Perfect Remains: A gripping thriller that will leave you breathless. Helen Fields

in to-do-list form. It had already been inspected by the missing persons team and no useful information had been identified. The diary was A4-sized, with a sheet for each day, the notations proficiently brief.

      Three weeks prior to her abduction was this: Senior partner review. Resolution statistics good. Increase in billable hours required. Buxton was an achiever but not someone with a hard head for business then, failing to squeeze her clients hard enough for money. The oddity of a likeable lawyer. Callanach flicked through the remaining pages, finding only a well-organised professional who structured her day carefully and filled her time to the maximum.

      The pages of the diary gave nothing away that Callanach didn’t already know but tucked inside the back cover was a card from what was presumably an old friend, announcing the birth of a baby girl and updating Elaine as to recent news. A house move, a career break while she enjoyed some parenting time, a joke about a mutual acquaintance. Nothing that indicated the friend had seen Elaine for months, if not years. The return address was London. Behind the card was a half-drafted letter in reply. It began with the expected congratulations, comments about the baby photos and questions about the house move. Then the tone changed.

      I’m so sorry I missed the baby shower and it doesn’t look as if I’ll make it to the christening either. Work is a bit pressing at the moment. You always did tell me I take life too seriously – I’m starting to think you were right! I’ll do my best to get down to London for a visit soon. Perhaps I’ll amaze you and book a holiday like you suggested. I haven’t been away since the divorce. Maybe I’ll even meet someone new (you’re bound to like him more than you did Ryan). Time to get my head out of the books.

      Callanach closed his eyes. There was no good murder, no fair or reasonable circumstances under which a life could be stolen, but Elaine Buxton had been cruelly robbed. How had she felt when the thought crystallised in her mind that she was being abducted? Did the irony of that unfinished letter occur to her, with its dreams of holidays and meeting a new man, or was the panic too all encompassing? Had she finally found her voice and fought for her life? Callanach put the papers down. One hand wandered into a pocket as he paced his small sitting room, and there, as if it was a stowaway, he found Elaine Buxton’s paperweight. He took it out, brushed a stray strand of cotton from its unblemished surface, tried to recall the precise moment he’d taken it and how he’d justified it to himself at the time, but the memory was a cloud. Slowly, quietly, almost as if he were being watched, he slid the heavy glass under his pillow.

       Chapter Eight

      King seethed at Elaine’s lack of cooperation. It was usually beneath him to be reduced to obscenities but, if he were forced to use a common phrase, he might say she was being a fucking bitch. He’d tried to fit her new dentures but she’d cried when he’d pushed them into her mouth, moaning at the pain from her gums, saying they were still too sore. The disgusting creature had shaken her head to and fro like a rabid dog, trying to avoid the procedure. He’d known he would have to tolerate her saliva and had gloved-up in readiness. Her head throwing, though, had sent streams of mucus from her snivelling nose across his face. He could have vomited with repulsion.

      She had to respect her new situation. If she wouldn’t learn willingly then she would be taught. Discipline would do her no harm. The protein shakes he made her weren’t appreciated either. Half a dozen times he’d had to hold her nose and tip it into her mouth. She’d soon stopped thinking she could starve herself. King took an old, wooden ruler from a drawer in his study, picked up his laptop as an afterthought and retraced his steps down the official and up the unofficial staircases. A tiny nick at the edge of the panel hiding the keyhole would have to be polished out. It wouldn’t do to get sloppy. Not when everything else had gone according to plan.

      Elaine frowned when he entered. Like a stroppy teenager, he thought. But it wouldn’t last long. If he could just help her progress through this stage, she would see sense. He walked to her bedside without speaking. There was no point engaging with her. It would only create another scene. This help he was giving her, this tough love, was best dealt swiftly and silently. King checked that the chains and cuffs binding her hands were tight enough that she couldn’t thrash and cause too much additional damage. She closed her eyes tightly and her mouth even more so, assuming, no doubt, that he meant to try again with the dentures. Her behaviour proved she needed more than just coaxing to comply. This was, he decided, an inevitability of neither his choosing nor his making. It was all her fault.

      It wasn’t until he pulled her ankle chains tighter causing her legs to part wider, that she began screeching. However, he was delighted to note that no amount of hysteria made a millimetre of difference to her bindings. He was clever to have thought so carefully about the restraints he would need for his guest suite. King giggled shrilly. Elaine stopped shrieking and stared at him as if he’d grown a second head.

      ‘Guest suite,’ he muttered aloud.

      In a second, she was bawling like a toddler again. Don’t talk to her, he counselled himself. Silence until the lesson has been given. That was when she began to beg. He’d known she would.

      ‘Pleath, pleath don’ rape me. Pu’ in the denture. I’ll be good.’ King rotated his head slowly from shoulder to shoulder, working out the tension her pathetic whining had caused. He looked coolly into her eyes. He could reassure her, he supposed. After all, he had no intention of raping her. He wasn’t an animal. Only foul lowlifes who couldn’t get it anywhere else were reduced to rape. Then again, if the prospect scared her sufficiently to induce compliance, why shouldn’t he use the threat as part of his portfolio to help subdue her?

      ‘Not subdue,’ he whispered. ‘Educate. Damn!’ he shouted. Why was he talking to himself? She’d thrown him off balance with the rape comment. He had to concentrate. King picked up the ruler and hit the bare sole of her left foot, hard. The smacking sound it made was like clean, white light. In his head he counted and made it to four before the screaming began, the myriad of nerve endings taking their time to communicate with her brain. Now he would allow himself to speak.

      ‘That took longer than I’d anticipated,’ King said. ‘This is what the Germans call Sohlenstreich, quite literally a striking of the soles. An ancient and well-practised form of correction used in cultures across the world. My father taught me about it at quite a young age. He was a gifted educator.’ He snapped the ruler across her other foot. This time Elaine knew what was coming and emitted the scream, if anything, slightly before wood contacted skin. ‘Effective because it’s extremely painful, but leaves few marks or lasting injury. I shall be careful not to break any of the bones in your foot, although sometimes there are accidents.’ He slapped her left foot with the ruler again.

      ‘As for raping you, get your mind out of the gutter. I am not so needy as to require such base rewards.’ The level of her screaming was becoming intolerable.

      ‘If you do not stifle that noise,’ he said, punctuating each word with a strike on one foot then the other, ‘I shall not stop!’ Eleven blows in quick succession. More than he’d intended to deal her. She was starting to pull herself together though, eyes wide, watching him, weeping rather than yelling. Her whole body was shaking. It was shock, but she’d come round. The human body was more resilient than the mind.

      ‘I’m going to ask you some questions to check that you are progressing. If you answer correctly this will end and we can be friends again. Will you let me fit the dentures without fighting me?’ Elaine nodded furiously. ‘Good. And will you drink your protein shakes without fuss?’ More nodding. ‘What was the German word for this form of correction?’ Silence. He raised the ruler into the air.

      ‘No, no, I’m trying to remember, I’m trying,’ she whispered, her throat coarse. Even without the dentures she was working harder to speak clearly, playing the diligent pupil.

      ‘You weren’t paying attention, were you, Elaine?’ He slapped the ruler against her right sole, quite lightly he thought, but still she let loose another assault upon his ears. He supposed the pain was increasing with the bruising.

      ‘Come