Page 122 of Twisted Lies

She used her undetected advantage to survey the scene and almost winced at the damage inflicted on Leanne’s legs.

In at least twenty places Kim could see rectangles of flesh where the skin had been torn open. In his hand Jacob held a metal comb with teeth filed to very sharp points, as though imitating an animal claw.

He took the comb and gouged the skin, dragging it down and splitting the flesh. He then moved the comb a fraction to the left and did it again, tearing the upper layer of flesh from her skin.

Suddenly Leanne’s eyes snapped open and filled with pain. A muffled scream sounded against the gag and had it been allowed to go free, Kim was sure it would have been the worse sound she’d ever heard.

Leanne began thrashing her head from side to side. The suffering in her eyes made Kim want to throw up.

Leanne’s head stopped moving for just a second as her gaze landed on Kim.

A whole multitude of emotions passed through her eyes: hope, despair, relief until her face once again contorted with agony.

By Kim’s reckoning she’d been subjected to this for around nine hours, and Kim wasn’t sure how much more she could endure.

She had to make it stop, but there was no way she could rush him. He was more than thirty feet away. He could kill Leanne with that claw in a second.

‘You’re wasting your time,’ Kim called out loudly, keeping her voice strong and even.

He turned her way, mild surprise shaping his features although he appeared unperturbed.

He placed the bloodstained claw close to Leanne’s throat. ‘If you take one step forward, I’ll kill her,’ he said calmly, and Kim had no doubt that he would. Four people had died horrifically in this man’s quest for revenge.

He wiped the bloody claw on his jeans and turned his body slightly so that he could continue what he was doing and keep Kim in his peripheral view.

Her presence had not unnerved him one little bit. His hand was steady as he prepared to start clawing at a brand-new area of flesh. Kim had come across few people so totally detached from the pain they were causing, and he was doing it right in front of a police officer without even the slightest tremble. Her arrival had not changed his demeanour or interrupted his plans, she thought as he paused and lifted the gag from Leanne’s mouth.

‘Are you ready to tell me the truth?’

‘I don’t know where—’

Her words were cut off as he stuffed the gag back into her mouth.

‘Still playing hard to get. No problem, I can do this all night,’ he said, teasing the claw against her skin so she knew what was coming.

Leanne’s eyes lit up with fear. Her head again thrashed in protest at the pain she knew was to come. She’d been suffering this for what must have felt like an eternity. Kim thought of all she’d done in those nine hours while Leanne had been here, suffering this torture.

‘She really doesn’t know where Boy X is,’ Kim said again. She had to get his attention away from the claw and Leanne’s flesh.

The claw headed towards the skin.

‘Jacob, I have some sense of what you’re going through,’ she called out.

‘Yeah, I’m gonna fall for that one. Don’t empathise with me, Inspector. It won’t change anything.’

‘My twin brother,’ she said, trying to stop him dragging the claw over the flesh. ‘Tortured and murdered when he was six years old. Nothing I could do to stop it.’

Something in her voice caused him to pause. She continued.

‘We know Emily was your cousin, but I’m guessing she felt more like your little sister. I’ve read about her, Jacob. What he did to her was horrific. It was unlike anything I’ve ever dealt with.’

‘Do you have any idea how those pictures go over in your mind? How they play over and over again and there’s nothing you can do to stop them?’

‘You shouldn’t have known,’ Kim said. He’d been barely more than a child himself. There was much she shouldn’t have known.

‘They tried to keep it away from me, tried to shield me, but it was everywhere: on the news; in the papers; people talking; kids taunting. I got to know everything. The pictures in my head every waking minute. And the nightmares.’

He shook his head and looked back at Leanne’s leg.