broke in when they were sleeping. They had this dog . . .’ He seemed to snigger a little. ‘A white poodle. Charly won all the prizes in stupid dog shows. No more prizes for Charly after that. I cut its throat and left it on the kitchen table . . .’

  Jesus! Rosie didn’t know what to say next, but she tried. ‘What happened? Did they know it was you?’

  ‘They knew it was me all right, but they were too scared to say anything when I went to school the next day and asked Joe how Charly was. Nobody ever hit me again.’

  Rosie wasn’t equipped to take this kind of conversation any further. She didn’t know if whatever she said would make him even more crazed, but she couldn’t just leave it like this.

  ‘Thomas, you need help.’ Rosie wasn’t even sure if she believed that herself. If someone came in here right now and shot him, she’d feel a lot better. ‘Listen. There are doctors and psychiatrists who could help you understand the terrible things you’ve done. And maybe why you did them. People were bad to you. Please. You’ve killed enough people. Please stop it now. Let me go. Give yourself up to the police.’

  She could see him standing with his hands over his ears, shaking his head, vigorously, then slowly. He sighed. Then, to her horror, he picked up a ladder and put it to the edge of the pit, lowering it down. Christ! He was coming down, a knife in his hand. As he began to step down the ladder, he was shouting.

  ‘You don’t know anything. You don’t understand. I like it, Rosie Gilmour. I like killing people. They make a fool of me . . . everywhere . . .’ He was on the ground now, and standing over Rosie.

  ‘At work, they called me weird – smelly. That teacher. I liked him in the beginning. But he thought he was superior.’ He slapped his head with his hands. ‘And those boys. They didn’t like the rough stuff. I saw them scared. Like you now. Scared.’

  He took a step closer to Rosie, and crouched down. She caught his rancid sweat as he leaned over and pressed the point of the knife into her forehead. She could feel him pushing it on her skin, and it stung as he twisted it a little.

  ‘Do you like the rough stuff?’

  He traced the point of the knife, from her forehead along her cheek and down to her chin. She could feel the pressure of the knife, but it wasn’t deep enough to cut her. But now on her neck, he pushed it harder. She could feel the pulse in her neck thumping. A cold sweat broke out all over her and she could hardly breathe. She kept looking up at him, hoping her eyes were pleading for mercy. He pulled the knife from her neck and traced it across her bare chest where the button had come undone in her struggle with him earlier. She felt the knife going in. He had cut her. Pain surged through her and she suppressed the urge to scream as he dragged the knife along, cutting her but not stabbing her. She could feel the warm blood trickling on her chest. Then he stopped.

  ‘It’s over, Rosie Gilmour. I’m finished here.’ He pulled the knife away and turned towards the ladder.

  Rosie held her breath, terrified to speak, as she watched him climb the ladder, then when he got to the top, he pulled the ladder up. He didn’t look back at her, didn’t utter a sound.

  Then she heard a door open upstairs and close again, and the click of it being locked from the outside. She waited a few moments, but there was no sound. She tugged again at her wrist and it was slack enough for her to pull her arm out of the ligature. She managed to twist herself so that she could reach the other wrist, and after a few seconds of trying and cursing, it came away in her hand. She breathed a sigh somewhere between panic and relief and as she pulled herself up, her hand went to her chest where she could feel the fresh warm blood. It was still bleeding, but not gushing.

  She sat up stiffly and stretched her back, then leaned forward, and without much effort managed to untie the rope binding her feet. She pulled up her trouser legs and winced at the cuts and bruises to her calves. She sat for a moment, trying to work out why Boag would leave her like this, able to untie herself so easily. Perhaps he’d thought she’d be too scared to move. Or maybe he just thought there was no point in her untying herself, because even if she could move, there was no place to go. Rosie rolled over and stood up, a little unsteady on her feet. She looked around, trying to get some bearing on what this was. Her eyes fell on the trapdoor in the wall, where the water seemed to be trickling in. It had to lead somewhere. She went slowly towards it and peered through. She could see daylight in the distance. She looked at the walls to see if there was any way she could climb up out of the pit, but there was not a chance. He’d taken the ladder, and even if she’d placed the pallet against the wall, she’d still be several feet short of the top, with nothing to grip onto. She sat back down, her heart sinking. She was trapped – afraid to open the door wide in case there was more water, and also scared to pull it and go through because she had no clear idea where it led. Boag didn’t need to butcher her like his other victims. He could just leave her here. She knew Adrian was up there somewhere, and she could guarantee that despite his injuries, he would have managed to get some help by now, but they wouldn’t know where she was. All she could remember was being dragged backwards up a small lane and then into this blackness. Where were the cops? She’d dialled 999, but there was not a siren or a helicopter in hearing distance. Probably too busy with the pile-up further back, and chances were the 999 call hadn’t been responded to yet because she didn’t give enough information. She was trapped. Then she looked again at the trapdoor. It had to lead somewhere, and no matter where it was, it had to be better than being stuck in here. She didn’t have a lot of choice. That’s exactly how Boag had planned it.

  ‘Help!’ she shouted, listening to her cry echo up the pit and down again. ‘Help! Please! Help me, somebody! I’m trapped! Is anybody there? Boag, you twisted bastard! Where are you?’ She slumped against the wall and sank down. ‘Oh Christ, Mum, I’m going to die here.’ She started to cry. The filthy water stung her bloodied calves. She bent down and looked in the trapdoor again. She could see a light in the distance. She took a deep breath and took hold of the metal ring on the trapdoor and pulled it with all the strength she could muster. It opened enough for her to get through. She
braced herself, crouched down, and crawled in. She stayed crouched as she made her way into the tunnel, her heart pounding. Cockroaches scuttled along the walls. A rat swam towards her and she froze as it slithered past her hand. The water was shallow and she moved on, almost zombie-like, towards the light. Then her eyes focused on what looked like a rusting metal gate. Christ! It was a dead end. She pushed herself towards the gate, and as she gripped it, she could see outside, the grass, the embankment, a narrow stream, which must be where the water was coming from. But there was no escape. The penny suddenly dropped. This is what Boag had wanted. She had to get back fast. She scrambled and turned round in the narrow tunnel. Then, as she’d crawled a few yards, she heard the sound of the heavy concrete door being scraped along the ground. It was closing. Jesus! Caught, like a rat in a trap.

  ‘Wait! Please!’ she heard herself shouting.

  ‘I knew you would do that. In the sewers where you belong, with the rats.’

  She heard the door close.

  Rosie opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. The water wasn’t flooding in, but the longer she was here, the deeper it might get. Then she peered at things lying in the muddy sludge. Christ! It was body parts – a leg, an arm. How long did she have? It would be over soon.

  ‘Help!’ she screamed, so loud she felt dizzy. ‘Help! Please! Somebody help me! I’m drowning! Help!’

  *

  Aldo was carefully picking his way down the embankment in the direction where Adrian said Boag had thrown Rosie’s phone before he dragged her off. Jonjo told him to take a quick look in case it was there because, you never know, maybe this mad bastard Boag would phone it. He could hear it ringing in the long grass, and crept around to see where it was coming from. Then he saw it vibrating under some twigs. He picked it up, and was about to dash back up, when he thought he heard someone shouting down at the foot of the hill. He looked around. Nothing. Then he heard it again but there was nobody there. The mobile rang again and he saw Jonjo’s name on the screen.