Easy Kill (23 page)

He’d no idea how long he lay in this semi-hallucinatory state, but eventually reason reasserted itself and he opened his eyes to the glare of the arc light.
The first thing to hit him was his smell. He reeked of sweat, blood and fear.

Magnus rolled off Terri’s inert body with an intense feeling of guilt and remorse. Then the memories came in a rush. The crack as the bullet hit the brickwork near his head. His dive to the ground. Crawling towards Terri and covering her body with his. Then darkness. After the jab in his neck, a rush of heat and light. A throbbing sensation as the drug entered his bloodstream. Every sense suddenly alive and drowning in heat and pleasure.

Shame burned at him now as he recalled his attacker’s order. Could he have done something in his altered state? The idea repulsed him.

Magnus crawled towards the stream, expecting any moment to hear the whine of a bullet or hear a warning shout. When none came, he ducked his head under and lay there for a moment, letting the sharp chill of the water clear his brain.

On his return, he found Terri curled in a foetal position, her eyes closed. Magnus checked her pulse and sniffed at her mouth, picking up a faint chemical smell he couldn’t identify. He examined her bonds. Her manacled neck and wrists were attached by what looked like an anchor chain to a large ring embedded in the wall.

‘Terri,’ he said softly. ‘I have to go for help.’

She stirred and gave a small moan.

‘Can you tell me who brought you here?’

Her eyes flickered open. Magnus was horrified to think the fear he saw there might be directed at him.

‘What does he look like?’

Terri shook her head as though she didn’t want to remember.

‘Please try, Terri.’

Spittle trickled from her mouth and her eyes rolled in her head. She was still tripping on something.

Magnus felt for her pulse again and found it faint and skipping. He got to his feet. Terri’s only hope was for him to get out of there and bring help.

THERE WAS NO
sign of Magnus or his bike outside her flat. Rhona propped open the front door and went upstairs.

Tom was alone and pleased to see her, greeting her arrival with much purring and ankle-twining. She picked him up and gave him a hug. Her meal sat ready to re-heat. Rhona felt momentarily guilty – she hadn’t even thought to call Sean to tell him when she’d be home. She poured a glass of wine and settled on the window seat to wait. Magnus had said he would be there in twenty minutes.

Half an hour later there was no sign of him. Irritated, Rhona decided to have her meal. She ate in silence, the kitten having ceased its sound effects and retreated to its basket to sleep. Afterwards, Rhona went through the motions of clearing up, her temper shortening with each passing minute. Her vocal rehearsal of what she planned to say to Magnus when he finally arrived made Tom prick up his ears warily.

Rhona eventually deserted the kitchen for her study, trying to ignore the gnawing feeling that something wasn’t right. She texted Magnus’s number asking
where the hell he was. Seconds later a text message arrived, containing an image.

The bodies were bleached by a strong white light, but Rhona immediately recognised Magnus and the missing girl. Terri was naked, her manacles visible, her face contorted like a cat hissing in fear. Magnus lay on top, eyes closed, his face turned to the camera, as though caught in the act.

Shock sent Rhona sliding into a chair. She stared at the screen in disbelief, but however she tried to explain the image, it looked like a rape scene. She used the landline to call Bill, unable to contemplate using the mobile. Bill answered almost immediately and Rhona blurted out what had just happened.

‘Okay, stay there, McNab and I are on our way.’

Rhona waited in her study, her mind reeling, her gut churning, the mobile with the offending image beside her on the desk. Was Magnus capable of such an act? Did she know him at all?

When Bill and McNab arrived, McNab took the phone and downloaded the image to his laptop. The larger version that now filled the screen was even more damning.

‘Terri was definitely alive when this was taken.’ It was the only positive thing that could be said. McNab threw Rhona a sympathetic look, which didn’t help.

‘Can we find out when it was taken?’ Bill said.

‘Not unless we have the phone.’

‘When exactly did you last see Magnus?’

‘Midnight on Monday night.’

‘Almost twenty-four hours ago.’ Plenty of time for both Terri and Magnus to be dead.

‘Was Magnus swabbed and fingerprinted when he joined the team?’

It was standard practice that the DNA and fingerprints of all police personnel were stored on the Scottish National Database.

Rhona shrugged helplessly. She had no idea. McNab looked uncomfortable. As crime scene manager, that’s something he should have checked. Rhona wondered where this was leading. ‘What are you saying? That Magnus is complicit in this?’

The words were out in the open now.

‘He could have been forced to have sexual intercourse with her,’ McNab offered.

‘We don’t know that’s what’s happening. Not for certain.’ Rhona looked to Bill, willing him to agree.

Bill’s troubled expression didn’t change. ‘Okay, let’s see if we’ve got anything more from the mobile company on the whereabouts of Magnus’s phone,’ he told McNab.

‘You’ve been tracking him?’ Rhona didn’t know why that surprised her.

‘The only activity on this phone in the last twenty-four hours are the text he sent Rhona before, and this photo.’

‘Magnus didn’t send it,’ said Rhona, firmly. ‘The killer did.’

AFTER BILL AND
McNab left, Rhona went to bed. She lay wide awake, staring at the ceiling, unable to banish the image of Magnus and Terri from her mind.

The online auction had been an invitation to torture, rape and murder the girl. If Magnus
had
been coerced into having sex with Terri, what else had he been forced to do?

Rhona ran through every exchange she’d ever had with Magnus, back to the first strategy meeting. She was a reasonable judge of character, but not as astute as Chrissy, whose judgement Rhona would stake her life on. Chrissy had openly declared her liking for Magnus.

Magnus could be arrogant, determined to go his own way regardless of orders or advice. But a rapist? No. She couldn’t believe that of him. But what if his life were in danger? Or Terri’s? What then?

The red light of her mobile blinked at her from the bedside table. If a call came in from Magnus’s phone, Bill wanted to know, whatever the hour. Rhona had turned up the volume in case she dozed off, although at the moment it didn’t look likely.

Eventually she did, drifting into a fitful sleep punctured by nightmarish images of Magnus looming over
her, his hands holding her down, his mouth hot on hers.

She wakened suddenly, to find Sean next to her.

‘I was having a nightmare.’

‘Sounded like a different kind of dream to me.’ Sean’s expression was inscrutable.

Had she talked in her sleep? Rhona knew she should say something, but couldn’t. A flash of something like pain crossed Sean’s face. Rhona reached for the mobile and brought up the image. ‘Take a look at this.
That’s
what I was dreaming about.’

Sean stared dumbstruck at the photograph. ‘What the fuck’s going on?’

Rhona told him the minimum. The girl in the image was Terri Docherty. Magnus had gone missing, having been, they believed, in contact with the killer. She’d received a text to meet him earlier at the flat. He hadn’t turned up, but the image had been sent as soon as she contacted him.

Sean listened in silence. When she finished he said, ‘The sex looks real to me.’

‘Yes, but . . . it can’t be. Magnus wouldn’t . . .’ she stumbled to a halt.

‘The girl was terrified.’

‘I know,’ Rhona’s voice faltered.

Sean drew her into his arms.

‘I don’t want you involved in this,’ Sean said angrily.

‘It’s my job.’

‘Fuck the job.’

‘I’m not in any danger.’

‘Yeah right. You’ve been hanging out with a nutter I just saw rape someone, but you’re not in any danger.’

She shouldn’t have shown Sean the photo. She should have made an excuse, a joke about rude dreams.

‘This is police business. It has nothing to do with you.’

Rhona felt Sean’s body go rigid.

‘If that bastard comes near you again, I’ll kill him.’

Rhona waited until she was sure Sean was asleep, then slipped out of bed and headed for the kitchen. Tom, curled up in his basket, didn’t open an eye. Rhona left him in peace and took her seat in the moonlit room. She thought of Nora, who’d sensed her daughter was still alive. She remembered how Magnus had taken the woman’s hand and told her he believed her. What would Bill do now? Tell Nora she was right, her daughter was alive? At least she was twenty-four hours before, because he had a photograph to prove it. The thought of Nora viewing that image of Magnus with her daughter was almost too much to bear.

THE ROOM REMINDED
him of the alleyway; the hot stink of damp, piss and stale sex. Only the movement of air over water made it bearable. Magnus had paced the perimeter twice, but the only way out seemed to be the way he’d come in.

He’d decided at that point that the stream must provide an exit and had waded in, bent over, walking with the current, the swift flow of water reaching his knees. Darkness had quickly swallowed him and his pace had slowed as he’d tried to avoid cracking his head on the low roof. After what he’d estimated as sixty feet, the perfectly formed round brick tunnel had lost its shape to stalactites and thick reddish deposits of what looked like iron oxide, leeching in from above. Eventually it had become impossible to go on, the jagged ceiling brushing the surface of the water.

Magnus had returned to the cellar to find Terri still unconscious, her face pale. She wasn’t losing any blood and her pulse was steady, but her skin felt cold and clammy despite the humid heat. Magnus took off his shirt and covered her as best he could.

His venture upstream ended in the same way as his earlier jaunt. This time his hopes were raised by the
length of time it took to reach the encrustation. More like a hundred feet than sixty. But the result was the same. Water could filter through, but a human being would have to lie flat and wriggle their way out.

Disappointed, Magnus returned to Terri and checked her pulse again, grateful to find it still steady. He sat close to her for a bit, hoping his body heat would help raise hers, and turned his mind to working out where the killer had shot from. He replayed the scenario, trying to place himself in the same position, careful not to disturb Terri in case she woke and thought he was moving in on her again.

Magnus examined the wall above the girl and saw the track of the bullet he’d dived to avoid. He turned his gaze to where he thought it originated and met the arc light full on. The killer had to be positioned up there, where the dazzling beam made it impossible to see him.

The wall under the arc light was brick built, supported by a cast-iron frame, rising to a vaulted roof. The lamp was mounted high on an arch, with no visible means of reaching it from there, suggesting it’d been lowered through from above. The gunman must have shot from there.

Magnus went to glance at his watch, forgetting again that it and his mobile had been taken from him or lost somewhere between the waste ground and the cellar. It troubled him greatly that he had no idea how long it had been since the gunman left, nor how soon he would return.

If he was right about the lunar effect, Terri’s death was imminent. If he stayed there, Magnus had no
doubt he would be made complicit in it. The thought horrified him, as did the alternative, which was to leave her to face her fate alone.

He had to find a way through the vaults, and quickly.

He checked Terri one more time before he left. He knew she was seventeen, but lying curled in a ball she looked little more than a child. Nora had been right, her little girl was still alive. It was his job to make sure she stayed that way.

After the harsh light, the darkness of the neighbouring room blinded him. Magnus waited for his eyes to adjust, trying to imagine the layout. He’d crossed three spaces before finding Terri. If the killer was operating alone, he’d managed to transport Magnus down there somehow. Which suggested the stairs weren’t too far from where he’d first regained consciousness.

The further he moved from Terri’s prison the thicker the darkness became, and Magnus began to rely on his sense of smell. The overriding scent was damp and disuse, but there were subtle differences from room to room. Access upwards would involve the movement of air, and moving air smelt noticeably different.

Magnus was beginning to believe he was going around in circles, when he finally caught a whiff of fresher air. He stood perfectly still and breathed in, praying he was right. The touch of it on his cheek nearly made him whoop for joy.

He followed the scent until his right foot hit concrete, then knelt to feel with his hands. Definitely stairs. Magnus raised his eyes, searching for some subtle
change in light that might indicate a door, but could distinguish none.

He dropped to his knees, conscious that the stairway might not be complete, and began to crawl upwards. He’d counted six steps before he reached for the next and found emptiness. Magnus felt left, then right, trying to interpret what lay under his hand, eventually establishing the concrete had crumbled, leaving behind the metal reinforcing rods. The following step, as far as he could tell, was more or less intact.

Magnus resumed his crawl, keeping as close to the right-hand wall as possible. He knew he’d reached the top when he found an open stretch of concrete. He dragged himself up and sat for a moment to regain his composure, then ran his hand along until he found the outline of a door.

MAGNUS WAS TRYING
to prise the door open with one of the steel rods when he heard Terri scream. The shock sent him reeling backwards, and he momentarily lost his balance, almost slipping over the edge of the staircase. The deathly silence that followed horrified him even more, propelling him downwards. At the bottom, he broke into a blind run.