The Scribbler Iain Maitland (good books to read txt) 📖

“You can turn your back,” she answered sharply. “You’re not watching me.” She paused and then added, “You’ll need to let me go downstairs. I need to go to the toilet properly.”

A moment or two as they both took in the meaning of what she was saying. The slow brother looked uncomfortable. The smart brother barely concealing his disgust.

Not really, she wanted to say, not really. I just want to get away from you up here and be downstairs with my hands and legs untied. And this is the only thing I can think of. What else can I say? How else do I create a chance?

The smart brother spoke clearly to the slow brother. “Untie her and walk her downstairs. Stand by the door. Aim your gun at her. Turn your head to the side to give her some privacy.”

He stared at her. “We don’t have anything for you. You’ll have to sort yourself out after. And if you try to run, we’ll shoot you. Won’t we?” He nodded towards the slow brother.

The slow brother looked unsure. “I do not …”

“When the police arrive,” she said, “the first thing they will do once they see … DI Gayther’s body … is to ask to see me. Alive. If I’m dead, they will just storm the barn and kill you. You’ll never see your mother again.”

The smart brother paused and then nodded. “If she tries to run, shoot her in the legs.”

“I do not …” the slow brother tailed off. They all knew what he was going to say. I do not shoot ladies.

And that was what Carrie was banking on. That he’d half turn away as she crouched down. That she could somehow run at him, push him aside, maybe catch him off-balance, and be out of the barn door and running before the smart brother could react, coming down the stairs and shooting her.

The smart brother thought for a second or two. Then he spoke. “Untie her and take her downstairs. Put her at the back of the barn and go to the front and turn your back. I’ll stand by the top of the stairs so I can see the barn door. If she makes a break for it, I’ll shoot her down.”

She looked back at him and knew he meant it.

Changed her mind.

Thought it better, safer, to stay as she was.

But the slow brother was already up, pocketing his gun and moving towards her. He lifted her up, steadied her and turned her around as he reached for a penknife in his pocket.

“Your hands are all bleeding,” he said, looking down. “How did—”

“The material’s been too tight, it’s been chafing and cutting into my flesh, the blood’s from that.”

She waited for a moment for the smart brother to say, stop, let me see, and to get up and come across, peering in the moonlight at her wrists and hands and seeing the cuts. Then declaring, she’s been cutting with something, she’s got a knife. Searching and finding the shard of glass. Taking it away. Strapping her up tight after that so she could not move at all.

But he did not even glance over. Just waited as the slow brother looked from Carrie’s wrists to her face and back again and she smiled at him and slightly shook her head as if to say, ‘no, don’t say anything’. He seemed to understand as he cut her ties and then took her arm gently and led her towards the stairs.

The smart brother stood and called after her. “If you try anything, I’ll aim for your kneecaps.”

She swallowed, could not help but think he would do just that. She looked back at his cold, hard face as he finished his words.

“You’ll live, but you’ll wish you hadn’t. You’ll be a cripple for the rest of your life.”

* * *

“Please turn around,” said Carrie quietly as she loosened her trousers.

The slow brother did as she asked, over by the barn door, his gun in his right hand.

As she squatted down, she tried to listen to the smart brother upstairs. She heard nothing. Assumed he was watching the door, waiting, half expecting her to try something. Wanting her to, most likely.

She started peeing, realising as she crouched there that she really had to. Had not been since she wet herself in the afternoon. Did not seem to need to. Adrenaline, she supposed. That, and fear, had got her this far.

She did not need to do anything more, although the brothers didn’t know that. So she had, she thought, two or three minutes more squatting here to figure out what to do.

She could finish and then run at the slow brother, fast and unexpected, trying to spin him round as he was off guard so that his body was between her and the smart brother and his gun.

Considered this for a moment and decided it was too risky. If the smart brother was watching like he’d said, he could fire at her legs or, more likely, into her back and head as she got to the slow brother to twist him round for cover.

Shoot her dead like Gayther. She thought of Gayther, his sudden death, the terrible waste of it all. Knew she did not want to take such a chance with the odds stacked against her.

Remembered Gayther’s body, his large, lifeless corpse, arms and legs at odd angles. She had not really seen his head and was glad of that. Knew that the sight of it would have sickened her.

“Have you …?” the slow brother turned his head slightly towards her.

“Not yet,” she answered. “Give me a moment … women take longer than men, you know,” she added, assuming he didn’t.

He turned away. Shuffling and twitching. The thought of a woman’s basic needs unsettling him.

She thought maybe, if she stopped and stood up and gestured the slow brother to come over, to speak to her, that he might approach her and, if she