by Andy Maslen
‘I think I’ve got a while yet. And, don’t forget, they’re going to come looking for you at the house. Not in here.’
‘So you killed them all because of what your mum did to your brother, is that it?’
‘I loved Mal. He could have had a normal life. But she beat the normality out of him. Beat it out, and worse. Her and her freakish beliefs. I’ve shown the world that they can’t be trusted.’
‘How, though, Miriam? How have you shown the world? You didn’t leave messages.’
Miriam’s eyes widened.
‘Didn’t leave – oh, come on, Stella. You don’t think my little displays might have been just a tiny little clue? Plus, the Sun was very helpful, publishing my letter. Though as you know, I signed it The Fourth Horseman. “Lucifer” was all wrong. He was a fallen angel, after all. He’d sat at God’s side. Whereas good old Death is a destroyer, pure and simple.
‘Now, never mind all that, I suppose you’re wondering how I wheedled my way into those women’s confidence? It wasn’t difficult.
‘I just told them what they wanted to hear. In their own way, they were all too proud for their own good. Look at Niamh Connolly. She screamed when she turned round and found me inside her home. I thought she was going to faint. That or wet herself.
‘Then I just dangled money in front of her and it all went away. Now, I don’t want any more interruptions, so I’m just to going to refasten your gag and then I’ll begin.’
After stooping to jam the gag back into Stella’s mouth, Miriam Robey embarked on a lengthy explanation of the steps she’d taken to murder her victims. Hoping her digital recorder was picking up the confession, Stella continued to work away at the cable tie binding her ankles.
Finally, Miriam seemed to reach a conclusion to the grisly story she had spent the previous forty minutes telling her captive audience.
‘Then I put my protective suit on and started work. My goodness there was a lot of blood! And I cut myself at one point. I know it was careless. But isn’t that what they say about people like me? In the end our confidence lets us down? But before I do leave London for pastures new, I do have one, final message to send the world. And I’m going to use you to send it.’
She stood, and Stella shied away. But Miriam stepped away from the chair and towards the door. She smiled down at Stella.
‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you. Well, not yet, anyway. I wasn’t completely lying about that bitch Celia Thwaites. I had planned to make her my next victim. Then you got too close to the truth and I had to change my plans.
‘You remember chapter five of Peter’s book? Saint Lawrence? Mal taught me to weld before they killed him. I’ve made a grille. I was going to roast her alive, but you’ll have to do. I’ll go and get it. You’ll want to see it, I’m sure. You know, before I strap you to it.’
She turned back to her chair and picked up the book, which she’d placed on the floor.
‘Obviously I’m not a massive fan of the Bible, but I did want to read you one quote. It’s from Ezekiel. It was one of Mother’s favourites.’
She flipped the pages until she came to a scrap of green paper, which she crumpled and dropped to the floor. She cleared her throat and began reading.
‘Woe to the city of bloodshed! I, too, will pile the wood high. So heap on the wood and kindle the fire. Cook the meat well, mixing in the spices; and let the bones be charred.’ She looked down at Stella. ‘The city of bloodshed was Jerusalem. Some scholars think the passage is a metaphor. But I prefer to take it more literally. I’m going to roast you until nothing’s left but charred bones.’
Then she left, shutting and locking the door behind her.
Stella set to work immediately. Grunting with the effort, she finally managed to work her bleeding index finger under the ankle strap of her right boot.
Her leg was cramping agonisingly, and the cable tie cutting into her wrists amplified the pain. She ignored it and worked at the growing loop of leather until it came free of the buckle.
Crossing the index and middle fingers of her right hand, and squeezing them hard round the strap, she pulled it out of the buckle. With a hiss of triumph she took the freed prong between her fingertips and began to manoeuvre it towards the tab of the cable tie around her wrists.
Her head was twisted round so far she could feel the muscles, tendons and ligaments in her neck straining against each other. The pain was excruciating, but nothing compared to what was waiting for her. She tried to ignore it and thanked God once more that she was still flexible enough to perform these agonising contortions.
For what felt like minutes, but was probably only thirty seconds, she felt around with her fingertips, finding the tiny aperture and then losing it again.
Finally, she felt the prong slide home, between the tape and pawl, home into the heart of the locking mechanism. She took a deep breath through her nose and, as she let it out, pushed the prong.
Holding it against the pawl, she slowly began to pull her left wrist away from her right. Oh God, it’s coming! she thought, almost weeping with relief.
The door banged open. Heart thumping, Stella forced herself to go limp. Ignoring the agony of her twisted muscles, she lay still.
99
FRIDAY 14TH SEPTEMBER 11.39 A.M.
BECKTON, EAST LONDON
Dangling a green plastic fuel can from the fingers of her right hand, and holding what looked to Stella like a makeup bag in her left, Miriam looked down at Stella and cocked her head to one side.
‘I’ve piled the wood high. It’s in a pit, so obviously it’s not high as in above ground, but there’s a lot of it. And it’s so dry thanks to this weather we’ve been having. I wondered whether I really needed the petrol, but you can’t be too careful, know what I mean?’
She came closer, bent and tugged the gag away. Stella coughed as she drew in a lungful of clean air.
‘You comfortable down there, Stella?’
‘More comfortable than your brother.’
Miriam pooched her lower lip out.
‘Oh, that’s not nice. I suppose you’re trying to provoke me, is that it? Want me to kick you to death instead of burning you? I have to say, it does have its merits. I did it to one of Mal’s girlfriends after she tried to run away. In fact, I almost broke my toe. She’s in the oil pit, too.’
Her attention seemed to jump the tracks. She shook her head violently.
‘Look!’ she said brightly. ‘I brought you something to drink.’
Stella watched, horrified, as Miriam unscrewed the black lid from the fuel can. As it came free, the room filled with the heady tang of petrol. She upended the can over Stella’s head.
Gasping and spluttering, trying to avoid swallowing, Stella swore up at her tormentor.
‘Fuck you, you crazy bitch!’
Miriam righted the can and screwed the lid back on. She shook her head.
‘Nobody’s going to get fucked here today, except you. Although it wasn’t always a love-free zone. Mal and I, well, when I said he raped me, that wasn’t precisely a lie. We were very close. Plenty of cosy little spots to choose from. We used to take turns. Choosing, I mean.
‘You see, before he was old enough to fuck that little tart Lauren Bourne-Clark, I used to let him practise with me. Boys have so much energy, I knew if I didn’t, he’d probably go off and do something silly with one of the neighbourhood girls, and I wasn’t old enough to clear up after him yet. Oh, Stella, what a face. After all I’ve done, that’s what’s given you the heebie-jeebies?’
Knowing it was all but pointless, Stella tried one final time to reason with Miriam. Because she was beginning to realise that here was a specimen of evil beyond anything she’d encountered.
‘Miriam. He abused you, can’t you see that? He messed around in your head until you didn’t know right from wrong. Let me go and I promise I will help you. You need treatment, not punishment. I know someone who could give you that help. Someone kind. He works in a hospital—�
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‘I don’t care where he fucking works!’ Miriam roared. Then she dropped her voice straight back into a conversational tone, which scared Stella more.
‘And it wasn’t poor Mal who abused me. That was Mother’s sacred duty. Me and Mal both. I won’t tell you what she required us to do but, believe me, when I tell you that if I ever did know the difference between right from wrong, Mother’s little prayer meetings twisted it out of all recognition.
‘I learned from her that right is whatever you want. Wrong is anything that gets in your way. And, right now, you’re in my way.’
She pulled a translucent orange lighter from her pocket. She turned it in the sunlight streaming in from behind her.
‘Pretty. Mal and I used to like making fires. In the garden, you know? We caught a pigeon once. I think it must have been a baby because it was just sort of flopping around on the ground and it didn’t fly away when Mal grabbed it. I threw it on the fire.’ Miriam smiled. ‘It made such a stink! And this really funny noise. I’m not joking, it was hilarious. A sort of screech. More like a parrot than a pigeon.’
She flicked the wheel and Stella watched as a perfect tulip-shaped yellow flame danced above Miriam’s thumb. It disappeared when Miriam released the valve. She flicked again, and again the flame danced.
Stella strained against the cable ties but only succeeded in cutting deeper into her wrists. If Miriam wanted to, she could turn Stella into a human bonfire right here in the cabin and there’d be no more worrying about freeing herself from the cable tie. No more journal. No more Jamie. No more anything.
Please, God. Give me a fighting chance. At least let me take her on before she kills me.
Miriam grinned down at Stella.
‘All right, pigeon?’ she asked, flicking the lighter over and over again. ‘Shall we see what sort of a sound you make?’
Then Miriam frowned. She stared up at the ceiling and her lips moved silently. She seemed to reach a decision. She pocketed the lighter.
‘No. A plan’s a plan. Saint Lawrence it is. Now, you lie still. We have to make sure you look like Mother.’
Stella watched, horrified, as Miriam knelt astride her and placed the makeup bag by her left hip. Shuffling backwards so her weight was over Stella’s knees, she undid her belt and the button at her waist and pulled down the zip of her jeans.
‘What are you doing, you twisted bitch?’ Stella yelled.
‘Quiet,’ Miriam said.
She yanked Stella’s jeans and knickers down over her thighs and stared at her pubis.
‘Hold still because this might sting a little.’
Then she unzipped the makeup bag and produced a cheap disposable razor.
‘Right,’ she said when she’d finished. ‘That’s better. Oh, I almost forgot!’
She leaned forwards and reached inside Stella’s shirt front. Stella reared up and tried to fix her teeth into Miriam’s wrist but received a hard shove that sent her head smacking painfully onto the hard wooden floor.
‘Try that again and I’ll cut you into pieces before I cook you. Now hold still.’
Again, Miriam reached inside Stella shirt. Stella felt nauseous as the younger woman’s hand pawed around her throat. Then she withdrew it.
‘Shame,’ Miriam said. ‘Nothing for my collection.’
‘Fuck you!’
Miriam stroked her fingers over Stella’s lips before she could squirm her head away. Then her eyes seemed to focus on something far beyond the confines of the Portakabin.
‘You have such a foul mouth, Miriam,’ she said in an oddly deep voice. ‘Worse than your brother’s. I know what you get up to. I know how you lie together. Filthy sinful children. We must burn it out of you.’
Her eyes zeroed back in on Stella’s and she smiled.
‘Right! I’ll see you in a minute.’ She adopted an Australian accent. ‘I’m going out to light the barbie.’
Sloshing the petrol can against her thigh, Miriam left the cabin and closed the door behind her.
Stella tried to steady her breathing as she resumed her delicate work on the cable tie. Once again, she lined up the prong of her boot buckle and began the excruciating work of wiggling it into the locking mechanism and freeing the tape.
Eyes sore and weeping from the petrol fumes evaporating off her skin and clothes, she held herself rigid, so anxious was she not to dislodge the delicately balanced pieces of plastic and metal.
Once again, she pushed the locking tab out of the way. Now that the tape was clear of the pawl, she was able to draw it out, sensing each individual click as another plastic ridge bumped out from the tab.
All she wanted to do was yank the tape clear but she was terrified that the prong would slip and lock her back in again, so she continued with the snail’s progress of the tie until, with a sudden release, it came free and her wrists flew apart.
Stella had to stifle a scream as blood, and feeling, flooded back into her cramping muscles.
She rubbed some feeling back into her wrists, ignoring the blood that had made them slippery, then hauled her knickers and jeans back up and refastened her belt. That left her ankles, which were still tied.
She rolled to the corner where the steel rack leaned drunkenly against the wall, pushed her ankles against the upright and began sawing the cable tie up and down against its sharp metal edge. The whole time she worked, she kept her eyes glued to the door, alert to the sound of Miriam’s footsteps.
The cable tie gave with a snap. She rebuckled her boot, then scrambled to her feet and reached into her jeans pocket, but her phone was gone.
Of course it’s gone! She thought. She would have taken it the moment you were out. At least the mad bitch didn’t find the recorder.
She crossed the cabin and leaned back, readying herself to kick out at the flimsy-looking lock. Then the door opened. Miriam stood there, backlit by the sun. Her face flashed with anger, teeth baring, eyebrows drawing together.
‘No!’ she shouted. ‘You are a very bad girl!’
Hands curving into claws, she lunged at Stella.
100
FRIDAY 14TH SEPTEMBER 12.15 P.M.
BECKTON, EAST LONDON
Stella dropped into a crouch, so that Miriam’s outstretched fingers passed harmlessly over her head. Then she launched herself forward, butting Miriam in the midsection.
Powering up from her hips, she drove Miriam backwards into the wall beside the door, cracking her head against the particleboard.
But Miriam was strong, and she rolled sideways, out of Stella’s way, before kicking her viciously in the left thigh.
Stella yelled with the pain and staggered back as her leg muscles temporarily shut down.
Miriam closed with her hands outstretched once more, reaching for Stella’s eyes.
Stella had learned to fight with Sergeant Doug ‘Rocky’ Stevens, her unarmed defence tactics instructor in the Met. Twice. Once, on an official course and once, privately, when she’d asked him to teach her how to fight dirty. She drew on the second course now.
She jabbed a blade of stiffened fingers into Miriam’s exposed throat. The effect was instantaneous. Her eyes bulged and her arms dropped as she scrabbled at her windpipe. Stella leaned away and kicked out at Miriam’s right knee.
But Miriam anticipated the move. She sidestepped Stella’s incoming boot and shoved her hard in the chest. Stella stumbled and fell heavily on her side, winded, able only to watch as Miriam turned and ran out of the door.
She pushed herself upright and ran after Miriam, who was on the far side of a firepit, from which bright yellow-orange flames roared several feet above its lip.
The green petrol can lay discarded near a six-foot by three-foot metal grid. It appeared to be made from the ribbed steel rods used to reinforce concrete. The grille, Stella thought.
Miriam disappeared behind a stack of burnt-out cars. The sound of a big diesel engine starting shattered the silence and from the other side of the abandoned consumer goods, Stella sa
w a gout of charcoal-coloured smoke jet up. It didn’t sound like a truck. It was a deeper, bassier noise.
Rounding the corner of the stack of cars, Stella pulled up, heart pounding. A stitch in her side was stabbing her repeatedly with each rasping breath she dragged into her burning lungs. Miriam had disappeared.
In a half-crouch to ease the knifing pain in her ribs, Stella turned through a full circle. Nothing. To her left, the cars. To her right a mountain of discarded fridges, freezers, washing machines and dishwashers.
Then the entire pile of white domestic appliances fell forwards, the topmost machines freefalling towards her.
As she screamed and dived towards the base of the pile, she caught sight of a jointed yellow arm tipped with a clawed bucket.
Stella balled herself up, arms wrapped around her head, and squashed herself inside a fridge missing its door. The crashing began a second later as several tons of German, Dutch, Korean and Japanese white goods smashed into the ground inches from the toes of her boots.
She squeezed her eyes shut and thrust herself backwards, praying that whoever had made the fridge had spent enough money on the chassis to protect her now.
Is this how skiers feel in an avalanche? she wondered, as the light dimmed to almost-blackness around her and the air vibrated with each percussive impact.
With a final, huge, crunching jolt that Stella felt through her hips, the avalanche ended.
She opened her eyes.
Beyond the aperture where the fridge door had once closed, a foot of clear ground lay between her boots and the rear of a washing machine, its blue and red water pipes and corrugated grey plastic drain hose tangled like guts.
Shimmying forwards on her back, and yelping with cramp, Stella looked up as she unfolded herself into the narrow space. It was roofed by a smooth, white-painted sheet of metal. She managed to twist herself round onto her belly. She looked over her shoulder. The way was blocked. Ahead, the sinuous aluminium cooling pipes of a second fridge.
