And right at the end of the village was the entrance to the farm.
I parked in a frozen field, about a hundred yards from the entrance. The sun clawed its way up past the mountains behind me just before eight o’clock, and an hour later no one had come and no one had gone. The place — the farm, its surroundings — were deserted; as quiet and still as if the bomb had dropped.
Wire-mesh fencing circled the property and the main gate was locked. A CCTV camera was positioned to see who came and went. Next to it was a keypad. Using binoculars, I could pick out two main buildings. One, the smallest, was close to the road, about twenty yards from the entrance. A path, footprints frozen in the mud, led down an incline and around to the back of it. There was another CCTV camera on the front, pointing up towards the gated entrance to the farm.
The second building, the farmhouse, was large enough to incorporate at least five bedrooms, and was much further down an uneven gravel track. Its windows were blacked out. The walls were peeling. If snow hadn’t been brushed into neat piles either side of the front door, it would have looked as if it had never been lived in. A third CCTV camera was bolted to the roof, pointed towards the front door.
The approach to the second, bigger building was untidy. Old, disused barns littered the path, full of frozen hay bales and rusting chunks of machinery. Beyond the farmhouse was the sea, crashing on to sand scattered with sheets of ice. Every time a wave reached for the shore, it pushed the smell of the place towards me on the back of a bitter Arctic wind.
I leaned over and flipped the glove compartment. Inside was a pair of wire cutters. I’d go in through the fence at the furthest end to the property, where the CCTV cameras weren’t trained, and then head into the first, smaller building.
From there, I’d figure out my next move.
I removed the wire cutters, checked them over, and looked back into the glove compartment. It was empty now, except for a box of .22 bullets.
And the gun.
It was a fully loaded Beretta 92. The same series as the fake one Dad had got mail order. The same series as the one I’d found in a South African war zone, and from which I’d taken the bullet I always kept on me.
I undid my black jacket and took out the bullet from the inside pocket. Let it roll around in my hands. I remembered that day in the township: the gunfire; the fear; the sun melting the tarmac beneath our feet. Then I remembered my dad shadowing me, moving behind me as I headed into the forest. As a kid, I’d fired the Beretta to please him. Never with any passion, any commitment, any intention of taking it beyond the boundaries of the woodland we’d hunted in. Now I held a real one in my hands.
I’d fired a gun two days before and taken a life. And I still felt nothing for Zack. Nothing for Jason either, as he lay there with his brains leaking out of his head, his blood spattered across my clothes and my skin. A realization, a flutter maybe, but nothing more. It was why I couldn’t call the police. The reason I had to do this alone.
I’d killed twice already.
And I’d have to do it again.
35
The smaller building had an old cottage-style look to it: pale red windowsills and frames; trays of dead flowers; a nameplate next to the door that said BETHANY. I came in diagonally from the hole I cut in the fence, using the empty barns as cover. There was a second door at the back, blistered and old. I slid the gun into my belt, and pushed at it. The door shuddered and slowly creaked open.
Immediately inside was a kitchen. The sink was missing taps and parts of its plumbing. Some of the cupboards had been dismantled. A table had been chopped into pieces and left in the centre of the room. Off the kitchen were two doors: one to a pantry, the second to a living room without any furniture. A door in the living room led to the stairs.
I headed up.
There were three doors on the landing but no carpet. The first was for a bedroom. An ‘A’ was carved into the door. Inside, about halfway along, a square chimney flue ran from floor to ceiling, coming out of the wall about three feet. At the windows, there were no curtains, just sheets. They moved in the breeze as I stepped up to the door. No beds. No cupboards. Water trails ran down one of the walls, coming from holes in the ceiling.
I looked into the second bedroom, a ‘B’ in the centre of its door. This one was different. It was bigger, and the crumbling stone walls had thick cast-iron rings nailed into them, spaced out at intervals of three or four feet. From each of the rings, a set of handcuffs hung down. I moved forward, into the room. It was about twenty feet long and smelt repellent. Exposed wooden floorboards, scarred and dirty, ran the length of it, and there were four windows, all covered by sheets. I turned and looked down at one of the rings closest to me, half-hidden behind the door. Above it, someone had gouged out a message: help me. I leaned in closer. In the grooves of the letters were pieces of fingernail.
I backed out, and turned to face the third door.
The bathroom.
It had most of its fixtures, and a basin, toilet and bath. The bath was filthy — full of hair and broken pieces of tile — but the basin was clean, used recently, droplets of water next to the plughole. There was a mirror on the wall above. I moved to it. The bruises on my cheeks, and at the side of my head, had faded a little. But my eye was still full of blood. I leaned into the mirror to take a closer look.
Then, behind me, I spotted something.
The bath panelling didn’t fit properly. I knelt down and pushed. It popped and wobbled, then regained its shape. I pushed again. This time the corners of the panel came away. The edges were slightly serrated, all the way around, like they’d been cut using a saw. I pulled the panelling out, fed a couple of fingers in through the gap and pulled at it. It came away completely.
Inside the bath, stacked around the half-oval shape of the tub, were hundreds of glass vials. They climbed as tall and as wide as the bath allowed, dark brown, opaque and identically labelled. Instructions for use were printed at the bottom of each vial in barely visible type, underneath the message Caution: for veterinary use only. At the top, printed in thick black lettering: KETAMINE.
I reached in and took one out.
Snap.
A noise from outside. Stones scattering.
I went to the window of the bathroom. Someone was approaching. A woman. She was young, probably nineteen or twenty. Dark brown hair in a ponytail. Pale, creamy skin. Tight denims, a red top and a white and pink ski jacket. On her feet was a pair of chunky, fur-lined boots. She crunched along in the snow, kicking loose pieces of gravel into the fields.
I didn’t have time to get out — didn’t even have time to get down to the pantry — so I put the bath panel back and moved into Room B, the room with the rings. Behind the door, I took out the Beretta and flipped the safety off. My hands were clammy despite the cold.
Then I remembered the extra bullets.
Still in the car, buried in the glove compartment.
Shit.
Footsteps sounded at the staircase. I had a narrow view between the door and the frame. Enough to see the woman get to the top of the stairs, move across the landing and into the bathroom.
I heard the squeak of the bath panel being removed. Vials clinking together. Then she started humming to herself. I moved out from behind the door, took a big stride from the door of the bedroom to the door of the bathroom and placed the gun at the back of her head.
‘Don’t move.’