by D C Vaughn
Pete and Helen stared at her as though she was insane. Rebecca decided that having started, she may as well finish.
‘Sam’s colleague told me that he and Sam opposed the use of the technology by the military, and that Sam was going to turn whistle blower because the company were testing the devices on unsuspecting members of the public. I think it might be something to do with community programs Neuray was running last year. Sam downloaded data from the company and hid it, the proof of what they had been doing. That’s what they were after, it’s why he was shot.’
Helen stared at her husband. Pete seemed to be thinking hard while staring at Rebecca, a conflict between disbelief and uncertainty raging on his features.
‘That’s insane, they can’t do that?’
‘I saw it in action,’ Rebecca repeated.
‘Who is this colleague of Sam’s?’ Helen asked.
‘His name’s Colin and he lives out near Cranbrook.’
Helen frowned. ‘Sam never mentioned working with anyone called Colin?’
‘You’re making the whole thing up,’ Pete snapped.
‘I’m not!’ Rebecca shot back. ‘Colin’s outside waiting for me, you can talk to him yourself! He’s got this entire set up in his house, monitoring dozens of people, and…’
Pete’s eyes widened and he unfolded his arms, the hammer in his right hand. For a moment Rebecca thought that he was about to attack her, but then she realised he was looking past her.
‘Helen, get upstairs!’
The front door hit Rebecca hard from behind and sent her crashing into the wall as it opened with tremendous force. Stars whorled in her eyes and pain ripped across her forehead, nausea plunging through her belly as she lost her footing and slumped to her knees. The cigarette tin tumbled from her hand to land on the carpet beside her.
‘No!’
She heard Helen’s shriek and saw a figure crash into Pete, a fist cracking across the old man’s mouth as the hammer was twisted from his grip. Pete was hurled backwards onto the carpet, his eyes rolling up in their sockets as Helen screamed and tried to back up the stairs.
Rebecca, her sight blurred and sparkling with lights, staggered to her feet as the attacker whirled toward Helen. Rebecca lashed out with every ounce of her strength and plunged her nails into the man’s face from behind. She heard a growl of pain as her nails gouged through his skin and across his eyes, saw Helen flee up the stairs.
The man flung himself backwards toward a wall and Rebecca felt the unforgiving wall slam into her back and crack the back of her skull. Her nausea intensified and she slumped, unable to see properly and her limbs flailing uselessly as she collapsed onto the carpet.
Rough hands hauled her up and dragged her out of the house. She felt her knees scrape painfully along the drive, tried to stand up but couldn’t, her feet fumbling for purchase on the damp ground. She saw the silver car ahead, saw a hand open the boot and felt herself being heaved bodily into the cramped trunk, glimpsed Sam’s cigarette tin in the hands of the man who had broken into the house.
Colin’s dark eyes glared down at her for a moment, and then he slammed the boot shut, his face sliced with red lines where she’d attempted to scratch his eyes out.
***
XXVI
Kieran Russell arrived at his home and switched off the car headlights.
He could see that most of the home was in darkness, all but for the faint glow of an interior light where he knew his wife would be waiting for him. He sighed in the darkness, steeled himself, and then got out of the car.
The house was silent as he walked in, the soft light coming from the living room as he hung up his coat and walked through. He glanced at his watch as he did so, the faintly glowing dials showing 12.42am. Two hours after his shift had ended, although that was nothing unusual these days.
He walked into the living room to see Sophie sitting on the couch with a half–finished glass of wine on the coffee table in front of her and a book in her hand.
‘You’re home late.’
It was one of the things that she did. She wasn’t directly criticising him, but then she wasn’t not criticising him either. She was both accusing and asking an innocent question at the same time and he immediately felt irritation tingle like pin pricks on his skin.
‘Big case,’ he replied, trying not to get drawn into an argument. ‘It’s taking up a lot of our time.’
‘Anything you want to talk about?’
She hadn’t yet once looked him in the eye, her gaze fixed on the book she was reading.
‘Can’t,’ he replied, honestly enough.
‘Why not?’
‘If I tell you that, then I’ll have broken procedure. It’s not a case I can discuss.’
If Sophie was actually going to bother looking at him he couldn’t tell, but he decided not to wait to find out. He knew that his dinner would be in the fridge waiting for him, and that Sophie would have eaten alone again. He didn’t like it, but she knew what she’d been getting into when she married him. It wasn’t like the Marines or the police worked normal hours.
He wandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge, spotted his meal, took it out and slid it into the microwave. His mind was only half on what he was doing, the other half focused on Rebecca Kyle and Neuray and three other unsolved cases currently occupying the MCIT.
He barely heard Sophie walk past the kitchen and up the stairs of their home.
No “goodnight”, no further conversation. Nothing.
‘Is that it then?’ he called after her.
‘I’m going to bed, I’m tired,’ came the reply from the stairs. ‘Is that okay?’
It wasn’t a question, sarcasm sliding off each word to tumble down the stairs and slap him around the face. The old anger boiled up again from somewhere inside him.
‘No problem. Must’ve been a tough day.’
The microwave beeped and he dragged his plate out and wandered through to the dining room. The living room lights were still on, and he was glad that they were. He had no intention of going upstairs.
He’d been married to Sophie for twelve years, the ceremony held two years prior to him leaving the Marines and joining the police force, when they’d moved from Plymouth to Exeter. Twelve years. He shook his head as he ate, wondering where those years had gone and why he’d spent them with someone who seemed determined to undermine his every day with one complaint or another.
Things had been fine enough for the first couple of years, both of them working full time, but then after the move to Exeter Sophie had taken it upon herself to switch to part–time work, leaving Kieran to pay the mortgage, the bills, everything. It wasn’t that she didn’t contribute, only that she contributed less and yet demanded her fair share of everything. Last year had been the worst, when he’d finally blown his top and threatened to leave her for good. About then he’d seen the glint in her eye, the anticipation, and he’d known then that she intended to take him for her fair share of their home, their savings, their lives. It didn’t matter that he’d paid for the majority of what they owned, that his work on the house was the main factor in how much it was worth. No, all that mattered was if they divorced, Sophie got what she felt she deserved.
Kieran shovelled another mouthful in and realised that he was clenching his jaw and that his shoulders were bunched tightly. He closed his eyes, tried to breathe and force himself to relax.
Last year, he’d been sent to hospital after he’d experienced dizzy spells, numb limbs, breathing difficulties and blurred vision. Fearing heart problems, he’d had the works done: blood tests, ECG, MRI, you name it. After a week of sleepless nights, the test results had come through. There was absolutely nothing wrong with his body, but everything was wrong with his mind. Kieran had been diagnosed as suffering extreme panic attacks and anxiety.
He’d laughed in the doctor’s face. He was a former commando and now detective and had never felt anxious in his life, even when on deployment in Helmand Province. Concern
ed? Yes. Afraid? Often. Anxious? Never.
The doctor had then asked him to describe his average day, week and month. Kieran had done so, gently encouraged by the doctor, and piece by piece it had been as though a picture he’d never seen before had emerged. A marriage tainted by loneliness, unfulfilling, limping along like a sick animal; jobs where he had dealt with the worst that humanity had to offer, both then and now; trapped in a home that he had worked hard to build but now feared losing to a justice system that so often unfairly penalised the male in a relationship. The doctor had asked him a simple question.
‘When did you last do something that was just for you?’
Kieran had sat, dumbfounded, when he realised that he could not remember a single thing. Not one. He’d rubbed his head, blathered excuses, flapped about like a headless chicken, and then all of a sudden he’d felt a painful stinging in the corners of his eyes. The grief spread throughout his body as though it had a mind of its own, and he’d left the surgery before anybody could stop him or see what was happening to him.
The silence in the house was deafening as he focused once more on his meal. He knew that he could not go on like this, that eventually the seething cauldron of outrage simmering beneath the surface would explode if he didn’t do something about it. But there was one thing stopping him, and it was far bigger than anything he’d ever had to face in his life.
Kieran cleared his plate with mechanical efficiency and then silently slipped up the stairs. It was dark on the landing, but Kieran had negotiated enemy territory in near pitch–black before, so the landing in his own home was by contrast a simple task. He reached a door at the end of the hall and gently pushed it open, a soft yellow glow coming from inside.
Charlotte lay asleep in her bed, her tiny face serene, her breathing so soft that he could not detect it but for the gentle rising and falling of her duvet. Six years old and full of life, she was the one thing that held their family unit together. Were it not for little Charlie, Kieran would have happily packed his bags and headed for the hills years ago, whistling cheerful ditties all the way.
‘She asked you to say goodnight when you got home.’
Sophie’s voice was a whisper, and he turned to see her watching him in the glow of the light. For once she was smiling, and in the soft lighting she looked younger again, not wearied by the years.
Kieran slipped inside Charlotte’s room and gently kissed her on the cheek. She stirred softly but did not awaken, and he silently crept out of her room and closed the door behind her.
‘We can’t go on like this.’
Sophie spoke first. Kieran said nothing for a moment, standing on the landing and waiting for more. The fact that Charlotte was asleep was forcing them to whisper, and he sensed that doing so might prevent a full–blown argument.
‘Like what?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘I’m not sure why you’re talking about it now?’
Sophie glanced at the floor for a moment before she replied. ‘You want to leave, don’t you?’
Kieran hesitated for a moment. Sometimes he just wanted to deny it, just for an easy life, for Charlie. But now he knew that something had changed inside of him and it was getting beyond his control. Stick to the truth. ‘For a long time.’
‘Then why haven’t you?’
Kieran glanced over his shoulder by way of a reply. Sophie’s shoulders sank.
‘I don’t want her to become another single–parent statistic,’ he whispered. ‘But I’m not going to grind myself into the ground either.’
Sophie considered that for a moment. ‘So, what do you want to do about it?’
‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘I… I don’t know what the best course of action is.’
‘Nor do I.’
Kieran sensed that Sophie was perhaps having just as many struggles with it all as he was. She didn’t know about his diagnosis, and nor did anybody else on planet Earth other than his doctor. Then again, he’d spent so little time at home lately that he could be completely ignorant of her own issues. Had she been suffering as he had? Had he not even noticed?
‘We should probably talk about this in the morning,’ he said finally, afraid that he’d say something stupid and set off another row.
Sophie nodded, and then gestured to their room. ‘You should stay with me. Charlotte likes it when she sees us in the morning, together I mean.’
Kieran thought about that for a moment, and then he nodded. He took a single step, and then his mobile phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out, the screen glowing blue in the darkness, and his heart leaped into his throat as he saw a message from Hannah.
KYLE’S PARENTS ASSAULTED, KYLE WAS THERE, GET HERE NOW!
‘Christ.’
Sophie rolled her eyes. ‘Let me guess, shall I? Kyle?’
Kieran froze, torn between what he’d just read on the screen and his wife.
‘I have to go,’ he urged, knowing that he couldn’t just ignore the text.
Sophie turned her back on him and walked away into the darkness of their room. ‘I suppose you do, don’t you?’
***
XXVII
Rebecca thumped and rolled inside the boot of the car, trying not to bang her head on anything in the complete and utter darkness that surrounded her.
They had been driving for some time. Colin, or whatever his name was, followed a route that it was impossible for her to discern. All she could tell for sure was that they had left Exeter, and at some point they had turned off the main roads and now his silver car was rattling its way somewhere off–road. She could hear the occasional splashing of water around the wheels as they crashed through pot holes, and in her mind’s eye she saw some remote track in a dense forest where he would take her and kill her.
I could die.
The thought rolled around like a demon circling prey, refusing to let her be. Her nausea and dizziness was worse than ever now in the confines of the boot, with no horizon to judge her movement. She’d never been a great passenger whether by road or by air, always feeling queazy within minutes of starting a journey, so being shoved into the boot of a car while travelling off road in utter darkness was turning her stomach over on itself.
The car suddenly thumped to a halt, a crunch of gravel beneath the tires as the engine coughed into silence. She could hear rain hammering the outside of the car, the front door opening and closing and the sound of footsteps reaching the boot. Moments later, the boot opened and a bright flashlight flared into her eyes.
‘Out, now!’
Colin dragged her out of the vehicle and into the freezing rain, then jabbed the barrel of a pistol up under her ribs as he slammed the boot shut and shoved her out across open land into the bleak night. She stumbled through the thick grass of the moorland, her head down against the buffeting wind and slicing rain that swept horizontally across the wilderness. Apart from the white beam of the flashlight there was nothing to be seen, even the distant lights of Exeter obscured by rain and low cloud.
‘Where the hell are you taking me?’ she yelled.
‘Shut up!’
Rebecca could see nothing but bleak, windswept hills and the occasional rock formation built by prehistoric people who had roamed these grim moors thousands of years ago. The lonely “tors” stood immobile against the elements, as hard and uncaring as the wind that pushed her this way and that as she tried to keep her balance. For a computer geek, Colin suddenly seemed incredibly fit and robust against the awful conditions, striding up the hillside until he stopped and guided her carefully over something.
Rebecca looked down. In the light of the torch she was stunned to see metal tracks, almost entirely consumed by the moors, buried amid the thick grass. She followed the tracks with her eyes and saw them snaking away toward what looked like two large mounds sprouting out of the moors.
Rebecca was cajoled by Colin down to the mounds. Essentially, they were just two large holes burrowed into the living earth, heavy wooden doors
padlocked shut over each entrance, slick with rain. She saw Colin shove the torch under one arm, a white beam of light slicing into the gloom and flaring off the doors as he fumbled for something in his pocket, and the beam hit her square in the eyes.
Rebecca stumbled and doubled over as pain seared her skull. Nausea plunged through her stomach and she heard herself cry out. Colin splashed to her side and yanked her to her feet.
‘Get up!’ he shouted above the wind and the rain. ‘Move!’
Colin yanked off the latches from the now unlocked doors and hauled her inside. The torch caught on something standing within the shelter, metal flashing in vertical lines before her as her vision starred and she struggled to breathe.
‘What’s… that…’
Colin shoved her toward the metal shape and she saw that it was a sort of cage, thick metal bars, like something a wild animal might be imprisoned within. Wire mesh surrounded it, a thick gate open before her, rusty metal, aged, something nobody had seen for decades. On the floor of the cage was an old mattress.
Panic engulfed her.
‘No!’
Rebecca tried to turn back, and as she did so Colin twisted her arm up between her shoulder blades. More pain shot through her body and her legs buckled as she cried out and fought against him, but he was too strong for her. His other arm wrapped around her chest and lifted her off the ground as he forced her toward the cage entrance.
Images flashed through her mind of her being assaulted, raped perhaps, abandoned out here on the moors to rot.
With the last of her strength Rebecca jerked her head backwards. The crown of her skull slammed into Colin’s face and he grunted in fury and pain, then she was hurled through the gate. Rebecca reached out to try to grab the gate but her arm clanged painfully against the unyeilding metal, and she felt a bolus of vomit rise in her throat as the pain in her head became unbearable. She shrieked in futile despair as she was thrown into the cage and the heavy door slammed shut behind her.
