Tom felt as though he was falling down a black hole. His head was clouding over. He stumbled a few steps and looked at what the team was examining.
There was no body. No Denise. The shower cubicle was splattered and splashed with blood and Denise was gone. The monster had her.
Chapter Eighty-Nine
Mace Crindle Plant
December 3, 12.25 a.m.
In 1995, Elliot Crindle of Mace Crindle Corporation, a petrochemical giant, agreed to a settlement with the United States Department of Justice and the United States Environmental Protection Agency. In addition to a very lenient $2 million civil penalty for industrial pollution from leaking sewers and over 65 separate environmental violations, Elliot agreed to upgrade or replace over 18 miles of ageing sewers across the plant.
The ancient pumping centre occupied a large underground site with cavernous rooms formed by elaborate brick arches. The company had closed this unit and sealed it. It lay ten metres below ground, accessible, still, through an industrial elevator in land once belonging to the company and now derelict.
Into this abandoned underground room Sebastian walked, the still body of Denise Levene over his shoulder.
At the centre of the vast and labyrinthine old sewer complex was a large circular space. In it was a set of shelves upon which sat Sebastian’s curiosities and artefacts, his own small contribution to the grotesque. His women. He had the clothes belonging to all of them hanging on the walls. There were rows of photographs of each woman taken as they were stalked, then the grotesque shots of their murders and the still, posed bodies hit by the glare of the camera flash.
In the centre, a glass vitrine containing his sculpture of body parts in formaldehyde, The Progression of Love.
Behind his display was a dry shrivelled object in the centre of a small shrine. It was Chloe Mestella’s heart. Sebastian felt excited being there in the sewers with his girls, seeing evidence that it was real, that it had all happened. He often watched his objects by candlelight so they flickered as if alive. There were body parts from seven women in the sculpture he called The Progression of Love: Mary-Jane, Grace, Amy, Jessica, Elizabeth, Kitty and Rose. It was finished. Now he just had to deal with Harper, and Denise.
Across the room was a single bed. Sometimes he slept there, deep in the caverns below the city streets. He had food and drink in there that would last a good while. He could hide out for weeks, if need be, hidden away, sealed in his dark chamber.
He put Denise on the bed. He had time now. As much as he wanted. All the time in the world.
It had been a couple of days since he had seen his objets d’art and he crossed to them. He took Jessica’s sweat-drenched blouse out of its plastic bag, put it to his nose, savoured the memory, felt it snake through his mind. He could feel his excitement grow. He had planned to bring a body down here many times to play with over and over again, if he ever dared. Now he had dared.
He replaced Jessica’s blouse. He wanted the aroma to last. He sealed the bag and turned to Denise. Unlike the rest, she was not there as an object of his fantasy. He had never imagined her ripe in his hands, his fingernails bright with her juice.
She was there for a different purpose altogether. He looked down at her. Such a small, frail bird. He wondered what it would be like — not only to be loved, but to feel love. He knew from long experience that it was not ‘being loved’ that saved people, but loving.
Sebastian was not yet finished. He pulled Denise’s body over his shoulder and went further into the labyrinth, down the dark, lost passages of the chemical sewers, his feet wet with the rainwater that seeped in through the old brick walls. Her cuts had been superficial. Deliberately so. Not dangerous, just across the odd vein or two to create a lot of blood. Blood incited fear so well. He would’ve liked to have seen Tom Harper’s face when he arrived at Denise’s bathroom.
He came to the steel bars of the caged prison in the depths of the plant. In there, he would keep Denise. He barged the door open with his shoulder. It took him three attempts and then he took her into her new home, laid her down on her bed and looked down on her face. Like a sleeping princess.
He left her and closed the steel door. The heavy metal clunked in the darkness and Sebastian trudged back up the tunnels like the Minotaur of old myth.
But those old myths weren’t true, were they? Minotaurs taking young maidens into the labyrinth to devour them. They were just stories, right? Just old stories.
Chapter Ninety
Mace Crindle Plant
December 3, 4.00 a.m.
Every few seconds a drop of water hit the ground. In the brick cell, the hollow drip of the water on the wet floor echoed, and then silence returned. Silence and absolute darkness.
Denise woke. It was pitch black. She was lying on her back. Where was she? She lay still for a moment. The events returned to her mind. Her heart thumped and thumped. The evening with Tom. The shower. The American Devil. Fear. Horrible fear. A knife slashing at her. She sat upright. Was he watching her? She couldn’t hear a thing, just the dripping water. No, wait. There was something. There. What was it?
A mechanical sound.
Yes. A faint mechanical sound in the distance. She couldn’t make it out, though. It was so dark. So very, very dark. It was hard to focus, to get your bearings. There was no point of reference. She closed her eyes. That was better.
Her hands reached down. She was naked. She had bandages on her arms. She felt bruising on her lower back as if she had been dragged over something. Perhaps down stairs. And she was stiff all over. Arms and shoulders and legs. Very stiff.
She opened her eyes again. Still darkness. So much darker when you open your eyes. So dark it swallows you. It seemed to swarm about her. A darkness within the darkness. She listened. The mechanical noise had stopped. She was lying on a bed of some sort with a coarse blanket. A blanket like they used to give you at camp. She turned her head and smelled it. The dusty mouldy smell overwhelmed her. I may not be able to see but I have a sense of smell. I have memory. Yes, Denise, think about camp. Tell me what you can remember.
Past images swarmed through her mind. The drips fell again and again and echoed against the hard cold walls.
Her hand reached out to her right, but there was only space. She reached out to her left and felt a wall. Her fingers touched it gently. Cold. She felt the groove of mortar. A brick wall. Smooth. The water dripped again. The smell of damp rising from the stone floor filled her nostrils.
Slowly, she was piecing things together. She was in a building. A cold, wet basement. There was something mechanical in the building. A dripping tap somewhere close. The brick wall suggested something industrial. But it might be somewhere that people were near. That comforted her.
She remembered all the tricks her father had told her. She had never imagined that his years in prison would be of use to her. All those hours and days spent chatting away across a scarred blue table.
‘Daddy,’ she said aloud into the darkness, ‘I will be all right, won’t I?’
She heard his voice in her head as clear as if he was right next to her.
‘Course you will, my little sparkler. I carry you in my cell and whenever I’m scared I light you up and you burn so brightly and so fiercely that I can see for miles and miles and miles. My fantastic sparkler.’
She could light a fantastic sparkler any time she wanted to. She would, too. When she needed to. And she would see everything and see for miles and miles and miles.
