Simon Kernick - Severed

I try once again to get a proper grip on the handle, and this time it comes free. I feel for the button that releases the blade, and find it. I am ten seconds away from death. My torturer is looking at me expectantly, and I'm trying to work out whether or not he's armed and whether it'll be him who delivers the fatal shot. I am absolutely terrified, and it takes all my willpower to keep my hands from shaking.

'We served together in the police,' I say, more loudly than I need to so that I muffle the click of the blade opening.

'The police?' He shakes his head angrily. 'You're fucking me about, man. We know all about you. You weren't in the police.'

I've made a mistake. I should have thought of that. But I've also bought myself a few seconds of time. I use my thumb to feel for the sharp edge of the blade and touch it against the leather restraint. Slowly I start sawing, hoping that he's not going to notice that my right hand is moving ever so slightly backwards and forwards.

'No, I didn't mean the police.'

'The army? Did you serve in the army with him?'

These guys may well know a lot about me, but they don't seem to know much about the man blackmailing them, and it strikes me that I shouldn't be helping them fill in the gaps. Ferrie might be dead, but it's possible he can still provide clues. I think back to Lucas's advice, that we should concentrate on conventional detective work rather than run into the hornets' nest, all guns blazing, and I realize that he was right. If I get out of here, we're definitely going to do things his way.

'Yeah,' I answer, 'that's where I know him from.' But I say it in a relieved way so that once again he'll think I'm bullshitting.

Playing for time. I am playing for time.

He gets to his feet and turns towards the door, shouting something in Serbo-Croat. I saw frantically for three or four seconds, until he turns back.

'I've had enough of your lies, man,' he says dismissively. 'I gave you the chance. You fucked me around. Now you're really going to pay.'

He returns to his seat as the door opens, and as I catch sight of the man who comes in, my eyes widen.

He's naked from the waist up, his body muscular and only just showing signs of running to fat around the midriff. I recognize him instantly, even though his face is concealed behind the tight black fetish mask, criss-crossed with metal zips, that covers his entire head. The one he was wearing last night when he plunged the knife into Leah.

The fear evaporates in an instant, replaced by an intense rage that shoots right through me. I struggle violently in my seat, trying to break the restraint. I want nothing more in the world right now than to kill this man, and know with an absolute certainty that I cannot die before I do.

As he turns to draw a bolt on the door, I see that there are no signs of the scars on his back from last night. He turns back to face me again, and for a moment he stands there studying me through the eyeholes in the mask. His eyes flash with an undisguised hatred that I know is reflected in mine.

In one hand, he's got a two-litre bottle of vegetable oil; in the other, a metal saucepan and a ladle.

I stop struggling as he walks towards me and stops by the side of the ancient cooker. He turns on one of the hotplates, puts down the saucepan and fills it almost to the top with the oil. He's beside me now, almost within touching distance. If he looks in the right place, he'll see the knife in my right hand.

But he doesn't. He's staring me out. I stare back, not daring to resume the sawing.

The guy opposite smiles malevolently. 'You know what my man here likes the most? Burning. It's his passion, man. He gets the oil nice and hot, and when he ladles it on, the flesh just drips off like water. And the screams, man. You should hear the screams.' He leans forward in the chair. 'Now, tell us the truth. Who gave you the briefcase?'

I don't speak. My interrogator gestures to the guy in the mask, who produces a cut-throat razor from the pocket of his trousers. He flicks it open. I wonder then if he's the one who's just killed Snowy, the contract killer Ferrie called the Vampire. The blade on his razor shines brightly, but there's no blood on it.

'I want you to have a little taste of what's to come,' says my interrogator. 'Radovan, while we wait for the oil to heat up, cut one of his eyes out.'

Radovan leans forward, and I struggle wildly again, but the strap holds. I desperately crane my neck away from him, trying to tip over the chair, but he grabs my chin and wrenches me round, holding it steady. The curved tip of the blade takes up my whole field of vision, approaching inch by inch.

I break. 'I'll tell you, I'll tell you. I swear it. I'll tell you everything.' I mean it, too.

The blade stops moving. It's an inch from my right eye. I can feel Radovan's breath on my face. It smells savoury, like meat on the turn. I can smell something else, too, something coming from outside the room. Smoke. And although I can no longer see him, I can hear my interrogator moving about in his chair. Can he smell it too?

Then, just as I'm about to speak again, a fire alarm goes off, its shrill ringing reverberating through the building. I can hear faint panicked shouts which sound like they're coming from downstairs.

There's a loud knock on the door.

Radovan steps back, the blade retreating with him. His comrade is out of his seat, looking concerned.

'Who the hell is it?' he shouts.

'It's me, Alannah,' answers a female voice. 'We've got to get out. The place is on fire.'

She bangs frantically on the door, and my interrogator pulls across the bolt and opens it a few inches. Smoke drifts in, and the smell gets a lot stronger. I catch a glimpse of blonde hair – it's the girl who caught me with the stun baton. But I'm not concentrating on her. Instead, I'm sawing once again, this time as fast as I can. Because if they don't kill me, the fire will, and I wonder why the hell Lucas set it because surely he must have known that if I was trapped in here, then burning the place down isn't likely to help.

I feel the material beginning to give way, and luckily Radovan is looking towards the door, the razor still held tight in his hand.

'All right, we're coming,' says the interrogator. 'We're coming.'

'Is he still in here?' the girl asks, trying to push her way inside.

'What do you want to know for, bitch?' he demands, trying to push her back out again. 'This is none of your fucking business!' He turns to Radovan, and beneath the spectacles his eyes are wide with tension. 'OK, no time for fun,' he shouts. 'Cut his throat.'

Radovan is still only a couple of feet away from me, and in one movement he swings the razor round in a neck-high arc. But I'm prepared for him and I lash out with my right leg, knocking him off balance. The blade misses the flesh of my throat by inches, but I've only bought myself a split second. I stop sawing and strain against the leather, knowing that this is my last chance. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the interrogator pulling a revolver from one of the pockets of his boiler suit; but in this single moment he's utterly irrelevant because my whole existence stands or falls on whether or not I have the strength to break free from my restraint.

Radovan has danced off to one side, out of range of my legs, and the razor's coming back again.

And this time it's not going to miss.

There's a splitting sound. The material has finally come apart, and I'm flung forward onto my knees. I feel a hot, very intense pain as the razor catches me on the scalp, slicing open the skin, but it's not a deep enough cut to slow me down. Almost as soon as I've landed, Radovan grabs me by the hair, lifting me to my feet as he moves in for the killing slice. I catch the briefest glimpse of his colleague through a thin pall of smoke. He's raising the revolver and pointing it calmly at my chest, preparing to fire. I am caught between a rock and a hard place, but I can do no more than deal with one thing at a time, and as I'm dragged back into Radovan's choking grip, I reverse the flick knife in my hand and drive it up to the hilt in the murdering bastard's thigh. He lets out a deep gasp – the first sound I've heard him make – and I dive clear as he staggers backwards, knowing that I've got to avoid a bullet. I can see the revolver's barrel tracking me as I slide across the carpet, and without my vest I know I'm a sitting duck. A shot rings out but it misses, and I hear the gunman curse. 'You bitch!' he cries, and to my surprise and relief I see that the blonde girl's struggling with him. The revolver's raised towards the ceiling, both their hands on it. It goes off a second, then a third time.