Only one monitor had a picture and all eyes were fixed on it. Nothing much was happening. The picture was being beamed in from the discreet camera set up opposite the main gate, the only way in and out. We had a good view of the drive and the front of the house and the empty gravel courtyard.
The house could have been in the Mediterranean. Italy or Spain or the French Riviera. It had white walls and a terracotta-tiled roof and was surrounded by a forest of palm trees. The property was on the banks of the Thames and had its own private mooring. There was a speedboat tied up to the jetty, but Trent wouldn’t be using that to escape. If he did, he wouldn’t get far.
‘William Trent has a thing for dead bodies,’ said Hatcher. ‘When he was in medical school he liked to sneak into the hospital morgue at night and cut up the corpses. The hospital put in a CCTV camera and caught him in the act but they kept it all hush-hush because they were worried about the fallout. Leaving your body to medical science is one thing. Leaving it so some sicko can slice it up for kicks is another matter altogether. Apparently there’s a shortage of people wanting to leave their bodies to medical science. This sort of thing gets out and it’s not exactly going to have people lining up to offer their corpses.’
‘What else can you tell me about Trent?’ I asked.
‘He fits your profile to a T. He’s a white male, aged thirty-three and he comes from money. His father owned a chain of supermarkets that he sold to Tesco for ten million quid. That was fifteen years ago. Three years later Trent senior and his wife were killed in a car accident. Trent inherited everything.’
‘Any suspicious circumstances?’
Hatcher shook his head. ‘Nope. It was a drink-driving case. Open and shut. Trent senior was three times over the limit and was driving too fast and lost control of his Merc. He came off the road and hit a tree. No one else was involved. And before you ask: although there was obviously motive on Junior’s part, there were no cut brake cables or anything like that.’
‘Where did he go to med school?’
‘Ninewells Hospital in Dundee. He lasted two whole months before he was kicked out. When he was asked why he did it he said he liked the way it felt to cut into flesh. I mean, how twisted is that?’
‘Is he married?’ I asked.
‘Four years. The wife’s name is Marilyn. And get this. He beats her. She’s gone to the police a couple of times, but she always ended up dropping the charges before it even got close to going to court. You know how it is.’
‘When did she last go to the police?’
Hatcher picked up a sheaf of papers and flipped through them. ‘Last July. She had a broken nose and a black eye, a couple of broken ribs, too. She started off saying Trent did it, then she said she tripped and fell down the stairs. There’s a woman in the house at the moment. We’ve had a visual on her and we’re pretty sure it’s Marilyn Trent.’
‘Any idea what’s happening in the basement?’
‘Afraid not.’
‘So Trent could be down there with Rachel Morris.’
‘No, he’s not,’ said Templeton. ‘He’s just got home.’
On the monitor a black Porsche hung a right and accelerated up the drive. Hatcher gave the order to go. Outside, engines burst to life and tyres squealed. I was up and out of the van in a heartbeat. We sprinted towards Templeton’s BMW and climbed inside. Templeton hit the gas. The tyres spun then bit, creating a loud screech that cut across the howl of the engine.
There were three squad cars up ahead, blue lights flashing, sirens wailing. We joined the rear of the procession and turned fast and tight into Trent’s drive and came skidding to a halt in the courtyard, gravel spitting up from the tyres. The three squad cars were fanned out so they blocked Trent’s Porsche in.
There were six cops on the ground, all wearing Kevlar and helmets. Three were armed, their guns aimed at William Trent. He stood frozen in front of the house’s large double front doors, keys in hand.
The cops were all shouting the same thing at different times, telling Trent to get down and put his hands behind his head. We’d reached the flashpoint. Either things would work out right, or everything was about to turn bad. The blood was up, and all it would take was one itchy trigger finger applying an ounce too much pressure and Trent would end up in the ICU or the morgue.
Trent stood rooted to the spot, a rabbit caught in the headlights. More shouts to get down and I was convinced he was going to do the stupid thing. Then he slid to his knees and put his hands behind his head. Two cops rushed in, cuffed him and dragged him off to the nearest squad car.
We found Marilyn Trent cowering on her knees next to the large American-style fridge in the kitchen. She had a carving knife with a six-inch blade clutched in her trembling hands, eyes wild, strung out and terrified and completely wired.
The kitchen was a cold, sterile space that was brightly lit with dozens of small halogen spots. Black marble floor tiles, black marble worktops, black cupboard doors. Lots of steel and chrome. A man’s kitchen rather than a woman’s.
Marilyn Trent had a faded bruise around her left eye from the last time she’d taken a tumble down the stairs or walked into a door. She was wearing a pyjama set, short shorts and a T-shirt top. There were faded knife scars covering her legs and arms, a criss-crossing mess done by someone who liked the way it felt to cut into flesh rather than the neat parallel lines of a habitual self-harmer.
I stayed by the door with Hatcher and two of his team while Templeton edged towards Marilyn. Slowly. Carefully. Templeton got the job because she was the only female cop in the room. Marilyn was scared half to death and holding a knife, and much more likely to be spooked by a man. Templeton’s palms were up and open to show she wasn’t armed, that she wasn’t a threat. She spoke quietly, stringing together a constant stream of meaningless words designed to reassure. She spoke like she was talking to a scared child or a dangerous animal. Marilyn Trent cowered further into the corner created by the fridge and the wall and made herself as small as possible.
‘Leave me alone,’ she whispered.
‘Hey, it’s going to be okay,’ said Templeton.
‘Please, leave me alone.’
‘Put the knife down, Marilyn. William won’t hurt you again. I promise.’
Marilyn looked at the knife and there was surprise on her face, like she couldn’t work out how it had got there. She let go of the knife and it clattered to the floor. Templeton kept moving forward, slow, slow, slow, taking her time. She kicked the knife out of reach and it skittered across the marble floor. Then she crouched down in front of the cowering woman and helped her to her feet. Marilyn resisted to start with, but Templeton’s gentle persistence paid off.
‘Sir, you’ve got to see this!’
Marilyn froze to the spot, startled. Her eyes darted in the direction the voice had come from. She was looking down at the floor like she could see through the black Italian marble. Another shout, the voice urgent with excitement. I sprinted from the kitchen, Hatcher on my heels. We found the basement door and hurried down the stairs.
A short corridor led to a room that was as brightly lit as the kitchen. Black was the dominant colour here, too. The walls were black, the ceiling, the PVC floor covering. There was a rack, an iron maiden. The large king-sized bed had a black leather mattress and plenty of places to attach knots. A clothes rail held a variety of outfits in leather and PVC. Maids’ outfits, nurses’ uniforms, a one-piece affair in red leather with a matching gimp mask. There were shelves for Trent’s extensive collection of sex toys and gadgets and DVDs. The TV fixed to the wall was huge, at least sixty-inch. The room smelled stale and musty like a locker room, a choking mix of sweat, blood and semen.
‘Looks like we’ve got our guy,’ said Hatcher, and for once he almost smiled.
51
‘Wakey-wakey Number Five.’
Rachel’s eyes flickered open and she saw Adam smiling at her. There was so much she hated about him, but that smile was right at the top of the list. She had eaten all the spaghetti hoops and, even though the last couple of mouthfuls made her gag, she’d forced the food down because she wanted the full dose of the drug.
A few hours’ escape from this hellhole had seemed like a good idea at the time, except it didn’t work like that. Drug sleep wasn’t like real sleep, it was more like an alcohol-induced sleep. You didn’t wake up feeling refreshed, you woke up feeling like crap, like you’d lost a slice of time.
Rachel remembered crawling onto the thin, stained mattress and pulling the blankets over her, and then nothing until now. She felt cheated and wished she hadn’t eaten the food. Her head was filled with cotton wool and her limbs were heavy. She felt detached from her body and was having trouble thinking straight. Messages were going out from her brain but they weren’t getting through.
‘You must be thirsty, Number Five.’
Rachel nodded and Adam held a large two-litre bottle of water to her lips and motioned for her to drink. It crossed her mind that the water might be drugged, then she realised she didn’t care. She took a greedy sip, and another. Adam pulled the bottle away.
‘Number Five will drink slowly.’
He held out the bottle again and Rachel took another sip, slower this time. It didn’t taste as though it had been tampered with, but how would she know? She’d heard of Rohypnol, but didn’t know if it had a taste or not. Her experience of drugs was limited to over-the-counter painkillers and a few prescription medicines. Adam screwed the lid back on and smiled his charming smile.
‘I’ve decided what your punishment will be,’ he said.
Rachel felt the water churn in her gut. ‘Please don’t hurt me. I’ll do anything you want.’
‘I know you will.’
‘Anything,’ she repeated.
‘Denial, anger and now bargaining,’ said Adam. ‘You’ve done well, Number Five. The others reached the bargaining stage much sooner. Next we’ll get depression, which tends to be the longest part of the process. And then, finally, we reach acceptance. I’m looking forward to breaking you.’
‘Please don’t hurt me.’
She hated herself for begging, but couldn’t help it. She wanted to be unconscious again, wanted to lose herself in the dark. Adam was here to punish her and there was nothing she could do to stop him. It was payback time.
‘Number Five will get in the chair.’
Rachel got unsteadily to her feet and the room swayed all around her. She reached out for the wall and used it to steady herself, shutting her eyes until the vertigo passed. Then she took a long, deep breath and walked towards the chair. Adam’s eyes followed her, and she fought the urge to turn around and look at him. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.
Rachel had almost reached the dentist’s chair when she stumbled and fell. She tried to put her arms out to break her fall but her reactions were too slow. She hit the ground face-first. The sickening thud of her head hitting the tiles was accompanied by a sudden, urgent pain that left her breathless. When she turned over, Adam was crouched down beside her, studying her face. He reached out to touch her nose and she shrank away from him.
‘Stay still.’
She froze. Adam sounded different. His usual self-possession was gone, the confidence, the arrogance. He sounded concerned, and he hadn’t called her Number Five. It was the first time since they first met that he’d spoken to her like she was a person. Adam reached out and Rachel forced herself to keep still. He ran his fingertips over her nose, checking it carefully from bridge to tip. His hands were soft, the hands of someone who’d never done a day of work in their life.
‘You’re lucky. It’s not broken. Number Five will be more careful in future.’ The confidence was back, the arrogance. ‘The chair,’ he said.
It took Rachel three attempts to struggle to her feet. She didn’t want to crawl. It was a matter of principle. Whatever shred of pride and dignity she still possessed, she wanted to keep. She made her way to the chair carefully, one foot after the other. More than once she almost fell, but somehow she kept going.
She reached the chair and collapsed into it. Adam fastened the straps. Legs, arms and head. He checked them one at a time, pulled them tight to make sure they were secure, then left the basement. He returned with the heart monitor, switched it on, fitted the cuff over her finger, then left again. The beep from the monitor jumped around the room, slow and steady, the remnants from the sedative keeping her pulse in check. If she hadn’t been drugged it would be racing into dangerous territory by now. Heart attack territory.
‘Would that be a bad thing?’
Rachel tried to look over her shoulder to see who’d spoken, but the straps had reduced her movement to a series of spastic jerks. It was a woman’s voice, that much she was certain of. Had Eve snuck in here? She almost called out Eve’s name, but then she realised that it wasn’t Eve’s voice she’d heard, it was her own. Rachel couldn’t believe how close she’d come to calling out Eve’s name. That would have been bad for Eve. Bad for her too. What would Adam do if he discovered they’d been talking? Would he beat them? Would he stop Eve bringing food?
She glanced up at the nearest camera and imagined Adam sitting in a room watching her struggle against the straps, imagined him listening in while she slowly lost it. She took a deep breath, did a slow count to ten, told herself to get a grip. Time passed. How much, she wasn’t sure. She tried to count off the minutes and seconds, but her head was too foggy to keep track.
Rachel heard the distant sound of Adam’s footsteps and blinked back the tears. Her throat turned to sand and she felt sick. The noise got louder, the volume creeping up one slow notch at a time. When Adam reached the basement, his footsteps became more defined, the sound echoing off the tiles. Other sounds joined in. The gentle clatter of the objects on the metal trolley, the squeak of the rubber wheels on the tiles.
He crossed the room and stopped the trolley in front of the chair, positioning it so Rachel could see everything on it. She tried not to look but couldn’t stop herself. She saw the syringe, saw the rubber tubing, saw the knitting needle with the blackened tip, saw the large knife he’d used on her last time. Her blood had been cleaned off and the edge shone again, winking under the halogens.