Out of the Dark by Caro Ramsay

Author:Caro Ramsay [Ramsay, Caro]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2024-04-10T00:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

Bethany knew what the plastic sheeting on the floor meant; there was going to be blood and it was going to be hers. She felt the wound on her leg with her numb fingers, trying to concentrate on the association with her dad. Where had that been? That scent? She held onto that thought as she relived what had happened that morning, or was it last night? The pricking numbness at the side of her leg. A gloved hand had steadied her knee as the blade went in. She could both feel it and not feel it. What had her mum felt when she was on the treadmill, what blackness had fallen upon her when she’d been carried to the back of the belt, landing in a heap against that wall? Her mum’s friend thought she had tripped.

And had laughed.

She’d told Bethany that at the funeral. She’d been laughing as she’d pressed the button to stop her own machine. It was when she went to help her friend up that she’d realised there was something very wrong. Bethany felt herself laughing as the knife went deeper, cutting its way down the outside of her leg. A searing pain and then nothing.

It had been bleeding on and off since then.

Dripping onto the plastic sheeting.

She heard the door. She dropped to her knees, pulling the hood over her head. They moved quickly this time, knocking the wind from her before she was pushed out into the frozen air.

Caplan was thinking of her next move with Ghillies. She was itching to see his face when she put the print of Rachel’s Octavia in front of him. But patience caught the bigger fish, as her dad used to say.

‘Is McPhee back at his flat?’ asked Mackie, marching into the room.

‘You can knock the door, you know,’ Caplan said.

‘Is Carrie-­Louise in his flat?’ Mackie was outraged.

‘She’s the one with a fractured cheekbone, Toni. Something happened. Let it all come to light.’

‘Me? I’d rather stand up for my pal if that’s okay with you ma’am. Can you speak to Angus McLeod.’

‘Because?’

‘Because I’m asking you to.’

He was a tall, large man who looked like he could stand up for himself in any company. He had a history of domestic abuse listed against his name, three times. Three times no prosecution had followed. Three times the complainant was his then girlfriend. Three times that woman had been Carrie-­Louise.

He had come into the station easily enough, only because he was in the area. He lived down the coast and that’s where he’d shared a flat with Carrie-­Louise before they split up. Now he was penniless and living with his mother. He looked at Caplan, a look of resigned boredom on his face.

‘Okay,’ he asked, ‘what’s the bitch saying about me now?’ His voice was surprisingly soft and educated. There was a faint Edinburgh accent in there somewhere. The resignation in his tone witnessed that this was not his first rodeo.

‘And who would that be?’ asked Caplan calmly.

‘Carrie-­Louise Miranda Hughes. I’m here for the paperwork.

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