Field of Blood

II

The pain behind her eyes was excruciating. She peeled them open and found herself on the floor in the bedroom, sitting on a red acrylic carpet at the side of a double bed, jammed between the divan and a cold wall. Above her the curtains were drawn on a small window, but she could see thin daylight glowing behind the cheap red material. Her wrists were tied behind her back, a rough hemp rope cutting into the skin. Her feet were out in front of her on the floor, her ankles bound in an incomprehensible series of knots.

The door to the room was open slightly. He wasn’t afraid of anyone’s coming home. They were completely alone. A white plastic fitted wall unit covered the facing wall, and a large Bible sat open in the dressing table insert, gold edging to the pages. She saw a small crucifix on the wall above the bed and knew she was in Henry Naismith’s bedroom. There was no help to be had.

She bent forward, managing to get her hands between the base of the bed and the mattress, and pushed herself up to her feet. She looked up, staggering backwards and falling onto her bruised backside when she saw a blood-splattered woman across the room, peering tentatively from behind the wall unit. She sat straight up, pulling at the bedding, tucked her legs under her, and looked for the terrifying woman, trying to be ready for her. It was a mirror. A black lump of blood-matted hair was clumped above one of her ears. Scarlet lines ran horizontally across her cheek to her mouth where she had been lying on her side. Her face was swollen and bruised.

If Ludovic Ke

Outside the room soft steps crept across the landing. The only advantage she had over him was that he didn’t know she was conscious. She curled up on her side. He was going to kill her, and all she could think about was the front page of the Daily News carrying the story of her death. Just the facts and not the details. Not the detail that the room smelled of a man’s greasy hair; not that the carpet hadn’t been hoovered and she was looking at a layer of dust under the bed; not that the door was opening behind her and the feet were coming into the room.

He kicked her hard in the back. “Get up.”

She twitched at the blow but kept her eyes shut. He leaned down, crouching over her. She could smell soap on his skin. He felt her blood-encrusted hair, touched the cut on her scalp with a fingertip; she could hear the wet sound. He pressed to provoke a response, but Paddy kept her face slack. The skin was numb anyway.

“It’s about time,” he told her softly, “that you learned who’s in charge here.”

Fitting his hands under her arms, he lifted Paddy, yanking the dead weight of her half onto the mattress before walking around to the other side and pulling her on properly.

He was going to pull off all her clothes under the harsh light and look at her and touch her. He was going to kill her, and she hadn’t done anything yet, had never been out of Scotland or got thin or lived alone or made any kind of mark on the world. She couldn’t stop herself crying. Her face contorted and she sobbed aloud, keeping her eyes shut because she was too afraid to open them.

“That’s good,” he said, climbing onto the bed, tucking himself in behind her so he was lying along the length of her, not touching. “Keep it up, make it loud. I like it.”

He leaned his face over her from behind and, as he whispered, his soft lips brushed her earlobe, his hot breath tickled the tiny hairs in her ear canal, making her raise her shoulder defensively. He saw girls like her all the time. All the time. He knew she wanted it- is that what she was crying for? Because she wanted it so much. She had to take what she could get because she was fat.

As Paddy heard him say that, a hot flush ran up her spine. It was too much, to be called fat at her last moment on earth. She kept her eyes shut and swung her face around to meet his, opening her mouth as wide as she could, and bit down hard. She squealed a furious wet gurgle and locked her teeth on a loose piece of flesh. The metallic tang of blood flooded her mouth. She opened her eyes. She was biting his lower lip. Garry yelped and pulled away far enough for the side of his face to be in focus. One green eye was wide open, the white showing all around, like the eye of a frightened horse. He was hitting her again, and she knew from the wet heat on her face that she was bleeding, but she was too afraid to open her mouth and let go. She would have to eventually, but when she did he would kill her. Before then she would mark him, such a deep mark that they couldn’t fail to find him.

Garry’s hand came down again and again, thumping her on the side of the head, but she held on, shaking her head to deepen the cut, breathing out and spluttering his blood into his eye. She felt the tips of her front teeth touching through the last membrane of skin. The chunk of lip was coming away.

A deafening crack shook the far wall as the door exploded inwards, crashing off the wall and snapping one of the hinges. A thousand hands landed on her legs and arms, pulling her by the arm, the wrist, the rope binding her ankles. As they tore at her she felt the tips of her incisors touch and tear. Garry Naismith was kneeling on the bed, an arm around his neck and a policeman on either arm, a torrent of blood falling onto his father’s bed. His bottom lip was hanging off, baring his lower teeth.

The policemen helped her up and undid the ropes around her wrists and ankles, all of them shouting and calling to one another, a mess of nerve-jangling noise after the silence. Paddy vomited a stomachful of blood and saliva onto her boots.

When she stood back up she found Patterson watching her, his arms crossed, his face taut with disgust.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw herself in the dressing-table mirror, blood trailing across her face like the fingers of a hand, wet blood ru

“Mother of God,” she panted, watery blood flecking from her mouth. “Mother of fucking God.”

III

She was afraid to ask anything for fear that she’d give them more material against her than they already had. They sat her downstairs in the sparse living room. The pink carpet followed through from the hall, and the walls were still gray. A big stone-clad fire surround overstated the case for a small two-bar fire. It was a cold room. There was no settee, and the two armchairs were far apart, both facing the television. The ornaments on the fire surround were tokens of hominess: a mouse climbing out of a brandy glass, a small china house. Nailed to the wall was a series of school photos of Garry, as a child in a mustard sweater, in a uniform, with and without his front teeth.

A fat constable had to pull a chair all the way across the room to talk to her. Someone had phoned the News repeatedly, asking for her and reporting her missing, until Dub alerted the police. They retraced her steps to the Royal and found her yellow canvas bag on the pavement. She listened and nodded, wondering how they could possibly have known she’d been at the Royal. She’d stormed away from Terry and hadn’t told him where she was going. The constable told her that they now knew someone had falsely reported seeing Heather get into Naismith’s van, so they thought it was possible someone else was responsible for the murders. She hardly dared ask how they knew but slumped in the chair, touching the cuts on her head to cover her face.