Gordon Smith lowered the bucket, filthy water dripping from it. A smile pulling at his Santa Claus beard. ‘Hello. I don’t think we’ve met. I’d shake hands, but as you can see, mine are full and yours are tied.’ He tossed the bucket away to bing and whoom against the concrete floor.
He had his other arm around Leah’s throat, pinning her to his chest. Her eyes wide as she stared at me. Then he dipped his free hand into a pocket and came out with a four-inch kitchen knife. Pressed it against her throat. ‘Isn’t this fun, boys and girls?’
I let my head fall forward, tried to drag in something deeper than a thin tortured wheeze. More filthy water cascaded from my hair, running down my face, pooling at my feet as I hung there, rough rope around my wrists, more around my ankles, fixed to the same bars set into the breeze-blocks.
So much pain and struggling and all I’d managed to achieve was swapping places with Leah MacNeil. And that was hardly an improvement, was it?
What a bloody idiot.
Franklin was right, I was an old man. A stupid, useless, old man.
Who was about to die. Probably in screaming agony, going by what Gordon Smith had done to David Quinn in that Stirling warehouse.
Unless I could get him mad enough to lose control and make it quick. Or the cavalry arrived in the nick of time?
Now would be good.
Any minute now.
Please.
Smith raised his big bushy eyebrows and beamed, as if he was performing for a crowd of small children. ‘I understand from my dear friend, Leah, that you’re a police officer. Isn’t that interesting? Now, I wonder how we can turn that to our—’
‘GET AWAY FROM HER, YOU FUCKING PRICK!’ Helen.
Oh thank God.
She’d squeezed herself through the gap between the big door and the wall again. Standing there, holding a dirty-big dod of wood with a lump of rusted metal on the end. Not quite a pickaxe handle, but it’d been something similar before the years had got to it. Sledgehammer? Splitting maul? Whatever it was, in her hands it looked deadly.
Smith backed away a couple of paces, turning so he was facing Helen and me at the same time. Still with that kids’ TV presenter smile. Which turned into a pantomime frown. ‘Now, now, we shouldn’t use naughty language like that. Have to set a good example for the younger generation, don’t we?’ Tightening his arm around Leah’s throat.
‘Let her go, Gordon. Let her go and you and me can talk about this like adults.’
‘Oh no. Why would I abandon lovely Leah? She’s been such a good girl, haven’t you, Leah?’
‘I swear to God, Gordon, if you don’t let her go I’ll—’
‘Threats don’t help anything, do they, Leah?’
She made a high-pitched yelping noise as the knife twisted against her throat and a thin line of blood trickled its way down into her T-shirt where it spread like a poppy blooming.
‘All right! All right.’ Helen lowered her weapon. ‘Let her go. Take me, and let her go.’
‘Well, that doesn’t sound very—’ Smith’s face creased and his head drooped. A deep breath, hissed out between pursed lips. ‘I know, Caroline, but I’m dealing with it... Because I’m dealing with it! You can see me dealing with it!’ He raised his eyes to the corrugated roofing. ‘I know! Please, for once in your bloody life, can you—’ A pause, then Smith’s shoulders curled inwards. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right, you’re right: there’s no need for that kind of language.’ He glanced towards the corner of the barn. ‘I apologise.’
There was something there — lurking in the gap between the tractor bogey and the wall. Like a granite thermos flask with silver handles fixed to it. That’s what Gordon Smith was talking to. And apparently, it was answering back.
Helen stared at him, mouth hanging open. ‘What the hell are you on?’
Talking to his long-dead wife, presumably, because this whole situation wasn’t buggered up enough as it was.
‘Now, if you don’t mind, Caroline, I’m trying to—... Yes... I know... I know! For goodness’ sake, woman, can you not let me—’ A longsuffering sigh. ‘Fine. But for the record I think this is a terrible idea for everyone concerned, OK? But if you think you know best, we’ll do it your way, shall we? As usual.’
He lowered the knife and took his arm from around Leah’s throat. ‘Go on, then. Off you go and be with your granny.’
Surely it couldn’t be that easy, could it?
Now all we had to do was get Smith’s dead wife to put in a good word for me and we could all go home.
After Helen had bashed his brains in, of course...
37
Leah ran into her grandmother’s arms, burying herself in a fierce hug. Voice a muffled sob. ‘It’s all been so horrible!’
‘I know, sweetheart, but it’s over now.’ Stroking Leah’s hair. ‘Shhh... Shhh... It’ll be OK, I promise.’ Then Helen stepped back, breaking the embrace. ‘I need you to go wait outside for me.’ Kissing her forehead. ‘Granny has something she has to take care of.’
Leah scrubbed a hand across her eyes. ‘You’re going to hurt Grandad.’
‘He’s not your grandad. He never was.’ She raised the rusted sledgehammer / splitting maul again. ‘Now go wait outside.’
‘No.’ Leah retreated towards us, feet scuffing through the dust. ‘You can’t hurt him.’
‘Please, sweetheart, you don’t—’
‘He’s my grandad!’
‘HE KILLED YOUR MOTHER!’ Helen’s eyes shone in the dim light, face darkening as she followed Leah further into the barn. ‘He tied her to the wall in his basement and he tortured her to death!’
Still backing away. ‘That isn’t—’
‘HE TOOK PHOTOGRAPHS! I’ve seen them.’ A sniff and Helen shook her head. Pulled out her phone and held it up. ‘I’ve seen what he did to her.’
‘What he did to her? How about what you did to her? You never loved her!’
‘Of course I loved her!’ Tears glistening on Helen’s cheeks now. ‘She was my baby, and—’
‘Then why were you never there for her?’ Voice sharp and cruel, circling Helen, spitting it out. ‘If you loved Mum you wouldn’t have spent half her life in prison! And even when you weren’t, Caroline told me all about the drinking and the drugs and your dodgy criminal mates coming to the house at all hours. Police kicking down the door every other day.’
Gordon Smith stepped towards them.
But when I opened my mouth to warn Helen, all that came out was a barbed-wire wheeze.
‘Leah, that’s not... I made some mistakes, but—’
‘Mum hated you. You poison everything you touch. She was better off dead than being with you.’
Helen wiped the tears away, but more spilled down her cheeks. ‘I didn’t—’
‘Granny and Grandad looked after me, because you weren’t there! You weren’t there for Mum and you weren’t there for me, because you’re a selfish cow!
‘Leah, it’s not—’
‘I HATE YOU!’ Leah’s hand flashed out, the slap ringing in the barn’s cold air.
Helen’s phone flew, bounced once off the concrete floor, then skittered over the edge of the pit and disappeared. She turned back to face Leah, a scarlet weal already starting to swell up on her cheek. Muscles cording in her neck like guy ropes. Empty hand clenched tight into a fist. Body trembling.