Cold granite

38

It wasn't much more than a shack. A concrete lean-to off the quarry road. This was where he had played as a child. No, not played. Hidden. Hidden from his father. Hidden from the world.

The granite-grey bowl of the quarry wall was only visible as a shadow through the drifting snow. They had cut straight into the rock, making a cliff, then turned their attention on the deposit underground, leaving behind a deep, treacherous lake. Even in the height of summer the water was cold and dark, its depths snarled with binding forests of weed and shopping trolleys near the shore, dropping off to a bottomless pit further in. No one swam in the quarry lake. Not since two boys had disappeared in the late fifties.

This was a haunted place. A place for the dead. It suited him just fine.

The police weren't supposed to be at the house! That wasn't right. They shouldn't have been there… He crunched his way through the ankle-deep snow towards the quarry cabin, breathing hard. They were heavy, making his shoulders ache. But it was all going to be worth it. She was a good girl. Didn't struggle. Martin had only kicked her in the head once, and after that she was good as gold. All quiet and peaceful as he snipped off her clothes.

His hands had trembled at the feel of her skin: cool to the touch and soft as he cut away, leaving just the bra and pants. What they hid scared him. Made him ache…

And then the phone went. Ringing and ringing and ringing as he hefted her over his shoulder, picked up the big holdall, and staggered out of the back door. They were coming for him.

A big brass padlock held the cabin door shut, next to a sign saying 'WARNING: DANGER OF COLLAPSE. ACCESS PROHIBITED.'

Grunting, he took a step back and slammed his foot into the wood, next to the lock. The old door boomed, bouncing under his attack, but the padlock stayed firm. He kicked it again, and once more for luck. The third boom echoed off the quarry walls, covering the sound of cracking wood as the padlock's fixings gave way.

Inside, it was freezing and dark, the smell of rats and mice fading away under years of dust. Grinning nervously, he slid the woman off his shoulder onto the concrete floor. Her pale skin shone against the dark grey and he shivered, trying to pretend it was the cold. But he knew it was her.

The large holdall went next to her. Afterwards, he knew, it would make him sick to his stomach. Make him sick until there was nothing left but bile and shame. But that was for later. For now his blood roared in his ears.

With numb fingers he tugged down the zip.

'Hello?' he said.

Inside the bag, little Jamie McCreath opened his eyes and began to scream. The footprints were disappearing fast, thick white flakes of snow filling them up, making everything smooth and featureless. Logan slithered to a halt, his eyes scanning the landscape. The trail had led directly away from the house, right out into the darkness. And now the trail was gone.

He swore bitterly.

The PC he'd dragged along puffed to a halt behind him. 'What now, sir?' he asked, panting for breath.

Logan looked about him, trying to guess which way Martin Strichen had gone, taking WPC Watson with him. Damn it! He'd told Insch it was a bad idea to leave just two of them at the house! 'Split up,' he said at last. 'We need to cover as much ground as we can.'

'Which way do you want me to-'

'I don't care! Just find her!'

He pulled his mobile out of his pocket as the PC, looking hurt, stomped off at a forty-five degree angle into the snow.

'DS McRae,' he told the woman who answered. 'Where are my reinforcements?'

'One moment…'

Logan swept his eyes across the featureless landscape again. It was as if someone had erased the world, leaving nothing behind but a plain of white under a yellowed-slate sky.

'Hello, DS McRae? DI Insch says they're on their way. And PCs from Bucksburn should be with you in two minutes.'

He could already hear the faint wail of sirens, the sound deadened by the falling snow.

Logan forged on through the drifts, icy water slowly seeping into his trousers, making his legs heavy. He was breathing like a train, his breath coming out in thick clouds of vapour, hanging around his head in the still night, his own personal fog bank.

A sinking feeling was forming in his chest. There was little chance of finding Martin Strichen in the dark and snow. Not without dogs. Maybe he should have waited for the dogs? But he knew there was no way he could just sit there and not do something. Anything.

There was a slight rise in the ground and he laboured up it, the snow coming to his knees. And then he was at the top, feeling his heart leap into his throat, his bowels clench. The ground had disappeared! He stood on the lip of the precipice, arms pinwheeling to keep his balance, one foot hanging in space.

Logan staggered back onto firm land, then inched forward until he was standing on the edge of the cliff again.

It was one of the quarries. A wide, three-quarter circle of sheer walls with a dark lake at the bottom. The falling snow, drifting down below him only made the feeling of vertigo worse. It had to be fifty, sixty foot straight down to the cold, black water.

His heartbeat was still furious, pounding through his veins, making his ears buzz.

There was a boxy concrete cabin at the foot of the cliffs not far from the water's edge. A thin, yellow light blossomed in a cracked window before sweeping away.

Turning, Logan began to run. The torch didn't exactly give the cabin a cosy feel. The torch's beam was a cone of jaundiced, washed-out light, making the shadows inside the cabin seem even thicker than before.

Groaning, WPC Watson flickered an eye open. Her head was stuffed full of burning cotton wool. All she could smell was copper, and her face was sticky and cold. Her whole body was cold, deep frozen. A shiver grabbed her, rattling her bones, making her head throb.

Everything was blurred, swimming in and out of focus as she struggled back to the surface. She'd been doing something. Something important…

Why was she so cold?

'Are you awake?'

It was a man's voice, nervous, almost shy. Trembling.

Everything snapped back into place.

WPC Watson tried to jump to her feet, but she was still tied hand and foot. Her lurch of intent made the room whirl around her head, the edges rushing in and out like some demonic hokey-kokey. She squeezed her eyes hard shut and hissed breath through her teeth. Gradually the pounding stopped. When she opened her eyes again she was looking straight into Martin Strichen's worried face.

'I'm sorry,' he said, one trembling hand coming up to brush the hair from her face. 'I didn't want to hit you. But I had no choice. I didn't mean to hurt you…Are you feeling OK?'

All she could do was mumble through the gag.

'Good,' said Martin, not understanding the barrage of abuse she'd just thrown at him. 'Good.'

He stood and turned his back to her, bending over the large holdall she'd seen in the kitchen, and in a light, whispering voice began to sing the 'Teddy Bears' Picnic'. Stroking something inside the bag.

Watson's eyes darted around the small room, looking for a weapon. The place had been an office of some sort once. A metal rack for timecards was still screwed to the wall by the door and a bloated, mildewed calendar of naked women was nailed to another. The furniture was gone, leaving nothing behind but the graffiti-covered walls and the cold concrete floor.

Another shiver grabbed her. How could it be so damned cold? She looked down, alarmed to find that she'd been stripped.

'You don't have to worry, little one,' said Martin, gently.

A low moaning sob came from inside the bag and Jackie's blood froze. Jamie McCreath was still alive. She was going to have to watch the sick bastard kill a child!

Bunching all her muscles, she strained against her bonds. There wasn't an inch of give in her restraints. Arms and legs trembling with effort, all she managed to do was make the ropes cut deeper into her skin.

'It won't be like it was for me.' He went on stroking the child softly, making soothing noises. 'I've had to live with what Gerald Cleaver did to me for my whole life…You'll be free. You won't feel anything.' Watson could hear the tears in his voice. 'You'll be safe.'

She wriggled over onto her back, gasping as bare flesh came into contact with freezing concrete.

Martin picked the child out of the bag and sat him down on the floor next to Watson.

Jamie was still dressed in his snowsuit – orange and blue, with a double-bobbled hat. His eyes were huge and full of tears, his nose streaming twin silver trails into his twisted mouth. Low sobs made him shake all over.

Martin bent over the bag again and his hand emerged with a length of electrical cable. With practised ease he made double knots at each end, pulling them tight. He put one knot in the palm of his left hand, winding the cable twice through his clenched fist. He did the same with the right, pulling it tight and nodded in satisfaction at a job well done.

With sad eyes he looked up at WPC Watson, struggling against her bonds. 'It'll be OK after this,' he told her. 'I just need to…' He blushed. 'You know…Get going. Then it'll all be OK. We'll do it and it'll be OK. I won't need this any more.' He bit his lip and flexed the cable again. 'I'll be normal and it'll all be OK.'

Taking a deep breath, he made a loop out of the cable strung between his fists. Just big enough to fit over Jamie McCreath's head.

The little boy moaned in terror, his eyes fixed on Jackie as she bucked and writhed.

'If you go down to the woods today…'

With a snarl WPC Watson kicked her legs into the air, rocking back on her arms, arching her back so she was nearly upside-down.

Martin's face came up, the song dying on his lips as she pushed her knees as far apart as she could and lunged for his head. He didn't have time to move before she'd wrapped her legs around his neck and was squeezing for all she was worth.

Terror stretched Martin Strichen's face wide, making his eyes bulge with horror. Watson struggled to get her ankles locked – left over right – to get more leverage so that she could crush his windpipe.

Strichen's hands were all tangled up in his makeshift garrotte. His hands battered ineffectually at her thighs.

With a triumphant grunt, Watson managed to get her ankles into position. Now she could throw her full weight into it, watching with grim satisfaction as Martin's face started to go purple. She wasn't going to stop until the sick bastard was dead.

Panicking now, Martin flapped his hands free of the electrical cable, punching and scratching at anything he could reach. Pounding his fists into her abdomen.

Pain exploding through her stomach, Watson closed her eyes and kept on squeezing.

Martin sank his teeth into her thigh, just above the knee. He bit down with all his might, tasting blood, shaking his head, trying to tear off a chunk of flesh.

She screamed behind her gag, and Martin bit down again, still punching and scratching. A fist slammed into her kidneys, and Jackie went limp.

Martin was out of the leg-lock in seconds, scrabbling backwards, only stopping when he banged into the far corner of the cabin. Blood was trickling down his chin, his hands massaging his throat, fighting for breath. 'You're…You're just like all the rest!' he shouted, his voice hoarse and raw.

Jamie McCreath started to bawl, a high-pitched, screeching sound that echoed off the bare concrete walls.

'Shut up!' Martin staggered to his feet and grabbed the boy by the upper arms, hauling him off the floor. 'Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!'

But this only made the child scream louder.

Snarling, Martin backhanded him, the slap hard and stinging, splitting the child's lip and bloodying his nose.

Silence followed.

'Oh God…Oh God, no…' Martin dropped the child to the floor, his face horrified.

He stared at the sniffing, terrified little boy, working his hands round and round, trying to wring the sting of the slap away.

'I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-' He reached forward but Jamie McCreath, eyes like dinner plates, flinched back, covering his face with his mittened hands.

Strichen glowered at WPC Watson in the weak torchlight. She lay on her side, panting through the gag, blood running scarlet from the bites in her legs.

'This is all your fault!' He spat the taste of her blood out onto the concrete floor. 'You made me hurt him!'

A boot slammed into Jackie's stomach, lifting her off the floor. She choked back a scream as fire lanced through her belly.

'You're just like all the rest!'

Another boot, this time to the ribs.

Martin was screaming now. 'It was all going to be OK! You ruined it!'

The door exploded open. Logan charged into the gloomy cabin. In the pale light of a dropped torch he saw everything: WPC Watson half-naked, lying on her side, eyes closed in pain; Jamie McCreath scrabbling backwards, blood on his face; Martin Strichen pulling back his boot for another kick.

Strichen froze, turning just as Logan smashed into him, sending them both crashing into the far wall. A fist glanced off the side of Logan's head, a high-pitched whine rattling his ears. Not interested in a fair fight, Logan went straight for the groin: hammering his fist into Martin Strichen's crotch.

The large-boned man gasped and staggered back, one hand grabbing his genitals, his face going ashen-grey. Lurching, he vomited all over himself.

Logan didn't wait for him to stop, just grabbed the hair on the back of Strichen's head and ran him into the concrete wall. Martin's head hit with a dull clunk, the impact hard enough to make the mildewed girlie calendar bounce off its nail. He staggered back, blood streaming down his face and Logan made a grab for his arm, twisting it up behind his back.

A huge, bony elbow lashed out, catching Logan just under the ribs, sending pain scouring through his scarred stomach. Hissing in agony, he crumpled to the floor.

Strichen wobbled in the middle of the cabin floor. Grunting, he wiped the blood from his face. Then, with a lunge he grabbed up Jamie McCreath by the front of his snowsuit with one hand, the holdall with the other, and ran out into the snow.

Logan pulled himself to his knees. He stayed there for a moment, panting, trying to keep his insides from falling out. At last he managed to get to his feet and lurch for the door.

He stopped at the threshold. There was no way he could leave Watson like that. He stumbled back to where she lay, spotlighted by the fallen torch. Angry red weals were blossoming on her stomach and upper legs and a pair of bite-marks bleeding freely onto the concrete floor. He could feel ribs shifting beneath the skin as he untied her hands and helped her to sit up.

'Are you OK?' he asked, removing the gag. It left angry, deep, scarlet marks around her mouth.

She spat a wad of wet rag onto the floor and coughed, causing her face to crease up in pain. She clasped at her broken ribs. 'Go!' she hissed. 'Get the bastard…'

Logan draped his overcoat across her naked shoulders and staggered out the cabin door into the snow.

Torches were bobbing all around the quarry's rim and the sound of dogs barking echoed against the manmade cliffs. More torches to the south were closing in, their beams making the falling snow glow as if it was on fire.

A silhouette slid to a halt, less than two hundred feet away.

Strichen.

He twisted round, fumbling with the wriggling child, as he looked for somewhere to run, his face illuminated by the weaving torchlight.

'Come on, Martin,' said Logan, limping through the snow towards him, one hand clutched over his burning innards. 'It's over. You've got nowhere to run. Your picture's everywhere, everyone knows your name. It's finished.'

The figure spun around again, face wide with fear. 'No!' he wailed, desperately seeking a way out. 'No! They'll send me to prison!'

Logan thought that was pretty bloody obvious and he said so. 'You killed children, Martin. You killed them and you abused them. You mutilated their bodies. Where did you think you were going to go? Holiday camp?'

'They'll hurt me!' Strichen was crying now, his sobs puffs of white cloud in the darkness. 'Like he did. Like Cleaver!'

'Come on, Martin, it's over…'

Little Jamie McCreath squirmed and kicked, screaming at the top of his lungs. Strichen dropped the holdall to get a better grip on him, but Jamie McCreath slipped out of his hands, falling to the snow.

Logan lurched forward.

Strichen pulled a knife.

Logan staggered to a halt. The blade sparkled in the dark night, and something constricted around Logan's bowels.

'I won't go to prison!' Martin was screaming now, eyes flickering between Logan and the approaching cordon of police.

Unnoticed, Jamie McCreath crept to his feet and ran.

'NO!' Martin swung around to see the toddler charge off through the snow as fast as his little legs would go. Only Jamie wasn't running towards the police flashlights. The sound of barking dogs. He was heading straight for the quarry.

Martin leapt after him, the blade flashing in his hand, shouting, 'Come back! It's not safe!'

Jaw clenched against the pain, Logan followed, but he had a lot of ground to make up.

A hidden dip in the ground swallowed Strichen's foot and he went down, sprawling on his face in the snow. He was up again in an instant, but Jamie was well ahead, running deeper into the granite bowl of the quarry. Towards the black lake. Suddenly the little boy slithered to a halt. He'd gone as far as he could. There was nothing but cold, dark water ahead. He turned back, his face terrified.

'It's not safe!' Martin ran after him.

But Martin Strichen weighed a lot more than a small child. The ice that supported Jamie's weight wasn't up to Strichen's fifteen stone. A gunshot crack boomed out into the quarry. The larger man slid to a halt, arms spread wide, not moving. Another crack, louder this time, and he shrieked.

Twelve feet away, Jamie watched him with frightened eyes.

The ice gave way with a roar, a hole the size of a transit van opening up beneath his feet, and Martin Strichen was gone. Straight down. The black water swallowing his scream.

On the other side of the hole, Jamie crept forward and peered down into the inky darkness.

Martin didn't come up again.