Chapter 70
LXX
The sky darkened through the ragged window hole, purpling like the bruises spreading across Natasha’s ribcage.
And still no sign of Detective Sergeant Davis.
Not that she was looking forward to the bastard coming home, but the waiting was torture. Knowing the horror would sweep into the outbuilding with him.
So, she sat on the dirt floor – head throbbing, hands trembling, throat like the bush two days after a fire – with her back against the anchor, forehead resting on her folded arms, propped up on her raised knees.
Eyes closed as DS Davis’s music barked out of the static caravan, loud enough to make her fillings rattle.
Maybe something had happened?
Maybe that was why he hadn’t turned up yet?
Maybe he’d had a bad day at work?
Or maybe he knew what she’d been up to, and making her wait was all part of the punishment.
She should’ve broken into that bloody caravan, smell or no smell. Then at least she could’ve got a drink of water.
Bet Davis had a fridge in there, with ice, and maybe a chilled bottle of Pinot Gris . . .
God, she was such a bloody galah.
And now she—
The music got louder and clearer for a moment, then the clunk of a closing door and it went back to angry muffled noises again, pounding along with the beat.
Oh God.
The waiting was over; it was horror time . . .
Natasha struggled to her feet, going up on her tiptoes to park her bum on top of the bucket.
Concealing the damaged concrete as the heavy wooden door squealed.
She jerked her wrists up to her throat, holding them there like they were still cuffed in place – hands over her face to hide the missing mask.
Peering out between her fingers. Trying to work up a little spit in her mouth.
Can’t talk your way out of anything if you can’t speak.
The door thudded wide open and the light from Davis’s head torch clawed across the broken walls, searching for her.
Then he lurched into the room, bringing with him the bitter smoky stench of second-hand whisky. The bottle was clutched in one hand, but the other held something else. Something that rustled as his shoulder scuffed against the wall, because his legs didn’t seem to be working all that well tonight.
Booze smeared his words into each other: ‘Where’s my favourite girl?’
Oh Christ, not this.
Nah, she’d rather die than have his disgusting body on top of her.
‘My favourite, dirty girl.’
Wasn’t easy, but she croaked out a bit of defiance. ‘Go fuck yourself.’
‘Hey, look: you’re famous!’ He hurled his rustling handful at her head.
Halfway there, it turned into three rolled-up newspapers that bounced off her raised arms, one bursting open on its way to the ground, the sheets fluttering as it sloughed apart.
Davis’s head torch swivelled down, pinning it to the floor.
‘NEWSPAPER OWNER ABDUCTED BY SICK WEIRDO’
Natasha’s face smiled back at her from the Aberdeen Examiner’s front page. A stupid PR shot, taken years ago at some trade dinner thing she never wanted to go to.
Davis lurched over and nudged the other two with his foot, unfurling them.
It was a copy of the Evening Express and the Glasgow Times. One had gone for, ‘WAS MEDIA MOGUL KIDNAPPED BY TERRORISTS?’ the other, ‘EX-HUSBAND’S EMOTIONAL PLEA: “brING BACK MY NATASHA”’. Because there wasn’t a single story Adrian couldn’t make about himself.
Davis took a swig of whisky. ‘Course the pictures don’t do you justice. Don’t capture how ugly you are inside. How twisted and hateful and ugly.’ The head torch’s beam swept across the three front pages, then up Natasha’s battered body to her face.
And stopped.
Could almost hear the bastard’s mouth fall open. ‘What . . . But . . . Where’s your mask?’ Air hissed in through his nostrils, to be bellowed out again: ‘WHERE’S YOUR FUCKING MASK, BITCH?’
Time to tell the most important lie of her life.
Because if it didn’t work, it would be her last.
She kept her wrists at her throat, but turned her fingers into claws. Doing her best to snarl, even if it came out thin and papery instead. ‘I tore it off. I ripped it to shreds and fed it to the rats.’
With slow, deliberate movements, DS Davis hunkered down and placed his bottle on the floor, by the door.
Safe and out of the way. Then stood – taking a lurching step to the side, like the ground had shifted unexpectedly beneath his feet.
Straightened himself up . . . . And lunged forward, lashing out with a stinging slap that crashed into Natasha’s right cheek and hurled her off the anchor, into the dust and eviscerated newspapers.
‘HAVE YOU GOT ANY IDEA HOW MUCH THAT COST? YOU UNGRATEFUL BITCH!’
He grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her around to face him. Not that she could see anything, with his head torch blazing in her eyes, but the hate and booze radiating off the bastard could’ve lit Melbourne for a year.
Something else glowed with rage, and the hard cold fur of old metal.
Davis coiled a fist. ‘I’M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU!’
But before he could let it fly, Natasha’s right hand slashed out and up, thumb shoving the button on the Stanley knife forward. Not really aiming, just going for anything she could hit.
The jagged blade dug through the bastard’s filthy T-shirt, ripping its way up his chest to sever ‘BLODH?ST’ from ‘D?DSULV’, then out again – soaring free until it slashed into his jaw and across the bastard’s cheek.
He shrieked.
Letting go of her, Davis scrabbled backwards, tripping and falling flat on his back, arms flailing.
A sharp glass clink and rattle as the whisky bottle went flying.
Natasha growled and leapt – as far as the chain would let her – grabbing his leg with her free hand and stabbing the rusty blade into the inside of his thigh over and over again as he screamed and howled.
With any luck she’d sever the bastard’s femoral artery.
Blood soaked through Davis’s jeans, making the fabric slippery, but she tightened her grip and dragged him closer. Going artery hunting with the Stanley knife again.
‘GET OFF ME! GET OFF ME!’
The knife bit into his other leg, inches from his groin, but it’d be infinitely more satisfying to castrate the bastard before he died. So the next stab halved the distance.
Davis thrashed and screeched, bawling like a smacked child, writhing hard enough to tear the Stanley knife from her blood-slicked grip and send it clattering off into the darkness.
Fuck.
Unarmed now, she clenched her fist and slammed it right into Davis’s balls.
Whoomp – the air and the fight went right out of him with a strangulated whimper. He curled around his battered testicles, moaning.
Strange, you’d think the lacerated thighs would be worse, but that was men and their balls for you.
She ripped the torch from his head and went through his pockets.
Yes!
That foul little dog’s paw was in his back pocket, the collection of shiny metal keys dangling from the leg end. The tiny one he’d used to unlock her mouth was still there, as were a bunch of others.
One of these bastards had to be for the padlock at the back of her collar, keeping her shackled to this galvanised bin full of bloody concrete.
Leaving him to groan and whimper, she spun the collar around her neck, till the padlock was at the front. A big brass Yale job. And there was only one Yale key dangling from Fido’s paw.
Please. After all this . . .
She skittered the key into the lock and twisted. The click of the mechanism as it swung open was the most beautiful sound in the world.
Soon as she pulled the lock out of her collar, the whole thing clattered to the ground, chain and all.
She was free.
She was finally free!
Now where’s the knife, so she can finish the job?
The torch beam swept across the dirty floor and the newspapers and the fallen rocks and big chunks of stone, but the Stanley knife had disappeared.
WHERE THE FUCK WAS HER STANLEY KNIFE?
Davis stopped whining – swapping the self-pitying snivel for a puce-faced hissing rage. Blue jeans turned a deep, glistening shade of claret from waist to shin as he cupped his poor little balls.
Try childbirth, then see what real pain—
His foot lashed out, catching Natasha’s left knee, making something inside pop as red-hot wires lanced through the joint, twisting and coiling, searing straight out the other side.
Natasha roared as the leg gave way, and she staggered back against her anchor, setting it rocking.
‘KILL YOU!’ He struggled to his feet. Teeth bared. Spittle frothing out with every Pitbull breath, one hand pressed against his torn, bleeding face. ‘I’LL BLOODY KILL YOU!’
And you just knew the bastard meant every word.
And he was much bigger than she was.
And standing between her and the open door.
Natasha pulled the head torch on over her matted curls, and scrambled through the window hole. Grunting every time her throbbing knee took any weight, the joint yowling as she tumbled out onto the gravel. She landed with a whump on her back, hard enough to leave her gasping for air.
Lying amongst the weeds, blinking up at the stars and the swirling dots of midges, drawn by the head-torch glow.
Heavy metal thummm-thummm-thummmed at the caravan’s walls. Angry and jarring. Like her knee.
The bastard had broken something inside it. Or torn the ligaments, or dislocated her kneecap, or something.
And he’d do the same to the rest of her, then dump her in a deep pit and bury her, if she didn’t move.
Right.
Now.
Natasha fought her way to her feet, and limped towards the caravan.
Cos there had to be a phone in there, right?
At least, the bastard would have a mobile and even if it was locked, she could still make emergency calls.
And once inside, she could barricade the door and wait for the bastard to bleed to death.
Or pass out. Or she could grab a kitchen knife and finish the—
‘BITCH!’
Detective Sergeant Davis hobbled into the courtyard, bloodied legs stiff as a rocking horse. Arms up and out for balance. Glaring at her in the head torch’s glow as bright red dripped from his torn face and slashed chest.
Even when her dad was drinking, he didn’t look so full of rage.
Natasha staggered the last few steps and grabbed the caravan door handle. But it wouldn’t even turn.
Locked.
What kind of bastard locked the door when he was only going twenty paces?
Keys – where were the keys?
Must’ve dropped them on the way out the window.
‘FUCKING KILL YOU!’ Getting closer.
How was she supposed to run away when she could barely walk?
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
She abandoned the caravan and limped towards the barn instead, with Davis lumbering along behind her – snarling like a rabid dingo.
The barn door yawned open, with nothing but darkness on the other side. Natasha stumbled through it, the head torch’s beam raking the dead machinery and floor. Then lurched around to slam the door in Davis’s face.
But he was too close, jamming his foot into the gap before it could fully shut.
‘YOU’RE GOING TO SUFFER, BITCH!’ Shoulder pressed against the wood.
Shoving. ‘I’M GOING TO SKIN YOU ALIVE!’ He reared up then slammed forwards, making the door boom and creak.
‘I’LL MAKE A NEW MASK OUT YOUR FUCKING HIDE! ’
Natasha pushed back: good leg braced against the rough concrete floor.
‘BITCH!’ One last crash and the door flew open, knocking her off her feet, sending her tumbling across the concrete as DS Davis lurched into the barn. ‘Going to make you scream!’
She scrambled backwards, until her shoulders bumped into the workbench.
He hobbled closer, leaving a trail of blood on the dusty floor. ‘Tell you what: why don’t I give you the same chance you gave those poor migrants? That would be fair, right?’
‘Please – I have money, I have—’
‘NOTHING!’ Spittle flying, glowing in the torchlight. ‘Fast asleep in their beds while some right-wing racist monster SET FIRE TO THEIR HOME!’
She raised her chin. ‘You’re the monster.’
‘Maybe.’ Davis loomed over her. ‘But if I am, it’s because that’s what you made me.’ Grabbing Natasha by the arms he yanked her to her feet, grinning, eyes wide and pinprick sharp. Pressing himself against her. ‘I’m the hurricane.’
He wrapped a fist into her hair, holding her head tight as the other fist curled . . . then slammed into her face. Snapping her head back.
The world exploded in jagged shades of orange and purple as a choir of arsonists set her skull ablaze.
A second blow turned everything silent and still and dark for a moment, before it all rushed back in a deafening wave.
She probably wouldn’t wake up from a third . . .
And that’s when Natasha’s searching hand clamped onto the yellow-and-black handle of that crappy buck-fifty screwdriver.
She gripped it tight.
Then rammed the blade and shank right into Davis’s side. Thnk.
His mouth fell open, fist drooping.
She pulled the screwdriver free – shkk – and drove it in again. Thnk. Shkk. And again. Thnk.
He let go of her hair and staggered back a step. Shkk.
This time, the screwdriver stabbed deep into his belly. Thnk.
Davis blinked at her.
Natasha tightened her grip on the handle and twisted.
With a normal screwdriver that probably wouldn’t do much, but the buck-fifty’s shank was all bent from getting her wrists unshackled, so instead of just swivelling around, the blade would be grinding its way through his innards. Causing all sorts of horrible damage.
Good.
Davis swayed back on his good leg, but the other one wouldn’t take his weight any more and down he went with a crashing thump.
Left hand clutching his stomach, he tried to claw and push himself away from her, the screwdriver still sticking out of his midriff.
Blood-soaked jeans leaving a thick scarlet smear across the concrete floor.
Wet and gleaming in the head torch’s glow as yet more blood pulsed out of his punctured guts.
The barn swirled around Natasha’s head and her working knee gave way, dumping her on her backside against the workbench again. Leaving her swaying. Holding onto the floor to keep herself from falling off as everything danced and spun.
Davis got as far as the table saw.
He was still struggling to escape, but his good leg just slipped on the blood-slicked floor and he didn’t seem to have the strength in his arms any more. So eventually he stopped even trying and . . . sagged.
Natasha closed her eyes as the waltzing world picked up pace, twirling and reeling. Arms and legs and head and every single breath getting heavier, until everything went . . .