Stuart Macbride - Cold granite

Martin was out of the leg-lock in seconds, scrabbling backwards, only stopping when he banged into the far corner of the cabin. Blood was trickling down his chin, his hands massaging his throat, fighting for breath. 'You're…You're just like all the rest!' he shouted, his voice hoarse and raw.

Jamie McCreath started to bawl, a high-pitched, screeching sound that echoed off the bare concrete walls.

'Shut up!' Martin staggered to his feet and grabbed the boy by the upper arms, hauling him off the floor. 'Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!'

But this only made the child scream louder.

Snarling, Martin backhanded him, the slap hard and stinging, splitting the child's lip and bloodying his nose.

Silence followed.

'Oh God…Oh God, no…' Martin dropped the child to the floor, his face horrified.

He stared at the sniffing, terrified little boy, working his hands round and round, trying to wring the sting of the slap away.

'I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-' He reached forward but Jamie McCreath, eyes like dinner plates, flinched back, covering his face with his mittened hands.

Strichen glowered at WPC Watson in the weak torchlight. She lay on her side, panting through the gag, blood running scarlet from the bites in her legs.

'This is all your fault!' He spat the taste of her blood out onto the concrete floor. 'You made me hurt him!'

A boot slammed into Jackie's stomach, lifting her off the floor. She choked back a scream as fire lanced through her belly.

'You're just like all the rest!'

Another boot, this time to the ribs.

Martin was screaming now. 'It was all going to be OK! You ruined it!'

The door exploded open. Logan charged into the gloomy cabin. In the pale light of a dropped torch he saw everything: WPC Watson half-naked, lying on her side, eyes closed in pain; Jamie McCreath scrabbling backwards, blood on his face; Martin Strichen pulling back his boot for another kick.

Strichen froze, turning just as Logan smashed into him, sending them both crashing into the far wall. A fist glanced off the side of Logan's head, a high-pitched whine rattling his ears. Not interested in a fair fight, Logan went straight for the groin: hammering his fist into Martin Strichen's crotch.

The large-boned man gasped and staggered back, one hand grabbing his genitals, his face going ashen-grey. Lurching, he vomited all over himself.

Logan didn't wait for him to stop, just grabbed the hair on the back of Strichen's head and ran him into the concrete wall. Martin's head hit with a dull clunk, the impact hard enough to make the mildewed girlie calendar bounce off its nail. He staggered back, blood streaming down his face and Logan made a grab for his arm, twisting it up behind his back.

A huge, bony elbow lashed out, catching Logan just under the ribs, sending pain scouring through his scarred stomach. Hissing in agony, he crumpled to the floor.

Strichen wobbled in the middle of the cabin floor. Grunting, he wiped the blood from his face. Then, with a lunge he grabbed up Jamie McCreath by the front of his snowsuit with one hand, the holdall with the other, and ran out into the snow.

Logan pulled himself to his knees. He stayed there for a moment, panting, trying to keep his insides from falling out. At last he managed to get to his feet and lurch for the door.

He stopped at the threshold. There was no way he could leave Watson like that. He stumbled back to where she lay, spotlighted by the fallen torch. Angry red weals were blossoming on her stomach and upper legs and a pair of bite-marks bleeding freely onto the concrete floor. He could feel ribs shifting beneath the skin as he untied her hands and helped her to sit up.

'Are you OK?' he asked, removing the gag. It left angry, deep, scarlet marks around her mouth.

She spat a wad of wet rag onto the floor and coughed, causing her face to crease up in pain. She clasped at her broken ribs. 'Go!' she hissed. 'Get the bastard…'

Logan draped his overcoat across her naked shoulders and staggered out the cabin door into the snow.

Torches were bobbing all around the quarry's rim and the sound of dogs barking echoed against the manmade cliffs. More torches to the south were closing in, their beams making the falling snow glow as if it was on fire.

A silhouette slid to a halt, less than two hundred feet away.

Strichen.

He twisted round, fumbling with the wriggling child, as he looked for somewhere to run, his face illuminated by the weaving torchlight.

'Come on, Martin,' said Logan, limping through the snow towards him, one hand clutched over his burning innards. 'It's over. You've got nowhere to run. Your picture's everywhere, everyone knows your name. It's finished.'

The figure spun around again, face wide with fear. 'No!' he wailed, desperately seeking a way out. 'No! They'll send me to prison!'

Logan thought that was pretty bloody obvious and he said so. 'You killed children, Martin. You killed them and you abused them. You mutilated their bodies. Where did you think you were going to go? Holiday camp?'

'They'll hurt me!' Strichen was crying now, his sobs puffs of white cloud in the darkness. 'Like he did. Like Cleaver!'

'Come on, Martin, it's over…'

Little Jamie McCreath squirmed and kicked, screaming at the top of his lungs. Strichen dropped the holdall to get a better grip on him, but Jamie McCreath slipped out of his hands, falling to the snow.

Logan lurched forward.

Strichen pulled a knife.

Logan staggered to a halt. The blade sparkled in the dark night, and something constricted around Logan's bowels.

'I won't go to prison!' Martin was screaming now, eyes flickering between Logan and the approaching cordon of police.

Unnoticed, Jamie McCreath crept to his feet and ran.

'NO!' Martin swung around to see the toddler charge off through the snow as fast as his little legs would go. Only Jamie wasn't running towards the police flashlights. The sound of barking dogs. He was heading straight for the quarry.

Martin leapt after him, the blade flashing in his hand, shouting, 'Come back! It's not safe!'

Jaw clenched against the pain, Logan followed, but he had a lot of ground to make up.

A hidden dip in the ground swallowed Strichen's foot and he went down, sprawling on his face in the snow. He was up again in an instant, but Jamie was well ahead, running deeper into the granite bowl of the quarry. Towards the black lake. Suddenly the little boy slithered to a halt. He'd gone as far as he could. There was nothing but cold, dark water ahead. He turned back, his face terrified.

'It's not safe!' Martin ran after him.

But Martin Strichen weighed a lot more than a small child. The ice that supported Jamie's weight wasn't up to Strichen's fifteen stone. A gunshot crack boomed out into the quarry. The larger man slid to a halt, arms spread wide, not moving. Another crack, louder this time, and he shrieked.

Twelve feet away, Jamie watched him with frightened eyes.

The ice gave way with a roar, a hole the size of a transit van opening up beneath his feet, and Martin Strichen was gone. Straight down. The black water swallowing his scream.

On the other side of the hole, Jamie crept forward and peered down into the inky darkness.

Martin didn't come up again.

Logan stood in the softly falling snow, watching the ambulance's lights flickering away into the distance. They'd taken Watson away: concussion, hypothermia, some nasty bruises and a couple of cracked ribs. She'd get a tetanus jab for the bites. Nothing to worry about, said the paramedic. Not when you thought about what could have happened…

Logan clambered into the pool car he'd liberated from the FHQ car park, turned the engine over and the heaters up full pelt. He let his head sink forward onto the steering wheel and groaned. WPC Jackie Watson and Jamie McCreath were on their way to hospital and the Bastard Simon Rennie was already there. But Martin Strichen was dead and so was his mother…'