Cold as Ice (Willis/Carter #2)(113)

She looked at Miranda. The snake was watching her, but she reckoned it wouldn’t be able to spit the rat out and that gave her time to work on her bonds. Ebony wiggled her legs slowly out of the crushing weight of Miranda’s coils and then she began working at her wrists against the sharp ends of the catches on the locks that held the coffin closed. All the time keeping her eye on the snake’s head, she gently pushed its coils off her. Ebony knelt and applied her weight until the rope began to fray and give way.

By now only the rat’s tail was still showing from Miranda’s mouth. Ebony stepped carefully out of the box and made a circuit of the room. It was a dug-out basement area that had been crudely extended. It had low ceilings and bare rafters, concrete floors. The basement had been used as a wine cellar at one time. It was barely lit. There were shelves still there where the wine rested. She walked cautiously forward. There was a crudely dug pit to her left. She peered inside. It smelt of urine and earth. On the far side of the room she found Miranda’s empty tank.

Ebony moved slowly backwards away from the tank and found a sturdy metal pole, with a hook on the end – a snake hook – then she crept towards the door. She watched Miranda drop off the side of the coffin and onto the floor.





Chapter 52


Robbo was in his office with Jeanie, Pam and James. He sat despondently and stared at the screen. He was trying every way to reconnect with Ebony’s GPS but it was dead.

‘Christ almighty, why isn’t it working? Come on, Ebb – talk to me.’

‘Out of range or inside a building?’ said Jeanie as she put a hand on Robbo’s shoulder. He looked up at her, exasperated.

‘I’d like to think so, Jeanie, but I think it’s more likely Hawk’s found it.’

‘We have to keep trying, Robbo. Ebb won’t give up. She’s a fighter.’

‘She’ll need to be, Jeanie.’ Robbo looked exhausted.

James stood to retrieve something from the printer.

‘I have a list of Yan’s closest friends now,’ he said to Robbo. ‘The ones he talks to most on Facebook.’ He gathered up the printed pages. ‘I have their addresses and phone numbers.’

‘Good – start phoning, and make a list of any you can’t get hold of and I’ll send officers around there. One of them must know where he lives.’

‘Can’t we trace his address through his father and the details of the house ownership?’ Jeanie asked Pam.

Pam shook her head. ‘I’m trying but I’m having no luck so far. I don’t think he had his father’s name. I don’t think they were married.’

‘What about his birth certificate?’

‘It gives his father as Joseph White, but I can’t find out any more about him. I’m trying every angle I can think of,’ Pam said. She looked fraught.

Jeanie smiled at her. ‘I know you are . . . we’re all so worried but we need to stay calm and focused.’ Pam nodded.

‘How’s Carter getting on, Jeanie?’ asked Robbo.

‘He’s throwing everything at it that he can think of. We have a hundred officers walking around the streets off Upper Street doing house to house.’

‘Yan’s not going to answer the door though, is he?’

‘No, but they might get lucky – see something suspicious. They’re also looking for vans and checking out the owners with vehicle registration. We’ve even got a heat-seeking helicopter up looking for the snake tank in case it’s on the upper floor.’

Robbo rubbed his face with his hands.

‘We need to put more officers out there. No squad cars, we need plain-clothes officers out looking for her. We don’t want to scare him into finishing the game too soon, before we have time to find her.’

‘Is that what you think will happen?’

Robbo nodded. ‘He is not going to hand over control of the game or have it taken away from him. He won’t allow that to happen. He’ll end it first. End it on his own terms. Ebony is his pièce de résistance. He’s had this worked out for some time. I can’t imagine he hasn’t thought of everything.’

Ebony crept past the room where Jenny’s corpse was hanging. The corridor took a sharp right before an old stairwell and a door to the next level. Her feet creaked on every step. At the top of the stairwell she turned the door handle and stepped into a kitchen. It hadn’t been updated since the Fifties. She could hear music playing. She heard Yan talking as she crept forwards.

Yan was humming to the music as he prepared Danielle’s face. He applied a layer of thick foundation to her pale skin. He drew red circles on her cheeks and painted blue eye-shadow in a block above her eyes. He worked methodically, slowly.

‘Stay still,’ he said to Danielle, who was shaking violently. He held her head steady whilst he painted on spidery eyelashes up past her eyebrows. It was then that he heard the turn of the handle on the cellar door. He listened for footsteps along the corridor. He knew it was dark. She would have to feel her way. He strained to catch the tiniest movement. He thought he heard a sound the other side of the door.

‘You can run. But you can’t hide. This is my lair. I’m coming, Ebony. Run. Run!’

Ebony flew up the stairs to the next floor and up again. She tried the windows at the top of the house but they were shuttered and she couldn’t open them. She turned to listen to the sound of him coming up the stairs. She was cornered; she ran into a room and immediately she felt trapped; the smell of decay and death was ripe in the air. A chandelier hung down from the ceiling and allowed a sickly light to shine on photos of women, their emaciated bodies posed in provocative poses. Their skeletal bodies were clothed in bikinis like the one she was wearing. There was nowhere to hide in the room. She could not stay in there. She felt as if she were already dead. She heard him standing outside. He rattled the door handle. She stood, both hands gripping the pole, and waited for him to open the door but instead he locked it.