The Girl in the Ice

80

David had quickly cleaned himself up in the bathroom, packing his nose with tissue to stop the bleeding. He then grabbed his bag, passport and money, and carried Erika downstairs over his shoulder. He was surprised how heavy she was for someone so scrawny. They emerged into the underground garage, and the lights blinked on. He approached the boot of the car. Inside was the prostitute with the long dark hair he had picked up at Paddington Station.

They’d driven round for a while, he and the prostitute; the girl attempting to make him hard, her hand inside his trousers, but that hadn’t interested him. It had been a busy night, and all his usual places, the parks and lidos, had too much action going on. People walking about; police cars moving slowly past.

He had been forced to bring her home. She had been so excited when he’d driven up to his parents’ house. Checking her face in the small mirror above the passenger seat. As if she hadn’t been hired to fuck; she seemed to think she might be introduced to his parents. He wondered if she’d watched Pretty Woman too many times. He’d laughed when he thought this, and she’d joined in.

Stupid bitch.

Once they were in the underground garage, and they were out of the car, he’d slammed her face into the concrete wall. She never regained consciousness. This had made the moment when she died disappointing.

Still, he now had the ultimate prize. DCI Foster.

When he opened the boot of his car, the dead girl lay on her back. He had checked on her three times since he had strangled her to death, and each time it fascinated him to see how she’d changed: through the rigid wide-eyed stare of rigor mortis, to the tinge of purple on her skin where she looked as if she were sleeping, and now, her sharp cheekbones buried beneath swollen, bloated flesh, making her bruises bloom dark like ink stains. He laughed at her swollen face; she would hate to see how fat she was getting. He heaved Erika’s limp body in beside her, closed the boot, and locked it.

It was still early in the morning when he pulled out of the underground garage and into the cul-de-sac, but he drove carefully for the couple of miles to the M4 junction. Once on the motorway, he was able to join the rush-hour traffic, whipping round the M25 motorway, orbiting the outskirts of London.

Erika felt herself regain consciousness, but the darkness was absolute. Her face was pressed against something rough. One arm was pinned under her at an angle. She brought the other arm up to touch her face, but her hand hit a solid mass a few inches above her head. She shifted, feeling the pain shoot through her face. She tasted blood and swallowed painfully. There was a rumbling, swaying motion underneath her. She felt around her the curved sides of the confined space, the metal above her, the inside mechanism of the lock, and realised she was in the boot of a car. Then a foul, pungent smell hit her. It had a tang of rot, and she heaved, barely able to catch her breath when she was forced to suck the rancid smell back into her lungs in the confined space. The car sped up and took a turn, the road bumping unevenly underneath. The gravitational force pushed Erika across to the edge of the boot, and something heavy rolled against her.

It was then that she knew she was in the back of the car with a body.