“Did you see a woman in a red coat run past here? Didanyonesee a woman in a red coat?”
Charlie looked at the sea of blank faces, knowing already that it was hopeless.
Mickery had got away.
56
They hadn’t moved for days now. They were beaten, crushed with despair. Starvation would be their release—it was plain that there would be no escape.
Caroline had been waiflike to begin with. Now she looked like a famine victim, her ribs threatening to break through her skin at any point. Martina was the more muscular of the two, and somehow, despite day after day of starvation, she struggled to her feet now.
“Let’s try again.”
Martina tried to inject energy and hope into her voice, but Caroline just groaned.
“Please, Caroline, we have to try again.”
Now Caroline raised her head to see if Martina was serious. It was hopeless, so why torture themselves? The door hadn’t yielded an inch despite their pounding. Their shoulders were bruised, their nails broken. There was nothing more they could do.
“Someone might hear us.”
“There’s nobody out there.”
“We have to try. Please, Caroline, I’m not ready to die yet.”
A long pause. Then slowly, reluctantly Caroline dragged her weary body off the ground. Despair was easier than hope. Hope was cruel—it promised Caroline things she feared she’d never experience again: love, warmth, comfort, happiness. None of these things were possible while she was buried alive in this tomb—they were mere dreams. All Caroline wanted now was to be left alone to her despair, and if charging the door for a few pointless minutes would shut Martina up, then so be it.
Abandoning herself, she ran full pelt at the door, crashing into it. The pain was intense—a searing, burning sensation in her shoulder that slowly transmuted to a sadistic dull ache. She turned, angry.
“Aren’t you going to help m—?”
Her voice gave out when she saw Martina pointing the gun at her. She’d been tricked. That devious bitch had tricked her.
“I’m really sorry,”muttered Martina. Then she pulled the trigger, closing her eyes so as not to see the horror. The gunshot reverberated around the brick chamber.
But no scream came. No sound of flesh tearing. Just the dullthunkof the bullet burying itself in the door. She had missed.
She pulled the trigger again and again, but she knew there had been only one bullet in it. One shot at salvation.
Caroline flew through the air, knocking Martina to the ground. They struggled fiercely in the dirt, but Martina was on the back foot and soon Caroline was on top. Her knees pressed down heavily on Martina’s chest, then spread to pinion her arms. And now Caroline’s raw, bloody fingers were wrapping themselves around Martina’s throat.
She was wild, unhinged. But she was triumphant. And she shouted and screamed for joy as she choked the life out of the young prostitute.
She had won.
57
“Where is she?” Charlie shouted. Martha Reeves sat calmly on the living room chair, dressed in one of Mickery’s dressing gowns. Despite staring down the barrel of a police charge, she seemed utterly unrepentant. Her point of view seemed to be that the police had got it wrong, were unfairly harassing an innocent woman, so if she could help her out, why not?
“She’s under investigation on suspicion ofmurder. And what you’ve done makes you an accessory. Do you know what you get for that? Ten years. Ten years ducking the Hairy Marys in Holloway.”
Cold, naked defiance.
“What do you come here for anyway?”
“Oh, come off it. Surely you don’t ex—”
“What are you? A pervert? An addict? What little peccadillo needs ironing out so bad that you’ll pay three hundred pounds an hour to this quack?”
