The Baxter House
Lowther Hills
Across the room the chair was empty. He wasn’t there. Even the rats had gone quiet. They knew what he knew – it would soon be over, and she’d never understand why. Mackenzie drifted in and out of consciousness, beyond hurt, beyond pain. One regret stayed with her: Alec. If she’d listened to him, done what he’d wanted her to do, how different it might’ve been. But she’d lacked the courage and had paid the price. Her eyes fluttered and closed and she drifted into dreamlessness.
The voice on the phone had the same bitter edge as when he’d burst into the meeting at their house, except now it was joined by something he couldn’t put his finger on. Derek Crawford spoke slowly, deliberately, keeping his anger in check, savouring the words. ‘I’ve seen him, Gavin. I’ve seen the bastard. I’m following him.’
The line went dead. Gavin called back. Nobody answered. Ten minutes later the mobile rang again. He managed to get off a question. ‘Where?’
Derek didn’t reply, and in that moment his brother-in-law realised the only thing that existed for him was his wife’s lover. He tried a second time, almost shouting. ‘Tell me where you are?’
Derek snapped out of it. ‘Going south. Almost at Bothwell.’
‘Is he alone?’
Crawford steadied himself before answering. ‘Yes.’ His focus was absolute as he whispered to himself. ‘Got you, you bastard’. And Gavin knew he’d forgotten he was even there.
‘Listen. I’m on my way. Stay back. Whatever you do, don’t let him see you.’
The smouldering rage coming from him told Gavin he wasn’t going to wait – for him or anybody else. Derek intended to have it out with the man who’d stolen his wife and there was nothing anybody could do to stop him.
Crawford said, ‘He’ll see me. He’ll see me all right.’
‘If he does he’ll run. Any chance we have of finding Mackenzie will be gone.’
Crawford didn’t answer and Gavin dived for the door shouting over his shoulder to Monica. ‘Derek’s found the guy from Buchanan Street. He’s following him. Need to catch him before he does anything stupid. They’re near Bothwell, heading south.’
‘Why? What?’
‘He thinks he’ll lead him to Mackenzie.’
She didn’t understand. ‘But what’s the point? I mean, if she doesn’t want to be with him, it’s better to leave her alone.’
‘Christ knows what’s going on in his head. He sounds completely out of it. Doubt I can catch him. Got to be at least twenty minutes in front of me.’
At a set of traffic lights, Gavin’s mobile rang. The hard determination in Derek’s voice was unmistakable, yet he seemed more in control. ‘Still on the motorway. Lesmahagow coming up. No sign of him turning off. Where are you?’
‘Leaving the city.’
‘That’s a good way behind me.’
The anger in Derek’s voice worried Gavin. This might be the chance to sort out this whole mess. He said, ‘Don’t lose sight of him and for God’s sake don’t do anything daft.’
Derek laughed a grim laugh. ‘Not a chance. I’m having the bastard.’
Gavin swerved to overtake a driver in a red Mondeo loitering in the fast lane. He blasted his horn and got the finger in return. Thirty seconds later the Mondeo wasn’t in his mirror. Near Uddingston, he had a shocking realisation: Derek was so wound up he might kill this guy.
The accelerator pressed the floor and the SUV surged forward, shooting past a line of vehicles in the middle lane. He felt the steering-wheel tremble in his sweating palms. ‘Not if I can help it,’ he said out loud.
Minutes later, Bothwell – home to footballers and businessmen – appeared on a hill to the right. Gavin’s mind raced. What if it’s a mistake? What if it wasn’t the same guy? His thoughts fell silent and he concentrated on the road.
The mobile lay abandoned in the well between the seats. Gavin glanced at it, willing it to break into life. It didn’t. Time passed. Five minutes became ten. The Central Belt was left behind, the scenery changed: hills dotted with sheep replaced houses and, in the distance, wind turbines appeared on the horizon. Derek could be anywhere. The only thing to do was to keep driving.
Thirty-odd minutes after he’d left Glasgow, traffic on the motorway thinned to heavy lorries and the occasional car. His mobile rang. The scary-calm had gone from Crawford’s voice. Something about him wasn’t right; he’d cracked. Gavin wasn’t sure he understood he’d been out of contact with him, that he’d lost him. Or did he even care?
‘He’s pulled into Abington service station.’
‘For God’s sake don’t get too close. He can’t see you now. We need him to lead us to Mackenzie.’
Crawford didn’t agree or disagree. He drifted in and out of awareness, conscious enough to make the call then seeming to fade into another world. Little about him said he knew he was talking to anyone. What did that say about his state of mind? For sure, nothing good. Gavin wondered again if the whole thing wasn’t a case of mistaken identity. Derek had been under enormous pressure – more than anyone appreciated – he might be suffering some kind of emotional collapse.
‘He’s gone inside. Said something to the woman behind the counter, she’s laughing. Must be a funny guy. Won’t be so funny when I’m finished with him.’
‘You’re sure it’s him? You only saw him for a couple of seconds in Buchanan Street. How can you be so certain?’
‘Still wearing the fucking black coat. Wait a minute, he’s out again and he’s bought two coffees. Now he’s sitting in the car drinking one of them. So the other one must be for Mackenzie. We’re going to find her, Gavin.’
The accelerator took the brunt of Gavin’s impatience. ‘I’m coming. Stay back. I’ll be as quick as I can.’
Abington Services sat at the edge of the village round a long curve in the road. Gavin arrived just as a gang of long-haired bikers revved their engines and pulled away. Two vehicles were at the pumps filling up, another sat on the forecourt.
Derek’s car wasn’t one of them.
He got out. The air was clear and still, the scenery lush and verdant, like a landscape painted by one of the Masters. Even with the backdrop of traffic noise it was impressive.
Inside the shop, the fair-haired woman behind the counter couldn’t help. ‘Can’t remember serving anybody in a black coat. Leather jackets, yes. Just had a bunch of them in. Maybe I was too busy keeping an eye on the bikers.’
‘But he was here.’
She shrugged. ‘Well, I didn’t see him.’
It was understandable. She was on her own. Harassed out of her head. Not easy having a bunch of Hell’s Angels land on you.
The chase from Glasgow had been frantic. He’d done well to make up the distance. But if he lost them now it would all have been for nothing. The mobile rang in his hand. Derek sounded far away although he couldn’t be more than a couple of miles.
‘He’s heading towards Leadhills. Hurry up.’
Gavin followed a sign and crossed to the other side of the motorway. Immediately the road rose in front of him and climbed as Abington disappeared in the rearview mirror. He drove between steep rounded earth-coloured mounds while shallow crystal streams broke and bubbled over grey rock.
Ten minutes further on he hadn’t seen another living thing. Not a sheep, not even a bird. It was beautiful but he couldn’t picture a city girl like his sister living out here. Too many creepy crawlies for a start.
It was mamba country – miles and miles of bugger all.
The village of Leadhills broke the monotony: rows of miners’ cottages crowded together, some whitewashed and well-cared-for with welcoming smoke trailing from the chimneys, others ramshackle, rusted corrugated roofs and clumps of weeds growing in the guttering, leaning into their neighbour like teenage girls at the end of a wild night. Inside they’d be cramped and damp. It took a certain kind of person to want to stay here.
Derek’s car still wasn’t in sight. Gavin kept to the main track and drove on to Wanlockhead, the highest village in Scotland. He hadn’t heard from his brother-in-law since the service station. Maybe he couldn’t get a signal. If that was the case, the race from Glasgow had been in vain.
When the mobile rang it startled him. Derek had gone back to the eerie detachment of earlier, disturbing to hear. ‘He’s stopped.’
‘Where? Where is he?’
‘Old house on the other side of Wanlockhead.’
Gavin heard himself shouting. ‘Wait for me, I’m right behind you! We don’t know anything about this guy, he could be dangerous!’
Crawford ignored the warning. ‘I’m going in.’
Gavin changed down gears and gunned the engine. ‘No! Hold on!’
He was talking to himself again. Derek wasn’t there. Minutes later he came across his Audi parked at a crazy angle, the engine running, the front wheels in a ditch, the back-end high. Its flowing metal beauty incongruent in the rustic setting. He got out, and started running.
The grey stone building was hidden by a hill at the front and another at the back. Crawford’s directions hadn’t given much but his car had shown the way. Without it, he would never have found him.
The house was derelict. Boards had been nailed over the windows, the roof had sagged scattering broken black slate tiles and the rusted nails that had held them in place. Nobody could live here and nobody had in a very long time.
Gavin spoke to himself. ‘Christ, what is this?’
He touched the bonnet of a mud-spattered Toyota sitting outside the open door. It was warm, or maybe he was cold.
‘This is where she is? Not possible.’
He edged down a narrow corridor, every movement a gunshot in the silence as tired timbers cracked and sighed beneath the old linoleum. The staircase to what had been the floor above had collapsed, and not recently. On top of the rubble, a brown rat – the biggest he’d ever seen – sniffed the air and watched him, unafraid.
‘Fuck.’
Across the hall, a wooden door swung on its hinges. Angry voices echoed from below; Derek’s was one of them. Steps descended into the bowels of the house, the dank smell of sour earth growing stronger with each rung. A spider’s web caressed his face. He dragged it away. Whatever he’d expected to find, it wasn’t this.
A battery-powered light illuminated the crazy scene. Derek Crawford had his hands round the other man’s throat, their shadows dancing like crazy marionettes on the rough walls as they staggered, locked together. Mackenzie lay unconscious on a single bed, chained by her wrist, her face swollen and her body bruised where she’d been beaten, a line of dried blood, like a scar, running from the corner of her mouth to her chin.
She was naked.
And in that moment Gavin understood. Everything his sister said had been true.
The bastard was real.
He ran to her side, gently draping his jacket over her body which was covered in livid purple and yellow marks. But thank God she had a pulse. Behind him, the two men punched and kicked at each other, cursing and growling. The stalker slammed Derek against the wall, pounding him with his free hand. Gavin jumped to his feet as Derek got hold of the stranger’s lapels and threw him to the floor, then fell on him. Suddenly, the man who’d abducted Mackenzie cried out and the struggle ended.
Gavin dragged his brother-in-law to his feet. His eyes were wide and wild and scared, like a lost child who didn’t know where he was or how he’d got here. The life went out of him. He slumped and burst into tears. ‘Is he dead? Have I killed him?’
Gavin saw the knife buried in the unknown man’s abdomen and didn’t answer. Derek got to his feet and rushed at the stalker. ‘Let me finish it. Let me finish the bastard!’
Gavin hauled him away. ‘Leave it alone. It’s over.’
He bent over the fallen man, uncertain if he was alive or dead, tearing at his clothes, his one thought to find the key to free his sister. Crawford dropped to his knees beside his wife, crying uncontrollably, crushed with remorse. He turned towards his brother-in-law, on the edge of losing it again. ‘I didn’t believe her. I didn’t believe her.’
The reply was harsh. ‘For God’s sake get a grip. That doesn’t matter now. We need to help Mackenzie. I’m calling Andrew Geddes.’
DS Geddes was at his desk in Cathcart and lifted the phone after one shrill ring. Gavin quickly filled him in. Geddes said, ‘Listen to me. Stay calm. Otherwise you’re no use to Mackenzie. Keep her warm and don’t move her. Don’t move either of them.’
When Gavin came back into the cellar Derek was holding Mackenzie’s hand in his, whispering. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. Please forgive me, I didn’t know.’
The body on the floor hadn’t moved. Gavin looked across at him, beating down the desire to finish what Derek Crawford had started. Instead, he went outside and called Monica. As soon as he heard her voice, he broke down.
‘What’s wrong? What’s wrong, Gavin? Tell me.’
Through tears he managed to say ‘Mackenzie. It’s Mackenzie.’
‘Oh God! What’s happened to her?’
From somewhere he found the strength to answer. ‘She wasn’t making it up. It was all true.’
Monica felt sick, afraid to ask the question. ‘Is she..? Is she…alright?’
‘No, she’s in a really bad way. We’re waiting for the ambulance.’
‘Where are you, I’ll come?’
‘No, you can’t. I’ll call you as soon as we know which hospital they’re taking her to. Get a hold of Adele. She’ll be out of her mind with worry.’
‘Okay. Gavin…Gavin…’
‘I know. We didn’t listen to her. Blair was the only one who believed her.’
‘Wasn’t she with Blair?’
This wasn’t the time to tell her. ‘No, she wasn’t.’
He sat on the grass, eventually able to bring himself to go back down into the basement.
Thirty minutes later, two police cars pulled up outside the house and six men got out – four uniformed officers and a couple of plainclothes detectives. This remote part of the country was covered by Lanarkshire division. Geddes had contacted Control at Motherwell who had sent men from Wishaw, the nearest hub.
A fresh-faced detective inspector called Taylor listened to what Gavin had to tell him without commenting, while the uniforms secured the crime scene. Then the other detective took a preliminary statement. As he finished, the forensic examiners arrived, followed by two ambulances with their lights flashing. The place had been deserted an hour ago. Now it was overrun.
Andrew Geddes arrived next, his car crunching to a halt. He got out and walked over to Gavin Darroch. ‘How is she?’
‘Alive.’
The DS let his relief show. ‘Thank God for that.’
He left and went into a huddle with DI Taylor, now and again glancing in Gavin’s direction. The detectives disappeared inside for what seemed like a long time. When Geddes emerged from the house his face was stone. Battle-hardened policeman though he was, what he’d seen in the basement had affected him. He wiped the corners of his mouth with his fingers. ‘No woman should have to go through an ordeal like that, it’s a wonder she’s still breathing.’
Uniforms put handcuffs on Derek Crawford and guided him into the backseat of a police car. His sleeve was rolled up showing his bandaged arm and there were bloodstains on his shirt. He moved like a man in a trance, his empty eyes staring at something only he could see. From their first meeting Gavin had been convinced he wasn’t right for his sister – that hadn’t changed – but he felt for him, in the circumstances it was impossible not to.
He went to the car. ‘Hang in, Derek. Just hang in there.’
Derek didn’t look at his brother-in-law and Gavin wasn’t certain he’d heard. The assured persona he found so irritating was gone. A broken man was in its place. Like the rest of the family, he’d been wrong: there had been a stalker. He would have to live with that.
He already was.
The sun had dipped behind the hill when the paramedics carefully carried an unconscious Mackenzie Crawford and her unnamed abductor out of the house in the Lowther Hills, their faces covered by oxygen masks. In the gathering dusk, blue light from the ambulances made the tragedy surreal and after the adrenaline rush, Gavin wanted to lie on the ground and sleep. ‘She told us somebody was following her. We didn’t believe her.’
Geddes put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Can’t blame yourself, it doesn’t work that way. Your sister’s problems made it hard for anybody to believe her.’
He scratched the side of his nose, on the point of saying something, then changed his mind. Whatever it was passed. ‘Best thing you can do is go to the hospital. We’ll be here a while yet. I’ll catch up with you.’
‘Which hospital is it? Where’ve they taken her?’
‘Wishaw.’
‘I’ll need to let Adele know. What about Derek, what’s going to happen to him?’
Rain, the thin kind that goes all the way to the bone, chose that moment to come on. Andrew looked up at the sky. ‘He’ll be charged, but a half-smart lawyer will make a case of self-defence. Up to the PF. No matter what the decision, it’s going to be a long road back for him.’
‘For all of us.’
Gavin called Adele and gave her an update, leaving out the details; she’d hear them soon enough. Alone in the car on the journey back up the M74 to the hospital, he went over everything. The call from Derek felt like weeks ago. He’d followed the guy he’d seen in Buchanan Street with no idea where he was heading, taking the chance he might lead him to Mackenzie – the poor bastard must’ve intended to beg her to come back to him. But the unnatural composure in his voice on the phone had been a clue he was on the margins, straddling the invisible line between sanity and madness psychiatrists had argued over for a hundred years.
In mamba country, he’d crossed it.
Adele and Blair Gardiner were at Wishaw Hospital when the ambulance carrying Mackenzie pulled into A & E. The back doors flew open and she was taken inside. Nobody told them what was going on. Nobody knew. Gavin was in time to see the second ambulance arrive. The irony of his sister and the person who’d abducted her being treated in the same emergency room didn’t escape him.
He found them sitting in the hall, Adele resting against Blair’s shoulder. She’d been crying. The last time the men met they’d been on opposite sides. Mackenzie had brought them together. Blair looked up at him and shook his head. ‘No news. Somebody will speak to us as soon as they can.’
Adele threw her arms around her brother. ‘Why does it take this before we realise what’s important?’ She searched his face for the answer she needed to hear. ‘Will she be okay? Tell me she’ll be okay.’
Gavin was tempted to lie and changed his mind. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know.’
‘What happened?’
‘She’s been through hell. If you’d seen where he was keeping her. If you’d…’ His voice faltered, unable to describe the pictures in his head. ‘Derek… went crazy.’
‘Where is Derek? Is he ok?’
‘The police have taken him in for questioning.’
‘What’ll happen to him?’
‘We’ll have to wait and see. It was awful, Adele. Really awful. I’ll never forget it.’
Blair stepped between them. ‘You don’t have to go into it. This isn’t the time. It’s too raw.’
Gavin said, ‘Has Monica been told?’
‘Already done. Called her myself. She’s dropping Alice off with her sister.’
‘Thanks for that, Blair.’
Adele’s way of coping was to talk about it. Blair held her close and let her get it out. Soon after, Monica arrived, rushed to her husband and hugged him. ‘Are you all right?’ He nodded. ‘Thank God. What about Mackenzie?’
‘They’re examining her now.’
‘Have they said anything?’
‘Not yet. All we can do is wait.’
She kept her voice low. ‘What about Derek? Did he intend to kill the guy?’
‘Maybe, I don’t know. But I saw what he did to her. I wouldn’t blame him, Monica, I really wouldn’t.’
Adele asked, ‘So where is he?’ Gavin knew who she was taking about and wasn’t sure how to respond. ‘My God. Don’t tell me they brought him here. How could they do that?’
‘They have to try and save his life too.’
His sister voiced what all of them thought. ‘Why? Why do they have to? After what he did to Mackenzie – they should’ve left him to rot.’
The anger went out of her and they sat quietly, each with their own thoughts.
Inside A & E, high on the wall, a television with the sound turned down fascinated the dozen people waiting for a doctor to take a look at them. A guy in his late teens with a tattoo on his forehead pressed a blood-soaked cloth to the sleeve of his denim jacket. Next to him, his grinning mate whispered out of the corner of his mouth. Gavin guessed gang violence had brought them here. Tomorrow this would be a war story for the troops. Further along, a woman and a girl huddled together. The girl’s left foot was in a plaster cast which had cracked open. Their dull expressions said they’d been waiting a while. A nurse appeared and called a name. The denim youth made faces behind her back to amuse his pal and followed her.
Monica said, ‘Anybody want coffee? I’ll get it.’
Blair had a different suggestion. ‘Why don’t we go to the tearoom? Better than staying here. Don’t need to be gone long.’
They made their way to the cafeteria. Blair bought four coffees and carried them on a tray to the table. Nobody spoke until Adele said, ‘Can you talk about it?’
Her brother nodded. ‘I got a call from Derek. He’d seen the guy from Buchanan Street and was going after him.’
‘Hoping he’d lead him to Mackenzie?’
Gavin glanced at his wife. ‘That’s what I imagined, but he was different.’
‘Different how?’
‘Hard to explain. Not the Derek Crawford any of us know. Like he wasn’t quite there.’ He shrugged the inadequate description aside. ‘We were on the M74, heading for the Lowther Hills, although we didn’t know that at the time. He had about twenty-odd minutes on me. Fortunately the stalker stopped at Abington services otherwise I’d never have caught up.’ Gavin looked at his family. ‘I’ll tell you what I won’t be telling the police – I was scared.’
Blair leaned forward. ‘Scared of what?’
‘About what he might do when he caught up to him.’
‘You thought he’d kill him?’
‘I don’t know but it didn’t feel good. For a while I thought I’d lost him. But I kept on going. Then I saw Derek’s car outside a derelict house. The engine was still running, and there was another car, a Toyota.’ Gavin was visibly affected by the memory. ‘The house was literally falling down. The windows were boarded, doors were hanging off their hinges, and the roof was caved in. I knew this couldn’t be where Mackenzie was staying, it didn’t make sense. There were raised voices coming from the basement, so I went down.’
Under the table, Monica took his hand. He sipped his coffee and swallowed before he went on. ‘It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. It was a dungeon. Mackenzie was naked, chained to a bed.’
The women gasped and Monica squeezed her husband’s fingers tighter.
‘Her face was so white, at first I thought she was dead. Derek was fighting with the guy in the black coat in the middle of the room. Seeing what he’d done to Mackenzie…I guess something in him just snapped.’
Nobody pressed for details and he finished his story. ‘Then the guy was lying on the floor with a knife in him and Derek was…out of it.’
Blair steered them away from the picture Gavin had painted onto safer ground. ‘So you called the police.’
‘Yeah, I called Andrew Geddes. He told me to keep Mackenzie warm and not to move her.’
‘What did Derek do?’
‘He was devastated; destroyed. If I hadn’t been there he would’ve finished what he’d started.’
‘You mean, he’d have murdered him?’
Gavin paused before he answered. ‘I’m sure of it.’
‘Why did he phone you?’
‘No idea, but I’m glad he did.’
Monica said, ‘Did you manage to speak to him before they took him away?’
‘I tried, but he wasn’t taking anything in.’
Blair asked what none of them had even considered. ‘Did the knife belong to Derek? Because if it did…’
‘I can’t be sure though I wouldn’t have thought so. Carrying a knife? Doesn’t sound like Derek, does it? Anyway, Andrew seemed to believe a case could be made for defending himself.’
‘But if he dies..?’
A good question. ‘We’ll be in uncharted waters. We already are.’
They sat in silence as the true horror of it sunk in. Eventually Gavin said, ‘Let’s get back.’
It was close on two hours before they saw a doctor. He was tall and black; prematurely balding. The face was young but the eyes were old, and when he spoke there was Africa in his voice. The name-tag pinned to his white coat read: Dr Chilolo. He led them down the corridor into a room and got straight to the point. Clearly he’d already been given the background by the police.
‘Mackenzie has a punctured lung, cracked ribs, heavy bruising to her throat and body and cuts and abrasions, some of them infected. She’s in the ACCU – the Adult Critical Care Unit.’ He let seconds pass then added ‘She’s also been sexually assaulted.’
He stopped short of adding ‘brutally’, it wouldn’t help.
Chilolo allowed the family to register what he’d said before he gave them the worst of it. ‘Her physical injuries are severe but not grave. She should recover from them. I’m more concerned with her mental state. In certain circumstances, when the body’s under attack, the brain reacts to protect itself. In other words, it closes down.’
‘Isn’t that good?’
‘In theory, yes.’
‘When will you know?’
The doctor made eye contact with each of them in turn. ‘The next twenty-four hours are critical. My advice would be to go home and get some sleep. There’s nothing to be gained by staying here.’
Gavin asked what was on all of their minds. ‘And what if it’s permanent? What if Mackenzie doesn’t come out of it?’
Chilolo drew on his years of dealing with family members at moments like this.
‘Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.’
Adele had been Mackenzie’s biggest critic so it was hardly a surprise that the doctor’s guarded reply affected her most. He was telling them to be prepared for the worst, that she might not regain consciousness because of a man Adele had refused to believe existed. If she could turn the clock back, she would, without a moment’s hesitation, and give Mackenzie the support sisters are supposed to give each other. Hindsight was a bloody fine thing, wasn’t it?
Gavin was the only one with any idea of what to expect, but even he was shocked. Mackenzie was in a private room, a bank of machines monitoring her vital signs. Against the ashen pallor the bruises seemed even more vicious than in the dimly-lit building in the Lowther Hills. Seeing her sister like that was too much for Adele. She burst into tears. Blair held her then guided her out. Gavin and Monica followed them into the corridor and Blair suggested they leave. Adele insisted on staying.
‘I can’t leave her like this. I want to wait a little longer. But you go, you all need some rest.’
None of them disagreed.
Blair said, ‘I’ll keep you company.’
She turned the offer down. ‘No thanks. I’d like time alone with Mackenzie if you don’t mind. Besides, the boys can’t be left by themselves too long or we’ll have no house to go back to.’
When they’d gone she sat by the bed holding her sister’s hand, caressing it, quietly asking to be forgiven. ‘I’m sorry, baby. I let you down. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.’
Adele listened to the rise and fall of Mackenzie’s breathing, anxiously studying her bruised face for a sign of recognition – the flicker of an eyelid, the tremble of a fingertip – anything.
There was nothing.
She wasn’t a religious person. Religion was a crutch for weak people and, whatever else, nobody had ever accused Adele Gardiner of being weak. But she was weak. And she was tired of pretending she was strong. She rested her head on the bed and prayed.
A nurse asked for ten minutes to attend to Mackenzie. Out in the corridor, laughter got Adele’s attention – a policeman stationed by a door was joking with a porter. Coffee was mentioned. A minute later, he passed her on his way, she assumed, to the tearoom.
Adele didn’t stop to think about it. HE was in there, the monster who’d caused her sister so much pain. She opened the door and went inside.
There were two beds in the room. One of them was empty. In the other, a figure lay unconscious, his face covered by an oxygen mask. In her mind, the man who had abducted and abused her sister was an animal. It was shocking to discover he didn’t look like a monster. In fact, he couldn’t have been more ordinary. His eyes were closed as if he was only sleeping, his skin had a healthy pink glow, and in the muted light, Adele took in an IV line running from his wrist to a saline drip and a bank of machines recording his vital signs.
But it didn’t matter how he fucking looked, did it? He’d done what he’d done to a defenceless woman. She pictured her little sister’s broken body yards away and heard the doctor’s uncertain prognosis in her head. Mackenzie might not recover. Prepare yourselves. That was what he’d been saying.
let’s cross that bridge when we come to it
let’s cross that bridge when…
let’s cross that…
She glanced nervously over her shoulder towards the door and gently removed his mask. The pillow from the other bed felt cool and fresh and crisp. Adele held it inches above his face, savouring the moment, wanting to remember it.
From behind her a voice said, ‘Trust me, Mrs Gardiner, that wouldn’t be the best decision you’ve ever made.’
It was DS Andrew Geddes.
Geddes walked from the door, replaced the oxygen mask and gently took the pillow out of Adele’s unsteady hands. In the bed, Joe Melia not long back from theatre, was oblivious to how close he’d come to paying the price of his cruelty. The DS glanced at Adele Gardiner, remembering how certain and how wrong she’d been about her sister’s claim she was being stalked. ‘“ – A cock-and-bull story – ”’ she’d called it.
then you didn’t believe it?
not for a second
why?
Mackenzie’s an attention-seeker
When he’d interviewed her at her house she’d been impatient and dismissive and Geddes could only imagine how deep her guilt ran now. She choked back a sob and he put a comforting arm on her shoulder. ‘I want to kill him, is that so wrong?’
The DS chose his words carefully. ‘To kill him? Yes, that would be wrong. To want to?’ He shook his head. ‘How could you feel any other way?’
‘If you hadn’t come in…’
Geddes defused the bleak speculation knowing there was nothing worthwhile down that road. ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. Even good people do bad things sometimes.’
She turned to him. ‘All I think about is how badly I let her down. I didn’t believe her. I didn’t believe my own flesh and blood. What does that say about me?’
‘It says you’re human. It says you made a mistake.’
‘But…look at me…’ Adele raised the hands that had held the pillow inches from Melia’s face. ‘…what have I become?’
‘You haven’t become anything. You’re the same as you’ve always been.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘A woman who loves her sister. Mackenzie’s lucky to have you.’
Adele smiled a sad half-smile. ‘Thanks for saying that, and thanks for stopping me.’
The policeman feigned ignorance. ‘You’ve lost me. Nothing happened here.’
‘Thank you anyway.’
It was time to end this. Geddes said, ‘I want you to go home. If there’s any change you’ll be the first person I call.’
‘Promise.’
‘I promise. The very first.’
The detective was alone in the room with the sounds of Joe Melia’s breathing and the machines monitoring him. He hadn’t realised he was still holding the pillow. A picture of the dank cellar in the Lowther Hills flashed in front of his eyes and his fingers dug into it. For a moment he hesitated then put it back where it belonged and went to find out why the fuck nobody was guarding the door.