Spider - Michael Morley [124]
‘Wake up!’ He’d like her conscious when he kills her. Maybe kills her at the same time he kills her husband.
Nancy’s eyelids flicker. She has nice lips, he notices, nice and sweet to kiss as he sucks the last breath from her body.
He shuffles the remote in his hand. ‘Wake up!’ Spider pulls Nancy upright.
Her eyes open a fraction. Just enough for Spider to see that she’s coming round, and for him to get his finger over the right button.
Terry McLeod isn’t about to be told what to do by some kitchen boy with a mop. He walks back through the hotel and then stomps his way to the fenced-off area marked Private.
Respect – kids today have no respect.
He reaches over the small gate, flips the catch and pushes it open.
Mrs King, I have to admit, I’ve not been honest with you. I am not actually a tourist, in fact I’m an internationally acclaimed travel writer and photographer, and I’m here to do a feature on your fine establishment. Now, I would just like to ask you a few questions.
McLeod rehearses his lines and is confident she will be putty in his hands – providing he can find her. The kitchen boy said he was certain she was in the garden, so in the garden she must be. He searches the orchard and the pretty herb area boxed off with clipped privet hedging.
Nothing.
Then he searches the vegetable garden, carefully making his way through the onions, tomatoes, cucumbers and radishes. He comes to the patch where the ground falls away. It isn’t new to him; he’d spotted it through his binoculars as he’d settled into his rocky hide on the distant hillside, and he’d seen it close up when she’d discovered him prowling her grounds. But what he sees now shocks him to his core.
Down on the soil below him is the King child.
His mouth is bound with parcel tape. His hands are tied in front of him. And around his neck is a length of rope.
Jack cuts the final restraint.
He knows he’s reached the point of no return. Can he really do what’s been demanded of him, and kill her? Will taking her life really save his son?
What choice is there?
The only thing that Jack is certain of is that his own life and that of the poor girl lying limply in front of him are now dangling on a thread.
Knowing that his every move is being watched, Jack turns slowly around, looking for a camera. He sees one almost at head height, on a wall to the right of him.
He pulls out the phone, flicks off the hold button and traps it between his shoulder and ear. ‘Jones, can you hear me?’
For a moment there’s silence, and Jack wonders if it’s because the killer is surprised by hearing his real name being used.
‘I hear you, Jack,’ says Spider, looking down at his watch.
Four minutes and fifty seconds.
‘You’ve got ten seconds to kill the girl.’
‘The game’s changed. Let me hear my wife and child, and then I’ll kill this girl any way you want. I don’t care about her, just let my family go.’
Spider studies Jack on the monitor and sees desperation etched into every line on his face.
Could he really kill her? Maybe, just maybe. The love of a parent is so strong; it’s possible that he’ll do anything, even kill the woman he’s been trying to save, just to have a chance of keeping his son alive.
‘Listen closely,’ says Spider. He yanks the tape from Nancy’s mouth and holds the cell phone close to her as he grabs a handful of hair and pulls it out in one vicious tug.
Jack winces as he hears Nancy scream. He feels another rush of adrenaline and anger inside him. ‘Now my son. I want to hear my son.’
Even though he knows he’s gone, Spider instinctively glances across the darkness of the catacomb. ‘No deal, King. Get on with it. Or the next thing you’ll hear down this phone is the sound of me killing your wife, then you’ll hear your son, you’ll hear him screaming under my knife.’
Jack drops the phone.
Do it now! he tells himself. He fumbles around on the black plastic-covered floor, seemingly taking an age to pick up the phone. Nothing, nothing in the world matters to him as much as the lives of his wife and child.