Yvonne filled Dewi in, as the car sped ever closer to their destination. She kept her phone in her hand, in case Billy tried calling again.
Another twenty minutes and they were approaching the woods. Dewi parked in a lay-by to program the GPS coordinates. “We’re close. Another mile, I reckon.” He fired up the engine, again. The DI had to remind herself to breath.
They found the call box. It was actually a wifi and call-charging box. Yvonne opened the kiosk door and found the phone as it had been left, the receiver hanging down.
She stepped back out and scanned the tree-line and road in both directions.
“See anything?” Dewi joined her, checking he’d got his cuffs and pepper spray.
“Phone off the hook and dangling. He left in a hurry, that’s for sure. Question is, was anyone with him. God, I hope he’s all right.”
Dewi took a call from Callum. “Sir, back up is being sorted. It’s been delayed as the DCI wanted to know exactly what was going on. He’s organising it himself. He’s talking to North Wales now. He wants you to hold back and wait for their arrival.”
“Okay. Thanks, Callum.”
“What did he say, Dewi?” Yvonne was busy putting her boots on. She looked up, when Dewi didn’t answer straight away. “Well? What’s wrong?”
“DCI wants us to hold off. We’ve got to wait here until back up arrives.”
“What? Why isn’t back up in place already? Look, you stay here. I’m just going to head into the trees over there and see if I can see anything.”
“If he’s in the woods, he could be anywhere in there. Anyway, there’s no way I’m letting you go in alone.”
“Then let’s go.”
They climbed over the gate and onto the frozen ground. The DI was glad of her scarf, which she had wound tightly. She suspected the temperature was below zero. Her breath made large clouds of steam.
They headed into the tree-line, separated by about fifteen feet.
“What was that?” Dewi looked off to his left, and they listened intently.
“Can’t hear anything.”
“Thought I heard twigs snapping.” Dewi resumed moving forward.
They followed a small stream, the going increasingly difficult, as there were fallen trees and a fair amount of undergrowth which badly needed cutting back. They had been walking for about fifteen minutes, when another loud snapping came from somewhere to their left. Dewi barked at the DI to stay back and he headed to where the noise had come from. Yvonne was about to ignore his instruction and follow, when a wooden shack caught her attention. She glanced over at Dewi’s disappearing back, and headed over to the shack, pepper spray in hand.
She peered through the tiny window. It was empty, but someone had been there recently. There were several beer cans, some unopened. Remnants of food, on a plate on the floor, lay next to a sleeping bag. Yvonne glanced behind her but Dewi had disappeared. She tried the door to the shack. It wasn’t locked but the door was swollen and stiff. She managed to get it open and gingerly checked among the few things on the floor. They included a small, hexamine stove. The kind used by hardcore campers or the army.
Fear gripped her body and she took several deep breaths. Billy -and or Wayne- was close by. She knew it. She took another deep breath before heading back to the shack door.
Dewi was still nowhere to be seen. She listened, afraid to call in case she brought unwanted attention to her DS or herself. She heard sirens in the distance. That had to be the back up. She decided to check a little further downstream, buoyed by the knowledge help had arrived and would soon be on site.
There were voices, coming from just beyond the tiny dell in front. She strained to hear but got only snatches and couldn’t make out what was being said. She struggled down a bank, and headed to where she thought the voices were coming from.
She froze. Just below her, at the bottom of a small ravine, were Billy Rawlins and Wayne Hedges. Hedges had his arm raised. He was aiming a pistol at Billy, who was backing up, his hands raised, repeatedly saying, ‘No’.
She hid behind a tree, her back to it, and called out. “Wayne. Wayne, wait.” She couldn’t see his reaction, but Billy had stopped speaking. There was silence. She continued, “Wayne, you’re surrounded. North Wales Police have their ARV team in place. They’ll shoot you on sight, if you’re holding or you use that weapon.”
“Come out, or I’ll shoot him.” Wayne’s voice cut through her heavy breathing.
She heard another voice.
“Ma’am?” It was Dewi.
“Stay back, Dewi,” she called out, fearful her DS would be shot, before he even realised what was happening.
“Come out!” Wayne ordered.
She closed her eyes, holding a deep breath for a second before releasing it. She raised her hands and walked from behind the tree.
“Keep walking,” Wayne ordered again.
She slipped, barely managing to control her decent down into the ravine. She used one of her hands to get her balance, and tore it on a bramble.
Wayne alternately aimed the gun at her and at Billy, as the three of them stood, triangulated. The DI could feel panic rising through her, but the fear was more for Billy than herself.
“Ma’am, no.” Dewi was somewhere behind her.
“Keep walking,’ Wayne directed. He appeared unsure, as though not certain of where he was going to take things. Billy saw his chance, and made a run for it.
Wayne turned the gun from the DI and levelled it at Billy, who was weaving, hampered by the sides of the ravine and the undergrowth.
The gun rang out. Billy dropped.
“No!” Yvonne started towards Billy.
“Stay where you are are.” Wayne once more had the gun on her.
She paused, tears running down her face. “Wayne, don’t do this. Let me help Billy.”
Wayne was also choked with emotion. She could see the tremor in his arm holding the gun. “Why did you have to come asking questions?” he blurted at her.
“Because you killed Kate. You killed her in cold blood.” Her heart banged in her rib cage. Her knuckles white in her tightly-clenched hands.
Wayne let out a pained howl, gun still aimed at Yvonne. “She wouldn’t leave it. She wouldn’t leave it alone. I asked her to back off and she wouldn’t listen.”
Yvonne breathed deep. “She wanted those who hurt you to be punished for what they did.”
“You think that helps?” His face contorted. “You think that helps? Making us victims all over again? In the papers. On the telly. We are accused of being money-grabbers. Of wanting fifteen minutes of fame. They don’t care what happens to us.” He waved the gun, wildly. “They just want stories to sell their papers and fatten their viewing figures. The abusers get off scot-free. They get to remember the fun they had and they get off scot-free. They just fucking protect each other.” He spat onto the ground. “I don’t want to be in the papers. I don’t want to be seen as a victim or as someone after money. Those bastards hurt us. Every one of us. Who cared? Who cares now?”
“Kate cared. And Billy. What did Billy do? He’s lying down there hurt. He was abused too. Now you’ve just hurt him again.”
“Shut up. Just shut up. You don’t know what you’re talking about. He would have talked.”
“Wayne,” Yvonne held her hands out in front of her, palms towards him. “Police are all around this place. They’re everywhere. Why don’t you put the gun down. Please, please, put the gun down.” She glanced to her right, where she’d last seen Dewi. He was crouched, talking into his mobile. Her eyes turned back to Wayne.
He walked towards her. Gun still aimed at her.
“Did you kill Scotty McEwan?”
He stopped in his tracks, his eyes dripping hatred. “I didn’t kill Scotty. They destroyed him.”
“He had everything to live for.”
“He played the game. He tried to make the best of it. He had the swagger, but inside he was dying. I knew it. I could see it. Anyone who r
eally knew him, knew that. I didn’t kill him. He would never have exposed us. He felt the same way I do.”
“And Tom Rendon?”
“Scotty’s death ripped him up. I don’t know what happened to Tom. The people who run everything, who control everything, they use us. They use us all. Can’t you see that? I don’t want to wear their mark. I shook it off.” He let out a sob.
Yvonne wanted to go to him. He had the appearance of a small child. Lost. “Let me go to Billy, please.”
“No.” He raised the gun once more and she heard him pull the hammer back.
A shot rang out. “Go. Go. Go.”
Wayne fell to his knees in the dirt, before falling forward, face-down onto the frozen ground.
“No. No. No.” Yvonne’s whole body shook. It took her a moment to fully register what had happened. Armoured police officers poured into the ravine. Medical personnel rushed to Billy and Wayne.
She sat on the cold ground, hands either side of her head, and stayed there for several minutes. The trees around her spun and she felt as though she might faint. She tried to get up, but her legs felt weak.
Dewi came rushing to her side.
She broke down on his shoulder. Huge sobs which wracked her body. “It wasn’t supposed to end like this.”
“Billy’s alive.” Dewi put a hand either side of her head. “Billy’s been shot in the chest. He’s got a collapsed lung, but he’ll make it.”
Her eyes searched his face. “Really? Thank God.”
She looked back towards Wayne. He was lying as he fell. Ambulance staff were removing the equipment they had been using to test for life. They backed off and police moved in. It was now officially a crime scene.
18
Aftermath
Yvonne was seated alone on a bench in Dolerw Park, not far from the station. She could see the river bubbling away below her and could hear the children in the playground at Hafren School to her left. The laughter and squeals of the innocent.
She kept seeing Wayne Hedges, his face in pain. His anger with people and life in general.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Tasha took a seat next to her.
It was the first time the DI had smiled in days. “Tasha.”
“You look troubled.”
“We found the killer.”
“I know. Dewi told me. He also told me you’re still coming to terms with it all.” Tasha’s eyes searched the DI’s face.
“We have to protect them better.”
“Protect who?” Tasha asked, her voice hushed.
“Our children.” She turned her face towards the excited voices. “Monsters aren’t born, they’re made. They’re fashioned from the young and the innocent.”
“For the most part,” Tasha nodded, “I can’t argue with that.”
“Did Dewi tell you the reasons Kate and Stephen’s killer gave? The reasons for doing what he did?” Yvonne bought her eyes to Tasha’s.
“He mentioned it, yes.”
“He killed them because he didn’t want people to know he was abused.” She shook her head. “He wanted to hide it from the world so badly. I still don’t fully understand why he would have gone to such lengths. Why didn’t he just support Kate in her fight for justice and ask for his name to be left out of it?”
Tasha pursed her lips. “Obviously, I can’t say for sure, but his being abused probably clashed with his sense of himself as a man and as a soldier. He may have chosen a traditionally macho career as his way of fighting back. Of forgetting what he had been through. He built himself a fortress. The story coming out threatened to destroy that fortress and expose him as a victim. Something he had worked so hard to prevent.”
“He went to a survivors reunion.”
“So did Kate. So did a lot of people who were there to support others. He may not have known until he went to the group that it wasn’t for him. Besides, didn’t you say Kate’s father was a journalist? Even if Wayne trusted Kate, he may not have trusted her father.”
“She didn’t deserve to die.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Neither did Stephen Whyte.”
“You saved Billy Rawlins.”
“I very nearly didn’t.”
“You’re wallowing again.”
Yvonne sighed. “I’m sorry. This case has been gruelling for everyone. I still can’t help wondering about the other deaths at the barracks. What really happened to those soldiers? And how does that tie in with what happened to Kate? I think it’s time I talked frankly with Harold Thornton.” Yvonne rose purposefully from her seat.
“Can I come?” Tasha moved to join her.
“I don’t see why not. Thornton and his sidekick are due at the station later today.”
“Why don’t we take Dewi for lunch and fortify ourselves for the task.”
“Good idea.” Yvonne smiled. “Somehow, you always manage to pull me out of it.”
Tasha grinned. “It’s what friends are for.”
“Thank you for coming here again to see me.” Yvonne paused in the doorway.
Thornton shrugged. “It’s a good opportunity to tie up loose ends. We’re officially closing the case our end.” He’d waited for her in the coffee area, and was seated on an armless, soft chair.
Her eyes wandered to his unusually loose tie and open top button. He caught her looking and she cleared her throat noisily, giving him a stern look. “I wanted to ask about the deaths at Dale. The ones Kate Nilsson was interested in: Scotty McEwan, Helen Reynolds and Tom Rendon.” She took a seat adjacent to his.
He looked at her for a good two seconds, and she was unsure whether he was going to oblige. He rubbed his chin, finally. “Fire away. What do you want to know?”
Yvonne leaned towards him. “You found that the deaths were suicides or accidents, and I’m struggling with that.”
“How so?” He narrowed his eyes.
“Scotty’s family said he was several times over the limit. They want to know how he got up that tree to hang himself. They don’t believe he did.”
“I see.” He pursed his lips, and placed his hands together as though in prayer, tapping them against his chin. “Let me tell you about those deaths. I really want to clear it up for you.” He leaned back in his chair. “They were all of them damaged. Each of them to a different degree. Helen was angry. Angry at everyone, and determined not to lose her spirit. That spurred on the officers. They were every bit as determined to break her as she was determined never to break. It got out of control. She should have told them she was overheating but her pride wouldn’t let her.”
“What about Scotty? How did he hang himself from that tree, drunk?”
“I’m sure you know that young men, when drunk, can do some pretty amazing and dangerous things. Climbing up tall scaffolds, for instance.”
Yvonne looked away.
“Scotty was a soldier. He threw the rope over the branch. Looped it. Climbed up it. Then hung himself. Soldiers can do that. Scotty had tried out with the SAS. He’d failed, but his fitness was never in question.”
“And the marks in the field? The ones that were washed away?”
“They’d been there from several days prior to Scotty’s death. A team of guys were surveying the area. They’d set up their tripods there. It’s likely the prints were from their exploits.”
“And Tom Rendon?”
“PTSD. Everything he’d been through. He hadn’t just lost Scotty. He’d seen one of his other best mates blown to bits by an IED in Helmand province.”
Yvonne leaned back in her chair. It dawned on her that, by the end, Kate was probably more interested in the sexual abuse of those soldiers as youngsters, than she was in their deaths. She had wanted the perpetrators properly punished. Perhaps one day they would be. She shook her head. “So much tragedy.”
“It was hard, investigating those deaths. It took a lot out of myself and Richard. The army learned a lot, you know. Things have and are changing. It is getting better.”
Y
vonne smiled, sadly, at Thornton. “I misjudged you.”
Thornton smiled back. “You’re forgiven. It’s healthy to analyse everything you are told, in your job…and in ours. I wasn’t overly surprised by your scepticism.”
“Friends?”
Thornton grinned. “Friends.”
The children whooped and Kim gave a broad smile as they opened the door to Yvonne. She had an arm full of presents and yet more gifts -food and alcohol- in the car.
Her mother stood behind, her eyes searching her daughter’s face.
As soon as she was inside and relieved of her load, Yvonne crossed the floor to hold her mother. They stood, hugging for what must have been five minutes. Hot tears falling down the DI’s face.
“Merry Christmas,” she said, before breaking away and finding her mother’s present.
Her mum appeared as though she had won the lottery. Years of worry and guilt falling away. “Merry Christmas, Yvonne. I love you,” was all she said.
THE END
For Christopher
Also in this series:
Death Master
You Will Die
Total Wipeout
Deep Cut
Coming Soon:
Vanished Children
Acknowledgments
Edited: David Burton
Cover image: SelfPubBookCovers .com/ Visions
Copyright © 2017 Anna-marie Morgan. All rights reserved.
Created with Vellum
1
A watery grave
Sweat-soaked hair clung like fingers to his head. Pounding pressure threatened to burst his skull into a million tiny shards. Raging thirst razored his throat, leaving him dizzy and groggy, as he melted in and out of consciousness. Images and moments swirled, merging into a timeless, mashed-up surreality. His body spasmed from the pain of being in one position for far too long.
DI Giles BoxSet Page 71
