by T F Muir
. . . there? Hello . . . ? Hello . . . ? Who’s there? Hello . . . ?
Gilchrist returned a blank look, which was no more than he could give with the drugs in his system. Just as well, he thought, puzzling at the voice’s vague familiarity.
As if realising Gilchrist was beyond speech, Kumar ended the call. He unclipped the back of the mobile, pulled out the SIM card, then threw the mobile at Farmer’s body.
It landed with a metallic clatter and skittered across the concrete floor.
With his heart in his mouth, Gilchrist watched Kumar return to the video recorder and adjust the settings – to delete the part of the recording with its interrupting call? Kumar could have been alone in the barn for all the attention he was giving Gilchrist. It took several minutes of close concentration before Kumar clicked a switch and the light on the recorder turned to green again. Then, as if satisfied, he picked up the carving knife and looked at Gilchrist’s way.
Something in the set of Kumar’s jaw, the fire in his eyes, the white line around his lips told Gilchrist there would be no posing for the camera this time. Just grip the hair, back with the head, in with the knife, grit your teeth and give a right good tug. A bit of digging and hacking through the spinal column, no doubt, but with Kumar’s expertise it should not take too long.
Simple, when you think about it, really.
Then what?
Maybe he should have paid more attention to his religious upbringing, prayed to God on a regular basis, even gone to church on occasion. His mother last took him there as a boy – him and his big brother, Jack – but she stopped after Jack was killed, and as far as Gilchrist could recall, none of them crossed a church threshold again. Even for his ex-wife’s funeral Gilchrist had not attended the church service but had driven straight to the crematorium.
Would God hold that against him now?
Kumar approached.
Gilchrist closed his eyes.
And prayed.
‘I got through that time,’ Mhairi said. ‘Then he hung up.’
‘He?’
‘Figure of speech.’ She pressed the keypad, tried to redial. ‘Shit,’ she said. ‘Now it’s dead.’
‘No automatic voicemail?’
‘Nothing.’
‘He’s removed the SIM card—’
‘Next left,’ Mhairi interrupted.
Jessie jerked her foot to the brake and said, ‘That one?’ as the cut-off zipped past.
‘Sorry,’ Mhairi said. ‘Wasn’t looking.’
‘Shit happens,’ Jessie said, eyeing the road ahead, looking for a place to turn round.
‘Just pull over here.’ Mhairi looked over her shoulder. ‘Do a three-point turn. There’s no one behind.’
‘Been a while since I’ve tried one of these. Here’s hoping I don’t back us into a ditch.’
‘Want me to jump out and guide you?’
Jessie gave a dead-eyed smile, then swung the Fiat across the road and jerked to a stop. Into reverse – a quick look at Robert in the rearview mirror – back it up to the verge, oops, bit of a bump, shift into first, and away we go. The Fiat’s tyres slipped on the road surface as Jessie floored the accelerator.
Mhairi adjusted her seating. ‘Didn’t know you were a stunt driver.’
‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me.’
‘Like what?’
‘Just stuff.’ Jessie flicked on the indicator. ‘This it?’
Mhairi nodded.
‘How far now?’
‘Up there on the left.’
Jessie eyed the property as they neared.
The house was a typical Scottish smallholding – one storey, square-shaped, but with off-white roughcast walls that could do with a coat of paint – needs work done to it. The roof lay thick and white with frosted snow, a sign of an unheated interior from lying vacant. The two acres of land fell downhill across snow-covered fields. Trees, hedges, stone dykes marred the white blanket with dots and strips of white-capped blacks.
Beyond the smallholding, and further from the main road, stood the steading, a lone building which, even seated behind the steering wheel, Jessie could tell was in a more dilapidated state of disrepair.
Directly across the road and a good fifty yards up a hedge-lined driveway stood a farmhouse, the smallholding’s closest neighbour. A tractor with an oversized fork for a front-loader was dumping strawlike material on to muddied ground behind a metal-framed building. A herd of cows watched from a safe distance, ankle deep in muddied slush, before hoofing closer when the tractor backed away.
‘Is that a car?’ Jessie said.
‘Where?’
‘To the side of the house.’
Mhairi narrowed her eyes. ‘There’s nothing wrong with your eyesight.’
‘Get on to the office,’ Jessie ordered.
‘And say what?’
‘I’ll tell you in a minute.’ Jessie felt herself tense as she drove closer to the unmarked entrance. Thirty seconds later, she pulled the Fiat to a halt at the opening and eyed a single set of tyre tracks that ran from the road down a narrow driveway, leading her eye to a white car parked outside the steading, no more than twenty yards away.
Her nervous system flipped to red alert. ‘Fuck,’ she said. ‘He’s here.’
‘How can you be sure?’ Mhairi said. ‘It might be someone looking to rent.’
‘So why look at the steading and not the house?’ Jessie replied. Even from where she sat, she could see the snow in front of the steading’s wooden door had been disturbed. ‘He’s in there,’ she said. ‘Call for backup. ARVs. Helicopters. The works. And find out who owns that car. I’m going to check it out.’
Mhairi spoke into her mobile and rattled off the make of car – Vauxhall Astra – and registration number. ‘And get back to me as fast as you can,’ she ordered.
All of a sudden, Jessie wished she had not brought Robert along. But backup would be with them shortly. A sudden flash of doubt hit her, and she thought of doing nothing until backup arrived. But she knew from past experience that any delay could be fatal.
She had to check it out, no question.
She turned to Robert in the back, tapped his leg, and signed, Stay here. I’ll be back in a minute. Then we’ll go for something to eat.
I’m not hungry, he signed, then focused again on his iPhone.
Jessie left the keys in the ignition and opened the door, leaving Mhairi ordering the backup – baton guns, dogs, armed teams. As she faced the steading, a stiff wind whipped in from the open fields, blasting her face with grains of snow, clocking a wind-chill factor that had to pull the temperature well below freezing. Two hours ago it could have been summer compared to this.
She pulled her collar up and made her way down the narrow driveway, keeping her feet on the tyre tracks, her shoes crunching gravel beneath the snow. The tracks looked fresh – it had not snowed since the night before – and she locked her eyes on the steading door as she approached. The steading looked larger now she was almost upon it, maybe a storey and a half high. Two narrow slits for windows were boarded over. If the roof had any skylight windows, they were covered with snow. The only entrance appeared to be a single wooden door, the colour of weatherworn unpainted wood, which was located more or less in the middle of the long facade before her.
Her inner self was warning her that she was unarmed, asking why she did not keep her .22 in the glove compartment. ‘OK, OK, I’ll do that next time,’ she whispered to herself. The closer she eased to the steading, the harder her heart raced—
A car door slammed.
Jessie turned and glared at Mhairi. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ she hissed. ‘Why don’t you just knock on the door and tell them we’re here?’
‘Sorry,’ Mhairi said, ‘a gust of wind caught it,’ and scrambled after her.
‘Any luck with the car?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Put your mobile on vibrate, and stay behind me. And not another word. Got it?’
‘
Got it.’
Which were two words.
But the look Jessie gave Mhairi made sure she had at last got the message.
CHAPTER 48
Gilchrist could barely breathe.
His head was pulled so far back he thought his neck was going to break, that he was about to die that way. The rushing in his ears, the sound of his pumping lifeblood, told him he was still alive. But it also helped drown out Kumar’s rambling soliloquy, his playacting for the camera.
‘. . . know nothing about my organisation,’ Kumar announced to the viewers, his voice loud and confident with the arrogance of the undefeated. ‘You have destroyed this nest, but I have already set up elsewhere. Which is the beauty of my scheme. Demand exceeds supply, and the supply is limitless. Do you know how many young women from Europe cross your country’s borders illegally every day? It’s in the thousands. And by the time you receive this warning, another thirty women will have been selected and under my control . . .’
Gilchrist felt Kumar’s fingers tighten their grip on his hair. He would beg for his life if he could. But breathing, just to stay alive long enough to be decapitated, was taking all his attention.
‘. . . I am not an unreasonable man,’ Kumar continued. ‘I live by the most basic of laws, the law of reciprocity – a life for a life – the simplest form of fairness that ensures mutual respect across race, religion, and politics . . .’
Kumar’s breathing deepened. His grip squeezed tighter, pushing Gilchrist’s head back even more, stretching his neck almost beyond the point of strangulation. Not that it mattered, he supposed, as his final moments were now upon him.
‘. . . so I will show you how the law of reciprocity works.’
Gilchrist felt Kumar’s muscles tighten, sensed the deadly stillness in his being. He closed his eyes, held his breath, readying for the blade to pierce his—
A hard thud resounded from outside – a car door slammed shut?
Kumar stilled, looked at the steading’s wooden door.
Gilchrist jerked his head, gagged, managed to find air.
Behind him, Kumar shifted, the tip of the knife blade pressing into Gilchrist’s skin hard enough for blood to trickle down his neck. Time seemed to stop for a frozen moment. Then Kumar’s breath puffed in the cold air and Gilchrist could almost hear the man’s thoughts, empathise with his dilemma.
Proceed with the beheading? Or first make sure all is safe?
Kumar cursed and chose the latter.
He released his grip on Gilchrist, then moved to the body on the floor. He tugged at the clothes, almost ripping the jacket from Farmer’s corpse, and removed something – another mobile? But from where he sat, and at such an angle, Gilchrist could not tell.
Kumar pushed back to his feet, strode to the video camera.
He flipped a switch, and the green light went out.
He moved to the corner, leaned down, removed a plug.
The barn fell into darkness.
Gilchrist was not sure if he had become accustomed to the drugs, or if the adrenalin surge from his imminent beheading had helped to flush them from his system. Whatever the reason, he was able to follow Kumar’s progress to the barn door, by sight and sound – sight from a flicker of light as a crack in the wooden door was pressed open; and sound from the hard rattle of wood as Kumar released it, and hissed another curse.
Gilchrist took his chance. Someone was outside. He shouted for help, but the word came out in a heavy groan. So much for the adrenalin flush. He lifted his head to try again, and something as hard as a hammer hit the side of his head with a force hard enough to crack bone.
‘Shut up,’ Kumar hissed.
Then Kumar was behind him, striding through the barn’s darkness with authority, a man who knew exactly where he was going and what he was about to do. Light flickered for a moment, then vanished as a door in the back wall closed.
Drugs or split skulls. It made no difference. Gilchrist could not tell where he was. He seemed to be floating one moment, looking down on himself strapped to the chair, then the next, staring into the black emptiness of a beamed ceiling.
He pulled in air, bringing his senses back to life.
His throat burned from lack of water. His heart pounded like some caged animal. Despite the freezing chill, sweat dripped into his eyes. Or maybe it was blood. He blinked, shook his head to clear it, and felt his world spin for a disorientating moment. He was still drugged up, or maybe half-conscious. But his strength was coming back to him, along with feeling. A sharp pain dug into the back of his neck where Kumar had tried to bend a couple of vertebrae, and a dull ache persisted at the corner of his left eye, keeping time with the disco beat of his heart, and making him blink in an effort to see.
But with Kumar gone, Gilchrist realised he had to take this one chance.
He had no time to feel the pain. He had to break free.
He gritted his teeth, tensed his muscles, and with every ounce of his strength tried to tear his limbs from the taping. He felt some movement as the binding stretched, and he held it until he could hold no more. He took another breath, tensed his muscles, giving it his all, held it again, felt the tape bite into his arms, his legs, felt fire sear across his shoulders. But a few seconds later he reached the grim conclusion that it would take a stronger man than he could ever be to tear himself free.
Exhausted, he slumped forward as far as the binding permitted. His head lolled, his chin to his chest. He was done. He was through with it all. Part of him wished Kumar would return and just get on with the job of lopping off his head, while another part wanted to beg for one phone call, to talk to Jack, to Maureen, for just one minute, to tell them he was proud of how they turned out, how he was sorry he would not be around for their own yetto-be-born children, and that he loved them. Yes, even if he had time enough only for that, to tell them he loved them, that would do.
But he now knew that would never happen.
He would never speak to them, never see them again.
He could do nothing to stop the tears from squeezing through his eyes, or choke back the heavy sobs that grunted from his very core.
Jessie stopped dead, her arm out to halt Mhairi. ‘Did you see that?’
‘What?’
‘The door. I thought it moved.’
‘Could have been the wind.’
As if to prove Mhairi’s point, an Arctic gust blasted in, stirring up snow, shifting it across the ground like spindrift in a winter storm.
Jessie tugged her collar, blew into her hands. Was it always this cold on the east coast, for Christ’s sake? ‘I don’t think it was the wind,’ she said.
‘Well, we know someone’s in there.’
‘And he now knows we’re out here.’
‘He?’ Mhairi quipped.
‘Here’s hoping it’s not a they.’
Jessie turned her attention to the car parked outside the steading, a white Vauxhall Astra, the name and address of the rental company in Dundee on an oval sticker on the rear window. But it was the footprints around the car that held her attention.
She stared at them, tried to make sense of the mess.
One clear set ran from the passenger door around the boot, and another not so clear from the driver’s door. Both sets seemed to converge by the rear door only to be lost in a confusion of disturbed snow. But what struck Jessie was the single line that ran in a scuffled trail from the rear door to the barn, as if . . . as if . . .
‘Fuck,’ she said, and faced Mhairi. ‘Andy’s in there,’ she whispered. ‘They’ve dragged him from the back seat. There’s two of them at least,’ she confirmed.
Mhairi hissed a curse of her own, then said, ‘We need help.’
Help was good. But it would take time for help to arrive. And Jessie knew she could not delay. Not this time. Not after losing Gordie. ‘You go on,’ she said to Mhairi, and pointed to the far corner of the steading. ‘Nip round the back. See if you can find another way in.’ Jessie tried to work through the lo
gic but it was now everything or nothing. ‘And get on to your phone again and this time tell them it’s an emergency.’
‘What about you?’
Jessie grimaced. ‘I’ll distract them.’
Mhairi held Jessie’s gaze for a stunned moment, as if about to ask if she was crazy or what. Jessie was not sure if she could give an honest answer. Then Mhairi pushed past her, crept beyond the barn’s door, and on towards the far corner.
CHAPTER 49
Jessie watched Mhairi disappear round the end of the steading.
All of a sudden, she realised how vulnerable she was. And how stupid. How really fucking stupid. She was so fucking stupid she was shaking in her shoes. Here she was, trying to tackle a known killer without a weapon, and without backup. The sensible thing to do would be to back away, watch from a safe distance until the others arrived. But she was beyond that, she had taken one step too far – maybe several – and in doing so had endangered not only her own life, but the lives of Mhairi and Robert.
With that thought, she glanced at Robert—
What . . . ?
He was standing by the side of the Fiat, looking at her.
Get back inside the car, she signed. It’s too cold.
There’s someone with a gun.
Jessie’s heart jumped to her mouth. Where?
Behind the wall.
Jessie looked the length of the steading, at snow that lay undisturbed all the way to the near corner. Then she turned back to Robert. Where?
Robert flapped a hand at the gable end, then signed, Behind the wall with a gun only six feet from the corner run Mum run he’ll shoot you.
And it struck Jessie that if Robert could see the man, the man could see Robert.
So she ran.
She ran towards the corner.
She ran towards the corner and the man with the gun, knowing that if she was killed, then Robert would be killed too. She risked a glance at Robert but could not see him, and a surge of relief powered through her that he had the sense at least to hide.
