been clever. Standing in New Town, her usual spot. Making it look like a pick-up, like work. Knowing it was anything but. Feeling a bit protected thinking he’d be on CCTV somewhere.
And then the drive. Faith was used to getting into men’s cars. She knew the risks. But with the insurance she’d put in place, she’d doubted there was much risk in this one. Not for her, anyway. Because Donna would know what to do. Faith could count on Donna.
But he had hit the town limits and kept going. She had asked him where, and he had told her. Somewhere private. Somewhere they could talk. Where he could get what he wanted and she could get what she wanted.
Yeah, she had thought. Heard that one before.
But it hadn’t worked out like that. Not at all.
He had taken her somewhere private, all right. Then… nothing. Until she woke up. In that place. That horrible place. Like something from a horror film. Cold. And dark. And…
Oh God.
The bones. She remembered the bones.
And in that moment she knew where he had taken her.
Back there. Back home.
And she had let him. She was so cross with herself for allowing herself to make such a stupid, simple mistake that her anger gave her the energy to attempt to escape. And she had. She wasn’t stupid. She knew what he had done. One look at that place told her that. If she stayed, she would have no future.
So she had run. Not stopping to look back, or pause to check where she was. Not even noticing she was naked. Just ran. Out into the forest, the open. It was daylight by that time. She had been there all night.
Faith straightened up. Listened. Tried to hear something beyond her own ragged breath. Some sound of her pursuer.
Nothing.
Her body relaxed. Air came more freely into her. Her heart rose slightly. She began to feel the pain in her body. Feel normal again.
Then she heard it. The crack of dry twigs. Footfalls. Heavy. Not caring whether she heard or not. Knowing he was going to find her. She couldn’t stay where she was. She had to keep moving.
Looking round, she quickly decided where the sound was coming from, turned and headed in the opposite direction.
Her feet hammering down hard on the earth, pain starting anew, body racked and burning, feeling worse for stopping, not better.
And on. Running, running, running. Arms pumping, legs pounding. Not stopping. Not looking back. Moving forward, ever forward. Her son in her mind’s eye. Running towards him.
And then… other sounds. In front of her, not behind her.
She slowed, nearly stopping. Listened again, tried to make them out over the top of her laboured, painful breathing.
She knew what the sounds were. She smiled.
Traffic.
She was near to a road.
Smiling, she ran all the harder.
Then: another sound. Behind her this time.
She risked a glance over her shoulder. And there he was.
Faith hadn’t expected him to move so fast, given the size of him. But he was barrelling towards her, knocking branches out of the way as though they weren’t there. Like that Vinnie Jones character in the X-Men film she had watched once with her son.
‘Oh no, oh God… ’
She ran all the harder. Away from him. Towards the traffic.
The forest floor began to slope downwards. There was an incline leading towards the road. Faith ran down it. Brambles and thorns were thick here. They tore at her, attempted to hold her back. She ignored them, refused to feel her arms, legs, as they were ripped open. Some snagged her, refusing to give way. She kept on running, letting them gouge out large lumps of bleeding flesh.
No time for that. Only for escape. Escape…
The road was in sight. The cars speeding past. She could see them. And, in a few seconds, touch them. Her feet ran all the faster.
And then, just as she was about to break free from the thorns, he was on her.
She screamed, tried to pull away. Felt his hot breath on her neck. His strong, meaty, sweaty grip on her shoulders. Fingers like heavy metal bolts digging into her skin.
She screamed again. Knowing she couldn’t match him in strength, she became an eel, twisting and writhing away from his grip. Something she had picked up years ago, used when a customer tried to get a bit too handy. There was another move she knew too.
Squirming and turning in his grasp, she managed to bring her heel up, right into his groin. He might be big and strong, she thought, but there was no way he wouldn’t feel that.
And he did. Grunting, he loosened his grip slightly.
It was all Faith needed. She pushed her body sharply back against him, knocking him off balance, releasing his grip further, then ran.
Towards the road.
She reached the kerb, glanced back. He was following. She allowed herself a small smile of triumph.
She had escaped. Got away. Yes, she-
Didn’t see the VW Passat coming round a blind corner, straight towards her.
Too fast to stop or change direction.
It hit her, sending her body into the windscreen, shattering it, then over the roof of the car, landing in the road behind, her pelvis shattering, twisting the lower part of her body away from the top. The next car, a BMW 4x4, tried to swerve and missed her torso, but wasn’t as lucky with her legs. The thick tyres crushed them as the driver slammed on the brakes.
Faith had no idea what had happened. No time to think. All she saw was daylight, the sky far away, yet near at hand. Then her son’s face once more, smiling at her. Like an image from another world.
And a few seconds later, it was.
4
Whenever Detective Inspector Phil Brennan thought he had seen every kind of horror that humans could inflict on humans, something would hit him with the force of a right hook to the gut to remind him that he hadn’t. And that he would never fail to be surprised and sickened, no matter how long he lived.
When he looked into that cellar and saw the cage, he felt that blow to the gut once more.
‘Oh my God… ’
As DI with Essex Police’s Major Incident Squad – MIS – he had witnessed on a regular basis the damaged and the deranged destroy themselves and others with tragic inevitability. Seen loving family homes mutate into abattoirs. Comforted victims whose lives had ended even though they still lived. Attended crime scenes so horrific they gave a glimpse of hell.
And this ranked as one of the worst.
Not because of the usual stuff. Gore and dismemberment. Emotion and anger made corporeal. A savage and senseless loss of life. Here, the passion and rage of murder was absent. Although he imagined it would have been there in time. No. This was a different kind of horror. A calculated, deliberate horror. Thoughtful and precise and vicious.
The worst kind.
Phil stood on the hard-packed dark earth and stared at it, shivering from more than just the cellar’s cold.
Arc lights had been hastily erected at either wall, dispelling the Hammer Films gloom, replacing it with
