Buried Slaughter (27 page)

But what choice? A choice between the two people in his life he loved most? A choice of who lived and who‌—‌

No. He couldn’t think like that. He had to be rational. He had to think.

“Brian?” Vanessa’s voice sounded echoey. Distant. “Are you okay? What are we going to do?”

Brian stared into Vanessa’s reddened eyes. He shook his head. It was all he could do. All he could manage to do. There was so much in the letter that brought him crashing down to earth. So much that, even though he didn’t understand it at all, was starting to piece itself together.

If you don’t come to the place where the streaker washes by 2 p.m.‌—‌alone‌—‌both die.

He looked at his watch‌—‌12 p.m. He had two hours to save his family. His first instinct was to call the police. To call for backup.

Then again, the “alone” was rather emphasised in the note. He dreaded to think what this kidnapper might do if he didn’t comply. What he might do to his fiancé, on the day of their engagement party.

To his son.

“I need to borrow your car,” Brian said. He turned away from Vanessa and made a break for the door, which was still partly open.

Vanessa grabbed Brian’s arm as he walked away. “You can’t just walk off like that without telling me what the fuck’s going on. Brian, it’s our son. Our son is‌—‌”

“He’s got my fiancé, too. He’s got them both and if I don’t get to his location in the next two hours, on my own, both are going to die.” He held up the note for Vanessa to read. As she read, her face grew paler and paler.

“The…‌The place where the streaker washes…‌But where is that?”

Hearing Vanessa say it out loud made a wave of nausea wash up Brian’s esophagus. There was only one person who he’d joked with about that location. “The streaker’s washpit,” they’d once called it, amongst other things. He knew exactly where it was by the description.

And he knew exactly who had written it by the description.

Vanessa handed him the keys to her green Honda. “I’m worried, Brian. I don’t want to lose you too. I don’t want to‌—‌to‌—‌”

“If you don’t hear from me in the next hour, you call the police and you get them down to Mason’s Wood. Northern section, near the disused care home.” He pecked her on the cheek, then stepped out of the house and into the cold air.

“What is this about, Brian?” Vanessa asked, as he unlocked the car and opened the door to the driver’s seat. “Who is doing this to us?”

As he sat in the car, Brian pondered Vanessa’s question.

He didn’t want to answer it. Answering it would only make the whole situation all the more real, yet all the more absurd.

He nodded at Vanessa as he reversed out of her smoothly tarmacked driveway and headed up to the main road, Lightfoot Lane.

He had two hours to save his son and his fiancé, and even though he knew that was the situation now, he still had no idea what any of this was about.

Only “who” this was about.

And even that was beyond comprehension.

Chapter Thirty

The place where the streaker washes.

If Brian had known his life was going to reach a huge, course-turning point at this place some time ago, he might’ve just quit life altogether. The place where the streaker washes. How fucking ridiculous.

And yet, how very typical, that it should all come to this.

He pulled up in the embankment at the side of Sharoe Green Lane. There was a large hill that formed in the middle of the road. A cyclist struggled to get up it, huffing and puffing as she worked her chubby thighs. After a few moments of effort, redder in the face than ever, she gave up. They always gave up.

Brian headed towards the entrance of Mason’s Wood. The grass had grown out of control, untouched from summer, freshened by rain right through the autumn. To his left, there was a concrete path that led back up to the roadside. This wasn’t a pavement that anybody typically wanted to find themselves on. It was dangerous‌—‌especially in the dark, as gangs of hooded youths hung out here.

But he needed to be on this side, because what he was waiting for was in these woods.

His heart raced as he stepped onto the grass, spongy beneath his feet. He squinted into the distance. He could see the stream steadily running. A wooden footbridge led to the other side‌—‌more leafless trees, more dirt and more stones. If he walked straight on, he should reach the point he needed to reach. The point he’d been directed to reach.

The place where the streaker washes.

He eased himself down the side of the hill. The smell of damp mud was ripe in the air, as well as the sour smell of a kind of flower that Brian had never been interested enough to find the name of. He caught a glance of his watch. Twelve-thirty. An hour and a half. He had plenty of time to get to where he needed to be. He had plenty of time to save Davey. Hannah.

He hoped.

When he reached the bottom of the hill, he crossed the rickety wooden footbridge, which was lathered with green graffiti. He’d tried calling Hannah on the drive down here, just to be sure that the killer wasn’t bluffing. She hadn’t answered.

In a strange, twisted sort of way, this whole situation was beginning to make a lot more sense by not making any sense whatsoever.

The place where the streaker washes.

He knew exactly where the place was. He walked further across the path and took a left. If he walked quickly, he could be there in a matter of minutes.

The trees felt like they were surrounding him, closing out any daylight. They were like long, spindly fingers in the clouding sky above, getting ready to reach down and pluck him up.

He just had to get to the abandoned care home. Once he got there‌—‌once he finally knew what the hell was going on‌—‌he’d be out of his misery.

The wind kicked up a flurry of fallen leaves up ahead of him. The movement made him jump. He thought he heard something over his shoulder, behind him. Voices. He turned around and saw two golfers walking along, white caps on their heads, golf bags over his shoulder. Of course. The other route led down to a golf course. He needed to chill out. To focus.

As he turned around, he noticed something up ahead in the distance. It caught him by surprise at first, so obvious and in plain sight. The moss-covered brick walls, falling to bits. The cracked, stain-glassed windows. The overgrown garden.

It was the abandoned care home.

The place where the streaker washes.

He took in as deep a breath as he could as he walked in its direction, on display behind the leafless trees. Perhaps it looked so much more exposed because the times he’d been here before, it was late spring, or summer even. Perhaps then, the green leaves hid away the derelict old building, untouched and unexposed, a perfect area of temporary shelter and privacy.

He walked further down the stone-strewn dirt track, every step feeling like a lifetime, the abandoned care home not getting any closer.

He remembered when he’d first been here. When he’d received that anonymous tip-off, the summer of last year, that somebody was causing a racket in Mason’s Wood. He remembered coming out here on that warm, sunny day and hearing the music, all dressed up in his PCSO gear, convinced that he was going to have to deal with a group of rowdy kids and troublemakers. He remembered standing beside the door, bracing himself, then storming inside and shouting at the top of his voice for these imagined kids to turn their music down.

He remembered the look on the poor bearded man’s face, rubbing a bar of soap around his body in the middle of an old abandoned reception area, a dusty old cassette player in the corner of the room blasting out music.

Brian stepped from the edge of the path and stopped when he reached the care home. Weird location for a care home, anyway. Once upon a time, there had been a road at the front, but it just got cut off in the end. Nobody needed to use the road, so the place was just lost to nature, like everything was eventually.

He remembered the conversation he had with the bearded man washing himself in that care home. He was nameless‌—‌they never did get an official ID for him. He was an interesting man, though. Always was, right from the start. Claimed he was homeless by choice. That he’d just had enough one day, and he’d decided to take off, out into the wild.

Brian approached the front of the care home. He tried to peer inside. It was quiet in there, and dark. Cobwebs covered the cracked window frames. He could smell the damp inside even out here, as weeds and vines clawed their way up the sides of the building.

He remembered the few visits he’d paid the bearded man, who seemed to be taking temporary residence at the place. Brian had kept it a secret. He wasn’t doing any harm, popping in for shelter and a wash. Besides, the building wasn’t being used anyway. He wasn’t causing any harm. Only to stuck-up wankers who didn’t like the sound of Eighties rock music on his radio.

The sight of that long-haired, greying, bearded man standing in the reception area, soap loosening in his grip, was one of those bizarrely hilarious moments that would always stay with Brian.

But even more hilarious was the stunned look on the face of Scott, his PCSO partner, when he first set eyes on the man.

It was their secret. Only they knew about the bearded man, right up until the day they paid a visit down here and he’d just gone. Taken off.

Brian pushed open the creaky old wooden door. It was already partly ajar, spiders scuttling into any corner they could find as Brian opened it further.

“The place where the streaker washes,” Scott used to say to Brian of their little secret. “Shall we pay our mate a visit?”

Brian stepped inside the building. Glass crumbled under his feet. He tried to breathe normally, but the place reeked of damp and sewage. He looked around the entrance area. It was fairly dark inside, the windows in the back boarded up.

He turned his attention to the door on the right. The door he’d barged in through that day, when he’d heard the music. The surprise he’d experienced at seeing that bearded man washing away, not a care in the world, cock flapping all over the place.

He stepped up to it. The closer he got, the better he could hear something. A quiet, tinny sound. Music.

He gulped. Stopped by the handle. He’d done the right thing coming alone, hadn’t he? He felt idiotic all of a sudden. Like a stupid, naive old bastard. He’d strayed off route in the past. It rarely brought him any good.

No. He’d done the right thing. The kidnapper had threatened the lives of Davey and Hannah if Brian did anything other than turn up alone. It wasn’t a bluff he wanted to call. Not now.

He placed his hand on the circular gold handle, most of which had caved in to rust. He gripped it tightly, the sound of the music growing more and more clear.

He held his breath.

Then, in a sudden swift movement, he turned the handle, and pushed the door open.

He was prepared to be surprised. Just like he had been that time when he’d walked in on that streaker.

But what he saw now didn’t surprise him.

It just baffled him. Gripped him with an uncanny sense of overwhelming fear. This wasn’t right. It wasn’t right at all.

The music came from a little silver radio in the corner of the room, and was reasonably loud now. The song that was playing was the very same that the streaker had been playing that summer day. “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division. One of Brian’s favourites.

All of the windows were boarded up, but Brian didn’t need sunlight to realise what was in here.

Or rather,
who
was in here.

There were two bathtubs at the bottom end of the reception area. They looked like they’d been dragged in here, cracks and scratches in the tiles where the feet had slid across. Steam rose from the baths, which were full to the brim.

Above each bath, hanging by their arms, there was a person.

One was a woman. The other was about half her size. A kid. Both of them were blindfolded, dangling by rope around their wrists. A couple of weights were wrapped around the kid’s stomach. Both of them were still. Very still.

There was another person in the room, too. In fact, the moment Brian opened the door, he turned around and nodded, as if he’d been expecting him. Then, he went over to the radio, and turned the volume down, brushing his hands against his black hoodie. He was wearing all black except for the blue cap on his head.

“Wondered when you were going to show up,” he said. A natural grin spread across his face as Brian stared at him.

Brian’s knees went weak. All of a sudden, he felt alone. Very alone.

The man pulled off his cap and tossed it to the side of the room. “Well, come on in so I can explain,” he said. “Don’t be shy. Never usually are, ‘ey?”

Brian wanted to turn around and run. He needed to get out of here. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. This was somebody else’s life, not his.

“Let’s just have a chat,” the man said, sticking a thumb in the direction of the two dangling, blindfolded bodies. “Your fiancé and son would appreciate it. Very much.”

He wanted to charge in his direction. Beat the life out of him. He wanted to shout every curse word in the book in his fucking face as he gouged his eyes out.

Instead, all he could manage was a weak, half-hearted, “Scott? Why? Why?”

Chapter Thirty One

“‘Why?’” Scott said, taking a moment to consider Brian’s question. “‘Why?’”. He stared up at the cracked ceiling above, eyes narrowed, finger on his chin. “Well, that’s a good question. A question I was hoping you’d ask, but also a question I thought you’d partly have figured out by now.”

Scott smiled at Brian. He had taken his cap off, so he just looked like he did on the job, walking the streets in the name of the PCSO unit. The same, except for that black hoodie, and that black tracksuit. He looked out of place. So, so out of place.

Beside him, Hannah and Davey were hanging from their wrists over two steaming baths. Their wrists were chapped. They were completely still, tightly blindfolded.

Any part of Brian’s mind that might’ve suspected a prank had long receded now.