side on the cold floor.
Count to a hundred.
Silence.
She went back to wriggling along the invisible line of steel bars. It wasn’t easy with her hands tied behind her back; the cable-ties round her wrists and ankles dug into the skin as she felt her way to the end wall. There was something square here, a plastic box with a lid … Heather retreated when she realised what it was: a chemical toilet – its harsh disinfectant reek overlaid with something altogether less pleasant. The bars stretched all the way across the little metal room, dividing the pitch-black prison in two. Her on one side, Duncan on the other.
‘Duncan?’ She sounded like a frog, her throat dry and sore. ‘Duncan, can you hear me?’
There was some shuffling, then Duncan moaned. Coughed. Hissed in pain.
‘Duncan, we need to get out of here!’
A grunt, then his voice, sounding thin and weak. ‘I … I’m not …’ Another cough: wet and rattling. ‘Ahhh … Jesus …’ He was moving: she could hear him struggling along the floor on his side, like a dying caterpillar. Making sounds of pain all the way.
‘Duncan, are you OK?’
‘I’m so tired …’ He coughed again in the darkness, and she heard him spit. Then gurgle. Then swear. And then he was still. Panting in the darkness. Weeping quietly. ‘I’m so tired, Heather. I … I’m …’
‘You’re going to be fine! You hear me?’ She was sobbing now, the words burning out of her. ‘You hear me Duncan Inglis? You’re going to be fine. Stay awake!’
‘I love you. I just wanted you to know before …’
More ragged breathing.
‘Duncan! DUNCAN, WAKE UP!’
Something brushed her hands. ‘Duncan?’ It was his hair, matted and sticky. ‘Duncan, you can’t leave me. Please don’t leave me!’
‘I’m so sorry …’ Sounding far away, even though he was just on the other side of the bars.
‘Don’t leave me.’
When Miller was gone, and there was nothing left but the smell of old curry and stale beer, Logan stood in the lounge, in the dark.
‘MESSAGE ONE: Hi Logan, it’s me … I miss you, OK? I do. I miss you…’ The swell of background noise as she took another drink. ‘Just thought you should know.’ Beeeeeeep.
He hit delete and went to bed.
Hanging about in Court One, waiting to be called, wasn’t exactly Logan’s idea of a good time: an endless procession of Aberdeen’s dispossessed, unlucky, or downright stupid, being hauled into the dock to find out if they’d be going home with a fine, or a getting a few weeks free B&B at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. In a strange way it was a bit like a dentist’s waiting room – unhappy people sitting about waiting for something nasty to happen – only without the ancient copies of Woman’s Realm and dog-eared Reader’s Digests.
At least it was better than humping dusty file boxes up from the archives. And it gave Logan a chance to read some of the old case notes.
By the time Grampian Police arrested him, Ken Wiseman had eighteen notches on his belt – a string of bodies that stretched all the way across the UK. Eighteen people and the most they’d ever found were a few chunks of meat.
Logan flicked through the names and dates. All those deaths …
According to the notes, everyone knew Wiseman was responsible, but couldn’t prove it, so in the end they’d had to settle for the only ones they could prove: Mr and Mrs McLaughlin, Aberdeen, 1987. And even then—
‘Sergeant McRae!’
Logan looked up from his pile of paperwork to find the whole court staring at him. He clambered to his feet, blushing. ‘Ah … yes, sorry, Milord …’ and it sort of went downhill from there.
The light was blinding, streaming in from an open door on the other side of the bars. Heather screwed her face shut, one hand over her eyes for added protection. After all this time in total darkness it was just too painful.
Her head throbbed, her throat ached, she felt dizzy and weak. Her wrists burned where she’d scraped them up and down against the rough edge of the bars, till the cable-ties snapped.
Gradually her eyes got used to the light and the room faded into focus. They were in a small metal space, no bigger than their tiny bedroom back home – the floor red with rust and dried blood … Oh God … Duncan was dead. She reached through the bars with a trembling hand and stroked his forehead. It was hot, not cold: he was still alive!
She croaked through the bars at him: ‘Duncan! Duncan wake up!’
Nothing.
‘Duncan! Someone’s found us, Duncan! It’s going to be all right!’
A shadow blocked the light, then a loud metallic clang rattled the walls.
Heather tried to shout, but her throat was too dry to do much more than whisper, ‘My husband needs medical …’ There was a figure standing in the doorway: butcher’s apron, white Wellington boots, grubby rubber mask, the eyeholes two black voids with nothing human behind them.
‘Please,’ Heather tried again, ‘please, we won’t tell anyone! Please, Duncan needs help!’
The man in the butcher’s apron stood with his head on one side, watching her cry, the way a cat watches an injured bird.
‘Please! I’ll do anything you want! PLEASE!’ She scrambled to her knees and fumbled at the buttons on her blood-soaked blouse, tears rolling down her cheeks as she exposed her pale body. ‘Please don’t hurt us …’
The Butcher turned and pulled an old tin bath into the room.
Heather knelt there in her grey, mumsy bra. ‘Whatever we did, we’re sorry!’
He stooped and pulled two lengths of chain out of the bath, and threaded them through a pair of pulleys bolted to the ceiling. Then he dragged Duncan into the middle of the room.
She lunged forwards, hands scrabbling between the bars, clutching at her husband’s ankles. Holding on for dear life.
‘NO! You can’t have him! You can’t!’
The Butcher let go and Duncan clattered to the ground. Heather hauled him back towards the bars, screaming at the top of her lungs, ‘HELP! HELP! WE’RE IN HERE! SOMEBODY HELP!’
The Butcher grabbed her wrists, yanking her forward and bashing her head into the metal bars. Pain closed her eyes, burning iron filled her nose. Heather opened her mouth to cry out and tasted blood. She tried to break free, but he held her firm … and then he let go. She lurched
