‘You sure he’ll have taken her to Marcross?’ Harry asked.
‘No,’ she admitted, ‘not exactly. I think he’s taken her to the area, but I don’t think they’ll be outdoors. He knew Chloe wanted answers about her brother and about Emily. He takes his victims to water.’ She closed her eyes and tried to block out the tightness she felt in her chest. They were travelling so fast it was making her feel sick, yet it still wasn’t fast enough. ‘I don’t think he’ll take her to where Luke died, but I think he’ll take her somewhere close. He wants things on his terms. His mother died in the bath. That’s the one thing he’s not attempted yet with either of his previous victims. Maybe he sees it as apt in some way. I don’t know. I can’t think like a fucking psychopath.’
Alex’s right hand gripped at the door handle, her nails embedding grooves in the plastic.
Harry watched his colleague’s anguish and felt a wave of helplessness that had become, unfortunately, familiar to him. He couldn’t remember ever having heard Alex swear before. The look that had fixed itself upon her face was fraught with worry. She cared about every victim, but this was far too close to home for them all.
‘We’ll find her,’ he said.
As soon as the words had left his mouth, he knew he shouldn’t have spoken them. It sounded like a promise and promises were so easily broken.
It wasn’t finding her that was Alex’s concern. It was finding her in time. The thought turned Alex’s fear to bile she could taste in the back of her throat.
‘I let her down.’
‘How?’ Harry reached out and tentatively touched the back of her hand.
His skin felt cold against hers, as though the blood that warmed them had been drained from him.
Lola Evans’s torture. Sarah Taylor’s drowning.
What horror was Chloe being subjected to in these moments?
‘I should have kept her protected somehow. I knew she was vulnerable; I knew better than anybody. She came to me for help, she trusted me, and I did nothing to help her. Then I turned my back on her; I covered my own back.’
Harry slid his hand from hers, unsettled by the intimacy. The officer driving had cast his eyes to the rear-view mirror, distracted from the road by the sound of Alex’s anguish.
‘Chloe is an adult. She made some choices that neither you nor I nor anyone else could have controlled. Come on, please. This is not your fault.’
Alex turned from him and looked out of the window at a black night that was rushing past them. The trees lining the side of the road formed a continuous train, racing beside them as though in competition.
‘Those files she accessed: her brother’s case. I’m as guilty as Chloe is. I took Emily Phillips’s post-mortem report. When she goes to disciplinary, so do I.’
She heard the future tense hang in the air, hopeful but fragile.
On her lap, Alex’s mobile rang. She swiped a finger across the screen and hurriedly moved the phone to her ear.
‘They’re not at Marcross,’ Dan told her.
She prayed that wherever Chloe was, they wouldn’t be too late. Alex’s fingers tightened around the phone.
‘He’s at Colwinston. The phone’s been traced to a rental holiday cottage there.’
Alex lowered the phone from her ear and spoke to the officer driving. ‘Get on the radio. They’re in Colwinston. It’s not far. Do we have an address?’
Dan read out the postcode, Alex repeating it to the driver.
‘We’re trying to make contact with the owner now,’ Dan told her. ‘I’ll get back to you as soon as we hear anything.’
Alex ended the call and glanced at the satnav on the dashboard. They were another ten minutes away. She hoped to God a squad car was nearer. Anything could happen in ten minutes, she thought.
Anything.
Chapter Seventy
Chloe lifted her legs and swung them out of the bathtub. Her ankles were bleeding; the wire that bound them had torn into her skin as she had fought to gain momentum and get herself out of the water. She felt breathless and exhausted, and the earlier sensation of coldness that had chilled through to her bones had been replaced with a hot panic that flared the colour in her cheeks and made her skin damp with fear. She didn’t have much time. If Adam was still in the house, he would have heard the squeaks and thuds that had accompanied her efforts to free herself. If he wasn’t there, she doubted he would leave her long before returning.
She grabbed the knife in both hands and reached down to saw through the wire that bound her feet. It was going to be more difficult to cut through the wire at her wrists, the angles all wrong; if her feet were freed then at the very least she would be able to run from him. The wire didn’t give easily. It was pulled tightly, making it tricky for her to get the knife beneath, to work upwards and avoid cutting into her skin. Panic made things even more difficult. The handle of the knife was slippery with the sweat from her palms, and she took a moment, took a deep breath and told herself to calm down.
It was difficult to calm down when she had no idea where he was or what he was doing.
The wire began to give way. At the final snap of thread that held it bound, Chloe felt the blood rush back to her feet. She stood, but fell back, hitting her heels against the foot of the bath. She moved her wrists to the sink, using them to balance herself. She still felt so sick, so dizzy. She looked up again, barely recognising the woman who stared back at her from the reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were small, shadowed with grey, but her pupils seemed unfeasibly large. Her skin looked washed out, as though the water had drained it of life.
But she was alive, she thought. She was here and she was alive.
There was a noise outside the room. Chloe tightened her grip on the knife she still held in her hands, trying to stop them from shaking. She stood upright on wobbling legs, willing them to work as they should.
The bathroom door was pushed open. He stood in the doorway, blocking Chloe’s only exit. His face spoke his surprise at seeing her out of the bath. He’d clearly thought the drugs more powerful, or he had underestimated her.
‘Clever girl,’ he said. He glanced down at her legs, at her freed ankles.
She wanted to lunge at him, to attack him, yet at the same time she knew that doing so might mark the end of everything. He was stronger than her, faster than her; her judgement and balance had been so altered by the drugs that it would be easy for him to overpower her. She would get it wrong, and getting it wrong would cost her everything.
‘Stay away from me,’ she warned, jabbing the knife in his direction. She stepped sideways, moving back from him. ‘I swear to God, I will cut your throat. For Lola. For Sarah. An eye for an eye, what do you think?’
Her words sounded brave, but inside Chloe could hear herself crying. Having the knife in her hands hadn’t put her ahead of him. She was still as isolated, still as vulnerable.