Simon Kernick - Severed

'I wish I could say the same, Major. Now, tell me, where's the case?'

'It's near here,' he answers.

'Why haven't you handed it in yet?'

'Because it's been booby-trapped, and I didn't trust the police not to destroy it in a controlled explosion rather than defuse the bomb. But now it's open, I will make sure the contents are delivered to them anonymously.'

'How did you open it?'

'I know a thing or two about explosives. I defused it myself. It wasn't easy – Ferrie did a good job with it – but I'm a determined man.'

'So am I,' I say evenly, 'and I've come a long way today. I think it's time you took me to it.'

'I don't think so,' he answers, meeting my gaze.

A cold yet ferociously intense rage rises in me. 'You know, Major, I once looked up to you, but that was a long time ago. Never again. You're nothing but a cold-hearted abomination, whatever you may think, and you're responsible for the murder of the two people I really cared about. So, if you don't do exactly what I say, I'll put a bullet in both your kneecaps and walk behind you while you crawl to wherever the case is.'

'I don't think you'll shoot me,' he says, but the confidence in his voice is belied by the lines of tension appearing on his face.

I keep the gun steady. 'I'll count to five. Then I'll fire.'

His hands grip the side of the chair. 'You think you can take me?'

'I've taken everyone else today.'

The major smiles grimly, and the tension dissipates. 'That's true,' he says. 'All right then. I'll show you it.'

As he gets up, I stand to one side. 'After you,' I tell him, 'and no tricks.'

'I don't need tricks,' he answers, leaning down beside the desk.

When his hand comes back into view, it's holding the burgundy briefcase. Straight away I notice that the red light next to the locking mechanism which signalled that the bomb was armed is no longer flashing. So, he has defused it.

I feel a nerve-jangling sense of anticipation. 'Open it.'

He looks at me, and there's something mocking in his expression. 'Are you sure you want to see?'

'Yes.'

He clicks open the locks.

I can hear my heart beating.

And then he flings it open with a flourish and steps aside, and I'm standing there, staring at something that even now I find hard to comprehend.

A jigsaw of human pieces, all wrapped tightly in clingfilm, tumbles out of the case's interior. I see a whole hand; five toes still attached to a piece of the foot; I may even have caught a glimpse of a perfectly skinned human face, I am not entirely sure. I don't really want to know. There are bones, too, faded and yellowing with age: part of a femur, some ribs… And photographs, poking out from underneath. I can see only part of one. It's of a young woman, and I gasp as I recognize the face from the picture Alannah showed me, of the woman she claimed was her sister, Petra.

And as I look from it to the major I see something in his eyes, and I recognize it immediately as a bright, malevolent triumph, as if he's just proved to me that the world is a far more evil, depraved place than I ever could have imagined, and that there are indeed monsters out there even greater than him.

I don't know what to say. Feeling faint, I take a step back, my gaze dragged back to the case and its terrible contents.

And it's then that I hear a noise behind me and feel the cool touch of the razor against my neck.

I'm pulled back into the darkness of the hallway, the grip tight around my neck, the blade pushing into my flesh. I can't see my captor, but I know it's a woman. I can smell her scent. So I was right about Alannah, I think, without any degree of satisfaction.

The major closes the case and stands in the middle of his study, looking at me. Surprisingly, his expression is one of sympathy.

'I'm sorry it had to come to this, Tyler. Now, drop the gun.'

He's still in my line of fire and I keep the gun pointed at him, recovering now from my shock as my survival instincts kick in. I know that if I do as he tells me, I'm as good as dead.

'No.'

'She'll cut your throat, Tyler, don't think she won't.'

'I know she will, but my last movement'll be to pull the trigger. I'll take you with me, Major.'

She tries to pull me further into the hallway so he's no longer in view, and it's surprising how strong she is, but I resist, even though she ups the pressure on the razor. Any second it's going to cut the skin. I don't want to die like this; I've seen too many victims of her handiwork today. But I'm not going to let the major out of my sight. My finger tenses on the trigger.

'Tell her to stop,' I hiss, conscious of the movement of my Adam's apple against the blade, 'or I'll fire.'

He nods at her, and she relaxes her grip a little.

'It seems we have – what do they call it? – a Mexican stand-off,' he says calmly. 'So, what are we going to do now?'

'Let me go and I'll walk out of here. We both want the same thing. I don't want those bastards to get away with whatever it is they've done.'

He shakes his head. 'But you won't just walk out of here, Tyler, will you? You'll come back for me. I know it.'

He glances over my shoulder, and a silent message passes between him and Alannah. I know he's telling her to take the risk and make the cut. I am a second away from death. But I can't go like this. Not with Leah and Lucas unavenged.

'Wait,' I hiss. 'There's something you should know.'

The major frowns. 'What?'

In one rapid movement, I grab the wrist holding the razor with my free hand and yank it away from my throat. Then I slam my head backwards and drive it into her face. I hear a cry, and she stumbles, but before I can get out of the way the major throws himself at me, grabbing the barrel of the gun. Instinctively, I pull the trigger, the gunshot like a whiplash in the enclosed space. His momentum sends me flying backwards, but I dive to the side to keep out of range of the razor, and we land together on the carpet, with him on top. His face is screwed up in pain, his eyes tightly shut, and he rolls off me clutching his gut where I've shot him.

A gutshot. It's one of the most painful wounds a person can endure, and it can be hours before you die. He bunches himself up into the fetal position, and lies there rocking back and forth.

For the time being he's out of action, so I turn my head in the direction of Alannah. But she's nowhere to be seen. The hallway's empty, the only sounds the major's tight, laboured breathing and the incessant ticking of the grandfather clock.

I lie there in the semi-darkness, the gun stretched out in front of me. Where the hell is she?

A door further down to my right is open. She must be in there. There wouldn't have been any time for her to get any further. I don't want to go inside. This girl's good. Too damn good. But there's no alternative.

Slowly, I get to my feet, my eyes adjusting themselves to the gloom. In the dim light provided by the major's study, I see a huge photo of him and someone else on the wall. Even in my current situation, I can't help but be drawn to the head-and-shoulders shot of the person next to him.

'Oh Jesus,' I whisper, my voice loud in the confines of the hallway.

The person smiling back at me from the picture is a young woman I can only assume is the major's daughter.

And it's not Alannah, it's Leah Torness.

She comes out of the door like a wraith, dressed in black, the blood running from her nose like melted tar where I struck her with my head. No longer the sweet young thing with the smile and the button nose from the supermarket, but a pale-faced killer with a gaze of stone.

I am still reeling from the shock. So the video I saw was a complete fake, and now the final pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are coming together. It was Leah I must have met on Thursday evening, who managed to lure me here for the set-up, although she took a risk calling me from her father's landline. And God knows which poor Eastern European sex slave I woke up beside the following morning, but the reason her head was missing is simple enough: so that I'd go to my grave thinking that the woman I loved was dead.