Killing Jericho: A Heart-Stopping Thriller (The Scott Jericho Crime Thrillers Book 1)

by Will Harker

  I laughed. “You make it sound like a bad thing.”

  “Is it? Look, of course, I’m happy to see you like this. Christ, if you told me yesterday that I’d have some version of the old Scott back, I’d have danced around the fucking maypole. But I know this look.” She brushed back a tangle of curls from my forehead. “Whatever you’ve got yourself involved with, it’s dangerous. I can see it in your face—the buzz, the thrill.”

  I closed my eyes. “Honestly, Sal, I don’t know what you want from me. I lay around all day, taking pills until my eyes rattle in my head, and you bowl up into the trailer and read me the riot act. I find a case, some way to make a living, and that’s not good enough either. You can see how I might be a tad confused.”

  She set her jaw. “There are other ways to make a living.”

  “I know. If you remember, I’ve tried them.” I flicked out my hand to past horizons. “I tried to study, to write, but the world of academia didn’t want me. Then I tried to earn a crust smacking heads together, and I seem to remember you hating that too. So I tried to step over that thin blue line and that was when everyone here really rejected me. A showman copper? The ultimate betrayal. So yeah, I might have known being a private detective wouldn’t be good enough either.”

  “Will you listen to yourself?” she snapped. “The woes of Scott Jericho. Don’t you ever wonder why we’re all so wary of you? It’s because you’re like a moth to a flame with this sort of shit. And yes, I’m glad it’s dragged you out of all that despair and self-pity, but what worries me is that one day the flame will catch, and it won’t just be you who burns…”

  The waitress reappeared at my elbow, slapping down the bill. When I took out my wallet, she flapped a dismissive hand.

  “Your money’s no good here, handsome. The gentleman’s already settled it for you.”

  I looked up at her. “What gentlemen?”

  “Old friend of yours, so he said. Just popped in, paid your tab then headed right back out again. Odd-looking fella, but friendly with it. Very generous tipper. Oh, there he is! See him waving, out by the road?”

  She waved, her smile spreading like butter. Following her gaze through the diner’s wide windows, I felt my hands close into fists.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “I MEANT TO ASK, that camera looking out onto the car park? I was here last week and some bastard backed into my motor and didn’t leave a note. I don’t suppose I could take a look at your CCTV?”

  The waitress gave me a pout that a halibut might have envied. “I’m sorry, Curly. Kids have been chucking stones at that thing ever since Marco installed it last summer. One was bound to hit the bullseye sooner or later. It’s been out of action for months. I could ask around the regulars, though. Maybe someone saw something?”

  I treated her to my most winning smile. “Don’t worry. But listen, would it be OK if I slipped out the back? I want to play a prank on my generous friend and I don’t want him to see me coming. It’s just a stupid joke we’ve had running since we were kids.”

  She pressed both hands over her bosom, as if she were a virtuous damsel and I’d suggested a midnight roll in the hayloft. “Oh, I don’t think I could allow that. It’s staff only back there and Marco would have my guts for garters.”

  My smile was now competing for best in show, dimples working overtime. For good measure, I slipped a tenner into the front pocket of her apron and the dear old thing practically swooned. I took that as the greenlight. Collecting up my file, I scanned the diner.

  “Won’t be a minute,” I said, and slipped out of the booth.

  Much like the establishment itself, the clientele of Marco’s American Bar and Grill was an eclectic assortment. Tucked into a siding just off the Oxford road, the converted shipping container was hemmed in on all sides by forest so dense it was a miracle any motorist ever spotted it. A long-extinct neon sign ran across the roof while trellis frames woven with plastic vines made a vain attempt to hide the rusted frontage. A horribly offensive statue of a Native American stood on one side of the entrance, hands raised in surrender to the gun-toting cowboy on the other. Inside was a feeble recreation of a ’50s diner, posters for movies I’d never heard of crowding the walls. Still, the coffee wasn’t bad.

  Among the patrons—a harassed-looking couple trying to wrestle their toddler away from a ketchup bottle; an improbable vicar chowing down a heart attack of a burger; and lined up on stools at the counter, more truckers’ butt-crack than you could shake a stick at—I spotted just the man I needed. Tall, broad-shouldered, built like the proverbial shithouse, I thought he could pass, at least viewed from the back.

  Casting another glance through the window, I headed down the aisle towards my doppelganger. Drawing level, I dropped to one knee and started fiddling with my laces. The waitress hovered at my shoulder. By knocking off time, my guess was that she’d have spun this story into something unrecognisable, yet her wildest exaggerations wouldn’t come close to the truth.

  The guy frowned down at me. And yes, from the front, not exactly my double, but if he played along, that needn’t be too much of a problem. He glared, wiped egg yolk from his logger’s beard, and in return I tipped him the brim of my baseball cap.

  “Hey there, big fella. Like my hat?”

  It was a present from this morning. Sal had just started in on me again, repeating vague concerns about the investigation that only nettled because they chimed with my own misgivings, when Jodie appeared in the trailer doorway. To be honest, I think we were both glad of the interruption. Jodie squeezed past her mum, trotted barefoot down the steps, and took my hand.

  “Morning, Uncle Scott. Mum said you were going to ’vestigate a mystery last night. Did you solve it? Mum said you’d solve it in two minutes because you were the brainiest person she’d ever met.”

  “Oh, did she?” I cocked an eyebrow at Sal, who crossed her arms and cut her eyes skyward.

  “Can I come?” Jodie asked, swinging my arm. “I’ve been reading them books you gave me and I think I’d be really good at detecting.”

  I’d loaned her my old Three Investigators collection; favourites of my youth in which a trio of teen detectives went around busting Scooby-Doo-style cases—and annoying the ever-living tits off anyone over the age of twenty-five.

  “I absolutely do need your help, kiddo,” I said, dropping to my haunches, “but what I really want is for you to stay here and act as my deputy. Keep your eyes peeled for any clues and write them all down in a report. Then we can go through them together. Does that sound like a plan?”

  I could see she wasn’t convinced. She reached up and ruffled my curls. “Your hair looks silly today. Wait there a minute.” She trotted back into the trailer while Sal shot me a reluctant smile.

  “At least one of us loves you. And she’s right, your hair is looking more than usually pubescent.”

  Jodie had triumphantly returned with a pink ‘All the Fun of the Fair’ baseball cap, a delight which I now held out to the guy in the booth.

  “Fuck is this?” he grunted, taking the cap anyway.

  “It might not be your colour,” I conceded, “but if you could help me out?”

  Pushing a twenty I could ill afford across the table, I let him in on the prank. The waitress backed me up, although she didn’t look best pleased that he’d received double her original tip. To placate her, I poked another tenner into her apron and she was soon sweetness and light again. Still crouching, I asked if my pal remained at the roadside and she chuckled and waved, confirming he was.

  “OK, Grizzly,” I nodded. “You up for this?”

  Grizzly rolled his tongue around the inside of his mouth as if seeking guidance from a morsel of unchewed breakfast. “What d’you want me to do?”

  I reached up and worked the cap onto the bushel of his head. “Take your coffee to the counter and spend ten minutes contemplating the mysteries of existence, the likelihood of alien intelligence, the popularity of ska m
usic, anything you like, just keep your back to the window. Sound good?”

  He ran a dirty forefinger across the pink brim. “People’ll think I’m a faggot in this thing.”

  “Nah.” I patted his knee. “Not with your personal hygiene.” This seemed to reassure him and he started to haul his carcass out of the booth. “Remember,” I said, “back to the window.”

  Grizzly was a homophobic moron, but for twenty quid, he was my homophobic moron and he did as he was told. While he took up position at the counter, adding fresh variety to that smorgasbord of arse cracks, I scuttled my way clear of the window. This drew a few stares but with food as inedible as Marco’s before them, the diners’ attention soon refocused on their plates. Meanwhile, the waitress guided me to a swing door behind the till.

  “Marco’s on a ciggie break, so if you’re quick…” She reached back and laid an unnecessary hand against my chest. “Straight through and out the back door. He’ll probably be on his phone to that bitch of a wife, so I doubt he’ll notice you. Say hello to your friend from me.”

  I left her with my most dazzling smile yet and stepped into the kitchen. Tiles greased to a yellowy sheen squeaked under my boots. From the ceiling, a thousand insects hung in wafting graveyards while an unlucky few had escaped only to drop, out of the flypaper and into the fire, onto sizzling hotplates below. Although Marco could never be accused of false advertisement—the photos in his laminated menus were honest enough representations—I think that seeing this breeding ground for botulism, even his least discerning diner might put down their fork.

  Making for the back door, I paused for a second at a preparation counter. There, a slimy chicken breast rubbed hazardous shoulders with mould-spotted lettuce. I reached across these delicacies and slid a paring knife from its block. I tested the edge against my thumb—razor-sharp—so either Marco took an unlikely pride in his tools or else this happy little blade had hardly been used. With the flat of the knife pressed against the inside of my wrist, I pushed through the back door.

  Birds twittered in the trees that banked up behind the diner. On the other side of the overflowing bins, Marco stood with his back to me, shoulders hunched like a man facing a firing squad. Even from this distance, I could hear the shriek of his wife. OK, so he might be the world’s most successful serial poisoner, but in that moment, I felt for him.

  I headed as noiselessly as I could between columns of old oil drums and into the trees. I should have ample time, but my nerves felt raw and I wanted this little sideshow over and done with. I moved quickly through the undergrowth, following the sweep of the forest around the diner to the weed-cracked car park out front. There I paused, hand tightening around the knife.

  My friend remained near the roadside, texting now rather than waving. He looked up once or twice and I followed his gaze to my broad-shouldered stand-in, still huddled over the counter. Good old Grizzly.

  Time to finish this.

  Despite the rumble of the road, I trod carefully, anxious that a snapping branch not give me away. Reaching a row of lorries, I stepped out of the treeline and, moving to the front of one of the cabs, darted another glance at the roadside. Then I broke cover. I stayed low, swept between the cars until I found the one I wanted. He’d upgraded since my arrest, his ancient Fiat Panda traded in for a smart BMW coupé, but the decal in the back window gave him away. A Knights of St George emblem, proudly on show.

  My borrowed blade flashed in the light as I went to work. No CCTV, no customers rolling out into the car park just yet. No one to see as I punched holes into four Continental tyres. This done, I dropped the knife and plunged back into the trees, circling around until I was almost level with the road. I had to be fast now, and it had to look right.

  Barrelling up behind Lenny Kerrigan, I bellowed Booo! in his ear.

  The fascist thug who had intimidated a hundred girls in burkas on their way to school now leaped out his skin. I practically caught him on the descent and, looping an arm around his neck, held the bastard in a brotherly headlock. Back in the diner, the waitress laughed and waved us away like we were naughty kids while Grizzly shot me a thumbs-up and went back to his coffee, seemingly at ease now with the pink baseball cap. Meanwhile, Kerrigan squealed like a stuck pig as I hauled him into the cover of the trees.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  AT THE SERVICE STATION, I’d thought he might be a paranoid delusion conjured out of guilt and pills. But he was here now—the waitress had seen him, he’d paid my bill, and he was currently kicking and struggling against me as I dragged him into the undergrowth. Whatever was going on, I had to end this. Two more lives were on the line and I couldn’t afford the distraction of Kerrigan dogging my footsteps.

  At a safe distance from the diner, I threw him to the ground. Despite being winded, Kerrigan didn’t waste a moment. Scrabbling to his feet, he reached behind to the back of his belt. I didn’t need my months in uniform to tell me what was about to happen. Knife attacks are common enough on fairgrounds and by eighteen I’d experienced my fair share. A memory in the dappled gloom of the wood: my father with a wooden pencil in his fist, teaching me what to do if some crazed joskin came at me. I put the old lesson to use.

  Kerrigan’s was an ornate pig-sticker. I didn’t get a clear look, but I thought there was some sort of device on the hilt—probably a Nazi insignia; fascists are so unoriginal. And as sure as night follows day, there was that shit-eating smirk, tugging at the corner of his mouth. The fact that Kerrigan’s parents had probably been close relatives might account for some of the stupid, but my guess was that he’d worked hard to nurture that innate fuckwittedness. Why else would he taunt the man who’d already given him the pummelling of his life?

  In the end, it was a dull contest. He came at me, jabbing, arms wide, torso unprotected. I waited for the pullback, stepped inside his range of attack, gripped the wrist of his knife hand, and landed a sickening punch against the inside of his elbow. The weapon fell from nerveless fingers and I kicked it across the grass. Meanwhile, Kerrigan’s eyes bolted like a pair of skinned eggs and spittle fizzed between his teeth. Holding onto my shoulder for support, he tried to claw my face. I batted his hands away, but he kept at it, so in the end I was forced to nut him square in the nose. His legs came unhinged and he dropped like a scarecrow cut from its pole.

  I shook out my fist. Tried not to smile. Sal’s words from this morning came back to me: “You’re like a moth to the flame with this shit.” Much as I might try to deny it, she was right. I was alive again because of violence—the need to avenge it, the need to inflict it, perhaps the need to embrace it before it turned on me. I looked down on this child murderer whimpering at my feet, and forced myself to resist it.

  “I’ll have you for this,” Kerrigan gasped. “You think you’ve lost everything? I’ll see you back inside by tonight and then I’ll get my lawyers to take that tin can you call a home. I’ll have everything your old man owns too—the whole fucking carnival.”

  “No,” I sighed. “You won’t.”

  Taking him by the shirtfront, I dragged Kerrigan to his feet. He winced as I straightened his collar, a spill of blood issuing from his nose.

  “Your fingerprints are on that knife, Lenny. I have witnesses who will testify you came to the fair yesterday and made threats against me–” I hushed him when he started to protest. “They’ll say you did and that’s all that matters. You’ve been following me, stalking me, they’ll have you on CCTV, both here and at the garage last night.” Kerrigan didn’t need to know Marco’s security was out of commission. “I’ll say you came at me with the knife and I was forced to defend myself.” Catching sight of his arm, I frowned and turned his wristwatch to the light. “And maybe, just maybe, it’ll be me who comes for the last pot you pissed in.”

  He pulled his hand away, cheeks flaming.

  “Why are you here, Kerrigan?” I muttered. “Are you just trying to fuck with me or is it something else?”

  Could he b
e involved in the killings? I wouldn’t put anything past this mullering scumbag, let alone the butchery of Adya Mahal, but Kerrigan was your common or garden psychopath. Oh, he’d happily push a lit rag into a building where he knew children slept, but his brutality was circumscribed by the limits of his imagination. I already felt that a subtler and infinitely more dangerous mind than Kerrigan’s was at work. Still, his next words troubled me.

  “You have no idea what this is all about, do you? The great fucking detective and you can’t see what’s staring you in the face.”

  I gave him a hard shake. “Are you involved? Three people are already dead and I won’t–”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Three dirty Pole kids and you just can’t let it go, can you?” I was satisfied: he had no idea about McAllister, Poole, and Mahal, but there was something here I didn’t understand, so I let his hateful mouth run on. “You’re in for a big surprise, Jericho. One day soon you’ll wake up and realise just how well I’ve played you, and there won’t be a motherfucking thing you can do about–”

  Something over my shoulder seemed to catch his eye and his mouth snapped shut. I turned. A spark of silver, like a Tinkerbell in some corny kids’ film, darted between the trees. Probably just a trick of the light, but then why had it stopped Kerrigan in his tracks? I shook my head. I had enough mysteries on my plate without chasing fairies through the woods. I pushed Kerrigan aside and, using my sleeve, stooped to collect his knife.

  “I’ll be seeing you, Jericho,” he muttered, his head thrown back to stop a fresh rush of blood.

  I didn’t bite back. He’d find out soon enough that he wasn’t following me anywhere, at least not today.

  Out of the trees, I kicked his flattened tyres and gave the waitress a final wave. She shot me a salacious wink before returning to her customers. Seconds later, I was behind the wheel and hauling my trailer in the direction of Bradbury End.