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He moves his legs, it’s the same. Secured tightly—to what? A chair? He can still move his head, and he looks down, squinting in the darkness. He’s fully dressed—in the shirt and trousers he put on that morning, at Romilly’s—but his feet feel cold; his shoes and socks are off.
Is it still the same day? He has no idea. There’s a pain in his head, pulsing in time with his frantically beating heart. Someone must have knocked him out. But who? Not—
Oh God.
And then he feels it. Them. The hard metal under his skin, intruding, parasitic, ready and waiting to draw his blood. He feels his head grow woozy. The familiar panic takes over, making him sweat, shake, close to passing out.
He pulls hard at his bindings, to no avail. He tenses his muscles, willing himself to stay awake, stay conscious. But the panic has him in its grasp. All he can think about are the needles. In his arms, in his feet. He feels sick, he needs to get away, he has to, he has to. Before … Before …
The blood drains south, everything fades. Adam’s head drops to his chest, unconscious.
* * *
He wakes slowly. The feeling of a hand lightly tapping his cheek. A voice saying his name, over and over.
“Wake up, Adam,” it says. “It’s time.”
He opens his eyes. The room is brighter now, and he blinks: a light is hung from the center of the room, a hurricane lamp, similar to one they found in the outbuilding. Where Pippa died.
His head snaps up with a jolt. He looks around, panicking, vision blurred, pulling at his hands and feet, still securely tied. But his mouth is free now, and he takes deep gulps of air, willing his sight to clear.
Then he stops.
Someone is standing in front of him, holding a needle and syringe in one hand, a plastic bag, medical equipment in the other. They smile.
“Welcome back.”
Adam makes a croaking sound, his throat dry and sore. He tries again, this time manages to speak.
“You,” he says. “It can’t be you.”
PART 3
My devil had been long caged, he came out roaring.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1886.
CHAPTER
60
THE INCIDENT ROOM is silent; nobody moves, all eyes locked on Detective Chief Superintendent Marsh. Jamie is standing to the side, the ball of fear slowly eating away in his stomach. He glances across to Romilly. Her face is pale, her eyes worried: he knows he must look the same.
“Listen, and listen hard,” Marsh begins. Jamie feels the years of experience pour from this man, taking solace in his confidence and unflinching stare. “Here’s what we know. At approximately nine this morning, Adam Bishop went to the old surgery of Dr. Cole, we believe to look for his patient records. His car is there, but he has not been seen since.” Marsh turns to the whiteboard, scribbling in a barely legible hand as he talks. “If we’re following this guy’s MO—and the fate of his other victims—we don’t have long to find him. Let’s assume less than twenty-four hours. That takes us to tomorrow morning.”
What happens then, Jamie has no idea. Would Adam end up like Pippa? Dead and drained. Or does it lead to something else? Something worse?
“The lab has been working fast,” Marsh continues. “Trace found at the scene has been confirmed as Bishop’s blood. Tire tracks out the back of the premises match the ones found at the wasteland last week, so we know he has been taken by the same offender.”
“But why?” a voice asks from the team, echoing Jamie’s own thoughts from earlier that day.
Now, Marsh repeats the message to the room. “Bishop has a phobia of needles. A fear we believe the killer has targeted throughout the investigation. Exploiting it for his own gain.”
Murmurs of surprise ripple around the room.
Marsh wasn’t happy when Jamie had told him.
“And he didn’t think to mention this important fact earlier?” he’d shouted down the phone.
