Hope to Die: A gripping new serial killer thriller (The DS Nathan Cody series)

by David Jackson

  This is the kitchen. In the centre of the room is a dining table, and on that table lies Kate Daley. She is dressed in only her underwear. A long rope has been wrapped tightly around her, keeping her pinned to the table. In her mouth is a metal funnel, secured there with duct tape.

  Behind his mother stands Ewan Daley. In one hand he holds a small frying pan; in the other, a lit blowtorch. To his left, something bubbles gently in a larger pan on the stove.

  ‘Don’t come any closer,’ he tells Cody.

  A moan from his mother. Cody looks at her again. Sees the blood streaming down her face, presumably from an initial hammer blow to subdue her. But what really turn his stomach are the holes in her body and the acrid odour of metallic fumes mixed with singed flesh.

  Says Ewan, ‘I liked your story about the eyeballs. It was an appropriate punishment. I know you made it up, but I enjoyed it all the same.’

  He brings the blowtorch to the pan in his hand. Gives the content a long blast to ensure it remains liquefied.

  ‘Ewan, listen to me—’

  ‘This is appropriate, too. They used to do this in ancient Rome, did you know that? Apparently, they executed the Roman general Marcus Licinius Crassus by pouring molten gold down his throat. It was supposed to be because of his thirst for wealth. I haven’t got any gold.’

  ‘Ewan—’

  ‘This is much better, though. Lead. It fits the crime. Did you find my little messages about that?’

  Cody stares into Ewan’s eyes. He finds them dead, soulless. For whatever reason, this young man has had the joy of life sucked out of him. He has moved beyond humanity, and into the realm of not giving a damn about the difference between life and death.

  ‘We found them. The lead weights. Dante’s Inferno. The punishment for hypocrisy.’

  Ewan raises his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Very good. I didn’t think you’d get that. I’m impressed.’

  ‘So what did your mother do? What makes her such a hypocrite?’

  A flash of anger across Ewan’s features. But at least he is still capable of feeling some emotion. It’s the only thing Cody can exploit here.

  ‘What did she do?’ says Ewan. ‘This. This is what she did. She turned me into this. Made a man out of me.’

  He laughs without humour.

  ‘You can still be a man,’ says Cody. ‘You can be a man by doing the right thing.’

  Another blast with the blowtorch.

  ‘The good thing about lead is that it has a low melting point. Just 327.5 degrees Celsius. Do you know how it kills you when it’s poured down your throat?’

  ‘No. No, Ewan, I don’t know that.’

  ‘They actually did a study, using a larynx from a slaughterhouse. It was in the Journal of Clinical Pathology. Look it up – it’s fascinating stuff. One thing that happens is that the lead cools down quickly and plugs up your airways. But the other thing it does is to create lots of steam inside your body, and the high pressure causes your internal organs to explode. Nice, eh?’

  Cody thinks he’s glad he wasn’t here to witness the torture of Mrs Daley. He can imagine the screams of agony and the sizzling sounds as the molten metal ate through her flesh. Looking at her now, he’s not sure she will survive this ordeal, even if her son does no more to her.

  ‘Ewan, that’s your mother on the table. Your mother.’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, I know that. I’m not stupid. That’s why I’m here. This is the woman who made every minute of my life a misery. With a little help from God, of course. Oh, He came in useful all right. He often comes in useful when people want to justify hurting somebody else.’

  ‘She was wrong to do that, Ewan. But you’d be wrong to kill her. There’s been enough killing already.’

  Ewan shakes his head. ‘No. Not enough. There’s one more, and then I’m finished. Then you can do what you like to me. I don’t care any more.’

  The statement pulls at something deep inside Cody. A young lad like this, already sick of life. What could be sadder?

  But he hasn’t done it yet. He hasn’t killed his mother. He could have. He could easily have poured that stream of death into her mouth at any point in the last few minutes. But he hasn’t, and that means there is still hope.

  ‘You care,’ he says. ‘I know you care. I know what you’re going through.’

  A bark of laughter. ‘No, you don’t. You have no idea.’

  ‘Let me talk to you, Ewan. Just you and me. I’ll send everyone else away.’

  ‘Cody!’

  The warning from Webley, just behind him. He ignores it. Keeps his focus on Ewan. He can see the boy wavering.

  ‘I won’t come any closer, I promise. I just want to talk to you, man to man. I want to tell you what I know about this. And then, if you think I’m wrong, you can do what you like.’

  ‘Cody!’

  Webley again, more firmly now.

  Cody stares at the boy. Ewan reheats his bubbling cauldron as he considers the offer.

  ‘All right,’ says Ewan finally. ‘I’ll give you a few minutes. Get rid of the rest of them.’

  Cody turns. Ushers the other cops away from the kitchen and back into the hall. He sees Webley look at him imploringly as he closes the door in front of her.

  ‘Can I show you something?’ he asks Ewan.

  Ewan thinks about it, then nods. ‘Okay. No tricks.’

  Cody moves slowly, carefully. He bends down, starts to undo his shoelaces.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Bear with me. You’ll see.’

  Cody takes off his shoes. Strips off his socks. Straightens up again. He sees the puzzled awe on Ewan’s face.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘A man did this to me,’ Cody explains. ‘He tied me to a chair, and then he used a pair of garden loppers to cut away my toes.’

  Ewan lowers the pan slightly. His gaze is entirely on Cody.

  ‘Why? Why did he do that?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think he just enjoyed it. But that wasn’t all he did.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. My partner was with me, also tied to a chair. The guy took a sharp knife, and he went over to my partner, and then he sliced off his face.’

  Ewan almost drops the pan in shock.

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Yeah, right?’

  ‘So . . . so what happened then?’

  Cody shakes his head. ‘It’s not a happy ending. It’s not like the books and the movies. My partner died, and the guy got away, and I lived sadly ever after.’

  More thinking from Ewan. ‘So what’s your point?’

  ‘My point is that, just like you, I know pain. I know what it’s like to suffer. I have had nightmares almost every night since that happened. I scream in the night. Sometimes I wet the bed.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really. The other cops out there, they don’t know all this. I’m telling it to you because I think we’re two of a kind. I reckon we can talk to each other because we think along the same lines. And that’s what you need, Ewan. You need to talk to someone who understands you. I’m prepared to do that, but not if you kill your mother in front of me.’

  Cody thinks, but he’s not sure, that he sees a glistening in Ewan’s eyes. If so, it’s the first real sign of a crack in his protection against emotional infection.

  Ewan nods towards Cody’s feet. ‘The guy who did that to you. What would you do to him if you caught him?’

  Ah. A good question. A question that Cody has contemplated many times and never found an answer to. A question that, if things go as he hopes, he may soon have to confront.

  ‘I’d arrest him. I won’t lie, I might even kick the shit out of him while I was doing it. I’d enjoy it, too. But what I wouldn’t do is kill him. And you know what? It’s not because I’d be lowering myself to his level, or any crap like that. It’s because killing him would end his suffering, and I want him to suffer. I want him to spend the rest of his life behind bars, knowing that I won. Eve
ry day he will think about what he did to me, and he will realise that he gave me the reason to take away his liberty.’

  Ewan looks down at his mother, and it seems to Cody possible that he might be seeing her for what she truly is.

  ‘That’s right,’ says Cody. ‘Look at her. Look at the holes you made in her body. Think about her agony. Because she’ll be thinking about it. For the rest of her life, she will be unable to stop thinking about the consequences of what she did to you. I think that’s worth keeping her alive for, don’t you? Dead people can’t learn lessons.’

  Ewan continues to stare at his mother. Cody gives him the time, hopes that he’s done enough.

  ‘So what’s it to be, Ewan?’

  *

  Webley hates this. Hates being shut out. Hasn’t Cody done so much of that already that he didn’t need to resort to physically closing a door in her face?

  She can’t hear what’s being said through the door, and that worries her. There’s a homicidal hormonal teenager in there holding a blowtorch and a pan of molten lead, either of which could do serious damage to Cody if he’s not careful.

  And Cody isn’t the most stable of people himself. What if he does something erratic? What if he freaks out again? What if—?

  Fucking hell, why am I even giving a toss? If he wants to play the hero, then let him. I don’t care if he screws this up. On his head be it.

  Well, okay, maybe I care a little. Maybe I don’t want him to die in there. Or to be horribly disfigured. Or injured a little.

  Shit, Cody, what the fuck are you doing in there?

  She gets her answer when the door opens.

  It opens with painful slowness and solemnity. Everyone cranes to get a view inside.

  It is with some relief to Webley that she sees Ewan with his head bowed and his hands empty. The pan and blowtorch have been placed on the draining board. He stands and waits for the inevitable.

  An ashen-faced Cody beckons them in, and they pile through the door. While paramedics dash over to tend to Mrs Daley, Webley and the other cops zero in on Ewan.

  ‘Don’t hurt him,’ says Cody.

  For some reason, Webley finds herself turning her head to check on Cody. She alone sees him slipping his bare feet into his shoes. She alone sees him balling his socks and pushing them into his pocket.

  She alone knows how much of himself he just sacrificed in this room.

  53

  It’s a complex situation.

  Long story short, they’ve caught a serial killer, which in itself is usually a cause for celebration and drunken revelry.

  But keeping the story long, this serial killer is a kid. A kid whose mind has been fucked up. A kid whose mother is in intensive care and whose father is in custody on a child-porn charge. Dealing with the aftermath of a case like this requires the utmost tact and carefulness. It requires social services and mental-health counsellors. In the lead-up to a time of peace and goodwill to all men, the tabloids will have a field day with the contrast offered by this story. Some of them will paint Ewan as the spawn of the Devil. Self-professed experts will point to the case as a sign of all that’s wrong with society. Politicians will wrestle with the ramifications. But at the centre of the storm is a mere child.

  The processing and the paperwork take hours. But gradually the detectives start to drift away. For all of them it has been an exhausting operation, and many want to catch up on their sleep.

  At some point in the evening, Ferguson drifts up to Cody’s desk.

  ‘Me and a few of the others are going for a beer. Up for it?’

  Cody looks up at his lofty friend. ‘Nah. Another time maybe. Thanks, though.’

  Ferguson nods. ‘You should give yourself some credit. It’s a good result, you know.’

  ‘Then why doesn’t it feel like it?’

  Ferguson nods again, then fades away.

  Webley is the next to appear. She has her coat on.

  ‘Calling it a night?’ he asks her.

  ‘Yeah. You should too.’

  He points to his computer screen. ‘Too much to do.’

  ‘It’ll wait. Besides, you need to go to the out-of-hours and get that ankle looked at.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ says Cody. Although he knows it’s not. He has just taken another dose of painkillers, and it’s not helping.

  ‘You did a good job in that kitchen.’

  Cody merely shrugs in reply.

  ‘What did you say to him?’

  ‘Not a lot. He needed a friend. I was there for him.’

  ‘A friend? He killed three women and tortured his mother.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, he did. But maybe if he’d had a friend earlier in his life, he wouldn’t have hurt a fly. There are times when we all need someone to talk to.’

  Webley shakes her head in disbelief. ‘Can you hear yourself, Cody? Can you hear the words coming out of your own mouth?’

  ‘The kid has major problems. He—’

  ‘Not the kid, you fucking idiot. I’m not talking about the case. Jesus!’

  Cody stares at her. Wanting to say something. Wanting to take this where it should go. Not finding the words.

  ‘Hey, Megs!’

  This voice from a doorway at the far end of the incident room. Webley turns her head. Cody leans to look past her.

  ‘Ready?’ says Parker.

  ‘Yeah,’ she answers. ‘Just coming.’

  She turns back to Cody. ‘We’re going out for a meal. Then back to his place.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ says Cody.

  ‘Yes. Yes, it is. He’s there for me. Just like you decided to be there for Ewan. And not at all like how you decided not to be there for me.’

  He’s about to tell her that there are too many occurrences of the word ‘not’ in that sentence for him to work it out, but she has already turned away. He thinks he senses anger in her steps as she walks off. He watches as she moves right alongside her fiancé. Sees Parker put his arm around her shoulder before giving Cody a knowing look.

  And then they’re gone. Out on the town for a slap-up meal and a few glasses of wine and a night of unbridled passion, during which all thoughts of Cody will be put aside.

  He sighs, turns back to his computer. Forces himself to get on with his work.

  He’ll work until his eyes are too tired to focus any longer, and then he’ll go home. Back to his empty flat and his empty fridge. If he’s lucky, he’ll have enough in there to put together a ham sandwich for his supper.

  *

  She watches him. He stretches, yawns. Then he stands up and puts his coat on. When he starts limping around the incident room, snapping off the lights, she feels she ought to announce her presence.

  He almost jumps out of his skin when she coughs.

  ‘Grace!’ he says.

  She gives him a little wave. ‘Sergeant Cody.’

  He moves towards her, wincing with the pain, bless him.

  ‘I thought I was the last one here.’

  ‘Then it’s a good job you didn’t start picking your nose or farting loudly.’

  He laughs at that. ‘Or worse. You’ve no idea what I get up to when I’m alone.’

  No, she thinks. I don’t know. I’d be interested to find out, though.

  ‘I’m sure it’s all very proper,’ she says.

  Cody quickly changes the subject. ‘What are you still doing here?’

  She gestures towards her friend the computer. ‘I thought I’d catalogue the video files. They’ll be needed for evidence.’

  ‘Not joining the others for a drink?’

  She hesitates. She doesn’t want to tell him that she wasn’t invited. Doesn’t want his pity.

  ‘Me? No. I thought about it, but . . . well, this seemed more important.’

  She sees him nodding, but she’s sure he has detected her lie.

  ‘I want you to know,’ he says, ‘that you did excellent work on these murders. You did some really clever stuff I didn’t even know was possible.’
>
  She feels the blood rushing to her cheeks, and hopes the light is dim enough for him not to see it.

  ‘Thank you. I try my best.’

  ‘If you ever . . . if you ever want me to put that in writing or anything . . .’

  ‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘It’s nice to be appreciated.’

  ‘You’re appreciated,’ he says. Then he adds: ‘Do you like to watch a good film, Grace?’

  She feels her pulse rate double. What is this? Is he about to ask me out to the cinema?

  ‘Yes,’ she squeaks.

  ‘So do I. I like films that make me think – films that move me in some way. Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘I . . . I think so.’

  ‘And sometimes I come away and I think about why a film has had such an effect on me. I think about the excellent cast, or the direction, or the dialogue. But do you know what we always overlook?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The film score. The music. It’s there constantly, but we don’t even know it. We don’t realise how crucial it is to how we feel, how we react when we’re watching a film.’

  Grace finds herself holding her breath as Cody looks straight into her eyes.

  He says, ‘You’re our music, Grace. Don’t forget that.’

  And then he smiles and leaves.

  When she remembers to breathe again, Grace Meade decides that life doesn’t get any better than this.

  54

  He is so relieved to get out of the car. It’s not a long journey from the station to Rodney Street, but the air in that car was blue every time he had to press the clutch pedal.

  It doesn’t help that the nearest parking space he can find is about a hundred yards from his building. He just wants to get inside and plunge this bastard foot into some iced water. That’s if he’s got any ice.

  He’s glad that the case has been brought to an end. Always nice to take a killer off the streets. But at the same time he’s worried that things will go quiet now. He could really do with a nice meaty case to take his mind off the Christmas festivities. Because, let’s face it, it’s not looking promising here, is it?

  He wonders if he should just go away over Christmas. Go and stay in a hotel somewhere.

  Yeah, because that wouldn’t make him look like a saddo, would it? Sitting down to dinner next to some strange widow desperate for companionship – that wouldn’t make him feel a little weird.