He reached This and That around 9:40. The tinny rattle of the overhead bell and the fragrance of pot-pourri put him at ease through its familiarity. The shop was deserted, except for Cindy.
She looked up. ‘Hi, Andy.’
‘Is Beth in?’
‘No-oh.’ Cindy frowned. ‘I haven’t heard from her. It’s so not like her.’
Gilchrist pulled out his mobile.
‘I’ve already tried calling her,’ Cindy said. ‘And left two messages. I even tried your number, but I couldn’t get through.’
‘Switched off,’ said Gilchrist. He placed a hand on Cindy’s shoulder and squeezed. Beth’s phone rang six times, then her recorded message cut in.
He slapped his mobile shut.
‘Do you think she’s all right?’ asked Cindy.
‘I’m sure there’s a simple explanation,’ he said. ‘Probably just overslept.’
‘I hope so,’ Cindy said, and put her hand to her mouth. ‘I’ve been so worried about her, what with that creep in here the other day. You read about these things, but you don’t think they’re ever going to happen to you.’
‘Cindy, I’ll check it out. Okay?’
She seemed to collect herself. ‘Hang on,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a spare key to her flat.’
Outside, he ran down South Street, his mind clattering in time with his feet. In the two years he had dated Beth, she had never missed a day, was never sick, never late, always arrived at her shop at least five minutes early.
When he reached her apartment, he stabbed Cindy’s spare key into the lock.
The hallway was redolent of wood polish, its perfume warm from the central heating.
Heavy silence stilled the rush of his breathing.
‘Hello?’
Nothing. Only the steady ticking of the grandfather clock at the end of the hall, a wedding present to Beth’s parents from her Uncle Alex.
‘Beth?’
The pendulum swung like an inverted metronome.
‘Hello?’
Then Gilchrist caught it, a hint of something out of place, an undercurrent of something sour, a tainted smell that reminded him of a school gymnasium. Stale sweat. His right hand slid to his chest and he wished he had a gun.
He eased forward. The floor creaked.
He stopped, listened, was about to take another step when the floor creaked again. Was someone in the living room?
The door lay open. Not there. Beth’s bedroom?
He cocked his head, straining to hear. On full alert now. If the creak had been caused by Beth, she would have heard him calling, she would have called back. He passed the spare bedroom door on his left. Ahead, Beth’s bedroom door lay ajar, just a fraction.
He reached for the handle, heard the rush of movement behind him, lifted his arm in time to deflect the blow to the back of his head.
Another blow, this time to his shoulder.
He stumbled against the wall, saw a lump of wood flash at him, felt something explode against his side. He swung his arms for balance, scattering ornaments off an antique table, then fell to the floor.
He lay there, stunned.
Legs. Jeans. Tattered and frayed. New trainers.
He twisted to his side, caught a leg as it swung past his face. He gripped hard, heard a cry, felt the floorboards shudder as a body landed by his side. He fought to hold on but something crunched against his mouth and he lost his grip. Then another hit to his head, as hard as wood.
His fingers clawed, clutched for some grip, found it.
Then arms flailing at a casual jacket. Shit. The body moved away from him.
He followed it up, dropped the jacket.
A hit to his ribs stole his breath and almost felled him. He saw the next blow coming. A cricket bat. Christ.
Ducked. It hit the wall by his ear.
Ducked again. Glass exploded as the mirror shattered.
And again. Ducked lower. Skimmed off his back.
He fell to the floor, rolled to his side. The bat thudded the carpet, once, twice.
He bumped against the wall. Nowhere to go. Lifted his legs.
Hard wood cracked against his calves.
He gasped with the pain, shouted, ‘You’re under arrest.’
The bat hesitated for no more than a second. But long enough.
He rolled the opposite way, into the far wall, pulled his legs up and over in a backward roll, and jumped to his feet as the bat clattered against the radiator then dropped to the floor. It had been thrown.
Escaping. Oh no you’re not.
He dived at departing legs in scruffy jeans that slipped through the doorway and back-heeled the door shut, missed catching his fingers by a hair.
He pulled himself to his feet, stumbled against the wall, struggled to stay upright. He stuck a hand out, palmed the wall as the world steadied, then staggered into Beth’s bedroom.
Empty.
His breath tore in and out of his lungs in fiery bursts that seemed to pierce his ribs. ‘Beth?’
Back in the hallway, he kicked at the spare bedroom door.
‘Oh, God, Beth.’
She lay on the bed. Naked. Ankles and wrists tied to the four corners. Mouth gagged. Eyes bruised. Her body heaved with the effort of trying to free herself.
Gilchrist ripped the gag from her mouth.
‘I’m okay I’m okay don’t let him get away catch—’
‘Beth—’
‘Catch him catch the bastard don’t let him get away catch him catch the bastard.’ She gulped for air, then screamed, ‘Catch the bastard, Andy.’
Gilchrist slipped her right hand free then stumbled from the room.
Outside, he looked left, right.
Shoppers, pedestrians.
He ran across the road.
Tyres screeched. A horn blared. ‘You fucking blind?’
‘Did you see someone running?’ he asked a woman.
She backed away from him, almost bumped against the wall.
‘I’m with Fife Constabulary,’ he said. ‘I’ve just been attacked. The man who hit me came out of that building.’ He pointed at Beth’s door, saw a scowling face and a finger tap a temple with the power of hammering a nail.
‘That’d be thon young man then, so it would,’ she said, looking at him with distress.
Gilchrist wiped sweat from his brow, surprised to see his fingers smeared with blood.
‘Which way?’
‘Down by the West Port.’
At school, Gilchrist had been useless as a sprinter. Too gangly and no muscle mass to fight the lactic acid, his gym teacher had told him. But he was a natural distance runner, with long limbs, light frame and a pain threshold way above the norm.
He reached the roundabout in front of the West Port and stopped a man walking his Highland terrier. The man’s face reddened and he backed off. When the terrier started to bark, Gilchrist cursed and ran to the next pedestrian.
Same response. A stunned look that turned to fear, then relief as he moved on. He knew he looked a mess, but he ran on, hands at his ribs where something hotter than a burning poker dug into his side.
For Christ’s sake. Someone must have seen something.
‘That way, mister.’
Gilchrist spun around, grabbed the youth by his arms, saw he was frightening him, and let go. ‘What did you say?’
‘That way.’ The youth’s voice was less enthusiastic. ‘I seen him go that way—’
‘Where?’
‘Down Lade Braes—’
‘Who?’
The youth seemed puzzled. ‘The man you’re chasing, mister.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Young old thin fat what?’
The youth shrugged. ‘Skinny,’ he said. ‘Skinny as a rake. Wi’ long hair, like.’
‘Jeans?’
The youth nodded. ‘And nae jacket.’
Gilchrist sprinted down Bridge Street but had to pull to a halt at the entrance to Lade Braes Lane. Pain as sharp as shards of glass gouged into his ribs and he concentrated on keeping his breathing shallow. He gripped the back of his neck. His hair felt damp and sticky. He looked at his clothes, the first time he had done so since the attack. His shirt hung out, smeared with blood. He pulled at his shirt collar, felt the material stick to his skin. When he looked at his hands they were as bloodied as a slaughterer’s.
He clenched his teeth and eased into a jog.
Every step drove a six-inch nail into his head, twisted the broken bottle deep into his ribs. He groaned for breath. His attacker could have gone anywhere, could have jumped over any of several high walls that bordered the lane, could be running to places unknown.
He passed the end of Louden’s Close, but his sixth sense forced him on, and he jumped down a set of concrete steps that opened up to a steep lane on his right. A short bridge at the foot of the lane crossed the Kinness Burn.
Where now? Left? Right?
His sixth sense took him left.
He stumbled along a muddy track at the edge of the burn, hands pressed to his side, fingers prodding and testing his ribcage for breaks. But his ribs were in the right place and seemed to spring back when he let go. Maybe torn cartilage. That could take months to heal.
The track ended at Kinnessburn Road and he turned left again, but had to stop at the bend.
His lungs burned, his head pounded and his left knee throbbed where the cricket bat had tried to reconfigure his kneecap. He leaned forward, gripped his leg, and through his jeans felt the swelling to the side of his knee. His world spun again, and he had to cling to the metal railing. He eased the weight off his left leg and at that moment heard something scuffle behind him.
Claws gripped his ankles. Heaved up. And over.
He was flying through the air before he understood that his grip had been torn from the railings.
He thumped onto his back.
He lay there, winded, mouthing for air like a landed fish, his senses only peripherally aware of a hard fluttering, raucous quacking, the feathered panic of flapping wings and slapping feet.
He had been lucky. His fall had missed the shallow water with its hard stony bed. Mud from a sodden bank squelched through his fingers as he struggled to fight off the darkness.
Before he slipped into unconsciousness, he was aware only of a white face peering down at him.