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A conscience is overrated.
As her leg kicked out again, she caught him in the thigh. He stifled a groan, but remained focused. He grabbed her leg, pulling hard, knocking her off balance.
Her body crashed to the floor, collapsing in a heap at his feet. Before she could react, he was down on her, grasping her in a headlock with one arm. With his other hand he gripped the scissors in his sweaty palm, and weighted her body down with his own.
He released her head, pried open her mouth and pulled at her tongue.
She gagged, spluttered, but he maintained his grip, forcing the scissor blades either side of the thrashing muscle.
She froze.
She felt the metal edges scrape her soft flesh. She whimpered, helpless.
‘Hold your tongue or lose it!’
He roared so close to her ear, she thought the drum might burst. ‘Do you understand me?’ He felt her head nod. He could feel the fear radiate from her body in waves so strong, he could almost taste it.
She had to die. He knew this now, but it had changed his plans somewhat. Nola had been a mistake, but he’d learn from it.
She whimpered when he removed the scissors and released her body from under him.
She curled herself up into a ball, her back towards the wall, head tucked down with her chin resting on her chest. He saw her body shake violently as sobs overcame her. He allowed her a few moments of respite before the inevitable came.
08:32 a.m.
Rachel woke to the sound of someone banging on her front door. She bolted from the bed and ran. She flung open the front door, ignoring the cold that flooded in from outside.
‘Nola?’
‘Erm, no,’ replied Olivia, standing with a large McDonald’s paper bag under one arm. She stared at Rachel from head to toe. ‘You may wanna put more clothes on, Rach,’ she said, pushing her way over the threshold. ‘It’s like minus ten or something.’
Rachel looked down at her thin pyjama bottoms and bra, but she didn’t care. The cold was nothing compared to the inner torment she’d had to put up with all night.
‘I got us breakfast,’ Olivia said, heading towards the kitchen. She started pulling out the cardboard cartons from the paper bag. ‘I hope you’re hungry.’ She took a large bite of her burger. ‘Oh, that’s good,’ she said with her mouth full.
Rachel looked at her, despondent. ‘I thought you were Nola.’
Olivia stopped chewing, keeping her eyes trained to the floor.
‘I’ve still not heard from her.’
Finishing her mouthful, Olivia turned to face her. ‘You told Daryl yet?’
‘Have I hell,’ Rachel said, reaching for her burger. ‘He’s been calling though.’
‘What you been telling him?’
‘I’ve been avoiding answering.’
Olivia gave a mock laugh. ‘FYI, that’s not wise.’ Rachel threw her burger down on the counter and rested her face in her hands.
‘I know, I know,’ she said. ‘I’ve left him a voicemail saying she’s been with a punter for a few days, that she’d been paid up front, but I can’t keep it up much longer.’ She picked up her burger again and took a large bite. ‘He’s started leaving me nasty messages already,’ she said between mouthfuls.
‘Course he has, that’s Daryl.’ Olivia chewed the last mouthful of her Big Mac and dusted her hands together, sending crumbs to the floor. ‘Look, way I see it, Nola’s gone AWOL ’cos she don’t want to be found. You can’t force her, Rach. She knows the price she’ll pay if she runs out on Daryl – we all do.’ She placed a hand on Rachel’s shoulder.
Sadly, Rachel knew from personal experience just what he was capable of. Daryl Thomas was their pimp. He ran their lives for them, as he did with all of his girls. He took a big percentage of what they earned on the street, dictated to them what to wear, how to act, and told them who they could talk to, and what he would do if any of them tried to walk out on him.
Rachel had tried it once – a long time ago now it seemed – and she had nearly got away from him. If it hadn’t been for another girl giving her away (Rachel never did find out who), she would’ve been free of him. On that occasion it had taken seventeen stitches to put her head wound back together and another five in her split lip, followed by several trips back and forth to the hospital until her arm was fixed again after a difficult break. All things considered, she’d got off lightly, compared to what Daryl had done to others.
She watched Olivia pull out her hairbrush from her bag and run it through her long hair, and wished she could be more like her; living each day as it came, and never really worrying about anything.
Despite her slight frame, Olivia was tough and streetwise. Rachel was the opposite; her long auburn hair, with large curls, made her look younger than her twenty years. Her build was average, and she was taller than Olivia, but she wasn’t anywhere near as robust.
She was about to ask Olivia what she thought she should do about Daryl, when they both heard Nancy Boy by Placebo echoing from Rachel’s room.
They stared at each other, motionless as statues.
Rachel shrieked. ‘My phone!’
Both girls nearly fell over themselves, as they skidded across the hall and into the bedroom. Rachel’s mobile was flashing on her bedside cabinet, but the call diverted to voicemail as she picked it up. She pressed the answer button anyway.
‘Hello? Nola?’
‘You missed the call,’ Olivia sighed as she launched herself onto Rachel’s bed. ‘You should’ve kept it on you.’
‘The caller ID says unknown, it might not have been her.’
‘Probably Daryl then.’
Rachel was silent and stared at her phone, willing it to ring again. After a few minutes the phone lit up and let out a beep.
1 New Voicemail Msg
Both girls looked at each other, then the phone.
Rachel hesitated.
‘You gonna listen to that or what?’
Rachel looked at Olivia then the phone again. She swallowed hard as she pressed the button to retrieve the message. Warily, she held the mobile to her ear.
Her eyes widened as the message played out. It sounded so surreal, she didn’t even know whether to believe it or not. She remained silent and when the message finished, she felt tears pricking at the surface of her eyes, like thousands of tiny red-hot needles.
*
08:45 a.m.
Nola wailed as the man hung up her mobile and tossed it to the floor. The lid of the battery compartment came away on impact and cracked, but the phone itself seemed to be intact and working. He’d deliberately withheld the number when placing the call moments ago.
As she hung upside down, tethered to a steel framework attached to the ceiling, her arms hung down, hands grasping at nothing but air. She knew she was too far from the mobile to reach it but still she tried.
She saw his big black boots come into view. He placed his foot on her mobile, then raised it high before bringing it crashing down. The cracking sound from her only source of help resounded in her ears. Her eyes clamped shut, her mouth pinched, as she fought back fresh tears.
Her senses were tingling. She was so cold. A draught was coming from a gap under the wooden door to the building. She’d been stripped naked and was now hanging precariously from the rafters, open to whatever torment was to come.
Her blood rushed to her head and she prayed she would black out.
The man watched her, eyes looking like dark holes. The pits of hell set deep in his pale face. She pleaded with him as he drew nearer but it was pointless. He held the knife at his side for her to see. The best she could now hope for was that it would be over quickly. She closed her eyes tight, bracing herself.
Then she felt the blade.
*
08:46 a.m.
‘We’ve got to go to the police.’
‘And tell them what?’
Olivia was now losing patience, and paced the room. Rachel was already getting dressed, stumbling as she pulled her trainers on her feet.
‘I’ll tell them Nola’s missing and about the call,’ she rushed, grabbing her coat as she made her way to the front door. ‘They’ll help.’ Olivia, following behind, reached out and grabbed her hand as she touched the door handle.
‘We’ve got to work, Rach,’ she said, her eyes looking deadly serious. ‘Daryl wants to see us.’
Rachel was frozen by her words. Daryl wanting to see them suddenly meant one thing – trouble. ‘What’ve you told him, Livi?’
‘Nothing,’ she said, averting her glance from Rachel.
‘You’re lying to me.’
Olivia was silent, but her face gave her away. Rachel’s body tensed and she raced back into her bedroom and went to the bed. ‘I can’t believe you’ve told him what’s been going on, that I’ve lied to him.’ She reached under her pillow and pulled out a knife.
Olivia’s eyes widened. ‘What the fuck, Rach? You’re not taking that out with you. I’m not letting you.’ She grabbed her wrist, squeezing hard, but Rachel refused to drop the blade.
‘Don’t you remember how long it took me to heal the last time Daryl messed me up?’
‘He won’t touch you this time, I promise.’
‘I’m going to help Nola. I’m going to help myself.’ Tears were now falling down her cheeks. ‘I need to get away from Daryl, from all of this.’
‘You don’t know if the voicemail’s real or fake, Rach. Wake up!’
‘I heard her screams in the background.’ Her words ensured a long desperate silence between them both, until Rachel managed to find her voice again.
This time she spoke softly. ‘I heard her. She was crying for help. She said he was going to kill her, whoever he is,’ she said, dropping her knife to the floor. ‘I can’t ignore that. She wouldn’t joke about something like this.’
Olivia’s face softened. ‘I’ll go with you to the police, but let me call Daryl first.’
‘No!’
‘All right, no phone call,’ she said, putting her mobile back in her pocket, ‘but you got to talk to him sometime.’
Rachel nodded. ‘I know… Let’s just find Nola first.’
CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_de545cbf-2d01-5f2a-a924-46b72943a80d)
Present Day
6
November
Ice crunched under her feet as she walked over the grass verge, towards the lake where the body had been pulled from the water. Smoke from the fireworks still hung heavy in the air.
The winter sun was just beginning to break through the darkness, lying low on the horizon, and as she walked towards the white incident tent ahead, she stifled a yawn.
It had been a long night for forensic pathologist Dr Danika Schreiber, having been on call, and she could barely keep her eyes open. She was met by Claire, who was shivering in the cold, puffing on a cigarette.
‘Thought you were giving up?’ Danika said as she placed her case on the ground next to her. Her faint German accent was still audible, despite the fact she had lived in England for several years.
‘It’s been a long night.’ Claire stomped her feet against the ground, trying to revive her frozen toes.
‘For us both. That’s why I’m late. The last job took longer than expected.’ She peered over Claire’s shoulder and stared out towards the broken ice floating on the water. ‘Is that where you found the body?’
Claire flicked her cigarette from her fingers and it rolled across the ground. She nodded as she exhaled a plume of smoke. ‘Yep, and it wasn’t easy dragging her up either. You’re bloody lucky it’s only one body as well.’
‘Yes, I heard you had to rescue a boy who’d fallen through,’ she said, pulling the hood of her Tyvek paper suit over her long black hair. ‘Where is DI Fletcher? OK, I hope?’
‘He’s gone with the boy to the hospital until we can locate the boy’s parents. From what information we got out of those drunken friends of his, the mother’s a lush and the father’s not much better. We’re having trouble finding them.’
They walked under the police tape and towards the incident tent. Danika pulled on a pair of overshoes, then thin blue plastic gloves, and followed Claire inside the tent. She was careful not to disturb any potential evidence, keeping to the plastic walkway which led towards the body. She squinted under the glare of the large spotlights, one in each of the four corners of the tent.
Both women looked down at the body. The face of a young girl stared back at them. Her body was naked, with a thick chain around her ankles. Danika stared at the heavy coiled links.
‘Someone weighted her down,’ she said, kneeling next to the body. Her eyes glanced over the girl’s face and down to her toes. Then she returned to the deep cut to the side of the neck. The remains of dried blood were partially spattered down the dead woman’s neck and chest, still visible despite having been in the lake. The water had given the blood a dull hue against the skin.
‘How long do you think she’s been under the ice?’ Claire said.
‘It’s hard to say at this stage. When someone has been in cold storage, it slows the process of decomposition. It will be hard to pinpoint a time of death.’
‘She’s not been in a fridge, Danika.’
‘Yes, but being under the ice has had the same effect to some degree. If she had been found elsewhere, there would be larvae, maggots… I could pinpoint the time period. There are no obvious signs of scavengers having tampered with the body, although I’ll know more when I’ve examined her properly, but it suggests maybe she’s not been in the water very long.
‘There’s a little orange tinge to the skin, which is to be expected as she’s been submerged, but it’s minimal. Again this would indicate she’s not been here long.’ She paused, frowning hard. ‘That chain’s a bit excessive. Even with it weighting her down, she’d have risen to the surface eventually, but you were lucky to find her now before the skin started to peel.’
Danika looked up. ‘It’s looking likely loss of blood is the cause of death.’ Claire cocked her head, looking at the body at a new angle as Danika continued. ‘She has a deep laceration to the side of the neck, most likely severing a jugular vein, carotid artery and the trachea. Death would have occurred within seconds, but she was probably killed somewhere else and dumped in the lake.’
