Tombstoning Read online

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning I stole a car, beat him over the head, chucked him in the back, drove up there and pushed him off.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Just like that. It’s easy to push a body over a cliff. Want me to demonstrate how it’s done?’

  ‘Look, Neil, I realize you’ve had a hard time of it in the past…’

  ‘Don’t fucking patronize me, you little piece of shit. This is just like fucking school all over again. You never, ever thought I was a real human being, did you? I was just a fucking amusement to you, like everyone else was. You never fucking cared about anyone else in your life, so don’t start taking the fucking moral high ground with me. I don’t care about people either, but at least I’m honest about it. And don’t talk about a hard fucking past – you don’t know anything about life. My folks are dead, my brother died all those years ago, and I’ve seen some terrible fucking things in the world, but that doesn’t make me a fuck-up.’

  ‘You are a fuck-up.’

  ‘I’m not, you little prick. And even if I was, there doesn’t have to be a reason, does there? You just don’t get it, do you? It’s all cause and effect with you. There has to be a reason for everything. Well, wake the fuck up to the real world, there’s a whole world of pointless pain and suffering out there, with no reason for any of it.’

  ‘I don’t need a reason, I’m just trying to understand.’

  ‘There’s nothing to understand, that’s the fucking point…’

  Just then they heard the stutter and grumble of an old car engine coming from outside. Neil snapped alert. He pulled a pair of socks out of the holdall, stuffed them in David’s mouth and secured them with masking tape around his head. David gagged and had to choke back spit and bile. The engine noise stopped, and they heard the clunk of a car door opening and closing above the spatter of raindrops outside. Neil went to the open window frame and glanced out sideways. He seemed to relax and become annoyed at the same time.

  ‘Jesus H,’ he whispered. ‘You did tell someone you were coming here, didn’t you? Nicola Cruickshank, eh? Better go and deal with her. Back in a minute.’

  David tried for all he was worth to make a screaming noise, but all that would come out of his blocked throat was a pathetic whimper. He started to jerk around in the chair, trying to make a sound with the chair legs against the stone floor. But Neil appeared at the edge of his vision and he felt yet another almighty whack on the side of the head, making him feel sick and dizzy all over again.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Neil, ‘you are truly fucking pathetic.’

  It was the last thing David heard before he passed out again.

  Nicola got out the car in the rain and headed towards the cottages. There was nothing here. No sign of David, or any other life for that matter. She took in the collapsed house nearest the sea, then rounded the back of the cottages. She thought, briefly, that she heard something, a windy, whining sound, but with the blustery rain in her ears she quickly dismissed it. As she neared the next cottage she spotted that one of the window frames was unboarded. She headed towards the opening, but just before she got there she spotted a glimpse of metallic colour to her left, down in the ravine just past Meg’s Craig. She changed direction and headed towards the ravine. As she neared the edge, she could see, hidden amongst the dense foliage, a car. It was angled downwards and to the side so that she could see the car’s exposed underbelly, about a hundred yards away, caught up in some ancient, wiry tree branches and thick bushy undergrowth. She moved round to the side and more of the car began to be revealed. It was David’s car, and judging by the angle, it had been pushed or driven off the cliff, only it hadn’t made it past the first bursts of greenery. Her pulse boomed in her ears as she reached for her mobile. She was about to venture further down the steep incline to see if anyone was still inside when suddenly her head exploded with pain, crippling debilitating pain which swept instantly through her body. She felt a strong, thick arm cradle her, preventing her from falling forwards, and then she was gone, descended into blackness.

  14

  All at Sea

  Her head hurt like hell and at first it felt like she’d pissed herself, but as she gradually became more aware of the dampness in her pants and jeans she realized it was cold, not warm. She opened her eyes and tried to focus, and saw that she was sitting in a puddle of water on a rough concrete floor. Her back and arms were awkward and painful, and as she tried to move she became aware she was somehow tied to a radiator against the wall, the sharpness of a metal edge jutting into her back, the empty pipework clanking as she struggled. She looked around the room, trying to get her bearings.

  ‘Welcome to the party.’

  She heard the voice before she could locate the owner, but then he came into view on her left and she recognized straight away the boy from school who had gone off to be a marine. He looked older, of course, and somehow more composed than the angry little coiled spring she’d vaguely known at school. So this is how it was going to be, she thought. She heard a muffled, throaty noise coming from the other direction and turned to see David, trussed to a chair, straining so that it looked as if the veins in his neck were going to burst.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ said Neil and strode over to David, tearing the masking tape from his face and pulling the socks out his mouth. ‘Are you going to shut up with that pathetic whining or what?’

  ‘Let her go,’ said David.

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘You’ve got a problem with me – that’s fine, but Nicola’s got nothing to do with it, you can let her go.’

  ‘She’s here, isn’t she? That means she’s got everything to do with it.’

  ‘He’s got a point,’ said Nicola, finding her voice.

  David looked at her as if she was growing an extra head.

  ‘Whose side are you on? I’m trying to get you out of this.’

  ‘I’m just saying,’ said Nicola. ‘He’s not stupid, are you, Neil? He can’t let me go, now that I know about him and this place. Talk sense, David.’

  ‘Yeah, talk sense, David,’ chimed Neil.

  ‘Jesus H,’ said David.

  ‘But seeing as how I’m here now and a bit of a captive audience, any chance I can get an explanation about why exactly I’ve been knocked unconscious and tied to a radiator?’

  ‘I’ve already done all this with laughing boy over here,’ said Neil, nodding towards David. ‘He can fill you in if he likes.’

  Nicola looked at David, who rolled his eyes. There was silence for a minute before David said, ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Well, I’m not going anywhere,’ said Nicola.

  David looked at Neil who swept his hand towards him, as if giving him the floor. David shook his head.

  ‘Well, Neil says that he was there when Colin died, on the cliff-top, and claims that it was an accident.’

  ‘There’s no fucking “claims” about it.’

  ‘He joined the Marines, got Gulf War Syndrome, saw terrible things, quit, joined the police, quit, his folks died, he went abroad to fight as a mercenary, came back, started getting paranoid about people thinking he killed Colin, started following Gary, and killed him by shoving him off the cliffs a fortnight ago. Now he’s going to do the same to us.’

  ‘He sounds mental.’

  ‘Don’t call him that. He doesn’t like it when you call him that.’

  ‘Oh, a sensitive type of killer, is he?’

  ‘I am fucking here, you know, you pair of smart-arse cunts. Very nice banter, considering the situation you’re in.’

  ‘We’re just making the best of things,’ said Nicola. ‘You do know, of course, that folk will come and find us. You don’t think I trekked out here without informing the authorities about our suspicions.’

  ‘Nice try, but laughing boy already tried that one,’ said Neil. ‘And all that happened was that his girlfriend turned up. It’s hardly the fucking SAS. What next, is your daughter gonna show up and tr
y to overpower me?’

  At the mention of her daughter Nicola’s heart sank. She had been deliberately upbeat since she’d come round, trying to persuade herself that the situation they were in wasn’t real, wasn’t dangerous, wasn’t fucking deadly. But the mention of Amy brought it all home. This wasn’t a laughing matter, not by a country mile. It was deadly serious and she was going to have to keep her wits about her and hope for some kind of a way out. She looked at David more closely. His face was quite badly battered – his left eye had just about closed and his mouth seemed misshapen and swollen – and there was blood on the back of his head which had trickled onto his T-shirt. He had obviously had more than just the single smack to the head that she’d so far experienced. She looked now at Neil, trying to gauge the man. He didn’t seem edgy, manic or mad; he looked quietly confident, as if he were about to go in for a job interview and he knew fine well he was the best qualified candidate. She looked back at David again, whose hangdog face seemed bereft of ideas.

  ‘You look like shit,’ she said, but with a kind edge to her voice.

  ‘He does, doesn’t he?’ said Neil. ‘He needs to look after himself.’

  ‘I was talking to David.’

  ‘I’m OK,’ said David, in a voice that sounded far from it.

  She turned to Neil.

  ‘This makes you feel like the big man, I take it?’

  Neil pretended cartoonishly as if he was considering what she said. ‘Yeah, pretty much.’

  ‘I assume you realize that all this violence and paranoia come about because of an inferiority complex brought about by your parents’ lack of encouragement when you were younger.’

  ‘Ah, I see we have another student of popular psychology. Did you ever consider that I just like being violent? It’s what I’m trained to do, after all, and there’s a certain amount of professional pride in doing what you’ve been taught to do well.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said David. ‘Professional pride? Don’t make me fucking laugh. That’s not what this is about. This is about you being a fucking madman.’

  Nicola watched as Neil strode over towards David and belted him full force with a large, solid torch across the back of the head. A small splurt of blood flew from the injury and David slumped unconscious in the chair. Neil turned to Nicola, shaking his head and checking the torch for damage.

  ‘I have warned him repeatedly about calling me mad,’ he said, sitting down on the bed next to the chair and David’s slumped body. ‘The question now is, what the fuck am I going to do with the pair of you?’

  ‘I suppose you’ve already considered letting us go, and decided that’s not an option.’

  ‘You suppose correct.’

  Nicola didn’t know what to say next. All the snappy banter in the world wasn’t going to talk the pair of them out of this hole, that was obvious. She thought about her family. She hadn’t told her parents why she’d turned up in Arbroath, or why she wanted to borrow the car, because it seemed like such a silly escapade, that she was just worrying over nothing, and she didn’t want them to think she was daft. Mistake. She thought of Amy, how she’d hurriedly packed her off at a friend’s house earlier this morning, just a quick kiss goodbye at the door and not even turning back to watch her go in. She felt her pulse quicken in her throat, almost choking her, as she briefly considered that might be the last time she’d ever see her daughter, that her daughter’s last memory of her mum would be getting shunted off to a pal’s and left while she headed north. After a moment she managed to control her emotions. That sort of shit wasn’t going to get her out of this. She had to stay strong, keep her wits about her. Looking at Neil now he seemed cleverer than she remembered him, more aware, more slyly intelligent and knowledgeable. He was also built like a brick shithouse and clearly knew how to handle himself. She couldn’t think of a way out. She would just bide her time, wait and see if an opening arose.

  ‘Well, I’m going to have to move you while I think about what to do,’ said Neil, as much to himself as to Nicola.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, love, I don’t think for a minute the police are haring it up here to arrest me. But you pair both found me in this place, and I guess others will in time. It just isn’t safe to use it any more.’

  ‘And where are you going to take us? To your secret underground lair?’

  Neil looked at her closely, a thin smile spreading across his face.

  ‘Close, but no cigar,’ he said. ‘I do have a place that I use for contingencies, though.’

  ‘What, more of a hideaway than an abandoned cottage about to fall into the sea?’

  ‘Much more. Trouble is, I can’t carry the pair of you to the boat at once, and I can’t be arsed with you trying to run off.’

  The boat? thought Nicola. Where the fuck were they going? Neil had gotten up off the bed and was slowly walking towards her.

  ‘Wait a minute, Neil. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but you don’t have to do anything rash, you can trust me not to try to escape.’

  ‘We both know that’s not true,’ said Neil, playing with the torch in his hand. He looked as if he had made a decision. ‘I’ll carry you to the boat one at a time, laughing boy first. But I’m afraid that means I’m going to have to knock you out.’

  ‘Now, hang on, Neil, there’s no need for that, I promise I won’t be any trouble.’ She was squirming against the radiator at her back, the metal clanking out rhythmically in time.

  ‘Sorry, love,’ said Neil as he raised the torch and swung it down hard over the back of her head, sending shards of burning pain through her body.

  She dreamt that she was a horse and Amy was riding on her back, digging sharp heels into her sides. She came to with a start, the room solidifying around her. She hadn’t moved; she was still tied to the radiator in the cottage. She had no idea how long she’d been unconscious. She was alone. The only sound was the squawk of gulls. She struggled a little, causing more clanking from the radiator, which was digging right into the small of her back. Surely the clanking meant that things were moving, that things could be moved in the radiator, she thought. She knew from having an eight-year-old daughter in the house that things could be ripped from walls pretty easily, even seemingly sturdy things like radiators, even more so in a ramshackle cottage that hadn’t seen any attention in Christ knows how long. What she needed was some leverage, though. She pushed herself up the wall slightly, as much as her bound hands would allow, and settled down on her knees, her arms still behind her. Her feet were now pressed against the skirting board. She began to lean forward, pushing with her feet against the wall, but as she did so her shoulders started to ache, the force of her body seemingly focussing on wrenching her arms out their sockets. She relaxed. There didn’t seem any other way of doing it, though.

  She looked around the room for anything that might help. She could see a couple of bits of broken glass over by the window, but too far away to reach, and anyway she couldn’t see her wrist bindings, didn’t know if they could be cut easily, and wouldn’t know how to reach the glass with her tied hands anyway. There was nothing else for it, she was just going to have to push like hell and hope that she didn’t dislocate her arms. She steeled herself for the pain and tensed her legs, ready to push against the wall for all she was worth. She took a couple of big, deep breaths, counted slowly to three and then strained, pushing with all her might against the wall. The pain shooting across her collarbone and into her shoulders was immense, and she thought she would pass out from the initial shock of it, but she kept pushing, pushing, pushing, straining every sinew in her body. A brief image flitted across her mind of herself as the figurehead of a pirate ship, straining proudly into harsh northerly winds and stormy seas, and then, just as she was about to be overwhelmed by the pain in her arms, her back, her whole body, the resistance from the wall behind her gave way, there was an explosion of plasterboard and the sound of metal and stone being wrenched apart, and she collapsed face down on the
cold, wet floor, the radiator, now free from the wall, landing on top of her in a flurry of rubble and dust. She lay panting for a few seconds on the floor, recovering from the effort. Her shoulders were on fire. She rolled over and kicked the radiator to one side. The noise of it clanking onto the concrete seemed obscenely loud in her ears. She had been tied to the radiator wall mount with some kind of thick blue plastic twine, but there was enough give in it now for it to roll easily off her hands. She rubbed her wrists, then her shoulders. She could still move her arms, so nothing was dislocated or broken. She rubbed her face and shook her head to clear her thoughts, then picked herself off the floor and made for the unboarded window.

  Outside it was still daytime, the thick grey skies casting unrelenting rain down on the earth. She had no idea how long she’d been out. She checked her pockets but the car key and mobile were gone. Neil. Where the hell was he taking David? He had mentioned a boat. She ran to the edge of the ravine where she had seen David’s car. Now her parents’ car had joined it, about thirty yards further down the slope, tangled up in a dense arrangement of thick, spongy weeds and plants.

  Just then a movement caught her eye. Down on the shore, at the bottom of the ravine, were two figures. One was lying on the sand, the other, having clearly just dumped the body there, was beginning to head back up the shore towards the bottom of the ravine where Nicola now noticed a tiny, overgrown path that was cut into the hillside, zigzagging its way through the dense grass. He must be coming back to get her, she thought. As she watched, the figure looked up the ravine and stopped in his tracks. She quickly ducked down to lie flat on her chest, feeling the rain soaking through her, but she knew she was too late. Neil had seen her. She tried to work out what that meant. As she was trying to think, Neil seemed to hesitate for a moment, then turned towards a large, dark rock at the bottom of the cliff. From here Nicola could see several tiny, upturned boats behind the rock, sheltered from view from the sea. Neil turned one of the boats over and started dragging it towards the shoreline.