The Dead Tracks

literally all you can think about is the fact that someone out there has walked away a free man after putting two innocent girls in the ground.'

    Healy paused again. 'No one understands the debt you have to the people you stand over in these places. And when they're eight years old… Eight years old, and you can't find a trace of the arsehole who did these things to them anywhere in this worthless fucking city. No one understands what that feels like. Even some of the people I've worked with in the police. And if they don't get it, how the fuck are your family supposed to get it?'

    I nodded but didn't say anything.

    'It was about a month in when I found out she was seeing someone else,' he said, talking about his wife now. 'If I'd found out any other time, I would have been angry. I would have thrown some furniture around. Put my foot through a door. I know I've got a temper. It's who I am. I'm forty-six. I'm too old to change. But it wasn't just any time. I found out she was screwing around when I was up to my neck in photographs of two eight-year-old girls with injuries to every hole in their bodies. I had the media baying for blood, the chief super crawling up my arse…' He faded out, glanced at me. 'And worst of all, I had zero fucking suspects. No one. The debt I felt for those girls, I'd never had it as bad as that. So when Gemma told me, I just totally lost it.'

    'We've all done things we regret.'

    A smile without humour. 'You don't seem the wife- beating type.'

    'We've all done things we regret,' I said again.

    He turned to me. 'So what have you done?'

    I looked at him. I've killed people. People who deserved it. People who would have taken my life if I hadn't taken theirs. But I've still killed. I'll still be judged the same as them.When I didn't respond, he stared out of the window. In front of him, his food was virtually untouched and his coffee had lost its warmth.

    'You never really know anyone,' he said finally, 'even the ones you love. She thought she knew me, and I thought I knew her. But we didn't know each other at all.'

    A couple of minutes passed. I watched the thumb and forefinger of his right hand rub together; he would have taken a cigarette now. After a while, he returned to the counter and ordered a fresh cup of coffee, then disappeared to the toilet. A few minutes later he came back, added some sugar to his coffee and took a long drink from it. I could see his mind turning over, and I wondered what he was thinking about. His wife. The night she told him about the other man. The moment he hit her. The twins. Leanne.

    'When do you accept someone is finally gone?' he said quietly.

    I turned and studied him. The question surprised me, but I tried not to show it. I hadn't expected it from him. I hadn't expected emotion like that to exist so close to the surface.

    'It's different for everyone. But there's no shame in hanging on. There's no shame in believing they might walk through the door at any moment.'

    Healy didn't respond.

    I let him have a moment of silence and then pushed on. 'So, you going to tell me then?'

    He looked at me. 'Tell you what?'

    'About the woman in the eighth file.'

    He faced out at the street. Movement and light played in his eyes, the world beyond the window reflected. 'Sona,' he said.

    'That's her name?'

    He nodded. It was an unusual name. I liked it, but I'd never heard it before. Healy started fiddling in his pocket for something. 'I think her mother was born abroad somewhere,' he said. 'Eastern Europe.' He brought out a piece of folded paper and handed it to me. It was the same page I'd seen earlier inside the file — except this time there was nothing blacked out. All the information was there.

    'So where Does she fit in?'

    He looked at me. 'She's the one that got away.'

The One that Got Away

    Sona woke with a start, so hard and so fast she felt something rip. Two strips of tape hung down from her eyelids where they'd been placed over her eyes. She looked around. She was on a hospital bed. On one side: a metal table full of surgical instruments and an ECG machine. On the other: a yellow defibrillator, two metal paddles coiled around a peg at its side. The room had five doors: one left, one right, three in front of her.

    She sat up and something pulled at her chest. Wires snaked out from under her gown, feeding off towards the ECG, and she could feel two electrodes stuck to the spaces above both breasts. In the top of her right hand was a catheter that led to a bag of IV fluid hanging from a metal stand. For a second she felt woozy, as if she'd been torn too suddenly from unconsciousness. But then reality hit. Fear fluttered in her chest, a chill fingered up her spine. This wasn't how he worked. He would know when she was supposed to be awake down to the minute. He watched. He listened.

    So why hadn't he come for her yet?

    Because I'm not supposed to be awake.

    She'd been anaesthetized. He'd left her there because he thought she'd been given enough to knock her out.

    But he hadn't. She was awake.

    And now I need to get out of here.

    She removed the tape from her eyelids, disconnected the catheter and pulled both electrodes off her chest. instantly, the ECG flatlined, its steady beep beep beep replaced by one long noise. She stood in the centre of the room and looked between doors. He had to arrive through one of them now. He had to come for her. But a minute later she was still waiting.

    She glanced at the trolley again. There was a pair of scissors about six inches in length, the ends pointing out at a forty-five-degree angle. Surgeon's scissors. Next to that was a series of scalpels; a mix of different lengths and weights, of different blades and designs. More instruments: something that looked like a hammer; a syringe; and a drill. And finally, a bottle of clear blue liquid.

    The same stuff he'd made her apply to her face.

    She touched her cheek. She could feel the waxy sheen of her skin against the tips of her fingers - but she felt nothing in her face. Not a single thing. Everything was dead: no nerve endings firing up, no sensation of movement when she opened and closed her jaw. Nothing. It was completely numb. She reached to the other side, to see if it was the same, felt nothing and brought her fingers back — and then a ripple of horror escaped through her chest. Her fingers were covered in blood.

    Suddenly a horrible realization moved like an oil slick inside her: He was using the liquid to prepare my skin for surgery. And he's cutting into my face right now.

    Sona grabbed one of the scalpels. Come on then, you bastard. She tried to force adrenalin through her body, tried to kick-start some sort of response, but she was halfway across the room when she heard movement.

    Fast footsteps echoing in a corridor beyond the nearest door.

    Then static.

    She stopped, frozen to the spot. No footsteps any more. Just static. She transferred the scalpel from one hand to the other and held it up in front of her, in the vague direction of the door. Waited. Waited. Then she realized the static was coming from inside the room. She glanced to her left, high up into the corner. Hidden in the darkness was a speaker, built into the wall, painted the same uniform white to disguise it.

    'Ssssssssssona.'

    A voice from the speaker.

    And then in front of her the door handle began to turn.

    Heart shifting in her chest, she stepped sideways and forward, so she was behind the door as it opened towards her. Swallowed once. Twice. The third time she almost coughed. She was so frightened now her throat felt like his fingers were already closing around it. She clamped a hand to her mouth, trying to stop any sound, any