His hands had trembled at the feel of her skin: cool to the touch and soft as he cut away, leaving just the bra and pants. What they hid scared him. Made him ache…

And then the phone went. Ringing and ringing and ringing as he hefted her over his shoulder, picked up the big holdall, and staggered out of the back door. They were coming for him.

A big brass padlock held the cabin door shut, next to a sign saying 'WARNING: DANGER OF COLLAPSE. ACCESS PROHIBITED.'

Grunting, he took a step back and slammed his foot into the wood, next to the lock. The old door boomed, bouncing under his attack, but the padlock stayed firm. He kicked it again, and once more for luck. The third boom echoed off the quarry walls, covering the sound of cracking wood as the padlock's fixings gave way.

Inside, it was freezing and dark, the smell of rats and mice fading away under years of dust. Grinning nervously, he slid the woman off his shoulder onto the concrete floor. Her pale skin shone against the dark grey and he shivered, trying to pretend it was the cold. But he knew it was her.

The large holdall went next to her. Afterwards, he knew, it would make him sick to his stomach. Make him sick until there was nothing left but bile and shame. But that was for later. For now his blood roared in his ears.

With numb fingers he tugged down the zip.

'Hello?' he said.

Inside the bag, little Jamie McCreath opened his eyes and began to scream. The footprints were disappearing fast, thick white flakes of snow filling them up, making everything smooth and featureless. Logan slithered to a halt, his eyes scanning the landscape. The trail had led directly away from the house, right out into the darkness. And now the trail was gone.

He swore bitterly.

The PC he'd dragged along puffed to a halt behind him. 'What now, sir?' he asked, panting for breath.

Logan looked about him, trying to guess which way Martin Strichen had gone, taking WPC Watson with him. Damn it! He'd told Insch it was a bad idea to leave just two of them at the house! 'Split up,' he said at last. 'We need to cover as much ground as we can.'

'Which way do you want me to-'

'I don't care! Just find her!'

He pulled his mobile out of his pocket as the PC, looking hurt, stomped off at a forty-five degree angle into the snow.

'DS McRae,' he told the woman who answered. 'Where are my reinforcements?'

'One moment…'

Logan swept his eyes across the featureless landscape again. It was as if someone had erased the world, leaving nothing behind but a plain of white under a yellowed-slate sky.

'Hello, DS McRae? DI Insch says they're on their way. And PCs from Bucksburn should be with you in two minutes.'

He could already hear the faint wail of sirens, the sound deadened by the falling snow.

Logan forged on through the drifts, icy water slowly seeping into his trousers, making his legs heavy. He was breathing like a train, his breath coming out in thick clouds of vapour, hanging around his head in the still night, his own personal fog bank.

A sinking feeling was forming in his chest. There was little chance of finding Martin Strichen in the dark and snow. Not without dogs. Maybe he should have waited for the dogs? But he knew there was no way he could just sit there and not do something. Anything.

There was a slight rise in the ground and he laboured up it, the snow coming to his knees. And then he was at the top, feeling his heart leap into his throat, his bowels clench. The ground had disappeared! He stood on the lip of the precipice, arms pinwheeling to keep his balance, one foot hanging in space.

Logan staggered back onto firm land, then inched forward until he was standing on the edge of the cliff again.

It was one of the quarries. A wide, three-quarter circle of sheer walls with a dark lake at the bottom. The falling snow, drifting down below him only made the feeling of vertigo worse. It had to be fifty, sixty foot straight down to the cold, black water.

His heartbeat was still furious, pounding through his veins, making his ears buzz.

There was a boxy concrete cabin at the foot of the cliffs not far from the water's edge. A thin, yellow light blossomed in a cracked window before sweeping away.

Turning, Logan began to run. The torch didn't exactly give the cabin a cosy feel. The torch's beam was a cone of jaundiced, washed-out light, making the shadows inside the cabin seem even thicker than before.

Groaning, WPC Watson flickered an eye open. Her head was stuffed full of burning cotton wool. All she could smell was copper, and her face was sticky and cold. Her whole body was cold, deep frozen. A shiver grabbed her, rattling her bones, making her head throb.

Everything was blurred, swimming in and out of focus as she struggled back to the surface. She'd been doing something. Something important…

Why was she so cold?

'Are you awake?'

It was a man's voice, nervous, almost shy. Trembling.

Everything snapped back into place.

WPC Watson tried to jump to her feet, but she was still tied hand and foot. Her lurch of intent made the room whirl around her head, the edges rushing in and out like some demonic hokey-kokey. She squeezed her eyes hard shut and hissed breath through her teeth. Gradually the pounding stopped. When she opened her eyes again she was looking straight into Martin Strichen's worried face.

'I'm sorry,' he said, one trembling hand coming up to brush the hair from her face. 'I didn't want to hit you. But I had no choice. I didn't mean to hurt you…Are you feeling OK?'

All she could do was mumble through the gag.

'Good,' said Martin, not understanding the barrage of abuse she'd just thrown at him. 'Good.'

He stood and turned his back to her, bending over the large holdall she'd seen in the kitchen, and in a light, whispering voice began to sing the 'Teddy Bears' Picnic'. Stroking something inside the bag.

Watson's eyes darted around the small room, looking for a weapon. The place had been an office of some sort once. A metal rack for timecards was still screwed to the wall by the door and a bloated, mildewed calendar of naked women was nailed to another. The furniture was gone, leaving nothing behind but the graffiti-covered walls and the cold concrete floor.

Another shiver grabbed her. How could it be so damned cold? She looked down, alarmed to find that she'd been stripped.

'You don't have to worry, little one,' said Martin, gently.

A low moaning sob came from inside the bag and Jackie's blood froze. Jamie McCreath was still alive. She was going to have to watch the sick bastard kill a child!

Bunching all her muscles, she strained against her bonds. There wasn't an inch of give in her restraints. Arms and legs trembling with effort, all she managed to do was make the ropes cut deeper into her skin.

'It won't be like it was for me.' He went on stroking the child softly, making soothing noises. 'I've had to live with what Gerald Cleaver did to me for my whole life…You'll be free. You won't feel anything.' Watson could hear the tears in his voice. 'You'll be safe.'

She wriggled over onto her back, gasping as bare flesh came into contact with freezing concrete.

Martin picked the child out of the bag and sat him down on the floor next to Watson.

Jamie was still dressed in his snowsuit – orange and blue, with a double-bobbled hat. His eyes were huge and full of tears, his nose streaming twin silver trails into his twisted mouth. Low sobs made him shake all over.

Martin bent over the bag again and his hand emerged with a length of electrical cable. With practised ease he made double knots at each end, pulling them tight. He put one knot in the palm of his left hand, winding the cable twice through his clenched fist. He did the same with the right, pulling it tight and nodded in satisfaction at a job well done.