He lit a cigarette and smoked it slowly, thinking. Thinking. Thinking.
Her name was everywhere. Police were looking for her all over the city. All over Sussex.
He was shaking.
You stupid dumb woman, taking off my mask!
Look what you’ve done. To both of us!
They mustn’t find her. They’d know who she was if they found the body. They had all kinds of techniques. All kinds of science. If they found her, then at some point they were going to find him.
At least by keeping her cold he’d stopped the smell that had started to come from her. Frozen stuff didn’t smell. So now he had time. One option was just to keep her here, but that was dangerous. The police had put in the paper that they were looking for a white van. Someone might have seen his van. Someone might tell the police that there was a white van that sometimes drove in and out of here.
He needed to get her away.
Throwing her in the sea might be an option, but the sea might wash her body ashore. If he dug a grave somewhere out in a wood, someone’s dog might sniff her. He needed a place where no dog would sniff.
A place where no one was going to come looking.
46
Saturday 10 January
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all, Mandy thought to herself, her courage suddenly deserting her as she handed her token to the man in the booth of the ghost train ride.
‘Is it scary?’ she asked him.
He was young and good-looking, with a foreign accent – maybe Spanish, she thought.
‘No, is not really scary. Just a little!’ He smiled. ‘Is OK!’
‘Yeah?’
He nodded.
She tottered along inside the railings to the first car. It looked like a wood-panelled Victorian bathtub on rubber wheels. She clambered in unsteadily, her heart in her throat suddenly, and sat down, putting her bag on the seat beside her.
‘Sorry, you can’t take bag. I look after for you.’
Reluctantly she handed it to him. Then he pulled down the metal safety bar and clicked it home, committing her.
‘Smile!’ he said. ‘Enjoy! Is OK, really!’
Shit, she thought. Then she called out to her friends. ‘Char! Karen!’
But the wind whipped her voice away. The car rumbled forward, without warning crashing through double doors into darkness. The doors banged shut behind her and the darkness was total. In contrast to the blustery sea air, in here it was dry and smelt faintly of hot electrical wiring and dust.
The darkness pressed in all around her. She held her breath. Then the car swung sharply right, picking up speed. She could hear the roar of its wheels echoing around the walls; it was like being on a tube train. Streaks of light shot past her on both sides. She heard a ghostly laugh. Tendrils brushed her forehead and her hair, and she screamed in terror, clenching her eyes shut.
This is dumb, she thought. This is so stupid. Why? Why did I do this?
Then the car crashed through more double doors. She opened her eyes to see a long-dead, dusty old man rise up from behind a writing desk and swing head first towards her. She ducked, covering her eyes, her heart pounding, all the courage the alcohol had given her deserting her now.
They went down a sharp incline. She uncovered her eyes to see that the light was fading rapidly and she was back in pitch darkness again. She heard a hissing sound. A hideous, luminous, skeletal snake reared out of the darkness and spat at her, cold droplets of water striking her face. Then a brightly lit skeleton swung out of the darkness and she ducked in terror, convinced it would hit her.
They crashed through more doors. Oh, God, how long was this going to go on for?
They were travelling fast, downhill, in darkness. She heard a screech, then a horrible cackle of laughter. More tendrils touched her, like a spider crawling through her hair. They crashed through more doors, swung sharply left and, quite suddenly, stopped. She sat for a moment in the pitch darkness, shaking. Then suddenly she felt an arm around her neck.
A human arm. She smelt warm breath on her cheek. Then a voice whispered into her ear. A voice she had never heard before.
She froze in blind panic.
‘Got a little extra for you, darling.’
Was this some prank from Char and Karen? Were they in here messing around?
Her brain was racing. Something was telling her this was not part of the ride. That something was badly wrong. The next instant she heard a clang as the safety bar jerked up. Then, whimpering in terror, she was jerked out of the car and dragged quickly over a hard surface. Something sharp bashed into her back and she was pulled through curtains into a room which smelt of oil. She was dropped on her back on to a hard surface. Then she heard the door clang shut. Heard a click that sounded like a switch, followed almost immediately by the grinding sound of heavy machinery. Then a torch was shining into her face, temporarily blinding her.
She stared up, almost paralysed by utter terror and confusion. Who was this? The ride operator she’d met outside?
‘Please don’t hurt me,’ she said.
Through the beam of light she saw the silhouette of a man’s face inside what looked like a nylon stocking with slits in it.
As she opened her mouth and tried to scream, something soft and foul-tasting was rammed into it. She heard a ripping sound and the next instant felt sticky tape being pressed over her lips and around each side of her face. She tried to scream again, but all that came out was a muffled choking sound that seemed to shimmy around inside her head.
‘You’re gagging for it, aren’t you, doll? Dressed like that? Dressed in those shoes!’
She lashed out at him with her fists, pummelling him, trying to scratch him. Then she saw something glint in the darkness. It was the head of a large claw hammer. He was holding it in a latex-gloved hand.
‘Keep still or I’ll fucking hit you.’
She still in terror, staring at the dull metal.
Suddenly she felt a crashing blow to the side of her head. Her brain filled with sparks.
Then silence.
She never felt him entering her or removing her shoes afterwards.
47
Saturday 10 January
Garry Starling entered the packed China Garden restaurant shortly after 9 p.m. and hurried towards his table, pausing only to order a Tsingtao beer from the manager, who stepped across to greet him.
‘You are late tonight, Mr Starling!’ the jovial Chinese man said. ‘I don’t think your wife is a very happy lady.’
‘Tell me something new!’ Garry replied, palming him a ?20 note.
Then he hurried up the steps to his regular table and noticed that the gannets had almost finished the mixed starters. There was one solitary spring roll left in the huge bowl, and the tablecloth was littered with shreds of seaweed and stains from the spilt sauces. All three of them looked like they’d had a good few drinks.
‘Where the sodding hell have you been?’ his wife, Denise, said, greeting him with her customary acidic
