Elizabeth George - With No One As Witness

He knelt by Ulrike, but he looked at Lynley. “Adultery. Nowadays it’s nothing she’d actually go to gaol for, but it’ll do nicely. She would have touched him-intimately, Ulrike? It would have been intimately, wouldn’t it?-so, like the others, her hands bear the stain of her sin.” He looked down at Ulrike. “I expect you’re sorry for that, aren’t you, darling?” He smoothed her hair. “Yes, yes. You’re sorry. So you’ll be released. I promise you that. When it’s over, your soul will fly to heaven. I’ll keep a bit of you with me…snip snip and you’re mine…but at that point, you won’t feel it. You won’t feel a thing.”

Lynley saw that the young woman had begun to cry. She struggled wildly against her restraints but the effort only exhausted her. Fu watched her, placid, and smoothed her hair once again when she was finished.

“It has to happen,” he said kindly. “Try to understand. And do know that I like you, Ulrike. Actually, I quite liked them all. You have to suffer, of course, but that’s what life is. Suffering through whatever we’re handed. And this is what’s been handed to you. The superintendent here will bear witness. And then he’ll pay for his own sins as well. So you’re not alone, Ulrike. You can take comfort from that, can’t you?”

The toying with her, Lynley saw, was giving the man pleasure, actual physical pleasure. This, however, seemed to embarrass him. It would doubtless make him feel like one of the “others” and he wouldn’t like that: the indication that he too was of warped human stock like every other psychopath who had gone before him, getting a sexual kick from another’s terror and pain. He picked up his trousers and donned them, pushing his phallus out of view.

But it seemed that the fact of his arousal altered him. He became all business, the friendly chat put behind him. He sharpened the knife. He spat into the pan to test the heat of it. From a rack, he took a length of thin line that he held-one end in each hand-and snapped expertly as if to test its strength.

“Down to work, then,” he said when he was fully prepared.

BARBARA STUDIED the van from the farthest end of the carpark, some sixty yards away. She tried to think what the inside might be like. If he’d killed the boys and sliced them open within the vehicle-which she was certain he’d done-that called for space, space in which to lay someone out, which meant the back of the van. Obvious, no? But how exactly was one of these bloody vehicles structured? she wondered. Where were its most vulnerable points and where the most secure? She didn’t know. And she didn’t have the time to find out.

She climbed back into the Bentley and she adjusted the seat, far back now, as far as it would go. This would make it difficult for her to drive, but she wasn’t going a great distance.

She fastened her safety belt.

She revved the motor.

She said, “Sorry, sir,” and changed the car from park to drive.

FU SAID to Ulrike, “We’ve had judgement already, haven’t we? And I can see both admission and repentance in your tears. So we’ll go on directly to punishment, darling. From punishment, you see, purification comes.”

Lynley watched as Fu removed the pan from the stove. He saw him smile kindly down at the struggling woman. He too struggled but it was to no avail. “Don’t,” Fu told them both. “It’ll make everything worse.” And then directly to Ulrike, “Anyway, darling, trust me on this. It’s going to hurt me far worse than it’ll ever hurt you.”

He knelt beside her and placed the pan on the floor.

He reached for her hand, untied it, and held it tight. He considered it for a moment, then kissed it.

And the side of the van exploded.

THE AIRBAG DEPLOYED. Smoke filled the car. Barbara coughed and fumbled frantically with the fastening on her safety belt. She managed to release it and she stumbled from the car, sore of chest and hacking to clear her lungs. When she got her breath back, she looked at the Bentley and realised then that what she’d thought was smoke was actually some sort of powder. The airbag? Who knew. The important thing was that nothing was on fire, neither the Bentley nor the van, although neither was the same as it had been.

She’d aimed for the driver’s door. She’d hit it dead centre. Thirty-eight miles an hour had done the job. The speed had destroyed the front of the Bentley and sent the van spinning into the shrubbery. What faced her now was the rear of the van, its single window staring and black.

He had the weapons, but she had surprise. She went forward to see what surprise had wrought.

The sliding door was on the passenger’s side. It was open. Barbara yelled, “Cops, Kilfoyle. You’re finished. Step outside.”

Nothing in response. He had to be unconscious.

She moved carefully. She looked round her as she went. It was dark as pitch, but her eyes were adjusting. The shrubbery was thick, gnarling from the ground right into the carpark, and she made her way along it to the open van door.

She saw figures, unaccountably two of them and a candle guttering on its side on the floor. She righted this and it shed light in a glow that allowed her to find him. Lynley hung limply from his arms and his wrists, bolted like a piece of meat to the side of the van. On the floor, Ulrike Ellis lay bound. She’d wet herself. The smell of piss was rank in the air.

Barbara stepped over her and got to Lynley. He was conscious, she saw, and she sent a broken prayer of gratitude heavenward. She ripped the piece of duct tape from his mouth, crying, “Did he hurt you? Are you hurt? Where is he, sir?”

Lynley said, “See to the woman, the woman ,” and Barbara left him to go to her. She saw that a heavy frying pan lay next to Ulrike and for a moment she thought the bastard had bashed her with it and she was finished altogether. But when she knelt and felt for a pulse, it was fast and steady. She ripped the duct tape from Ulrike’s mouth. She unbound her left hand.

She said, “Sir, where is he? Is he here? Where-”

The van lurched.

Lynley shouted, “Barbara! Behind you!”

And the bastard was there. Back in the van and coming towards her and God damn but didn’t he have something in his hand. It looked like a torch but she couldn’t believe it was a torch since it wasn’t on and anyway he was storming at her and-

Barbara grabbed the only thing within reach. She leaped to her feet just as he lunged. He missed her, fell forward.

She was more fortunate.

She swung the frying pan and brained him on the back of the head.

He fell over Ulrike, but that didn’t matter. Barbara brained him a second time for good measure.

NKATA ARRIVED AT THE POLICE STATION ON LOWER Clapton Road in record time. He found it not overly far from Hackney Marsh, in an area of town he’d never before seen. An old redbrick Victorian affair, the station looked like something Bobby Peel might emerge from at any moment, and at this early hour, it was still lit up as if for night, exterior lights thwarting the would-be terrorists unheard of in the 1800s.

What had awakened him was his mobile phone ringing, with Barb Havers on the other end. She’d said tersely, “It’s Kilfoyle, Winnie. We’ve got the bugger. Lower Clapton Road if you want to be in on things. Do you?”

He’d said, “ What ? I thought you went to tell the super-”

“Kilfoyle was there. He snatched him out of the carpark. I followed and…bloody hell, I wrecked his Bentley, Win, but it was the only way-”

“You telling me you saw the guv get snatched and d’in’t ring for help? Fuck all, Barb-”

“I couldn’t.”