Hand for a Hand (22 page)

A wave rushed the shore and a hacked hip bumped against his arm before he could move. He choked back the urge to throw up, trying to convince himself it was the personal nature of the torso that was making him gag. But he saw with a clarity that stunned him that it was more than that. For once, he was on the receiving end, the relative of a murder victim, the person left to cope with death. How heartless he must have appeared to relatives of other victims. And he saw that no amount of whispered condolences or words of kindness could ever salve their loss.

He forced himself to concentrate on the task at hand, see this as just another murder. And that thought stopped him.
Just
another murder? How had he ever let himself become this cold? He took a deep breath, gripped Chloe’s right arm, pulled her up and over, surprised by how light she felt. Her torso slapped onto the sand, and a muted gasp rushed from the onlookers as they took another step back.

He had his sixth note. Gouged into the back with vee-shaped cuts deep enough to show bone.
BUTCHER
.

And the sixth letter. E.

It could not be clearer.

M. A. U. R. E. E.

His daughter was next. And she was missing.

“H
EY.”

Gilchrist pressed his phone to his ear, stared out to sea. “Jack?”

“Hey, Andy, listen, I’m sorry about earlier. I just—”

“Jack.”

A pause, then, “It’s Chloe, isn’t it?”

Gilchrist dragged a hand over his face. Two SOCOs in white coveralls were rolling her torso into a body-bag. A yellow cordon did little to separate the scene from onlookers. Uniformed policemen were interviewing individuals from the dwindling crowd.

“Tell it to me straight, Andy.”

Straight? What could he say? He stepped away as the SOCOs lifted the body-bagged torso and carried it dripping with seawater to the back of their van for Mackie to examine at Ninewells.

“I’m sorry, Jack. It’s Chloe. That’s all I can tell you.”

“Jesus.” And from that one word Gilchrist could almost feel Jack’s utter despair.

He wondered if he should have spoken to Jack face-to-face rather than tell him over the phone. He had handled his marriage all wrong, the break-up, too. Now he was handling his son wrong.

“Jack. Listen,” he said. “We will solve this. I promise you.” He tried to force all thoughts of failing from his mind. But you could never tell with a murder enquiry. “Where are you?” he asked.

“Down by the harbour. It’s where we used to walk. Chloe loved the sea. Did she tell you that?”

He was about to say yes, then realised Jack needed to air his grief. “No, she didn’t.”

“Chloe had something about not being able to paint the ocean, about it being too wild and beautiful.
The ocean represents life in its perpetual evolution
, she said. She refused to paint seascapes because she said she could never capture its beauty in its stillness. You had to see it moving to appreciate the ocean’s true beauty.” A rush of breath, then, “I tell you, Andy, Chloe was something else. She was special, man.”

“I know she was.” It was all he could think to say. The SOCO van roared into life and eased along the sands. Onlookers drifted
away. Already Chloe’s mutilated torso on the beach was being assigned to history.

“I feel like, you know … helpless, Andy. Just out-and-out helpless.”

Like father like son, he thought.

“Do you, uh, do you need me to do anything?”

Gilchrist knew what Jack was asking. But how could he have his son identify his girlfriend’s hacked up torso? “No,” he said, and thought he caught a sigh of relief.

“You haven’t heard from Maureen yet, have you?” Jack asked.

“I was hoping you had.”

“You really don’t think anything’s happened to her, do you?”

Jack’s question confirmed he was in denial. First his girlfriend, then his sister. It was too much for anyone to handle emotionally. But Jack did not need to hear that his sister was next to be hacked to pieces. “I’m sure there’s a simple explanation,” he tried. “You know Mo. She’s probably gone away for a few days.

“Remember that time she ran off to Spain for a month without telling you or Mum? You went ballistic, man. Through the roof.” Jack chuckled. “Maybe she’s gone there again. Do you think?”

Gilchrist kept the deception alive. Having Jack do something was better than him doing nothing. “Maybe,” he said, and tried to sound upbeat. “Why don’t you look into that, Jack? Call a few friends. Find out if they know anything.”

“Yeah. I’ll do that.”

“And when you get hold of her,” Gilchrist said, “give her an earful and tell her to call her old Dad.”

Jack forced a chuckle down the line. “Will do, Andy.”

By nightfall Gilchrist had not heard from Maureen.

But he had not expected to.

M
AUREEN STARTLED AT
the scraping sound.

Someone was outside.

She heard it again.

A key? A knife?

She peered into the darkness, but saw only the shape of the door and the curtained window of the hut she was in. She struggled to move, but the knots bit into her skin, brought tears to her eyes again. She fought them back, bit down on the gag, and breathed through her nose. She had worried about the gag, worried that if her nose blocked she would be unable to breathe. It had happened once, two nights ago, and she had passed out from lack of air. But she wakened later, her nasal passageways clear again.

Another scrape. A key that time. No doubt about it.

The door opened and in the dim greyness she could make out the dark silhouette of his figure. She felt wetness spread between her legs, and tears well at her inability to contain her fear. The warm smell of urine lifted off the wooden floorboards.

She felt the floorboards shiver from the heels of his boots, smelled the stale tobacco that clung to his body like his personal scent. Despite hating that smell, it gave a welcome respite from the stench of defecation that had filled her senses for days.

An explosion of light hit her like a blow to the head.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

“It’s fucking honking in here,” his voice growled.

Footsteps thudded across the floorboards. A tremor took hold of her then.

Don’t let him touch me. Don’t let him come near me
.

The footsteps stopped. She knew he was standing in front of her. She heard a rustle of cloth, jacket rubbing jeans, perhaps, the sound of a bottle being opened. She eased her eyes open, squinted against the harsh light.

He squatted no more than three feet from her, his filthy moustache thick and dark over lips as tight and narrow as a scar. He smiled a slow smile that exposed cracked and yellow teeth, then held a plastic bottle out to her.

“Want some?”

She tried to say yes, but managed only a groan from behind the gag. She shifted herself on the floor, felt the damp squelch of her own defecation as it squeezed thick in the folds of her underwear.

“Want me to take that off?”

She closed her eyes in a long blink.

Please, take it off. Please. I won’t do anything. I promise
.

She held her breath as he tilted the bottle to her upturned face and dribbled water onto her gag. She worked her tongue, sucked at the cool liquid.

Then the bottle tilted upright, and he waved it in front of her. “Some more?” He grinned at her, his eyes dark and feral, his hand lowering to his zip. “This first.”

She turned her head away, closed her eyes.

I can’t, I can’t. Don’t make me do this. I can’t
.

She heard his zip being pulled down, some rustling, a grunt.

Fingers dug into her hair, twisted her head to face him, face it.

“Open your eyes.”

She started to cry then, her breath rushing in and out of her nasal passages, short sharp blasts that made her think she might pass out. She had read somewhere that hyperventilation could make you faint. She shortened her breaths, prayed she would pass out.

His grip tightened. She whimpered from the pain.

“Open your eyes, bitch.”

Quick breaths. Fast and hard
.

“Open them, you fucking bitch.”

Please God. Don’t let him. Not again. I’ll spew and choke. I know I will
.

He was close. She could tell by the way his breath rasped, the way his grip clutched and scratched her hair. She had looked once, had opened her eyes the first time, had seen how his face twisted in an ugly grimace as he climaxed.

Dear God. He’s coming. He’s coming
.

She squeezed her eyes, heard him groan as sperm hit her forehead in a warm squirt. Another over her cheek. And one more. Then drips like syrup that oozed down her cheek and threatened to slide behind the gag and over her lips. She lowered her head, felt his sperm slither over her chin and drip free.

She had not done as he had asked. She had not opened her eyes. He would give her no water. Which was now what she wanted.

Without water, she would die.

Please God, let me die. Just let me die
.

Chapter 26

B
UT SHE DID
not die.

Instead, she was photographed.

He took the Polaroid prints into another room, from where she heard the metallic click of a staple gun. When he came back, she tried to stare him out. But a glob of sperm slipped into the corner of her right eye, and she closed it, losing her short-lived resistance.

“Get up.”

She cut back her cry as he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her upright.

“I said get up.”

She tried to stand, she truly did, but her legs gave out. She shook her head, felt slime by her eye drip free, then gagged a scream as a knife flashed in front of her. She whimpered as the blade pressed against her calf, then watched in disbelief as it sliced through the cords around her ankles. She tried to turn as he walked behind her, but a heavy boot against her shoulder forced her face against the wall as the rope that had held her hands behind her back for the last three days and kept her captive to an iron ring on the wall, was cut. Another slice, this time at the back of her neck, and the gag slipped loose.

She gulped in lungfuls of air, lolling her tongue like a panting dog.

“Get up.”

She pulled her hands from behind her back and grimaced from a pain that burned like fire in her shoulders. She gripped
the gag, used it to wipe sperm from her eyes and face. Her fingers felt thick and stiff, as if they belonged to someone else. She twisted into a sitting position, but slumped to the floor. Her head hit the floorboards, but she felt no pain, only a numbing sense of relief at being able to move her arms, her legs, breathe unrestricted.

“Don’t make me have to say it again.”

“Water.” But the voice that cracked from her dried throat did not sound like her own.

He held the bottle out.

She grabbed it, forced herself upright, ignoring the clotty dampness at her rump, and drank. Long glorious gulps of cool clean water that overflowed from her mouth and spilled down her chin. She coughed, almost choked, took another mouthful then remembered reading somewhere that too much water after a time without could make you sick.

“For the last time,” he snarled, “get up.”

She pressed a hand to the floor and rolled over onto her knees. A bit wobbly, but the benefit of fluids in her system was already doing wonders for her strength and morale. She wondered for one crazy moment if she could make a run for it, but knew she would not manage ten feet without being caught.

She flapped a hand at the wall, and steadied herself, then held her head as high as she could. “I’m up.”

“Strip.”

“Fuck off.” Her tongue was not working the way it should, but it felt good cursing.

He leaned to the side, opened a holdall that she had not noticed, reached inside, and removed a handful of crumpled clothes. He dropped them to the floor.

“Now take off your fucking clothes and get into these.”

“In case it’s escaped your attention,” she said, “I’m covered in shit.”

He backed up to the door and stepped outside, then reappeared
in the doorway with a garden hose in his hands. “We can do this in there or out here. I don’t give a fuck.”

Maureen blinked, fighting back tears of hope. Was she being set free? It seemed impossible. But he was giving her clean clothes, offering her a wash.

“Outside,” she whispered.

“Strip first,” he ordered.

Sweet fresh air wafted into the hut on a chilling breeze. If she did as she was told, she could be washed and wearing clean clothes and underwear in a few minutes. That thought alone was almost enough to make her move. She caught the sound of traffic somewhere off in the distance, the scent of cooked meat on the wind, and felt her stomach knot with hunger. When had she last eaten? Three days ago? She was weak, did not have the strength to fight back or make a sustained run for it.

Even if she knew where to run to.

She made her decision.

She crossed her arms, flinched with the pain of flexing stiffened muscles, grimaced at the sight of bloodied and bruised wrists, and tugged her top up and over and dropped it to the floor. Undid her zip at the side, and let her skirt fall off. She choked at the sight of her inner thighs, coated with faeces and glistening damp from fresh urine. She had become inured to the stench, but against the fresh air the rancid guff hit her with renewed strength.

Hands behind her back, off with her bra.

Oh, God. Just do it
.

Thumbs hooked in her knickers, dropped to the floor.

She fought back a choke of disgust and staggered outside into the night air.

Cold water hit her with a shock that trapped her breath. She gasped, turned, felt the jet hit her backside, and she faced him again, to hide her mess from him. Her hands slid over her body, her thighs, her behind, her filth washing through her fingers like wet mud.

“Don’t you have any soap?”

“Think you’re at the fucking Hilton? Get on with it before I switch it off.”