(2011) The Gift of Death (31 page)

She took a deep breath and waited for him to be as far away across the room as possible. Then with a swift movement she reached for the keys. As she lifted them she prayed she was right.

At the first jangle of the keys she heard him stop swinging the chain. Then his footsteps. Then the noise of the chain reeling through the air once more. In her direction.

She quickly worked through the keys, fingering each one for a soft rubber button or something similar.

‘
I’m coming,’ he said, now half way across the room.

There. She had found one. She was sure of it. She pressed it, twice in quick succession. The car next to her locked, then unlocked itself. Fuck.

‘
You’re getting desperate,’ he said. His voice was closer now. She could hear the chain whipping through the air.

Her fingers carried on working the keys.

‘
Give it up, blind girl.’

She wanted to tell him to go fuck himself. But she stopped herself. He might be able to hear the keys, but she didn’t want to give him any extra clue to her location in the room.

Then her fingers found it. The remote key. She pressed it down and heard a click, followed by the scrape of metal. The door begin to groan open. She ran towards it. She felt the rush of air on her face. She heard the sound of traffic in the distance. Freedom.

She bent down to squeeze herself under the door, but as she did so she heard the swish of something in the air above her head. A moment later the chain lashed into her shoulder. She felt herself fall to the floor. It was over. He had won.

39

Kate looked at her watch. Again. Cassie was forty five minutes late. She bit her lip, wondering whether to call the cab company or just wait a little longer. But now the roast chicken looked like it was slowly turning into crispy duck and the sweet potato wedges resembled something from a forest fire. She had already tried Cassie’s cell, but either it was switched off or she was in an area where there was no reception. Fuck it. She pulled out her phone from her jeans pocket and pressed speed dial.

‘
Courtesy Cars.’ The voice of the woman was as smoky as a backroom bar. ‘How can I help you?’

‘
Hi, it’s Kate Cramer here. I ordered a cab to pick up from Venice Beach an hour and a half ago and the car hasn’t arrived.’

‘
Where are you?’

‘
Just off Tower Grove Drive.’

‘
Let me check on its current location and get back to you.’

Two minutes later Kate’s phone rang.

‘
Hi, it’s Elaine from Courtesy. I’m afraid we’ve got a bit of a problem.’

Kate waited to hear the lame excuse. A bust tyre. A diversion on the freeway. A freak cloudburst over Sunset.

‘
The thing is, we can’t contact the driver. I’ve radioed him but he’s not responding. It’s really not like him at all. Jan is one of our most reliable –‘

Kate cut her off. ‘You mean he’s out of range?’

‘
Well, no. None of the drivers are ever out of range in LA. Our equipment means that –‘

‘
So he’s switched his radio off, is that it?’

‘
He could’ve. But none of the drivers are supposed to do that.’

‘
When was the last time you heard from him?’

‘
I don’t see why it’s necessary to –‘

‘
Elaine, trust me on this. Do you have any kind of log?’

‘
Sure.’

‘
Can you just check. Please.’

There was a pause. ‘Okay. Give me a second. I’m going to put you on hold. If you hear a dead line don’t think I’ve cut you off.’

‘
Thanks.’

Kate suddenly felt sick. She walked over to the oven and turned it off. She poured herself a glass of water and drank it down in one. On the first ring she picked up her cell.

‘
Okay, this is what I’ve found,’ said Elaine. ‘Jan last called saying he was on his way to pick up your friend in Venice Beach. That was at 17:00.’

‘
And nothing since then?’

‘
No, but I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for this.’

Kate couldn’t think of one.

‘
He could’ve had a breakdown and his radio could have malfunctioned or something.’

‘
Does he have a cell?’

‘
Yeah, sure.’

‘
And you’ve tried that, right?’

‘
Yeah.’

‘
And?’

‘
No answer.’

‘
Shit.’

‘
But –‘

‘
Elaine. I don’t want to be melodramatic, but something’s not right about this.’

‘
What do you mean?’

‘
I can’t go into it now. But just to warn you I’m going to call a friend who’s a cop.’

‘
Really, I don’t think it’s necessary at –‘

‘
It’s not an argument.’ She heard her voice rise. ‘Sorry to sound brusque. But I’ve got to go. Thanks.’

She cut the connection and quickly dialled Josh’s number. As she tried to explain the situation – Cassie’s no show for supper, the cab, no contact with the driver - her words came tumbling out.

‘
Hey – Kate. Slow – slow down,’ he said.

‘
I’m scared for her, Josh. I know Walsh is locked up, but I don’t like this.’

‘
Okay. I’ll get in touch with the cab company now and see what I can find. I’ll call you back.’

Kate tried to think about normal, banal things and do normal, banal things. She took the chicken out of the oven; they could always eat it cold, she thought. But there was no hope of salvaging the sweet potatoes, which she tipped into the trash. What could they eat with cold chicken? She started to make a salad with lamb’s lettuce, cherry tomatoes, celery, avocado and carrot. But as she grated the carrot her hand slipped. The grater took off a thin slice of her wedding finger. Fuck. She ran it under the tap and watched as the drops of blood disappeared in a spiral down the plug. She dressed it with a Band-Aid and sat down to watch some TV, conscious of the stinging pain in her right hand. Every time she experienced physical discomfort she always reminded herself of the kind of pain some people had been forced to endure. Allie, for instance, the girl who had been stabbed sixty-six times by a stranger, who had still not been caught. She remembered she had been thinking about her that day when she had been taking photographs of the waves. The day she had found the dead baby. The day the nightmare started.

Her phone rang.

‘
Kate, it’s Josh.’ His voice was breathy, infused with panic.

‘
What is it?’

‘
The body of a man has just been discovered in the underpass near the Los Angeles river, the connection of the Golden State freeway and the Glendale Freeway. There was an ID card in his wallet.’

‘
And?’

‘
His name was Jan Kaplinski. He was a driver employed by Courtesy Cars.’

40

She lay on the floor, eaten up by pain. She tried to ease herself forwards in the direction of the closing door, but it was useless. She felt something wet and slimy on her face. Car oil. Then she heard his footsteps. Soft and slow. Deliberate. She knew that he could see her now. And she could sense his enjoyment. He had successfully caught his prey and he was going to savour every moment.

‘
Well, now, what have we got here?’ he said, standing over her. ‘You put up quite a fight for a blind girl.’

As he reached out to touch her hair she started to tremble all over, as if her body had gone into spasm. She was powerless now.

He started to stroke the soft skin at the back of her neck. Then he caressed her cheek.

‘
You’ve gotten yourself all dirty. Time we cleaned you up.’

He seized hold of her hands and pulled her up. There was no point in fighting. Not now. He guided her across the workshop until she came to what felt like some kind of wooden bench.

‘
Here’s a chair,’ he said. He placed one of her hands on the arms and then pressed on her shoulder. The pain shot through her again.

‘
Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘About the chain, I mean. But I couldn’t allow you to escape. Not after everything. Now sit.’

She fell into the chair – a low lying chair, with what felt like a canvas seat – and then she heard him moving things around on the worktop. He pulled something out of a box and then moved back closer towards her. She felt something soft and slightly perfumed touch her cheek. A tissue. Gently, he ran the tissue over her skin in a circular movement. He was cleaning her, she realised. But then she thought – for what? What was he going to do to her?

She tried to keep her breath steady, but the more she tried to calm herself the more she felt like her chest was going to explode. Her fear felt like a nest of insects trapped deep inside her.

‘
That’s better, isn’t it?’ he said, as he pulled another tissue out of the box. ‘We don’t want anything to spoil your beauty, do we?’

She felt his eyes on her. Studying her. Assessing her. Looking at her as if she were not a person, but some kind of object. Something that he had control over. Something he could keep. Something he could kill.

She had to try and speak. Maybe if she could talk to him she could find a way out of this. She tried to clear her throat, but her windpipe felt dry. She moved her tongue about in her mouth, and tasted the bitterness of bile. She coughed, but she swallowed her first words. She forced herself to try again.

‘
W – what’s your n- name?’

‘
Don’t you know?’

‘
No – no.’

‘
But you felt my face, right?’

‘
Yes – but.’

‘
But what?’

‘
It can’t be possible. It’s –‘

‘
It’s true.’ His voice took on a sharp edge. ‘Now shut up.’

She felt him snatch hold of her right hand. Then something wet and jelly-like on her fingers. Then the feel of something soft, the sheath of a tissue running up and down each finger, cleaning each of them in turn.

He did the same with her left hand, massaging each of her fingers with, from the smell of its strong perfume, some kind of industrial strength cleanser. Then she felt a nail brush skim across the surface of each of her fingertips, gently sloughing off every drop of oil, every last spot of grease.

‘
There, there,’ he said. His voice was soft, tender even. Perhaps he wasn’t going to hurt her after all.

She heard him move away from her towards the work bench. He was looking for something. He expelled his breath slightly as he lifted something off the surface and carried it over. She heard the clash of metal on metal and then the gradual turning of a screw. She felt he was concentrating on something. He wanted to get something exactly right. She heard him make various adjustments – another couple of screws were turned – and then suddenly he wrenched her right hand upwards.

She tried to fight, but he was too quick. He gripped both of her wrists, expertly tying one to the arm of the chair and bringing the other one, her right hand, onto what felt like a flat surface of cold metal. He pushed her flesh down, and then grasped hold of her forefinger, extending it outwards. Her other fingers tried to scratch him, but he was too strong. He clamped his hand over hers with all his strength, pushing it down.

She heard the screw turning. And a second later the feeling of cold metal either side of her forefinger. Then the pressure – the terrific pressure – that started to crush her index finger. She screamed – half from shock, half from pain. She struggled with all her strength, turning her body violently in the chair in the hope that she could somehow wrestle herself free. But what if she tipped over her chair? Then, with her hand clasped in the vice, she could easily break her wrist or arm, or worse.

But she had to try. She thrashed about, screaming like something possessed. She thought she heard something fall, or smash, in the distance. Was someone else at home?

‘
Help. Help me, please,’ she screamed.

‘
There’s no-one to help you now,’ he said, laughing to himself. ‘And by the way the whole place is sound proofed.’