The window wasn’t secured at all, swaying slightly as the breeze picked up, which alarmed Helen even more. Was it possible that someone had squeezed through it? She squinted, trying to make out scuff marks on the wall or windowsill, but at this distance it was impossible to see. There was a drainpipe nearby, which an intruder could have scrambled up, and as Helen examined it she discovered there was fresh mud on it. This didn’t prove anything in itself, but Helen’s mind was whirring now and, turning away from the pipe, her eyes fixed on something that confirmed her worst fears.
On the ground floor windowsill, directly below the master bedroom, was a single drop of blood.
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20.43
‘Do you need a doctor, sweetheart? Are you in pain?’
Daisy had said virtually nothing since her sudden arrival. She seemed to be enjoying her mother’s terrified twittering.
‘Daisy, love, come and sit down. Your nose is bleeding … I can fetch you some ice for that bruising, we can get you cleaned up …’
‘Love,’ Daisy finally responded, rolling the word around her mouth. ‘That’s not a word I’ve heard you use very often. Do you even know what it means?’
‘Don’t … don’t … be like that,’ Karen said soothingly, stuttering slightly as she did so. ‘I just want to help you. I know what’s been going on, what you’ve been through today. You’re in a bad way.’
‘I think that’s a bit of an understatement, don’t you?’ Daisy laughed loudly. ‘The understatement of the fucking year.’
Karen’s instinctive reaction was to tell Daisy to keep her voice down, to avoid waking the boys. But she swallowed that thought. Looking at her eldest child, she now saw that her daughter was carrying a shotgun, which hung by her side. Karen was still struggling to take in this transformation – from the little girl she’d known to this shaven-headed monster – but there was no doubting that the later, more aggressive incarnation of her daughter was currently holding sway. She looked hostile, composed and utterly fearless.
‘Look, I know you’re angry with me,’ Karen continued, just about managing to keep her voice steady. ‘And I understand why –’
‘Do you?’ Daisy retorted. ‘Tell me, Mum, why you think I’m “angry”?’
Karen faltered slightly, taken aback by the vehemence of Daisy’s question.
‘Because I wasn’t there for you,’ she eventually replied, her voice shaking with emotion. ‘Because I left you with him …’
‘Don’t you dare bring Dad into this. He was a good parent, he looked after me –’
‘He was a drunk, Daisy.’ Karen was suddenly angry. ‘Say what you like about me, but don’t pretend that that man was a saint. He was violent, abusive –’
‘Shut the fuck up,’ Daisy spat back, taking a step towards her mother.
‘I know you think he took care of you, but just look, Daisy, look what you’ve become.’
‘He gave me a roof over my head, fed me, clothed me …’
‘Did he? How many times did you have to get yourself breakfast when you were growing up? Find yourself some clothes to wear? How many times did you have to get him dressed because he was too drunk to do it himself?’
Now Daisy paused. Karen could see that her words had hit home.
‘Look, love, I can see that you hate me … that you think you hate me … but please understand I never left you.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘I couldn’t take it any more. The drinking, the abuse –’
‘You were pregnant, bitch. Don’t lie to me.’
‘Yes, I had an affair, yes, I was pregnant, but why do you think that happened? Because my husband gave up on me, gave up on life, all he was interested in was where the next bottle was coming from, even as the farm slowly fell apart around us.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘Bryan offered me love, a way out –’
‘So why didn’t you take me?’
Now Karen hesitated. Suddenly she felt crushed by guilt, overwhelmed by shame, years of repressed sadness catching up with her.
‘I … I wanted to, believe me, I wanted to …’
Daisy was staring at her, angry and unconvinced.
‘But Bryan, he … he didn’t want someone else’s child. I was already pregnant with twins and at that point he didn’t have much money. He had a small one-bedroom flat, whereas the farm was so big, you were settled there.’
‘You abandoned me.’
‘I know, I know,’ Karen replied, tears running down her cheeks now. ‘And I wish I hadn’t, I wish I’d had the strength to stand up to him, but I was in a bad place. I had to get away and at the time –’
‘It was a price worth paying.’
Daisy’s interjection was bitterly angry and Karen now hung her head.
‘Yes,’ she muttered eventually. ‘But I’ve regretted it ever since. I really, really wish I could turn the clock back, be the mum I should have been.’
‘Keep telling yourself that. But you and I both know the truth. I watched you walk away from the house, watched you all the way to the end of the track. And you never looked back, not once.’
‘Please, love, put yourself in my shoes …’
‘You didn’t give a shit about anyone but yourself.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘You pretended that I never even existed. I was your dirty little secret.’
‘No, no, I often thought about you –’
‘But I don’t get a mention on your Facebook profile. “Mother to two lovely boys”, it says.’
Once more Karen looked shamefaced.
‘That was Bryan’s idea, he thought it would be confusing –’
‘Bryan, Bryan, Bryan. When are you going to realize that this is all about you, Karen? Blame him if you want, but it’s your black heart that’s the problem.’
‘Please, Daisy, don’t do this.’
‘Funny how you want to talk to me now, isn’t it? Daisy this, Daisy that. How many times have you said my name in the last ten years?’
‘Many times. I’ve spoken about you often, I’ve prayed for you and –’
Daisy chuckled, shaking her head in amused disbelief.
‘And I never stopped loving you. Never.’
Karen’s tone was mournful, but insistent.
‘I wrote to you.’
‘Like hell you did.’
‘I wrote to you every birthday, Christmas. Bryan wouldn’t let me visit, but I wanted to let you know I was thinking of you –’
‘I never saw a card.’
‘I sent money too. I knew the farm was struggling and I didn’t want you to suffer, so I sent £50 each week for clothes, books –’
‘Don’t lie to me.’
‘We had so much and you had so little, but I’m guessing your father used the money for drink, instead of giving it to you –’
‘Shut up, bitch! Just shut the fuck up!’
Enraged, Daisy raised her gun, pointing it directly at Karen. But as she began to squeeze the trigger –
‘Don’t do it, Daisy.’
Daisy spun round to see a breathless Helen standing in the bedroom. Immediately she charged out of the bathroom, heading directly towards the unwelcome intruder.
‘I should have killed you the first time we met,’ the young woman hissed, raising her gun.
‘You had your chance, but it’s over now. This is the end of the road, Daisy.’
‘Like hell it is.’
‘Come here, Karen,’ Helen said firmly, turning to the terrified mother.
Karen hurried out into the bedroom, then suddenly froze, as Daisy’s gun swung back in her direction once more.
‘This is pointless, Daisy. You won’t get away, so please, just give me the gun.’
Right on cue, police sirens could be heard. Getting louder, getting closer.
‘Bullshit. I’ll kill both of you and be away before they even get a sniff of me.’
‘That’s going to be pretty hard, esp
ecially as you’ve only got one shot left.’
For the first time, Daisy hesitated.
‘You left the rest of your shells in Bray Road and you’ve already fired once, so …’
Daisy’s eyes flicked from the police officer to her mother and then back again.
‘Well then, I guess I’ll just have to choose, won’t I?’
As she spoke, she raised her gun, so that it was pointing at Helen’s face once more.
‘Eeny …’
She swung the gun towards her mother.
‘Meeny …’
Then back towards Helen.
‘Miny …’
Karen Anderson cowered, as the barrels swung back towards her.
‘Moe …’
Helen didn’t budge as the gun moved her way once more.
‘Catch a … oh fuck this …’
Daisy now took aim at her mother’s head. But even as she did so, Helen moved quickly across the room, placing herself in between mother and daughter.
‘Get out the way.’
‘I can’t do that, Daisy.’
‘This is about her, not you. She deserves to die –’
‘No, she doesn’t.’
‘She deserves to suffer, to plead, to beg for her life and then to die. I want her to know what she’s done to me –’
‘She knows, Daisy, believe me, she knows, you don’t need to punish her any more.’
‘Someone has to pay, for my shitty life, for all the times I’ve been kicked and kicked and kicked again –’
‘Then shoot me.’
‘Get out of the wa—’
‘I mean it. Shoot me.’
119
20.53
The shriek of the siren cut right through her. Charlie was already on edge, her anxiety levels rising steadily, and the piercing scream was only making things worse. In the past, she had enjoyed using the blues and twos – the strobing lights and that awful, insistent noise bullying motorists into moving aside – but tonight the familiar scream made her shudder. It sounded distressed, even mournful, as if presaging bad things.
She roared onwards, barely dropping her speed below eighty, despite the hostile driving conditions. She was at the head of a convoy of police vehicles tearing towards Karen Anderson’s house. DC McAndrew’s discoveries had been enough to convince Charlie that Helen had been right about Daisy’s final destination, so she’d ordered all available vehicles to attend the remote location. She felt sure that the end was close and she didn’t want Helen to face a pitiless killer alone.
So far progress had been swift and smooth, but now Charlie saw the raised rear lights of a tractor up ahead. She had left the B-roads in favour of single-track country lanes. On paper, this looked the quickest route to the Anderson home – but not if you were stuck behind a lumbering farm vehicle. Charlie punched the horn savagely, adding to the cacophony, and the driver raised his hand in acknowledgement, increasing his speed a little. It was too slow – far too slow – but despite her anger Charlie knew there was little else the driver could do. There was nowhere to pull over, so he would have to keep going, pushing his old tractor to the limits of its capabilities, as the police vehicles backed up behind him.
Charlie swore violently, slamming the wheel in frustration. What if Daisy was at Karen’s house already? It wasn’t in Helen’s nature to hang back and wait for help. If Karen or the boys were in danger, she would act to protect them. She would confront the teen killer, alone and unarmed. And what then?
The tractor lumbered on, but now a desperate Charlie spotted her opportunity. Up ahead, a tiny track led off the road to a gated field. It was only a short strip of rutted mud, but for a few feet it would broaden out the road. Gunning the engine, Charlie waited and waited, then suddenly raced forward, darting to the right of the wide vehicle and speeding past it back on to the road. She made it by an inch, spraying the startled farmer with mud and stones, as she accelerated away down the road.
Charlie was convinced she’d heard him curse both her driving and her gender, but she didn’t care. She was free at last – and racing towards Helen.
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20.54
‘I’m not fucking about. I will do it –’
Daisy jabbed the gun towards her face. But Helen didn’t blink, her eyes fixing Daisy’s. There was a strange calm about her now.
‘Good,’ she replied. ‘I want you to.’
‘That’s bullshit. You don’t want me to kill y—’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Get real –’
‘You think I’m bluffing, but … you have no idea what my life has been like …’
Helen’s voice shook as she spoke. Daisy stared at her, unnerved by this sudden display of emotion.
‘… and maybe you don’t care. But my life has been leading to this moment. Leading me to you.’
‘You mad? You don’t even know m—’
‘I have seen things that you couldn’t even imagine. I’ve done things that would turn your soul black. And it’s made me sick, Daisy. Sick in the head. Sick in the soul. So, please, do me a favour. Pull the trigger.’
Daisy threw a look towards her mother, then back to Helen. Slowly, she slid her finger around the trigger.
‘I deserve it. I deserve to be punished for what I’ve done,’ Helen continued quickly. ‘And what’s more, I want to be. I’ve had enough. I can’t bear to look at myself in the mirror any more, I need some … peace. So I’m not asking you, Daisy. I’m begging you.’
‘It’s your funeral,’ she hissed.
‘It’s my choice,’ Helen replied quietly. ‘So, do it.’
Daisy’s eyes narrowed and she began to squeeze the trigger.
‘Do it!’ Helen roared.
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20.56
Charlie took the corner at fifty miles an hour, the car skidding across to the wrong side of the road, before she yanked it back on course. Karen Anderson’s house was just up ahead and she floored it for the last hundred yards, pulling up sharply at the end of the drive.
Flinging the door open, she leapt out and started towards the house. Helen had been radio silent for some time and, as she approached the house, Charlie noticed that the front door stood open.
Instinctively, Charlie knew something was badly wrong and broke into a sprint. But, as she did so, she heard a sound that stopped her dead in her tracks.
A single gunshot ringing out.
122
20.57
The explosion filled the room, bouncing off the walls. But now a new sound could be heard – a long, slow, agonized scream. Karen Anderson was stumbling backwards, clawing at the walls for support. She was terrified, in shock and coated in a thick spatter of blood, which clung to her face and body. She crashed into a chest of drawers and hung on to it for dear life, unable to comprehend the gruesome scene in front of her.
Helen was on the floor not five feet away from her. Her face was contorted, she was covered in blood and her hands were clamped to a huge hole in Daisy’s neck. Time had seemed to stop as their captor squeezed the trigger, Helen bracing herself for the impact. But, at the last moment, Daisy had jerked the barrels away and upwards, ramming them into the soft flesh underneath her chin. Helen had lunged towards her, desperate to save the young woman, but she was a second too late. The gun had erupted and Daisy had crumpled to the floor.
For a moment, Helen had been disoriented and dizzy, the force and volume of the blast sending her reeling backwards. But recovering herself, she had rushed forward, throwing herself down by the injured woman. Blood was oozing from the impact wound, the torn flesh charred with the burn blast, and Helen had pressed her hands to the injury in a desperate attempt to stem the bleeding. But as she took in the brutalized body in front of her, her eyes settled on the terrible exit wound on the top of Daisy’s head. Half of her skull and a good chunk of her brain had come away, catapulted to the other side of the room.
Helen continued to press down, unwilling to give up, though it
was clearly pointless. The young woman was past saving – in truth she was probably dead before she hit the floor.
Often in her diaries Daisy had spoken about her desire for self-immolation, her need to end her painful, loveless existence. Now she had got what she wanted.
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21.02
Helen walked away from the house. The modest drive was crawling with police officers and paramedics and they hurried to help her. Her ears were still ringing, her head was throbbing and she knew she looked a sight, but Helen batted them away. Charlie hadn’t prevailed upon her to get herself checked out, so they weren’t likely to convince her.
Helen didn’t want to stay a second longer than she had to. She would do her duty, talk to the attending officers, but her work here was done. Karen Anderson was being treated for shock, the boys were being reunited with their father and Charlie could handle the clean-up operation. Helen didn’t want to linger – she wanted to get clean herself, to wash Daisy’s blood off her, even though she knew that the stain of this night would last for many years to come.
She had saved Karen Anderson, but she had failed to stop Daisy bringing her short, difficult life to a calamitous end. Was Daisy beyond redemption, beyond help? Helen didn’t believe that and had wanted to give Daisy a chance to atone, perhaps even to heal. But in that split second Daisy had made a decision, opting for annihilation over arrest. And in so doing she had spared Helen.
Had Helen meant what she’d said to Daisy? In that moment, the words seemed to come so easily to her and it had certainly felt right. As she’d spoken, Helen had been back in a different space – transported back to a time some years ago when another person had pointed a gun at her head – and this time she’d been expecting a different outcome. She had certainly believed Daisy was going to fire and had stared down the barrels, grim with defiance and determination, but had she actually wanted her to pull the trigger?
Maybe it was an impossible question to answer. Perhaps she would never know. All that was clear was that Daisy had made the decision for her. And Helen would have to live with the consequences.
Love Me Not: DI Helen Grace 7 (formerly titled Follow My Leader) (Detective Inspector Helen Grace) Page 22
