The Meating Room (34 page)

Gilchrist listened for some response that might confirm his theory. But Magner’s breathy silence gave nothing away, only that he was finding the going tough.

The tunnel dipped for a short stretch, taking them deeper. The sound of dripping water was closer too, the floor damp enough for their boots to slap the odd splash. Without any ventilation system – nothing to pump air in one end and suck it out the other – just the effort of walking had sweat running down his face, tickling his neck. His lungs laboured to pull in sufficient air to breathe.

But he knew he had to keep talking.

‘Most suicides put the tube from the exhaust through the rear window. It’s easier to open the door to sit in the front seat if you do it that way. And stuffing the scarf in from the outside was a bit sloppy, I have to tell you. Didn’t I tell you that it’s always the smallest things?’ The memory of Jessie’s words that morning sent hope surging through him.

He was not done and dusted yet. Just keep talking.

‘And I’m guessing it was maybe mid-afternoon when you killed Amy. Which gave you plenty of time to hack her up, shower yourself clean, and make it to Tentsmuir Forest that evening. But what did you give the kids when they got home from school? A soft drink from their favourite uncle? Spiked with enough drugs to have them unconscious within minutes, ready to be smothered?’

Nothing.

‘They were
children
, you murdering bastard. What harm could they do to you?’

Still no response – not even a grunt or an angry prod in the back to remind him to shut up.

‘And what did you give Brian? A celebratory spiked Grey Goose?’ Gilchrist stopped to catch his breath. ‘What did you have to celebrate? A new business deal? Another million quid in your bloated bank account? I don’t think so. I’m guessing Amy told Brian about her rape complaint. Or maybe Janice did. And Brian was going to—’

An electric shock fired through Gilchrist.

‘You’re doing a lot of guessing,’ Magner said, his tone giving the impression that the cramped walk through an ever-tightening tunnel was like a stroll in the park. But he was fooling no one. He prodded his rifle at Gilchrist’s left arm again.

Gilchrist let out another cry of pain.

‘Maybe that’ll teach you to shut it.’

Gilchrist fought back tears as the pain in his left arm subsided. But the sound of Magner’s heavy breathing assured him that Magner was faring no better, and that his facial injuries and physical bulk were working against him in the confined space.

‘Keep going,’ Magner grunted. ‘Nearly there.’

Gilchrist did as he was told, and clasped his left arm with his right hand, trying to stifle the pain. His fingers throbbed with a pulse that ticked to the beat of his heart. But that was the least of his worries. They were nearing the end of the tunnel, and more than likely the end of his life. The air seemed too thick to breathe, the cramp in his legs too strong for him to continue. But he pressed on.

Another fifteen steps brought them to another bend where the tunnel turned through forty-five degrees. When Gilchrist squeezed round the corner, he faced what he thought was a dead end, until he realised it was a door.

He stopped.

The door was metal, not as corroded as the others, but lacking a handle. He pushed it and heard the metallic rattle of the deadbolt against the latch-plate.

Locked.

It puzzled Gilchrist why this door was locked and the others not, until he worked out that this must lead to the open, and Purvis could not risk someone stumbling across the tunnel entrance, then walking all the way underground to the cottage trapdoor, or even to the Meating Room.

‘Use this.’ Magner passed a heavy key over Gilchrist’s shoulder.

He took it, slotted it into the keyhole, and turned.

The lock eased open with a heavy click. Using the key as a handle, Gilchrist pulled the door open, having to back into Magner as he did so.

Which gave him his chance.

He leaned forward to push through the door opening, but struck out with his leg in a back-heel kick. He felt the satisfying thud as his foot hit something hard, then he scurried through the opening, key in hand. As he closed the door he glanced at Magner, his broken face contorted into a grotesque mask of surprise and anger and pain, his rifle swinging Gilchrist’s way.

The first bullet struck the edge of the door and ricocheted past Gilchrist’s face with a sizzling whine. The second hit the door full on with a dull crack, almost at the same time as Gilchrist slammed it hard into its frame.

He slotted the key into the keyhole and turned.

Three more bullets thudded into the metal with frightening force.

Gilchrist scurried along yet another tunnel, worried that Magner might find some way to shoot him through the keyhole. He also worried that blood was once again dripping from his fingertips – his wounds reopened by the sudden exertion. By the time he had gone ten steps, the silence behind told him Magner was already making his way back to the cottage, from where he could use his mobile to warn Purvis.

How long would that take?

Fifteen minutes? Ten? Less?

Gilchrist gritted his teeth, and pressed on.

Jessie reached the cottage’s rear lawn and stopped in the shadows.

If Magner was inside the cottage he could not see her. She was sure of that. She managed to convince herself she had nothing to fear – she was supposedly trapped in the Meating Room, after all. Even so, as she crept forward, her gaze darted from the windows to the door, to the driveway, to the Ford Focus, and back to the windows again.

Nothing stirred.

Without her mobile, she could not call for support. Andy had said up to an hour before the ARVs arrived, but she had expected police presence to be already here, to have blocked off the roads by now.

The smell of smoke hung in the air. Somewhere off in the distance, she caught the fading sound of a departing car. Everyone could have been settling in for an early bed on a Sunday night. She crept forward, Beretta gripped firmly, nerves stretched as tight as piano wire – Magner could be anywhere, she thought, although if he had any sense he would be well on his way to the Far East by now.

She reached the back door and tried the handle.

To her surprise, it was unlocked.

She pushed the door open and pressed her body to the cottage wall in case Magner tried to blast his way to freedom from inside. After five seconds of silence, she risked a look, then rushed through the doorway to crouch on the floor.

Nothing.

She moved through the small dining area and into the living room.

Again, nothing.

She eyed the phone on the coffee table, resisting the urge to call the Office and tell them to be on the lookout for Magner – ‘You can’t miss him; pepper-sprayed face like a baboon’s arse.’ But first she needed to establish that the cottage was empty.

A quick look through the two bedrooms, main bathroom, front hallway and visitors’ bathroom confirmed that the building was deserted. She slid the Beretta back into its ankle holster with a sigh of relief. A second, more thorough search of cupboards, wardrobes, undersides of beds and a tight attic space assured her that both Magner and Purvis had fled, and taken every weapon from the gun cupboard with them, too.

But she failed to find a trapdoor, which led her to conclude that Andy had been wrong, that the tunnel he thought led to the cottage must terminate under one of the outbuildings – disused greenhouse, garden hut, coal shed, maybe even some manhole cover.

Back in the living room, she moved to the phone and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the fireplace, shocked to see the pale drawn face of someone who could have been a stranger staring back at her. Her reflection stunned her. She seemed to have aged ten years since putting on her make-up that morning. Shadows as deep as bruises lined her eyes. Her hair looked as if it had been blow-torched then washed in dirt. She looked at her hands, and gasped at the black grit under her fingernails, two of which were broken. Dried blood on her fingers had her rubbing her hands hard against her trousers.

From outside, she heard the first signs of police activity – sirens in the far distance – and caught the flickering light from a helicopter’s spotlights brushing over the grass in the back garden as if the pilot were trying to land. Someone had pulled out all the stops.

She picked up the phone’s receiver and dialled the Office. ‘DS Jessica Janes,’ she said. ‘I’m at Cauldwood Cottage and I—’

She froze.

Cocked her head at the noise.

A scraping sound in the kitchen. As if a sackload of gravel was being dragged across the floor.

Then a dull thud.

She dropped to her knees, eased the phone back on the table, and pulled the Beretta from its holster. If anyone walked into the living room, she would have them in her sights.

She waited.

Ten seconds passed in silence. Then twenty.

She thought of calling out, but that would only alert whoever was there.

She tried to still the pounding in her heart. Overhead, the helicopter roared like a hurricane that flattened grass and blasted the window with light. Through a gap in the curtains she saw a collection of blue and red flashing lights draw up on the road outside. Their presence gave her strength and hope, and she stood up, Beretta held out in front of her, and walked towards the kitchen door.

She kicked it open, her mind struggling to make sense of the confusing scene before her – the kitchen table up in the air at an angle of some sixty degrees, along with an entire section of wooden flooring, beneath which the dim opening to a smaller hatch beckoned like the dark entrance to Hades. Instinct screamed at her to back off, but she had time only to turn to the side as a hard crack hit her with a force that thumped her backwards.

As she fell, glass exploded all around her to the echo of two more cracks. She flinched from flying splinters, her mind already working out that the first shot had thudded into her body armour, while the next two had missed altogether and shattered the crockery in the cabinet. Even before she hit the floor the scene before her slowed down, as if she were watching it one frame at a time, her own actions as sluggish as moving through treacle.

A couple of clicks and a grunted curse told her the gun that had fired at her might have jammed.

From the hallway, Magner staggered into the kitchen, the rifle already cast aside and on its way to the floor behind him, while a shotgun seemed to slither from his shoulder into his grip with expert ease.

Jessie’s Beretta seemed paltry by comparison – its barrel short and stubby, compared to the long double barrels swinging her way. She squeezed once, felt the kick, then squeezed again.

But still the shotgun zeroed in.

Another shot from the Beretta, and the twin barrels shuddered for a millisecond, then continued on their search until they settled on her.

She fired again to a hard click – the sound of an empty magazine – and felt her lungs empty in a scream as Magner’s finger squeezed the trigger.

She jerked to the side in a quick roll that cracked her face against the edge of a cabinet door. The shock as the shot thundered through the wooden flooring felt like a kick that hit the full length of her body. She lay still, afraid to move in case she found she could not, that she had been hit full bore, and had only seconds to live.

Magner had stilled, too, as if stunned by the shotgun blast.

He stood for two seconds before his body followed the command from his brain. The shotgun dropped from his hands, then his legs buckled, and his knees hit the floor with a hard thud that should have broken bone. His continuing collapse was inevitable, as he fell forward, eyes already blinded by death, his broken face smacking the floor in a full-bloodied head-butt.

Jessie squeezed her eyes shut—

‘
Armed police.
’ A hefty kick to the back door burst it open to a riot of screaming voices. ‘
Drop the gun drop the gun drop the fucking gun. Now.
’

Jessie let the Beretta slip from her fingers.

She wanted to come back at them with some memorable quip like, ‘You missed a great party, guys,’ but a sob choked its way out of her throat with a dry gasp, and it was all she could do to raise her hands and place them behind her head.

Gilchrist reached the end of the tunnel.

A set of wooden steps and a handrail ascended into a shaft in the roof – no more than four feet in depth – and appeared to end at a wooden trapdoor, distinguishable only by a thin rim of light that ran along the hinged edge.

Gilchrist’s options were severely limited. Injured and without any weapon, he was completely defenceless. An image of Magner climbing up the wooden steps to the cottage warned him that he had no time to fuss over any plan of action. The sensible thing to do would be to return back the way he’d come, try to escape that way, maybe even head down the tunnel to the Meating Room, emerge through the barn, and work his way back to the cottage from there.

But that would be no use to Mhairi.

As he stared at the trapdoor at the top of the shaft, he came to see that the only way forward was up. He gripped the handrail, placed one foot on the first step. It felt flimsy, as if it might collapse under his weight. The shaft seemed decrepit, too, as if no one had been here for years, maybe decades.

He placed a foot on the next step.

All his weight was now supported by the rickety ladder. But he pressed on, one careful step at a time.

He reached the top, tilted his head, and placed an ear to the trapdoor. He thought he caught the faintest hint of someone talking – a man’s voice, deep, not angry, more like talking to a pet, teaching it tricks, teasing it with biscuits.

His heart froze at the thought of another pair of Rottweilers. If something like that was waiting for him, then it really was game over. The memory of gnashing teeth and snarling growls had him closing his eyes and saying a silent prayer. He would need more than one arm to fight off a pair of dogs. Even two arms would not be enough. A baton-gun might help level the odds.