‘Bloody thing isn’t going at all. Our only suspect is lying in the mortuary, Forensics have found precisely zilch, ANPR is useless, nothing on CCTV, and no one saw or heard anything. Other than that? Everything’s just soddinggreat.’ Pine pulled her shoulders back and marched out after Sweeny.
Tufty patted Logan on the back. ‘Break a leg, Sarge.’
‘Whyare you here again?’
‘I has a lovenest and a bidie-in to support, so the overtime comes in handy. Plus Kate and metotallyhelped with the arresting, so I does has some basking-in-the-reflected-glory to do.’
Twit.
Logan rolled his eyes, shook his head, then joined Pine and Sweeny onstage.
And the crowd went wild...
LXVIII
Fuck!
The bastard was back, and she was still shackled to this stupid bloody anchor. If she’d made a run for it, she might’ve reached a nearby farm by now. Called for help...
Probably not, though.
The car’s engine growled closer.
Instead, she’d have left a flattened path through the weeds and grass that even a blind corpse could follow. And out in the open like that, in the middle of a field, she’d be shit out of options.
Whereashere, she had four.
Number One: Make a run for itnow. Which was stupid. She wouldn’t get more than a few hundred feet before he caught up with her. Then it would be JCB time.
Number Two: Get back to the outbuilding and make like she never left. Wait for the bastard to drink himself to sleep again, like last time, andthenleg it. Assuming Davis didn’t just try to kill her, soon as he got home.
Number Three: FIGHT. Kill the bastard.
Yeah, like she could have a fair go, shackled to a galvanised metal bin full of concrete.
And Number Four:Hide.
One and Three were nonstarters.
Number Two was risky. She could hold her wrists up to thecollar, so it looked like they were still shackled there, but all he had to do was look at the bloody mess she’d made of the concrete in her bin, and he’d knowexactlywhat she’d been up to.
Which left hiding.
But where? Where was she going to hide, that he couldn’t find her in two minutes flat? In the barn? Under the static caravan?
No chance. The thing was surrounded by weeds, which the anchor would flatten – so exactly the same problem as scarpering across the field...
Of course, there was afifthoption: stand here, dithering about like a proper whacker, and wait for him to beat the shit out of her again, then get the JCB fired up for a bit of gravedigging.
‘Shite...’ The word barely made it past her dry, cracked lips.
Number Two it was, then.
But make itbloodyquick.
Natasha shoved the anchor, rolling the bastard fast as it would go, across the courtyard and in through the door to her stinking manky prison.
Was like running into anoven, after the relative cool of the barn.