Souls At Zero (A Dark Psychological Thriller)

by Neal Martin

  "What can I say, Harry? We all have our secrets. You've just discovered mine."

  Edger trained the gun on Rankin's head. Rankin positioned himself behind Kaitlin. She was so tall he could easily hide most of himself behind her, making a head shot too risky.

  "Drop the gun, Harry," Rankin ordered him. "Do it now, or I'll cut your daughter's throat."

  There was a look in Rankin's eyes that Edger had never seen before. A look of cold, predatory intent. The look of a cold-blooded killer. Edger knew he would slit Kaitlin's throat without thinking twice about it. As much as he wanted to blow the man's head off for what he was doing to Kaitlin, Edger knew he couldn't risk it. "Alright, John," he said, trying to keep a note of calm to his voice, which was difficult, given the anger boiling inside him. He held the gun away and threw it on the bed.

  Without missing a beat, Rankin leaned around the side of Kaitlin, dropped the knife he was holding and snatched the Beretta off the bed, before pointing it at Edger. His hand was gone from around Kaitlin's mouth now. His arm was around her throat.

  "Daddy…" Kaitlin pleaded in a small voice, tears running from her eyes.

  Edger looked at his daughter, torn apart that she was once again at the mercy of a cold blooded killer.

  "Let my daughter go. You want to kill me, fine. Just let her go."

  Rankin shook his head. "I can't do that, Harry. I was told to kill all of you. Including Kaitlin here."

  Kaitlin whimpered and closed her eyes.

  "Who told you, John?"

  "Come on, Harry. You know who."

  "You're a part of that sick club as well?"

  "What can I say? We all have our hobbies."

  Edger shook his head. "You killed Gemma." It was out of his mouth before he realised what he had said.

  "Mummy's dead?" Kaitlin whimpered. "No…"

  "I'm sorry, love…" Edger said.

  Kaitlin started screaming.

  Rankin covered her mouth with his hand again as she struggled in his grip.

  Edger went to move forward, but Rankin pointed the gun at him and shouted, "Don't move!"

  Edger froze.

  Then he saw Black. He was outside the bedroom window.

  How the hell did he know?

  The ex-cop must have walked into the house, heard all the noise, saw Gemma's body.

  Before he looked at Rankin again, Edger saw Black raise his gun towards the window from outside.

  Just don't fucking shoot my daughter, Black.

  "Tell me why, John," Edger said, trying to keep Rankin's attention. "Why would a man like you get involved with something like the Red Falcon Club? You used to be a military cop, for fuck's sake."

  "I don't have to justify myself to someone like you, Harry. In fact, I don't have time for all this messing about." He cocked the hammer on the Beretta. "Time to die, Harry. Your daughter will be with you soon enough, don't worry."

  Fucking come on, Black! Shoot the cunt! Now!

  Edger saw Rankin's finger tightening on the trigger.

  Then the window behind him exploded as Black finally took his shot, the bullet smashing through the glass and hitting Rankin in the back somewhere. Rankin cried out and the Beretta went off in his hand, sending a bullet flying past Edger's head, where it lodged in the wall behind him, showering him with plaster dust.

  Rankin was still on his feet. Kaitlin had released herself from his grip and was cowering on the floor next to the bed.

  Outside, Edger saw Black aim his gun again. "Don't shoot him!" Edger balled as he dove towards Rankin, pushing the former military cop's gun arm away just as he got another shot off, the bullet hitting the ceiling somewhere. Holding onto Rankin's gun arm, Edger punched Rankin in the face as hard as he could, again and again, until Rankin dropped the Beretta and fell to his knees, blood pouring from his mouth where Edger had smashed his front teeth with his fist, Rankin's nose also busted open, along with a deep gash above one of his eyebrows. Edger let go of Rankin's arm, and Rankin fell back onto the shattered glass on the carpeted floor.

  Edger dropped his knee onto Rankin's chest, pinning the man to the floor while he looked around at Kaitlin, who was still cowering at the side of the bed. "Are you alright?" he asked her. "Are you hurt?"

  It was a stupid question, but Kaitlin shook her head anyway. She pulled the quilt of the bed and used it to cover her nakedness as she sat crying. "Mummy," she kept saying. "I want my mummy…"

  Hot tears stung Edger's eyes as he looked down at the half conscious Rankin. It took all of his willpower to stop himself from beating the man to death.

  "Edger." It was Black's voice.

  Edger turned around to see the ex-cop standing in the doorway, gun in hand. "Black," he said, standing up and grabbing the Beretta of the floor. "Interrogate him. Find out what he knows about the next club meeting. He's part of it."

  "And you think you know people," Black said, more to himself as he walked into the room while keeping his gun trained on Rankin.

  Edger holstered the Beretta and went to his daughter, kneeling down in front of her. She made no move towards him as she said in the quietest of voices, "Is my mummy really dead?"

  Swallowing, Edger nodded once.

  Kaitlin started crying, rocking back and forth on the floor, clearly going into shock. Edger reached for her slowly, and she started screaming. "Leave me alone!"

  Shocked, unsure of what to do, Edger backed off slightly. "We can't stay here, Kaitlin," he said gently. "It's not safe."

  "This is all your fault!" she screamed at him. "Mummy's dead because of you!"

  He flinched back like she had hit him with a hammer, the truth of her words cutting him as surely as any knife.

  "She's in shock, Edger," Black said quietly from behind him. "Just get her out of here."

  Edger had seen enough people in shock after bomb blasts and fire fights to know that they couldn't be allowed to wallow in it if threat levels were still high, which they were in this case. They had no idea who else was going to turn up. Edger needed to see to Kaitlin as quickly as possible, then get her out of the house, although he had no idea where he was going to go. Nowhere was safe it seemed.

  Biting the bullet, he leaned forward and took hold of Kaitlin as gently as he could, bundling her up in the quilt she had around her and picking her up. She struggled at first, banging her fist on his back. But he ignored her protests and carried her out of the bedroom, holding her head tight to his shoulder so she wouldn't see into the kitchen as he moved down the hallway towards the living room. By the time he got her into the living room, she had her arms wrapped tightly around his neck, and wouldn't let him go as she sobbed helplessly.

  "I'm sorry," Edger kept saying as he walked around the room with her. "I'm so sorry…"

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Edger sat beside his daughter in the living room of her grandparent's bungalow. Kaitlin sat motionless on the sofa, now fully dressed in jeans, boots, a dark sweater and a red coat. The slash wound on her chest given to her by Rankin was nasty, but it wasn't so deep that it needed stitches thankfully. Edger used bandages to cover it up as best he could. Despite not being deep, the wound would scar. It would be there every time she looked in the mirror for the rest of her life, reminding her of the terrible experience she had just survived by the skin of her teeth, the experience that her mother wasn't so fortunate in surviving. Tears rolled out of her eyes as she sat motionless, staring into the cold grate of the fireplace. She had the blank, haunted look of someone who had seen and felt too much horror to bear, a look that Edger was all too familiar with.

  Black came into the living room, glanced at Kaitlin with a pained expression on his face before looking at Edger. "He isn't talking," he said quietly.

  "Stay with Kaitlin," Edger told him, before turning to his daughter. "Kaitlin, Paul here is going to sit with you for a few minutes. Once I come back we'll leave, okay?"

  Kaitlin didn't look at him. Didn't say anything.

  Edger shook his he
ad and stood up, allowing Black to take his place on the sofa, then he left the room and went down the hall, noticing Black had closed the kitchen door.

  When Edger entered the far bedroom, Rankin was on the carpeted, blood-stained floor, his hands bound behind his back with a leather belt that Black had obviously found somewhere.

  Edger closed the door behind him.

  "Come to interrogate me, Harry?" Rankin said, the pain from the bullet wound in his shoulder plain on his face.

  Edger produced the Beretta from inside his jacket, stood over Rankin and pressed the barrel into the top of the other man's skull. "I should put a bullet in your head right now," he said through clenched teeth.

  "You won't," Rankin said.

  Thumbing the hammer back on the Beretta, Edger growled, "Fucking try me." He pressed the gun harder into Rankin's skull and a flicker of fear came across the other man's face.

  "It wasn't personal, Harry."

  "Personal?" Edger took the gun away from Rankin's skull and knelt down in front of him, put the barrel close to his face. "You killed my ex-wife in cold blood. You tortured my fucking daughter! You were going to murder her!" He shoved the gun into Rankin's mouth and Rankin closed his eyes like he was about to die. Edger pressed his finger against the trigger, a pound of pressure away from blowing the ex-military cop's head off.

  What are you waiting for? Fucking do it!

  As much as he wanted to, he couldn't kill Rankin. Not yet anyway. He needed information first. He took the barrel of the gun out of Rankin's mouth, took the hammer off and then whipped the pistol across Rankin's face, leaving a deep gash in the other man's already busted cheek. Rankin cried out in pain as his head smashed against the wall, and he slid down to the floor. Edger pulled him up again. "Tell me when the next meeting is!"

  Rankin's head swayed on his shoulders as blood dripped down his face. "Okay," he spluttered, his mouth full of blood, seemingly resigned to the fact that he was beaten.

  Edger gripped Rankin's shirt as he held him up. "When is it?"

  "T-tonight."

  "Tonight?"

  Rankin nodded.

  "At the address in Armagh?"

  The other man nodded again.

  Edger let him go and Rankin fell against the wall again. The meeting was tonight. That seemed a bit convenient.

  Or else it was fate.

  "You better not be lying to me, John."

  Rankin looked up with swollen eyes. "It's a pagan tradition," he said.

  "A pagan tradition," Edger repeated shaking his head. "What the fuck are you people into?"

  "You wouldn't understand."

  "You're right." Edger pointed the gun at him. "I don't give a fuck either."

  Rankin didn't seem bothered by the gun pointed at him. "What are you planning on doing, Harry? Storming the castle, you and you're copper mate?" He laughed. "They'll kill you before you get through the front door."

  "We'll see about that."

  Just then the door opened behind him. It was Black. "Don't kill him, Harry."

  "What?" Edger said, still pointing the gun at Rankin. "After what he did?"

  "You kill him, you'll just implicate yourself in all this mess," Black said. "Leave him alive. Let him go down for killing Gemma. I'm still officially a cop, I can call this in. Let the cunt rot in jail for the rest of his life."

  Edger shook his head. Black was right, but the need for revenge still burned in him.

  You'll get your revenge later. You kill him you'll have the law after you.

  "Fucks sake." Edger lowered the gun, then he stamped his boot into Rankin's face, knocking the man out cold. "Cunt."

  "Did he tell you when the meeting was?"

  "Tonight," Edger said holstering the Beretta.

  "Tonight? You sure he's telling the truth?"

  "We'll find out, won't we? Even if he's lying, I'm still cutting off the head of the snake. The rest can be got later."

  "Alright," Black said as they moved out of the bedroom and into the hallway. "I'll call this in. Meet you back in Belfast."

  "How you going to explain being here?"

  "I'll say I was following up on your daughter's assault."

  Edger nodded as he looked down the hall to the living room. "Her life has been destroyed. I don't think she'll ever get over this."

  "She still has you," Black said. "It's not too late, Edger. You could take Kaitlin and get on a plane. Never come back here. Forget about all this."

  Black had a point. Upping and leaving would be the right thing to do by Kaitlin, but Edger knew he couldn't. "And spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders? Edger shook his head. "There's only way one way to end this."

  "If you're sure."

  "I am."

  "Alright. I'll deal with thing's here and meet you later. Where you going to take Kaitlin?"

  Edger thought for a moment. The only person he felt he could trust was Donna Lennon. She would look after Kaitlin if he asked her to, just until he did what he had to do. "I know someone." Edger gave Black Donna's address, and told Black to meet him there when he was done sorting out Rankin.

  As Edger went to walk into the living room to get Kaitlin, Black said, "Edger? I'm sorry about Gemma."

  Edger swallowed, then nodded. "So am I, Paul."

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Kaitlin protested when Edger went to carry her out of her grandparent's house and into the car. She screamed that she didn't want to leave her mother behind. All Edger could do was keep walking to the car and put her on the back seat, holding the door closed as she tried to get out, while Black put the girl's suitcase into the boot of the Ford Fiesta. When that was done, Edger quickly got into the car and drove away from the bungalow, Kaitlin continuing to scream and bang on the window as the bungalow faded into the distance. Eventually she lay down on the back seat and cried for a long time, before lapsing into complete silence. When Edger asked if she was alright, she didn't answer.

  If you had have helped Declan that night instead of leaving him, none of this would have happened. Gemma would still be alive.

  Edger gripped the steering wheel tight as he drove onto the motorway and headed for Belfast. In his jacket pocket was Kaitlin's phone. He took it out and dialled Donna Lennon's number. "It's Harry," he said when she answered.

  "Harry," Donna said, sounding glad it was him. "Where are you? Have you seen John? I've been trying to call him all morning. The office is closed."

  "I know. Something's happened, Donna. Are you at home?"

  "Yes, I'm at home. What's going on, Harry?"

  "I should be with you in a couple of hours. I'll explain everything then. I have Kaitlin with me."

  "Kaitlin? Where's Gemma?"

  Edger didn't answer.

  "Harry?"

  "I'll explain everything when I see you, Donna," he said, then hung up the phone.

  He glanced in the rear-view mirror at Kaitlin. She lay on her side, blankly staring at the seat in front of her. "Kaitlin? You alright, sweetheart?"

  What a stupid fucking question. Of course she's not alright. Her mother is dead and a man she thought was her father's friend tried to rape and kill her, and all this after her uncle kidnaps her, cuts her finger off, then gets his head blown off right in front of her. And don't forget the three assassins who tried to shoot her afterwards.

  Sighing, Edger stared straight ahead, barely noticing the other cars on the road. In his mind, all he could see was Gemma's lifeless body lying on the floor, that beautiful brain of hers spilling out of her broken skull.

  She didn't deserve to die. Not Gemma.

  Did anyone deserve to die? Did his friends and comrades deserve to die in Iraq while he went on living?

  So much death.

  Get used to it. There's going to be a lot more before this is over.

  He glanced in the mirror at his daughter again. Apart from her grandparents, Edger was all she had left. She was all he had left. Would Kaitlin want anything to do with him after all this
was over, assuming he survived of course? He didn't know. In the last couple of days, Kaitlin had experienced more pain and suffering than most people experience in a lifetime. His insides twisted up when he concluded most of that pain and suffering was down to him. He should have stayed in Iraq. An insurgent's bullet or an IED would have gotten him eventually, and then Kaitlin would never have known him. Gemma would still be alive.

  What now, soldier? You going to look after your daughter from now on? Be a single parent?

  He couldn't think about that now. When the threat was over, then he would think about that.

  If he was still alive that is.

  It was just after 1:00 p.m. when Edger pulled the car up outside Donna Lennon's house in Lisburn. Edger got out and opened the back door of the car. Kaitlin still there on the back seat, her eyes wet, staring at nothing. "Kaitlin?" he said gently. "You need to get out of the car now, love."

  Kaitlin didn't move. Didn't acknowledge him in any way.

  Edger reached in and took hold of her, expecting her to scream and shout like she did earlier, but his daughter put up no resistance as he slid her across the back seat and into his arms. He carried her like she was dead up the path to Donna's front door, where Donna already stood with a disturbed look on her face. "Oh my God," she said. "What happened to her?"

  Edger just shook his head as he stepped inside the house. "Have you got a bed I can lie her down on?"

  Donna directed him upstairs to one of the bedrooms, and he lay Kaitlin down on top of the double bed. When he lay her down, she turned on her side away from him and drew her knees up to her chest. Donna took a thick blanket out of a chest of drawers and draped it over the twelve year old. Edger sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, feeling as helpless as he had ever been, then he got up and motioned for Donna to leave the room with him. He pulled the door over behind them but didn't shut it, then they both went downstairs to the living room. He sat on the sofa and started rolling himself a cigarette.

  Donna took her own cigarettes off the coffee table and remained standing while she lit it. "What the hell has happened, Harry?" she asked, biting her lower lip as she stared at him.