Cold granite

37

The toilet had one of 'those' flushes. No matter how hard or how often she forced down the handle, it just wouldn't make things disappear. WPC Jackie Watson sat on the edge of the bath and pumped the handle again before peering under the lid. At least all the toilet paper was gone now. Anything left was dilute enough to be unnoticeable.

Like the rest of the house, the bathroom was an icebox. Suppressing a shiver, she washed her hands, took one look at the off-grey towel hanging on the back of the door, and dried her hands on her trousers.

Someone was standing right outside the bathroom door when she opened it. She jumped, her breath catching in her throat. Strichen was back!

She snarled and launched a fist at his face without thinking, only swerving at the last moment when her brain caught up with her vision. Not Martin Strichen. His mother, her eyes wide with shock. They stood looking at each other, blood thudding in their ears.

'Don't do that!' Watson said, dropping the fist back to her side.

'Shift over,' said Martin's mum, her voice shaking slightly, eyeing Watson as if she was an escaped loony, 'my bladder's killing me.' She shuffled past, clutching her cardigan shut with one hand and an Evening Express with the other. 'Your boyfriend's taking his own sweet time making that bloody tea.' She slammed the door, leaving WPC Watson standing alone, at the top of the stairs, in the dark.

'Lovely woman,' she muttered. 'No wonder her kid's a monster.'

She went downstairs thinking about the pint that DS McRae owed her. Much better than yet another cup of tea. Grumbling away to herself, she slumped onto the settee. The opening titles of Emmerdale were flickering on the television screen, paused in the middle of flying over some fields. How nice of them not to start until she'd finished her wee. 'Come on, Rennie!' she called through from the lounge. 'What's taking so damn long? Teabag, water, milk. It's not hard.' She slumped back into the couch and scowled at the telly. 'Oh for God's sake!' She dragged herself up and barged into the kitchen. 'Can you not even make the bloody…'

There was a body lying full length on the linoleum floor.

It was PC Rennie.

'Shite!' She grabbed the radio off her shoulder. And the world exploded in a barrage of yellow and black fireworks. She couldn't have been unconscious for long. She knew that from the clock on the cooker. Only five minutes. Groaning, she tried to sit up, but something was wrong with her arms and legs. The kitchen spun around her head as she slumped back to the floor.

Closing her eyes only made it worse. There was a coppery, metallic taste in her mouth, but she couldn't spit it out. Someone had tied a rag into a knot and stuffed it into her mouth. And the same someone had tied her hands behind her back and bound her ankles together.

She rolled onto her back, sending the room spinning again. She let it settle for a moment, before continuing all the way over so that she was facing away from the lounge towards the back door.

PC Rennie lay flat on his face, his features slack and pale. He was trussed up just like she was, a slick of blood making his dark hair shiny and crimson under the kitchen lights.

From upstairs came the sound of the toilet repeatedly flushing.

She flipped over again. This time the world took less time to stop screwing the top of her head off.

Flush, flush, flush.

There was a holdall lying next to the bin. A big one. Lumps of snow clung to the stitching.

WPC Jackie Watson tried to press the transmit button on her radio with her chin. It was still strapped to her shoulder but no matter how hard she tried she couldn't get purchase on it.

And then a pair of legs came into the kitchen. They were clad in thick stockings and a heavy woollen skirt, the dark hallway framed behind them. Watson looked up into the face of Mrs Strichen. The woman's eyes were round and white, the flaccid circle of her lips working wordlessly as she stared at the trussed-up figures on her kitchen floor. She spun around, hands flying to her hips. 'Martin! Martin!' Her voice was that of a murderous rhinoceros. 'What the hell do you think you're doing, you dirty little bastard?'

A shadow fell across her.

Lying on the floor Watson could just make out the edge of a large-boned man, his hands huge and fluttering. Like a bird caught in a net.

'Mum-'

'Don't you "Mum" me, you little bastard! What the hell is this?' She pointed at the restrained figures.

'I don't-'

'You've been fiddling with little boys again. Haven't you?' She poked him hard in the chest with a bony finger. 'Bringing the police to my house! You make me sick! If your father was alive he'd beat the shit out of you, you snivelling little bastard pervert!'

'Mum, I-'

'You have never been anything but a leech! You were a maggot wriggling at my breast!'

He took a step backwards. 'Mum, don't-'

'I never wanted you! You were a mistake! You hear me? You were a nasty, rotten, fucking awful mistake!'

Watson could see the legs shift as Martin Strichen turned his back on his mother. Running away, making for the lounge. But Mrs Strichen wanted her pound of flesh. She stormed after him, her voice rising like a rusty chainsaw. 'Don't you turn your back on me, you little bastard! Two years! You hear me? Two years your father was inside when I had you! You ruined everything! You were always useless!'

'Don't…' The word was quiet, but Watson could hear the threat in it.

Mrs Strichen couldn't. 'You make me sick!' she screeched. 'Fiddling with little boys! You filthy, dirty bastard. If your father was alive-'

'What? What? If my father was alive: what?' Martin's voice was thunderous, shaking with rage.

'He'd beat you to a pulp! That's what!'

Something smashed in the lounge. A vase or a jug.

Taking advantage of the noise, Watson curled her legs beneath her and pushed, inching her way along the floor like a caterpillar. Making for the hall and the telephone.

'This is all his fault!'

'Don't you blame your father for what you are, you filthy bastard!'

The hall carpet was rough under her cheek as Watson wriggled out of the kitchen and into the hall. In the living room something else crashed against the wall.

'He did this to me! Him!' There were tears in Martin's voice, but they couldn't cover the rage underneath. 'He put me in hospital! He gave me to that…that…Cleaver! Every night! Every bloody night!'

'Don't you talk about your father like that!'

'Every night! Gerald Cleaver used me every fucking night! I was eleven!'

Watson had reached the phone table, the hall carpet giving way to the cold plastic mat.

'You miserable, whining little bastard!'

A slap rang out, flesh against flesh, and there was a moment's silence.

WPC Watson risked a glance into the lounge, but all she could see were shadows on the wallpaper. Martin Strichen was crouched with one hand on his face, his mother towering above him.

Watson wriggled forward, level with the phone table. Now she could see right into the living room and the small dining room beyond. A pile of clothes sat next to an ironing board. And right in front of them Mrs Strichen aimed another stinging hand at her son.

'You filthy, filthy little bastard!' She punctuated each word with a vicious slap to Martin's head.

Watson gave the phone table a shove with her shoulder, the noise hidden by all the shouting and yelling. The phone rocked in its cradle, once, twice, then pirouetted silently to the floor. No one heard it clunk against the plastic matting.

'I should have strangled you at birth!'

Watson fumbled the phone into her hands, twisting her head over her shoulder to see the buttons, punching 999 in with her thumb. She cast a frantic glance back at the lounge. No one was looking in her direction. She couldn't hear the phone ringing over the racket of Mrs Strichen attacking her son, but she scooted down anyway, pinning the phone to the floor with her ear, her gagged mouth over the mouthpiece.

'Emergency Services. Which service do you require?'

She did her best to answer, but all that came out was a series of muffled grunts.

'I'm sorry, can you repeat that?'

Sweating, Jackie Watson tried again.

'This is an emergency number.' Friendliness had vanished from the voice on the other end of the phone. 'It is an offence to make prank phone calls!'

All Jackie could do was grunt again.

'That's it. I'm going to report this!'

No! No! They had to trace the number and send help!

The line went dead.

Furious, she dropped the phone and wriggled forward once more, grabbing the handset to dial 999 again.

The thud, when it came, was soft and wet.

She snatched her eyes away from the phone and into the lounge. Mrs Strichen was staggering toward the couch, her face white as the snow outside. Behind her stood Martin, the iron in his hand, his expression strangely calm and serene. His mother stumbled, grabbing onto the overstuffed cushions for support and Martin stepped up behind her and brought the iron down in a sweeping arc. It connected with the back of her skull and she went down like a sack of potatoes.

Watson felt her gorge rise. Shivering, she mashed her thumb on the keys again.

Mrs Strichen's quivering hand flailed at the back of the couch. Her son held the iron at chest height, his other hand stretching out the electrical cord. Something like a smile twisted the corners of his mouth as he bent down and wrapped the cable around his mother's neck. Her foot thumped against the carpet as he squeezed the life out of her.

Gritting her teeth, WPC Watson grabbed the phone and wriggled back towards the kitchen. She was crying openly now, impotence and self-pity mingling with the terror of seeing another human being murdered. And knowing that she was going to be next.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she closed her eyes and tried to remember DS McRae's mobile number. Behind her, through the open kitchen door, she could hear Mrs Strichen's foot ever more faintly pounding against the floor.

Jackie's thumbs traced Logan's number on the phone's keypad and she did the same drop-and-wriggle routine she'd tried on the Emergency Services. Come on, come on! Pick up!

Click.

'Logan.'

She screamed, the rag in her mouth smothering the noise until all that came out was a squeak.

'Hello? Who is this?'

No! Not again! He had to hear her!

'Miller? Is that you?'

She screamed again, obscenities this time, cursing him for being so bloody stupid.

Martin Strichen's shadow fell across the kitchen. He still had the iron in one hand, thick red splashes coating the polished metal surface. Greasy, curled hairs stuck to the clots.

Her eyes darted from the iron to Martin's face. Scarlet freckles covered the right-hand side of his broad, pockmarked features. He looked down at her with sorrow, then picked up the phone, held it to his ear and listened for a second to Logan demanding to know who was calling his mobile. Then, calmly, he pressed the red button and ended the call.

The scissors came from the top drawer, under the kettle, their blades glinting in the cold overhead light. He smiled down at Jackie.

Snip, snip, snip.

'Time to do it properly…' Logan stared at the phone in his hand and cursed. As if he didn't have enough to worry about without prank phone calls! He punched the button that brought up the last number that had called. It was local, but he didn't recognize it. Scowling, he hit 'call back' and listened as the phone automatically bleeped and beeped its way through the number that had called him, returning the favour.

It rang and rang and rang. No answer. Right, he decided, there were two ways to skin a cat. He scribbled the number down and called Control, asking them to put an address to the telephone number. It took the man on the other end of the phone almost five minutes, but he finally came back with: 'Mrs Agnes Stricken, 25 Howesbank Avenue, Aberdeen…'

Logan didn't wait for the postcode, just shouted, 'Fuck!' and floored the accelerator. The car slithered snakelike out onto the road. 'Listen to me,' he told Control, whipping the rusty Vauxhall through the snow and ice, 'DI Insch has two cars in Middlefield. I want them at that address now!' By the time Logan got there, the two cars were already slewed across the road outside the front of number 25. The wind was dying away and fat flakes drifted down from the dirty orange sky. The air tasted of pepper.

Loganslammed on the brakes and the car skidded on the snow-covered tarmac and only came to a halt when it bounced off the kerb. He scrambled out of the car, slipping and sliding his way up the stairs and into the house Martin Strichen shared with his mother.

Mrs Strichen was in the lounge, lying on her front, the back of her head caved in, thick red lines circling her throat. The sound of angry voices came from the small kitchen and Logan burst through to see two uniformed policemen, one bending over a crumpled figure on the floor, the other on his radio: 'Repeat we have an officer down!'

Logan's eyes darted around the cramped room, coming to rest on a pile of fabric in the corner next to the bin.

A third uniform exploded into the room, breathing hard. 'We've been all over the house: no sign of anyone.'

Logan prodded the pile of cloth. It had been a pair of black trousers at one time. And there, underneath it were the remains of a black jumper and a white blouse. The kind with loops on the shoulders, specially designed to incorporate police epaulettes. He looked over his shoulder as the fourth of DI Insch's watchdogs screeched to a halt in the hall, behind his partner. 'Where is she?'

'There's no one in the house, sir.'

'Damn it!' Logan jumped to his feet. 'You and you-' he pointed at the two latecomers, who'd been searching the house, '-out front! He's got WPC Watson. Search every street, every open door, everything you can find!'

They stood for a moment, looking down at the crumpled figure of PC Simon Rennie on the kitchen floor.

'Move it!' Logan yelled.

They scrambled away.

'How is he?' he asked, stepping over the body and opening the back door, letting a wall of cold air collapse into the room.

'Taken a nasty blow to the back of the head. He's breathin' but he's no lookin' too good.'

Logan nodded. 'Stay with him.' He jabbed a finger at the last PC. 'You, come with me!'

In the back garden the snow was up to their knees. It had drifted against the walls of the building, ramping up to just under the windows, but there was an easily discernible path leading away into the darkness.

'Damn it.'

Gritting his teeth, Logan waded into the snow.