Cold Revenge (Willis/Carter #6)(91)

‘I’ve talked to him,’ said Willis.

She shook her head slowly, as if the movement would help this new information to settle in her mind. ‘Okay, well, she is dead and I am alive and I have to live every day in a positive space.’

‘You should be very proud of yourself, you’ve survived such a lot.’ Tucker smiled at her.

‘Yes. I listen to survivors every day and I realise we have a common thread that joins all of us; it’s that we thought somehow we could have prevented it. Wrong place, wrong time, random choice of victim.’

‘Sorry, but Douglas didn’t choose you randomly,’ Willis said. ‘You fitted a type, an age, a build, not necessarily a sex, as he is bisexual, but there was something about you that made him choose you. You must never think you could have prevented it, because you couldn’t have. They were waiting for you on that road.’

Tucker stared at Willis, wondering what she thought she was doing. He interrupted. ‘Rachel, someone, one of Douglas’s own disciples who was raped and abused by Douglas and the others, and who witnessed the murder of one of these people found at Lambs Farm, has gone missing. We believe she may be dead already, but there is a slim chance she might be alive, that they might be waiting to see what’s going to happen with the case. They may be intending to put pressure on her to change her story. At the trial you were unable to give details,’ Tucker persevered.

‘I was barely able to breathe, to carry on living; I did my best.’

‘I know, I completely understand. But, and I know this is a big ask and one that you may not be able to help us with, but, do you think that now you would be able to give us more information about what happened to you and where you might have been held in those five days? Do you remember there being other people there?’ he asked.

‘I knew there were other people there in the beginning, when I first came around, but memories are like nightmares, I don’t know what’s real and what’s not. I don’t want to know. I can help others because I understand exactly what they are going through but I still cannot heal myself. Many survivors choose to fully face the facts of what happened to them, we all have coping mechanisms. I can’t afford to risk it now – I might lose everything, my sanity, for a start. My daughter depends on me.’ She shook her head emphatically. ‘I cannot revisit those memories. It wouldn’t do me any good.’

‘I understand,’ said Tucker.

‘Listen to me,’ Willis reached across the table, ‘we know that this is a terrible thing we’re asking you to do, but we are in terrible times. A woman with a two-year-old child is missing, abducted, she may have been taken where you were held. Please, Rachel, please help us to find her.’

Rachel sat motionless, staring down at her hands. Minutes passed, and the only sound was that of the kitchen clock ticking in the background. Then she nodded.

Willis got out her notebook and waited, poised.

‘At first I remember thinking I must be blind. I couldn’t see anything; it was completely dark. It was completely quiet, except sometimes there was a squeaking as if a branch was touching the outside wall. Sometimes something hopped over the roof and I would lift my head to listen.’ Rachel McKinney kept her eyes closed and a frown crept across her forehead. She looked as if she was in pain, beads of sweat started gathering at the sides of her face. The scars on her arms were becoming livid.

‘The top of the cage was just a few inches above my head. I knew it was a cage, my hands were bound together at the wrists.’ Rachel instinctively drew her hands together as she talked. ‘When I first saw Douglas the light came streaming in and I realised where I was, in a container in a garage, a lockup of some kind. Every day he came to take me out of the crate. Then he’d put me back in and leave me there until the next day. The last day he hoisted me out of the crate as usual and I remember I was trying to beg him. I was gagged and I was filthy dirty, sitting in my own excrement. He usually hosed me down inside but this day he took me outside and made me stand just beneath a small tree and he hosed me down there. My body was stinging so badly like it was on fire. Douglas ordered me to lift my arms and I tried, they were so heavy, and he came across to me and held them above my head and then poured the water down over my face and body and it was a relief. The cold helped with the pain and when I opened my eyes I saw that I was next to an old cattle shelter at the top of a field. There were no crops in it; it wasn’t lush grass, it was barren.

‘I looked across at the fields in the valley opposite and there were trees there, tall straight cedar trees at the top of the field. There were five of them at the top of a small steep field.’

Willis realised that Rachel was describing a scene that she already had in her mind, but in reverse, it was one Maxwell had previously described.

‘There is a barn, an industrial unit in the distance, possibly a cowshed. It is remote but surrounded with small, remote fields. Woodland in sight. Above me, five tall cedar trees.’





Chapter 46


‘It’s called Margery Farm,’ said Willis as she explained to Carter what they had found. ‘The farmer is called Jon Cole. He’s been there for twenty-five years, so he must know what’s on the land.’

‘It makes sense Douglas didn’t dirty his own back yard,’ said Carter.

‘That’s right, he wasn’t someone that Douglas delivered to,’ answered Willis.