Inside, the building smelled of damp and abandonment. McRae found himself in what had once been a kitchen – old appliances still in place, cabinets hanging open, debris scattered across the floor. But beneath the decay, there were signs of recent activity: footprints in the dust, marks where something heavy had been dragged across the linoleum.
His pulse quickened. He wasn’t wrong; someone had been here recently.
McRae moved through the ground floor methodically, his torch beam cutting through the gloom. A sitting room with furniture covered in dust sheets, a hallway with water damage staining the walls and a bathroom with a cracked mirror reflecting his haggard face back at him.
And then he found the door to the basement.
It was locked, but the lock was another new one, brass gleaming against old wood. McRae tested it, then stepped back and kicked hard at the frame. Wood splintered, the doorjamb giving way. The door swung open, revealing stairs descending into darkness.
McRae’s torch beam showed concrete steps, steep and narrow. The smell that wafted up was chemical – cleaning products mixed with something organic and faintly sweet that made his stomach clench.
He should leave. Should call this in right now, get proper backup before going any further.
But if The Embalmer was using this building, if there was evidence down there that could disappear in the time it took for backup to arrive…
McRae descended the stairs, each step careful, his torch sweeping back and forth. The basement was larger than he’d expected, the ceiling low but the space extending beyond the footprint of the building above. Old stone walls, a concrete floor and metal shelving units holding plastic containers and equipment he couldn’t immediately identify.
An annoying drip of water fell down, out of sight, but not out of mind.
And at the far end of the room, illuminated by his torch beam, a woman tied up, lying on a table.
‘Jesus Christ.’ McRae rushed forward, his training kicking in. The woman was conscious, her eyes wide above a gag, her hands tied behind her. She was struggling, trying to shout something through the gag, her whole body tense with terror.
But she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking past him, at something behind him.
Too late, McRae heard the soft footfall, the whisper of movement in the darkness at the base of the stairs.
He spun, raising his torch, the beam catching a figure standing less than three feet away.
A man, tall and still, dressed in dark clothing. His face was briefly illuminated by the torch beam – features that McRae recognised with a shock like ice water through his veins.
‘You,’ McRae breathed, his voice catching. ‘It’s you. I should have known. I should have?—’
The torch was knocked from his hand with sudden, brutal efficiency. It clattered across the concrete floor, its beam spinningcrazily before coming to rest pointed at the wall, leaving most of the basement in shadow.
‘You should have stayed in Tenerife, Alan.’ The voice was calm, almost conversational. ‘You should have enjoyed your holiday and forgotten about old cases that have nothing to do with you.’
McRae backed up, his hand going instinctively to his belt where his baton should be, but he’d left it locked in his car, hadn’t thought he’d need it for what was supposed to be a preliminary scout of the location. Stupid. So bloody stupid.
‘You won’t get away with this.’ McRae’s voice was steadier than he felt. ‘People know I’m investigating. I’ve left notes, evidence. If something happens to me?—’
‘If something happens to you, it will be a tragedy. A dedicated detective, working a case during his holiday, suffering an unfortunate accident in a derelict building he had no authorisation to enter.’ The man moved closer, and McRae could see him better now in the ambient light from the fallen torch. ‘They’ll find you eventually. Maybe not for a few days, but eventually. And it will all look perfectly explainable.’
The woman behind him was struggling harder now, muffled sounds coming from behind the gag.
‘Let her go,’ McRae said, trying to inject authority into his voice. ‘Whatever you’re planning, whatever you think you need to do, she doesn’t need to be part of it.’
‘Oh, but she does. She’s been chosen.’ The Embalmer tilted his head, studying McRae like a specimen. ‘As have you, Alan. I’ve watched you these past months, seen your obsession growing. I knew eventually you’d trace things back to my facility. I just didn’t expect it to be this one, or quite so soon.’
‘You’ve been watching me?’ The words came out as barely more than a whisper.
‘Of course. You weren’t as subtle as you thought, pulling old case files, requesting information from other jurisdictions. I have friends throughout the system, Alan. People who notice when someone starts asking uncomfortable questions.’ The Embalmer moved with sudden speed, closing the distance between them. ‘I’m actually impressed. You got closer than anyone else has in years. If you’d been just a bit more cautious, if you’d waited for backup before coming here…’
A hand shot out, gripping McRae’s throat, squeezing with measured pressure. McRae tried to fight back, his fists connecting with solid muscle, but The Embalmer was stronger, faster, and had the advantage of surprise.
The pressure on his throat increased, cutting off air, cutting off the ability to shout for help that wouldn’t come anyway. McRae’s vision began to tunnel, darkness creeping in at the edges. His last conscious thought was of Pat, of the conversation they’d never have, of the case he’d never close.
The darkness took him.
