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CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

N ina whirled round, fist flying, aimed right where the voice had come from. But the bastard jumped away, laughing.

Shah looked the same, clad in his usual leather jacket, his hair spiked like a porcupine, and wearing those fucking combat boots. Why did they never make a sound when he crept up on her?

‘What’re you doing here?’

The smile on his face grew. ‘I should ask you that. After all, you are in my humble establishment.’

Nina smirked. ‘Humble and that get-up don’t gel. Do you even know what “humble” means?’

‘You bitch!’ He lunged at her. Before she could jump away, his claws gripped her hair and pulled.

Nina bit back a yell, but her eyes teared up. ‘Let me go.’

‘Not a chance in hell.’

Jerking his head towards the door, Shah growled at the lad, ‘Lock up for the night and leave. This lady and I are old friends, and it’s time for a good long chat. Isn’t it, Ms Banerjee?’

All the money in the world couldn’t have kept the other man behind the till. Still, he swiped the cash she’d placed under the newspaper and ran out the shop. Perhaps that would be his remainder pay for the day.

Nina used her right hand to reach into her pocket for her phone. She needed to either contact Robert or the police.

This time, though, Shah was a step ahead of her. ‘Uh-uh, no calling your boyfriend.’ He smacked her hand, slamming the phone to the floor.

With a definite finality, his boots landed on the device, and a crack informed Nina of her salvation’s demise.

‘Where were we? Aye.’ Still gripping her hair, Shah led her to the centre of the shop and smacked his foot into the back of her knee. Nina’s leg buckled, and she found herself kneeling before her tormentor. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘Wrong? You filthy little?—’

This time his kick landed right at her rib cage.

Nina clutched her torso, tears streaming down her face. Those fucking combat boots came with metal attached to the front of the shoe. She’d be lucky if he hadn’t broken a bone.

Right then, the only thing keeping her upright was the knowledge that if she lay down on the floor, she would never get up again. Not with the madness gleaming in his eyes, as if his entire soul had left his body.

Gripping her thighs, Nina pushed herself up. Her feet wobbled, not with the stress but with pain.

‘Do you hurt? Ooh, but we aren’t done. A little tit for tat, eh?’

Nina shifted an inch to her right.

‘Where the fuck are you going?’

The eejit bodily shoved her to the floor, face first, and aimed another kick at her side. She turned, gasping with pain.

‘Stay down.’

Bending, Shah gripped her legs and tugged her closer to him. She slid down, all her efforts at getting away nullified.

In a last-ditch attempt, Nina tried kicking her left leg, but with the pain wrecking her body and Shah’s knowledge of her moves, he just jumped back and retaliated with a kick of his own.

‘You like to kick, don’t you, you bitch? Aye, you’ve got a bite – no wonder that cop likes to fuck you. He’d need you to soothe his damned ego. Both of you, pricks, fucking pricks! You think you can turn my life upside down, do you?’

His voice sounded garbled through the pain. That kick had landed on her calf and stung like the worse thing ever. Nina curled into a ball, wanting desperately to see to her leg. The entire thing throbbed, warming up like she had fever. ‘W-Why are you after me?’

‘How many times do I have say it? Give it to me!’

For fuck’s sake! ‘Gi-Give you what, you stupid bastard? You s-said you have the documents, and you own this shop. What d-do you want from me?’

‘I thought you and lover boy had a brain cell to stitch together. That you could figure it out.’ Once more, he reached down and grabbed her feet.

Dragging her across the floor like a heavy mop, the man continued to mutter about her lack of brains. Nina, on the other hand, was busy trying to protect her head from smacking into tables.

Holding her arms up like a shield, she yelped every time she banged into a corner and her elbows smarted. ‘S-Stop. Why…?’

‘Stop? I was living a good life, then you come along asking your stupid fucking questions. You—’ Another kick to her torso. ‘You couldn’t stop, could you? Where is it? What did you do with it?’

He smashed her legs into the counter. Glass cracked under her feet, but Shah wasn’t done.

He picked her up and threw her, bodily, onto the cracked counter. The sound of glass splintering echoed through the room, and then Nina landed on top of the shards with a loud thump .

If she’d thought she hurt before, now she wondered if Shah had set her entire body alight.

‘You and lover boy destroyed everything. I had to set my club on fire. Do you know how much money that place made for me? I had to sell off more businesses because you came around asking questions you didn’t need to. I lost money! MONEY!’ He laughed. ‘And you ask me why I want you? You threatened my livelihood and my life, so I will end you.’

Nina felt herself being lifted once more. She also noticed her right hand shook, blood weeping out of her palm.

‘You,’ she whispered, ‘are behind it all.’

He flashed his teeth at her. ‘Where there’s money, I go. It’s how you survive in this world. And I don’t like pesky insects like you nosing around.’

‘Y-You want me d-dead. You weren’t going to a-abduct me – y-you were going to k-kill me.’

Instead of replying to her, he let her go. Nina’s feet landed on the floor, but with no energy to hold herself upright, she collapsed. Glass clinked underneath her, and Shah cursed. ‘The more you bleed on my floor, the more you leave your DNA around. And I can’t set you on fire here, not like I did the other bastard.’

Those words sent a trickle of fear scraping at her shredding resolve. Set her on fire? He had done this – he had framed her for murders she hadn’t committed.

Nina didn’t move, simply lying there, trying to think. She had no hope of overpowering him, and running away wasn’t going to work either. She needed to call for help. But Robert was still at her place, and the police weren’t likely to believe her and come save her. Besides, she didn’t have a phone anymore.

Shah’s footsteps crunched as he made his way over to a cabinet.

Nina blinked, trying to track him, but the darkness of unconsciousness approached, her body trying to protect itself from the trauma.

‘Aye, go to sleep.’ Shah’s leer came from somewhere above her head. She heard plastic ripping then the snip-snip of scissors.

Nina fought to keep her eyes open; tried to use her palms and push herself up. Then something dark fell to the floor.

She watched it unfurl like a blanket on a bed. But it wasn’t thick…

Shah laughed. ‘I had to improvise. I can hardly stick you in a plastic bag, no matter how large it is.’

What the hell?

Now her limbs moved… or at least she thought they did. ‘N-No. Let me go.’

‘I’m not going to kill you right now, don’t worry. I’ll just wrap you up in this makeshift tarp… Aye, I’ve got some tape. So now you roll over.’

Nina couldn’t even fight the hands now digging into her torso. She rolled onto the black tarp like a corpse.

The black bin bags – that’s what he’d cut up and laid out on the floor. He planned to wrap her in them.

Nina’s muscles twitched – then gave up when Shah wrapped bits of plastic around her legs, around her torso. When he approached her head, the smile on his face was so bright, he could’ve been the fucking sun in The Teletubbies .

‘You know, this is fun. More fun than killing someone quickly. Don’t worry – you won’t die for a while yet. This will ensure you get a few more stinky breaths.’ Another laugh. ‘Aren’t I generous?’

All she had a chance to do was squeak before the bag covered her mouth. It didn’t suffocate her – not immediately. The quality of the plastic was poor – the sort of bags that tore before you found your way to the community bins.

But Shah had his wits about him. He’d used multiple bin bags to cover her up, then tied off the ends with heavy-duty tape.

Once again, Nina was dragged by her legs, her shoulders bumping into cabinets.

When he opened the door – it had to be a back door – a cool breeze chilled the wet blood on her skin and clothes. If he succeeded in this plan, this would be the last time she ever felt natural air…

Something heavy slammed into her. Nina gurgled.

Shah snorted. ‘You’d do as a doorstopper. But you make more noise than a creaky door.’

He moved her again, scraping her across the ground – the chilly damp ground.

Nina could hardly suppress her shivers. Was she really just going to lie there and let him end her life? When had she become such a compliant bitch?

Move! Move! Move!

Nina pushed her shoulders to the right, and her legs to the left. He’d tied her up with tape, then dragged her over the uneven ground. Of course she could rip?—

Something heavy stomped on her stomach, and Nina lifted off the ground, her hands instinctually gravitating to her middle. ‘Ah!’

Rip.

Her right hand found its way through the small gap. She wiggled more, even when Shah smacked her in the head.

Once again, he picked her up, then slammed her into… the sound could only be a semi-hollow plastic box. What sort of plastic container sat…? The fucking bins! Community bins in Scotland tended to be large – big enough to not just hide a body but to sandwich it between numerous bin bags.

Shah’s voice breached the blanket of dread smothering her. ‘All I need to do is toss you in the garbage bin and dump some bin bags on you. And I’ve got a nice heavy pile of shite to bin. Then it’s up to you: do you suffocate, or do you get crushed to death?’

Nina thrashed her limbs, trying to get her other arm free. But the more she kicked, the more she felt the bin behind her shift. Then Shah’s fingers dug into her shoulder, and he forced her to stand up. Another loud clang sounded, then… she was airborne. Her free hand knocked against what she assumed was a ledge, and the odour… He was pushing her inside!

She held the side with all her might, even if her blood made the plastic slippery.

Nina kicked when Shah boosted her torso. With a large groan, the bin’s lid lurched close, smacking straight into Nina’s arm.

‘Aaargh!’ She thrashed, her legs still tied together, shaking like a mermaid’s tail. The bin was empty enough to tip to the side, crashing to the ground.

Still stuck in the jaws of the plastic container, Nina felt the bin bags pressing down on her, especially when Shah resumed his attempts to literally chuck her in the bin.

When he grabbed her legs and tried pushing her in, Nina’s limbs finally found a second burst of energy, and she lashed out.

Her left hand emerged from the tarp, and she shucked the plastic covering her face.

The grey daylight blinded her for a moment, but still she saw the scene – they were in an enclosure, the backs of flats looking down at them. Most had their curtains drawn; it wasn’t like they had much to see out here overlooking a large wall of mud – perhaps a hill that had been cut up to build the flats in the first place. A lot of plastic bottles and wrappers hung on to the weeds, and barren twigs littered the mud. The ground was made up of pointy stones and gravel with some moss growing over it. The only reason someone might come out here was to dispose of their garbage in the cluster of bins lining the red sandstone wall. The weather had eaten away at the sandstone in places, and the slight unseasonable warmth in the weather had given wings to the pungent odour of the bins.

Nina lay half in, half out of the blue bin.

Shah pulled something from his back pocket. ‘You’re not?—’

One minute he was hurling insults at her, and the next Nina heard a crack ! And then Shah was on the ground next to her… But she hadn’t kicked him – she hadn’t touched him or thrown anything at him, and she certainly hadn’t…

Nina scrambled backward, now purposefully finding her way into the damned bin. And she wasn’t a fan of stinking garbage.

Oh no. No.

Shah was on the ground, lying on his side, blood oozing from where his head had literally exploded.

Shah was dead. Someone had just shot him.