‘We have to get out of here. The water’s rising too quickly.’
Intent on his recording, McNab hadn’t noticed. At this rate the bodies would be afloat before long. He’d planned to send Kenny back with news of their find, while he carried on alone to look for Rhona, but Kenny wouldn’t even consider the suggestion.
He pointed to the tide mark close to the roof. ‘We have ten minutes to get out of here.’
Bill was waiting as McNab emerged from the hole. The return journey had been terrifying, made worse by the thought Rhona was trapped somewhere down there. Kenny had been a hero, forcing his way against the current, sheltering McNab in his wake. They’d left the
chamber just in time. Any longer and there would have been two more bodies floating in the culvert.
Bill was frantic. McNab had never seen his boss like this before. Whatever they’d faced together in the past, the DI had been in complete control. Now he looked like a man drowning in indecision.
‘There’s nothing we can do,’ McNab told him for the third time, ‘except wait for the water to go down. According to Kenny, it can fall again quickly.’
They’d already discussed the possibility that Rhona was underground and in danger from the rising water.
‘Kenny says some chambers don’t fill completely. They provide an overflow lake, like a flood plain, when a river breaks its banks. They also lessen the speed of the flow.’ McNab was clutching at straws and Bill knew it. He threw McNab an anguished glance. McNab realised that in the panic he’d forgotten about Bill’s daughter.
‘Lisa?’
‘Nothing yet.’
‘What about other mates, a boyfriend?’ McNab was running through the standard questions asked on missing teenager hunts. The majority of them turned up relatively quickly, sulky and contrite – but not all.
Bill indicated he didn’t want to discuss it. ‘Terri and Leanne’s bodies. Will they stay in that chamber?’
‘Kenny thinks it unlikely. If the CSO is encrusted, they may get stuck further down.’
Six dead women. And little chance for Rhona, if she was down there too. No wonder Bill didn’t want to talk about Lisa.
Word had arrived that the team with the crawler had also abandoned the attempt for the moment.
In Glasgow it never rained but it poured.
McNab couldn’t shake off the feeling that it was as if the Gravedigger was pissing on them from a great height. He’d drawn them to the culvert, and while they were busy there he’d made his escape.
RHONA FLOATED HELPLESSLY
behind Magnus as he laboured to keep his feet on the uneven surface. Torch-light gave the tunnel an ominous glow. On either side, discharge oozed from small pipes, creating a glacier effect of smooth red deposits. Above, chemicals seeping through the cracks between the bricks had produced long hard icicle shapes. To clear the tunnel of encrustation would take time and high-powered equipment. Magnus could never have forced a way through on his own.
The pungent smell of heavy rain and disturbed effluent reminded Rhona they were in a CSO. It was like immersing their open wounds in a septic tank. The bacteria must be having a field day.
By the time they reached the overflow chamber, Magnus was barely able to stay upright in the rapid flow. He managed to grab and hold onto the rough wall, steadying himself before stepping up and pulling her out of the current.
Rhona immediately felt the difference, like gaining a safe harbour after struggling through a stormy sea. Magnus shone the beam around. The vaulted roof was magnificent and at least a foot higher than the tunnel.
‘No ledge.’
‘The water won’t reach the top,’ Rhona said.
Magnus studied her quizzically.
‘The Victorians knew their waterworks. That’s why we’re still using them.’
He decided to believe her. ‘So we wait it out here.’
He pulled her towards the back wall and anchored her behind him.
‘You’re bleeding,’ she said, seeing his face and hands clearly.
‘So are you.’
Their words echoed around her as though she were in some ghostly fairground attraction. Rhona’s head still swam with the after-effects of the drug. The pleasure she had felt seemed infinitely preferable to this harsh reality.
In their attempts to escape there had been no time to discuss what had happened in the cellar. Now that her head was clearing. Rhona wanted desperately to know.
‘Is Terri alive?’
Magnus looked stricken. ‘I left her to try and find a way out. When I got back she’d disappeared.’
‘A photo was sent to my mobile. Of you and Terri.’
‘He was recording her torture. I saw the images on a laptop in the upper room.’
Rhona wanted to ask him what the image meant. Was it real? But she couldn’t say the words. Magnus answered anyway.
‘I don’t know what I did.’
‘You don’t remember?’
‘I remember he threatened to kill Terri. Then the light went out. He must have come up behind me. I felt something jab my neck, then nothing but . . .’
‘Pleasure,’ Rhona finished for him. She waited for a moment, listening to the boom of the rising water through the culvert, knowing she had to ask.
‘What happened to me?’
She could see that Magnus was deciding how much to tell her.
‘Please, Magnus. I need to know.’
They were so close, she could see the rapid pulse at the base of his throat.
‘I was trying to force the lock on the door in the room above. Then I heard something. When I looked down he was there, with you. I switched off the arc light and made a lot of noise, hoping he would run.’
‘What do you mean,
with me
?’
Before Magnus could answer, recall hit Rhona. She remembered excruciating pain, then unending pleasure; the drug entering her bloodstream, cruising her skin like a lover’s fingers. Her body responding to touch. Whose touch?
She cried out, and to her ears it sounded shrill and distant. In her distress, she released her hold on Magnus and felt the current pluck at her, pulling her away.
‘Rhona, no!’
Magnus lunged, caught her and wrapped her tightly in his arms as the culvert roared with the incoming rush.
The water entered the chamber in a great circular motion like an underground whirlpool, dragging relentlessly at Rhona’s lower body, sending waves of pain through her injured leg. Magnus stood like a rock, holding her head above water, as the flood hit them.
BILL WATCHED AS
a wall of water emerged below Duke Street. It topped both banks, using the waste ground and car park as its flood plain, before hitting the culvert under the goods yard. It reminded him of a highland river in spate, confined between rock walls, its force enough to take away a railway bridge. There was something both beautiful and terrifying about its power.
McNab stood next to him. Kenny and the rest of the team were further along, watching this scene from hell. Almost as swiftly as it rose, the water began to fall, leaving the waste ground behind the Great Eastern resembling a paddy field. Someone had been foolish enough to leave their car parked overnight behind the business park. Now it stood a foot deep in water.
The old hotel was a blaze of light and activity. They’d located the lower basement and found the execution room, manacles attached to the wall, dried and fresh blood soaking the floor. The room above had contained a camera and computer system set up to broadcast the images captured in the chamber of horrors.
The watercourse running alongside the dunny would meet the Molendinar, but where exactly they
didn’t know, and couldn’t check until the water subsided. Their only remaining hope was that Magnus and Rhona had got out and were hiding somewhere in the underground system. Bill knew the likelihood of that was tiny.
Of their killer, they had had no sign. And there was no sign of Lisa either.
‘Go home, sir.’ McNab’s voice broke through Bill’s fog of despair. ‘There’s nothing more you can do here, and Margaret needs you.’
The storm had deserted Glasgow, heading south, leaving a bruised and battered sky. The moon, swimming into view, did little to lighten Bill’s heart. He’d spoken to Margaret, sitting up waiting for her daughter’s return. Bill thought of Nora Docherty, waiting in hope for Terri. He felt near to breaking point and wondered if he was fit to drive.
When his mobile rang he drew in at the edge of a deserted street. His heart soared when he saw Lisa’s name on the screen.
‘Lisa?’ There was no answer. ‘Lisa. Is that you? Where are you?’ There was a click, then a droning sound. Bill ended the call and tried to phone back. When he got the message service, he shouted in frustration, then made a swift U-turn and headed for the police station.
MAGNUS’S ARMS REMAINED
tight about Rhona’s body as the water subsided. How he’d withstood the deluge, she had no idea. More than once, she’d felt herself slip away. Each time, Magnus had somehow clung on, keeping them at the outer edges of the turmoil.
The water was leaving as quickly as it had come, as though a plug had been pulled out. Rhona imagined it pouring into the Clyde and wanted to shout for joy. Then she sensed something wrong and turned. As he’d released her, Magnus had tipped forward, his face submerged.
‘Magnus!’
He didn’t react. His body had become a piece of flotsam rocking with the water. Rhona grabbed his long hair and yanked his head back. His eyes were half-closed, as though almost asleep. God knows how much he’d swallowed in his determination to keep her head above water.
For a moment Rhona contemplated the fact Magnus might die, drowned in his attempts to save her. The swiftly receding water was at her shins and she was forced to balance on her good leg. Rhona sat down heavily, eased Magnus’s head onto her lap and pressed
his neck, seeking a pulse. The stillness beneath her fingers terrified her.
She put her mouth on his, watching his chest as it rose with her breath. They were one now, lips together, lungs together. She wanted desperately for Magnus to live.
When she could find no pulse, Rhona pounded his chest, willing his heart to beat.
Then he coughed, and water gushed from his mouth. Rhona said a prayer of thanks to the God of this Underworld as Magnus’s eyes opened.
‘Am I on the other side?’
‘Of what?’
‘The River Styx.’
‘This is no time for Greek mythology.’
Magnus gazed about him. ‘This looks like Hades to me.’
They followed the noise back up the culvert. Rhona figured only a search team could make such a commotion. When they waded into the cellar, Magnus propping her up, the place was a blaze of light. The excited barking of a police dog alerted McNab to their arrival. God knows what they looked like, soaked and streaked in sewer mud, but McNab rushed towards them, a grin splitting his face. Rhona thought for a moment the DS would scoop her up in his arms.
‘Her leg’s broken. We need an ambulance.’ Magnus’s announcement couldn’t put a dent in McNab’s wide grin.
‘Dr Rhona MacLeod, I could kiss you.’
‘Don’t you try it.’
While he supervised Rhona’s transport to the main door, McNab filled them in on what had happened.
‘We found Leanne and Terri together in one of the flood chambers.’
Rhona could see McNab was distressed. She imagined him and Bill above ground, knowing nothing of what was happening beneath.
‘You found the upper room?’ Magnus’s face spoke volumes.
McNab’s reaction, however well disguised, told Rhona what he’d seen.
‘The CCU people have taken the computer.’
There was an uncomfortable silence before McNab told them about the contents of Ray Irvine’s lock-up.
‘The boss thinks Forbes and Irvine were on the periphery. The killer’s disciples.’ McNab left the worst until last. ‘And Lisa’s missing.’
‘Lisa?’ Rhona couldn’t believe it.
‘The boss had a call from her mobile about half an hour ago. He’s at the station, trying to pinpoint a location.’
‘Bill can’t think the killer has Lisa?’
McNab didn’t have an answer for that one.
The paramedic shut the ambulance door. It was as though Rhona had been waiting for this moment before she let go. Shock rippled her body and crushed air from her chest. The coldness of the water had seeped into her bones. She began to shake, her teeth knocking together. The insulation blanket did nothing
but trap the cold that lay beneath. She forced words out between her chattering teeth.
‘I’ve been drugged and possibly raped. I think the drug may have been methamphetamine. Don’t give me anything that might affect the outcome of a police examination.’
BILL WASN’T THE
only one who stared when Magnus entered the incident room. It was like a scene from a medieval movie. The professor was bare from the waist up, his hair wild, his body streaked with mud.
‘Any news of Lisa?’ he asked.
‘They’re still trying to trace the call.’
Magnus began to pace and talk at the same time. ‘Okay, he’s on a roll. Upping the stakes each time. Terri, then Leanne. She was important to him. He wanted them together. I reacted to the online auction, just as he planned. Rhona’s intuition took her back to his lair, then her curiosity took over.’ He paused and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘He must have loved that –
Come into my parlour
– he wanted to prove he was better than all of us, especially me, more psychologically astute. And he did.’
The entire team stood around him now, listening. He went on pacing, oblivious to those watching him.
‘We all played into his hands, at my instructions.’
Bill saw the agony on Magnus’s face and realised he too was close to breaking down. Failure. Neither of them could endure it. They had put everything on the line and Bill was paying the ultimate price.
‘Lisa,’ Magnus glanced at Bill. ‘Since we don’t know where she is, we assume she’s with him. He thinks Rhona and I are dead, caught up in the floods in the culvert. Moon and water. That aspect I was right about. He hit us all at our weakest points. Rhona’s intuition and curiosity, my arrogance, and your love for your daughter. To get Lisa back, we must think as he thinks. This time I have to read
him
correctly.’