Stuart Macbride - Cold granite

'Which way do you want me to-'

'I don't care! Just find her!'

He pulled his mobile out of his pocket as the PC, looking hurt, stomped off at a forty-five degree angle into the snow.

'DS McRae,' he told the woman who answered. 'Where are my reinforcements?'

'One moment…'

Logan swept his eyes across the featureless landscape again. It was as if someone had erased the world, leaving nothing behind but a plain of white under a yellowed-slate sky.

'Hello, DS McRae? DI Insch says they're on their way. And PCs from Bucksburn should be with you in two minutes.'

He could already hear the faint wail of sirens, the sound deadened by the falling snow.

Logan forged on through the drifts, icy water slowly seeping into his trousers, making his legs heavy. He was breathing like a train, his breath coming out in thick clouds of vapour, hanging around his head in the still night, his own personal fog bank.

A sinking feeling was forming in his chest. There was little chance of finding Martin Strichen in the dark and snow. Not without dogs. Maybe he should have waited for the dogs? But he knew there was no way he could just sit there and not do something. Anything.

There was a slight rise in the ground and he laboured up it, the snow coming to his knees. And then he was at the top, feeling his heart leap into his throat, his bowels clench. The ground had disappeared! He stood on the lip of the precipice, arms pinwheeling to keep his balance, one foot hanging in space.

Logan staggered back onto firm land, then inched forward until he was standing on the edge of the cliff again.

It was one of the quarries. A wide, three-quarter circle of sheer walls with a dark lake at the bottom. The falling snow, drifting down below him only made the feeling of vertigo worse. It had to be fifty, sixty foot straight down to the cold, black water.

His heartbeat was still furious, pounding through his veins, making his ears buzz.

There was a boxy concrete cabin at the foot of the cliffs not far from the water's edge. A thin, yellow light blossomed in a cracked window before sweeping away.

Turning, Logan began to run. The torch didn't exactly give the cabin a cosy feel. The torch's beam was a cone of jaundiced, washed-out light, making the shadows inside the cabin seem even thicker than before.

Groaning, WPC Watson flickered an eye open. Her head was stuffed full of burning cotton wool. All she could smell was copper, and her face was sticky and cold. Her whole body was cold, deep frozen. A shiver grabbed her, rattling her bones, making her head throb.

Everything was blurred, swimming in and out of focus as she struggled back to the surface. She'd been doing something. Something important…

Why was she so cold?

'Are you awake?'

It was a man's voice, nervous, almost shy. Trembling.

Everything snapped back into place.

WPC Watson tried to jump to her feet, but she was still tied hand and foot. Her lurch of intent made the room whirl around her head, the edges rushing in and out like some demonic hokey-kokey. She squeezed her eyes hard shut and hissed breath through her teeth. Gradually the pounding stopped. When she opened her eyes again she was looking straight into Martin Strichen's worried face.

'I'm sorry,' he said, one trembling hand coming up to brush the hair from her face. 'I didn't want to hit you. But I had no choice. I didn't mean to hurt you…Are you feeling OK?'

All she could do was mumble through the gag.

'Good,' said Martin, not understanding the barrage of abuse she'd just thrown at him. 'Good.'

He stood and turned his back to her, bending over the large holdall she'd seen in the kitchen, and in a light, whispering voice began to sing the 'Teddy Bears' Picnic'. Stroking something inside the bag.

Watson's eyes darted around the small room, looking for a weapon. The place had been an office of some sort once. A metal rack for timecards was still screwed to the wall by the door and a bloated, mildewed calendar of naked women was nailed to another. The furniture was gone, leaving nothing behind but the graffiti-covered walls and the cold concrete floor.

Another shiver grabbed her. How could it be so damned cold? She looked down, alarmed to find that she'd been stripped.

'You don't have to worry, little one,' said Martin, gently.

A low moaning sob came from inside the bag and Jackie's blood froze. Jamie McCreath was still alive. She was going to have to watch the sick bastard kill a child!

Bunching all her muscles, she strained against her bonds. There wasn't an inch of give in her restraints. Arms and legs trembling with effort, all she managed to do was make the ropes cut deeper into her skin.

'It won't be like it was for me.' He went on stroking the child softly, making soothing noises. 'I've had to live with what Gerald Cleaver did to me for my whole life…You'll be free. You won't feel anything.' Watson could hear the tears in his voice. 'You'll be safe.'

She wriggled over onto her back, gasping as bare flesh came into contact with freezing concrete.

Martin picked the child out of the bag and sat him down on the floor next to Watson.

Jamie was still dressed in his snowsuit – orange and blue, with a double-bobbled hat. His eyes were huge and full of tears, his nose streaming twin silver trails into his twisted mouth. Low sobs made him shake all over.

Martin bent over the bag again and his hand emerged with a length of electrical cable. With practised ease he made double knots at each end, pulling them tight. He put one knot in the palm of his left hand, winding the cable twice through his clenched fist. He did the same with the right, pulling it tight and nodded in satisfaction at a job well done.

With sad eyes he looked up at WPC Watson, struggling against her bonds. 'It'll be OK after this,' he told her. 'I just need to…' He blushed. 'You know…Get going. Then it'll all be OK. We'll do it and it'll be OK. I won't need this any more.' He bit his lip and flexed the cable again. 'I'll be normal and it'll all be OK.'

Taking a deep breath, he made a loop out of the cable strung between his fists. Just big enough to fit over Jamie McCreath's head.

The little boy moaned in terror, his eyes fixed on Jackie as she bucked and writhed.

'If you go down to the woods today…'

With a snarl WPC Watson kicked her legs into the air, rocking back on her arms, arching her back so she was nearly upside-down.

Martin's face came up, the song dying on his lips as she pushed her knees as far apart as she could and lunged for his head. He didn't have time to move before she'd wrapped her legs around his neck and was squeezing for all she was worth.

Terror stretched Martin Strichen's face wide, making his eyes bulge with horror. Watson struggled to get her ankles locked – left over right – to get more leverage so that she could crush his windpipe.

Strichen's hands were all tangled up in his makeshift garrotte. His hands battered ineffectually at her thighs.

With a triumphant grunt, Watson managed to get her ankles into position. Now she could throw her full weight into it, watching with grim satisfaction as Martin's face started to go purple. She wasn't going to stop until the sick bastard was dead.

Panicking now, Martin flapped his hands free of the electrical cable, punching and scratching at anything he could reach. Pounding his fists into her abdomen.

Pain exploding through her stomach, Watson closed her eyes and kept on squeezing.

Martin sank his teeth into her thigh, just above the knee. He bit down with all his might, tasting blood, shaking his head, trying to tear off a chunk of flesh.

She screamed behind her gag, and Martin bit down again, still punching and scratching. A fist slammed into her kidneys, and Jackie went limp.