by Tom Bale
‘Soon. Less than an hour, according to Glenn.’
Davy’s advice was simple. ‘You’ve got to run for it, mate. Right away.’
‘I can’t. I left Glenn with Diana and Ellie.’
‘He has no reason to hurt them, does he?’
‘Would you want to guarantee that, knowing what he’s capable of?’ To Fenton, he said, ‘So Glenn tipped you off, told you to watch me. What next?’
‘He said he’d bring Morton here.’
Joe sighed. Not what he wanted to hear. If Ellie or Diana became suspicious – or if Glenn decided he couldn’t risk leaving them behind – then he would have to kill them.
‘We need to call an ambulance for Jenny. And for Leon.’ Joe pointed to Fenton. ‘Then I’m giving you an opportunity to redeem yourself.’
Eighty-Nine
IT WAS ELLIE who said it, but Diana had been thinking it, too. Somehow it was a greater shock to hear her own conclusion spoken aloud by someone else.
Glenn didn’t deny the charge. Instead he acted as though it was beneath his contempt to respond.
‘Diana didn’t trip over a shoe,’ Ellie said. ‘You hit her, just as you hit me, once or twice. Do you remember that? When I was young and naive.’
‘Bullshit. I never did,’ Glenn whined, but Ellie went on as though she hadn’t heard.
‘I just wish I was more surprised, but I can’t say I am.’ She sighed. ‘People usually picture sex attackers as creepy loners who can’t speak to women, let alone form relationships. And some of them are. But of course there are others, like you – handsome, charming men who get so used to women saying yes that it becomes more than an assumption. It becomes a right. The idea that somebody wouldn’t want to sleep with you is offensive. An insult.’
Ellie gave a sad laugh. ‘It’s ironic, isn’t it?’ she said to Diana. ‘When I looked at you just then, I knew, and I think you were the same. All these years of mutual suspicion, but if we’d ever met up and talked, I wonder how much sooner we’d have worked out what a monster he is.’
Diana nodded. ‘He poisoned us against each other to prevent that from happening.’
‘Hey!’ Glenn shouted, more riled by being ignored than by the accusations, it seemed to Diana. ‘You’ve really screwed up now. Both of you.’
‘I think we have an admission,’ Ellie said, but the triumph in her voice was tinged with real fear.
‘It didn’t have to be like this,’ Glenn said. ‘But yeah, all right, I’m admitting it. And you’ll have to take the consequences of that.’ Still the whine of self-justification in his voice. ‘It was an accident, how it started. I had this girl, really up for it, then she goes and changes her bloody mind when it’s too late. She started threatening to go to the cops, get me put away. I couldn’t let that happen, could I? We had bills coming in, Alec was only a little kid—’
‘No!’ Ellie roared at him. ‘You will not use our son as an excuse.’
Glenn shrugged, sulky about the reprimand. ‘I’m just saying how it was. Then I got the job at Leon’s, found the tunnel and built the cell as a bit of a challenge. Like a secret camp. Could I get in and out without anyone knowing? Then it just came to me: get a girl down here and I could do whatever I liked. It was mind-blowing.’
Into his stride now, he looked up and seemed disorientated when he registered that they didn’t share his enthusiasm.
‘I was worried someone would find the hatch, so I blocked the toilet up a couple of times, deterred people from using it.’ He tapped his temple with a forefinger. ‘Not just a pretty face, see.’
‘How many victims?’ Ellie asked.
‘What does it matter to you?’
‘How many?’ Diana insisted.
‘I don’t know. Seven, maybe. Eight.’
‘So we’re nine and ten, are we?’ Ellie said.
‘You didn’t have to be,’ Glenn said regretfully, checking his watch. ‘But that’s how it’s looking.’
He got up, moving towards Ellie. Then his phone rang.
* * *
Danny Morton. That was Diana’s guess. Calling for directions. Perhaps moments away.
She could barely contemplate the slow, agonising death that Joe would face: Helen widowed without knowing it, the girls growing up sad and bitter, wondering why their father had failed to track them down …
The letter. At first it had slipped her mind; then she’d been waiting for the right moment to tell him. Now, watching Glenn answer his phone, she decided that it made little difference. What she knew couldn’t really have helped Joe, and might just have added to his torment.
Glenn looked disappointed. ‘Clive,’ he said to the caller, instinctively turning away.
Ellie shifted position on the chair, wriggling her toes and flexing the muscles in her legs. By the time Glenn turned back she was completely still once more.
His demeanour changed as he listened to Fenton. He straightened up, smiled. ‘Brilliant,’ he said, and Diana’s last hope crumbled to nothing. ‘What about Leon?’
The line couldn’t have been very clear, for Glenn had to hunch over. Again he turned his head towards the fireplace, missing another swift movement from Ellie. This time it was her hand, slipping inside her cardigan and emerging with something that she hid at her side.
Diana felt sick. She didn’t dare look Ellie in the eye. She was sure that Glenn would sense her fear and quell the rebellion before it had begun.
But Glenn was saying cheerfully: ‘Even better if he doesn’t pull through.’ Talking about Leon? A pause to listen, then: ‘Yeah. Plenty for us both. I’ll bring him over the minute he gets here. Won’t be long now.’
Won’t be long now. The phrase echoed in Diana’s head. Won’t be long till Danny Morton gets his hands on Joe. Won’t be long before Ellie and I are killed …
Still having trouble hearing, Glenn covered his other ear with one hand. ‘Say that again?’
And Ellie sprang up. She had a knife in her hand: a small paring knife from Diana’s kitchen. Serious intent on her face: this wasn’t a threat, a bluff. She was going to use it.
As Ellie launched herself at Glenn, the door burst open. A gust of wind extinguished all but a couple of the candles – and that was the cue for everything to go horribly wrong.
Ninety
JOE WAS ALL too aware of the potential for disaster. It hadn’t been much of a plan to start with, conceived in desperation and haste, with any number of risks that couldn’t be properly assessed. For a start, he’d failed to factor in Ellie’s resourcefulness.
As soon as he entered the room he knew he was too late – even if only by a fraction of a second. The vital element of surprise had been lost, but by then he was committed.
Back at Leon’s, he’d outlined what he wanted from Fenton. Davy was staying to make sure Fenton did as he was told.
They decided to leave it ten minutes before making the call. Given the conditions, Joe would have preferred twice as long to reach Diana’s, but he knew that even this delay could be fatal.
After retrieving his phone and his ID from Leon’s office, he borrowed Davy’s Land Rover and drove like a maniac. Half the town was in darkness. The top of the High Street was a blizzard of blue and red flashing lights. At the bridge a temporary barrier was being erected, overseen by a police officer. Joe hurtled past, sending one of the plastic barriers flying. He checked his mirror to see if the cop would give chase, but fortunately securing the bridge took priority.
To avoid alerting Glenn, he headed for the next street along and parked by a footpath that ran between a pair of stone cottages. He’d brought the rucksack with him, but decided he only needed the crowbar.
The rain didn’t seem quite as intense as he followed the path, stamping through puddles that were ankle-deep in places. He climbed a wide slate wall that divided Diana’s property from that of her neighbour and dropped into her garden. The lawn was a quagmire, wet mud splattering his jeans as he ran, but after the freezing cold waters of the tunn
el Joe barely noticed it.
He let himself in the back door and crept through the kitchen, leaving a trail of water on the floor. In terms of weapons there were plenty of knives at his disposal, but he decided to stick with the crowbar. He didn’t like fighting with knives: as with guns, they were just as liable to end up hurting the person who wielded them.
The house was eerily silent. Joe had a horrible premonition that he’d left it too late.
Then, as he eased the kitchen door open, he heard a phone ring. A moment later he made out Glenn’s voice, acknowledging the caller: ‘Clive.’
Joe saw a flickering light coming from the lounge. He could hear Glenn speaking again. So far, the plan was working: get Glenn on the phone, let him believe that Joe was being held captive at Leon’s, then take him out while he was distracted.
Joe reached the door, and Glenn was saying ‘… I’ll bring him over the minute he gets here. Won’t be long now.’
The door was open a few inches, but the angle was too narrow for Joe to see into the room. There was no sound apart from Glenn’s voice and the crackle of a fire, but Joe felt sure that Diana and Ellie were in there with him. No other logical place for them to be, assuming they were still alive.
Glenn said, ‘Say that again?’ – and Joe kicked open the door, saw Glenn standing in front of the hearth, the phone in his left hand, the arm already falling in response to a blur of movement from Joe’s right: someone rising from an armchair, throwing themselves towards Glenn, directly across Joe’s path.
It was Ellie. Joe was coming in behind her, to her left: she probably had no idea he was there. And she had a knife.
Joe reared back, stumbling as he tried to avoid a collision. Glenn reacted fast, whirling away from Ellie’s knife hand and registering Joe’s presence. Somebody wailed: Diana, possibly, while Ellie kept on coming, the blade scything in on Glenn, but he dodged it, grabbed Ellie by the shoulders and shoved her into Joe. She overbalanced, gasped as she struck Joe side-on and tumbled past him, collapsing onto the sofa. A winded groan and more cries as she landed on Diana; Joe glimpsed a foot kicking up, a hand thrown out in panic.
The dim pulsating light made a slow strobe of their movements: Ellie writhing on the sofa, Diana helpless beneath her, Joe tripping and falling as Glenn swung his arm in a clubbing motion, catching Joe as he went down, the crowbar slipping from his grasp.
The survival instinct made Glenn a dirty fighter. He kicked out at Joe, caught his thigh, his belly. Joe was trapped between a low table and an armchair, his head almost on the hearth: no room to manoeuvre.
He tried to curl into a foetal position, drawing his legs up and then kicking back at Glenn. His foot connected with Glenn’s shin but lacked the force to do real damage. Glenn roared with fury and threw himself down, his hands wrapping around Joe’s throat.
‘Tricked me, you fucking—’ The words dissolved into an incoherent screech. He lifted Joe’s head a couple of inches and tried to smash it down on the hearth. It only caught the edge, but even that was enough to stun Joe into submission: for a second everything went black.
A high, piercing scream brought Joe back. That and the pain.
The open fire was searing the top of his head. It felt like his hair was about to ignite. Every instinct urged him to propel himself away from it, but instead he extended his arm, reaching behind him until his fingers brushed against the edge of the fireguard. It was dome-shaped, made from steel mesh. Lightweight and easy to lift, but extremely hot.
Joe couldn’t let himself dwell on that. He snatched it up and swung it at Glenn, letting go as soon as it made contact. In swatting the fireguard away, Glenn released his grip on Joe and fell sideways towards the armchair.
Knowing he had only one chance to gain control, Joe twisted round and managed to get onto his knees, facing the fireplace. He spotted a sturdy-looking log, the size of a man’s forearm. One end was plunged into the fire, but the other end was untouched by the flames. Joe grabbed it and felt Glenn moving in again, panting and growling like a wild animal.
No room to swing it, so Joe had to settle for ramming the burning-hot timber at Glenn. It struck the side of his head with a heavy thud, a duller sound than the blow which Davy had inflicted on Leon, but no less sickening – and no less effective. It drove Glenn back a foot or more, and Joe saw his eyes roll up, the growl cut off mid-breath, and then he collapsed. Maybe not dead, but out of the game.
Joe threw the log back into the fire and blew on his hands, then realised that Ellie was still screaming.
Ninety-One
THE FIRST THING he registered was the blood, a black gleam in the wavering light. It was all over Ellie’s arms, all over her dress, and yet she wasn’t hurt. Joe could tell that straight away.
She was half-sitting on the sofa, leaning forward, one hand clamped on Diana’s chest, the other seeking his attention, fluttering like a bird afraid to settle. Between the two, a shadow caught his attention, jutting out, unmoving.
‘Oh no. No.’ Joe got up, saw Diana’s face turned towards his, her eyes open but barely seeing. The knife had buried itself in her chest.
‘I didn’t take it out,’ Ellie said. ‘I read that you’re not supposed to. And keep pressure on the wound – is that right?’
Joe nodded. Diana tried to speak, little pink bubbles frothing on her lips. Joe knelt in front of her, found her hand and grasped it gently.
‘Kitchen,’ she gasped. ‘Cut … cutlery.’
Joe pretended it made sense. Diana still had the wherewithal to look cross with him for humouring her.
‘Cutlery. Drawer.’
‘She said that just now,’ Ellie told him. ‘We can’t wait for an ambulance. We’ll have to take her.’
Joe agreed, but he also feared that it might be futile. She’d lost a lot of blood, and would inevitably lose more while being carried to a car and transported to hospital.
As if she could read his mind, Diana drew him closer. ‘I want to go.’
He nodded. ‘We’ll take you ourselves, right now.’
‘No. I want …’ Her eyes closed.
Joe frowned at Ellie. Futile or not, they had to try.
They needed to rig up a makeshift stretcher. A sudden itching in his throat made Joe cough: there was a foul taste in his mouth. He glanced over his shoulder, noting with relief that Glenn was still unconscious, and then he spotted a tiny swirl of smoke drifting up from Glenn’s hair. Beyond him, the bright orange glow of embryonic fire, rapidly taking hold of the carpet.
‘Oh Christ. Come on.’
Joe pushed his hands beneath Diana, braced his legs and lifted her into his arms while Ellie tried to maintain pressure on the chest wound. Diana didn’t react to the movement, her limbs flopping under the weight of gravity. The sofa beneath her was drenched with blood.
Ellie had been protesting about the urgency until she saw the flames and understood. One of the armchairs was blistering and smouldering. She moved alongside Joe and they staggered and bumped out of the room, the smoke already irritating their lungs.
You want the house to burn, a malicious voice told him. It destroys the evidence.
They’d reached the kitchen before Ellie was able to grab his arm and twist round into his path.
‘Don’t stop. What are you doing?’
‘Joe, I think she’s dead.’
Crossly he shook his head, took another step as though he might blunder straight through her. Ellie held her ground. Joe looked down at the body in his arms. He didn’t object when Ellie grasped Diana’s arm and felt for a pulse.
‘Nothing,’ she said.
Joe carefully set Diana down on the floor. He’d known from the moment he saw her that it was probably hopeless: the kind of medical help she needed was simply too far away. There would be no helicopters available in a storm like this; no paramedics within easy reach.
They had lost her.
‘What did she mean about the cutlery drawer?’ Joe was thinking aloud, wondering if there was som
e sort of medicine, something that could save her.
He couldn’t find a pulse at Diana’s neck, couldn’t detect a heartbeat or respiration. But he went on searching for signs of life, while Ellie groped in the darkness and located the drawer. The cutlery was stored in a plastic tray. She lifted it on to the counter and riffled through the contents, then checked the drawer again, and Joe heard a tiny exclamation: ‘Oh.’
He didn’t ask what she’d found. He didn’t much care. It couldn’t help Diana now.
Ellie returned to him as he stood up. There was a small white envelope in her hand. She was shaking violently as the adrenalin rush subsided and shock took hold.
‘I don’t know how it happened. Glenn pushed me and …’
‘You did nothing wrong, Ellie.’ Joe held her by the shoulders, bringing his face only an inch or two from hers, close enough to see the horror in her eyes. ‘You were trying to save her. Glenn would have killed you both.’
Ellie nodded dumbly. Joe wasn’t sure if she was really hearing him. But then she said, ‘Kamila?’
‘She’s dead, I’m afraid. There was another woman in the tunnel. In a bad way, but I think she’ll survive.’
‘And Leon?’
‘Seriously injured. If he does pull through he may have brain damage.’
Another blank nod. Then a wash of light cut across the window and dipped out of view. They heard the growl of a car engine.
At first Joe was confused, as though the trauma of the past few minutes had wiped his memory. Who would be coming here now?
Fortunately the amnesia didn’t last. The answer was only too obvious.
‘Danny Morton,’ he whispered.
Joe took a look out of the back door. There was no one in sight. Around the corner of the house the engine died; above the sound of the rain he heard several doors open and close.
‘We have to go over the back wall. Quickly.’
Ellie nodded. Taking her hand, Joe checked that the way was clear and hurried across the lawn. Trees and shrubs loomed out of the dark, forcing them to weave a zigzag path. The squelch of their feet on the grass seemed horrifically loud. Joe urged Ellie ahead of him, trying to shield her from any attack. He couldn’t shake off the feeling there was someone breathing down his neck.
