Throwaways (12 page)

Lorna swept into the room and eyed us all dismissively. “For Christ’s sake, Donald, you’ve really messed up this time. Why is…” She pointed at Sheena, “that little tart still alive. I told you to dispose of her. She can’t be cured. Just like your useless, retarded brother Eddie.”

Donald Cassidy was on his feet. “I’m sorry, Lorna. Things got out of hand, but I can fix this. We can move on, start again and continue with our good work. Cure these poor wretches of their debauchery.” His soft Irish brogue had turned whiny.

Lorna made a huh noise. “Like you fixed it when Eddie played out his sick fantasies and strangled that Henderson whore. Like you fixed it when you let that little scrubber live. Forgive me if I no longer have any faith in you, Dr. Cassidy.” She sneered when she said his name. “You’ve become a liability.”

What happened next happened so fast I wouldn’t have been able to intervene even if I hadn’t been chained to the wall. Cassidy, who’d been edging his way closer to Lorna, fell into her and I heard her surprised yelp as an arterial spray of blood soaked Cassidy’s coat. Her chocolate brown eyes stared at Cassidy with confusion before she slumped to the floor with a red gash at her throat.

Someone screamed and at first I thought it was Sheena, until I realised it was me. Cassidy had a scalpel and he was staggering over to me with a mad look on his face.

Moving as far back as the chain would allow I searched for a weapon. But, unless you counted an empty water bottle, there was nothing. He’d killed Lorna. Now he was gonna kill me.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said, as he stepped over her body and advanced towards me. “Nobody needs to know what happened here. Please let me go.”

I hated the pleading in my voice. This wasn’t how I wanted to
go.

There was the sound of something hitting the floor.

“Nancy.”

My name was spoken so quietly at first I thought that in the grips of my terror I’d imagined it. Then Eric said the one word that he knew I’d recognize. “Hustle.”

As he’d taught me at the gym, I hurled myself at Cassidy. Cassidy didn’t expect it; you don’t expect the person you’re attacking to turn the tables.

He went flying, landing with a crushing thud on his tailbone, his foot at an awkward angle.

“You bitch,” he roared as he gazed in horror at his ruined ankle.

I’d landed on my bum, but the chain had been yanked so far it’d whipped me back the way. Nothing was broken, but it damn well hurt.

I could hear Eric’s ragged breath. Thank god, he was still alive, but he wouldn’t be for long unless I got him help. There had to be some way I could get free.

Surveying the room, I looked for anything within reach, but there was nothing. The gun taunted me from the window ledge. Cassidy must have had the key for the chain in his pocket.

There was only one thing I could do now.

“I can help you,” I said to him. “Just throw me the keys to this chain.”

“Do you think I’m stupid, girl? If I do that you’ll take your friend here out of here and the girl too, and phone the police. That’s what I’d do in your place.”

“Look,” I said, “I just want to get Eric out of here. Why would I do anything to help the psycho bitch who stabbed him?” I glared at Sheena who was now hunkered down on the floor, arms folded and muttering away to herself. This had to be convincing. “Just let us go. You’ll have enough time to leave before we can get help.”

Cassidy seemed to be considering it, but then said, “No, I don’t think so.”

He started to crawl towards the door. Every movement must have taken him immense effort and because of the pain he grunted.

He was half-way to the door when he spoke to Sheena. “Now, be a good girl and kill them.”

Sheena moved towards me. In that moment, I knew what he’d done to her. She wasn’t drugged, she was hypnotized.

“Now, be a good girl,” I said, “and sit back down.”

I hoped it would work, but I’d no idea if a stranger saying it would have the desired effect.

It didn’t look too good for me when Sheena picked up my knife and walked towards me…

The door was nearly kicked off its hinges and Tommy appeared. Diane Chambers was with him and she was carrying a shovel. It dwarfed her small frame and looking at her I doubted she had the strength to raise it.

Tommy took in the madness. The lifeless body of Lorna Chanderpaul. His injured friend, Eric. The crazy doctor.

Marching over, he booted Cassidy in the body and there was the crunch of bone. Cassidy whimpered as Tommy rummaged through his pockets. Tommy pulled out a bunch of keys held together by a wire and threw them to me. Then he knelt down to check on Eric.

“How is he?” I asked, fumbling with the keys, before finding the right one and springing myself free.

Tommy’s face was grim. “I’ve managed to staunch the flow of blood and he’s still conscious, so I think he’s going to be okay.”

I let out the breath I hadn’t even realised I’d been holding in. “Thank God for that.”

Cassidy hadn’t finished yet, even as he lay whimpering on the floor.

“You have no idea of the depravity, of the rottenness that exists at the core of those poor wretches. They’re painted as victims of circumstance, of addiction. But the truth is they go with any man, do anything they are paid to do because they enjoy it. They’re wicked.”

This time I was the one who booted him in the ribs.

Tommy stood there in a shooting stance. “The police will be here soon,” he said. “It has to be done NOW.”

I was confused. “What?”

“Kill the bastard, of course.”

What the hell was he saying?

“The police are coming,” I said. “Let them deal with him.”

Tommy sniffed. “You know what’ll happen – he’s a psychologist. He knows how to play the system. They’ll declare him mad, put him in a cushy mental hospital. Then he’ll miraculously be cured; be freed to prey on others.”

Was I really hearing this?

Killing the bastard would be too easy. He needed to suffer; every day, every minute of the rest of his miserable life. His victims deserved their day in court.

“Tommy, are you crazy? If you kill him like this, it’ll be cold-blooded murder. And we might never find Tanya.”

Tommy shook his head, before he fixed me with a cold stare. “You don’t know what he did. You never saw what he did.”

I didn’t want him to say it because whatever it was it had to be bad to make him go off the deep end like this. He was a soldier, he’d been in Iraq. He must have seen some horrendous things, but none of them had made him go rogue.

“What didn’t I see?”

Tommy’s shoulders slumped. His face was porcelain pale. “I found Tanya. That bastard…” He pointed at Cassidy, “drowned her in the bath. She put up a fight. There were gouges on the bath. Bits of nail. Blood; so much fucking blood. He’s a fucking savage. He’s gotta die.”

Vomit filled my throat as I imagined Tanya’s last terrifying moments. After all we’d done, we’d been too late.

All along, I’d known there was a slim chance of finding her alive. If anyone was destined to end up murdered, it was Tanya. No one but us had ever cared about her. Or, maybe the only person who had, her mother had been torn from her when she’d been murdered by her father.

“Okay, do it. You’ve convinced me.”

I meant it. Bastard deserved to die.

I looked over at Diane and she nodded. No point in asking Sheena; throughout everything she stood there as if in a dream.

Tommy chambered around and I nodded, waiting for him to
stick a bullet in that sick bastard’s skull.

He never got to fire because at that exact moment the police stormed the building with their guns draw. They handcuffed Tommy and me. Eric was taken to hospital under police escort and managed a weak smile as they were loading him onto a gurney. Diane and Sheena were also taken to hospital.

Detective Inspector Duncan Waddell swept into the room then frowned when he saw me. How could I blame him – I was making a habit of being around violent crimes.

Later, at the station, he was struggling to get his head around what had happened on his patch.

“Let me get this straight, Nancy. You weren’t engaged by the family of any of the missing women to find them? You got involved because you felt it was your civic duty?” He shifted uneasily in his chair. “To be honest, I don’t know whether to recommend you and Action Man here…” he thumbed towards Tommy, “for a bravery award or charge you with interfering with a police inquiry.”

This time round there was no bottle of Irn Bru for me or questions about how I was feeling. DI Waddell was angry with me, but being him he managed to keep it self-contained; one day he would probably blow and anyone in the firing line would be sorry. I just hoped it wasn’t me.

I could see his point of view. Whilst he and his team of finely trained detectives had been “busting their balls to break the case” someone who used to write newspaper and magazine inserts and a dead soldier had beaten him and his team to the punch and probably cost him a promotion for cracking such a major case. Hell, I’d have been irritable if I’d been him.

His eyes locked onto mine. I’d forgotten how much his face resembled a road map with the veins that were visible. All those late nights and junk food had taken their toll. “The fact that you two aren’t in a cell right now should tell you something. I’ve discussed it with DCI Griggs and the Prosecutor Fiscal’s office
and we’ve decided we won’t be pursuing any charges against you. Think yourselves lucky.”

Tommy and I relaxed. Neither of us wanted to end up someone’s bitch.

Waddell continued. “It wouldn’t be in the public interest. Miss Kerr, you’ve already been a victim of a horrific crime and Mr. McIntyre, we don’t want to draw attention to the fact that you’re alive and were in possession of a licensed gun. The press would have a field day.”

He paused to give us a stony look. “Now, if I may offer you both some advice. If you want to get involved in missing persons cases, open a detective agency. Get all the right paperwork. Stay the fuck out of police business. If you find any evidence of a crime, call us. Don’t turn vigilante and almost get yourself killed.”

He took a deep breath that went all the way down to his shoes. “Now, get the hell out of my office. If I see either of you again I’ll throw the damn book at you.”

We duly obliged, skulking off like kids who’d been called to the headmaster’s office.

“Well, that went well,” Tommy said, as we made our way out of the police station, squinting into the bright sky.

“Aye,” I said, “I think DI Waddell really warmed to you. Maybe I should invite him to our wedding.”

The shocked look on Tommy’s face made me hoot with laughter.

It turned out that as well as being hypnotized, Sheena had been zonked out on a sedative drug normally given to schizophrenic patients to make them docile and compliant. If Dr. Cassidy had told her to jump into a vat of acid, she’d have done it. She wasn’t in control of her actions and despite stabbing Eric and being Cassidy’s little assistant, helping him to do god knows what, she wasn’t charged with any crime.

The last we heard she was living at home with her parents and sorting out her life. We never did find out how her finger was bitten off.

The bodies of a total of nine women were found in the hospital in varying states of decomposition. Causes of death (where they could be ascertained) included manual strangulation, drowning and electrocution. Cassidy claimed that he’d been using experimental treatments and was charged with 10 counts of murder, including Suzy Henderson’s.

The police are convinced there are more bodies. Two of the murdered women were unidentified girls aged between 15 and 21. Judging by their dental work, they think they came from Eastern Europe. The police believe that as well as kidnapping women off the streets, that there’s a possibility that Cassidy bought some more women from traffickers.

The police hadn’t treated Cassidy’s “death” as suspicious, so there’d been no autopsy. Had there been, they might have been able to stop Cassidy sooner.

We paid for Tanya’s funeral. It was the least we could do. Nobody cared about her, so we had to.

The only people there were us and the vicar. Eric wanted to be there, but he was still recuperating in hospital. One centimetre to the right and the knife would have ruptured his bowel and killed him.

* * *

After Tanya’s funeral, we got back to Tommy’s to find a woman on the doorstep. She was in her 20s and dressed in a smart suit.

She told us she was called Annabel and that Eric had sent her. “I go to his gym and he said you could help me.”

We invited her inside.

“How can we help?” I said after we were seated in the living room.

“I want to know who I am.”

Tommy and I looked at each other. Was this some kind of wind up?

“I don’t understand,” I said.

The girl smiled. “Sorry, maybe I should have started at the beginning. When I was just a few days old, my mum or whoever was looking after me, left me outside a church in Edinburgh in a Moses basket. They tried to trace her and my other family, but they couldn’t. I was adopted by the Donnelly family.”

“So, you have no idea who your parents are?” said Tommy.

She nodded.

“I’m not sure how we can help you,” I said. “We’re not trained private investigators.”

Annabel smiled. “I know. That’s why I came to you. I’ve tried private investigators and they’ve come up with zip. I thought someone coming at it from a different angle might help.” She paused, looking at our unconvinced faces. “I’ll pay you well. I’ve done well for myself.”

Tommy and I exchanged glances as she held out an envelope.

“Give us the details,” I said. “But, you don’t have to pay us until we get results.”

After she’d told us everything, I was puzzled. “Sorry, Annabel, but I don’t understand why you want to trace your mother after all this time. I’m not being cheeky, but you’re not a teenager and from what you’ve said, your adoptive parents gave you a great
life. So, why now?”

My question seemed to throw her and for the first time she seemed uncomfortable. “My parents died in a car crash three months ago. Two days ago, I was clearing out their house and I found a bunch of birthday cards tied together by string. They were all addressed to me.”

Tommy and I exchanged looks.

Annabel put her hand to her face. “And, that’s not all. For the past few weeks, I think someone’s been following me and this may sound stupid but…”

She broke off talking and stared down at her lap.

“Go on, Annabel,” I said gently, “Eric told you that you could trust us and you can.”

She looked straight at me and said, “I’ve started to think that their deaths might not be an accident.”

We got as much detail from Annabel as we could and promised to look into it.

* * *

Later that night, I was having a shower, when I heard two almighty thumps and the clatter of furniture being overturned.

What the hell?

A memory from the past shot into my head of the last time I heard similar noises: when those two thugs were ransacking my parents’ home.

Throwing on a bathrobe, I ran out to see what was going on.

Tommy’s living room is like a Wild West saloon after a bar brawl. Both chairs are upended and the TV’s been pulled out of its brackets.

There’s no sign of him.

I go into the kitchen. There’s a knife on the floor and a pool of blood.

I’m about to shout his name, when there’s pounding on the
door.

“POLICE. OPEN UP.”

And that’s the point where I realise I’m screwed because they’ll think I’ve killed him.

Coming soon…Don’t Come For Me, Book 3 in the Nancy Kerr & Tommy McIntyre Die Hard for Girls series