But if he looked through that window, even a glimpse, to the dark beyond, then a line was crossed. Perhaps no going back. He studied the photograph of the laughing girl, Natalie. The essence of innocence. He read the letter again. He thought of the bastards who’d tried to kill him, the bastards who’d undoubtedly murdered Gilbert Bartholomew, who’d stabbed Fiona Jackson to death and left her naked in her flat to rot. This had to stop.
He had £300 cash in his pocket. Courtesy of one dead assassin lying in the bleak, windswept Highland moors. Black left his hotel bedroom, wandered into the town centre, found a computer repair shop, where he bought a second-hand laptop. He returned to his room. On the way back he’d bought a bottle of whisky – Glenfiddich. He suspected he might need it. He poured himself a large glass, neat, and took a hefty gulp.
He powered up the laptop, plugged in the memory stick.
Black gazed at the screen, watched the events unfold. Every second of a ten-minute video. He paused it halfway through, poured himself another large whisky, downed it in one, went through to the en-suite bathroom and retched. He returned, then stuck it to the end. He kept the volume low, but the screams of the little girl, and the laughter of the men, was a melody like no other, twisting into his brain like an infection.
The video finished. Black took a deep, faltering breath. He felt disgusted, sickened, appalled. Violated. A whole range of powerful emotions.
But despite the outrage, something he saw sparked a flicker of recognition. A tiny fragment. Another large swig of neat whisky. Black started again, from the beginning, taking more care to absorb the details. The quality was good, the images sharp, heightening the horror. This had been taken for subsequent viewing, he presumed.
The child was led into a large room, filled with chairs, divans, couches, positioned round a wide, impressive black marble hearth. A fire crackled. This was not a typical front living room. More like an upmarket hotel lounge, or the sumptuous smoking den of a private club. There was an intimacy about the place. It was opulent – plush red carpets, dark glossy oak-panelled walls. Heavy velvet curtains drawn shut. Large paintings in gold gilt-edged frames. On one wall, a tapestry, glinting gold and silver in the firelight. The illumination was soft, muted. Men sat, scattered about the room, in no particular order, maybe ten. All wearing identical dark robes, except one, whose robe was pale grey. Hoods drawn over their heads, each wearing a white face mask. They were naked underneath. Three men stood at a far wall, black suits. Also masked. Guards? Possibly.
She was no older than five, and terrified, squirming in the arms of two of the robed figures. Wearing a simple white dress. When she cried, the men laughed. When she screamed, the men screamed with her, imitating her, their voices shrill.
Behold the embodiment of true evil. A living, gasping nightmare. They passed her about, the little girl, one to another, like a sack of soft meat.
There! Black paused the video. A man had his hands on her shoulders. Black concentrated. He rewound, paused again. He was not mistaken. What he saw was distinctive. He had seen it before, twice in the last week. He watched again, to the finish, the video ending as her screams escalated to a heart-freezing pitch.
What happened afterwards, he did not wish to conjecture. But he did. More pain, maybe even death.
Black removed the memory stick from the laptop, snapped it in two. He wrapped the pieces in paper tissue and flushed it down the toilet. He put the laptop on the floor and smashed it with the heel of his shoe.
He poured another large whisky, and drank it in one, trying to contain the tremble in his hand.
He gazed out the window, at the unspectacular view of the back of a building.
He knew himself. He knew this was how it would be after watching the video. Pandora’s box was opened. People had tried to kill him. He had killed right back – a reflex, almost. Survival instinct.
This was way beyond that.
He turned away, opened the wardrobe door, stared at his reflection in a full-length mirror. The reflection staring back was a man moulded by others, their sole purpose to create a fighting machine capable of inflicting maximum damage. Who did that little girl have in her hour of need? She had screamed, desperate and terrified, and her screams had gone unheeded. He seethed with a dark, consuming rage – if his daughter were alive, she’d be about the same age.
Avenging angel. Warrior. Black thought hard on those words.
Time now for this killing machine to give a little back. He had nothing to lose, after all, except his life, which he would gladly give. The die was cast, a decision made.
He would do exactly as Gilbert Bartholomew requested. He would try to find his daughter, little Natalie.
And if need be, kill every last one of the fuckers involved.
With pleasure.
22
The ranch had been built initially as exactly that. A cluster of buildings, luxury living accommodation, barns, outbuildings. But as the years progressed, and Boyd Falconer’s business interests expanded, he adapted his home to accommodate his line of work. Very special adaptations, several million dollars’ worth of changes. Money, however, was not an obstacle.
Another level was created. A sub-level. The few that knew of its existence gave it a chilling nickname – the Dungeon. An
