He stared at her, unmoved, with eyes that had seen it all before.
She tried to prise the gloved hands from her neck.
His grip tightened.
Terrified, she struggled, clawing and scratching at his large hands.
Grunting with satisfaction he squeezed even harder.
She frantically tore with bloodied, broken nails as her lungs began to burn.
Ten seconds later she felt hot urine trickle down her legs as the fight started to leave her body.
‘Sssh, little bird …’ he moaned gutturally as she began to spasm.
He picked up her eight-stone body, threw her over his shoulder and carried her to the rear of the waiting black Mercedes. He released the boot and stared in admiration at the immaculate thick black plastic-lined interior. Without effort he dumped her into the prepared space. Smiling, he pulled out a ten-inch serrated knife from inside his coat and gently caressed the gleaming blade against the faint pulse in her neck and then slowly ran the tip down towards her full, pert breasts.
‘Later,’ he muttered in a heavy Eastern European accent before slamming the boot of the car shut.
He then looked around the shadowy street checking to see whether anyone was about. Nobody. The street was in darkness. He expected as much. It was after two-thirty in the morning. But he knew they had been lucky. This time.
Moaning, she lifted her aching head up off the cold tiled floor. It was dark, too dark to make anything out. The acrid stench of urine filled her nostrils. In the background, the razor-sharp noise of dripping water echoed again and again.
She tried to remember what had happened but her head hurt too much. It felt heavy and foggy. It took her a couple of moments to realise that she was cold, very cold, and another few more before she became aware that she was naked. An overwhelming sense of panic started to build. She couldn’t figure out where she was or how she had gotten there.
All she knew was that she was hurting. Really hurting.
She tried to swallow and gagged, forcing saliva and blood to dribble out the corners of her mouth. She attempted to gulp back the thick, metallic taste in her mouth but found herself choking. She knew something was wrong as blood continued to pool at the back of her throat.
Panicking, she staggered to her feet, causing a searing white burst of pain in her abdomen. She instinctively placed her hands over her stomach and felt a warm stickiness. She ran her fingers across the gnarled slash realising that it ran from hip to hip. Horrified, she slipped on the wet floor, falling backwards.
The only noise emanating from her mouth was a gurgling splutter as she continued to choke.
Suddenly the door was kicked open and harsh light from the hallway flooded the men’s urinals.
‘Fucking hell!’ muttered a male voice as he took in the carnage in front of him.
‘Get Madley! And I mean now!’ he shouted as he ran over to her thrashing body.
He knelt down beside her and gently moved her into the recovery position, ignoring her moans of agony as he turned her. She suddenly began convulsing. With two fingers he started to pull out the blackened blood clots which were choking her.
It was then he realised where the blood was coming from.
Her tongue had been cut out.
His eyes dropped to her mutilated left breast. Scorched deep into her skin was a four-inch ‘N’. On the other breast, the word ‘PIG’ was cut into it. He then noticed that the pool of blood he was kneeling in was coming from the deep slash running across her stomach.
He had recognised her immediately as the copper who had been in earlier.
She had come looking for trouble. And it seemed that it had found her.
She was now passing in and out of consciousness. It was bad enough having a mutilated copper found in Madley’s club, let alone a dead one.
She didn’t have much time. Blood was continuing to ebb from the knife wound across her abdomen.
He turned towards the corridor.
‘Get Madley. Fucking get Madley!’ he yelled as he looked around for something, anything to stem the flow of blood. He quickly took his shirt off and pressed it hard against her slashed stomach.
‘Shit! Shit!’ he muttered as he waited for instructions.
He couldn’t figure out what was taking Gibbs so long. All he had to do was ask Madley what he wanted done. He needed to know whether they had to dump her somewhere.
Then he heard the screech of approaching sirens. It was too late. Some bastard had set Madley up. Whoever had done this to her had made sure Madley had no time to clean up and get rid of her before the cops turned up.
‘Fuck it!’ he cursed, agitated.
He was worried. Madley was in trouble. And this was just the start.
Jack Brady watched as the blood-red sun continued to rise, blazing from the depths of the North Sea horizon. In the background Mazzy Star played, soulful and unobtrusive.
The calm was disturbed by the buzz of his phone. He stretched over for his BlackBerry. The copper in him told him it was bad news.
‘DI Brady,’ he answered quietly.
He listened.
‘Conrad?’
Brady sat forward. ‘Run that by me again.’
‘Christ!’ Brady let the shocking words sink in.
‘Yeah … yes, I hear you, Conrad,’ Brady answered. ‘Yeah … I’ll be ready … No … you’re not interrupting anything …’
He thought about the previous night. After a couple of pints in the Fat Ox watching the band, Damaged Goods, he had left. Not knowing where he was heading, only that he didn’t want to go back to an empty five- bedroomed house. Somehow he had ended up down at the Blue Lagoon nightclub.
And that was what had led him to spend the early hours sitting waiting for her call. Waiting for an explanation of why she was back in the North East. Why she hadn’t told him, hadn’t warned him. After all, the last time he had seen her was over a year ago. But DC Simone Henderson, his ex-junior colleague, was back. The problem was, she had been more than a colleague. He had regrettably spent a drunken night with her which had resulted in the end of his marriage. Ironically both Claudia, his wife, and DC Simone Henderson ended up transferring as far away from him as possible.
He had spotted her standing at the bar laughing with two men. Her black hair had shone in the dim light.
Brady had stood there, shocked. Not believing that she was actually there. It didn’t make any sense. She worked for the Met now, so why would she be back in the North East, let alone in the Blue Lagoon of all places?
He was about to go over. But in one move she flirtatiously tilted her head back and, laughing at whatever had been said to her by one of the men, turned and caught Brady’s eye.
Her smile froze. Something in her eyes told him to disappear. And fast. She clearly didn’t want him there.
Then, acting as if she didn’t know him, she turned her attention back to the two men.
Brady could see that they had money: their sharp black suits and sharply cut hair said as much.
Resisting the urge to go over, Brady did as she had intimated and quietly slipped out. He had then returned
