Scream, You Die (6 page)

“Good job I’m resourceful.”

“Resourceful! Someone’s got a bollocking coming Monday morning. They shouldn’t release this number without my permission first.”

“Now, now, Detective Sergeant Macey, I don’t want you throwing your weight around. I’m a very persuasive man and you know that.”

She let out a laugh. “Well this better be good, Alex King, I’ve got a glass of wine that’s ready for topping up, a pasta bake for one in the oven and
X-Factor
on the telly. What more can a girl want on a Saturday evening?”

“Well I think I might just be able to better that.”

“Oh yes, and what might that be then?”

“I think I’ve found your sister.”

Her head went into a swirl. Her hand tightened around the phone. “Rose! Where?”

For the next few minutes she hung on to Alex’s every word. When he ended the call she found herself shaking.

Following the phone call Scarlett had not been able to eat her pasta bake. She’d managed a few mouthfuls, but mostly she’d pushed it around the plate, her mind in a daze. She had managed to finish the bottle of wine, though, and although she knew she shouldn’t, she opened another, refilling her glass, dwelling on what she had just been told.

Alex had possibly found her younger sister after all these years!

It was something she had managed to avoid thinking about for these last couple of months, thanks to work, but in the space of a few minutes the news had resurrected all her pent-up anxieties again. As she sipped on her replenished drink her thoughts went into a tailspin and flashes of ghostly images from her past leapt around in the deepest recesses of her mind. Especially imagery from that fateful night, almost eleven years ago, when she had learnt that her parents had been killed – murdered, more specifically – and her younger sister had fled the scene. She had been wanted in connection with their deaths ever since.

Swallowing another mouthful of wine, a feeling of guilt overcame her. Scarlett pulled away the glass and stared at the contents. She had been drunk that night – the fifteenth of February 2002. She still wore the date like an ugly wound cauterised into her grey cells. It was her second year at university, studying law, and she and a group of friends had hit the bars in Covent Garden celebrating Valentine’s night. She had been dating a guy in his final year and they had staggered back to the flat he shared with four other students. There they had polished off the remains of a bottle of vodka and collapsed into bed just before two a.m. She had been awoken three hours later by the incessant ringing of her mobile. It was the police, who said they needed to know where she was. She knew it had to be serious, but not for one moment did she think just how bad the news was going to be. Ten minutes later two cops were banging at the door giving her the news of her parent’s death. She had viewed the remainder of that day through a woozy fog, nursing the worst hangover she had ever had.

Detectives did interview her, initially in an off-hand manner, but once they had confirmed she had been with at least a dozen other people at the time that her parents had met their deaths, they told her what they knew of the circumstances.

She learned that earlier that night, her mother, Carran, and her father, John, had also been celebrating Valentine’s with a meal in a restaurant when they had been interrupted by a phone call from the police. Rose, who had then been sixteen, had been detained by officers called to a fight near Covent Garden station involving two women. When the police had got there they had found Rose grappling with an older woman. She was drunk and refused to calm down and so they had detained her. The older woman didn’t want to complain but because Rose was so inebriated they had taken her to hospital. Her dad, who was a detective sergeant in Lewisham CID, knew the officers who had escorted Rose, and had persuaded them to leave it with him. He and her mum had driven straight to the hospital and collected her, still in her drunken state, from the A&E department. Half an hour later a young couple driving home from a nearby pub had come across their crashed car, embedded in a tree, on an unlit country lane. Their phone call had brought out all the emergency services and it was determined that this was no ordinary accident. Her father had been found lying in undergrowth only yards from his car, covered in blood and in a critical condition. Paramedics discovered within a minute of examining him that he had been stabbed in the stomach and the chest. Firemen and traffic police attending to the car found her mother dead in the front passenger seat. She had taken the full impact of the collision when their car had hit the tree. Her dad had been rushed to hospital and taken directly to theatre. Sadly, he had died while undergoing surgery.

At first the police at the scene hadn’t realised about her younger sister Rose, until Scarlett had mentioned her being missing. Then they had carried out a search. It wasn’t long before they found bloodstains and tracks leading away from the scene into the copse of trees beside the lane, prompting an even wider exploration. But despite the search parameters being extended and tracker dogs being used they did not find Rose. She had disappeared and a murder hunt was launched.

Initially, the detectives interviewing Scarlett never actually said that Rose was a suspect, but the implication was there, such was their line of questioning, and Scarlett still felt guilty about how she had responded during those early days of the investigation. After all, it was she who had revealed Rose’s problems.

Her younger sibling had always been difficult. Scarlett could remember that as a young child Rose would say and do the most hurtful things and would regularly throw a tantrum before sinking into days of depression where she wouldn’t communicate with anyone. She could recall, after one bad outburst, her father locking Rose in the bedroom, shouting at her that she was just an attention-seeking, spoilt little brat. As a teenager the temper tantrums worsened. During one of her manic bouts she assaulted two teachers at her school and was excluded. That was when her parents took Rose to the doctors. She was referred to a psychologist but no definite diagnosis could be made. From then on her behaviour deteriorated. At the age of fourteen Rose began drinking and hanging out with older teenagers. She could remember her father having to go out many a night to bring Rose home. More often than not she would be in a drunken stupor.

And through those early days of the enquiry, albeit Scarlett fought her sister’s corner vehemently, telling the detectives that despite Rose’s bad behaviour she couldn’t believe for one minute that she would kill their mum and dad, having no other independent witnesses, and no other information to hand, she had been circulated as a suspect.

After that her life changed irreversibly; the event had shaped her life and her career. In the year following, Scarlett gave evidence at her parent’s inquest, in which the verdict of “murder by persons known or unknown” had been recorded against her father and an open verdict against her mother. She had overseen their burial and completed her law exams, where in spite of the distraction she gained a 2:1. She had celebrated attaining her degree by getting drunk alone and falling early into bed, sobbing her heart out.

For a while she had wondered how she was going to carry on with her life. Everything she had dreamed of lay in ruins. Then it had come to her one night in a half-drunken state. Her father had been a detective, and she’d grown up on a TV diet of
Prime Suspect
,
Cracker
and
A Touch of Frost
. Joining the police seemed the most natural thing in the world. And she knew it would give her a way in to do her own digging. She had kept in touch with one of the detectives involved in her parent’s case. He had provided her with regular updates, from which she had made notes, and she had compared those alongside the many and different newspaper reports, studying and dissecting the information. But no matter how hard she tried to pick between the lines everything still led back to her sister.

And those were the reasons why, instead of being a lawyer, like her father had wanted her to be, she had joined the Metropolitan Police. Since then she had worked tirelessly behind the scenes to uncover the truth and track down her sister Rose. She had been waiting a long time for this news.

Grazyna didn’t know how long she’d been out for. When she came to, the first thing she noticed was that the curtains had been drawn back, bathing the room in a warm ambient light.

And she was alone.

A feeling of relief washed over her.

On the bedside cabinet she saw that someone had left her a sandwich and a bottle of water. Despite the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach the sight of it made her realise just how hungry she was. The last time she’d eaten had been on the plane and that was well over a day ago. She reached over to grab the sandwich and in doing so caught the top of her shoulder. A sharp pain shot down her arm. The jolt reminded her of what the two men had done to her and glancing down she saw the burn marks the soldering iron had made. Heaving herself up, Grazyna took another look. Lingering along its outlines she delicately traced a finger over the tenderness. The shape of the ugly red mark reminded her of a crescent moon and star. She would be left with a permanent scar.

Why are they doing this to me?

For what seemed like the hundredth time she re-ran everything that had happened to her inside her head and once more her chest began to tighten. She took a long deep breath and held it. She needed to stay focussed if she wanted to come through this. Nevertheless, even as she tried to control the release of the captured breath she felt it reverberate up through her throat as the anxiety remained. She took another slow breath, and as she did so she caught the sound of the stairs creaking.

Ten seconds later the key clicked in the lock and the door opened. Skender stood in the doorway.

Grazyna froze with fear.

He stepped into the room alternating his gaze between her and the bedside cabinet.

“You need to eat and drink. You need your strength.”

He walked towards her and she cowered away, pulling the duvet up towards her chin. She watched Skender’s mouth take on that jackal-like smirk of his. It filled her with fear.

He sat on the edge of the bed, picked up one half of the sandwich and pushed it towards her. “Here, you eat.”

Grazyna eyed him nervously. She didn’t know if she could stomach it. She felt sick again.

He held the sandwich at arms length, jabbing it towards her face, glaring. Nervously she lowered the duvet and reluctantly took it from his grasp. As she bit into the bread and cheese he pulled away his gaze and levelled it upon the branding on her shoulder.

Chinning towards her he said, “I do that to protect you.” He pulled back his eyes and met hers. “People know you now work for me. They not touch you.” He pushed himself up. “Now you eat up, and then you bathe and get dressed. We go in a few hours.” As Skender strolled back towards the door he picked up her suitcase. “You not need this anymore. I give you clothes.” He flicked his head towards the wardrobe. “You wear something in there after you bathe. I come up in one hour. You be ready or trouble.”

With that, he left the room with her case, this time not closing the door.

****

Grazyna did manage to force down the cheese sandwich and gulp down the water while staring out through the barred window. It was the first time she’d done so. The road below had a steady flow of traffic passing along it and she got the impression that although they weren’t on a main street, because all she saw was an endless row of houses with tiny low-walled gardens, she still thought they must be on a busy thoroughfare. From up here she got a partial glimpse of the inside of the vehicles that passed, and as she watched one lady making a call on her mobile, she wished that could be her. As the car passed she spotted a young woman pushing a buggy, crossing the road, directly beneath. For a brief moment she did contemplate smashing the window and shouting for help. But as she toyed with the idea her heart missed a beat, as a disturbing vision of the consequences flashed inside her brain – not just for her but for the young woman and her child and she wavered against it. She also remembered the threats Skender had made against her younger sister. With a feeling of despair she stepped back and determined it would be best if she took the bath Skender had ordered her to take.

With a heavy heart she undressed slowly, wrapped a towel around her and apprehensively made her way along the landing to the bathroom. Standing before the mirror she stared at herself. She looked as awful as she felt. Her shoulder-length straw-coloured hair was a tangled mess and had lost its usual shine. Behind dark-ringed eyelids her pale blue eyes were lifeless and bloodshot. And then there was the angry-looking burn marks to her right shoulder.

No young man will ever want me again.

She couldn’t believe Andrius had betrayed her like he had. She so much wanted to believe that Skender was lying, but she knew deep down that wasn’t the case.

Grazyna ran the bath as hot as she could bear without the water scalding her, and lay in it scrubbing at her skin until she was red and sore. Upon finishing she wound the towel around her lobster-pink flesh and returned to the bedroom.

Recalling what Skender had said, she pulled open the wardrobe door. It had a rack full of clothes but they weren’t of a style she was expecting. Shiny black PVC trousers and skirts, skin-tight metallic dresses and crop-tops filled every hanger. Below was an assortment of differently sized footwear consisting of patent-leather boots and high-heel sling-back shoes. Trashy clothes.

Grazyna gulped. She had a bad feeling about this.

I have to escape.

For five long minutes she stared at the rack of clothing, wishing there would be something there that wouldn’t make her look like a tart. A feeling of despair enveloped her as she realised no amount of wishing was going to change her situation.

From below Grazyna heard a door bang. Her heart leapt. Footsteps clomped up the stairs and she caught her breath.

He said one hour!

The footsteps stopped on the landing below and a door was opened. Then it closed. She released a long sigh, but the activity had caused an element of fear to rise within her and it burst her into action. Grazyna dove her hands into the wardrobe and began rummaging through the clothes again, checking most of the garments at least twice for size before finally selecting a pair of shiny black leggings, knee-length patent leather boots, a red crop-top and a short leather jacket. She knew it made her look cheap and tarty, but her appearance wasn’t as bad as it could have been in some of the clothing she’d dismissed. She just hoped Skender would approve.

Finally, not wanting to feel his wrath again, she tiptoed back to the bathroom, brushed her hair, cleaned her teeth and applied a little of the make-up which had been left on the dressing table.

As she checked herself again in the mirror she wasn’t happy with what she saw, but she had no choice – especially if she wanted to survive.

Making her way back to the bedroom Grazyna stopped for a moment on the landing and peered down the gloomy staircase. She listened, hoping to pick out Kofryna’s voice in the rooms below, but not a sound came back. In fact, except for the sound of a television playing out somewhere downstairs the house was quiet. She cast her gaze over the banister to catch a glimpse of the entrance hallway. For a second she thought about making her escape, and tried to judge how far down she had to run and how long it might take, but from here up she couldn’t see if the front door was unlocked. She thought that more than likely it wasn’t and rubbed away the thought.

With a sense of dread Grazyna returned to the bedroom and dropped down onto the bed.

And waited.