Grind Their Bones (23 page)

Tired of waiting for news from the guys with guns, I delved further into Reimoore’s affairs, striving to build up a picture of where he’d been and what assets he’d managed to acquire over the years with the benefit of all that money. He’d bought his way into the computing company that he now sat on as an Executive Director of some variety, and I realised sadly that it was the same company that Elizabeth Perry had innocently chosen to work for, not knowing that a predator with a taste for flesh sat watching her from his office and planning her death. Detectives from my office had been interviewing friends and colleagues, since I’d been engaged in following up other leads, so Reimoore’s name hadn’t yet struck a chord with anybody. He’d also built the home that he lived in with Madeleine using the proceeds from the sale of his old family residence, as well as purchasing property overseas in Morocco and France, and a cottage, that was extremely modest for his tastes judging by the sale price compared to the others, that was only a stone’s throw away in the Warwickshire countryside.

Geeta arrived back with coffee and I thanked her for it, advising her that she could go home to rest if she wished, since it seemed that none of us would be directly involved in the Grey Man’s capture now, but that her efforts had not gone unnoticed.

I knew that Geeta’s home was only five minutes by car from here, and that she’d engineered it to be that way once she’d been accepted for CID, selling up the place that she’d shared with a fiancé who was now no longer on the scene, and essentially marrying herself to the job instead. They don’t tell you what it will cost you, do they? I remembered the line from one of the Grey Man letters and had to bite down on the urge to lecture DC Badal on the importance of having something else to live for outside of work as she walked out of the door without a backwards glance.

I sipped my coffee and let my eyes wander back over the screen again as Lee re-entered the office drying his hands on his trousers.

‘I don’t suppose you’re still awake enough to run one more errand with me tonight before we go home?’

I asked, looking sheepish.

‘Go on then. But you’ll have to make it up to me later. Where are we going?’

He smiled lasciviously to emphasise his intent for the payback.

‘Reimoore has a country cottage not far from here, which strikes me as slightly odd for a man who already lives out in the sticks and has the money to go anywhere he chooses. I’d like a nose around there before we call it a day.’

Chapter 76

It was pitch black in the boot of the car, darker than she had thought possible, with the choking smell of petrol all around and the tape over her mouth half suffocating her. Grandma Madeleine truly believed she was as close to hell as she’d ever been. The car bounced up and down over the bumpy road surface, travelling at speed and pitching her against the hard sides of the confined space, bruising every square inch of her body. She guessed from the movements that they were out in the countryside somewhere on unpaved roads, and her mind immediately focussed on the little cottage that they owned but seldom used. Her next though was about the crossbow and assortment of knives for skinning, gutting and filleting that were kept there. 

All kinds of associations that had sat dormant in her memory, stubbornly ignored because of what acknowledging them would have meant, began to resurface as she rode the waves of pain and fought to pull enough oxygen into her lungs through the one nostril that remained unblocked to survive.

She thought first of the dead girl in their bathroom back in Plymouth, a mere scrap of a thing covered in bruises with her sightless eyes bulging. He’d stood before her then looking tearful and vulnerable, his whole world unravelling before his eyes and looking towards her for something that would make it alright again. I didn’t mean to, he’d said, and she’d acted on autopilot, finding something much colder inside herself than she’d wanted to acknowledge quickly emerging and taking charge. She could not allow this girl to ruin what they were building, not when they had so much to lose. She’d found herself fiercely scrubbing the tub and tiles with every type of scouring cloth and chemical that she could find, while her fiancé had been out in their car finding somewhere remote to dump the dead body of a strange girl wrapped in polythene.

The uncomfortable silence between them that had followed stretched out into days and weeks. With him immersing himself in work, and her keeping herself busy around the house and taking comfort in the feeling of the baby that was inside her growing and growing each day. She didn’t want to think about it now, but gradually the images from that night had begun to fade away. She could try to attribute it to the fog of late pregnancy descending if she liked, but deep down she knew that just wasn’t the case. The truth was that she had simply pushed those events to one side as an inconvenience, consigning them to a history that would not be revisited and separating them neatly from the things that mattered in her little world.

Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes and she panicked for a moment as she found herself temporarily unable to breathe again, blowing hard out of her nostrils to clear them and then inhaling as hard as she could, feeling dizzy and nauseous. She’d ignored the actions of a monster, and she’d ignored other patterns of behaviour over the years that told her he’d not stopped at just the one. She’d been set on convincing herself that there was always a reasonable explanation for the mist of blood on his clothing as it went into the wash, or the smell of smoke and petrol in his hair.

The car hit another rut in the dirt road, and she was tossed back against the rear of one of the headlight casings, feeling something hard and sharp tear a shallow wound in her scalp, and clenching her teeth against the flare of pain. It was a few more seconds of guilt and self pitying thoughts before she realised what that meant. A sharp edge could cut through the ropes that bound her hands together. A sharp edge meant the possibility of freedom. Grandma Madeleine might have been complicit in the deaths of numerous young women by virtue of her wilful inability to see what kind of creature her husband was. But she promised herself now that she would save the lives of the two terrified girls inside the car, even if it was at the cost of her own.   

Chapter 77

‘Sorry to be a pain, Za, but do you think we can stop and grab something to eat before we continue our quest up into the back end of beyond? I’m absolutely starving.’

Lee was thinking about his stomach as usual, and as I pushed aside my irritation I had to remind myself that it had been hours since any of us had last eaten, so I could hardly blame him for that. We were back in the Volvo and cutting a sweeping path across the dark B-roads that circled the inner city areas, so it wouldn’t be too far out of our way to pull in for a quick bite anyway.

‘No problem. where are you thinking of?’

I kept my eyes trained on the road ahead in case my expression involuntarily advertised the fact that, despite what I was saying, it was in fact a problem for me, but thankfully he didn’t seem to notice.

‘There’s a good Chinese place round this side somewhere I think. take the next right and go left at the bottom and I’ll guide you in from there.’ He said, pointing the direction seemingly just in case I’d forgotten which way right was.

‘Yes sir. I presume the tip will be good when we arrive at our destination though, sir?’ I replied sarcastically. If he was going to speak to me like I was a cabbie then I was sure as hell going to pull him up on it.

‘If there’s a problem with that then I don’t mind waiting.’

He looked at me quizzically, and I caught his expression as I glanced in the rear view mirror.

‘No…sorry. I’m just pissed that I’m not up there breaking down the door and slapping on the leg irons is all. We’ve both worked so hard on this case for so long that it seems somehow unfair that we’re being robbed of closure, especially since he’s been writing to me all the way through.’

I blew a stream of air up my forehead in an attempt to move the long curl that dangled in my eye line, and flicked on the indicator preparing to take a side road back in towards civilisation.

‘You know what? You’re right. Let’s run this errand first and eat afterwards. We might both feel better when we know that we’ve done everything that we can.’

He reached out and turned the indicator back off, grinning knowingly as I made a move to swipe his hand away.

‘It’s a deal mister. I’ll even spring for something fancier than a takeaway if it’s not past your bedtime already? There’s a late night Southern Indian place across town that I’ve been meaning to try for a while now.’

I looked across and we shared a small smile, the brief moment of tension between us evaporating as quickly as it had appeared.

Free to concentrate on the task at hand again I moved back over into the outside lane, and took a turning out towards open fields and dry stone walls, although the darkness obscured the fine detail of everything that fell beyond the reach of the headlight beams. The roads nearest to habitation were streaked with smears of road kill, much of it looking as if it had been hit only recently. Evidently it was a bad night to be out on the roads.

‘So what are you hoping that we’re going to find when we get to this cottage of his?’

Lee’s voice unexpectedly broke the stream of my thoughts and I paused to consider the question.

‘It could be anything; knives, rope, trophies that he kept back for himself from the victims. There might even be whatever he used to mince up Elizabeth’s body out here. Basically all of the things that he’s unlikely to be keeping around the house.’

We were all officially working on the assumption that he’d been acting alone on these horrific crimes, but we both knew that, although a rarity, there was a possibility that his wife was involved in some way. If that assumption was right then there could be a whole Aladdin’s cave of horrors waiting for us, in which case we’d call it in and preserve the scene for CSI rather than risk trampling all over items that might be needed to secure a successful conviction. My thoughts wandered again to Lexie and Annabel living blissfully unaware in the care of a monster. Hopefully by now they’d be on their way into the safety of police custody as the monster was taken down in chains.

In the dark stifling space Grandma Madeleine manoeuvred the rope binding her hands together over the sharp spike of hard plastic again, snagging the cord and working through another few precious threads before she was pitched off line and felt the point gouging into her wrists and forearms again. She could feel the blood flowing freely down the insides of her arms, and the carpet in the boot was warm and wet where her face rested in it, but faced with no other choice she continued to persevere, knowing that at any moment they could arrive at their destination and her efforts would have all been in vain.

She positioned the weakening ties back over the cutting edge again and chewed at the tape over her mouth; it was wet from saliva, snot and blood, and the combination was causing it to pull away at one corner, making it easier to draw in more precious oxygen to her lungs. As if on cue the last of the adhesive gave way and she was able to spit it onto the floor, savouring one deep breath before she realised what that meant. Now her teeth were free to work on the fraying rope too. Maybe just maybe she could get out of here alive, but failing that she’d go for his eyes with her nails and his throat with her teeth - leave him incapacitated for long enough to grab the keys and drive the girls away from harm.

Thoughts of escape spurred her on, and she alternated between using the plastic spike to rip through parts of the cord and tearing at it with her teeth like a crazed animal. She’d been fastidious about her appearance her whole life. It had been one of the things that had attracted him to her in the first place, when he’d sauntered over to her side full of confidence and charm, picking her to spend his nights with out of all of the girls in the dark club where the Navy boys came when they were on leave. Now though she couldn’t have cared less about how she looked though, as she felt a tooth coming loose from the effort of chewing tough fibres apart and carried on regardless. Now it was about survival pure and simple, everything else was completely unimportant.

After what felt like an eternity, the last strands finally gave way, and she was able to use both hands freely again. She adjusted herself into a different position and rubbed some feeling back into her wrists, feeling the blood returning now that there was nothing cutting into them anymore. She tried to ignore the weeping gashes and the pain that struck like lightning every time she clenched her fists, and set to work on untying the tight knots that fastened her ankles together, knowing that she’d need as much mobility as possible when the boot lid was opened. There’s only going to be one shot at this, get it wrong and all three of us are going to die horribly. Don’t you dare hesitate and kid yourself that he cares for you for even a second, or that small chance will be gone.

The car began to slow down perceptibly, bouncing heavily from side to side on its axles, and forcing her to push her arms and legs against the sides of the space to avoid more bruising impacts with the hard surfaces that were all around. Deprived of the ability to see anything by the ink thick darkness Madeleine was able to conjure up a clear mental picture of the trail that led up to the cottage, even thought she had not visited for sometime. She vividly recalled the deep ruts in the dirt track where the road disappeared from view and the small stone building came into view. They were here already.