Hands outstretched now, clamped tight round the bone bars. Pulling hard, harder…
He could feel the age in them, the smoothness. And the strength. Nothing gave. The cage held firm. He pulled again, pushed, rattled back and forth.
Nothing.
Another scream.
Another silence.
And then, at the far end of the cellar, a shadow amongst shadows, he saw someone. A figure moving closer. Slowly, slowly closer. Weak light glinting off metal. A sickle held in an outstretched fist. Moving slowly, rotating. Backwards… forwards…
Backwards… forwards…
Swinging slowly.
Silence. Impenetrable. Deafening.
Something else about the figure. A reason for its slow motion. It was dragging one leg. Throwing it out, limping painfully on it. But coming steadily forward.
Slowly… inexorably.
Phil’s hands went into overdrive. Pulling at the chain. Pulling at the bars.
Nothing. And nothing.
He stopped. Exhausted. And saw the face of the advancing figure.
Screamed again.
There was no face. Just sacking. Tatters. A rough scarecrow’s head, sewn crudely together to resemble a man’s. Slash for a mouth, but nothing for eyes. Just darkness. Two black holes.
Phil screamed once more.
He saw the rest of the figure now. Tattered from head to foot. Sacking. Hessian. Crudely stitched and sewn together. Patched. Filthy. A leather apron tied at the front. Old and dark-stained.
The sickle was raised. The moon blade shivering in the pale, weak light.
The tattered face loomed close, right up to the bars. Phil saw the eyes. Nothing there. Just deep, dark, empty black holes.
The blade glittered.
Was brought back.
Phil screamed.
The blade was brought down.
Phil screamed again, sobbing now.
Again. Again. Again.
Screaming, sobbing.
Silence.
‘Phil… Phil… ’
His heart was pounding, his chest burning. He couldn’t suck in enough air. His lungs didn’t feel big enough. Sweat covered his body, hot and prickly.
‘Phil… ’
He opened his eyes. Saw Marina’s anxious face, her eyes staring into his.
‘What… what… happened?’ His voice. He had found his voice.
‘You had a nightmare.’ Marina’s hand on his arm, rubbing slowly, her skin cool and soothing against his own, uncomfortably hot.
‘Nightmare… nightmare… ’ Gasping out words, gulping in air, struggling to sit up.
‘Just a nightmare. That’s all.’ Her hand stroking him. The feel of it reassuring. ‘Come on. Don’t talk. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.’
Phil turned his head, looked to where Marina was. The room was dark. But he could see her. The shape of her head. Her eyes. Her beautiful eyes shining out of the darkness.
‘Nightmare,’ he gasped.
‘That’s right.’ The stroke of her hand soothing, comforting. The closeness of her, their intimacy, reaching him. Calming him. ‘A nightmare. Come on.’
She pulled his body down to the bed once more. He felt her arms encircle his chest, her head on his shoulder. Legs pressed against his. A living, breathing cage of bones. Enfolding him. Protecting him.
‘Just a nightmare, that’s all.’
He nodded. She settled down with him. From the rhythm of her breathing and the weight of her arm, he could tell that she was soon asleep. He lay there awake. Staring ahead. Looking into the darkness. Wary for any shadows within shadows.
A nightmare. Just a nightmare.
Except it wasn’t. Phil knew that. He could feel it. He didn’t know how, but he could feel it.
No. Not just a nightmare.
It was so much worse than that.
43
Mickey sat in his chair, leaning back, toying with his pen, watching the rest of the team enter for the morning briefing. Bought-in large cappuccino resting beside him – four shots of espresso zinging him up to the hilt.
The bright late-September morning sun streamed through the blinds. Still clinging on to the idea of summer, not wanting to relinquish its grip, hand over to autumn in earnest.
Despite not finishing until late the night before, and being completely exhausted when he had finally hit the bed in his flat, Mickey hadn’t slept much. He hardly ever did when he was working a big case, and this one seemed to be developing into just that.
And then there was what he’d seen at the hotel. Those images would take some dislodging in his mind. The body of what had once been a man lay in a heap beside the far wall of the room. Butchered. The only word to describe it. The body sliced into, hacked to pieces, blood everywhere, the room redecorated in arterial sprays and splatters.
‘Someone must have really hated him, whoever he was,’ Mickey had said to Phil, looking from the doorway at the body. The SOCOs hadn’t allowed them anywhere nearer than that. They were going to be a long time with this one. This was, Mickey knew, a forensic worker’s dream.
Phil had kept staring. ‘Yeah. Whoever he was.’
‘Any ID?’
Phil had answered, never taking his eyes off the body. ‘Adam Weaver is the name in the wallet. But he signed in under the name Robin Banks.’
‘What?’ said Mickey. ‘He a Clash fan or something?’
‘Could be, who knows? He’d been booked in for a few days, had bought himself a bit of company last night.’ Phil pointed to the bathroom. ‘That’s who raised the alarm.’
‘Ah,’ Mickey had said, understanding.
‘Apparently,’ said Phil, ‘she was in the bathroom getting changed when there was a knock at the room door. After that she heard him screaming.’
‘And she didn’t look out?’
Phil shook his head. ‘Locked the bathroom door. Hid behind the shower curtain. Didn’t see a thing. Then phoned 999.’
Mickey frowned. ‘She had her phone in there with her?’
A ghost of a smile troubled Phil’s lips. ‘Taking photos for her boyfriend, apparently. Said it was an arrangement they had.’
Mickey’s turn to smile. ‘Classy. So he was here on business, then? Adam Weaver?’
‘What he said. We’ll get it looked into.’
