LAST RITES

Sarah looked at the hood, tried to guess at the face behind it. All she saw was black cloth. No features. No eye-holes.

‘That's evil,’ she said quietly, shivering.

He stepped back in fake shock. ‘Evil?’ he asked, and Sarah heard the pleasure in his voice. ‘What does that mean?’

‘You know what it means,’ she shouted, angry now, tears running down her face.

He shook his head, enjoying himself. ‘I give power to my imagination, that's all,’ he said. ‘You live your life in fear, scared of consequences. I don't. That's what makes us so different.’

‘You don't know me,’ she said.

‘Oh, I do, Sarah Goode. Better than you think. Everything has consequences, even the things that you do. Your little games, Sarah, they all mean something.’

Sarah swallowed, started to shiver again, but this time it was through fear.

‘And what if I don't want to play your games?’ she asked.

‘Then you will die,’ he said simply. He gripped her hair in his hands and whispered into her ear, ‘but I could show you a different way. No more fear, no more being held back.’

Sarah closed her eyes.

‘Will you live your life my way?’ he asked, letting go of her.

Sarah looked at the floor and nodded her head slowly. ‘I'll do whatever you want me to do.’

She screamed as the water hit her again, smacking hard against her chest and then her face. She tried to curl up, her arms wrapped around her head, but the water carried on until she could feel herself slipping in the mud.

When the water stopped, she looked up at her captor. He was standing over her, the hosepipe dripping in his hands. He stepped forward and pressed his hands onto her shoulders, turning her around. Sarah could feel his eyes on her even through the hood, examining her, as if he was searching for something. She stared at the floor, tried not to think what he might do. Once he had turned her full circle, he grabbed her face in his hands and pulled her towards him. Sarah tried to look away, but he held on to her cheeks, made her look at him.

‘What do you see?’ he asked slowly, his breath smelling stale and unclean, even through the hood.

‘I see you,’ Sarah replied.

‘Not me. What do you see ahead, for you? Your future?’

Sarah swallowed, and then closed her eyes.

‘I don't see one,’ she said quietly.

‘Have you ever wondered about the end?’ he whispered. ‘What it will be like to draw that last breath, to look into the abyss, to know that you'll know the answer soon enough, life after death, or is it just nothing?’

Sarah swallowed back tears and small moans of fear escaped.

‘I want to see the end flicker across your eyes so clearly that I can feel it too,’ he continued. Sarah could hear him licking his lips, and then he let go of her and turned to leave the room.

When he'd gone, Sarah saw that he'd left no food. And her clothes were gone. She was naked. No blankets, no bed, the incessant beam of the headlights illuminating the room and her feet cold in the wet dirt.

Then she heard the speakers pulse back into life, and the heartbeat sound filled the room once more as she sank back against the wall, sliding downwards, the stone cutting into her back, her cries mixing with the repetitive thumps.

Chapter Thirteen (#ulink_e3fbbe1c-32fb-574a-ad28-60401fdafdb8)

Rod Lucas looked down at the addresses on his lap, the two other victims of recent explosions, and they were all on his patch, a rural area around Pendle Hill. Although he had worked in the towns nearby earlier in his career – Blackley, Turners Fold – he had spent most of his career patrolling the tight lanes around the hill. He understood the crime in his area, mostly diesel thefts or large brawls in remote pubs, country boys settling their disputes in the old-fashioned way. The explosions were different. They seemed planned, targeted.

He was outside one of the addresses. He checked his list against the number on the house, peering through the mud smeared on the windscreen of his Land Rover, and stepped out onto the pristine new tarmac of a modern housing estate. He looked along and saw a succession of green lawns, square and flat. As he walked towards the door, faux Georgian, with wooden panels and a frosted glass arch, he heard only the hard smack of his boots on the paved driveway, the curved streets quiet. It took just one knock to get the door to open.

‘Hello?’ said a female face from behind a security chain, young and cautious.

‘I'm Inspector Rod Lucas,’ he said. ‘I want to talk to you about the explosion in your garden last week.’

‘You don't look like the police.’

Rod looked at his outfit. He couldn't argue with that. He was still wearing his pruning clothes, a checked shirt and grubby corduroys. He pulled out his wallet and showed the Lancashire Police crest.

The door closed for a moment, and Rod heard the rattle of the security chain. When the door opened fully, the face at the door turned into a teenage girl running down the hall. College girl was Rod's guess.

‘Mum?’ she shouted. ‘There's a policeman to see you.’

The girl turned round and pointed to a room at the front of the house. ‘Go in,’ she said. ‘Mum won't be long.’ When Rod smiled, she blushed and then skipped into a room at the back of the house.

Rod opened the door to the living room, and he was surprised. He had expected a modern look; laminated flooring, coal-effect fire, maybe a large television. Instead, it was similar in style to Abigail's cottage, like a Gothic lair, with a heavy black chandelier and dark red walls. The fireplace was high and open and made of dull grey stone, more suited to a castle than a modern box in a faceless estate.

He turned around when he heard the door open, and in walked a woman in her early forties, her hair dark and long, crimped into waves, wearing a long linen dress, her feet bare.

‘Isla Marsden?’ Rod queried. When she smiled whimsically, he said, ‘I'm here to ask some questions about the recent explosion in your garden.’

‘It was in the shed,’ said Isla, her voice soft, an almost dreamy quality.

‘It's happened to someone else,’ said Rod. ‘Except that someone was hurt today.’ When Isla didn't respond, he said, ‘It was an old lady called Abigail Hobbs.’

Rod saw the flinch, just a widening of her eyes, before Isla quickly brushed her hair from her face, a reflex action, and resumed her faraway smile.

‘Do you know her?’ he asked.

Isla made a bad show of thinking about her answer, and then she shook her head. ‘I don't think so.’

‘Her cat died, and Abigail is in hospital, hurt quite badly. Are you sure you don't know her?’

Isla shook her head again.

‘Do you have any more ideas about who might have caused the explosion?’ he asked.

Again, Isla responded with just a shake of the head, and then she said, ‘I thought I had to ask you that question,’ her voice defensive.

‘We're trying our best,’ he said solemnly. When she didn't answer, he nodded and said, ‘Thank you, Mrs Marsden. I'll keep in touch.’

As he walked out of the room, heading for the front door, he paused. ‘It's funny, though, Mrs Marsden, about the coincidence,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’