The Labyrinth of Drowning

cement. He followed the wall around; like the roof, it was made of cement. Then his foot knocked against something lying on the floor near the mattress, in line with where his head had been. It skidded against the wall. He searched and picked it up. It was a book, a hardback. He moved closer to the door where there was a little more light. Even here, it was too dark to see what it was but he was fairly certain it was a copy of his own book, Justice Under the Law. What would be the point of leaving any other book here? He tried to see if the title page had been signed but it was too dark. He put the book back on the floor, there being nowhere else for it.

He had left the rope near the door and went back to it. Could he use it for anything? Fix it so that whoever was coming to get him could be tripped when they opened the door? As far as he could tell in the dark, there was nothing to which he could tie the rope to make it work as a tripwire. He did have one advantage. They would be expecting him to be lying on the mattress like a chicken waiting to be slaughtered. He would be waiting for them instead. As best he could in the dark, he moved the cut wires and the rope to where they couldn’t be seen if the door was opened in any kind of a light. Make it appear there was no one in here just to throw them as much as possible. Then he sat down on the mattress to think.

Time lost definition when you waited in the dark. He was hungry and thirsty but put those things to the side. Feeling he had arrived at nowhere, he leaned against the wall and worked through the possibilities. Killing him could not have been part of his captors’ brief or he would already be in the afterlife, assuming it existed. Someone else must be on their way here to do that. Someone had left a copy of his book here to be part of the action. It was a logic all their own.

He thought about Grace. Whatever reason he was here, she was working. She would have her backup; they’d better be doing their job and protecting her. He thought of his daughter and his son. Toby was old enough to take care of his own life, but either himself or Grace had to come out of this alive for Ellie’s sake.

He was so deep in these thoughts that when the sound of a car coming to a stop outside broke the night silence, he was startled. Whoever it was, they hadn’t had their headlights on. Someone got out of the vehicle, and shut the door quietly but audibly behind them. Quickly, Harrigan got to his feet and stood to the side of the door. If anyone opened it, he could get them with a blow to the side of the head.

He listened. In the night silence, he heard soft footsteps approaching the door.

‘Are you in there?’

Harrigan drew in a breath. The last thing he’d expected to hear was a woman’s voice.

‘You must be awake by now,’ she went on. ‘You just wait. There are other people coming. Grace is one of them. We’re going to have fun tonight. Grace is going to watch you burn. Then she’s going to burn herself. You just sit there and think about that.’ She laughed.

Is that right? Harrigan thought. Well, fuck you, whoever you are. He had never hit a woman in his life. His father had sometimes hit his mother when he was drunk, until Harrigan had been big enough to stop him. Watching his father do this, and then, maudlin, beg for forgiveness in the morning, had left Harrigan with a contempt for anyone who did the same. But this wasn’t a woman. This was a murderer who happened to be female.

‘Are you going to talk to me? You can talk. I know you can.’

There was an odd hint of hysteria in the woman’s voice. She was building up her excitement. There was some other edge too. Tears. Why tears?

‘I thought someone was following me tonight. But I got rid of them. No one’s coming to save you. You might as well talk to me. You’re not dying alone. Grace will be with you. And if we can, we’ll get your daughter too. We’ve got something that’ll turn her head to pulp.’

Keep talking, whoever you are. I’m waiting for you. Everything you say makes it easier.

‘Are you going to answer me? Open your fucking mouth. You can still talk.’ Hysteria again, this time wound up to a greater intensity. Strange anger, resentment. ‘Go on. Cry. That’s what you’ll do in the end. Everybody does. They cry and they shit themselves. They all say please when it’s too fucking late. When we open the door, you’ll come crawling out saying please. When you do, she’ll be watching you and it’ll be too fucking late. Then she’ll crawl in the dirt too. Everyone does.’

There was silence again. Still Harrigan waited.

‘You’re going to burn in your own car. We’ve done that before. The first time we ever did anything. I can’t wait to see what it looks like again, what you sound like. What do you think?’

Come in and ask me if you want to know so badly.

‘Joel will be here soon. Maybe fifteen, twenty minutes. That’s all the time you’ve got left. I’m going to piss on your face. You can lie there and drink it. I’ll turn on the lights, I’ll take your blindfold off. You can look up at me before you die.’

You are sick. You are so sick.

Suddenly the bright lights of a car glared through the cracks around the door. Harrigan heard her unlocking the padlock, then removing the chain. Maybe when you’d done this so often before you got arrogant. You didn’t see your victims as anything other than creatures waiting for slaughter, crying for mercy you didn’t have to give.

A key turned in a lock, then the door swung open. The glaring headlights lit up the interior of the hut, revealing only the empty mattress. The woman stopped in the doorway, startled. ‘Where are you?’ she shrieked even as Harrigan came out of the dark and hit her on the side of her head as hard as he could bring himself to hit a woman.

She went down, not quite unconscious. She didn’t seem to be armed. He got hold of the rope they’d used to tie his legs and began to tie her up. She tried to fight and bite him but she was too groggy and had no strength to match his. A stream of obscenities came out of her mouth, barely comprehensible. He still had his handkerchief. He took it out of his pocket and pushed it into her mouth. Then he picked her up and put her on the mattress. She was still making noise and began to wriggle, trying for the door. He looked around. There was nothing to tie her to to keep her in one place. Then she collapsed back, breathing hard. Her eyes rolled up and closed. He pressed her eye, a common test for pain, to see if she was awake. She didn’t respond.

He took the time to look at her. An attractive redhead probably just over forty. Sara McLeod? Nadine Patterson? What name would she answer to? He searched her, found her car keys in her jeans pocket and took them. She had no weapon of any kind and no mobile. He stood up. In the car lights, he saw the book near her head and picked it up. It was Justice Under the Law. He flicked it open to the title page and saw his signature. Bought last night at his launch by Joel Griffin, who was supposedly on his way here right now. It was his MO: everything planned to the last detail.

Carrying the book, Harrigan went outside into the free air, shutting the door behind him. It locked on closure. The key was still in the lock. He took it, then re-chained and re-padlocked the door. The lights of the car were glaring in his eyes and he walked around to the side of the vehicle, cursing whenever his bare feet trod on something sharp. The car was a blue Mazda he hadn’t seen before.

He looked around to see where he was. As he’d guessed, the national park. He’d been locked in a small, squat building situated on a low slope. Probably it had been put here during World War II, some home-defence facility close to the coast where equipment might have been stored or the home guard were expected to fight invaders. Darkened forest surrounded the open area it stood in, at that moment illuminated by the lights of the Mazda. At this time of night, it was a good place for a murder.

He searched the car. There was no gun and no mobile telephone. He opened the boot. A digital video camera and jerry cans of petrol. He closed it and looked up the way it must have come in. A fire trail cut through the bush up a steep slope, presumably towards the nearest ridge. Parked to the side of this trail a short distance up the slope, gleaming palely and pointing downwards to the open space, was Harrigan’s car.

Painfully, he limped up to it. The keys had to be somewhere here. How else was anyone going to turn it into a murder weapon? Then he saw rocks wedged against the front wheels. He tried the door. It opened. This was simple. Turn the whole thing into a missile. Who needs to start the engine? Just set it up so it rolls forward over whatever escarpment is below.

Harrigan was a careful man. He had a spare key concealed on the outside of his car for emergencies. He tossed his book on the front seat and set about checking for it; it was still there. Once he’d retrieved it, he began searching the car. They had taken his mobile, his gun, his backpack with its handy collection of tools. He had no weapon and he couldn’t call for help. How much time did he have? Time to drive out of here and get help? Griffin was coming, Grace with him. Griffin was supposed to be her target not the other way around. They’d be here very