Sacrifice (44 page)

I backed out and pulled the door towards me, careful to leave it slightly ajar, exactly as I’d found it. As I’d discovered two days ago, the death rate among
young Shetland females peaked every three years. The last peak had occurred in 2004, the year Melissa and Kirsten were believed to have died. It was now May 2007, three years later.

Three more rooms. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see what was inside. The handle of the next room moved under my fingers and the door opened. A small bedside lamp gave just enough light.

The woman on the bed looked around twenty. She had dark-brown hair and thick dark eyelashes, the willowy slenderness of the very young and perfect white skin. She lay as if sleeping, breathing deeply and evenly, but flat on her back, her legs straight and close together, her arms by her side. People rarely sleep naturally in such a posture and I guessed she’d been sedated. The blanket over her lay taut across her stomach. I wandered to the foot of the bed but there were no notes, just a single name: Freya. There were shackles on her bed but they hung loose, reaching nearly to the floor. I tiptoed out.

The woman in the fifth room looked older, but like the girl in the previous room she lay in an unnaturally still state of sleep on the narrow bed. Her name was Odel and her feet, though not her arms, were manacled. Odel? Freya? Who were these two women? How had they arrived here? Did they have families somewhere, grieving for them, believing them dead? I wondered if I’d seen either of them before, whether they’d passed through the hospital. Neither looked familiar. Neither showed any sign of being already pregnant. I wondered where they’d
been that day, during Helen’s visit. Where they’d be hidden when she returned tomorrow.

I pushed open the last door, noticing, as I did so, the pyjamas folded neatly on the armchair. They were white linen, with an embroidered scallop pattern around the collar, cuffs and ankles. They were laundered, pristine, showing no trace of the blood that had turned them a soft pink the last time I’d seen them. I turned to the bed, knowing that I’d stopped breathing but seemingly unable to start again. Someone lay in it. I walked over and stared down at the face on the pillow. I know that I cried out: part yelp, part sob. In spite of everything I’d been through, in spite of the immense danger I was still in, such a wave of joy hit me that it was all I could do not to dance round the room, punching the air and yelling. I forced myself to be calm and reached under the covers.

Two days ago I’d arrived at Dana’s house, exhausted and scared, already dreading that something terrible had happened to her. I would have been putty in the hands of a skilled hypnotist. Planting ideas in my head – ideas already there in a half-formed state – must have been child’s play for Andy Dunn. I couldn’t believe how arrogantly stupid I’d been not to think of it before.

The wrist I held had been dressed with fine white bandages. I leaned over and found the other. Just the same. I was glad I hadn’t imagined the ugly, bleeding gashes I’d seen in Dana’s bathroom. Her wrists had been cut, but probably only superficially. She would
have lost blood, but not so much it couldn’t be replaced once she arrived on Tronal. I hadn’t felt a pulse in Dana’s bathroom – whatever drug she’d been given had made her peripheral pulse undetectable. But I could feel one – strong and regular – now.

As I’d sat trembling and close to fainting in Andy Dunn’s car, I’d heard the sirens of an ambulance approaching. Dunn had driven me straight to the hospital and I’d assumed the ambulance was following with Dana. But it wasn’t. Instead, Dana had been brought here. For what? To be part of this summer’s breeding programme?

I bent down. ‘Dana. Can you hear me? It’s Tora. Dana, can you wake up?’

I stroked her forehead, risked giving her shoulders a shake.

Nothing, not even a flicker. This was not a normal sleep.

A door slammed and footsteps were coming down the corridor. Voices were talking, softly but urgently. I had seconds. I looked at the narrow, upright cupboard. Wasn’t sure I’d fit inside. The bathroom. I crossed the room and pulled open the door.

There was a lavatory, wash-basin and shower cubicle. No window. I pulled open the door of the cubicle, jumped in and crouched down. If someone entered the room, they couldn’t help but see me. I would just have to hope. Maybe they weren’t even heading for Dana’s room. Maybe my luck would hold a bit longer.

The footsteps stopped. The door to Dana’s room
opened, the draught it caused blew the bathroom door open another inch. For a moment there was silence. Then . . .

‘What do you think?’ asked a voice that sounded remarkably like that of my father-in-law. I realized my luck had run out.

‘Well . . . she’s bright, healthy, good-looking,’ answered the voice I knew better than any other in the whole world. ‘Seems like . . . like a bit of a waste,’ he continued, and I didn’t know whether I was going to scream or be sick.

‘Exactly,’ said the voice of Detective Inspector Andrew Dunn. ‘Why the hell go to the risk of getting another one?’

I sat in the shower cubicle, shivering so violently it hurt and thinking,
Why . . . why did I come here?

‘This was an unforgivable risk,’ came another voice, one that sounded vaguely familiar but that I couldn’t quite place. ‘You were told to get rid of her, not bring her here.’

‘Yeah, well, sorry about the reality check,’ snapped Dunn, ‘but even I can’t hypnotize someone into slashing their own wrists. And haven’t we learned by now that if we rush an accident we mess it up?’

‘She’s half-Indian,’ said the man whose voice I couldn’t put my finger on. ‘We don’t pollute the bloodstream.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ spat Dunn. ‘What is this – the Middle Ages?’

‘Robert is right,’ said my father-in-law. ‘She isn’t suitable.’

Robert? Did I know a Robert? Oh God, I did. I’d met him just over a week ago. Robert Tully and his wife Sarah had come to see me about their inability to conceive a child. The bastard had sat in my office, pretending to need my help, knowing his wife wanted a baby so much that she was close to breaking point. Was she, then, intended to be the adopting mother of one of the latest batch of Trow babies?

‘All right,’ my husband was saying. ‘What do we do with Ms Tulloch then?’

‘We’ll take her in the boat with the other two,’ answered Richard. ‘When we’re far enough out, I’ll give her another dose and slip her over the side. She won’t know anything about it.’

‘I need a leak,’ said Duncan. ‘Won’t be a sec.’

The bathroom door opened and Duncan came into the room. He was still wearing the charcoal-grey business suit I’d watched him put on that morning. He walked to the basin and leaned over it.

‘And what do we tell the girlfriend?’ asked Dunn.

‘We send her a coffin,’ said Richard. ‘Leave it till the last minute, day of the funeral if we can. Someone goes with it in case she wants to view the body. No big deal, we’ve done it before.’

‘OK then, settled. Now, what else do we have to do?’

Duncan turned on one of the taps and splashed water over his face. He sighed deeply and straightened up. In the mirror above the basin I had time to notice the tie that I’d given him at Christmas, tiny
pink elephants on navy-blue silk. A second later we made eye contact.

‘Patients in one and two we don’t have to worry about,’ replied Richard. ‘Standard adoptions, both likely to deliver in the next couple of weeks. The Rowley woman spoke to both of them today, shouldn’t think she’ll want to bother again.’

‘What about Emma Lennard? Aren’t you due to deliver her tomorrow?’

Duncan had turned to face me. I braced myself for him to shout out, alert the others or, even worse, to laugh. I wondered what they were going to do to me, how much it would hurt, whether it would be quick. Whether Duncan would be the one who . . .

‘We’re going ahead,’ said Richard. ‘Once the operation’s over, I’ll keep her sedated. We can’t risk her talking.’

I tried to get up. I didn’t want to be caught crouched, damp-assed, in a shower cubicle. But I couldn’t move. All I could do was stare at Duncan. All he did was stare back.

‘Isn’t Emma safer on the boat?’ In the outer room they were still talking, oblivious to the silent drama being played out in the bathroom.

‘She would be, if we could be sure the police will only be here one more day. We can’t hold on to her much longer, she’s getting very edgy. Better to get it over with and get her out of here.’

‘And the woman in room six?’

‘I think we’ll be OK. She’s only twenty-six weeks anyway, plus she’s insisting to everyone who’ll listen
that all the scans are wrong and she’s just twenty weeks. I’ve already changed her notes.’

‘It’s risky.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

One of us had to break the deadlock, one of us had to move, say something, shout out loud. I would do it. Anything was better than this unbearable tension. Then Duncan put one finger to his mouth. He glared at me as he left the room, pulling the door firmly closed behind him.

‘A cargo of three then, Richard. Sure you’ll be OK on your own? Don’t want to leave it till dawn?’

‘No, I want to be well away before there’s any chance of the police coming back. Right, I’m going downstairs to get that TV switched off. There’s work to do.’

Footsteps faded away down the corridor. Had they all gone? Could I risk moving? What the hell was Duncan going to do? Dana’s room was silent. I started to push myself up—

‘Sorry, mate,’ said Duncan, as though commiserating a friend on losing a tennis match. ‘It really doesn’t do to get involved.’

‘Oh, and you didn’t with Tora?’ shot back Dunn, his voice thick with bitterness. Did he actually care for Dana? Was that why’d he’d saved her life against orders, why he’d been arguing to keep her alive for a few months longer?

‘You look like shit. Been here all day?’

‘In the basement,’ replied Dunn. ‘With three sedated women. Felt like the house of horrors. Police
nearly found the door at one point. Probably will tomorrow.’

‘We’ll sort it. Have it looking like a dusty old storeroom by morning. Right, we need a trolley. Can you get one from downstairs? There’s something—’

A furious, terrified yell broke through the night, just as the door of the bathroom started to move inwards.

‘Next door,’ sighed Dunn. Footsteps ran from Dana’s room and I heard a struggle in the next room along. There was banging and then a low, terrified whimpering, a noise I might have thought came from an animal; except I knew it wasn’t an animal they were keeping chained up in there. Then the bathroom door opened and Duncan reappeared.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he hissed at me. ‘Jesus, you idiot, you fucking idiot!’ He opened the door of the cubicle, reached in and pulled me up. ‘How the hell did you get here?’

I couldn’t reply. Couldn’t do anything but stare at him. He waited a split second before shaking me. ‘Boat?’ he said. ‘Did you come by boat?’

I was able to nod.

‘Where is it?’

‘Beach,’ I managed. What did it matter if they found the boat? There was no way I was going to get away now.

‘We need to get you back to it. Now.’ He took my arm and started to drag me out of the room. I found the strength to pull back. No, not that easy, Duncan; I wasn’t going to be that easy. Then Duncan grasped
me close, wrapped both arms around me and put one hand over my mouth.

I could hear something. A clanging, whirring sound. Then footsteps returning along the corridor. They were coming back. Creaking, sliding noises told me they were bringing trolleys with them. I wanted to struggle against Duncan but he pressed his mouth against my ear and whispered, ‘Ssshhh.’ The door to Dana’s room slammed open. A trolley was wheeled inside. I heard footsteps moving around the room, the sound of covers being pulled back. A voice I didn’t know muttered a countdown, ‘Three, two, one, lift . . .’ and there was a soft thud.

‘Strip the bed, bring the chains,’ said another voice. Then I heard the trolley being pushed out of the room. Beside me Duncan let out a noisy breath.

From the next room along the corridor came similar, if fainter, sounds. I thought I heard someone cry out, but couldn’t be sure. For a few seconds the corridor outside was as noisy as that of any normal hospital. Then the footsteps and the sound of the wheels faded. I heard the clanging noise of the lift’s mechanism and then nothing. Silence.

Duncan spun me round to face him. He was white, except for red blotches around his eyes. I’d never seen him so angry. Except it wasn’t anger. He was afraid.

‘Tora, you have got to get a hold of yourself or you are going to die. Do you understand what I’m . . . no, don’t you dare cry.’ He pulled me close again. ‘Listen, baby, listen,’ he whispered, as he swayed gently, the
way a mother might rock a child. ‘I can get you out of the clinic but then you have to get back to the boat. Can you do that?’ He didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Head for Uyeasound. Get as far from the island as possible then get on the radio to your policewoman friend. Can you do that?’

I didn’t know. But I think I nodded. Duncan opened the bathroom door and we slipped out. Dana’s room was empty. The bed had been stripped back to the mattress and her pyjamas were gone. If I’d been fifteen minutes later I’d never even have seen her. Duncan walked to the door and looked out. Then he beckoned me forward, grabbed my hand and pulled me into the deserted corridor. I wasn’t sure my legs would carry me but they worked fine. We rounded a corner, ran down a short, fourth corridor and made it to the stairs. Duncan paused at the top. We could hear nothing below so risked running down to the mid section. A camera fastened high on the wall glared down at us.

We listened again. Nothing. We ran to the bottom of the stairs and found ourselves in a short corridor, twin to the one above. One door stood open on our left. I glanced inside. It was an operating suite: a small room where the anaesthetics would be administered, then an open door into theatre. Duncan pulled me onwards.

We were now in the wing of the building I’d been watching when I’d disturbed the dogs. The rooms had been occupied; I’d seen light and movement behind them; we had to move quickly, someone could
appear at any time. We walked forward, reached the first door. The glass window showed only darkness. We moved on. Another door, another window, light beyond. Duncan stopped and I was able to peer through. The room was well lit, about twenty metres long by eight wide. As far as I could make out there was no one inside. At least . . .