Forward Slash (38 page)

‘You wouldn’t understand. I thought you might, but you don’t. You’re not who I thought you would be.’ He wouldn’t meet her eye and, even though he was holding a knife to her throat, he struck her as vulnerable – a pathetic and awkward man with a whine in his voice, a million miles from the wealthy-businessman image he portrayed to the outside world. ‘I should never have compromised.’

He looked at her now, his face twisted with contempt. ‘You’re not all you’re cracked up to be.’

She was bewildered. What the hell was he talking about? She opened her mouth to ask him but heard a noise overhead. It sounded, faintly, like something smashing.

‘Shit.’ Lewis slid open a drawer and took out a miniature remote control, which he pointed at a TV unit mounted above their heads.

The screen flickered to life and Amy realized it was an interior view of the house. Lewis pressed a button a few times, the scene on the screen changing from room to room until it showed what looked like the entrance hall behind the front door. Two people walked into view. A man with black hair, and—

‘Gary!’ she exclaimed, her delight quickly turning to fear. Gary was walking into danger. Just like she had.

‘Your fucking boyfriend. Did you tell him you were coming here? I warned you not to.’

‘No, I swear, I—’

‘Whatever. Looks like he’s brought a friend with him. Who is he?’

On the screen, they watched as Gary and the other man went up the stairs, then came back and disappeared through a door. They’re coming down here to the basement, Amy thought. Lewis’s reaction told her she was right. He grabbed her arm and turned her round, clamping his hand over her mouth and holding the knife lengthwise against her neck.

He pressed the remote again and they watched as the two men walked along the corridor, right past the room they were in now. Amy longed to scream, but Lewis clamped his hand more firmly over her mouth. What would he do if I bit him? she wondered. She could smell the bitter scent of the skin on his hands, but couldn’t open her mouth to get it between her teeth.

As soon as Gary and the other man entered the cell she’d been kept in, Lewis opened the kitchen door and pulled her out, accidentally letting the door slam behind him. He quickly pulled Amy into another room and she found herself staring at a long swimming pool.

Oh, God, he’s going to drown me, she thought, pulling against him, but he pulled back harder, dragging her past the pool and behind a screen, then into a changing room where a bank of lockers stood. It was as if he’d had the place done out to look like a school locker room. She didn’t have time to speculate further, as he took out a key and opened one of the lockers, from which he produced another key.

He pulled back a plastic curtain to reveal another door. He opened it with the key he’d taken from the locker and pushed her through.

More steps, leading down.

‘Move it,’ Lewis hissed, locking the door behind them then forcing her to descend the staircase until she came out into some kind of antechamber.

Entering the room behind her, he switched on the light, and Amy was momentarily thrown by what she saw. Expecting some dark dingy basement full of cobwebs, or a torture chamber, instead, the room looked like a small flat and she was standing in the living room. A tatty brown sofa stood in the corner, next to a dining table with two chairs. The wallpaper was maroon, with a pattern of white flowers and a painting of a crying boy hung on the wall, next to another picture of a clown, on a black velvet background. On a sideboard along one wall stood a silver Aiwa stereo system with a double cassette, just like one Amy had owned when she was a young teenager, with the lid of the turntable standing open. The TV looked ancient, too, and was connected to a VCR. A few videos were scattered in front of it on the threadbare carpet:
Dirty Dancing
,
Fatal Attraction
,
The Breakfast Club
.

Above the sofa hung a huge framed photograph of a blonde woman with a little boy, the kind of portrait Amy and Becky had posed for with their parents when they were kids. The woman had a Princess Diana hairdo and was wearing a velvet dress, and the boy – who was undoubtedly Lewis – was wearing a child’s suit, an awkward smile on his face. With shock, Amy realized two things at once: first, the dress was the same one she herself was wearing now; and second, apart from the hairdo, the woman in the photo had a startling resemblance to Becky – and to Amy, too.

Lewis noticed her staring at the photo.

‘Beautiful, wasn’t she?’ he said quietly.

‘Your … mother?’ Amy asked.

He nodded. ‘The perfect woman. In every way.’ His whole manner had changed, become softer, more relaxed, despite everything that was going on, the fact that – whatever happened – surely, Gary would bring the police here soon. It was as if Lewis didn’t care about that now – a realization that chilled Amy to her core.

‘What happened to her? Your mum?’ she asked.

‘She left me all alone,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry …’

‘When I was fifteen. A few days before my sixteenth birthday.’ He sat down on the sofa, a spring audibly twanging beneath him, leaned back, gesticulating with the knife as he spoke. ‘She killed herself. Sat in the bath and slit her wrists. Did it the right way too, up the arms not across.’ He traced a line up the inside of his forearm with the knife.

Amy waited for him to continue. ‘She promised we’d be together for ever.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘But she lied.’

He fixed his gaze on Amy. ‘Every woman lets me down. Every woman I’ve ever met. Do you know how long I’ve been searching for The One, Amy? I thought it was Becky, then you—’ She tried to speak but he talked over her. ‘So many women over the years.’

He looked at the wall behind her and Amy turned, noticing three shelves that lined the walls. On the shelves stood a collection of large jars. Shivering, she took a step closer. The jars were filled with clear liquid and in each one, sunk to the bottom of the jar, lay what Amy realized with a rush of sickness was a body part.

A finger, a pair of blue eyes, a whole foot in a huge jar. There were other, unrecognizable organs too. A heart, perhaps, in that one. Something worse in the next …

‘So many women failed me,’ Lewis said from behind her.

She turned slowly, her hands crossing her chest. ‘Lewis … does one of these … belong to Becky?’ She swallowed.

He smiled enigmatically.

‘Please, I need to know.’ Her voice broke into a sob, and Lewis stood up.

‘Oh, Amy. You are as beautiful as your sister. You’re so much more beautiful when you cry. Maybe you
are
The One, after all.’ He glanced at the picture of his mother. ‘You look so much like her.’

He took a step towards her, holding the knife up. ‘Sweet Amy …’

Someone banged on the door upstairs and shouted, ‘Lewis!’

‘Gary,’ Amy breathed. He’d found the entrance to the sub-basement.

Lewis’s expression transformed to one of fury. ‘That fucking arsehole.’

He strode into an adjoining room and came back with another pair of handcuffs. He snapped one cuff around Amy’s wrist and the other around his own. Then he pointed the knife at Amy’s face. ‘Do exactly as I say. Walk up the stairs and don’t speak.’

She ascended the stairs, with Lewis one step behind her, wanting to scream and shout, the knife tip against the back of her neck stopping her.

‘Gary,’ Lewis said in a raised voice. ‘I’ve got Amy here. If you try to do anything to me, I’ll kill her, and then I’ll kill you and the bastard you’re with.’

A man’s voice from the other side of the door said, ‘Lewis, don’t do anything stupid. More police are on their way.’

More police, Amy thought. So the man with Gary must be a cop.

‘Step back from the door,’ Lewis said. ‘I want you both to step back six feet from the door. If you come any closer than that, I’ll cut her throat. Ready?’

The policeman said, ‘Yes.’

With the knife held against Amy’s throat once more, Lewis unlocked the door and pulled it open, pushing Amy ahead of him, back into the locker room. He had the arm that was cuffed to hers wrapped around her waist.

Amy found herself looking at Gary, who was sweating, his eyes wide, a garden spade in his hand and blood trickling down his arm. Beside him, the policeman was holding his palms outwards in a placatory gesture.

‘OK,’ the cop said. ‘We’ll let you past. Just let Amy go.’

Lewis didn’t speak. Instead, he grinned at Gary. ‘Want me to kill her?’

‘
Let her go
, Lewis,’ Gary said. The two men stared at each other. Amy looked from one to the other. If they got out of this alive, she would have a lot of questions for Gary about his friend.

‘Drop the spade,’ Lewis ordered, pushing the blade against Amy’s skin. Gary obeyed and it fell to the ground with an echoing clatter.

Lewis dragged Amy through the locker room, making sure she was facing Gary as he pulled her towards the pool room. He addressed the policeman. ‘You’re going to arrange to get me out of this house or Amy dies.’

‘OK, OK. Take it easy,’ the cop said. ‘Let’s talk, Lewis. I’m Detective Inspector Declan Adams. I want to help you.’

Lewis must know there’s no way he’s going to make it far, even if he gets out of the house, Amy thought. Or is he that delusional, that much of an egomaniac?

‘I want you to call your police colleagues, tell them to back off.’

The policeman, Declan interrupted him, speaking in a calm, measured voice. ‘I can’t get a signal down here. Let’s go upstairs so I can call.’ Beside the cop, Gary was bristling, coiled, looking as though he was ready to spring. The policeman caught Gary’s eye and shook his head. All the time they were moving closer to the swimming pool.

Lewis stopped and Amy felt his stance change, as if it had dawned on him at that moment that his desperate attempt to escape was doomed. They were standing just a foot from the edge of the pool, the knife still against Amy’s throat, but his grip on her had loosened. Gary still looked poised to spring into action, the policeman slightly behind him.

Lewis started to speak – and Amy bit his wrist, making him cry out and lower the knife for a second. Gary went for him, leaping towards him like a sprinter coming out of the blocks. Lewis raised the knife again, shouted, ‘No,’ but Gary was on him, and Amy lost her balance as Lewis thudded into her. Gary grabbed Lewis’s hand and squeezed his fingers, making him drop the knife. Lewis tried to fight but only had one hand free. Gary grabbed his throat and pushed him towards the pool, dragging Amy with him. She shouted Gary’s name repeatedly; Lewis was yelling, too, and Gary was roaring.

The three of them teetered on the edge of the pool and, for a moment, everything froze. Lewis had his back to the water, Amy was on her knees beside him, and Gary held him by the neck, stopping him from falling in. Declan yelled a warning.

Looking up, Amy saw Gary say something to Lewis, a few intense words, but she couldn’t hear what they were because Declan was shouting too loudly.

Amy tried to stand up – but as she got to her feet, Gary pulled something out of his back pocket. It was the Taser gun that Lewis had threatened her with earlier; Gary must have found it in the cell. Gary jabbed it onto the side of Lewis’s neck and he yelled out in pain, falling into her. She watched in horror for a split second as he went over the edge into the pool, banging his head on the edge as he went.

Dragging her with him.

Everything was silent in the water. Lewis sank straight to the bottom of the pool, blood pluming from the wound on his head. Amy tried to pull upwards, but her head was half a metre from the surface, Lewis acting as an anchor. She swallowed water, could feel it filling her lungs and she struggled, frantic, trying to hold her breath. Gary and Declan jumped into the pool after her. In the churning water it looked as if they were trying to lift Lewis but he was a heavy, dead weight. They couldn’t lift him high enough. Amy pulled and pulled on the cuff, swallowing more water in her panic, and then the policeman was right there, gripping her wrist, his black hair rising from his scalp in front of Amy’s eyes, and Amy was sure it was the last face she was ever going to see.

She blacked out.

Declan came out of the house, so pleased to feel the sun on his face after the horrors they’d found in Lewis Vine’s weird underground flat, including jars full of body parts, which would need to be taken away for DNA analysis. In a bedroom with bloodstained sheets, they had found a computer that contained dozens of video files, but they were encrypted so wouldn’t play. The computer would need to be sent to the Hi-Tech Crime Unit for analysis.

The grounds were swarming with police now, including the local officers who had taken so long to reach the house (though it had, in reality, been less than fifteen minutes), traipsing in and out, calling to one another in clipped, muted voices. Lewis’s drowned body had already been carried out and taken away in a private ambulance.

Amy sat in the back of another ambulance, shivering and desperate for news. Gary sat beside her, holding her hand. He kept apologizing, saying he wouldn’t have Tasered Lewis so close to the edge of the pool if he’d thought Lewis would fall into the water. Amy rested her head against his shoulder.

Declan stepped into the ambulance.

‘Are you OK?’ he said.

Amy stared at him. Declan wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t managed to find the key to the handcuffs in Lewis’s pocket, somehow maintaining enough composure beneath the water to unlock the cuff on Amy’s wrist.

At least, Declan thought, I managed to save one life.

He took a phone out of his pocket. It was an iPhone in a purple case with a jewelled effect on the back. He held it up to Amy and said gently, ‘Do you recognize this? It was in the outside bin.’

Gary and Amy both spoke at the same time. ‘It’s Becky’s.’

‘Oh, god,’ Amy said. ‘Is there any sign of her?’

Gary squeezed her hand.

‘I’m sorry, Amy,’ Declan said. ‘There’s no sign of her at all. We’ve searched every room, looked everywhere.’ He couldn’t meet Amy’s eye. Instead, he looked out of the ambulance at the grounds, the pretty lawn that stretched for half a mile. They were going to have to dig that lawn up, along with the rest of the gardens. That, he felt sure, was where the bodies were buried.