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Her eyes roll. She reminds me of a cow tied up for slaughter, sensing her last moments are at hand. She starts crying again, saying a name over and over, the words rolling into one.
“He won’t find you. Not in time.” I reach down and connect the tubing to the cannulae in her feet. I leave the torn needles in her arm, turning my attention south and jerking her dirty pajama bottoms down. I insert new needles into the femoral veins on her legs. She cries out in pain and anguish, but I ignore her, just nodding in satisfaction. Blood, edging down the see-through tubing to the bags.
I stand back as my good work continues. Yes. This is it.
I watch her, as her blood flows. I feel the weight draining from my body. A lightness again. Relief, that everything is going as planned.
For you.
CHAPTER
32
ADAM’S SEEN THE house in newspaper reports, on the evening news, but he’s never been up close. Time has done it no favors.
The iron gates rust on their hinges, chains and padlocks cut in seconds as the police force their way inside. The search is quick and concise, shouts of “All clear” as footsteps barreled up and down the stairs, then across the lawn to the outbuilding.
The enforcer bashes its way through the outer entrance, the aged wooden slats no match for the bright red battering ram. But even before they breach the inner door, Adam knows the building is empty. The padlocks hang open on their latches, dust recently disturbed, and not just by his colleagues. He waits outside for the call; it doesn’t take long. Downcast faces emerge back into the drizzle and cold, a final nod cast in his direction as they leave.
Adam pauses, a drag of disappointment that makes his bones ache. She isn’t here. But she was.
They’re too late.
He phones Control, hurls abuse at whatever patrol swung by two days ago. But the gate was locked, no sign of a disturbance. They did their job. It’s Adam that’s lacking.
He’s handed a white crime scene suit, and he puts it on slowly. Delaying the inevitable, when he’ll see the product of his own failings. If he’d just listened to Romilly sooner. If he hadn’t let the history between them get in the way. If they’d placed a guard outside the house, would the killer have left Pippa be? Or would he just have found another location for his crimes?
He steps slowly into the room.
His shoes crunch on mud and dirt. Adam sees the thick walls, the layers of insulation over the windows that suppressed the prisoners’ screams. It’s dark except for a thin line of light edging in from the doorway. He moves forward. Brick walls, a beam running the length of the room. Something hanging from it, a lamp of some sort. He steps forward, squints up at it. It’s a hurricane lamp, modern. He reaches up with a gloved hand and presses the switch; it bursts into life, throwing shadows across the spider webs and neglect.
He can smell dust, wet soil, but also vomit, sweat, urine. It evokes a subconscious reaction in him: the hairs on his arms rising in goose bumps, a prickling of adrenaline as his body prepares for flight or fight.
He hears footsteps behind him and turns.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” the woman says. He recognizes her figure in the white suit. “We need to get some foot plates down.”
“I know, Mags. But I needed to see—”
“I get it.”
In the center of the room is a heavy wooden chair, lying on its side. Fragments of what Adam recognizes to be cable ties lie on the floor, as well as paper, wrapping, plastic. He crouches down next to one of them: the sterile packaging from a safety needle, “SOL-CARE” written on the side. A trickle of cold sweat runs down his spine. Next to it is a large dark puddle.
“Blood?” Adam says, looking back to Maggie.
The crime scene manager nods. “We’ll confirm. But probably.”
There are scuffs in the dirt, scrapes and footwear marks. Spatters and splashes, some dark like the first, others lighter. Adam can’t help but scan the wall—his gaze locking on the metal ring drilled into the brickwork. He closes his eyes for a second. The ghosts of the women intrude on his thoughts. This is where they were taken, where they were tortured, raped, where indescribable pain was inflicted. Where they died. Alone.
And Pippa was here too.
So where the hell has she gone?
“What am I missing here, Mags?” he asks. “If she was here, why move her?”
“Perhaps he knew you were coming?”
“From who?” Adam struggles to believe it could be one of his team. But his mind clings on to something. A fragile ray of hope. If she was dead, he would have left her here. If she was dead, they would have found her.
