Page 81 of Between the Lies

All she had a chance to do was squeak before the bag covered her mouth. It didn’t suffocate her – not immediately. The quality of the plastic was poor – the sort of bags that tore before you found your way to the community bins.

But Shah had his wits about him. He’d used multiple bin bags to cover her up, then tied off the ends with heavy-duty tape.

Once again, Nina was dragged by her legs, her shoulders bumping into cabinets.

When he opened the door – it had to be a back door – a cool breeze chilled the wet blood on her skin and clothes. If he succeeded in this plan, this would be the last time she ever felt natural air…

Something heavy slammed into her. Nina gurgled.

Shah snorted. ‘You’d do as a doorstopper. But you make more noise than a creaky door.’

He moved her again, scraping her across the ground – the chilly damp ground.

Nina could hardly suppress her shivers. Was she really just going to lie there and let him end her life? When had she become such a compliant bitch?

Move! Move! Move!

Nina pushed her shoulders to the right, and her legs to the left. He’d tied her up with tape, then dragged her over the uneven ground. Of course she could rip?—

Something heavy stomped on her stomach, and Nina lifted off the ground, her hands instinctually gravitating to her middle. ‘Ah!’

Rip.

Her right hand found its way through the small gap. She wiggled more, even when Shah smacked her in the head.

Once again, he picked her up, then slammed her into… the sound could only be a semi-hollow plastic box. What sort of plastic container sat…? The fucking bins! Community bins in Scotland tended to be large – big enough to not just hide a body but to sandwich it between numerous bin bags.

Shah’s voice breached the blanket of dread smothering her. ‘All I need to do is toss you in the garbage bin and dump some bin bags on you. And I’ve got a nice heavy pile of shite to bin. Then it’s up to you: do you suffocate, or do you get crushed to death?’

Nina thrashed her limbs, trying to get her other arm free. But the more she kicked, the more she felt the bin behind her shift. Then Shah’s fingers dug into her shoulder, and he forced her to stand up. Another loud clang sounded, then… she was airborne. Her free hand knocked against what she assumed was a ledge, and the odour… He was pushing her inside!

She held the side with all her might, even if her blood made the plastic slippery.

Nina kicked when Shah boosted her torso. With a large groan, the bin’s lid lurched close, smacking straight into Nina’s arm.

‘Aaargh!’ She thrashed, her legs still tied together, shaking like a mermaid’s tail. The bin was empty enough to tip to the side, crashing to the ground.

Still stuck in the jaws of the plastic container, Nina felt the bin bags pressing down on her, especially when Shah resumed his attempts to literally chuck her in the bin.

When he grabbed her legs and tried pushing her in, Nina’s limbs finally found a second burst of energy, and she lashed out.

Her left hand emerged from the tarp, and she shucked the plastic covering her face.

The grey daylight blinded her for a moment, but still she saw the scene – they were in an enclosure, the backs of flats looking down at them. Most had their curtains drawn; it wasn’t like they had much to see out here overlooking a large wall of mud – perhaps a hill that had been cut up to build the flats in the first place. A lot of plastic bottles and wrappers hung on to the weeds, and barren twigs littered the mud. The ground was made up of pointy stones and gravel with some moss growing over it. The only reason someone might come out here was to dispose of their garbage in the cluster of bins lining the red sandstone wall. The weather had eaten away at the sandstone in places, and the slight unseasonable warmth in the weather had given wings to the pungent odour of the bins.

Nina lay half in, half out of the blue bin.

Shah pulled something from his back pocket. ‘You’re not?—’

One minute he was hurling insults at her, and the next Nina heard acrack! And then Shah was on the ground next to her… But she hadn’t kicked him – she hadn’t touched him or thrown anything at him, and she certainly hadn’t…

Nina scrambled backward, now purposefully finding her way into the damned bin. And she wasn’t a fan of stinking garbage.

Oh no. No.

Shah was on the ground, lying on his side, blood oozing from where his head had literally exploded.

Shah was dead. Someone had just shot him.

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