Deadline by Simon Kernick Page B

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'Jimmy?' she called out, trying to keep her voice down as she slid her gaze along the silent tree line.
No answer.
She turned in the direction of the outbuilding, and swallowed. She didn't want to go back in there, but nor did she want to stay out here, with just the slow, quiet rustling of the leaves in the breeze for company.
'Jimmy?' she called again, a little louder this time, but with exactly the same effect.
She walked up to the hole in the outbuilding where the door had once been, and slowly poked her head inside. The holdall containing the money was gone. Aside from that, everything was just like it was before. The smell of turps, the inner door hanging off its hinges . . .
Except, now there was the sound of dripping.
At first she thought she was imagining it, that it was the wind playing tricks. But it wasn't. It was definitely there.
Drip, drip, drip . . .
Coming from the room off to the right.
'Jimmy,' she hissed, 'are you there?'
Nothing.
Fear ran its fingers up Andrea's spine. She wanted to run. But where?
Get back to the phone box. Now. They might be calling. You could miss them!
But where's that dripping coming from?
Suddenly every drop seemed loud inside her head, and as her fear built, so too did her curiosity.
She took three paces inside the room, turned her head and looked into the gloom beyond the hanging door.
'Oh Jesus,' she gasped. 'Oh no.'
Her hand shot to her mouth, covering her scream as she took a step backwards, unable to take her eyes off Jimmy Galante's corpse. They'd impaled him on a rusty butcher's hook, which had been rigged up on an exposed wooden beam running below the ceiling join. He hung there unsteady and sprawling, like a stringless marionette, head slumped forward, feet just about touching the grimy stone floor, arms dangling uselessly at his side. The sky blue polo shirt he'd been wearing earlier was stained black in the semi-darkness, and the dripping she could hear was the blood splattering steadily on to the floor from the gaping wound in his neck where his throat had been sliced wide open.
But there was worse. All his fingers were missing, on both hands. They'd been crudely hacked off, leaving nothing more than uneven, bloodied stumps.
She couldn't believe what she was seeing. Jimmy had been such a powerful presence, and to see him butchered like this was almost too much to bear.
'Oh Jimmy,' she whispered. 'What have they done to you?'
His right arm twitched. She was sure of it. She stared hard into the darkness, asking herself if she'd imagined it.
But then it twitched again.
Oh God, he was still alive.
She rushed forward, half-slipping in the pool of blood that was forming on the floor, and leant down in front of him.
'Jimmy, it's me,' she said urgently, putting one arm round his shoulders and using her free hand to lift up his chin. 'We're going to get you . . .'
She never finished the sentence, the shock of Jimmy's sightless, dead eyes staring back at her stopping her dead in her tracks. He was gone. The man she'd been relying on was gone. She let go of him and staggered backwards, wondering how this nightmare could get any worse, unable to believe what she'd just witnessed because to believe it was to admit to herself that the animals she was dealing with were capable of the worst kind of atrocity.
And as she leaned against the opposite wall, unable to move, she barely noticed the mobile phone in her pocket as it started to vibrate.

Eight
Andrea ran outside into the darkness, desperate to put some distance between her and Jimmy as the mobile continued to vibrate. This wasn't a message. It was a call.
She pulled it from her pocket and said 'Hello?' breathlessly into the mouthpiece.
'Hello, Andrea.' It was the artificial voice of the kidnapper, his tone neutral.
'You've got the money. Now where's my daughter?'
'She's safe.'
'But where is she? I've given you the money, every penny of it. I've kept my side of the bargain—'
'But you haven't though, Andrea, have you? I told