McNab waited, his blood pressure mounting. The bastard must have got the message by now. Why didn’t he answer?
Ollie threw him an anxious glance. ‘He may be out of range.’
‘Send it again,’ McNab said.
‘It’s better if we wait.’
McNab was about to issue a sarcastic reply, asking who the fucking detective in the room was, when Helena’s mobile pinged.
Both men drew a breath together.
‘That’s it,’ Ollie said.
‘It better fucking well be,’ McNab said, relief in his voice.
Ollie had attached the mobile to a tracking device. McNab stared at the map on the screen with the small blinking dot.
‘Where is he?’
‘Near Loch Katrine, an hour north of here.’
Ollie brought up the text message on the big screen.
Entity
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CONTACT THE STONEWARRIOR CORE.
Ignore communications from anyone seeking information about the Game.
Tune in, turn on, play hard, Live or Die by the Game.
‘It’s the same fucking nonsense as last time,’ McNab said, exasperated.
‘He’s testing to see who sent the message.’
‘I fucking sent it.’
‘But he thinks you’re dead.’
McNab indicated the mobile. ‘Then let’s show him I’m very much alive.’
‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’
‘Do it,’ McNab ordered.
Ollie took the picture and McNab added his message.
Moments later, the dot on the screen disappeared.
‘The mobile’s been switched off,’ Ollie said. It was obvious by his expression that he thought they’d messed up.
McNab wasn’t so sure. His meeting with Kearney had shown him that his death had become a major goal in the game. McNab still being alive would be more than just an irritant. Kearney would see it as defeat, and that’s what McNab was counting on.
‘We wait,’ he said.
‘Maybe we should alert DI Wilson that he’s somewhere in the Trossachs,’ Ollie tried.
McNab shook his head. When they’d sent the photograph, he’d made clear that the fight was now between himself and Kearney. One on one, on the understanding that Helena wasn’t harmed.
McNab abandoned Ollie and lay down on the couch. Closing his eyes, he tried to think. Instinct and intuition told him that this was the way to deal with Kearney. He could be wrong and the girl already dead, but nothing had been posted online yet to suggest that. If she was dead, he could still catch Kearney if he got him to play along with his game this time.
His own mobile rang, startling him out of his reverie. He glanced at the screen to find Rhona’s name. He almost answered. He would have liked to talk to her, to run the whole scenario past her. But then again, he knew what she would say.
McNab switched the phone off in case he was tempted. The truth was, Rhona had been right from the beginning. He wasn’t cut out to be a DI. She hadn’t said that in so many words, but he’d sensed it, observed it in her reactions.
Well, if he was going down, he would do it his way.
Helena’s mobile rang out. In an instant McNab was up and back at the computer.
The dot reappeared on the screen.
‘He’s back inside the city boundary,’ Ollie said, excited.
McNab opened the text from Stonewarrior and read the instructions.
He hated this place even more than he’d hated the house he’d grown up in. He spent most of his time in the van, but he needed to get off the road and this was the place to do it. The first mobile call had unnerved him, then he’d decided it was a fake.
There was no way that detective could be alive. He’d watched the car crash down the bank and enter the water. He’d waited for the water to fill the open windows. Unconscious, the bastard had no chance of getting out before he drowned. So he’d left the scene, content and looking forward to the finale.
Now he realized that killing the detective had made him complacent. He’d lost his edge. Grown soft like his supplicant mother. He’d observed the girl in the back of the van with something resembling pity. He’d been stupid, but he wasn’t going to be stupid again.
The backstreet of lock-ups behind the house was deserted. He got out, opened up, and drove the van inside. Dotted around the walls was the boxed debris of Angus’s house-breaking days. He’d rummaged through it a few times and found some interesting stuff, which he’d sold. There was nothing of any value left, if you discounted Angus’s penchant for stealing women’s underwear.
He locked the garage door from the inside and went to check on the girl.
She was moaning softly. He thought of his uncle and what he would choose to do to her at this moment. In the darkness of the garage the thought brought a flashback as powerful as the original. He was in the blackness of the cupboard, only a chink of light allowing him to watch his uncle’s sexual antics. For a moment he was his younger self again, fascinated and repulsed, aroused and repelled.
He reached down and checked the pulse in her neck. It beat, but weakly. He couldn’t go on dosing her like this forever, but he needed an image that showed her as alive or else the detective wouldn’t believe him.
He set the mobile to take a video then untied the gag. Saliva dribbled down her chin and she coughed to clear her throat. He turned the mobile on himself, undid his zip and his prick rose in anticipation. Her eyes flickered open briefly and she gave a small moan.
He stopped recording and re-zipped himself. That should be enough to bring the detective running. He re-tied the gag. He could of course inject her now, but the flashback had brought a desire. One that he would enact.
He would kill the pig, then come back here and reward himself. One thing he could promise. She would die in ecstasy.