Phobia

by Dean Crawford

  He hadn’t been able to watch Sebastian die on the end of the rope. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. This one had to be just perfect.

  5

  Living alone in London was both a comforting and contradictory experience for Honor. The city, so large, so vibrant, and yet as soon as she closed the door to her apartment, she occupied a world of near–permanent silence. She had been fortunate, if that was the word, to buy the property using a settlement she had received the previous year. She had not been able to afford to buy outright in one of the most expensive cities on earth, but at least she was on the property ladder, something out of reach for a large number of people her age in London.

  The apartment in Cornwall Road was one of several built when a row of three– bedroom homes had been converted into apartments, a stone’s throw from Waterloo Station and the water. Honor had chosen it because the road was quiet, and the top floor apartment offered greater separation from the streets below. With London Bridge and Southwark station minutes away, she was never far from work, essential when she could be called at any time of the day or night should something kick off in the square mile.

  The walls were mostly bare, painted in warm but neutral colours. Honor walked past the bathroom and kitchen to a living room that looked out toward St John’s church, the glittering tower blocks of the South Bank beyond. The sight of the church tower bathed in the glow of spotlights reminded her of Sebastian Dukas, now lying in a nearby morgue. Katarina’s grieving face filled Honor’s thoughts as she saw her own reflection in the apartment’s blackened windows, the night outside blustery, rivulets of rain pouring like tears down the panes and her face in the reflection.

  Honor turned and walked into the kitchen, switching on the light. People sometimes said that a room was so small, one couldn’t swing a cat in it. Honor would never know because her cat couldn’t fit in the kitchen with her anyway. Everything was compacted as much as possible into what she suspected had once been a small bathroom or similar. She opened her fridge with one hand, while the other opened a cupboard on the opposite side of the room and pulled out a wineglass.

  Her cat, Bailey, strolled out of the bedroom on cue, stretching and scraping his claws anywhere but the scratch post she’d bought for the purpose. She put fresh food on a plate for him, wandered back into the living room with a glass of chilled wine, and finally slumped onto her sofa. She checked her watch.

  9.47pm.

  A fourteen–hour shift, not too bad for her first day back and an active homicide investigation. At least she wasn’t asleep at her desk, not unknown in the past. She glanced at a picture frame on one wall, her parents smiling back at her, herself pinned between them, aged twelve or so. Family holiday, Menorca, her brother larking about somewhere in the background, probably hurling himself into the pool or something. Standard for Billy McVey, always messing about. Her parents had recently retired to Eastbourne, the mecca of the elderly. Billy was working as a plumber in Kent, which was a worry for everyone concerned as the idea of Bill playing with gas pipes was akin to asking Oliver Reed to run a brewery. Still, he was married and happy, with one son whom it seemed destined to be a chip off the old deranged block.

  Honor’s eyes drifted to the right, past the television, to where a small framed picture of an ultrasound scan graced an otherwise bare wall. She stared at the little image for a moment, the ghostly shape of an infant body against darkness, then closed her eyes and took a sip of her wine.

  Nobody cares. Nobody’s watching.

  The wine hit her sensorium to soothe the turmoil inside as she sank back into the sofa. Bailey appeared, licking his fur before jumping up and settling in on her lap. The tortoiseshell male with a calm temperament and a teeny–tiny little voice was the only company she kept these days outside of work. There were three lively pubs within walking distance of the apartment, but she had visited none of them since moving in late the previous year.

  The silence was deafening, and she revelled in it. Neighbours here were not noisy, the street outside was not busy and the windows were all triple–glazed. She absent– mindedly stroked Bailey, listening to his soft purring as she sipped her wine and stared out of the broad windows into the darkness, across the city streets glittering with tiny lights. She could just see, between the South Bank’s tower blocks, the London Eye and beyond it, Big Ben and Parliament, and the moving lights of vehicles on the Embankment. Life, on–going, where elsewhere there was only the ending of life.

  She couldn’t get Sebastian Dukas out of her mind. No, perhaps more appropriately, she couldn’t get his wife and family out of her mind. She knew too well what they were going through. The human condition was not well adapted to adjusting to a sudden loss of life, something so vibrant suddenly silent and cold, lost forever. The pain was something for which there was no cure – a life–long, terminal condition that haunted the soul.

  Honor knew that she should get up and eat something, but sitting here on the sofa was the one contemplative place where she could visualise her quarry, could think clearly, separated in catatonic silence from the rest of London. Somewhere, out there in that city, a killer was on the loose, and she felt certain with every fibre in her body that he or she was going to kill again. What stood in her way was what had always stood in her way: a toxic dish of chronic anxiety sprinkled with a dash of Obsessive Compulsive–Disorder. Most people assumed that OCD meant stacking things in perfect order or whistling a tune every hour, on the hour, to get through the day. Honor had a fair dose of these afflictions, the apartment a miasma of duties. The mirror must always be clean, because she didn’t like marks on the surface. She didn’t like clutter: things needed to be orderly and aligned, although she wasn’t so far gone that all lines needed to be parallel or perpendicular. She never left the apartment with the bed unmade or the sink full of incomplete washing–up. Door locks would be checked, at least twice, probably three times – it wasn’t hard to do on the way to or from the kitchen. Lights always off, no cell phones or laptops or e–readers left on charge or chargers left plugged in. Nothing left on stand–by. But such habits were as much born of natural caution and common sense as the dark fruit of OCD. The true condition was veiled with further complex afflictions: random and unconnected thoughts of violence or shame, the signatures of anxiety and loneliness, of reduced self–worth and self–confidence. Honor fought them every day, but she had come to realise that her work as a police officer had somewhat veiled her condition, silenced the unwanted voices in her mind behind a wall of real suffering, the true grief of countless lost souls.

  Such sights were not unusual for a serving police officer, although it wasn’t often the blood and gore of the movies, even when working for CID. More, it was the unusual, the bizarre, the way people live that she would never before have thought possible; the fetid squalor of the poor and the addicted; the confused mess of the hoarder; the lonely darkness of the social recluse; the frantic, deranged ranting of the addicted; worlds different and yet on the doorstep, perhaps just yards away. There was never any time for her to focus on her own demons, which often seemed so trivial compared to the trials suffered by others less fortunate.

  But the voices had come back during her sick–leave. As the stress of her job had eased, so her mind had wandered, and whenever her mind wandered, it reached into places that she didn’t want to think about. She took her maudlin thoughts and crammed them into a box in her mind, buried them away. Distraction. Denial.

  Instead, she focused on the glittering lights of the city and wondered whether their quarry was about to strike again.

  I’m going to be late for work.

  The thought emerged from a deep darkness as Amber’s senses began reconnecting themselves. Random thoughts tumbled through the field of her awareness, only to fade away again into the blackness. She still had a hangover, still felt rough. Memories fluttered through her mind: the bar, her friends, the walk home and how terrible she’d felt, and then…. Then…

  Amber’s eyes
flicked open and she tried to scream.

  Despite her eyes being open, she realised that she remained in utter darkness. Panic ripped through her as she realised that she was confined within a tiny space, and that her wrists and ankles were firmly bound and her mouth was tightly gagged.

  Oh God, no, what’s happening? She looked down, felt cold stone against her skin, but she could also feel that she was wearing her underwear. Thoughts of rape crept like demons through her mind, but she did not have the sense that she had been violated in any way. The darkness was intense, deep, terrifying. Her heart began to beat against the walls of her chest as she tried to see something, anything around her.

  There was a scent that made her cough and then almost gag. It was damp, cold, laden with something that sent primal terror coursing through her mind as she shivered in the silence. She thought that she could hear water gurgling somewhere nearby, the air stale.

  Escape.

  Amber tried to get to her feet, then realised that she was bound to an iron ring that itself was bolted into the stone. Jesus, what the hell is going on? A splashing sound reached her, and she sensed rather than saw somebody coming towards her out of the darkness. Amber reared back in terror as a figure loomed over her, and silently unfastened the rope binding her to the iron ring. Before she could move, the figure gripped her tightly and lifted her onto his shoulder as though she weighed little more than a newborn.

  Amber thrashed and squirmed, but it was little use as she was carried through the darkness. The man stopped, and then she felt herself being carried up a ladder, the thump of boots on metal rungs. A waft of fresh air reached her, and moments later she was carefully, but with great strength, pushed up and out of the passage and onto soft grass that was damp and cold.

  Amber saw the sky above her as she flopped onto her back, and to her right a great cathedral that was bathed in the glow of countless spotlights. She tried again to scream but no sound came forth, her gag silencing her and her vocal cords strangely subdued. The man climbed up alongside her, and she was again lifted physically from the ground and carried toward the cathedral. Amber had absolutely no idea who her captor was or what he wanted with her. If he had not raped her, and had not already killed her, then what the hell was he doing bringing her here?

  The man set her down alongside the cathedral walls, where deep shadows concealed them from the security cameras she presumed were watching. She’d once heard that nobody could walk anywhere in the city without being seen by at least four cameras in any given place, but she wasn’t sure that she believed that right now. The man walked away toward some large plastic sheets that were spread across the ground under the cathedral walls.

  Amber tried to move but her limbs remained too weak. Then, she tried to roll. With a heave of effort, she rolled over onto her front on the damp grass. She glanced at the man, but he remained engrossed in his work. Amber heaved herself over again. The cathedral lawns were beneath the level of the traffic on the nearby A3 that led to London Bridge, but she could see that the traffic was light and that there were no pedestrians in sight even if she could call for help.

  She rolled again, hoping that she could reach the steps that led up to the main road and perhaps pull the gag from her mouth, hook it over something and wrench it free. She was on her fifth laborious roll when the man caught up with her and hauled her upright. Amber was powerless to prevent him from lifting her off the ground, and he carried her back to the cathedral walls.

  The man sat her down on the grass, and then drew back one of the large plastic sheets. Amber was unable to contain her curiosity as she looked inside and saw that a series of stone flags had been lifted, revealing cavities beneath the huge walls. Three of the cavities had been filled with cement. Two were still empty, deep, and beside one of them she could see a mound of earth where it had been dug deeper than the others.

  The man lifted her gently, as though she were the most important thing in the world, and he carried her to the edge of the pit. As Amber looked down and saw what was in the pit, so raw terror pulsed through her nervous system and with every ounce of her strength she tried to squirm free from his grasp. She wrenched her head to one side, opened her mouth and tried to bite the man’s face, but he drew back from her, and she saw in his eyes a delighted amusement, an excitement that only increased her horror and disgust.

  Slowly, with reverential care, the man stepped down into the cavity and lowered her into the coffin that lay within its depths.

  ‘Ssshhhh,’ he murmured.

  Amber saw the sides of a coffin rise up on either side of her, her wrists still bound, her ankles too, her mouth gagged. She could not move, and she stared up at the man with pleading eyes as he towered over her, the cathedral’s magnificent walls soaring above him, the stained–glass windows glistening with colour from the streetlights as he watched her for a long moment.

  ‘You will not be alone,’ he murmured. ‘More will follow.’

  Amber tried again to free herself, but it was of no use. She was bound far too tightly, and now her breathing was coming in hard snorts of terror as the man clambered out of the pit. He turned, crouched, and reached out for the edge of the coffin’s lid.

  Amber’s body began to convulse, not enough air getting into her lungs. What have I done to deserve this? Who is this man? Why is he doing this to me? Doesn’t he know I suffer from terrible claustrophobia?

  ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of,’ he said, his face still concealed behind the balaclava. ‘All things come to this, eventually. I will be watching.’

  Amber found her voice and emitted a scream that was heavily muted by the tight gag. Tears streamed down her face as she saw the casket lid close, and with a thud she was suddenly sealed into the coffin and in complete and utter darkness.

  Amber felt herself going into shock and tried to control her breathing as a thousand thoughts rushed through her mind. Don’t breathe too fast, the air will run out. Somebody will find you in the morning. Try to find a way of making noise. Do something, but don’t let him know you can do it. You must wait until he’s gone.

  The coffin was eerily silent for a long moment, and then a tiny blue light flickered into life just inches from her face. It peered down at her and provided meagre illumination within her grim prison. For a moment Amber hoped that this was all some elaborate prank, a joke played on her by friends, for which she would absolutely be taking legal action. Then she realised that it was a tiny camera, glowing on the end of what she took to be some kind of optical fibre. Alongside it appeared another tube, this one empty, and she guessed that it was some kind of breathing tube.

  Then she heard soil falling outside the coffin.

  Oh God, please no.

  The rhythmic thump of soil outside hammered the coffin lid, and Amber knew that the man was filling the cavity back in, concealing her beneath the ground. For a moment, she could not believe that this was happening to her, could not understand that this was a reality, that she was going to die here buried under a foot or more of soil and….

  The concrete.

  Amber’s panic rose up within her like something alive, her heart hammering in her chest as she heard more soil being dumped on the coffin. The sounds became more muted after a few minutes, and with terminal certainty she knew that she was already buried and that he would be filling in the rest before stamping it down. He would then leave, would remove all trace of his presence. Then, in the morning, the cavity above would be filled with cement.

  The air became hot, no room to move, no room to breathe. Amber felt prickly heat stinging her forehead and the back of her neck. Even with the breathing tube, she would suffocate in here long before anybody would ever find her. The thought provoked another, terrible realisation.

  Was the tube long enough to reach through the cement?

  Her choked sobs broke out around the gag as she fought to free herself. Her hands were pinned behind her back, but if she could get them free then maybe she could escape somehow? The concret
e wouldn’t be laid until tomorrow at the earliest, so she had the rest of the night to figure something out.

  Amber, her anxiety soaring, tried to think. There had to be some way out of this. She could see the interior of the coffin as she lay in the near blackness: cheap wood, thin, weak. Shit, the bloody thing wouldn’t hold up against the weight of the soil and the concrete, would it? What if the thing collapsed, then she would be…

  Oh Jesus, please no, not like this.

  Amber’s hands rubbed against her leather belt, and she had a thought. Her jeans had little metal buttons, and her belt had a buckle. If she could free her hands and then remove the belt, she could maybe hack or prize her way out of the crude coffin and dig herself free. There was only about a foot of soil above her, she guessed, maybe even less. If she could push hard enough on the coffin lid, she might be able to open it. It was all she had, the only chance to get the hell out of here before she was sealed in, forever. Amber shifted her hands slightly as she searched for one of the little metal buttons on her jeans. She was bound with rope or plastic of some kind, and both were weaker than metal. If she could rub the bonds against the edges of the metal buttons, she could possibly break free of them, and that would free her hands and let her remove her gag.

  She had no idea what time it was, but she knew she had only hours to get the hell out of here before she became just another tomb beneath the cathedral.

  6

  Honor walked into Bishopsgate Station at a little after seven in the morning, the sky above laden with heavy clouds scudding low over the city. Streetlights, headlights, the glittering tower blocks and the “Gherkin” glowed in the morning gloom, fine autumnal drizzle spiralling through the city streets on the blustering wind as she hurried inside.