Chapter 61
The hunting knife has a wide, shining blade that curves to a wicked point.
Clutched in Webber’s big fist it looks small, almost like a child’s toy, but it’s still six inches of razor-sharp serrated steel and I have nothing—absolutely nothing—with which to defend myself.
I straighten up slowly, taking one step back away from him until my heel bangs against the end wall of the annex.
No way out. It’s incredibly claustrophobic in here and we’re barely three feet apart.
He’s taller, bigger, heavier than me, and I’m completely boxed in, away from the door.
My limbs flood with adrenaline, a surging electricity of fear as an overload of signals all rush to my brain at once—fight or die, fight to live because if he beats you then Jess and the kids will be next—my eyes flicking between his face and the blade, watching for the first hint of movement in either one.
I was an idiot. And I was probably going to die because of it.
Time for you to learn a lesson. Somehow he had lured me back here, had appealed to my curiosity with his spiel about cold cases, forgotten victims, and a serial killer’s sidekick who had never been caught.
Because of course he knew all those details.
Of course he did. How could I have gotten him so wrong?
But it didn’t matter now. It was too late for any of that: I had woken something up and now it was here, in my house.
We stare at each other for a moment, his blue eyes unblinking above the thick graying beard, the perfect black of his pupils like two pinpricks in the harsh light of the bare bulb.
The slim metallic pull-cord for the light switch hangs down from the ceiling between us, just within my reach.
If I can grab that, plunge the room into darkness, I might have half a chance of getting around him, behind him, disarming him somehow.
Or maybe even escaping, trapping him in here.
“Gordon,” I say, “what are you—”
“What do your instincts tell you to do now,” he says evenly, “in a situation like this?”
I roll onto the balls of my feet, ready to lunge for the pull-cord.
“What?”
He raises the knife toward me, light flashing off the blade.
“What’s your instinct in this situation?”
The adrenaline is screaming through me now, an overwhelming urge looking for violent release, to wrench the light switch with my right hand as hard as I can, rip the cord free, use my left to push him away from me, go around him, keep away from his knife hand, loop the cord around his neck.
Fear coats the back of my throat, making it hard to swallow.
Fight or die.
“You can take whatever you want,” I say. “Just take it and go.”
“What? No. You’re not listening, or maybe I’m not asking the right question.” He waves the knife again. “Try this: what’s the most interesting thing in this room right now?”
“The knife.”
“Almost hypnotic, isn’t it? Hard to look away.”
“That’s one way of describing it.”
I’m about to launch myself toward the pull-cord when he lowers the knife.
“Edward Stiles,” he says slowly, “was stabbed once in the back, remember? No defensive wounds. Probably because all his attention was on the threat in front of him. So, you see how much easier it is, if you have two killers working together? One is the distraction, the lure, the shiny decoy; the other one makes the kill. There’s a real multiplier effect when you have two suspects working together.
That’s how I first started developing my theory. ”
He takes a black leather scabbard from his jacket and slides the blade into it, drops it back into the pocket.
“Jesus,” I breathe. “Seriously?”
“Are you all right, Adam?” He flashes me a grin. “You look a bit pale.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” My voice rises. “Scared the living crap out of me, thought you were going to stab me right here.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“You pulled a knife on me!”
He grunts a half-hearted apology. “Just trying to make a point.”
“Thought I was going to have a heart attack.”
“All right, fair enough,” he says. “So, are you going to show me where you found the watch?”
I blow out a huge breath, the jackhammering of my heart starting to ease. With a shaking finger, I point at the old Welsh dresser squatting against the wall beside us.
“In there, with everything else. Each item in a separate drawer.”
“And I take it you’ve already touched all this, previously? With ungloved hands?” When I nod an affirmative, he hands me a pair of blue latex gloves from his jacket pocket. “Better if you wear these from now on, if you’re handling anything in here.”
I pull the gloves on, the cool latex snapping against my wrists, and retrieve the small brass key from its hiding place before taking the remaining items from the drawers: the dog collar with its tag, and the wallet.
I show him the note too, the to-do list for Parker and Barrow.
He has me slide each item into clear plastic bags that he produces from his briefcase—sealed to preserve DNA and other forensic evidence, he says.
And then he gets up close and simply stares at them, shines his phone torch onto each one in turn as if they are ancient artifacts newly recovered from an Egyptian tomb.
Leaning over the dresser, examining them, turning each one carefully in its plastic bag to study it from another angle.
He takes half a dozen pictures of each one on his phone, then more pictures of the room, the door, the drawers in which they were found.
When he eventually speaks again, his voice is low, almost reverent.
“We’re going to get them, Adam.” He leans forward. “Me and you. After all these years, we’re finally going to get them.”
“How?”
“If you want to catch a wolf, you have to set a trap.” He holds up the cracked glasses in his gloved hand. “And now we have the perfect bait.”