Page 55 of Beyond Repair
*****
Katie was just packing up her bag when she got the text. Russell was waiting for her to take her home (she still wasn’t allowed to travel on her own after dark – Rob had given her another talking to, adding ‘I’ll know’ rather ominously at the end. And Russell, being very proud to be charged with the responsibility of her safety, was totally overbearing on the subject). She picked up the phone, took one look at the screen and let it fall through her nerveless fingers. Stifling a scream, she dropped to the floor to retrieve it and then steadied herself on the desk as she rose to her feet. Her face drained of colour and one tear slid silently down her cheek. On her screen was a photo of Finlay with a gun to his head and a message; it had an address, and the words:come alone, tell no one.
She grabbed her bag and her phone and slid out of her consulting room. After checking up and down the corridor to make sure Russell was still in his room, she hot-footed it out of the side door of the surgery and to her car. Once inside, she blinked rapidly to clear her eyes and entered the postcode into her sat nav. She took one look back at the surgery, before starting the car and peeling out of the car park.
*****
‘I knew you’d come,’ Daniel said, emerging from the shadows of the light-aircraft hangar. ‘I knew you’d see sense.’
Katie looked around the cavernous space frantically. ‘Where is he?’
He shook his head, smiling slowly. ‘I’m not in the business of kidnapping babies. You know me better than that.’
‘I don’t know you at all,’ Katie whispered, starting to walk back slowly towards the exit. ‘I never did.’ Daniel’s eyes flashed.
‘You loved me. You told me. You would have done anything for me.’
‘The man I loved never existed,’ Katie said, edging back a little faster now. ‘Smoke and mirrors, that was all that version of you was. I only saw the real you once, and that was enough for me.’
Daniel moved suddenly and grabbed Katie’s arm before she could make it through the hangar doors. ‘I can give you everything you could ever want,’ he snapped, shaking her slightly. ‘You’d never have to work again. Everything I’ve done over the last ten years has been for you.’
‘I love my work, Daniel, and I don’t need anything more than my friends, the pub, a spot of telly, the odd Chinese takeaway. You’ve never understood that; you’ve never understood me. What’s the fascination anyway? Surely there’s girls at your clubs that you –’
‘Sluts and whores and gold-diggers don’t interest me.’
‘You can’t buy love, Daniel,’ Katie whispered, and Daniel’s eyes flashed. ‘All this desperation for more and more money, buying and selling drugs, people. When will it be enough? What are you really achieving.’
‘Power,’ Daniel said through gritted teeth. ‘Whether you like it or not I’m a powerful man and I can make people disappear. You’ll change your mind eventually; you’re going to have a long time to come to the conclusion that we are better off together. Now, before the pilot gets here you’re going to have a bit of a sleep.’ Katie’s eyes widened as she saw Daniel pull out some white gauze from his jacket pocket. A pungent but strangely sweet smell registered, and she fought him harder as he tried to bring the gauze up to her face. She screamed and squirmed in his arms, kicking out at him.
‘Stop it!’ he barked. ‘Nobody other than Carl and Frank can hear you.’ Katie struggled harder. She’d noticed two large men guarding the entrance as she had walked into the hangar. She knew who they were. They hadn’t helped her seven years ago, and she knew they wouldn’t now.
‘Argh!’ he shouted as she sunk her teeth into his forearm. He shook her off violently and she started to run towards the doors, but before she could make it there he had grabbed her hair and pulled her backwards off her feet. She came crashing down on the concrete, and then felt something connect with the side of her head. Daniel had backhanded her, and she was now lying on her side; she tried to scoot backwards but he kicked out and she felt his boot connect with the side of her chest, knocking all the wind out of her. He covered her mouth with the gauze and she struggled again, causing white-hot pain to lance through her ribs. There were a few frantic seconds of her attempting to turn her head and fighting to take a breath, and then suddenly he was just … gone.
She was feeling groggy but she could still hear the shouts behind her, the sickening sounds of hits landing on flesh, even of breaking bones, and then everything went quiet.
‘Katie?’ She heard Sam’s voice as if from very far away and she blinked, looking up to focus on his face. He looked maybe a little thinner than she remembered, his normally short hair in dire need of a cut and his stubble verging on beard-like proportions. And there was a trickle of blood from his temple running down into that beard.
‘You’re hurt,’ she said, her voice strangled with the pain in her ribs.
‘I’mhurt?’ he growled, reaching forward to trace the side of her face that was throbbing with pain, before wrapping one strong arm under her shoulders and the other under her knees. She keened as the movement jostled her abused ribs, and he looked pained as he rose to his feet with her cradled in his arms.
‘You said it was under control.’ Katie blinked at the barely leashed fury in Sam’s voice and followed the direction of his gaze to the other side of the hangar. Goodie was standing over three bodies, tying her hair up into a short ponytail, completely unruffled. She gave Sam an exasperated look.
‘Itwasunder control. He did actually need to have done something for the police to be interested, you big idiot.’
‘She’s been beaten, Goodie. She’s black and blue. He could have killed her. If I hadn’t turned up when I did he may well have done.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. If you hadn’t barged in she would be knocked out but fine. She wouldn’t have had to ever see this pathetic specimen again, and more to the point she wouldn’t have known I was ever here. As it is –’
‘I won’t say anything,’ Katie said, and Goodie looked her in the eyes before striding over to them. Sam pulled Katie further into his chest, only loosening his grip when she winced slightly. ‘You were watching him, weren’t you?’ she whispered when Goodie was close. ‘You were protecting me.’ Goodie’s eyes flicked up briefly to Sam, and then she nodded slowly.
‘She used you as bait, Katie,’ Sam ground out, scowling down at Goodie, who stood her ground.
‘But you did that to protect me too, didn’t you?’ Katie asked, and Goodie nodded again. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. Goodie frowned briefly before blanking her expression.
‘The police will come here now,’ she told Katie. ‘They will ask what happened. This is what you’re going to tell them.’
Chapter 28
