Captives

ONE HUNDRED AND NINE

The needle on the petrol gauge was touching empty, Finn noticed with alarm. Nevertheless he kept his foot pressed down on the accelerator of the Citroen, glancing up ahead to see, to his relief, that Dexter too was slowing down.

There was a road of a kind up ahead, a badly tarmacked track that separated the fields from a large house built of dark stone.

Dexter was guiding the Sierra up the short driveway of this house.

Finn saw the doctor clamber out of the car and head for the front door, letting himself in, slamming the door behind him.

Finn screeched up the drive behind him and stood on the brakes. He ran to the front door and banged on it several times, shouting Dexter's name. When there was no answer he turned and looked into the Sierra, noticing that Dexter had left the keys hanging from the ignition. Finn pulled open the door and dropped the keys into his pocket, then made his way slowly to the side of the house.

He found a pathway leading down the side of -the building, its entrance guarded by a carefully cut arch of privet. Finn pushed open the gate and walked through, moving briskly around to the back.

The large house towered above the DS as he peered through windows into the kitchen then, moving along, into what he took to be a study of some kind. As he passed the kitchen door he tried the handle but found that it was locked. A long, immaculately kept garden stretched out behind the house.

He saw several objects lying on the lawn.

Toys.

There was a doll and a small yellow ball. A skipping rope.

Finn picked up the doll, looking into its lifeless eyes for a moment, then dropped it back onto the grass and headed back towards the kitchen door.

There were panels of glass in it.

He broke one with his elbow then reached through and turned the key in the lock, stepping inside.

He called Dexter's name as he moved through towards the sitting room.

'Give it up, Dexter,' he shouted. 'There's nowhere else to run now.' He moved through the sitting room. 'If it isn't me it'll be someone else. I've only got to make one call and this place will be swarming with uniforms in less than five minutes.'

He moved out into the hall.

'Don't make things any worse,' he called. 'Chuck it in, now.'

A sound above him.

Finn looked up towards the landing.

The stairs were directly ahead of him. To his left was the door of the study, to the right the front door.

Finn wondered why Dexter hadn't just continued driving in the first place, why…

Another noise from upstairs.

… Why not escape? Why come here?

He began to climb the stairs, one hand trailing along the bannister.

Why come here?

He was half-way up the stairs now, glancing around, his eyes always returning to the head of the flight.

Another ten steps and he'd be there.

He could hear the sound of his blood roaring in his ears.

'Dexter,' he called.

Silence.

'There's no way out,' he continued.

Movement.

As Finn reached the top of the stairs, Dexter appeared from one of the room.

He had a double-barrelled shotgun levelled at the policeman.

'That's no answer,' Finn said, his eyes drawn to the yawning barrels of the Purdey. if you kill me, you make it even worse for yourself.'

Besides which, I don't want to die, you fucking maniac.

'This gun has been in my family for three generations,' Dexter told him conversationally.

'Why don't you just put it down, then we'll talk,' Finn said, wondering if his skin looked as pale and cold as it felt.

'The experiments at the prison, they would have worked,' Dexter said. 'They had worked.'

'There's a lot of dead people who are lying around to contradict that argument, Dexter.'

'It did work. It can work,' he insisted. 'I made it work.'

He snapped his fingers, the barrel still aimed at Finn.

The DS heard movement from behind Dexter, from the room he had his back to.

'Come out,' Dexter said, turning his head slightly, his eyes never leaving Finn.

A figure moved onto the landing beside him.

'Oh, dear Christ,' murmured Finn, his eyes widening as he studied the features of the newcomer.

It was a woman; at least he thought it was. The short hair made it difficult to tell at first, and the voluminous nightdress managed to conceal any shape convincingly. Perhaps she had once been pretty. Finn could only guess. If she had, those days were long gone. The skin was the colour of rancid butter and hardly an inch of flesh on the face was not disfigured by scars, welts or stitches. The forehead had been worst affected, the hair shaved back almost to the top of the head, criss-crossed by stitching, bruises and half-healed wounds, some of which had scabbed over. Others were only purple knots where skin had begun to form but had been picked away.

Finn shook his head.

'Jesus Christ,' he muttered under his breath. 'What is it?'

'There was a car accident,' Dexter explained, 'in January 1976. At times it seems as if it was only yesterday, other times it seems like centuries ago. She was taken to hospital, but they couldn't do anything for her. The brain damage was massive. I worked in an asylum, then. They brought her there to see if I could help. I think they would have been happy if she'd just been locked away, but I didn't want that.'

Finn noticed that the figure next to Dexter was holding a doll like the one that lay on the lawn outside. She was prodding the glass eyes.

'I knew I could do something. They said she was violent. The brain damage had caused some kind of psychosis. My colleague and I experimented on her. Her and a number of others. The others died, but she responded. I've looked after her ever since, here at this house.'

Finn was breathing deeply, his gaze moving from the figure then back to the shotgun.

'You would have been kinder letting her die,' he said, I his voice a hoarse whisper.

'No,' Dexter said, shaking his head. 'I wouldn't let her die. Never.' There was a note of anger in his voice as he looked at the policeman. 'Not my own daughter.'

Finn swallowed hard.

The woman smiled at Dexter, streams of mucus running from her mouth, hanging from her lips like thick, elongated tears.

'Daddy,' she slurred.

Finn clenched his teeth together until his jaws ached.

'When I'm gone there'll be no one to care for her,' Dexter said. 'No one.'

'Daddy,' she whined in metallic voice.

'I won't leave her,' the doctor said.

With that he spun round, aiming the shotgun at his daughter's head.

'No,' roared Finn.

The sound was lost beneath the blast as Dexter fired.

She dropped like a stone, the doll falling from her grasp. Blood spattered the walls behind. Finn saw fragments of brain and bone dripping from the ceiling.

He lunged towards Dexter, who spun the shotgun in his grasp, bit down hard on the barrels he'd stuck in his mouth and pulled the other trigger.

The top of his head erupted like a bloody volcano as the blast carried most of his skull away.

He fell backwards, sprawled across the legs of his daughter, the Purdey falling with a thump.

'Oh Jesus,' Finn murmured, holding one hand to his mouth, gazing at each body in turn. The air smelt of death.

The DS picked up the doll the girl had dropped.

Girl? Woman? God alone knew how old she was. And God had long ago tired of watching over this particular wretch.

Finn held the doll in his hands, looking into its cold eyes, then dropped it.

As it hit the floor he heard a whirring sound followed by one word, a metallic whine:

'Daddy.'

He turned and walked away, heading for the stairs, for the phone.

The word echoed in his ears. In his mind.

'Daddy.'

He who considers more deeply knows that, whatever his acts and judgements may be, he is always wrong…

-Nietzsche

You can't win. You can't break even and you can't even get out of the game.

-Ginsberg's Law