Justice for the Damned (34 page)

‘I do, sir.’

‘Then why the fuck has a call just come in from a girl claiming to have been abducted by someone called Forester? I assume she was referring to Edward Forester.’

‘Yes, sir. But don’t worry, I’m about to silence Forester for good.’

‘No. The bastard’s got Herbert Winstanley’s book. He claims he’s destroyed it, but I don’t believe him. I
want
that fucking book.’

‘It’s going to take time to find out where it is.’

‘You’ve got about ten minutes. And that’s only because the dispatcher had to ping the girl’s call and triangulate her location.’

‘Ten minutes won’t be enough.’

‘Then take him to the farm and do what you do best.’

‘Yes, sir.’

There was a click and the line went dead. Tyler drove to Southview’s gates. He climbed over them and darted towards the house, not bothering to conceal his approach. It went against his natural instincts, but there was no time for stealth. The front door stood open. Gun at the ready, he entered the hallway. He glanced down, feeling the crunch of broken glass underfoot. A smashed glass lay in a puddle of its former contents on the tiled floor. Tyler caught a whiff of sherry.

His gaze jerked towards a closed door at the sound of Edward Forester’s voice. It was as shrill as before, but now there was an added intensity to it – a shrieking, babbling intensity that went beyond the realm of simple hysteria. It rose even higher, as if he was frenziedly trying to scream down another voice. But there was no other voice.

Tyler nudged the door open. Edward was facing a fireplace. When Tyler saw what he was talking to, for the first time in as long as he could remember, he couldn’t keep the shock from his face. ‘Forester!’

Edward jerked around at the sound of his name, blinking like he’d been dragged out of some dark, deep hole. A man was standing in the doorway. His features seemed hazy to Edward, as if he was looking at him through a net curtain. It took him a moment to work out who the man was and why he was aiming a gun at him.

‘The girl,’ murmured Edward. ‘You haven’t found her.’

Tyler shook his head.

‘Then you’re here to…’ Edward trailed off into a strangled sob.

Tyler nodded. ‘Where’s Herbert Winstanley’s book?’

‘It’s gone, it’s gone, gone.’ Repeating himself in a voice as hollow as a coffin lid, Edward turned back towards the mantelpiece. His mother’s bloodless face was sunken and shrivelled. She didn’t look like herself any more. Nothing was itself any more. His world was gone. He spread his quivering arms like a crucifix. ‘I’m coming, Mother. I’m coming.’

‘Not quite yet you’re not.’ Tyler grabbed one of Edward’s arms, twisted it and thrust him towards the door.

Edward craned his head over his shoulder, keeping his eyes on his mother for as long as possible. He didn’t resist as Tyler pressed the gate button and guided him rapidly along the driveway to the GTI. Tyler opened the boot, shoved him into it and slammed it shut. In the darkness that enfolded him, Edward saw their faces – the ugly-beautiful, dead faces of all the girls he and Freddie had killed. And in his head he heard their bitter, accusing voices. ‘It wasn’t me,’ he screamed at them. ‘It was her.’ But they didn’t listen. They never listened.

Jim regained consciousness with a gasp. His first thought was,
Margaret! Where’s Margaret?
He opened his eyes and saw only darkness. His chest pain had subsided to a dull, constricting ache. But his skull felt ready to split open. He gulped down air, struggling to get enough into his lungs. It wasn’t only the pain that made it difficult to breathe. He was wedged into a space smaller than a coffin. The juddering engine noise told him he was in the boot of a moving vehicle. His arms and legs tingled with pins and needles, but not enough to stop him from feeling another pair of hands against his. They were soft, slender hands, and as cold as clay. He knew their touch as intimately as he knew the scent of their owner.

‘Margaret!’ The word came in an anguished whisper. Squeezing her hands, Jim repeated her name. He closed his eyes with relief when first her fingers, then her body twitched against him. But that relief was tempered by the knowledge that her death had only been postponed for however long it took to get wherever they were going. She began to jerk around like a landed fish, her breathing even more strained than Jim’s. ‘Easy, Margaret, easy,’ he soothed.

‘Jim?’ she gasped.

‘I’m here. Try to breathe slowly. Follow me. In… out… in… out.’ Margaret followed Jim’s lead and her breathing gradually eased off. ‘That’s it. Now listen to me. Have you got anything in your pockets we could use to break the cuffs? A nail file perhaps?’ There was little hope in Jim’s voice. Even if she had a nail file, it would take hours to saw through the tough plasticuffs. Time they almost certainly didn’t have. But anything was better than simply lying there, passively awaiting their fate.

‘No.’

‘Can you roll onto your other side?’

‘I’ll try.’ Margaret squirmed and twisted, until Jim felt her breath hot against the nape of his neck.

He gave an involuntary little shudder. ‘What can you feel behind you? Any sharp edges or latches?’

‘No.’

‘OK. Now I’m going to turn.’ Sweat popped out on Jim’s forehead with the effort of rotating his body. His face pressed against Margaret’s. His lips unintentionally brushed hers. He shuddered again, more deeply. His half-numb hands groped around behind his back. There was nothing much to feel there. Just the underside of the boot’s lid and the rough felt of the boot’s lining. He twisted onto his back, telling Margaret to do the same. Her body partially overlapped his as she manoeuvred herself into position. ‘When I say “now” hit the boot’s lid as hard as you can… Now.’

With what little force they could generate in the cramped space, they drove their knees against the underside of the boot’s lid. Pain flared in Jim’s injured knee at the impact. The lid barely quivered. They hit it again and again with the same results. Every time he exerted himself, the vice in Jim’s chest turned one twist tighter. ‘It’s useless,’ he conceded reluctantly, his breath coming in a rattling wheeze.

‘What’s going on, Jim? Why are they doing this to us?’ Margaret shot the questions at him in a rapid, trembling voice.

The answers caught in Jim’s throat like shards of glass. He freed them with a hard swallow. The least Margaret deserved was the truth. ‘There’s a man.’

‘The one who was in the bunker with you?’

‘Yes. I did something…’ Jim paused a breath, then corrected himself. ‘I tried to do something to him. I… I…’ He fell silent again, his voice cracking with the effort of saying what he felt must be said.

‘What did you do, Jim?’ Margaret urged.

‘I tried to have him killed.’ The words came out in a shudder that was part shame, part relief.

Margaret was silent a moment. Then, her voice tinged with incredulous shock, she asked, ‘Why?’

‘All the things that man’s done. All the women and children he’s raped and murdered. He was going to get away with it. I couldn’t let that happen. Something inside me, it… it just snapped.’

‘So you went to those woods to kill him.’

‘No. I was looking for…’ Jim trailed off into a leaden breath. ‘Ah, what does it matter now what I was looking for?’

‘It matters to me.’

There was a note in Margaret’s voice that sent a rush of blood through Jim’s contracting arteries. ‘I wanted to find the evidence to arrest him. I wanted to do things right.’

‘What changed your mind?’

Names passed through Jim’s thoughts and out of his mouth. ‘Amy Sheridan, Grace Kirby, Bryan Reynolds. Enough people have already died because of me.’

‘Are you saying you killed those people?’

‘Not directly I didn’t. But if I hadn’t lost control, if I hadn’t lost sight of everything I once believed in—’ Jim’s voice hitched on a sob. ‘Oh Christ, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.’ He slammed his head back against the base of the boot. ‘It’s all my fault. It’s all my fucking fault!’

‘That’s your problem, Jim.’ Margaret’s voice was sad but gentle. ‘You think everything’s your fault. But it’s not.’ She nuzzled her face against Jim’s neck, the way she used to when they were in bed. He drew in a trembling breath, his heart a boiling soup of sweet-and-sour emotions. He’d dreamed about feeling her body against his again for so long. But not like this.

They lay in silence for a while. Then they felt the vehicle turning, followed by the tremor of tyres bouncing over a rough surface. ‘I just want you to know,’ murmured Margaret, pressing closer. ‘If I’m going to die, I’m glad it’s with you.’

You’re not going to die!
Jim wanted to yell at her. But he knew it wasn’t true. They were both going to die, slowly, agonisingly. He ground his teeth in impotent rage at the thought. The vehicle stopped, but the engine remained running. There was the muffled sound of a door closing. He felt Margaret’s body stiffen in anticipation of the boot opening, but the vehicle pulled forward. After maybe a minute, they came to a stop again. The engine died.

‘Give me as much space as you can,’ said Jim.

Margaret flattened herself against the rear of the boot. Jim drew his knees towards his chest, coiling himself up like a spring. Several breathless seconds passed. The boot clicked open. Doug’s face loomed into view. Jim kicked out with his tingling, cramped legs. Doug swayed backwards, easily avoiding the kick. ‘Whoa,’ he laughed. ‘I thought I heard you two lovebirds moving about in there.’ He grabbed Jim’s legs and hauled him out of the boot. Jim’s breath whistled between his teeth as he hit the ground face first with a splat.

‘Help!’ screamed Margaret. ‘Help us!’

‘Shout as loud as you want,’ grinned Doug. He jerked his thumb at Jim. ‘There’s no one to hear you but him and me.’

Jim rolled onto his back. A quick scan of their surrounds confirmed Doug’s words. They were in a muddy farmyard. A collection of ramshackle barns huddled around a stone farmhouse in the shadow of a bleak, heather-blanketed hill. A dirt track stretched away from the yard towards a line of trees. The sight extinguished Jim’s last spark of hope. Even if Melinda somehow managed to avoid capture, there was no help coming, not out here.

Doug closed the boot, took hold of Jim’s ankles and dragged him towards the house. He opened the front door. ‘On your feet, Jim.’

His injured leg trembling as if it might give out at any moment, Jim struggled to his feet. ‘I always knew you were an arsehole, Doug,’ he said, glaring at his colleague. ‘But I didn’t think you were a fucking scumbag.’

‘You should be careful not to piss me off any more than I already am. It could prove very painful for you.’

‘Take these cuffs off me and I’ll show you what pain is.’

Doug’s grin broadened. ‘You’d like to kill me, wouldn’t you, Jim?’

‘I’d like to see you where you belong – rotting in prison.’

‘Maybe we could keep each other company in there,’ Doug said with a meaningful gleam in his eyes. ‘Get to know each other better. Who knows, we might find we’ve got a lot in common.’

‘I have nothing in fucking common with you.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. For starters, we’re both willing to kill for what we believe in. For me it’s money, for you it’s whatever fucked-up idea of justice you have.’

‘You must know you’re not going to get away with this, Doug.’

Doug regarded Jim with amused contempt. ‘You’ve been in the job too long to be so naive. I already have been getting away with it for years.’

‘You’re the naive one. Edward Forester might get away with it. People like him usually do. But not people like you or me. We’re the ones who always get fucked over.’

‘No one’s fucking me over. Especially not that prick Forester.’ Doug took out a handgun and motioned Jim forward with it. Struggling to keep his balance, Jim hopped up the steps and shuffled along the hallway. Doug shoved him into a room with a chair bolted to its floor, sending him sprawling. When Jim hit the floorboards, a bomb seemed to go off inside his chest. Blackness threatened to overwhelm him again, as Doug hoisted him into the chair and bound him to it with a leather strap.

‘How do you like our interrogation room?’ Doug asked.

Jim made no reply. His head rolled onto his shoulder. His breath came shallow and uneven.

‘What’s the matter, Jimmy boy?’ Doug’s voice was full of mock concern. ‘You don’t look too good. Is your heart playing up again?’ He slapped Jim’s face. ‘Don’t go passing out on me. We need you conscious so you can talk.’

Jim hoped his heart did finally give out. He knew what was coming, and he knew it would be better for both him and Margaret if he died right then. But his heart kept on beating. The damn thing was as stubborn as its owner, he reflected with a grim smile.

‘That’s it, you keep smiling while you can,’ said Doug. ‘Soon Tyler will get here and the real fun will begin.’

Doug left the room. Jim writhed weakly against the strap, but there was no give in it. Doug returned with Margaret slung over his shoulder. He dumped her down by the door. Jim’s vision swam towards her. Pale and shaking, she clung to his gaze. ‘I’ll leave you two alone to say your goodbyes,’ said Doug, closing the door. A lock clicked into place.

As quickly as she could, Margaret shuffled on her bum over to Jim. ‘Are you having another heart attack?’ she asked, her voice ragged with anxiety.

‘I’m just winded.’ Jim glanced at the chest of drawers that were the room’s only other furniture. ‘See if you can open those.’

Margaret pushed herself to the drawers and pulled at their handles. ‘They’re locked.’

‘Can you move the whole thing?’

‘No. I think it’s attached to the wall.’

Jim wasn’t surprised. Doug was an arsehole and a scumbag, but he wasn’t a careless man. Margaret returned to Jim. She knelt before him, gazing silently into his face. Then she lowered her head to his knees, and sobs began build in her chest.

‘I need you to do something else, Margaret.’ Jim’s voice was hoarse, but calm and imploring. ‘I need you to kill me.’

She jerked up to look at him, her eyes horrified and uncertain, as though wondering if she’d heard correctly.