by Michael Kerr
“They’ve been briefed. What’s your current location?”
“Still out at Maidenhead. We’ll head back.”
“You’re too late to be a part of it, Matt. Grab a bite to eat. I’ll be out in the field coordinating this caper.”
“See you later, Tom. Hope you get him.”
It was as Tom was heading down in the lift to the car park that it hit him. Matt had been too laid-back over the operation. Not concerned that he wasn’t in the thick of things. It was totally out of character. Matt, along his loyal sidekick, Deakin, and Beth Holder were on to something, and Matt was reverting to loose cannon mode. The bastard was like Bronson in his vigilante role. Being a cop and legally carrying a firearm was the only real difference between them.
The lift door slid open, but Tom did not step out, instead he hit the button and went back up. He would oversee the operation from the Yard. He now knew that it would not turn up Downey. Matt was homed-in on the killer, of that he was almost sure. He poured himself a coffee, black, lit a cigarette and settled at his desk. Allowed his temper to fall below boiling point before calling Matt again. No answer. He looked up Pete Deakin’s number and tried it. Same result. Phoning Beth was a waste of time, but he did anyway. The three of them were incommunicado. He resorted to texting Matt: CONTACT ME INSIDE 10 MINS. THAT’S AN ORDER.
It was exactly nine minutes and fifty seconds later when he got a text message back: RELAX, TOM. U KNOW I LIKE TO FOLLOW MY NOSE. WILL CALL U AGAIN SOONEST.
There was nothing Tom could do. His ulcer flared up and gave him heartburn. He reached into his pocket for the packet of antacid tablets he always carried. Chewed two. Damn Barnes! What had he found out? Where was he? No way of knowing. Unless he put the Discovery’s registration out, managed to get a sighting, and was ready and in time to go in when Matt got wherever that nose of his was leading him.
Julie stared in horror, not at the woman, but at the two black maws at the end of the barrels that were pointing directly and unwaveringly at her.
“Where’s Lucas?” Marjory asked the young woman who was sitting with her feet curled up beneath her on the settee.
Even as she finished asking, she knew the answer. Felt the hot breath on her neck as one arm went around her throat and the other gripped the twin barrels of the shotgun and jerked them up.
The blast was deafening in the confined space. All three of them froze as a tight clump of lead shot blew a fist-sized hole in the low ceiling, to send a snowstorm of plaster down onto the carpet.
Julie covered her eyes, sure that the woman was about to have the gun turned on her. She did not want to bear witness to Lucas discharging it into a human face, and to always have the image of that moment etched into her brain. Seeing the man and his dog killed was more than enough horror for a lifetime.
Lucas brought the hot barrels up and across Marjory’s throat to exert enough pressure to render her unconscious. Releasing his grip, he let her slack body fall to the floor.
“What a family!” Lucas said to Julie. “Can you believe that this is my auntie? I think she must bear me a grudge for some reason.”
Marjory came to coughing and spluttering. She was naked, sat on the floor in the kitchen with her hands tied behind her back.
“Get up, Marjory, I want to show you something,” Lucas said from where he was sitting next to Julie at the table.
Marjory struggled to her knees, then up to her feet. She was dizzy, and swayed on the spot, fighting to stay upright.
Lucas walked over to her and opened the lid of the freezer. “Look what I caught out in the front garden earlier today,” he said, grasping her by the arm and twisting her around.
Marjory looked down into the humming cabinet, moaned and attempted to back away. What she saw made her bladder void.
It was Norman. He was lying on his side, knees up to his chest, with his head turned so that he faced her. He was already frosting up, and his blue eyes were glazed below the rent in his forehead. His hair was now red, not grey. And Sam was in there with him. The dog’s black lips were drawn back in a rictus snarl.
Lucas grasped a handful of Marjory’s hair and forced her head forward, over the edge, to within a few inches of the dead man’s face.
“Spine chilling eh, Auntie? Enough to freeze your blood. He said he was a friend of yours, and any friend of yours is an enemy of mine. Now, he’s just a popsicle.”
He pulled her upright and faced her. “Why, Marjory? Is it in the genes? Do all of us Downeys’ have a killer instinct?”
“I was just going to threaten you, Lucas. Try to warn you off. That’s all, I promise.”
“You don’t really expect me to believe that, do you?”
“I―”
“Enough. No more talk. Get in there with ‘one man and his dog’. I think you need to cool down and reflect on what an odious old bitch you are.”
“No, Lucas. PLEEAASSE! Don’t do this. Let me go. I’ll do anything you ask.”
“I’m asking you to get your sad arse in the freezer. Now, DO IT.”
Marjory went rigid. Her muscles seized up with fear. There was no way she could have moved an inch, even to save her life.
Lucas put a hand between her legs, jerked her up and levered her into the cabinet. Heard the dull thud of her head hitting the inside wall, and listened to the loud, frantic scream become muffled as he slammed the lid down.
“How long do you think she’ll last?” Lucas said to Julie as he hoisted himself up to sit on the top of the freezer.
“Do you really need to do this, Lucas?” Julie said. “If she’s missed, then her husband or someone will check this place out.”
“Nick,” he said. “Remember, it’s Nick and Samantha now.”
“Okay, Nick. Think about it. What good is she to us dead?”
Lucas considered it. Maybe he was being a little impulsive, but not without provocation. The stupid whore had come all this way with the sole purpose of gunning him down in cold blood. A little extreme, to say the least. He found it hard to concentrate. Could feel and hear the thuds beneath him. She was trying to kick the lid open. He closed his eyes to mull things over. It was getting very complicated.
‘Why not just throw Julie, Samantha, or whatever you want to call the sly little slag in there with my worthless, full of shit sister? Be done with them both and leave here. You don’t need anyone, baby. Listen to your mother’.
“Why should I listen to you?” Lucas said. “It’s you who made me like this. If you’d cared for me, then I would have been a different person. It’s you who is ultimately responsible for everything I’ve ever done.”
Julie thought that he was talking to her.
“I don’t know what you mean...Nick,” she said.
“Why did you beat me and burn me and hate me? I didn’t ask to be fucking born. You had no right to punish me for your own sins, you cheap, worthless cocksucker.”
‘Stop whining. That’s all you did as a snotty-nosed little brat. I didn’t love you because you were a noisy, messy inconvenience. I may have overreacted sometimes, but you have to remember, I was an addict, out of my skull most of the time. What do you want me to do, apologise?’
“No, Mam. What I want is for you to stay dead, get out of my head and leave me alone.”
Julie dared to hope that he had completely and irrevocably lost the plot. He did not mentally inhabit the same world as her at that moment. He was having a conversation with his dead mother, and could obviously hear her. With any luck he would not break out of the state he was in, and she would be able to just walk out of the door and be free of him at last.
Lucas opened his eyes and drew back until his back was against the wall. His mother was standing only six feet away, looking exactly as she had when he had been a young boy. Her red hair shone under the light; her green eyes sparkled with mischief, and a stream of blood cascaded from the gaping crescent gash in her throat.
‘Look what you did to me, son. I didn’t deserve it’.
<
br /> He allowed the suffering he had endured at her hands to manifest; felt the cigarette ends searing his firm, young flesh, disfiguring him for life. He remembered the nights and days he was locked in the coal cellar, and the endless torrent of demeaning abuse that had robbed him of all self respect. Only by slaying her had he been able to move on and have any kind of life.
“What I did to you was too little, too late. You deserved so much more. That’s why I need to kill again and again. I imagine that it is you having to suffer what I do.”
The apparition began to laugh. The sound turned to a cackle, and the figment of Lucas’s imagination began to shrink and stoop with age, to become a withered, white-haired corpse, before fading away completely.
He became aware of his surroundings again.
“Did you hear her?” Lucas said to Julie. “Did you see her, Sam?”
“No. But I felt her presence,” Julie answered, hoping that her lie would suffice.
The thuds from inside the freezer had diminished, then stopped.
“You may just be right about Marjory,” he said. “She needs to be on our team. Maybe she’ll feel different about things now.”
He climbed down from the freezer and opened the lid.
“You don’t look so grand, now,” he said to Marjory. “In fact you look like the cold-hearted cow you are. Blue suits you.”
Marjory could not answer. Her teeth were chattering, and her body was shivering violently. Being enclosed in the chill darkness with Norman’s body had been an experience that she might never fully recover from.
“Tell me, Auntie,” Lucas said, grinning as he lifted her up. “Does the little light go out when the lid is shut?”
Matt parked the Discovery outside the church in Cinderford. They had plenty of time to go for a bite to eat. Pete had phoned Phil. He and Errol were approximately an hour from their location.
They entered the first pub they came to. Matt ordered a large JD for himself, a pint for Pete, and an Irish coffee for Beth. The blackboard on the wall behind the counter had a list of bar meals chalked up. Matt was not hungry. Beth plumped for the Lasagne, and Pete ordered a steak pie and chips.
“You got precise directions to Marjory’s little refuge, right?” Matt said to Pete.
“Yeah, boss. Ethel did us a little drawing. She came down here when Marjory first bought it, to help her clean the place up.”
Pete passed Matt the sheet of note paper. It had a diagram, with the name of both the side road and lane that led to their target from the B4234. An X marked the spot where Matt was convinced they would find Downey.
It was seven p.m when Phil pulled the Mondeo up onto thick grass and parked close to the rear of the Discovery.
Phil and Errol had made good time, met up with the others in Cinderford, and were now within five or six hundred yards of the cottage.
The five of them huddled together in the cold, evening air.
“What’s the plan, boss?” Phil said.
“Simple,” Matt said. “We approach the cottage, study the lie of the land and decide how to take him without any other casualties.”
“Sounds like a walk in the park,” Errol said, drawing his pistol and jacking a round into the chamber, before returning the weapon to its shoulder holster.
“You think he’ll be armed, boss?” Pete said.
“Maybe not with a firearm. But treat him with extreme caution. Be aware that given the chance, he will kill anyone who he considers to be a threat to him. And only shoot as a last resort. Not on sight.”
“And make sure we don’t take each other out in the crossfire,” Pete said.
Matt put an arm around Beth’s shoulder and led her away from the others, out of earshot.
“This is as far as you go, Beth,” he said. “I want you to stay in the car and wait.”
Beth shook her head. “That’s impractical, Matt. What if Downey is skulking around the woods? Remember, he’s a raving paranoiac. He won’t feel safe. Part of him will be half-expecting trouble. Do you want to get back here and find―”
“Okay! Okay, Doctor, you’ve made your point. I should have left you in Cinderford.”
“Don’t treat me as if I’m a liability, Matt. I’ll stay out of the way when you go in. And if Marjory and Julie are still alive, they may need another woman to talk to. Who knows what state they might be in?”
It was only a few minutes later when they approached the building from the side, stopping in the trees to survey the immediate area.
It might have been uninhabited. Thick curtains were drawn at every window, preventing any light from escaping. And it wasn’t a cottage, per se; rather a large timber-built chalet that looked Scandinavian in design.
“You think we should just contain the area and call in the cavalry?” Pete whispered to Matt.
“And have some negotiator shouting through a bullhorn, letting Downey know that it’s all over for him? You think he might release the women and just trot out with his hands on his head and say, ‘fair cop, guv?’ ”
“No, boss, I reckon not.”
Matt’s plan was basic. He and Pete would take the front; Phil and Errol the rear. Beth would stay well back, under cover and hunkered down in the darkness, to wait for the all clear.
The moonlight was their enemy. They moved into place as surreptitiously as was possible, hoping that the night shadows that they cast were not being observed. There was no reason for Downey to be overly anxious, or suspect that anyone had the slightest idea of his current whereabouts.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Lucas could not settle. He had bound Julie and Marjorie together face-to-face in an embrace. Arms around each other and tied at the wrists. Feet also tethered together.
Marjory was positive that she had not been followed. There was no reason for him to believe that she had been, but he was now unsure of how safe he was here. His instinct told him to run. Just get in the car and take off. Maybe follow his mother’s advice and go it alone. He needed to be by himself again. It was less complicated. Problem was, he actually cared for Julie. She had given him a new sense of purpose.
Naked, he roamed the house, upstairs and down, moving the curtains aside a fraction at every window, looking for the slightest movement. Each passing minute filled him with a growing perturbation. He could not help but think that he may be a sitting target.
This was all Marjory’s fault. He went back to where she was hog-tied to Julie on the kitchen floor. They looked like two lovers locked together. Julie had her back to him, with her head next to Marjory’s. Could have been nuzzling her ear. Some of the finest work he had ever done was displayed on Julie’s back and buttocks. She was his living masterpiece, which had yet to be completed.
Marjory was facing him over Julie’s left shoulder. She had warmed up a little, and was now able to think straight, having somehow recovered from her ordeal, and being too much in fear for her own life to let Norman’s fate overly concern her. She could not weigh up what Lucas might do. He was unbalanced and appeared to be steadily becoming more agitated with every second that passed.
He knelt next to them, untied the twine and then secured Julie again, before grabbing Marjory by an ankle and dragging her into the middle of the floor.
The first heavy blow of his fist broke two ribs and sent a jagged end of one into her left lung, to puncture it.
Marjory screamed and tried to curl up in a ball.
Lucas stomped on her head and face with his foot, grunting with the effort as she writhed and cried out beneath him. He rained dozens of blows down on her, only stopping when she was too injured to respond. There was little pleasure to be had from punching and kicking a body that did not react.
Marjory looked up at him with pleading eyes. Tried to beg for her life, but could only produce bright red frothy blood from her mouth, not words.
“This is it, bitch,” Lucas gasped. “You get to leave this world as naked and bloody as you popped into it.
He straddled her sof
t belly. Gently placed his hands around her neck, positioned his thumbs either side of her larynx and began exerting pressure. It was a sublime exercise in hands-on killing; a highly rewarding act that resulted in him growing stiff and ejaculating as his aunt’s heels drummed on the hard quarry tiles, and the capillaries in her bulging eyes burst into small red starbursts.
Even after the mysterious state that was sentient life had ceased to exist in the mind and body of the slack corpse, Lucas needed more from it. He climbed to his feet, went to the cutlery drawer and selected a steak knife. Marjory was going back in the freezer, but this time it would be in small, less cumbersome pieces. He was on a different plane now, totally absorbed in what he was doing, oblivious to even Julie’s presence.
By the time he had removed the head and held it aloft by the hair, he was covered in sweat and blood.
Julie had turned away, and kept her eyes tightly closed. If her hands had been free, then she would have put her fingers into her ears, to keep out the sickening sounds of human dismemberment.
Lucas lost interest after removing the pouches of silicone from the now flat breasts. His appetite for blood was sated. He opened the lid of the freezer and tossed the head in, then scooped up the torso and forced it down on top of the other bodies.
“All done and dusted,” he said, smiling at Julie. “You can look now. Auntie is back in cold storage.”
Julie stared up at the bloody figure that was standing in front of her. His arms hung loose at his sides, and he still held a dripping, serrated knife in his right hand.
“Here’s the plan, Sam. I’ll go take a shower. Then we’ll get dressed and leave in much better transport than we arrived,” he said. “It was good of auntie to bring us the Merc.”
Standing under the hot needle jets, he watched the blood being flushed from his legs, to swirl around the plug hole and gurgle away down the waste pipe. He wondered why liquid always went down a plug hole in a clockwise direction. Was it something to do with the Earth’s gravity? He couldn’t remember. He had read somewhere that it went anticlockwise in Australia. Maybe when he had got the necessary documentation in the name of Nick Edwards, then he would start afresh in the antipodes. The weather there was a great deal better than in Britain. And Oz was so big that he would be able to get lost in the vastness of the place.
