The Innocent Ones

by The Innocent Ones (retail) (epub)

  Her hand trembled. What did he mean he had Leoni? And the police at a rest home? Then it struck her. Dan’s father.

  She looked to him, but he had his phone to his ear, his hand over his mouth, stumbling towards a bench further along.

  She hadn’t heard his phone ring, but then she remembered that he always kept it on silent, vibrate only. Disturbing court hearings with phone ringtones never goes down well.

  She went to him, knelt in front of him and took his hands in hers.

  When their eyes met, there were tears in his. ‘That was the rest home. My dad’s been killed.’

  She swallowed and closed her eyes, before nodding and saying, ‘I know. By Leoni.’

  ‘What, how do you know? How long?’

  ‘Just now. Chris has got her.’ She passed him her phone.

  He wiped his eyes and read the message. His voice hardened. ‘Call him.’

  ‘Why? We should tell the police.’

  He shook his head. ‘No. I want her.’

  Jayne hesitated, but she knew she was feeling only a small part of Dan’s torment.

  She called Chris and, when he answered, whispered into her phone, ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m not telling you. I just wanted you to know that I’ve got her.’

  She glanced towards the police officers near Nick, Barbara in handcuffs. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to find somewhere dark and kill this bitch. I just wanted you to know that you did a good job. Now, this one is for me. And Ruby.’

  ‘No, please, Chris, you don’t have to do this. You’ve arrested her, that’s all. If anyone asks, this conversation never happened.’

  ‘For what? A murder no one believes she did? Some suicides no one believes she took part in?’

  ‘What about today? You said she’s harmed someone else. The police will be looking for her.’ She took a deep breath and glanced at Dan. His jaw was clenched, his stare fixed straight ahead. ‘It was Dan’s father.’

  ‘The lawyer, the one you work for?’

  ‘Yes, him.’

  Chris fell silent and Jayne wondered whether he’d lost signal, until he asked, ‘Is he with you now?’

  ‘Yes. He’s in front of me.’

  ‘Tell him he can join in the fun.’

  ‘Chris, where are you? What can you see?’

  Jayne could hear the steady whoosh of traffic noise in the background.

  ‘Near a canal. There are boats, all clustered together. There’s a tall chimney by some wasteland. I’m heading for there. The motorway will drown it out.’

  ‘Chris, please don’t.’

  ‘If Dan wants his revenge, he needs to be quick, but if the police arrive here, it’ll be over before they get out of their car.’ Then he clicked off.

  Dan stood. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Near the motorway. There are canal boats and a tall chimney.’

  Dan thought for a few seconds before saying, ‘I know where that is. Come on, we’re going.’

  ‘But what about here? The police?’

  ‘We’re witnesses. They’ll find us.’

  And with that, he set off for his car, marching this time, his fists clenched by his side.

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  A flash lit up the car. A speed camera.

  ‘Dan, slow down.’

  ‘I need to get there.’

  ‘At this rate, you won’t! You’ll kill us both.’

  Dan knew she was right, but it was hard to think rationally, his mind bombarded with thoughts of his father, wanting to know what had happened, but equally wanting to shut it out of his thoughts.

  He glanced across. Jayne was gripping the door. The buildings were flashing by too quickly, the tyres at the edge of their tolerance whenever they rounded a corner.

  He slowed down but said, ‘I’m just trying to keep my mind off my father. I won’t be able to do this if I think about him. What happened? What did she do?’ He banged the steering wheel. ‘I need to do this. For him.’

  ‘I know, I understand, but you can’t do anything rash. We could back away and let the police take over.’

  ‘No. I need to know, to hear it from her.’

  ‘How far away is it?’

  ‘Not long.’ His eyes were fixed straight ahead. ‘We should have suspected more about Chris. You told me he pretended not to know about Highford but had been here to buy petrol. How long ago?’

  ‘A month or so.’

  ‘That’s probably around the time Barbara started visiting here. They must have met in Brampton.’ He banged the steering wheel again. ‘Damn them. This was it, always the plan. Barbara wanted to kill Nick, because she wanted revenge, and she sugar-coated us into believing it was Nick she cared about. And Chris wanted Leoni. I should have spotted it.’

  ‘He used me too.’

  ‘They used us both. Barbara sent you to Brampton and Chris sent you to Wakefield, knowing that you’d hear the same story Mark had heard, because Barbara had the notes all along. They played us like puppets.’

  ‘And I would have been no surprise to Chris, because he knew I’d find him eventually. I’d speak to the same people Mark had, because the same people were involved. Every time I mentioned Mark’s name to anyone, I was sent along to the next person, down the trail, like I was following signposts.’

  ‘Just like they intended.’

  ‘They didn’t plan on your father though. That was Leoni.’

  Dan clenched his jaw. ‘We’re here now.’

  They rounded a corner and came across a large roundabout. A subway in the middle connected two sides. The motorway ran underneath, a long line of orange lights heading towards pitch-black countryside in the distance.

  ‘There’s a side road to the canal down here,’ Dan said, and turned off, stopping before they got to a gate. ‘Look, the boats.’

  Jayne followed his finger and saw them, the canal at the end of a long slope, so that the motorway was higher, at the top of a grass embankment. On the other side of the canal was an open space where there had once been a factory, the old foundations still visible but starting to become overgrown by grass.

  They got out of the car. ‘I can’t see them,’ Jayne said, trying to peer into the darkness.

  There was a steady hum of traffic from the motorway, but in a lull a voice shouted out, ‘Over here.’

  They both turned to where they thought the shout had come from, uncertain at first, but then Dan saw the faint shadow of someone waving, by a fence on the embankment.

  ‘There they are,’ he said, and set off running, clambering over a metal five-bar gate that blocked off the road down to the canal. Jayne followed, the gate clanging as she got over.

  The path was steep and the loud slaps of Dan’s leather soles echoed along the water, his tie streaming over his shoulder. Jayne had almost caught him by the time they got to the foot of the embankment, her pumps more suited to running, both panting hard. They started to scramble up, towards a wooden fence that ran along the top of the slope. Wild grass trailed against their legs, slippery under their smooth soles.

  When they got within twenty yards, a voice said, ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’

  ‘Chris?’ Jayne said.

  ‘Don’t come any closer.’

  Dan scrambled past her, until Chris shouted, ‘No!’

  He stopped and bent over, sucking in deep breaths. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘This is for Ruby. And for you.’

  Dan straightened. ‘Chris, calm down. You’ve done nothing yet.’

  ‘That’s why I was waiting. You deserved to be a part of this.’

  Dan looked beyond Chris. There was someone tied to the fence. A glint of metal told him that she was cuffed. ‘I don’t want to be a part.’

  ‘There’s no choice in this, Mr Grant.’ He stepped back to pull her by her hair, her pale skin caught by the street lights over the motorway. There was blood around her mouth and nose. ‘The face of innocence. More t
han twenty years of lies and cover-ups, just so she can carry on. William. Ruby. David Green. Lee Bridges. Mark Roberts. She killed your father. She will carry on if we don’t stop her.’

  Dan closed his eyes. Rage surged through him as he thought of his father and his office, the beating and the stabbing, all because of her. He shared Chris’s desire to hurt her, to take out this crushing grief on her, for her to feel his pain.

  He opened his eyes and held out his hands. ‘Chris, you’ve stopped her. Arrested her. You’ll say she struggled, which is how she got the injuries. She can go to prison for what she’s done to my father, and they might look again at Ruby and William.’

  Chris gripped her hair tighter and snarled through gritted teeth. ‘That’s not enough.’

  ‘But why now? You could have done this at any time. You’ve been to Highford before.’

  Chris let go of Leoni, who was gasping and spitting out blood as her head hung down. ‘See, things have gone too far. You can put me here as a plotter, because Barbara won’t protect me now that she’s killed Nick.’

  Dan put his hand out, to stop Jayne saying anything. ‘You don’t know that. He’s a fighter and he knows the area. Barbara isn’t capable. You can back away and no one will know.’

  ‘Do you think I can’t see the flashing lights? I know what happens when there’s a murder. Look, in the distance. That’s where the park is, high over the town, because the darkness was Nick’s cover. I watched the blue lights converge like disco lights. She’s done it.’

  ‘But why did it have to be with her? I don’t get it.’

  ‘I promised Barbara. I had to hear it from Rodney too, because there was still that fraction of doubt that Mark had got it wrong, so I needed to be sure, even though I knew in my heart he was right.’

  ‘What are you going to do, Chris?’

  ‘Kill her. Right here, right now, make her suffer and beg and all the things she’ll have made Ruby do.’

  Dan took another step forward. ‘But that will ruin your life too. Another victim for Leoni, in a strange way. That’ll be her final thought, and in the end that will make you the loser. Don’t let her win like that.’

  ‘You don’t get it at all, do you? Even you, your father not even cold yet, and you’re still a slave to the system. It’s not just what she did to Ruby. It’s what it did to my parents. Hollowed them out. They died inside when Ruby died. She is a cancer.’

  Leoni spluttered more blood and groaned, before lifting her head and saying, ‘She pissed herself when she died.’

  Chris looked down at her. ‘Huh?’

  ‘Ruby. She cried and cried and pissed herself, and it excited me.’ She started to laugh, blood across her teeth. ‘That’s something you’ve never understood. For the first time in my life, with William, I felt something. An emotion. A thrill. Ruby was even better, because I knew how twitchy the town had got. I knew what was happening on the rugby field, because I’d seen it on the clifftops with William. That panic. Fucking delicious.’

  Dan held his hands out. ‘Don’t listen to her, Chris. She’s trying to make you act, to ruin your own life too. She knows hers is over. She wants to take you with her.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Restraint,’ she spat. ‘Your father died like a lamb, couldn’t stop a little woman like me.’

  Dan took a deep breath, his fists clenched so hard that his fingernails dug into his palm. Stay calm, he told himself. Don’t play her games.

  She cackled when she said, ‘I just pulled tight on that cord until those rheumy old eyes went blank, his dead arm flopping on the arm of his wheelchair like a dying fish. No more Daddy for you.’

  Dan turned away and wrestled with his desire to go for her, to feel her neck in his grip.

  Jayne walked past Dan, her phone raised. ‘No one is attacking anyone tonight.’ She dialled 999.

  ‘No, no,’ Chris said, panic in his voice as he came down the slope, his arms outstretched.

  There was a crack behind him, barely audible above the noise of the motorway. It was Leoni. She’d kicked at the wooden rail around which her cuffs had been attached. She kicked again, screeching this time, until the rail popped from the post.

  She ran her hands along quickly, Chris turning to stop her, but he wasn’t quick enough. She was able to get free and clambered over the top rail, landing hard on the other side, her wrists still attached together.

  Leoni took one more look back before scrambling towards the top of the embankment.

  Chris ran after her. Dan and Jayne exchanged glances before following them, all of them heading towards the bright lights and the steady noise of traffic.

  The embankment levelled out at the top and ended on the motorway hard shoulder. The traffic roared past, headlights blaring. Leoni headed towards it, her hair streaming wildly behind her. Someone sounded a horn. Leoni ran into the nearest lane but faltered when she got there, the cars in the other lanes moving too quickly.

  This wasn’t a suicide mission but an escape.

  She stopped, tottering within inches of cars racing past, some swerving away, until Chris grabbed her from behind and pulled her back.

  They both fell back onto the hard shoulder, Chris’s arm around her throat, before he hauled her to her feet.

  He was panting hard as he restrained her, his arm tight around her neck. She was thrashing and trying to kick out, but his grip was too strong. The traffic was behind him, the passing lorries and cars making their hair blow about, Leoni’s long and over her face.

  ‘The police are on the way,’ Jayne said. ‘Please, come away.’

  Dan joined her. ‘I need you, please. I want justice for my father, but my kind. It’s my right. I’m the grieving son. I should decide.’

  Chris shook his head, his eyes wild. ‘Do you know how long I’ve waited for this?’ He had to shout to be heard. ‘Year after year of thinking of the moment I had my hands on my sister’s killer?’

  ‘And I can bet it isn’t as good as you thought. She is just another sad and pathetic criminal, despite what she thinks of herself. Let her suffer behind bars, every day dreaming of being free. Isn’t that the real punishment?’

  There was a lorry in the distance, lights along the trailer, the headlights bright, coming down off a slight slope. Chris turned to look at it, and Dan knew what he was thinking.

  ‘Don’t, Chris, I’m begging you. If you throw her under, I will see that image every day. And I can’t protect you. You’ll go to prison for the rest of your life, and that will suck the last dregs of life from your parents.’

  Dan stepped closer, but Chris leaned back and lifted Leoni’s feet off the ground, as if to throw her into the carriageway.

  Dan stopped, his hands out.

  Chris took a step backwards. He was right at the edge of the inside lane, the passing whoosh making his clothes billow.

  The lorry was getting closer, the headlights blinding, perhaps only two hundred yards away.

  ‘Please, let her go.’

  Chris closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

  Dan thought he was about to relax and release her, and for a brief second Dan didn’t care whether she ran across the traffic, to her likely death, but he shook his head. He couldn’t think like that, couldn’t be a part of this.

  When Chris opened his eyes again, they were filled with fresh resolve. He turned to the lorry. Only a hundred yards away now. The horn blared, a long warning. There was traffic in the middle lane so it couldn’t move out.

  ‘Now, Chris,’ Dan shouted. ‘Come with me. Make her suffer in jail.’

  Chris’s lip trembled as he shook his head, a tear running down his cheek. He glanced towards the lorry again, now almost on him, the horn still sounding. ‘Sorry, Dan.’

  He gripped Leoni and stepped backwards into the carriageway.

  Dan screamed, ‘No!’

  He thought Chris was smiling as the lorry slammed into them. It hit them with a wet thud before the air was filled with the sound of screeching tyres.

 
He turned away, Jayne with him, as they smacked and thudded against the underneath of the trailer. The lorry slewed and skidded to a stop, and Chris and Leoni were just shredded rags and glistening flesh strewn along the carriageway.

  As the other cars braked and skidded, Dan slumped down. Jayne sat next to him, and for a few seconds, neither said anything.

  Jayne broke the silence. ‘It’s over.’

  Dan let out a long breath. ‘Yes, over.’

  She put her head against his shoulder and Dan put his arm around her. They both held each other as they stared ahead at the growing queue of headlights and the blue flicker of the approaching police.

  Chapter Eighty

  Dan and Jayne sat on a bench, looking out towards a calm North Sea, deep and blue. The headland stretched to their left, the grass-topped chalk cliffs over pebble beaches. The sweep was much longer to their right, where the beaches became sandier, the view interrupted only by the grey jut of the harbour and the fairground brightness of the seafront.

  ‘I’m glad you brought me here,’ Dan said, his hands thrust into his jacket pockets.

  She hooked her arm through his. ‘I was worried that you’d hate it because it was where it all started. What happened here ended up costing your father his life.’

  ‘That’s why I’m glad. If you hadn’t, it would have been a shadow on the map. Now, it just feels like another town, because this was just a setting, not a cause. Wherever Leoni had grown up, she’d have been the same.’

  ‘Her mother might have been different though. It sounded like the town trapped her, was too small for her.’

  Dan shook his head. ‘I’m pretty sure she’d have been the same wherever she was. If they’d been in a bigger city, she’d have found the distractions sooner, that’s all.’

  They sat in silence for a while, comfortable in each other’s company.

  It had been more than a month since Chris had dragged Leoni under the lorry. His father’s funeral had been the week before, delayed because of the police investigation, his body released once they were satisfied that his killer was dead. For the first time, he saw a murder case from the victim’s perspective. He didn’t know how much that would change him.