Gilchrist pushed the trapdoor wide open and let it flop over on its hinges.
It landed with a wooden slap that sent dust flying.
He stepped halfway out, then glanced down into the shaft and shouted, ‘All right, all right. No need to whine about it.’ Then he pulled himself up and out, to stand on the edge of the opening with his hands shoulder high. ‘Your pal needs help,’ he said to Purvis, who levelled the shotgun at him.
‘Do what?’
‘His jaw’s broken.’
‘Get back,’ Purvis snapped, and walked towards him.
Gilchrist obliged, shuffled one step away, then another.
Purvis reached the open shaft and looked into the empty space below. Then he turned back to Gilchrist. ‘What the fuck’re you up to?’
Gilchrist put on a puzzled look of his own, shrugged, and nodded to the opening. ‘He’s the one who needs help.’
Purvis leaned farther over the opening. ‘Tom?’ he shouted. ‘Hey, Tom?’
His voice echoed back at him.
‘He can’t talk,’ Gilchrist assured him. ‘His jaw’s broken.’
Purvis glared at him. ‘How’d he break his jaw?’
‘Tripped.’
Something settled across Purvis’s eyes at that comment. He stepped back from the opening and pointed the shotgun at Gilchrist. ‘Get him,’ he said.
Gilchrist held out his left arm, still dripping blood. ‘I need both hands.’
Purvis stared at the tattered sleeve, then jiggled his shotgun. ‘Go down there and get him.’
Gilchrist lowered both arms.
He was about to step forward when Purvis said, ‘Drop the jacket.’
Gilchrist dipped his right shoulder, pulled his arm free, then did the same with his left, grimacing with pain as he eased the sleeve down his bloodied forearm.
‘I hope it hurts,’ Purvis said.
Gilchrist was about to drop the jacket to the floor when the tinny sound of Rod Stewart singing ‘Maggie May’ stopped him.
Purvis stilled, too. His gaze darted to the shaft. He stepped to the edge again, and removed a mobile from his pocket, shotgun in one hand, trigger finger curled within the guard. His puzzled shout echoed down the shaft. ‘Tom?’ Then he took the call and placed the mobile to his ear. ‘Talk to me, Tom.’
Gilchrist watched surprise crease Purvis’s forehead, then shift wide-eyed through the shock of realisation to full-blown anger.
Purvis dropped his mobile and lifted his shotgun to give Gilchrist both barrels in the face, but Gilchrist was already on the move, whipping his leather jacket at the muzzle.
Purvis squeezed the trigger.
The blast sounded like cannon fire.
The shockwave slapped Gilchrist’s face as the pellets ripped past his head.
Somewhere behind him, wood exploded, metal clattered.
With Purvis not gripping the shotgun in both hands, the recoil sent the barrels pointing roofward. Gilchrist saw an opportunity. He swung his jacket at the shotgun again, the tattered sleeve wrapping around the barrels almost ripping the weapon from Purvis’s grasp. Then he lunged forward and tried to grab the stock.
But Purvis was too quick and stepped to the side.
Except there was no floor to step on.
Only the open shaft.
Purvis noticed his mistake too late, as one ankle twisted on the edge, shock and pain firing across his face. He tried to recover, but his leg buckled and his sideways momentum sent him toppling into the shaft.
Even then, he tried to save himself by turning his body as he fell, like some devilish acrobat. But as one hand refused to release the shotgun, the other clawed nothing but air. The opening, too, was not large enough to take him full length, and the back of his shoulders hit the frame of the trapdoor with a force that shivered the floorboards.
Gilchrist jerked his jacket, snapping the shotgun from Purvis’s grip as he slumped through the opening, fingers dragging across the wooden floor like claws as he tried to stop the inevitable. The single handrail caught Purvis’s right leg for only a moment, but long enough to change his angle of descent and send him in a headfirst dive down the shaft.
By the time Gilchrist stood at the trapdoor opening, Purvis lay at the foot of the ladder, his head pooling blood and lying at an impossible angle that told Gilchrist his neck was broken.
Gilchrist staggered back from the opening and turned to the workbench.
Mhairi was lying on her back, naked, her ankles and wrists strapped to the four corners with duct tape. Her body jerked in spasms from the force of her sobs.
Gilchrist threw his jacket across her body then reached down and ripped the tape from her mouth. ‘You’re safe now,’ he said. ‘It’s okay, it’s okay.’
Tears streamed down Mhairi’s cheeks, her lips shivering, lungs gasping with sobs that made speech impossible. The tape securing her wrists proved difficult to unwrap, but Gilchrist found a piece of broken glass lying in debris in a corner, and freed Mhairi at the cost of several cuts to his fingers. When he helped her to her feet, she clung to him as if her life depended on it, her body shuddering with a force that made him think she might never recover.
The sound of a helicopter overhead told Gilchrist they had tracked Purvis to the barn from the call to his mobile. He helped Mhairi hobble towards her clothes, then turned his back to give her some privacy as she struggled to put on what was left of them.
He retrieved Purvis’s mobile from the barn floor, but the connection was dead. He dialled the last incoming number and the call was answered on the second ring.
But the line remained silent.
‘This is DCI Andy Gilchrist,’ he said.
‘Andy?’ Jessie shouted. Then, much quieter, ‘Are you . . .?’
‘I’m okay,’ he said. ‘And so’s Mhairi. But we need an ambulance.’ Then he added, ‘I don’t think she’s been harmed, but she needs to be checked out.’
He listened in silence as Jessie brought him up to speed, and found himself squeezing his eyes and giving a silent prayer of thanks when she told him Magner was dead.
When he ended the call, he walked towards Mhairi.
She had dressed as best she could, but her clothes were little more than torn strips that she was now trying to hold together. Gilchrist grabbed his jacket from the floor, held it open, and helped her put it on. She tried to zip up, but her fingers were shaking with a tremor that worked all the way to her teeth, and she was forced to give up with a chattering attempt at a smile.
Rather than zip it for her, Gilchrist folded one side over the other.
Mhairi crossed her arms in a shivering hug, then said, ‘Stan?’
Gilchrist shook his head and placed an arm around her shoulder, his silence telling her all she needed to know. She fell against him then, her sobs taking her breath away, and he could do nothing to stop his own tears welling. He stared into the darkest recesses of the barn, hugging Mhairi closer, as much for himself as for her, while images of Stan flickered in the shadows of his mind.
When Mhairi’s sobs finally shuddered to a stop, she managed to say, ‘I loved him, you know.’
‘I know,’ Gilchrist whispered.
He had loved Stan, too.
He just wished he’d had a chance to tell him that, and to say goodbye.
Together they turned and walked to the barn door.