The Night Hunter (26 page)

I shine the torch on some bottles on the shelf, now at eye level, and I recognize the name: Amoxicillin.

Eric is a full-blown nutter. He is keeping them alive – more than that, he’s keeping them healthy. But there is someone here.

Still alive.

Then I realize that my phone is missing. I have left it behind the first water door. Big mistake.

I will not make another. I pull a long-handled scalpel from the wall and tuck it into my sock. Then I take a hammer in my hand, just to make sure. Very sure. Just in case he brings the dogs.

I hear the noise again, muffled, and kneel down. The upper half of the work bench is divided like a sailor’s chest, three drawers then six. But the bottom half is one big drawer, the same dimensions as a coffin. I grasp the drawer handle and pull. The noise inside gets worse, the pathetic little mewling increasing to a blood-curdling shriek. The drawer jams, it’s too heavy for me to pull out any further. I put the hammer between my teeth so I can have both hands on the handles. They are almost at the full width of my arm span. I grip hard and heave.

The noise of metal grinding on metal jars my teeth as the drawer judders open. In the vague light, it takes me a while to work out what I am looking at. It’s wriggling like it’s alive, but smells of rotting flesh and human faeces. It smells dead already.

Something thrums on the bottom of the drawer, the noise echoing round the stone walls. Instinctively I put my hand out to stop it. I touch something familiar: dry, hot skin. A bony shin kicks against my palm. Wide white eyes stare out in sheer, raw fear, the pupils focusing on the hammer in my teeth. The squealing increases and her mouth pulls against the tape that holds her lips closed, saliva seeping from underneath, foaming and bleeding. There is a blood-stained T-shirt over her chest, a pool of urine in the bottom of the drawer, and it takes a minute to recognize the skeletal thinness, the emaciation. Her lower limbs are bare, she has a single metal cuff on her arm; the skin around it is swollen, bleeding and crusted. There is an echo here of the marks on Lorna’s leg. The sweet odour of infection floats over the stench of her body fluids. The cuff is attached to a chain, and the chain is welded to the side of the drawer.

When I do meet her eyes, they are windows of sheer terror, staring deep into mine. Not even pleading. Nothing human is left. Just fear.

‘You’re safe,’ I whisper, unable to resist a look over my shoulder to make sure that we are still alone.

She does not hear me and starts kicking, rattling her heels against the metal of the drawer. So much noise will draw attention. I hold her legs down but she struggles even more. When I place my hand on her chest, she tries to writhe from under it. Her efforts to get away from me are intense.

‘Stop making that noise, please. He doesn’t know I’m here.’

She pauses, slightly; is she trying to register what I said?

‘It’s over. You are safe.’ I keep saying it and saying it until she lies still. Her eyes are still wary, she doesn’t trust herself. Or me. ‘You’re safe. Don’t struggle any more. It’s over. Can you hear me OK?’

I place the back of my hand on her forehead; she is running a high temperature. ‘Can you hear me?’ I repeat.

She nods, a quick, panicky nod. Then she pulls her head back, as if trying to retreat back into the drawer. Tears appear in her eyes, she has known pain for too long.

‘I’m going to take that tape off your face. I need to speak to you.’

She nods again but her eyes are flitting over my shoulder. Foam is still seeping from underneath the edge of the duct tape at the corner of her mouth. ‘Stay still if you can.’

There is a remote gurgle in the water. It echoes in the air around us, the deep rumble that I had been aware of before. The woman kicks again; her eyes dart towards the door and back to me. The noise passes and there is silence again.

‘Is that what you hear when he comes to get you?’

She nods in panic. Her face is skeletal, her bones right under the skin, her mouth bony and protuberant. Her eyes flash again, she is trying to warn me.

‘If he comes, I will kill him.’

Our eyes meet. She is daring herself to believe me, daring herself to believe that the nightmare is over.

‘I need to put this torch in my teeth so I can see properly.’

She nods again, tears flowing now. She is pitiful. I hold her chin in one hand and gently flick up the corner of the tape with the nail of my forefinger. She wheezes in pain, her heels kicking again. The adhesive of the tape lifts the skin, a steady stream of blood starts to thread over her chin. I drop the torch from my teeth. ‘Sorry, but if I pull, I’ll just peel your skin off. That will have to wait until you’re at the hospital. We can dissolve it and it will come off easily.’

The words register with her. The blink of her eyes makes me smile. As if we’ll just go to hospital and all will be well. Then she whimpers; she is trying to tell me something. She starts to cry, real proper tears, sobbing, great intakes of breath. Relief? She starts to shake and I recall my medical training. Sometimes touch is the only weapon we have. In the Western, on the night Sophie was attacked, when I sat beside the dying man, a nurse took me to one side and told me to hold his hand. She didn’t actually say the words
you fucking moron
but that’s what she meant. When I put my hand on his bony, sweaty head, he opened his eyes a little, as if it was some comfort that he was not alone.

I place my hand on this woman’s hair, this temperature needs medical help. ‘I need to get out now. My friend is away for help. Are there more of you down here?’

She nods.

I take a deep breath. ‘Is there someone called Sophie?’

Her eyes widen.

‘Is there somebody called Sophie here, a girl? Blonde?’ In spite of myself, I stare her down. She blinks, tears running slowly from her eyes, then she moves her head.

She is here.

‘Thank you. Thank you …’ My voice catches in my throat. ‘I am going to leave you.’ The kicking with the heels starts again, and her skeleton rattles around in her metal coffin. Her whole body jerks like she is having a fit. ‘You must be still. I have to leave you and I need to close the drawer.’

At that she goes absolutely ballistic.

‘I need to leave and get help, but I will be back.’ I add, ‘Soon.’ I need to get to Sophie.

She starts shaking her head again, trying to tell me something that I am not getting. There is a rumble, and this time it seems high above me. She squirms and wriggles, her heels kicking hard. Her eyes dart behind me to the door, then to me, then to the door. ‘Is that him coming now?’

She nods frantically, fear bleeding from her eyes.

‘Don’t worry. I will see you soon, I promise.’ I place the palm of my hand on her forehead. ‘Just pretend that this did not happen.’

She looks straight ahead. I know that she’s thinking I am a dream. Or a nightmare. Something that her infected brain has dreamed up to taunt her. She thinks that she will wake and know that this never happened. I turn off the torch and close the drawer, leaving her to her own private hell while I go and find my sister.

I move as quietly as I can in the darkness, trying to minimize the slapping of my wet shoes on the flagstones. I don’t want to go back the way I came in case I run into Eric. I creep back out into the main corridor, trying to get my bearings, and follow the slight downward path that goes deeper into the earth. There is a warm pipe suspended above the flagstones by clasps hammered into the wall.

There are other women down here.

Sophie is down here.

I pass other water doors, some boarded up, some cemented over. I go on, amazed by how far this underground tunnel goes. There is some engraving on the wall, the date 1943. I can make out the S of Scottish, the HY of hydro. Were these the tunnels built by the prisoners of war? No wonder Eric knew so much about it. It made sense. I pass another door and then another. The tunnel begins to narrow and flatten, I am running out of space and – as if to remind me I am running out of time as well – there is another rumble overhead. I go to the last door. I place my fingers under the bottom of it and it lifts easily. The noise of water running overhead can be heard elsewhere in the system; all Eric has to do is follow the noise.

I feel the warmth inside and light floods out. I look under the door and take everything in. My heart skips a beat with every piece of the jigsaw I see. A side view of a blonde woman sitting in front of a fire, ice blonde. Her hands lie in her lap, her head is slightly bowed. She is clothed, she could be reading a book. She has a padded armchair, the chair is sitting on a rug. A standard lamp shines an amber light over her shoulder; the flex runs up to the ceiling and disappears. She has a small table of books beside her, a glass of orange juice. Then I see the hair, the familiar double plait twisted into a clasp.

‘Sophie?’ I call under the door. ‘Soph.’ I don’t actually know if I am making any noise. I try again but my breath has been stolen.

And there is no answer.

Sophie!
I am nearly sick.

We have come so far.

I try to lift the door further. But there is a rumble, a cough that sounds very close. It didn’t come from the room but from behind me.

My brain is screaming at me to run; it has registered something that I have not.

Eric is on his way.

I retreat. The simple act of removing my hands lets the slab fall to the ground. It closes with no noise apart from the gurgle of water from overhead. I retreat into the tunnel. I have the hammer, I have the scalpel; all I need is surprise. I hear no panting or pitter-patter of dog claws.

The passage narrows, it’s darker, narrower, colder. It smells damp. It twists slightly left and right. I think that, if I have come in the right direction, I must be under the old ruined croft by now. Where the dogs were kept, underground.

That makes me stop. I do not want to run into them.

I look up. The rough ceiling was hewn from the rock many years ago. I feel up with my fingertips, there’s a ledge above my head. It’s only a few inches deep but is the full width of the tunnel and above head height. It would be behind Eric if he came this way. Getting up on it is easy; staying up there without rolling off is not. I brace myself against the sides, rotating myself on to my right side. And stay there, the hammer clasped in my crossed arms, the scalpel tucked down my right sock. If he walks this way, I can drop down behind him and kill him. I calm myself, taking comfort in how fit and strong I am. Much stronger than he will think I am. I settle my heart; we are nearing the end of this.

I lie in the stillness.

I have to push my tongue into the back of my teeth to stop myself from crying. Sophie will be coming home.

My heart starts to thud as I hear the quiet slop of Eric’s shoes on the flagstone floor come this way, then cease. Is he looking for me or just doing his rounds as a jailor? I do not hear the dogs but I do hear the slab rise and the whoosh of water overhead. The sound is diminished, distant now. I hear him mutter something, the consonants echo on the bare walls. He is impatient rather than panicked. Could he have missed the phone? Could he have missed the torch? No. He knows I am here and he is confident that I will not get away.

That is the frightening thing.

The door rumbles, to its open position I presume, and I hear him go into the room. I hear him say
hello
, and something that might be
How are you doing?

It seems a quiet conversation, relaxed and casual. I can hear an answering voice, low and measured. They appear to be having a calm chat – I know that cannot be right.

I catch only the odd word of her replies. I am aware my bones are aching, my wet clothes are sticking to me, and my hands and feet are starting to chill. I can’t afford to lose the use of them, so I flex the fingers of my right hand and then my left. Right when Eric is talking, the left when Sophie is talking. There is no point to listening as I cannot hear, and the conversation never changes in pitch or volume. It is like a tennis match or a well-rehearsed play.

I don’t know how long I have been here for. My joints are getting very stiff and sore. If I don’t move soon I am going to roll off my perch.

I resort to counting from one to a hundred and back down again. Then I hear the footfall, a slight click and a rumble. The footfall recedes. Silence, no noise of water being moved around. Where is he now? I don’t care. I put the hammer in my mouth and slide down the wall on to the floor, pause, listen, moving my fingers and my toes all the time.

I think about Sophie. I can’t leave her here. She looked fit and well, she will help me get out of here and then we can get help for the woman in the drawer.

Sophie will know what to do.

Heart pounding, I go back to the slab. I put my hands underneath but it is harder to open now as there is less water on the other side to cantilever it. But after sitting for a moment I summon the strength and then pull up hard. It lifts slowly; as every muscle strains I see the small groove at the side of the slab that acts as a runner for it to slide up and down. Eric is a fine engineer. I hold it until I am sure that the slab will stay, then I roll underneath, hardly able to breathe because I am about to say hello to my sister. Lizzie and Laura reunited. I end up sitting in front of the slab, cross-legged. Looking at the girl with her back to me, blonde, the hair twisted in Sophie’s style. A little voice is nagging at the back of my head – the way she is holding herself. The perfect to and fro conversation. The voice starts screaming but I just whisper,
‘
Hello
.’

Sophie does not turn round. She sits very still, looking at her lap. She has not moved. She has not moved since the moment I first saw her. I stand up, keeping my back to the rocky walls of this strange room. My brain works logically. There is a small table under the standard lamp, a teapot and a china cup. Orange juice. There are cakes and biscuits. But the figure has not moved. She is not answering. She is not breathing.

‘Hello?’ I say again, quietly. As her face comes into view, I acknowledge the relief that this is not Sophie. Her eyes stare into the fire, she is extraordinarily beautiful. I think I recognize her.