Chapter Twenty-Four

Her sobs catching raw in her throat, the toes of her bare foot scrambling desperately for hard surface, Rebecca fought to stay upright. She had to. Please God! Make him stop! She clamped her eyes closed as the animal plunged the butt of the gun down again against Matthew’s back, and again, so brutally Rebecca was sure she heard bones crack.

Hearing the foul obscenities spilling from his torturer’s mouth, and Ashley’s sobs as she rocked to and fro where she sat on the floor, Rebecca snapped her eyes back open, to see him pulling back his foot and landing another vicious blow to her husband’s side.

‘Payback, Adams,’ he snarled, bending to clutch hold of his hair, forcing his head back at an impossible angle. Blood trickled from Matthew’s mouth; he didn’t move, which only seemed to inflame Sullivan’s temper further.

Uttering, ‘Bastard,’ he slammed Matthew’s head back down to the ground, and then kicked him again, hard.

‘Stop!’ Ashley screamed, her voice high-pitched and hysterical. ‘You’ll kill him!’

‘Be quiet!’ Sullivan yelled. ‘Shut the fuck up, unless I tell you to talk!’ He jabbed the gun in her direction, dragged an arm over his mouth and then looked down at Matthew, his breath heavy from his exertions, his face twisted with hatred.

‘Scum,’ he spat and pointed the gun downwards, pressing it against Matthew’s temple.

No! Struggling to keep her balance, her legs trembling violently beneath her, Rebecca felt the rope jerk tautly at her throat as her foot slipped, nothing but fresh air beneath it. Please don’t. Please don’t let him do this. Please … Time seemed to slow down as she prayed hopelessly to a God who couldn’t hear her, her head swimming, her senses dulling.

‘Fetch the knife!’ She heard him shout over her heartbeat, now a sluggish thrum in the base of her neck. ‘In my bag, silly cow! Fetch it. Now!’

Rebecca felt him catch her, an arm around her thighs, then higher, around her waist. Her ankle bone scraped against the edge of the box, sharp pain shooting through her, as he yanked her towards him, his odious body supporting hers.

Was he going to cut her, or cut her down? Rebecca wondered, vaguely. She didn’t care. She didn’t want to be here without Matthew. Didn’t want to be. She’d rather be with her babies. But then, she would be with Matthew, too, wouldn’t she? Did she want to be? Had he lied to her? He hadn’t lied to her. He hadn’t. Hadn’t … said anything. Rebecca’s thoughts made no sense in her head as her vision turned blood red.

‘Silly bitch.’ She heard him again, close to her ear. ‘More trouble than you’re worth, the lot of you. Stand up!’ he shouted urgently. ‘I said, stand up!’

His torso was pressed close to hers, hers close to his. She didn’t want this. Didn’t want to be here. With him. Touching him. Feeling him, touching her. Rebecca’s cry was muffled. Her face wet with hot tears and snot. She couldn’t find the floor. Couldn’t …

‘Stand the fuck up!’ He jolted her upwards, his hands roughly under her armpits. ‘Stay on your feet, can’t you?’

Rebecca’s eyes fluttered open. Her face an inch from his. His eyes cold, unyielding, evil. Did he ever have parents, she wondered obliquely? A mother’s love? Or was he spawned from the Devil himself?

‘Fetch the water!’ His voice was back to commanding. ‘Move it!’

Loosening one hand from her, as she stood woozily under her own steam, he reached to rip the tape from her face. Rebecca involuntarily squeezed her eyes closed, but with rebellion and pure unadulterated anger surging from somewhere deep within her, she snatched them immediately open again. She would see him. He would see her. Her! Not a piece of meat, someone to play with and then slaughter.

‘Stop bloody eyeballing me,’ he growled, groping for the water Ashley handed him, then tipping it towards Rebecca’s mouth.

Rebecca sipped, and gagged. He offered her more. She drank, feeling the comforting coolness of the water slide down her throat, dribble from her mouth and trickle down her neck. Glad of the sensation jolting her senses awake, she continued to stare at him, trying to find any spark of humanity within.

‘Stop with the icy glares, sweetheart. They’re wasted on me,’ he sneered contemptuously. ‘Turn around,’ he commanded and took hold of her arm, his fingers digging deep into her flesh. He was taking her back. Rebecca felt a new kind of panic rise in her chest.

‘No!’ she resisted as he steered her around. She wouldn’t!

‘Move!’ He clutched hold of her hair, pushing her, shoving her in the direction of the door that led to the garage that housed the car that might well be her tomb.

‘No!’ Rebecca refused to budge. He shoved her again, but Rebecca kicked back. He wove an arm around her chest, gripping her tight, and Rebecca fought harder. Jabbing backwards with the heel of her one disgusting shoe, she made contact, felt a small wave of triumph as he winced, and then winced in turn as he squeezed his arm still tighter around her.

‘You are really …’ Rebecca felt his grip slacken as his growl was cut short. Felt herself flailing forwards. Landing heavily, the breath forced from her body, she rolled over, ready to kick, bite and gouge, to see Ashley had beaten her to it, her fingernails clawing deep scores in his cheek.

Momentarily stunned, he pressed a hand to his wound. Drawing it away, he examined the blood on his fingers, and then, as Rebecca tried to scramble up, he lashed out, landing a blow to Ashley’s face that sent her sprawling.

‘You disgusting animal!’ Becky screamed as he turned back towards her, his nostrils flaring, his face rabid. ‘Keep away!’ Rebecca kicked out.

‘You really do … not … want … to do that,’ he snarled, catching hold of her foot, twisting it, sharply, dragging her along until her kicks became useless flails.

‘Finished?’ he asked as she tried futilely again to reach him.

Abhorred, repulsed by the very nearness of him, Rebecca just looked at him.

At which his mouth curved into a slow, sadistic smile. ‘I’ve decided corpses don’t need shoes, sweetheart,’ he said, and calmly removed the shoe from her foot.

Vaguely compos mentis, Steve focussed his eyes on his fiancée, his overriding feeling, apart from feeling as high as a kite, one of immense relief. She wasn’t going to kill him then, judging by the expression on her face.

‘Steve!’ Her tone was a mixture of delight and incredulity. ‘I thought you were going to die, you bloody idiot.’ With which she jumped up to plant a fat kiss on his cheek. Fair enough. Steve could live with that. He was alive. He offered up a silent prayer of gratitude. Either that or he’d gone to heaven. God, she was beautiful, even when she was having a go at him.

‘What were you doing?’ She jabbed at the call button. ‘Typical bravado,’ she continued and fussed with his pillows, ‘typical Steve,’ and straightened his sheets, ‘typical …’ trailing off, she stopped fussing and promptly burst into tears.

Steve reached to pull the mask from his face. ‘Shhhh,’ he said hoarsely, extending an arm stuffed full of tubes towards her. Lindsey grabbed his hand, squashing the needle still in the back of it. Steve winced but tried not to mind. ‘I’m okay,’ he rasped, his throat feeling like sandpaper.

‘Oh, right, yes, of course you are.’ She rolled her pretty eyes, clearly not convinced. ‘You’ll be back to putting your life on the line in no time, I expect.’

Now she looked annoyed again, understandably.

‘I am, I promise. Or I will be as soon as I’m out of this flipping contraption.’ Steve glanced down at the brace; he wasn’t thrilled he was going to be stuck in it for five weeks or more.

‘You’d better be,’ Lindsey huffed. ‘You won’t get away from me that easily, Steve Ingram. We’re getting married if I have to push you down the aisle in your hospital bed.’

‘That’ll be one for the album.’ Steve tried a little levity.

Nope, that didn’t work. Lindsey swiped at a tear on her cheek.

‘We could still have the honeymoon,’ Steve suggested, patting the bed to his side.

‘You’re awful.’ It was a bit of a wobbly one, but she managed a smile.

‘I know.’ Steve smiled cheekily back. ‘But you love me?’

‘Just as well for you.’ Lindsey gave his hand another squeeze.

Steve reciprocated, relieved that he could. His injuries, to the front of the spinal cord, meant there might be some loss of motor function, pain or temperature sensation, but his limbs, thank God, should retain their normal movement and equilibrium. Evidence of which was, if he wasn’t mistaken, there was definitely something going on down below. Thank you, Lord. Apart from weddings and funerals, Steve had never been much for church, but he just might be visiting more often in the future, he decided.

‘Couldn’t do us a favour, could you, Linds?’ He gestured to the water on the bedside locker with his thumb. ‘My throat’s like the bottom of a budgie’s cage, I swear. I could use a drink.’

‘Several, I should think,’ DCI Davies quipped from the door. ‘Better wait until you’re back on your feet, though, Ingram.’

‘As long as you’re buying,’ Steve risked a flippant retort, perversely pleased to see him too. ‘Matthew?’ he asked, when Davies reached his bedside.

Davies shook his head, his expression dour.

‘Gone to ground. We’ve got every available body on it.’ He paused, looking Steve thoughtfully over. ‘You were aware that …?’ Again he hesitated, glancing towards Lindsey, who, clearly assuming this was police work, attempted to extract her hand from Steve’s. Steve held on to it. She should know. It might go some way to explaining why he had felt compelled to act like a bloody idiot and put their future together at risk.

‘That his wife has been taken? Yes,’ he said, and felt Lindsey’s hand tighten around his. ‘Have you done a sweep of the area?’

Davies eyed him curiously. ‘Area?’

Steve knitted his brow, realising he’d been more or less out of it since Sullivan had shot him. He hadn’t had the chance to talk to anyone yet. It hadn’t even occurred to him he might have been found anywhere but in the field where … Shit! ‘Where was I?’ he asked urgently. ‘Where did you find me?’

‘The riverbank,’ Davies supplied. ‘There are other details you should know about. We’ll discuss it later, when you’re—’

‘Matthew’s and Becky’s house,’ Steve cut in grimly. ‘The field adjoining it. That’s where the bastard is holding her. Or at least, he was.’

‘Incy wincy spider climbed up the waterspout. Down came the rain and washed the spider out. Incy wincy spider …’ Ashley sang softly to herself as she chased the spider up the side of the box and across the top of it.

That’s four! Emily said gleefully in her ear.

‘Five,’ Ashley corrected her. ‘You can’t count.’

Yes, I can.

‘Can’t.’ Ashley fed the spider carefully from the palm of her hand into the cigarette box.

Do you think they’ll eat each other?

‘I don’t think so.’ Ashley peered in after it, to see spiders’ legs flailing as their owners frantically scurried over the knotty bodies of their mates. ‘They might get a bit high though.’ She watched as one settled between the ends of two joints. She hoped they didn’t. She didn’t want them chilled. She wanted them scared, hunched legs scurrying and running, preferably into his mouth.

Carefully closing the packet, she stood up, dusting her knees free of the dust and crap from the floor, then walked across to position the packet back in the bag, exactly where she’d found it. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was better than none. Her task complete, she looked worriedly back to Matthew, who was still lying cold and unmoving on the floor. He was breathing though. She could hear him. She didn’t like the wheeze. She wished he’d wake up. She wished the freak hadn’t put all those fucked up pictures of him in her head.

Glancing back to the windows, she decided to have another go at the boards. Sullivan could come back in at any minute, but she had to try to do something.

You’ll only get more splinters. Emily warned her.

‘I wish I could get a big splinter,’ Ashley told her. ‘A long, sharp splinter and stick it right in his jugular.’

And watch him gag as the blood spurts, and then …

‘Shush!’ Hearing movement behind her, Ashley whirled around.

‘Ashley,’ Matthew croaked, attempting to lever his head from the floor.

He was moving!

‘Matthew!’ Ashley skidded towards him, and then back-stepped to grab up the water.

‘Ashley?’ he said hoarsely again. ‘Where’s …’ Trailing off, he tried to draw a rasping breath into his lungs, only to end up coughing his heart out.

Ashley dropped quickly to her knees beside him. ‘Shush,’ she said, planted the water down and helped him roll over.

‘Drink,’ she ordered him, easing her arm under his head, picking up the bottle, and pressing it to his lips.

Matthew tried. He took a sip and then coughed again, a cough that seemed to rack his whole body. Then he drew in a breath that rattled his chest and only made him cough harder.

Oh God, what should she do? Wiping the blood and sweat from his face, Ashley tried frantically to think. The wheeze was worse, louder. There when he breathed in, there when he breathed out.

‘Matthew!’ she whispered urgently. ‘Matthew, please … I don’t know what to do!’

‘Inhaler.’ Matthew struggled to get the word out. Then, closing his eyes, he inclined his head to the floor somewhere beyond her.

‘Don’t close your eyes. Please, don’t close your eyes,’ Ashley begged him. Desperately, she looked around, overwhelming relief sweeping through her as her gaze fell on the little blue tube that still lay on the floor. ‘I see it!’

Easing her arm from under him, she scrambled across to it. ‘What do I do with it?’ she asked, coming back to his side. ‘Matthew!’ Glancing panic-filled at the door behind her, she shook him. He didn’t respond. His breathing was awful, laboured. ‘Matthew!’ She shook him hard. ‘What do I do with it?’

Matthew dragged heavy-lidded eyes open, the look in them absolute desperation.

‘I need …’ he tried, and stopped. It was barely a whisper, accompanied by another rattling wheeze.

‘What?’ What did he need? ‘Matthew!’

Matthew swallowed, and coughed, his whole chest and shoulders seeming to heave as he did.

He needs to breathe. He’ll die if he doesn’t.

‘I know!’ Quashing down her rapidly rising panic, Ashley looked at the inhaler clutched in her hand. Seeing how the shape fitted between her thumb and forefinger, she pressed the little canister inside it down, saw the medication spurt into the air, then, ‘Got it!’ she cried, triumphant.

Swiping her hair from her face, she pressed it between his lips. ‘Breathe, Matthew,’ she pleaded quietly. ‘Please breathe.’

Praying in earnest, Ashley waited until he pulled another shallow breath in and then pressed it sharply, simultaneously. Would it work? Would that teensy puff of stuff help? Holding her own breath, she waited again, watching him carefully, as he sucked air into his lungs, short breaths in, sharp pants out, then, ‘Again,’ he said.

Immediately doing as he asked, Ashley repeated the procedure and then sat back on her haunches, studying him intently. Hearing his breaths slow, become deeper, quieter, normal, she couldn’t quite believe it.

‘Did it work?’ She stared at him incredulously, as his eyes at last focussed on hers.

‘It worked,’ Matthew assured her, relief swiftly followed by undisguised terror flooding his features.

‘Where’s Becky?’ he asked, immediately attempting the impossible task of sitting up with his arms still cuffed behind him.

‘She’s okay,’ Ashley assured him quickly as she reached to assist him. ‘He cut her down. She’s … not hurt.’

Matthew nodded and gulped back hard. ‘Where has he taken her?’ he asked her, his words strangulated, as if he was struggling to contain his emotion.

‘Out there.’ She nodded towards the door, where the freak had dragged Becky screaming and kicking, fighting him with every fibre of her being. That’s when Ashley had decided she would keep fighting too, whatever Matthew had done.

Matthew looked at her as she turned her gaze back to him.

‘Ashley,’ he said, holding her gaze, now clearly working to keep his voice calm, ‘he’s lying. You know that, don’t you?’

Ashley looked uncertainly back at him, searching his eyes. He had nice eyes, dark eyes, but not dark evil, like the freak’s; Matthew’s eyes were kind. They had a little twinkle in them when he smiled. Or they had, before. Now all she could see was deep-rooted fear. There was determination there too, though, Ashley could see, as he continued to study her. She nodded slowly. ‘Trying to mess with my head, you mean?’

‘Exactly that.’ Again, Matthew’s relief was obvious. ‘He’s trying to divide us, psychologically. Turn us against each other. Do you understand?’

Ashley nodded more assuredly. ‘He’s a freak,’ she said, firmly wishing there was a way to loop that leash around his neck, as he had Matthew’s, and yank it until his eyes bulged.

‘That he is.’ Matthew nodded weakly and attempted to move, wincing with pain as he did. ‘So do we let him?’