He took a deep breath and stammered out, “Something happened tonight. I need you to pack a bag and take Jack round to your mum’s.” His teeth were rattling and he couldn’t stop them.
“Paul, what’re you talking about?” she shrieked at him.
“Stacy,” he said, sharply, “I don’t have time for the histrionics. You’re not in any danger. It’s just a precaution. I don’t have time to explain. Take Jack around to your mum’s and lock the doors. I’m going to try and send someone round to look after you. He’s polis. Ask to see his warrant card before you let him in.”
“Paul?”
“Just do it!”
He hung up.
Not even Manny and his men would go after a kid. Even in Glasgow, where anything went, no hard man would survive that. But Paul wasn’t taking any chances. Reaching into his inside pocket, he fished out his wallet. Still walking, he pulled out a card and dialled the number.
A gruff voice answered. “DCI Carmichael.”
“Carmichael? It’s Paul. Paul Dalziel.”
He could hear Carmichael clearing his throat on the other end. When the inspector spoke again, his voice was quiet, as if he was leaving a room and didn’t want to disturb someone. “What do you want?” he asked angrily. There was still a slight slur to his voice but he sounded reasonably sober.
“I need your help.”
Carmichael was silent, so Paul continued, the phone shaking in his hand. “I need you to make sure my son and his mother are safe.” His mouth dried. “They could be in danger.”
“Dial 999.” Carmichael was fully awake now.
“You’re the only one I trust,” Paul said.
Carmichael hesitated. “Why, what’s happened?”
“I can’t get into that right now, Carmichael. Will you do it or not?”
There was a long pause. Paul’s body felt numb. The snow was getting heavier as he neared his flat. The rumble of an occasional car on the nearby motorway was the only sign of life. The street was deserted. His building came into sight. The building where Lena was waiting for him.
“What’s in it for me?” Carmichael retorted.
“What do you want?” Paul said grimly. He stopped and took a moment to survey the scene. The road to his front door was clear.
“Information.”
“About what?” Paul said breathlessly, the pressing urgency making him sick. He thought of Jack. Maybe one day there’d be the chance to make it up to him. Some way further down the line to reach out to him.
Carmichael huffed impatiently. “Give me something. Anything!”
Paul knew that time was running out. His body was throbbing with the cold. He had to keep moving. And Lena was waiting.
“I can give you information. About John’s murder,” he said, with resignation. “Me, Manny, Bucky, Dunsmore, Terry, we were all there. You were right: he didn’t jump into the sea. His head was crushed by a baseball bat. His body is buried in a shallow grave at an abandoned farm. There’s evidence there. If you guarantee the safety of my son and his mother, I’ll tell you where. Just promise me you’ll look after them.”
Carmichael exhaled loudly down the phone. “OK, I promise. But, Paul,” he warned, “when the time comes, I’ll be looking for you to help me get them off the street. You know what I mean.”
“I’ll be there,” Paul sighed. It was a promise he hoped he could keep. “Now, do you have a pen and paper?”
“Go,” Carmichael said.
Paul carefully recited Stacy’s address, checked and rechecked that Carmichael had taken it down correctly. Before hanging up, he hurriedly gave Carmichael the location of John’s body.
The next call he made was to Lena, to tell her he was coming. He was getting closer and closer to his front door. After ten beeps it went to voicemail. He cancelled and redialled, listening as it rang out. He tried a third time, but once again, it clicked to voicemail.
Lena wasn’t answering.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Paul continued to stare at an invisible spot on the floor. Annie’s eyes bored holes in him. She tried not to notice how sickly-looking he had become, his grey skin lacquered with sweat, his body wan, starved of nutrients and sunlight.
“She left,” he finally said.
“What do you mean? Where?” The words fired from her mouth like bullets. In his chair, Paul fidgeted and squirmed.
“When I got back to the flat, she was gone. Taken off. She got herself out of there. I don’t know where she went, but when they came for me, she’d got away.”
“You’re lying!” Annie shouted.
Paul’s voice had taken on a pleading tone. “You know everything now. So it’s time to let me go. Let me go and I’ll walk away. I’ll do that for your sister. Because I loved her. And because I want you to know that I loved her.”
“Why are you lying to me, Paul?”
Paul started to twist his arms, trying vainly to free them from the ropes. “I’m not lying,” he moaned.
Annie was on her feet. “I know she didn’t leave without you, Paul. Because after she left you at the hotel, she didn’t go straight to your flat. She came to see me. She came to say goodbye. Said she was leaving with you and that she loved you. She told me she’d be in touch!”
Paul shook his head.
“She said you were going on an adventure. But that she’d be safe because she was going with you. Dressed just like you described her.”
Paul’s eyes filled with tears. He closed them, tried to empty his mind.
Annie began rattling him, desperate to shake the truth from him. “What happened?” She shook him some more.
“She’s gone!” Paul shouted and jerked free of her, unable to listen anymore. “Can’t you just leave it at that? She didn’t suffer.”
Annie stood in stunned silence, visibly deflating, like a withered balloon. She hovered there limply, trying to process his words. Her body smarted as if it had been freshly skinned and rubbed in salt. It was what she had known all along, but it didn’t stop the hurt.
Paul didn’t speak, didn’t look at her. His nostrils began to flare as if he was offended by his own stench.
“You knew all this time. But you let me go on hoping.”
“Stop it!” he shouted and tried to bury his head in his shoulder. Strangled grunts escaped him as if he was trying to cry. His shoulders curled, his muscles flexed. He strained against the ropes. The whites of his eyes grew red and pulsed, ready to burst; the veins in his temples throbbed purple. Annie watched as he fought to pull free. Tearing the skin off his hands. Yanking and ripping.
One hand broke loose. Annie spied the knife across by the window and ran over, grabbing the cold black handle. By the time she’d spun round, his other hand was free. He was bent over, untying his leg. She bolted for the door, grabbing desperately for the knob. Behind her, Paul’s chair thudded to the floor.
She ran through into the hall, racing to the front door. His feet pounded on the carpet as he chased her. She tried to open the door and escape, fumbled with the chain, but he lunged from behind and pinned her against it, his arm arching over either side of her. Close up, she could feel his strength; even in his weakened state, he was far stronger than she was.
Turning so her back was against the door, she pointed the knife at him, her shaking hands slippery with sweat. Paul leaned closer, the knife puncturing the threads of his T-shirt.
“You shouldn’t threaten someone with a weapon unless you’re prepared to use it!” he panted, his eyes bright and hungry.
“Don’t think I won’t!”
“Because they can just…” Her eyes briefly went to the knife. He grabbed her wrist and twisted. She felt it slip from her fingers. “… take it off you, and use it against you.”
With a steady hand, he pressed the knife close to her face. She felt the blade cold against her cheek
and didn’t say a word as she waited for him to use it. Closing her eyes, she waited and waited.
The knife made a loud clink as it landed at the other end of the hall. It happened so fast, her eyes flashed open just as Paul grabbed her by the upper arms and banged her forcefully into the door. Her head cracked off the wooden panelling and her last sensation before she lost consciousness was confusion.
When she came to, she was sitting on the couch. Her hands were tied behind her back and her mouth was gagged. The rope had been tied tightly, digging into her skin; he hadn’t left any space, and the gag was already wet with saliva.
Paul came into focus, moving around the living room. He looked different. Alive, energetic. Manic.
He picked up her handbag and turned it upside down, spilling the contents onto the floor. She watched him rummage on his haunches through loose change, crumpled receipts, a broken lipstick, until he found her keys and lifted them out. Isolating the car key, he bounced to his feet with satisfaction and came towards her.
“Is it parked outside?”
She nodded.
His wrists were red where the ropes had been, deep grazes where he’d torn them free. He rubbed them absently. “OK, we’re going for a drive. If you scream or try to get away, I’ll break your neck.”
She nodded again. Her eyes stung and her nose tingled. She fought to hold back the tears.
He dug his fingers into her arm and pulled her to her feet. There was nothing to do but go with him. He dragged her first into the hall and then into the kitchen, slamming through drawers and cupboards to find a torch. On the way out, he lifted her red coat off the stand and put it over her shoulders, pulling her hood up so it hung over her face.
“Don’t try anything stupid,” he threatened. Together they stepped out into the gloom. Closing the door carefully behind him, he put his arm around her shoulders, drawing her in tight. Her face pressed against his chest, the stale sweat from his underarms making her gag. They progressed downstairs like two bodies in a three-legged race; to anyone watching, they would have looked like two inebriated lovers holding on to each other for support.
It was dark outside. The wind was blowing. There was no one around. Paul held up the keys and pressed the central-locking button. Her car beeped and they made their unsteady way towards it.
“Get in.” He opened the passenger door and when she hesitated he shoved her in, slamming the door after her. She followed him with her eyes as he walked casually to his side. Her hands throbbed behind her back. He got in and reached over her to pull her seatbelt across, clicking it into place. The sound made her heart sink, her movements now restricted to the few inches of space around the seat. She had to lift her head up just to see out from under her hood. Only her knees were free. She wondered if she would be able to knock the gearstick once he started driving. When she looked up, she found him staring at her, steadily and with loathing, as if he had just read her mind.
“Try it and see what happens.”
Her knees clenched and she knew he meant it. It chilled her to think how close she’d come to believing him, that she’d almost pitied him. She had no idea where he was taking her but knew it was nowhere good. When the moment came, she would fight him with every fibre of her being.
He drove carefully, calmly, aware of the speed cameras. As they reached the motorway, familiar landmarks disappeared. They rolled past bridges and buildings she’d never seen before. Once or twice she tried to catch the eye of a passing driver, but none of them looked her way. Even if they had, most of her face was covered by her hood.
Eventually he pulled off the motorway into an area she didn’t recognise. Paul flicked the headlights off and the car crept along the dark, deserted streets. There would be no one to help her here, in this post-apocalyptic wilderness. Most of the tenement buildings were abandoned: metal sheets soldered over the windows, refuse piled in the gardens, plastic bags sprouting like mutating weeds across the landscape. The skeleton of a burned-out car lay in the middle of the road, its charred doors open as if, like the rest of the place, it had been abandoned in a hurry.
They reached a dead end and the car rolled slowly to a stop. Silently, Paul got out. A chain-link fence barred the way forward and a sign proclaiming Demolition Site: Keep Out filled the windscreen. A mountainous pile of rubble was heaped behind it, with metal beams poking out from beneath tons of crumbling concrete, like the last remnants of a sinking ship.
Annie’s door flew open and a wash of cold air blew in. She watched from under her hood as Paul reached in and leaned across to undo her seatbelt. As soon as the lock clicked open, she mustered all her strength and struck out, hitting him with her head, knees, every body part she could charge into motion. A few good blows connected and she continued kicking, his arms flailing in the enclosed space, trying to restrain her. Her legs kicked furiously. Her shoe flew off and she felt her stockinged foot sink sharply into something soft and warm. Paul gasped in pain and doubled over, holding his groin. Seizing the opportunity, Annie leaped from the car and made a run for it. But a hand grabbed her foot and she lost her balance and landed hard on the cold ground.
Despite the shooting pain in her shoulder, she scrambled quickly to her feet. But Paul was already on top of her. His hand closed tightly around her shoulder. His breath was tearing out of him, the other hand still clutching his aching groin.
“Fucking bitch.” He hobbled to his feet, pulling her up with him. Together, they started towards a break in the fence. When she stopped walking, he dragged her, scraping her legs along the pavement. He held back the stray piece of fence and pulled her through.
In the centre of the demolition site was a derelict block of flats. The thirty-odd floors loomed ahead of them. She looked back to where its twin had once stood, now reduced to the rubbly mound by the fence. Curtains still hung in some of the broken windows, but no lights were on. Still, she had the feeling of eyes on them, watching in silent anonymity. She could only imagine what manner of life inhabited its dark corridors and abandoned rooms, what nocturnal activities went on behind its grey concrete walls. They crossed the wasteland until they were directly underneath. She thought it was their destination but he pulled her past and onto a dark, overgrown track.
Long grass and nettles stung her lower legs, snagging her tights. Stray roots played beneath her feet, tripping her, and the sprigs of bushes pulled her hair and scratched her face, but their brisk pace never slowed. They carried on, the ground becoming softer underfoot, and soon she heard the rush of water. The sound grew louder. Finally, they reached a tall concrete wall. He tugged her towards an opening and hauled her through and onto a tarmac pathway that followed the water’s edge. The black water of the River Clyde raged under the silver glare of the stars.
Looking back desperately, she saw how far they’d come. The dark shadow of the high-rise stood in the distance, its blacked-out eyes purposefully closed to the world. The faint light of the motorway glowed behind it.
On the other side of the river was a steep embankment and beyond that a scattering of houses, too far away for anyone to spot their two solitary figures. Up ahead, stretching over the river, was a large iron railway bridge. Annie wasn’t sure if it was still in use, but there would be no trains at this time of night anyway. The river rushed noisily beside them, too loud for anyone to hear.
Paul dragged her on, towards the bridge. The entrance to the tunnel beneath it was covered in graffiti, the grass around it littered with weather-bleached cans and drugs paraphernalia; a damp couch sat beside the remnants of a campfire scorched into the gravel. The air stank of putrid ash mixed with the damp spray of the river.
Inside the tunnel the shadows swelled and shrank.
Paul flicked on the torch. “Go in.”
Annie shook her head, her eyes wide and desperate.
He shone the torch under the bridge, the thin trickle of light flying over syringes and alo
ng the oozing, crumbling bricks. The river rushed dangerously close.
“Go in.”
He nudged her forward, inch by resistant inch. With every step, she could feel the temperature dropping. The arched brickwork of the roof reflected the water in a kaleidoscope of shapes. It was quieter underneath. Their breathing echoed above the din of the river beside them.
Paul put the torch under his armpit to free up his hands. The beam lit his face, like a monster. Sobbing with fear, she searched around for somewhere to run to, but there was only the river and darkness. Suddenly the light flashed into her eyes, momentarily dazzling her. Instinctively she tried to shield them, but with her hands tied behind her back, the force of her movement knocked her off balance. She stumbled to the ground and rolled.
The ground was wet and muddy. She could feel his hand on her. His fingers tugging on the rope around her wrists as she sprawled there, helpless. The torch, lying beside her, shone into the river, which was closer than she’d realised. Another inch or two and she would have been in it. Paul must have pulled her back. Her protests were muffled by the gag. She could feel the rope squeezing tighter. She yelped in pain, then exhaled in sudden relief as the binds loosened. She rotated her wrists, the rush of blood sending a flood of agonising tingles to the tip of each finger.
Breathing hard, she pulled down her gag and scrambled to her feet. Paul was standing at the edge of the water, leaning over, looking into the river’s depths. He’d lost all interest in her. Annie backed away to a safe distance, but she didn’t run.
“Why have you brought me here?” she said, her voice trembling.
“Because this is where it all ended.”
His words rang starkly around the cold brick walls.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Nine years ago
Standing outside his apartment block, the snow obscuring nearly everything by now, he tried phoning Lena a third time. This time the call connected. A voice came on the line.
“Hello, Paul.”
S K Paisley Page 24
