by Katy Jordan
“We get them to get a certificate from Discovery Scotland and bring it with them,” Margaret answered. “But, Emma is a good girl.”
“We’re not implying that she’s not, Margaret, but we need to know: does anyone on this list have a record?” Ingram asked.
“No, they don’t, I checked before I came down,” she answered, “there’s two volunteers that do have a record, but not to the nature of what’s happened at the monument.”
“I understand you might believe that, but I think we should decide, Margaret. Could we get the names of those two volunteers?” Marshall probed.
Margaret took yet another sheet of paper out of her briefcase and put it down to face them.
“This is a list of all of our volunteers, along with their address. I’ve notified them to let them know this would be happening,” she claimed, her hands visibly shaking. “There’s two with an asterisk next to their names; they’re the ones that have a criminal record.”
Marshall took the small stack of paper that was put down in front of her and handed it to Ingram.
“In the last week, have any fights broken out at the monument? Either between staff or visitors?” Marshall asked.
“No, there has been no report of that. All our staff are required to take a note of any skirmishes or trouble that occurs at the monument,” Margaret replied.
“Is there anyone there at night time? Like security or maintenance?” Ingram interjected.
“The monument gets locked at finishing time and that’s the end of it,” Margaret admitted.
“Okay,” Marshall replied, scribbling notes, “if you have any security cameras, we’re going to need a copy from the last forty-eight hours.”
“I can get that to you as early as this afternoon,” said Margaret, proudly.
“That would be great,” Marshall said, “thank you very much for coming in, Margaret. If we need anything else, we’ll be in touch.”
“Anything I can do,” she replied as they all got up and headed to the door. “Please find whoever did this. Visitor counts could drop drastically if we don’t know what to tell our tourists, and all of my staff are extremely on edge.”
“As soon as we know something, you will, Mrs Peters,” Ingram assured her.
Margaret flashed them both a forced smile before walking down the corridor and through the doors.
“I don’t think she knows anything,” Marshall offered.
“Neither do I,” Ingram agreed, “she would have too much to lose. But, I think we should talk to Emma Hainey.”
“Yeah,” Marshall agreed, “have Tucker and Jamieson go and question her. I want to talk to Stan Parker.”
“I’ll go make some calls,” Ingram announced and walked in the opposite direction that Margaret did.
The breeze that the fire exit door let in was nippy and forceful, as Marshall stood outside and sparked up a cigarette.
She felt the rush as the nicotine made its way through her.
Her phone started ringing in her pocket, and upon pulling it out, she saw it was Dr Prim.
“How’s my favourite medical examiner? … You do? Fantastic! Okay, I’ll be right there,” Marshall hung up the phone and threw her cigarette away. She came inside and bumped into Ingram.
“Oh jeez, sorry! I was just coming to find you,” she said.
“And I was just coming to find you,” he panted, "no schools or clubs have had anything in the air since Tuesday because of the weather, and the RAF have been doing training courses at the borders. There have been no planes anywhere across the central belt."
“Damn,” Marshall barked, annoyed, “well, that just makes our job a little bit harder, doesn’t it?”
Ingram and Marshall put on the medical aprons and latex gloves and entered the morgue to meet Prim.
“Well?” Marshall asked. “Who’s the unfortunate tourist today?”
“His name is David Watt, thirty-eight years old.”
“Ditch,” Ingram muttered.
“Who’s a bitch?” asked Marshall, stunned.
“No, Ditch,” he clarified, "David ‘Ditch’ Watt. I was right, he was a member of the Lion’s Den. I tried to pin a drug deal on him, but he got out of it on a technicality. He was called Ditch because of the kinds of places he did drug deals."
“Well, he’s been a very busy man over the last year or so,” said Prim in a very unimpressed manner. “I had to excuse my assistant from this particular case.”
“Why?” Marshall pried.
“Because a friend of his is connected to Watt. And that friend of his committed suicide,” Prim explained. “David Watt was accused of raping a twenty-three-year-old girl called Jenna Harvey. Midway through the trial, Harvey committed suicide, and Watt was found not guilty.”
“How long ago was this?” Ingram asked.
“The trial ended three months ago. My assistant gave testimony on Jenna’s behalf. Her death was really hard on him,” she continued, “it was such a frenzied and strange case.”
“What makes you say that?” Marshall probed.
“Because they had this man every which way. Whether Jenna committed suicide or not, he should have gone to jail. But, another witness went missing right after the trial ended.”
“What was her name?” Ingram enquired.
Prim checked the report she took for excusing her assistant from this case file.
“My assistant Martin said it was another young girl called Wells. Georgina Wells.”
Within less than a day of the body being discovered, the murder case just turned into a possible conspiracy.
Chief Inspector Marshall and Inspector Ingram most definitely had their work cut out for them.
Chapter One
The dank, musty basement reeked of stale body odour as Jack slowly paced the length of the room. Sweat dripped carefully down his forehead, creating a steady course across the bridge of his nose as it came to a stop at the tip.
“Tell me what you know,” he said to the bruised, beaten girl. “Tell me what you know, and I might just let you live.”
“I don’t know anything,” she whimpered, her long blond hair, damp with sweat, dangled down either side of her face as her head slouched forward. “But, even if I did… I wouldn’t tell you,”
A swift, hard blow struck her face, as Jack took a back-handed swing to her moist cheek.
“Are you sure?” He warned.
“Positive.”
The man smacked her again, this time much harder than the last.
He stared at her arduously, bending down so that his face was level with hers. Grabbing a clump of her wavy hair, he pulled her head back with much power, forcing her to look him in the eye.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Flare,” he said, “I really don’t. But, I will go through all means necessary to make you talk to me.”
“You do that… it’ll be a complete waste of your time,” Flare replied before spitting in his face.
Angered, Jack threw her backwards, the chair tipping, her head smacking against the concrete floor.
He stormed away, and reaching on to a shelf behind him, he took a small jar from it and opened it. It rattled as he emptied the contents into his hand.
Small rings, some with spikes and some with oddly shaped ridges fell on to his palm, and he turned to Flare while he slowly slid them on to his fingers.
“Did you think this was merely going to be a batting session?” He teased. “I did warn you… whatever means necessary.”
Jack prowled toward his prey, wiggling his fingers to show off his new accessories for torture.
Flare’s breathing drastically sped up as he towered over her with intimidating height and mass in comparison to her small, weakened form lying sideways on the cold, dewed floor.
Feeling a possible broken arm trapped between the chair and the ground, Flare fought through the incessant ringing in her head and fumbled around with her hands, strapped tight behind her at the wrist, trying frantically to break free.
“Tell me who’s hiding her. Tell me where she is. Tell me what she’s planning.”
A shard of wood from the chair pricked her finger, and Flare grabbed it.
“I don’t know where she is!”
In a frenzy, she tried with all her might to stop the tiny piece of wood from sticking to her clammy, shaky hands and started to jab at the duct tape around her wrists, the muscle in her forearm stretching like old elastic as though it may snap any second. Flare could smell the metal from the tips of Jack’s shoes as he stood centimetres away from her face.
Briskly, he grabbed her elbow in a tight lock and yanked her and her chair upright, so forcefully that the chair screeched across the concrete floor. She could feel the burning heat from the light that hung directly above her head.
Almost consumed with fear and anticipation, she continued to stab and poke and swipe at the duct tape with the small shard, not for one second taking her eyes off of her attacker.
“Tell me even one of those things, Flare, and then we’re one step closer to this all being over,” Jack offered.
Flare’s lungs were working overtime, every intake of breath was sharp and sore as she painfully shook her head. A tear fell down the side of her cheek and met the ends of her lips as she braced herself for Jack’s next clear move.
The rings of his right hand tore across the side of Flare’s face, and she cried out in pain. She could taste the blood in her mouth as it streamed from the newly formed wounds on her cheek.
Flare took deep breaths in an attempt to steady her breathing
The sight of the wooden door loaded with locks and bolts started to blacken in her throbbing daze. Unfazed, Jack sauntered away from her and sat in his own chair in the corner of the room.
On the floor next to his feet stood a bottle of vodka, which he picked up and took a large gulp from. He grimaced at the nipping in the back of his throat as he felt the alcohol wash through him.
The bottle was almost empty.
“That hurt me more than it hurt you,” Jack claimed, “I really didn’t want to resort to these methods, especially on the one and only Fuschia Flare, but you’re leaving me with no option.”
Flare said nothing.
She gave no reaction as she continued to tremble and the tears continued to flow. Jack was suddenly up and with her, his face in hers, as quick as though it were supernatural. His horrid, beady eyes bore through her.
Flare did not blink.
She kept his gaze.
It felt like hours until finally, he looked away to the deep, ragged cuts on her face.
“Ouch, don’t want them to get infected…” he taunted, and all of a sudden, a searing pain hit Flare’s face as Jack splashed the rest of his vodka into her fresh wounds.
Flare screamed.
She didn’t care anymore.
She could no longer bear to try and hide how he affected her. She crazily shook her head and stamped her feet, all the while scraping at the duct tape with the small shard that she could feel breaking between her fingers.
Flare openly sobbed.
“Kill me,” she pleaded, “just kill me because I will never give her up and I can’t take this anymore…”
“No, no, no. That would be too easy. If you want to make this game hard, you’re going to suffer for it,” he informed her, punching three finely round holes into her abdomen with his rings. Flare folded fast like paper, gasping for breath like it was rationed.
No air would come to her.
Her pink T-shirt began to mat to her wounded belly as she tried to sit back.
She longed for the duct tape to snap.
She prayed for a miracle that that tiny little piece of wood that slithered in her hand like a worm would break through her restraints, that she would have a chance to free herself, but she couldn’t tell how much more she had to go, or if she had broken through any of the tape at all. Jack gazed deep into her eyes again, his stubble glistening with sweat.
He stared intently, as though he could see right through her.
“Where is she, Flare?” he asked again.
“I don’t know!”
“Don’t lie to me!”
“I’m not lying! I don’t know where she is!”
Jack turned away and began to pace again.
He lifted his black jacket slightly and pulled a small revolver from the back of his trousers.
Flare gasped in horror, her eyes closing, her mind willing this to end.
She couldn’t decide at that moment if she was more terrified of the pain to come, or more relieved that he may kill her, and thus, this would be over.
Dauntingly, he checked the cylinder to see how many rounds he had.
He smiled, menacingly, slowly drawing his eyes up to meet Flare’s exhausted gaze.
“How about a game of Russian Roulette?”
Without even needing to think about it, Flare shook her head.
“Aw, why not? It’ll be fun!”
“No,” she begged, “please don’t.”
Jack spun the cylinder before slotting it back into the base of the barrel. He slowly and threateningly slid back the hammer and held the gun to his temple.
Flare shut her eyes and held her breath.
Click.
Her eyes batted open.
The noise of Jack’s revolver coincided with the sound of the duct tape snapping behind her.
“Oh well, looks like it’s your turn,” Jack announced.
He made his way towards her, Flare feeling the confidence return to her now that she knew the element of surprise was on her side. He reached out his arm to continue his game, but Flare grabbed the gun with both hands and forced it back hard into his face.
Jack stumbled backwards and fell, stunned.
He scrambled to get more bullets from his pocket and load the gun, while Flare, in the same frenzy, clawed at the duct tape around her ankles.
She burst one free, as Jack slapped the loaded cylinder into the gun.
Flare didn’t hesitate.
She swung her leg and the chair attached at Jack, knocking him over once more. The chair, as though in its own attempts to break free, separated from Flare’s leg and hurled across the floor. She lunged.
Landing square on top of him, Flare aimed for the gun.
Four hands were grasping it as the pair rolled along the floor.
She tried to lock her leg underneath his knee, but Jack was anticipating everything.
He was trained.
Both her hands were in full grip of the gun, just like Jack’s.
Their legs flailed around aimlessly as they tried to get the better of one another. There was nothing else for it.
Flare opened her mouth and latched on to Jack’s shoulder.
He yelled and squirmed in pain, his blood filling her mouth, his skin tearing away between her teeth.
One hand came off the gun and crashed through Flare’s hair.
She grabbed his arm, keeping the other firmly on the gun, and rolled forwards, flipping Jack over the top of her. As he sprawled across the floor and landed on his back, Flare stood up.
She tried to ignore the pain that tore through her entire body.
Flare gripped the revolver as tight as she could while it shook in her weak and trembling grasp, as she aimed it straight at Jack’s head.
Jack flipped on to his front and stopped dead at the sight before him. He looked up at her, his eyes filled with hatred.
“How long have you worked for him?” Flare demanded.
Jack did nothing. Said nothing.
She forced back the hammer.
“HOW LONG HAVE YOU WORKED FOR HIM?”
Silence ensued until finally he replied.
“Why does it matter?”
“It matters to me,” she hissed at him.
“Just over two years.”
Flare felt her grasp on the gun loosen.
Numbness consumed her from her feet upwards as she heard the words uttered from his bloody mou
th.
He’s bluffing she told herself, and quickly regained focus on her target.
“You’re lying,” she said.
“Am I?” he asked. “You were stolen from him. You all were. He wants revenge.”
“Shut up.”
“He’s after you all…”
“Stop.”
“…he’s after all of you, and your new boss.”
“STOP!” Flare screamed.
Jack began to laugh mockingly.
He had her.
He knew he was there, in her thoughts, penetrating everything she had ever believed.
“Did you think you would all just leave him and that would be the end of it?” He asked, amused by her naivety. “He taught you all everything you know. He trained you to do what you do. And you left him ‘to do better things’. He’s pissed. But, he knows Bullet led the way and the rest of you followed suit. So, either you go back to him, or you go to the afterlife. His words, not mine.”
Flare stared at Jack, silent, unbelieving.
“Stand up.”
Jack fumbled to his feet, grimacing with every move, holding his hands up as he stood upright.
Keeping the gun pointed in his direction, Flare edged back towards the toppled chair and grabbed it. She dragged it behind her and slid it over to him, feeling her left knee about to buckle underneath her own weight.
“Sit down.”
Jack sat down, his hands still in the air. Flare picked up the duct tape from the shelf and threw it at him, hard. It slammed into Jack’s chest and landed on his lap.
“Tape your ankles to the chair legs.”
He glared at her, annoyed that she now had the upper hand.
“NOW!” She shouted, angry.
Reluctantly, Jack began taping his legs to that of the chair he sat on.
Flare approached him, shoving the muzzle of the revolver on to his forehead.
She picked up the duct tape and gnawed at the end with her teeth and it came away easily
She pulled the gun away from his face.
“Put your hands behind your back. If you try anything, I’ll make abstract art with your brain matter.”
Flare taped his hands together around the back of the chair.
Learning from her own actions, she covered his fingers as well, being generous to herself with the amount of duct tape she used. She walked round to face him, gun still aimed in his direction.
