The Meating Room (30 page)

Except one, maybe . . .

He forced himself to concentrate on the interaction between Magner and Purvis, the way they spoke to each other in muted whispers. But he also thought he picked up an unnatural closeness in the way Magner wrapped a makeshift tourniquet around Purvis’s arm, his touch soothing the fire in the wound, the sound of his voice seeming to salve the heat of Purvis’s anger.

‘If you were ever to be connected to this place, then you’d both be finished, wouldn’t you?’ Gilchrist said.

No reaction, other than a casual glance from Magner and a quick shift of Purvis’s eyes to confirm the Beretta was still lying on the floor, inches from Stan’s dead fingers, but out of Gilchrist’s or Jessie’s reach. Gilchrist suspected it had been left there deliberately, as some sort of test, failing which, they would be shot.

Rather than go for the gun, he went for the throat.

‘That was why you were intending to leave Jason down here,’ he said, ‘to rot with all of his sculptures.’

Purvis tried to free his arm, but Magner held tight, and said in a voice loud enough for Gilchrist to hear, ‘He’s talking nonsense, Jason. Forget him.’

‘So, you still haven’t told us what this place is for?’ Gilchrist said, probing for a greater reaction.

Purvis grunted as he slipped from Magner’s grip and reached with his uninjured arm for one of the torches that sat lens down on the workbench. He slapped it into the palm of his hand, as if testing its usefulness as a weapon with which to beat Gilchrist’s brains to pulp.

‘Don’t indulge him,’ Magner said.

But Purvis shrugged Magner’s hand away with a ‘What the fuck can they do about it,’ then clicked on the torch and pointed it into the black warren of chambers until it rested on some point beyond the reach of the single overhead bulb.

Gilchrist followed the torch’s beam and felt his breath catch.

‘You see it now?’ Purvis asked.

Magner seemed almost embarrassed.

‘It’s my studio,’ Purvis explained. ‘This is where I work.’

He shifted the beam across trestles, workbenches, rolls of wire mesh of different gauges, and an array of tools – both carpentry and surgical – all neatly organised on hooks on the walls. Something heavy flipped over in Gilchrist’s stomach as his gaze settled on a pair of heavy-duty pruning shears with two stubby flanges eighteen inches apart welded to one length of handle. He realised with a shudder that the tool could be used to hold open a ribcage while the victim was disembowelled. Jessie seemed to sense his unease, and stirred beside him, pushing herself upright.

The beam of light danced to the roof of the chamber, then rested on a metal beam that spanned one of the open doorways. Purvis laughed, a hard sound that echoed through the basement like the cackle of a madman. ‘My sculpting studio.’ The beam shifted along a signboard and, like a teacher reading aloud to his pupils, Purvis said, ‘The Meating Room.’

Jessie put her hand to her mouth and whispered, ‘Holy fuck.’

Purvis redirected the beam into the heart of the studio, playing the light across skin stretched on a wire mesh frame, as if to dry it. Other lumps of meat and rolls of intestine sat in glass jars in an opaque liquid. ‘Formaldehyde solution,’ Purvis explained as the beam reflected off the glass. ‘Slows down decomposition. Like varnishing wood.’

Magner seemed to have had enough of the morbid display. He retrieved Jessie’s gun from the floor, then stepped up to Purvis and, like a doctor to a patient, gave a gentle tug at his arm. As if in some kind of hypnotic state, Purvis let Magner remove the torch from his grip, and Gilchrist realised that Purvis was not suffering from shock, but was drunk, plain and simple.

Without warning, Jessie tried to struggle to her feet.

‘Sit,’ ordered Magner.

She ignored him.

Purvis turned, his eyes blazing fury.

Gilchrist managed to grip the tail of Jessie’s jacket and gave a hard tug. She slumped back down beside him, then tried to push herself free. But Gilchrist kept his grip firm.

‘Leave it,’ he said.

Purvis stood before them, looking down. Gilchrist was certain that if the man had any kind of weapon in his hand, he would finish them both off without a second thought. As if sensing that possibility, too, Magner shouted, ‘
Jason
,’ then added a softer, ‘Jason.’

Purvis’s eyes seemed to settle – like watching fever lift, Gilchrist thought – and he retreated to Magner’s side once again.

Gilchrist waited until Magner looked his way, then asked, ‘What were you going to do with the dogs?’

Magner narrowed his eyes, as if seeing the trap.

‘You weren’t going to take them with you, were you?’ Gilchrist continued. ‘You’re not a doggie person. They would spoil the image – slobbering all over your nice white shirts. What were you going to do? Shoot them?’

Purvis looked at Gilchrist, then at Magner, who shook his head and said, ‘You ask far too many questions.’ The SIG Sauer reappeared in his hand as if by magic.

Gilchrist felt his heart stutter as the pistol turned his way until all he could see of it was the black hole of its barrel. Survival instinct forced him to say, ‘We’re worth more to you alive. You know that.’

Magner smiled. ‘I see you know how to play your cards.’ He waited, as if for Purvis’s nod of approval, then asked, ‘Are you a gambling man?’

Gilchrist knew he was being toyed with, but he also knew the longer he kept Magner talking, the longer he and Jessie had to live. Of course, finding some way to overcome two armed killers posed another problem, the answer to which eluded him utterly.

‘I have the odd punt,’ he said. ‘Never really took to it, though. Always lose more than I win, which kind of numbs the thrill of it, I suppose. But I bet you know how to play the odds.’ Another twitch from Purvis gave Gilchrist his cue. ‘Once you’d shot the dogs were you going to drag their bodies down here, and leave them to rot?’

Magner raised his hand to stop Purvis from stepping forward and beating Gilchrist to death. Oddly, that simple action worked, for Purvis stood still, lips drawn in a white line, eyes no more than slits too narrow for blinking. And, as they stood side by side, looking down at him, Gilchrist was struck by how similar yet different they were.

Purvis was smaller, stockier, and broader than Magner – not by much – but with less sense of sophistication. Of course, the camouflage outfit did not compare well with a pristine suited collar and tie. And where Magner could no doubt command attention by the simple act of making an entrance, Purvis would always prefer anonymity. Purvis’s face, too, had less of a defined jawline, more rounded than square-chin sculpted, and Gilchrist came to see that Purvis had always stood in Magner’s shadow – like checking in and out of hotels manned by rotating staff, and attending conferences in the dim light of an audience, while Magner was off somewhere hunting for another victim for Purvis to turn into art, which only compounded Purvis’s sense of the underdog.

And where Magner possessed the confidence and presence of mind to attend to the grisly with a sober mind, Purvis sought strength from alcohol. But more importantly – and Gilchrist thought he saw an opening here – where Magner remained cool under fire, Purvis could be the proverbial loose cannon.

‘The dead one was called Bruce,’ Gilchrist said. ‘What’s the other one called? Lee?’

‘You can ask him yourself when he comes round,’ Purvis said with a twisted smile. ‘But you’d better be quick. He’s got an appetite on him first thing. He likes to have a ball. Or two.’ He let out a manic cackle at his own joke.

Magner found nothing funny in Purvis’s antics. His attention was focused on something flickering on the workbench – a monitor that Gilchrist had not noticed until that moment.

‘Bring him here,’ Magner snapped.

Purvis obliged by leaning down, gripping Gilchrist by the collar, and lugging him to his feet. For a moment, Gilchrist felt as if his central axis was going to let him down again, but the moment passed as Purvis pulled him beyond Stan’s body, to face the monitor.

‘Who’s that?’ Magner asked, pointing at the screen.

The monitor was divided into four sections, with each quarter showing a view of the exterior of Purvis’s cottage from a different webcam. Someone was standing at the back door, a woman Gilchrist recognised as WPC Mhairi McBride. He felt a stab of pain pierce his heart, and had to fight off the urge to glance at Stan’s body. He and Mhairi had just been settling into a deepening relationship.

And as Gilchrist stood there, Magner watching him, Purvis just itching for the order to gut him, Gilchrist came to see why he and Jessie had not been killed right away. Magner needed to know if anyone from the Force would turn up at the cottage, before he gave Purvis the instruction to take their lives.

Gilchrist grunted as Purvis poked him with a hand as hard as wood. ‘Recognise her?’

Gilchrist shook his head. ‘I don’t know who she is.’

Purvis punched Gilchrist’s side with a force that could crack ribs – and probably did – which caused Gilchrist to sink to his knees as pain as sharp as a knife-strike overwhelmed him.

‘We need him,’ Magner growled.

Purvis nodded to Jessie, who was still sitting on the floor, her back to the wall. ‘We can use her.’

‘We’ve got
him
,’ Magner replied. ‘Now get him up.’

Gilchrist gasped as Purvis grabbed a clump of hair and tugged him to his feet. He managed to remain upright, a bit shaky, but he was getting the hang of it. ‘I told you,’ he said. ‘I’ve no idea who she is.’

‘Why is she here, then?’

‘How would I know?’

‘Have a guess,’ Purvis suggested.

‘Well, it’s Sunday. Maybe she’s selling Bibles.’

A punch to the side of the head bowled Gilchrist over. He hit the floor with a thud that almost knocked him unconscious again. He lay there for a few beats, struggling to fight off the almost overpowering urge to let his eyes roll back and settle under his eyelids. Then the moment passed. He spat out a mouthful of blood and pushed himself to his knees.

Purvis’s grip had him standing to attention in zero seconds flat, as well as wondering if he had any hair left. His scalp was stinging, but at least he was still alive – well, for the time being.

‘Let’s try this one more time,’ Magner said.

Gilchrist stared at the monitor. Mhairi had walked from the rear door to the kitchen window, and was tilting her face to peer through a gap in the curtains. Then the monitor flickered to display another quartered screen – views of the outside of the barn. Another flicker, and this time the quarters turned a hazy green – images from infrared webcams located within the basement warren itself. Each showed what looked like a door – four exit points. He realised that the monitor’s electrical supply was being provided by the generator, via some sort of transformer, and probably powering a wi-fi transmitter too, so images could be beamed from the cottage.

Another set of four images showed two screens in which the three of them stood facing the monitor from different angles. He turned his head to search for the webcam in the ceiling, and received a slap to the side of the head for his effort.

‘Eyes to the front,’ Purvis said.

Gilchrist obliged, and said nothing while the screen shifted again to show four images of the inside of Purvis’s cottage, which Magner studied as if to ensure no one had broken in. The next screen brought them back to Mhairi at the rear of the cottage.

‘Okay,’ Magner said. ‘One last time. Who is she?’

‘I’m telling you, I don’t know.’

Magner stared hard into Gilchrist’s eyes. ‘I don’t believe you.’

Gilchrist shook his head.

‘You three turn up,’ Magner said. ‘Then someone else shows up. I don’t believe in coincidences.’

Neither did Gilchrist, but he was not for agreeing.

Magner looked at Purvis then nodded at the screen. ‘Get her.’

Without a word, Purvis retrieved the shotgun from the workbench, inserted two cartridges, and snapped the barrels back with a click that sent a shock through Gilchrist’s system. Then he picked up the night-vision goggles and marched towards the entrance shaft – an eager hunter hungry to shoot his quarry.

Gilchrist risked another glance at the monitor. Mhairi had moved to the corner of the cottage and appeared to be making her way round to the front, but she was taking her time. Gilchrist knew with absolute certainty that if he did not do something within the next few minutes, Mhairi would end up as dead as Stan.

As if reading Gilchrist’s mind, Magner pointed the SIG Sauer at him. ‘Over there.’

Gilchrist thought of risking all in one crazed attempt to overpower Magner.

But sense prevailed and, defeated, he walked towards Jessie.

Gilchrist had enough sense left in his battered brain to know that to have any chance of overpowering Magner, he had to wait until Purvis cleared the entrance shaft. On the other hand, the dilemma he now faced was that if he was forced to sit down, he could not attack Magner without making it obvious, and Purvis would be free to murder Mhairi.

If he could find some way to . . .

‘I need a pee,’ he tried.

‘Sit down next to Miss Piggy, and do it in your pants,’ Magner said.

The ringing sound of metal on metal as Purvis clambered up the exit ladder echoed through the chamber, and Gilchrist veered to the left. ‘Shoot me in the back, if you want to,’ he said, ‘but I’m having a pee in private.’

‘How about I shoot
her
instead?’ Magner replied.

Gilchrist stopped. Magner had levelled the gun at Jessie’s face, leaving Gilchrist in no doubt that he would pull the trigger in a heartbeat. ‘I’ll hold it in,’ he said, and shuffled back to stand beside Jessie.

‘Sit.’

‘I’d rather stand.’

Magner lined up the barrel on Jessie again. ‘Your choice.’

Defeated, Gilchrist slid down the wall, then looked over in surprise as Jessie pushed herself to her feet.

‘Trying to make it easy for me?’ Magner said.

Jessie nodded at the monitor. ‘You never asked if
I
could identify that woman. It might be Aggie.’