Nameless Kill (28 page)

The girl reeked bad, too. Reeked of charred flesh and faeces, like a barbecue in a badly maintained public toilet. Poor girl. She’d been through so much hell. Unimaginable hell. They had to get out of here. Brian had to get her out of here.

“This…‌I’m here to‌—‌to help you,” Brian said. He suddenly became aware of his nudity‌—‌the nudity of himself and the young, probably attractive girl opposite him. But it didn’t faze him. In situations like this, the brain had a way of switching itself off, or training itself to accept the abnormal.

Brian brought his finger through one of the gaps in the barbed wire, thickly and tightly wrapped around the girl’s wrists, and he pulled very slightly.

From beneath her gag, the girl let out a high pitched wail, and more blood joined the dried blood that had already trickled down her arm.

“Sorry!” Brian said, raising his voice from a whisper. “I’m…‌I’m sorry.” He gulped. His heart raced. Fuck. What was he supposed to do? He couldn’t leave the girl here with a dead Luke Delforth in close proximity. The second Mrs. Delforth found her son dead, Brian wasn’t sure of what lengths she’d go to.

There was nothing stopping her murdering this girl and giving her the bitterest end possible before killing herself, opting out before the police had a chance to do anything about her crimes.

Brian looked around, the taste of blood strong and metallic in his mouth. He looked around the room at the candles, at the remaining broken glass on the floor. The candles were no use. And the glass might’ve been good for stabbing, but it didn’t look much good for cutting.

That’s when he heard a noise. Whistling and footsteps, somewhere right above him.

“Be with you in a minute, Luke,” Mrs. Delforth called. “Just finding some toys for our newest arrival. Hope you’re behaving.”

Brian was completely still when Mrs. Delforth shouted. For some reason, something inside him forced him to let out a muffled moan. He figured it would satisfy Mrs. Delforth despite Luke’s lack of response.

And judging by the way the whistling passed the cellar door and the footsteps got further away, he’d had a lucky break.

He heard creaking above him. Slow creaking, like the stairs under Mrs. Delforth’s feet. If she was going upstairs, then maybe he’d have a chance to get something. A phone. Something. Anything.

He turned and looked at the blonde girl. The way her eyelids flopped around. Her eyes rolled back in her head. He figured she was close to passing out again.

“You just‌—‌you just wait there,” Brian said, although he was hardly giving her a choice.

The girl’s eyes focused on Brian’s again. Her breathing got heavier. A urine smell filled his lungs as a trickling hit the floor.

“Please, trust me,” Brian said, keeping his voice quiet. “I’m‌—‌I’m going to get us help. Get us out of here. I promise you. Please.”

The girl’s breathing remained heavy for a few seconds.

Then, gradually, it got calmer, her mumbling less frequent.

She did something that resembled a nodding of the head, and Brian attempted a smile.

“I’ll be back. I promise I’ll be back.”

He walked to the foot of the staircase, stepping over Luke Delforth’s rigid body, and he heard Mrs. Delforth’s footsteps still creaking the stairs above.

He was going to find a way out of this mess for both himself and for the girl.

One way or another, he was going to find a way out.

He placed a shaking, bare foot on the first concrete step, and he climbed towards the light.

Chapter Forty Nine

Brian stepped further and further up the dusty concrete steps leading from the cellar, and he knew he was going to have to do whatever it was he was going to do in a hurry.

The light ahead of him from the slightly ajar doorway leading out into Mrs. Delforth’s hallway crept through, stinging his eyes. He didn’t remember it being so bright, but then again, when he’d last been up there, he hadn’t had a huge chunk of flesh burned on his left biceps. He hadn’t been surrounded by the stench of cooking human meat, of piss, of faeces.

He hadn’t killed a man.

He stopped when he reached the door, sweat dripping down his forehead, heart racing in his chest. He could hear Mrs. Delforth whistling somewhere upstairs. She was still on another level. He could find a phone. Had he seen one in the lounge earlier? There had to be one. There had to be one somewhere.

The only way he’d ever know was by looking.

He placed his shaking right hand on the clean metal coating the back of the doorway. That wasn’t visible from the other side. Obviously the wear and tear of the cupboard under the stairs was some sort of nice design choice the Delforths had gone for. Psychos. Absolute fucking psychos.

Brian pressed gently against the door, being careful to avoid any creaking as more and more of the hallway became visible‌—‌the dusty red-patterned carpet, the slightly open door to the lounge. He couldn’t risk rushing around and making a racket. He had to be quiet. Quiet, or Mrs. Delforth might just bring out her stun gun again.

And fuck knew what she’d do when she found out her precious Luke was dead.

Brian scuttled across the hallway, still completely in the nude, and took a few deep gasps of air as he peeked his head around the lounge door. The air smelled musty and old, but it was like the cleanest frigging air in the world compared to that cellar.

No. The air in the cellar wasn’t just a smell. It was unnatural. A combination of smells no poor bastard should ever have to experience.

He looked around the lounge, eyes darting in every corner. But he couldn’t see a phone. No phone on top of the dusty old CRT television, no phone on the mantelpiece covered with empty antique photo frames.

Fuck. He was going to have to have a look around. He was going to‌—‌

That’s when he heard the whistling above him getting clearer. Floorboards creaking right above his head. Fuck. Mrs. Delforth wasn’t coming downstairs already, was she?

He waited. Held his breath and waited a few seconds. The seconds dragged on for what seemed like hours. He listened to the sound of his thumping heart, the sound of Mrs. Delforth’s echoey whistling.

And then, the floorboards stopped creaking above his head, and the whistles got more distant.

Brian let go of a huge breath of air. The smells from the cellar were still strong on his mind, but the tastes were still very much present: the tang of disinfectant, of sweat, of metallic blood.

He had to be quick.

He turned around and, still completely naked, shuffled into the kitchen. He tried his best to ignore the awful smell coming from the blackening bananas in the blue fruit bowl on the kitchen table; tried to put the stinging, throbbing pain in his left biceps from getting in the way of what he had to do.

Find a phone. Call the police. Get them here, now.

He moved over to the sink, filled with crusty, gravy-covered plates. Looked all along the white kitchen worktops, covered with crumbs of many shapes and sizes. And all the while, he stayed aware of Mrs. Delforth’s whistling; of the floorboards creaking above.

It wasn’t that Brian was afraid of Mrs. Delforth. He could no doubt wait for her to descend the stairs before taking her to the ground.

But he had no intentions of killing two people today. No, Mrs. Delforth deserved punishment for her involvement in Yemi Moya’s crimes. Besides, she might be able to help point the police towards Yemi’s old criminal associates.

But mostly, he wasn’t willing to let another person die without serving trial. Dying was the easy way out. Shame, humiliation and detestation was a much, much more deserving pain than death.

And still, he needed a phone. Fuck. There had to be one. There had to be one somewhere. He looked all along the worktop, past the silver microwave, and the pile of finger-print-coated cutlery.
Please, be a phone. Please, Mrs. Delforth, have a phone somewhere.

Just as he thought it‌—‌just as he begged himself, or whatever powers that may be out there‌—‌he saw a phone.

It was an old landline. Cream and corded, little black square buttons with fading numbers on.

Brian froze for a few seconds. Froze, his eyes transfixed on the phone, his stomach doing a somersault.

Then he grabbed the phone and lifted it to his right ear.

It was when he’d hit the fourth button that he realised there was no sound coming from the phone.

But it was plugged in. Fuck. It was plugged in, so why wasn’t it working?

He hit the cancel button a few times, waited for a dialling tone. And still, nothing. Shit. He planted the phone back onto the cradle. Just his luck today. There had to be a reason. A reason why the phone wasn’t working.

Or maybe there didn’t. Maybe it was just one of those days.

He was about to creep away, to search the lounge one final time before coming up with some other stupid, adrenaline-fuelled plan, when he saw the blackened plug socket.

He looked at it. What should’ve been a white plug socket was completely black. There was a black plug stuffed into it.

It couldn’t be, could it?

Brian got closer to the plug, smelled burning, like the remnants of a barbecue from many years ago. He followed the black wire. Followed it from the plug, his hands shaking.

Please, just be the plug socket that’s faulty, please.

The wire ended at the top of the phone.

His body tightened.

The phone wasn’t broken; it was just the plug socket.

Brian yanked the plug from the socket and stuffed the phone under his armpit. He looked around the kitchen. There had to be another set of plug sockets on show. The silly old bint had to have another set of…

And then he remembered.

When he’d been under the curtain, hiding from Luke Delforth, what seemed like months ago but was probably just hours. There was a plug socket down there.

Without even thinking any further ahead, he rushed around the kitchen door.

He just needed a plug socket. He just needed‌—‌

The first thing that brought Brian to a halt when he stepped back into the hallway was that he hadn’t heard Mrs. Delforth’s footsteps against the floorboards above for a while.

The next thing that brought Brian to a halt was Mrs. Delforth, standing at the bottom of the stairs, gun raised at Brian. She had a puzzled expression on her face, like Davey when he was younger, unable to understand what Dad was doing eating the mince pie he’d left out for Santa.

Only this wasn’t the sedative rifle she was aiming at Brian.

Whatever it was, it was a lot bigger. A lot bulkier, like old people sat guarding their lawns with on American films.

Brian stared back at her, phone under his arm, completely still.

Mrs. Delforth’s mouth twitched, gun pointed right at Brian.

Then, she fired.

Chapter Fifty

If Brian hadn’t thrown himself around the side of Mrs. Delforth’s kitchen door, he knew he’d be dead right now.

The shot from the gun blasted through the house, noise ringing in his ears like he’d turned the volume up too loud on his headphones. He tumbled to the hard kitchen floor and crouched down. He’d heard something smash when the bullet from Mrs. Delforth’s gun had flown towards him, and he could feel a slight cool breeze‌—‌the window. It was shattered, long shards of glass crumbling outside.

“You should not be up here!” Mrs. Delforth shouted. Brian heard her footsteps pounding against the hall, getting closer to the kitchen. Fuck. He looked at the phone in his hands. Looked around the kitchen at the shelves for something‌—‌anything‌—‌that might keep her away.

He’d wanted to keep her alive. Wanted her to be taken in for justice.

That was before she’d started firing live rounds at him.

He pushed himself up to the freezer door and waited for first sight of her footsteps, staring up at the kitchen door. For a horrifying moment, he wondered if Mrs. Delforth might be standing behind the flimsy wood of the door already, pointing the gun right at him.

He just had to wait until he saw a foot. Wait until he got a chance.

Then, he had to act.

“My Luke,” Mrs. Delforth called. “He‌—‌he wouldn’t just let you go. My Luke, what‌—‌what have you done with my Luke?”

Brian didn’t respond. He couldn’t. His throat was tight. All the muscles in his still-naked body were tight. He just curled up beside that freezer door, no real weapon in hand, waiting for Mrs. Delforth to step around it.

He’d have to try and trip her up. Try to prise the gun from her before she clocked on to where exactly he was.

“You show yourself and you tell me what you’ve done with my precious Luke or‌—‌or I’ll shoot you. I’ll shoot you and I‌—‌I won’t hesitate.”

Brian remained still. His heart pounded. He stared at the door. Waited for a shadow. Waited for sight of her prickly old pale skin.

He waited a little longer.

And a little longer.

And then, a foot appeared at the door.

Without even thinking much about it, Brian swung his leg as hard as he could into Mrs. Delforth’s leg. The bone in his own leg rattled as it made contact with Mrs. Delforth, and she let out a whimper of pain.

The next thing happened in slow motion.

Mrs. Delforth came tumbling forward.

The gun dropped from her hands and crashed against the floor as she slipped into her kitchen.

Then, unable to stop herself, her chin cracked against the kitchen worktop, a splitting sound like chopping logs sounded, and her old body collapsed to the floor, completely still.

Brian stayed put for a few seconds. Stayed put, the sound of his pulse rattling in his ears. He listened as Mrs. Delforth let out a raspy breath, as her eyes closed. Watched as blood dribbled out of her split chin.

He’d done it. She was down. He’d actually done it.

And then the urgency of the situation dawned on him again. He had to plug the phone in. He had to plug the phone in and he had to call the police to come down here. And now Mrs. Delforth was gone, he had to free the poor girl who was still stuck in the cellar, no idea whether anything positive was going on upstairs.