Unfinished Business

by Heather Atkinson

  Before anyone could react Sarah released a screech, snatched up her steak knife and jammed it into Clarke’s thigh. He let out a cry of appalled horror as he stared at the implement sticking out of his leg before Sarah yanked it back out, ripping open a large hole in his thigh and punching him hard in the face. She pushed him sideways and he slid off his chair and toppled to the floor. Cass jumped up and clamped a napkin down on the wound.

  At the same time Seth had picked up his own knife and plunged it into the side of Hillyard’s neck, who released a gurgle and slid off his chair. Brodie moved with him, pressing his fingers to the wound as blood poured out of the edge of the cut. Uniformed police officers appeared out of nowhere, charging towards their table and both Seth and Sarah leapt up out of their chairs, slashing at the people sitting nearest them with the knives, blood spraying across the immaculate white tablecloths, the room filling with screams. It was a clever move - overwhelm the surrounding police with horror, freeze them with indecision. Did they tackle the bad guys or tend to the wounded? It worked on the younger, more inexperienced officers who’d probably never seen anything like it before.

  There was a rush towards the exit, those furthest away from the carnage stampeding for the doors. Screams rang out as Seth dragged an elderly lady out of her chair and held her before him like a human shield, the knife to her throat, yelling at the officers to back off, which they did.

  Sarah stood beside him clutching her own bloodied knife. Brodie was astonished at the change. She seemed to revel in the violence and blood all around her, eyes wild with excitement. She ducked beneath a table to drag out a waitress who had hidden under there, punched her in the face and pushed her to her knees, holding the blade to her neck. While the elderly woman stood there cool and calm, magnificent in her dignity, the young waitress - who couldn’t have been more than twenty - cried and shook and whimpered. Brodie could only look on helplessly, unable to assist because if he let go of Hillyard’s neck he’d spurt blood all over the place. He was forced to watch as Cass - who had left Clarke’s side after ascertaining he wasn’t bleeding to death - crept around behind Seth and Sarah. He wanted to call out to her to stop but he couldn’t without drawing their attention to her. The police officers, seeing what she was doing, were trying to keep the Creegans’ attention off her and on them.

  A hand on Brodie’s shoulder made him go rigid and he found himself looking up into the face of an elderly gent.

  “I’m a GP, allow me,” he whispered.

  Brodie all too gladly relinquished the care of Hillyard to him, wiped the sticky blood off his hands on a napkin then crawled around the tables to join Cass crouching on the floor just yards behind the Creegans. Brodie pointed at Sarah then to Cass, indicating she must tackle her and she nodded in understanding. Brodie prepared himself to take on Seth.

  Sarah was screeching at the police to stay back, clutching a handful of the waitress’s long dark hair, telling everyone how she was going to kill her if they didn’t let her walk out of there. Seth was already backing towards the door, dragging the old woman along with him.

  “Sarah, move,” Seth told her.

  “On your feet bitch,” she told the sobbing waitress. “On. Your. Fucking. Feet,” she roared at her when she failed to respond.

  The girl cried out in pain as she was yanked upright by her hair, so scared her knees were too weak to support her weight so Sarah had to drag her along. Despite her small stature she was incredibly strong.

  Brodie and Sarah remained crouched behind opposing tables. They had to time it perfectly, taking down one without warning the other.

  The old woman was walking perfectly calmly backwards towards the door so Seth, certain she wouldn’t try to escape, had a relaxed grip on her. When Brodie tripped him he released her, hands automatically going out to save himself. Brodie swept the woman out of harm’s way, leapt on Seth and grabbed the hand holding the knife, pinning it down until the police swarmed them both.

  Brodie looked through the sea of uniforms that had suddenly surrounded him just in time to see Cass jump out at Sarah and punch her hard in the face. Sarah’s eyes went hazy, as though slightly dazed and Cass took the opportunity to wrench her hand from the girl’s hair, freeing her. Enraged, Cass grabbed a handful of Sarah’s own hair and bounced her head off a table before spinning her round and slamming her face down on top of it. Brodie smiled with pride as well as relief. She was safe. But then again, people like the Creegans were only tough when they had a weapon.

  “I’m going to fucking kill you both,” screamed Sarah, struggling against her captors as the handcuffs were snapped on and she was hauled upright by two burly officers who were taking no chances.

  “Sure you are,” said Brodie smugly. “No one uses Brodie MacBride, you mad wee coo. I just wonder what your children are going to say when they find out what a nasty bitch you really are.”

  “Bastard,” she screeched like a banshee, fighting to reach him as she was dragged towards the door. The language she spewed at them told Brodie she’d been lying when she’d said she never usually swore. All part of the sweet and innocent act.

  Seth, who was likewise being led to the door, was much quieter and calmer about the situation than his lover. That was until he suddenly shoulder-barged one of the officers leading him, ran to Sarah and ground his mouth against hers.

  “I love you Sarah,” he yelled as more officers surrounded him and pulled him outside. He kept looking back over his shoulder to keep her in view. “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” she cried seconds before he disappeared outside.

  “Aw, sweet,” said Cass sarcastically.

  The two of them looked round at the devastation left behind by the Creegans. Now they’d gone the paramedics had been allowed in, half a dozen of them to tend to the wounded. Hillyard was still alive, face white, hands shaking, the GP relinquishing him to the care of two paramedics. Clarke was slumped against a pillar having his leg tended to, looking miserable.

  “The shit’s going to hit the fan over this mess,” commented Cass.

  “And Hillyard’s going to bear the brunt of it,” replied Brodie.

  He followed as Cass hurried to Clarke’s side. “Are you okay?” she said, taking his hand.

  “Fine, it missed the artery,” he replied. “Thanks for what you did by the way.”

  “Anytime,” she smiled.

  “So you’ll live then?” said Brodie when they continued to stare at each other.

  “Sorry to disappoint,” said Clarke. His eyes gleamed, he’d clocked onto Brodie’s crush. “Hillyard will try and pin the blame on me but this was his operation, he decided to tackle the Creegans in a public place instead of waiting for them to come out like you and me both told him would be best.”

  “To be fair none of us expected them to react like that,” said Cass.

  “They’re murderers, we should have done,” said Clarke. “We just assumed they’d be overwhelmed by the police presence but Hillyard wanted his big moment after all those months of chasing them.”

  “True,” said Brodie. “Well, if you’re okay we’ll be off.”

  But neither of them were listening.

  “Do you want me to come to the hospital with you?” said Cass.

  “I would,” Clarke smiled at her.

  Brodie was left standing in the restaurant while Cass walked out with Clarke’s stretcher, still gripping onto his hand.

  CHAPTER 22

  It had been two months since the court case, fourteen months since the debacle in the restaurant. Brodie had half-expected this summons, he knew Sarah Creegan would insist on having the last word. He’d considered not coming but he was curious to hear what she had to say. There were answers he needed if he was ever to feel comfortable again.

  It had been a very long trek - a flight from Glasgow to Heathrow then a taxi ride to the prison. Sarah had been put in Holloway, right down in North London, which had played host to such notorious women as Moors Murderer Myra
Hindley, Maxine Carr - girlfriend of the Soham Murderer - and Jayne Richards, The Tinsel Fight Murderer who’d killed her husband after a row over the Christmas decorations, to name but a few. He thought Sarah would fit right in.

  It annoyed him that she’d hardly changed. Her hair wasn’t as well styled and a little longer, growing into a long bob, her nails were no longer perfectly manicured, actually it looked like she’d been picking at them, testament to the stress of the trial. But she’d shed a few pounds and her complexion was still clear. Give that a couple of years and she’d have the grey prison pallor all lifers develop because Sarah was never being released. She’d been found guilty of The Carver murders, alongside Seth. She’d also been found guilty of numerous other charges with regards to setting up the police to shoot Mark, including kidnap. She’d also been complicit in dealing drugs from Creegan’s Antiques, adding a few extra years to her life sentence.

  “I knew you’d come,” she said, coolly confident, not bothering to disguise her icy personality anymore. Brodie knew that beneath the cold exterior lay a volcano of rage and hate. “A nosy bastard like you would be unable to resist my invitation.”

  “You were quite right,” he smiled, determined not to let her get to him. That would be one of her aims for bringing him here, to give herself a little bit of control back after most of it had been taken from her.

  He sat in the chair opposite her, only a flimsy wooden table between them. Two burly female prison guards stood at the back of the room looking uninterested but no doubt listening carefully to their conversation.

  “Go on then, spit it out,” said Brodie. “Unlike you I don’t have all day.”

  “Don’t believe Mark was so bloody innocent,” she hissed spitefully. She leaned back in her chair, a nasty smile splitting her face, deciding how best to attack the memory of the man she’d already taken everything from. “He shared me with Seth when we first started sleeping together. He’d go out of the room and come back in a minute later only it wasn’t him, it was Seth. It took me a couple of weeks to click on, they looked so alike. Seth would part his hair on the other side and be careful to do everything right-handed. At first I thought it was strange how in bed Mark would either be mediocre or give me a screaming orgasm, I couldn’t work it out. Then one night it suddenly clicked. It was his brother who was inside me. Seth made me feel so good I didn’t say anything, not for a while anyway. I had the best of both worlds. Mark was on the up, making pots of money and Seth satisfied me in a way he never could and all the time I could pretend I was innocent to their game. Until I got carried away and called out Seth’s name in the middle of another incredible orgasm.”

  “If you’re trying to shock me sweetheart it’s not going to work. I’ve seen worse than you in my lifetime,” he said, thinking of the Judas bastard John Lyons.

  “Not many though,” she smiled sweetly. “Anyway, after that me and Seth started to talk properly. Before that we’d just fucked like animals. He was more interesting, more alive than Mark. We found out we both liked pain. I could do things with him that would have made Mark pass out. So fucking weak,” she spat, hands curling into fists, torn fingernails scratching at her palms.

  “When did you find out you both enjoyed carving things into people’s skin?”

  “Seth told me about his dad. I could tell it excited him. He knew before the rest of the family, caught his dad creeping in one night covered in blood. The next day the woman’s body was found. When Seth confronted him about it his dad said, yeah I did it. She fucking deserved it. Got a problem with that? Seth never said a word to anyone except me. I enjoyed hearing this story, I got him to repeat it over and over again. It turned me on.”

  It came out at the trial that Bryan Flynn had started carving things into women’s skin because his mother used to carve the word naughty into the skin of his arm when he’d been bad, as a punishment. This vital information had been lurking in an ancient Social Services file and found by a diligent police officer. Brodie surmised Bryan had carved designs instead of words so he could kid himself that he was creating art and not committing deranged murder. Seth had never been subjected to such torture, he’d done the carvings because he enjoyed doing it, simple as that. It was also a mark of honour for his dead dad.

  “Who killed Bryan? Don’t say it was Mark, we all know that was bullshit. It was Lauren, wasn’t it?”

  Sarah leaned forward, licking her lips, relishing what she was about to say. “Why don’t you ask her why she wears all those long sleeved tops, even in summer? Then you’ll have your answer.”

  “There’s something you’re not telling me Sarah,” he said, warning in his voice.

  She shrugged. “You’re so fucking smart you figure it out. Did you really think I was going to give you all the answers?”

  “At least tell me what happened to Emily Spencer?”

  Her grin was wide, eyes alight with glee as she ran her tongue slowly across her perfect white teeth. “That’s mine and Seth’s little secret and we don’t want to share.”

  “Why don’t you do the decent thing for once and put her family out of their misery? I know you were a decent person once, before you hooked up with Seth. Don’t let him dominate you anymore.”

  She threw back her head and howled with laughter. “You think that’s how our partnership worked? And I thought you understood us. Me and Seth have always been about equality - fifty-fifty right down the line. It’s one thing I love about him. How is he?”

  “How should I know?”

  “They let us write to each other. We send letters every day,” she said dreamily, like a love-struck teenager. “Our letters are read though, so we can’t be too romantic. I don’t want some dirty PO wanking himself silly over my words of love.”

  Brodie pulled a face.

  “But it’s not the same as seeing him, touching him.” She closed her eyes, a single tear sliding down her face. Another of her practised moves to gain sympathy. “I miss him so much it hurts. Every night I ache to feel his arms wrapped around me…”

  Brodie sighed with boredom and shifted in his chair as she continued to drone on about how much she missed her lover.

  “Is Seth the real father of your kids?” he said.

  “Of course he is,” she smiled. “There was no way I was going to allow Mark to father my children. I wanted them strong and brave, not so disgustingly weak and useless like him,” she spat, the sweet and innocent act falling away again.

  “He can’t have been that useless, he made a ton of money.”

  “He might have set things up but he couldn’t have done it without Seth behind him. He was the one they were all scared of otherwise Mark would have been beaten up and ripped off years ago,” she said, throwing back her head and tilting her chin, pride in her voice.

  “Where did Mark meet Haines and Johnson? I can’t imagine that pair down the golf club.”

  “Through Seth,” she said savagely. “He’d heard who they were and made sure he met up with them in the pub one night. They got talking and Seth set up the meeting with Mark. So you see, Mark wasn’t so smart, he couldn’t have done it without his brother.”

  “Are you going to tell the girls that Seth’s really their father?”

  “One day. Not yet, they’ve been through enough.”

  “You haven’t asked after them. You asked after Seth but not your own weans.”

  “Don’t insinuate that I don’t love them,” she yelled. “Those girls are my life.”

  “Oh really? Then why did you take away both their parents?”

  “That wasn’t the plan, they were going to have their mum and their real dad. We were going to be one big, happy family, until you came along.”

  “You dragged me into it.” He leaned forward, eyes hardening. “You thought I would be some fucking numpty who’d fall for everything you told me. Proved you wrong, didn’t I?”

  “You’re right, we did think you’d be a numpty but you got us with the tracking device you planted on
Seth. He was at my house when we found it in his jacket. Fortunately his car key slid into the lining otherwise we wouldn’t have known it was there so we had to make up the story of him prowling around my garden to explain his presence there. We used it to lure you to the storage unit too. It took you a while to find that, didn’t it dickhead?”

  “Just stick to the point,” he said coldly.

  “Apart from that everything was working until Cass turned up.” She studied him thoughtfully, eyes filling with malice. “Does she know you’re in love with her?”

  “I am not.”

  “Don’t give me that. You constantly moon over her.”

  “Me and Cass are just colleagues, nothing more.” He didn’t like this turn in the conversation, it felt like Sarah was taking control. Neither did he like her even uttering Cass’s name.

  “Seth told me that you said she was a good fuck. I wonder what she’d say if she found out about your real feelings.”

  “If you’re trying to threaten me it won’t work. Cass won’t believe a fucking mincy heid like you.”

  “A what?” said Sarah.

  “A crazy person, a loony tune, you know, a nut job,” he said as though she was a child. “I met your Aunt Elspeth, nuttiness runs in the family.”

  “What a wonderful way to encourage me to keep your secret Brodie. It stuns me that you managed to figure out what we were up to.”

  “That’s just your problem Sarah, you think you’re smarter than everyone else and you’re not. Who was the blond piece you got to come to my office and hire me?”

  “An actress I found on the internet. She didn’t know me, couldn’t name me. She was desperate for money so she didn’t ask any questions. She must have been convincing.”

  “Aye, she was.”

  “At least my money wasn’t wasted.”

  “You going to cover my expenses then?”