kind of person.
His lager now tasted harsh on his tongue.
He threw the last of it down, wiped his mouth with the back of his hands. A quick visit to the toilet, then he was going to put his mind to rest one way or the other.
Danny knew she had to look for any chance of survival. When it came, however slight, she had to go for it whether it meant physical confrontation with Trent or running away. Whichever, she would give it her best shot.
For the time being, she reasoned her best way forwards would be to talk and keep him talking.
‘ This is madness,’ were the three ill-judged words which constituted her opening gambit.
Trent exploded.
‘ How dare you fucking-well say that, you stinking bitch!’ he screamed. He plunged the knife towards her face. Danny braced herself. It slowed as it neared her and he stuck it against her cheek, on the stitches from her other bad night. With a quick nick, he drew first blood, reopening the wound. She almost cried out, but held back to a whimper. The warm blood trickled down her cheek. He removed the knife, then held it an angle across her neck. ‘If I slice this now, you’ll bleed to death and I’ll just fucking watch you, like that ambulance-driver.’ He breathed all over her. ‘This, Danny, is not madness. It’s revenge, a perfectly normal thing to do. People do it, governments do it, so how can it be wrong or mad? Yeah, revenge — for all that’s been done to me over the years.’
‘ Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry. I was wrong to say what I did. I didn’t mean it to sound that way… I just wanted to know why you were doing all this, Louis.’
‘ Now you know. I was betrayed by everyone, particularly those little angels who I cared for. They’re the ones who must suffer — as well as people like you. People in the system who don’t understand men like me.’
‘ But what about Meg Tomlinson?’ she asked. That was the name of the murdered girl whose parents Danny had just spent several hours counselling. Danny needed to know if Trent had killed her. ‘You didn’t even know her, did you?’ She asked the questions gently, so as not to antagonise him.
‘ Knowing is not the point.’ Trent relaxed, removed the knife. He sat back and Danny breathed out. The cold line where the blade had been pressed throbbed. ‘It’s the principle of the matter. She was like them, one of them, really. I’m simply making a statement.’
‘ Why kill her, though?’ She still needed a definite answer. ‘I’m assuming you did kill her.’
‘ You assume right.’
Danny cast a quick glance at him. He stared ahead, eyes unblinking. She could hear his teeth grinding, a noise which made her cringe.
‘ I treated her with kindness and compassion, actually. But she didn’t like it. She would have betrayed me like all the others — if she’d lived. She was going to die anyway, but she chose to do it without dignity. She could have been a willing martyr for me, but no. Instead of a dignified death, she struggled after we had finished making love… she was foolish, very foolish.’
He had said all this as if in a trance.
Danny shook as his words poured out. She had to blank her mind to how Meg Tomlinson must have suffered at Trent’s hands. Making love! Jesus, Danny thought. Making love was not what the post mortem revealed, but a brutal, perverted assault.
It dawned on Danny, if it hadn’t done before, that she had been kidnapped by a seriously deranged man who, for his own good and the safety of the general public, needed to be killed.
Danny knew she probably would not be the one to do the deed, though.
She fully expected to be his next victim.
Henry stood at the urinal. His water seemed to be passing for ever. He willed his bladder to empty quicker.
The toilet door opened behind him and someone came in.
Ahhh… finished. Henry looked down and shook off the drops and the image of his limp penis was the last thing he saw as his head exploded in a firework display Guy Fawkes would have been proud of. His legs buckled and he crashed down, catching his chin against the bowl of the urinal before he hit the floor. A further broadside pummelled him into blackness.
The assault stopped abruptly.
Henry veered through that sickening twilight zone somewhere between conscious and not, fading in and out, whilst his mind blared like a siren, loud, then quiet, then louder.
Finally everything went quiet.
Henry lay there very still as the urinals flushed.
Trent made Danny loop round again, cut inland through Blackpool and eventually hit the M55, heading east towards Preston. His directions were as contorted as his thoughts. It became clear to Danny that he had no idea where to take her to finish her off. Obviously the prospect of dealing with Danny was unsettling him.
Before they had gone very far on the motorway, he instructed her to take the next turning off. She found herself being directed along country roads, towards Fleetwood. She knew exactly where she was, though, which made her feel comforted. She was pretty sure he’d be unable to take her anywhere within the county she did not know.
He made her turn right off the A586 and go across Shard Bridge, over the River Wyre. Now they were on narrower, winding roads, with Trent saying little, deeply engrossed in his own thoughts.
Soon they reached the coast again, well to the north of Blackpool, at a small seaside village called Knott End, and were driving down the short promenade towards the slipway near the river estuary. Fleetwood was directly opposite, across the water.
He told her to stop at the top of the slipway.
Fleetwood was lit up and looked prettier than it actually was. The tide was in, quite high, and the water lapped not many feet from the front wheels of the Mercedes. On this side of the water it was dark. No one around. In more ways than one, Danny had reached the point of no return.
‘ Switch off.’
She killed the engine. Silence surrounded them like a shroud.
‘ Keys,’ he barked, holding out his hand. Danny took them out of the ignition and dropped them into his open palm. He slid them into his pocket.
Trent was now in a dilemma.
The very fact that Danny had to get out of the car gave her a slight opportunity to escape. He knew it, so did she.
As soon as he told her to get out, she was going to run. Trent’s mind, already in turmoil, revolved furiously. Then he hit on a course of action.
He opened his door and placed his left leg out. With his right hand he grabbed Danny’s hair, started to climb out and dragged her behind him over the handbrake and gearstick.
‘ This way. You come out this way and if you try anything I’ll stab you.’ The point of the knife wavered dangerously close as she succumbed to the situation. He pulled her across and dropped her onto the ground on her hands and knees. He stepped away from her, waving the blade threateningly.
‘ Come on, come on, get up, get up!’
She clambered unsteadily up, using the arm-rest on the inside of the door as leverage. Trent yanked her away from the door, back-heeled the door shut and propelled her towards the footpath which ran alongside the river, underneath the observation windows of the unmanned coastguard station and the golf club to their left. On their right was the River Wyre. The water lapped gently up the man-made riverbank.
Danny stumbled several times when Trent pushed her, but he was remorseless.
Two hundred yards down the path they approached a pretty white cottage at the water’s edge, lit up, looking inviting and homely. Danny willed one of the occupants to come to a window. That did not happen as Trent frogmarched her quickly past. Ahead of them was a small sailing club with many dinghies drawn up on a slipway. Beyond were more cottages which Trent obviously did not know about.
‘ Shit,’ he said on seeing them.
