Val Mcdermid - Killing the Shadows

Frustrated, she moved on to the third window. Again, a quick glance confirmed there was no movement inside the room. Seeing no one, Fiona took a long look at the interior. It contained a large table, a couple of armchairs on either side of a wood-burning stove, a small galley kitchen area and a couple of cupboards that ran the full height of the room. A narrow metal cabinet stood open, its door obscuring the contents, and on the floor near the door were a couple of Waitrose carrier bags. They didn’t look as if they’d been there for long, being apparently free of dust. She also knew there wasn’t a Waitrose within three hundred miles. A tiny piece of evidence, but enough to convince her she’d come to all the right conclusions.

Then she spotted something that confirmed her worst fears and made her stomach churn painfully. In the far corner, half hidden by the angle of the chimney breast, was a small table leaning at an angle. On the floor beside it was a tangle of smashed plastic and metal. It was unmistakably the remains of a satellite phone.

So they were here. And judging by the absence of a vehicle, the killer was temporarily absent. He was obviously a careful operator, the destruction of the phone a clear sign that he accepted the remote possibility that his prisoner might break free. She wondered momentarily about the man she’d seen in the woods. But he’d looked perfectly innocent, with his bundle of wood and his axe. And besides, he’d been on foot. She wished she’d thought to ask him if he’d seen any unfamiliar vehicles around.

But thinking was wasting time. Fiona moved away from the window and ran round the far corner. She passed a small stone shelter that contained a diesel generator, then turned down the front of the house. The double wooden doors were shut and locked, she soon discovered. She pushed with her shoulder, but they didn’t budge.

She was going to have to break in, and at the rear was the best place to do it. She ran back to the bedroom window and tugged at the bottom of the frame. Locked. Fiona pulled the lump hammer out of the bag tucked inside her jacket and hefted it in her hand. No point in just breaking the glass. She’d have to smash the wooden strut that ran up the middle of the lower sash. She breathed in, drew her arm back and swung the hammer round in a sharp arc. The wood splintered and the glass on both sides shattered explosively. On the quiet hillside, it sounded remarkably loud. A pair of jays started out of the wood behind her, their hoarse cries making her jump.

As quickly as she could, Fiona broke off the window spar then cleared the glass from the frame to avoid cutting herself as she went through. Gingerly, she put one leg through the gap, hoisting herself over the sill and into the bedroom. The house was quiet, though it lacked the indefinable stillness that usually accompanies emptiness. Fiona stood motionless for a moment, listening for any sign of danger.

Cautiously, she crossed the room and pulled the door wide open. To her left, in the gloom of the hallway, the bathroom door was closed. She reached a tentative hand to the doorknob, almost too afraid of what might lie behind it. She screwed her eyes shut, steeling herself for action, then clenched her fingers round the knob, turning it and throwing the door open in one motion.

Six hundred miles away in London, Steve Preston had congratulated himself on persuading the Assistant Commissioner that he had enough evidence to go through with his plan. Now all that was left to do was to brief the team who would back up Joanne and Neil when they brought in Gerard, and the forensic squad who would assist in the search of Coyne’s flat.

“I’ve given this a lot of thought. I don’t want to arrest him in his flat, because, as you all know, that means that under PACE, we can only do a Section Thirty-two search, with all the restrictions that implies. What I want to do is to wait until he leaves the flat then pick him up in the open. We’ll bring him in to the Yard and arrest him on suspicion of murder, and then we can do a Section Eighteen search, which gives us a lot more scope. To make sure he doesn’t get out of our grasp, I’m detailing one of you to be on a bike and another on a motorbike. He’s a keen cyclist, there’s every chance that when he does leave, he’ll be on two wheels.”

He forced his face into a serious expression, battening the hatches on his feelings of exultation. “I want him back here in one piece,” he said forcefully. “No accidents, nobody falling down the stairs, no unexplained cuts, bruises or broken bones. I want him handled as if he was fine china. As soon as we get him back here, I want Coyne arrested on suspicion of murder. Let’s put the shits up him right away. But no delays over letting him call his brief. I want this done by the book. Nothing that anyone can pick on afterwards and say, ‘Hang on a minute, you didn’t follow PACE here, mate.’ Anybody got any questions?”

A young DC raised a hand. “What exactly are we looking for in Coyne’s flat?”

“Good question,” Steve said. “Anything that could tie him in to Susan Blanchard’s murder, or the North London rapes. So that means newspaper cuttings, any maps with crime scenes marked on them, diaries, photographs. And I want every knife in the place. Also any clothing that matches the descriptions of the cycle gear that the cyclist on the Heath or the rapist was wearing. I know, after all this time, we’re probably clutching at straws. But I want Coyne, and together we’re going to nail him and lay Susan Blanchard to rest at last.”

He looked around the room. No more questions. He turned to the pin board behind him and pointed to a photograph of Susan’s twin sons. “I don’t want justice for me. I don’t even want justice for the Met. I want justice for those two. Now go out there and get it for them.” He hated the cheap emotional shot, but they needed to be gung ho, and he knew exactly how to get them there.

Steve watched the officers file out of the room, wondering how much time he had before they brought their prisoner back. He needed to find out what the hell Fiona was up to. He’d tried her mobile several times since he’d got back to the Yard, but all he’d had was a recorded message telling him that it was not possible to connect his call. Thanks to Sarah Duvall, he knew she’d gone to Scotland to review the evidence in the Drew Shand case. A call to the officer in charge was probably as good a place to start as any.

He picked up the nearest phone and asked the switchboard to connect him to Lothian and Borders Police. It took little time to discover that the man he needed to speak to was Superintendent Sandy Galloway. But Galloway wasn’t in the building. Frustrated, Steve arranged for them to pass on a message asking Galloway to call him back as soon as possible.

What on earth was Fiona playing at, leaving messages he couldn’t return? Given the terms they’d been on when last they met, it had to be something serious. It might be worth trying Kit, he thought. But dialling their home number simply connected him to another answering machine.

There was nothing more he could do. Now he had to clear his mind and concentrate on how he would handle Gerard Coyne. This was too important to allow anything to distract him.

It was worse, far worse than the corresponding scene in the TV adaptation. Worse, infinitely worse than her imagination had prepared her for. Her first thought was that he was dead. Kit slumped naked on the toilet, his arms chained to the walls, his legs hobbled round the toilet. His skin was white, his head sunk on his chest. He was only held upright by his bonds. She could see no sign of breath or pulse. In the vein of his left arm, there was a shunt. And on the walls around him, amateurish daubs of trees and flowers, gruesome in shades from dark-carmine to rust-brown. About half of the walls of the compact bathroom were covered. She had no way of estimating how much blood that had required. Her chest contracted in an agony of fear and distress.