When I came around, I felt strange. At first I couldn’t understand what was happening or for that matter what had happened to me.

I soon realised that my hands were bound behind my back and my legs were tied together. I was lying on something hard and dirty.

Slowly I opened my eyes.

“Ah, you are awake,” spoke a voice from out of the shadows.

I moved my head towards the sound of the voice. A man was sitting on a chair looking at me. From my position on the floor, I didn’t get a good view of him but I knew straight away that it wasn’t the man in the picture that Maxine had showed me… Then I realised that I had no idea how long I’d been unconscious.

“Where am I?”

“Oh you don’t need to worry your pretty little red head about that. For the meantime, you are safe. Let’s leave it at that shall we?”

Then he stood up and left the room without saying another word. The sound of the key turning in the lock felt like a final nail in my coffin.

I remained where I was for several minutes waiting for the last of the fog in my head to clear.

When I felt halfway decent, and with a bit of effort, I sat up and looked at my surroundings. The words of the song from ‘Oliver’ somehow came into my mind. I was ‘reviewing the situation’.

It didn’t take me long to realise that I’d been taken due to my own foolishness. Instinctively, I’d leapt on the tube train rather than waiting for the next as I’d been instructed. It was my own stupid fault that I was here and it was up to me and me alone to get myself out of this predicament.

There wasn’t much to see in the room where I was being held. Four walls, a floor and a ceiling. One wall had a door in it and there was one chair in the middle of the floor. I scanned the room closely for any evidence of a CCTV camera. I couldn’t see evidence of a lens but even so, I was not going to take any chances.

I squirmed across the floor until I reached the chair. Then ever so gently, I pushed it towards the nearest wall. When it was up against the wall, I sat in front of the chair and worked my hands into the waist band of my skirt.

Thanks to Max and his team, all the clothes I had been wearing to work had a few little extras added. Sewn into the waistband of my skirt was a small blade and a lock-pick.

It took me a few minutes to work the already fairly lose sewing on the seam open with my fingernail. I was about to remove the blade when I heard a noise.

I froze stiff for a second. Then I removed my fingers from the waistband and tried to stuff my blouse back into place. Then I rolled over onto my side and as the door opened, I started to breath heavily.

The man walked into the room carrying a bottle of water.

“Ah. I see you have been trying to make yourself more comfortable.”

He came over and helped me into the chair. Then he opened the bottle and let me drink from it.

When I was done, he stood back and smiled.

“You are no doubt wondering why I’ve kidnapped you? And what I’m going to do with you?”

She smiled again.

“I know you don’t have any money and only that woman… Mary. Yes, that’s it Mary will be concerned at your disappearance. If she is a good girl she won’t report you missing for a day or so. That gives me plenty of time to do what I want with you.”

He walked around the room a bit more. As he did so, I studied him just as I had been trained to do.

I realised that I had seen him before. But I couldn’t quite place exactly where it was.

“You are a very special woman. Not what I’d planned for the centrepiece of my trophy cabinet but now that I think about it, you will be ideal.”

He looked at me as if he wanted me to ask him a question. When I didn’t he gave a little shrug and carried on.

“Well Tamara, I know all about you. I know all about that rather special thing you have between your legs.”

He watched my face drain of colour.

He smiled again.

“Please don’t be embarrassed. You are very good as a woman. To be honest, you are more of a woman than most of the other’s I’ve had in here. They just bawled their eyes out the instant they came around. Cutting their heads off was a blessing as it shut them and their blubbering up once and for all.”

“Others?” I said trying to sound concerned.

“Yes. You make a round baker’s dozen.”

This shocked me. We’d found only 7 bodies. That meant that there five others out there somewhere.

“You look shocked. That is good.”

“What did you mean Trophy cabinet?”

“Oh yes. That. I have a trophy cabinet. It used to contain football trophies. Now it contains a number of glass jars. In each of the jars, is a head and a pair of hands. You must have heard of possibly the second most famous painting in the world?”

He looked at me earnestly.

“No? No matter. I am referring to ‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch. The woman has her hands at the side of her face and is screaming. Well, that is how all my trophies look. That is how you will look when I’m done.”

I felt sick to my stomach.

“You my friend are special. You will be pride of place because you are special. I will put your head and hands in the jar just like all the rest. But I think I’ll put your penis in your mouth. It will make a fitting finale to my escapade.”

My mouth was doing its drowning fish impression.

“Now don’t worry your pretty red head about it. I shall treasure the next two days for as long as I live.”

He saw the horror on my face.

“Yes my special friend you have two more days to live. In that time, you will get to know me and appreciate me.”

Tears started to form in my eyes.

“Don’t cry. You have one useful part to play in this world and that is to take my crimes into the History Books.”

I was crying now.

“I shall leave you know. I will be back in the morning. Get some sleep.”

He left me alone once more.

I sat still for some time trying to comprehend what he’d just told me.

The fact that he wasn’t or apparently wasn’t going to kill me for a couple of days made me sit back and consider my next action.

I couldn’t make up my mind what to do so I began to try to remember where I’d seen him before. After a while, it came to me. He’d told me that he used to be a footballer. I’d done my fair share of duties at football grounds at the weekend when I was in uniform. I couldn’t remember which club he played for but I did recall that he was sacked after a drug scandal. That was the last I’d heard of him. I was stumped.

I sat back and tried to reset my mind and put my need to use the toilet on hold.

For the next few hours I went over everything I could remember about the case and especially the previous victims. There was no way I could link him to any of them. Then I turned my attention to where I might be. Then it came to me.

His name was Daniel Carpenter. He’d been in and out of the Arsenal first team for a number of seasons until it was discovered that he was a Heroin addict. He’d been dismissed immediately. As he played for Arsenal, the north London connection was strong. I was probably in the cellar of his home somewhere in North London or close to it and close to one of the stations towards the end of the Northern Line.

I guessed that he had a job somewhere in central London and commuted to it by tube and that was where he’d seen me and all the other victims. The connections that I’d made right at the beginning had proved to be true or rather I was telling myself that it was right. Not that I could do anything about it at the moment.

I now turned my attention to getting out of this place. It was obvious that he could come back at any moment. I had to get out of my bonds and then get loose before tacking the door.

Thanks to my earlier efforts it was not difficult to retrieve the small blade from the waistband of my skirt. Cutting the cable ties holding my wrists together without dropping it or cutting my wrists was altogether another task.

After a bit of fiddling I managed to get the cable tie into a position where I could work on it. Then I began the delicate process of cutting the plastic bands that held my wrists together.

It seemed to take ages but eventually my wrists sprang free. I gently massaged them and looked at the damage. Thankfully, there were no serious cuts and there was hardly any blood flowing.

Then I turned my attention to my ankles. With both my hands free they didn’t take long to break free. As I did so, the opening lines of the Queen Song ‘Break Free’ came to mind. That famous video with Freddie and the band in drag had been one of my favourites as a child.

I soon put that out of my mind and spent the next ten minutes going through a series of Tai-chi exercises to get my blood flowing, and some of the stiffness out my body.

When I felt at least half human again, I went over to the door my ears straining to hear any sound coming from outside. Thankfully, there was nothing but silence.

A quick examination of the lock revealed that it was nothing very special and should only take a little time to pick with the pick that I quickly removed from my skirt.

As usual, I over estimated my lock picking skills but eventually I heard the sound I’d been waiting for, a resounding click, as it opened.

I stood up and breathed a sigh of relief. I even afforded myself a little smile at a job well done.

I put the blade and lock-pick back into the waistband of my skirt. Well, the skirt didn’t have any pockets so there was hardly anywhere else to put it now was there?

I listened at the door for any sounds coming from beyond. There were none so I gently opened the door. The sound my heart was making was deafening.

When I saw what was beyond, it almost stopped dead.

My mouth dropped open and my head sunk when I saw what was in front of me.

It was another door.

This was different in that it used a combination lock. Now I understood why he didn’t bother locking the other door when he was in the room with me. Even if I was fortunate enough to have overpowered him, I would still have to get past this second door in order to obtain my freedom.

Sadly, my pick was going to be useless for getting past this door.

I stood and pondered the problem before me for a few minutes. After a while I came up with one possible solution.

The lock had eight buttons. I wondered if he’d left traces of the operation behind.

I crouched down and looked closely at the surface of the buttons. As I examined them a smile began to form on my face. It didn’t take a degree in forensics to see that five of the buttons showed signs of both wear and the ‘oil’ we deposit from our fingers.

I tried to figure out the number of different combinations that five numbers could present. I soon gave up. Maths was never my strong point. Instead I began to try as many different combinations as possible.

The more combinations I tried without success, the more frustrated I became but I was determined not to be defeated.

Suddenly the latest set of numbers worked and the door was open.

With utmost caution, I opened the door and peered out. My assumption that I was in a cellar was correct. A set of stairs led up to a door with some soft orange light streaming in from somewhere beyond.

I was on edge as I crept up the stairs and into the light. The light was from a streetlight streaming on from outside. Beyond that, it was quite dark.

My stomach gave a big rumble. Lunchtime was an awfully long time ago.

I stood still at the top of the stairs and tried to get a mental picture of the hallway and the building in general. My ears were keen to pick up any sounds that might alert me to danger. Instead I heard the unmistakable sounds of someone snoring coming from upstairs. I mentally breathed a sigh of relief but I knew that I wasn’t out of the woods yet.

I was about to move towards the front door when I saw a small green light emanating from a box mounted on the wall. Shit. It was an alarm control panel and the solid light told me that it was armed.

I stepped carefully towards the alarm case and gently opened the door so that the streetlight shone on it.

It didn’t take long for me to recognise the type of system. Pressure switches and motion detectors plus a remote link to a monitoring company. All were pretty standard features for this type of system. My saving grace was that I knew that there must be a safe path from upstairs to the alarm panel in order to operate it. As long as I didn’t stray too far, I wouldn’t set the dam thing off.

Going out the door without setting off the alarm was going to be impossible so I began to search for a solution as to ‘what to do next’. Gradually, an idea started to form in my head. Memories of watching one of the ‘Home Alone’ films as a child came back to me.

I even afforded myself a smile as I looked around the hallway and realised that pretty well everything I needed was to hand.

Ten minutes later almost every tread on the stairs was completely covered with ‘stuff’. There were shoes, coats and all sorts of stuff that would impede someone charging downstairs in bare feet. I hoped that it would be enough to remove the height advantage he’d have on me coming from upstairs.

It was now or never. Time to set the alarm off.

I calmly walked towards the front door knowing that there was probably a pressure switch under the front door mat.

Sure enough, my first step onto the mat was enough to set the alarm blaring. Even though I’d been expecting it, I still almost jumped out of my skin.

With that done, I slipped back into the door to the cellar and hopefully out of sight to someone coming down the stairs.

I didn’t have long to wait. The shout of ‘Fuck’ was loud enough to be heard over the wailing of the alarm as he stood on something that gave way and he came crashing down the stairs on his backside.

I stepped out of the shadows and face him. He was cursing to himself as he tried to silence the alarm. His back was towards me so I took full advantage of the open target and kicked him right behind the knees.

He collapsed onto the floor. Strike one for me.

“You!” he cried as he saw me standing over him.

He tried to grab my legs. I didn’t hesitate to kick him again. This time where it would hurt him.

“Arggh. You bastard. I’ll get you for that.”

He was very persistent as he tried to get to his feet holding his crotch.

“No you don’t,” I shouted over the siren.

I followed it up with another kick. This time right on his exposed chin. His head went back and his body followed. There was an audible crack as his head hit the wall. He collapsed in a heap unconscious.

Less than a minute later he was tied up and immobile. I’d used three ties that had been hanging on a coat rack in the hall. There was no sign of him moving so I went in search of a phone. I soon found one in the kitchen.

I dialled ‘999’.

It didn’t take long for it to be answered.

“Yes Police please.”

After a slight pause another operator came on the line.

“Do you have the address where this call is being placed from?” I asked urgently.

“Good. Listen carefully. Get a message to the Operation Longwood team immediately. The killer lives at this address. The alarm is sounding so I’d expect a security company to be here soon. I need some backup.”

“Yes. I am a police officer, an undercover officer.”

I hung up the phone and went back into the hallway.

He was starting to stir.

“Just stay still unless you want another kicking. The police are on their way.”

He glared at me.

“I’ll sue you. Attacking me like this.”

I laughed.

“And how will you explain your use of a tazer on me then? What about you kidnapping me? And that bragging about how I’d be the latest victim to have their head chopped off and put in a jar. I really didn’t appreciate what you said you’d do to my penis. That was just not on.”

He moaned.

“Just stay where you are and you won’t get hurt again. Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah I hear you.”

The alarm siren shut itself off just at that moment. My ears were still ringing but there was no mistaking the sound of a police siren approaching.

There was still the matter of getting the door open. I was pondering this when an idea came to mind.

“I wonder…”

I walked over to the alarm panel.

I pressed buttons 5,3,1,4,2 and then ‘Enable’.

The green light went out and a different one came on meaning that I’d switched the alarm off. I afforded myself a slight smile.

I turned back to him pleased as punch.

“You were careless. You were very careless when you used the same code for both locks. Tut-tut.”

He just glared at me.

I noticed the flashing blue lights of a Police Car arrive outside.

Feeling mightily relieved I opened the door for the police.

[End of part 6]