‘And now they’re both dead.’
Michelle nodded. ‘I saw the older one on the news. They said the name on there and were asking for information about him. I had to turn it off. I saw the pictures of when . . . Of after.’
‘One of the worst scenes I have attended. Why? If he was recruiting these people, why kill them?’
‘Because they refused. Because they weren’t as sucked in as Mark, weren’t as committed. That would upset him more than you can imagine. They both got to a point where they realised this was serious, that this wasn’t right, that the end wasn’t the means even if it was all true. Mark didn’t take that well. He took it personal, like it was a slant on him, on his judgement.’
‘So why didn’t you cut it off? Tell him it was all made up, that these violent acts were not for anything! There were things you could have done!’
‘I would have done. But Alex . . . I didn’t know how Mark would take it. But I was certain he would be humiliated — crushed! Then he’d become enraged and unpredictable — more of a threat to me and Alex.’
‘So what was your plan?’
‘To wind it down. I was trying . . . I just couldn’t.’
‘And your stepdad?’
He found us. I moved away without his knowledge but he came looking for Alex, but also the money. He was probably entitled to some. But I’d already spent it, and if he got hold of Alex then that was the family splitting up and I’d promised mum . . . So I used Mark . . .’
‘You tasked him to kill him? As part of him showing his loyalty?’
‘It was just supposed to be a beating — nothing more. I know the sort of man he is — was! He would have backed right off if Mark had reared up at him, especially if he knew my mum wasn’t around to intervene. He was a gentle man, no fighter. But Mark read the task his own way. I think he was starting to get frustrated. He wanted to make a point. He thought that he could speed up his entry into this secret organisation and he suddenly talked about trying to secure Alex’s membership too. I didn’t see that coming. He’d never really cared about Alex, but now he said he was committed to “setting him up for life”. That’s what he said he was doing.’
Michelle stopped. It seemed to Harry that she was preparing for the next instalment of her story, breathing deeply, but even as she began her voice broke with emotion.
‘He strung my stepdad up, a rope under the shoulders. I’ve never seen anything like it. I didn’t know it was going on until I got the picture — the before. I could tell where he was and I tried to get there in time. He was held up under his arms by a rope and he cut him — the top of his leg. There was so much blood! He did it here. Out the back. By the time I made it there he was already gone and Alex was just stood looking up at his dad. He wasn’t crying. He wasn’t doing anything! He was covered in the blood. I’ll have that image for as long as I live!’ She was sobbing uncontrollably now. She pulled a phone from her pocket and fidgeted with it. A few seconds later, she spun the screen around. The image on the phone was sharp. It was their boy dripping in fresh blood, his eyes bulging wide, his right hand gripped tightly around the handle of a knife.
‘This was the after picture. He’s holding the knife but Mark mocked that up — I know that. The way he was positioned, Alex couldn’t even have reached. Mark figured a young boy like that, doing something so horrific, would be instantly accepted into this fantasy group of his and be sorted for life. Like I said, I didn’t see that coming.’
‘No wonder he won’t talk if that’s what he saw!’ Maddie’s voice was hushed, not directed to anyone, But the woman seized on it.
‘He won’t talk because I told him not to! I panicked. Mark was out of control. I knew I had to get Alex away from here. I waited until Mark went to sleep. He doesn’t sleep at night, not like normal people, and he‘s often up all night. He doesn’t sleep much, truth be told. He dozed off at like six a.m. I waited. Then I got Alex up. He was still wearing the same clothes, still covered in his dad’s blood, I did try to clean him but he wouldn’t let me. Then I had an idea to get him safe. I drove him into the nearest town, I was in such a rush I didn’t even put his shoes on! I pushed him out near the shops. I told him he would be safe. I thought that the blood might actually help, that looking like that he’d get straight into emergency care and he wouldn’t need to say a single word. I knew you lot would be all around him and he would be safe. I told him not to talk. I made him promise. I said the police would come and he should let them look after him but not to talk to them — not a word. Not until I could figure all this out and he could come home . . .’ She sniffed. ‘I told him I’d come back for him then. I never did.’
‘So Mark doesn’t know you handed him over?’
‘He did. He must have followed me. He never told me but I got a photo. It was of Alex. He was sitting down, pushed against a shop window. He looked so scared!’ She lifted her eyes to Maddie. ‘You were talking to him. He called it before! It made my blood run cold. I didn’t know what after meant for sure in that instance, but I knew that he intended for someone in that picture to die. I thought it was going to be Alex.’
‘But he meant me.’ Maddie’s voice was a low monotone. ‘And now it’s Rhiannon! You need to tell us where they are. He’s sent you a picture, hasn’t he? A before?’ Maddie was more animated now and leaned in closer.
‘Yes.’ The woman gestured at the phone.
Maddie snatched it up. After a few seconds, she dropped it clumsily back on the table as if it was burning hot.
‘Harry!’ Maddie breathed.
There was a full-screen image of Rhiannon. It looked like the photo had been taken square on to her but from lower down. She was hanging up with thick rope running under her shoulders, her arms pulled over it and behind her back where they looked to be restrained. She looked so vulnerable with the ropes dug deep into her armpits. She was still in her running gear.
‘You said we have an opportunity?’ Harry said. He was fighting with himself to stay calm. He wanted to stand up, to stomp around the site, to call in everyone he could. But he remembered Jack Knight. He remembered it was two minutes for someone to be beyond help. He needed to be able to get close.
‘My mum was wrong, you know, about keeping the family together at all costs. I saw how she worked at it. In the last twenty years of her life it was all she was doing, trying to pretend like we were a normal family. But she was wrong. We can’t be anything all the while Mark’s around. Maybe prison is the right answer.’
‘I think you’re right. Where is he, Michelle? This needs to end.’
Michelle shook her head. Her eyes dropped back to the table. ‘There are two caravans together, static ones. They were on the site when we got here. He uses those. He lives in one of them most of the time now. The other one is where he . . . It’s where that photo was taken of your friend. It’s out the back and just walk north. He’ll be in there.’
‘Is that a guess or do you know that for certain?’
‘I told him to wait there. As part of his task, I mean. I don’t know for sure.’
‘You’re tracking him, though, right?’
‘His truck.’
‘And us? How were you tracking us?’
Her eyes lifted to Maddie. They rested on her coat pocket. She dug around, her hand came out and she opened her palm to a receipt, a black square of plastic and a key.
‘That’s a tracking tile. It works with an app on that phone. When you were in here, I dropped it in your pocket. You can register as many tiles as you want. I just needed to know when you were close . . . I was just trying to keep him out of trouble.’ Maddie’s jaw hung open.
Harry turned back to Michelle.
‘Quite the controlling type, aren’t you?’
‘I’ve had to be. You don’t understand what it’s like living with someone like Mark. He’s always been violent. It’s like he’s got no idea what it’s like for someone to be on the receiving end. He doesn’t care. It was only a matter of time b
efore he hurt someone close to him.’
‘How long do we have?’
Michelle shook her head. ‘I told him to wait. I told him he would get further instructions. He was going to drag her behind his lorry tonight but I convinced him to save the police officer as his final expression of loyalty. I said that the final one should be the most impressive and that it needs to be seen first-hand. I was trying to think fast. But that’s what I meant by an opportunity.’
‘So Mark is expecting someone?’
‘That’s what I told him.’
‘Someone who is already a member of this group, who believes the same things he does and lives his life the same way?’
‘Yes, that’s right. A witness to his final act.’
‘And you think we can do that? Turn up and convince him we’ve been giving him the instructions all the time and we’re here to take him away to his dream life?’
‘No. Just you. He’ll never believe a woman. I know how he thinks.’ Harry was shaking his head. ‘You said you wanted to get close,’ she said. ‘That should get you close.’
‘And you’re okay with your brother getting hurt? He doesn’t sound like someone who’ll put his hands up and come quietly. You’re happy to be complicit in his capture? In his imprisonment?’
‘I can’t cope with him. I can’t keep Alex safe, not for certain. And I think he would hurt me if he ever found out. It’s time someone else took control of him.’
‘Your messages with Mark? They’re on this phone, too?’ Harry turned back to Maddie. She appeared distracted, still looking down at the tracker in her open hand.
‘They’re on there — the red symbol with three yellow dots.’
Harry fumbled over the phone. The home screen had apps lined up as squares. One was a solid red with three yellow dots forming a triangle. He pressed it and a messaging system opened up instantly. There was only one conversation feed. It was labelled X. Harry pressed on it and it opened up to the last few messages. The picture of Rhiannon had been sent fifteen minutes before. The message for him to wait was sent straight back.
‘He hasn’t replied. How do you know he’s waiting?’ Harry growled. Michelle shrugged. ‘He’s listening to me less and less.’
Harry scrolled through the feed. The messages seemed to be never-ending. He tried to absorb what he could. Much of it was repetitive, the language used distinctive. He skipped over the picture of Jack Knight lying out on the road. He handed the phone back to Maddie. Michelle was still sat playing with her hands opposite him.
Harry moved quickly, he grabbed her firmly by one of her wrists and wrenched her backwards. She had no chance to stand up, her chair scraped as she moved and nearly tipped. He dragged her towards the edge of the room.
‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING?’ Harry pulled out his handcuffs and roughly secured her wrist to a thick radiator. ‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING!’ she screamed again, ‘I’M TRYING TO HELP! IT’S MARK! IT’S MARK YOU NEED!’
‘You’re under arrest. You have to answer for what you are part of.’
Michelle’s chest was rising and falling as she sucked in large gulps, she looked like she was going to scream again, she took in the air but instead of forming words it was expelled in a sigh with words intermingled.
‘I was just trying to protect my family.’
‘At the expense of all others.’ Harry was unrelenting. He wasn’t going to give her a way out. She didn’t deserve it. He looked at Maddie.
‘Are you okay?’
She stared back. ‘Yes.’ Her voice was more resolute, as if she had rediscovered something within herself.
‘I’ll get Vince in here to watch her. No one else comes close. We need to handle this carefully. You come with me, but I need you to hold back and stay out of sight. I can’t have him seeing you.’
‘You’re going out there alone?’
‘Yes. I’ll need you close in case it goes wrong.’
‘And you want me backing you up, not Vince?’
‘If I told you to stay here, would you?’
‘No.’ Maddie’s expression backed up her words.
‘As I thought. Vince is a hothead anyway. I need someone to trust me, to stay back like I’ve asked. I need the Maddie that follows instructions and is careful. And we need to go now.’
‘Okay then.’
‘And Maddie . . . how we got here doesn’t matter. Not a jot. What we do from now is all that matters, okay?’
Maddie nodded.
Harry threw off his coat. He looked down his front at the red staining on his white shirt. He unbuttoned it and pulled it off.
‘Harry?’ Maddie’s uncertainty was clear.
He ignored her. He strode to the back of the café and through a door that led through to a simple but commercial kitchen. He took a sharp-looking knife from a rack and cut out a stained piece of the shirt. He then paced back through to the café, pulled his jacket back on and zipped it up tight. He held the piece of bloodied shirt as a wad in his left hand. He would tie it on the way.
‘Harry, we don’t know how much of this is even true. And, say it is, do you really think you can fool him?’
‘I don’t see any other choice. But we won’t fool him like she suggested. He won’t fall for that, not for an instant. I need to get close. Pass me her phone.’
Maddie did as she was asked. He typed out a message. The phone made a sound like someone was blowing across the top of a bottle.
‘What did you send?’
‘Stay close. Call up on air and make sure all other patrols are aware to stay away until they get your signal. And make sure an ambulance is part of the backup. This has the makings of going very wrong.’
‘What did you send, Harry?’
‘His final task. I’m certain at least some of what she was saying was the truth. That means that the only thing in this world he trusts is this phone.’
‘Task? What task?’
‘Me.’
Chapter 34
The gravel crunched under Harry’s feet. The rain had largely stopped. A breeze cut across him carrying a few errant raindrops and squeaked a battered metal sign that clung to the back of the building and announced that Coke is it! His jacket was not designed to be worn against the skin and the waxed material was cold and coarse. Still, he pulled it tighter.
The static homes were side by side and the ends of both were presented by his angle of approach. The doors would be on each of their sides. He arced out to the right until he could see the doors. They were halfway up the lengths of the caravans and the door to the left one was open. He glanced back over his shoulder. The door from which he had just left the café was open; he had been sure to wedge it. Maddie might have stepped through it by now and into the cover of outbuildings, old fridges and seemingly random fence panels. It should be easy for her to stay out of sight. He checked his left hand. The bloody rag from his white shirt was tied tightly across his palm. He closed fingers back over it and then thumped on the back of the open door.
The caravan was in darkness. They both were. There were no external lights in this area either. Only the moon and the distant lights from the main road relieved what would have been total darkness. His view through the door was to the back wall and nothing else. Now he was closer, he could see how dilapidated the caravan had become: the door hung at an angle; the once-white walls were yellowed and had a number of thick, black marks smudged into the side; a patch of the ceiling was hanging down; a pane in the far window showed a long crack against the moonlight.
He counted to five in his head and then knocked again, firmer this time, and then listened intently. The sounds were unchanged: the breeze in the trees, the squeak of Coke is it! and the occasional drip of rain on something hard. He stepped back from the door a little; he wanted enough space to be able to react.
‘Do I have a loyal friend in there?’ Harry growled, still watching the doorway intently. ‘Or an enemy?’ He counted another five before starting up again. ‘Time is against us. We need t
o move. I am to take you to your next phase.’ Still nothing. ‘You have done well. Few are called . . . this is your calling.’ Harry stepped away further, far enough to take in the large window further down and a smaller one at the end. There was no answer. Then the doorway flared with a bright yellow light.
‘Enter!’ Mark Garner’s voice was booming and self-confident, even when conveyed in a single word. Harry knew he couldn’t hesitate. He moved to the steps and hauled himself up.
Harry had to squint in the bright light. He had stepped straight into the middle of Garner’s living quarters. He could make out kitchen units opposite, a sink with layers of dust by his left hip and a seating area to the other side of it. A bench seat stretched across the left end but much of it was just a wooden carcass with only a couple of battered seat cushions remaining. The carpet was stained a dark brown — heavily. He still couldn’t see anybody. A short hallway led away to his right and got progressively darker as it stretched away from him. He could see doors to either side and at the farthest end they hung open like black mouths.
‘Where are you, friend?’ Harry said. He kept facing to the right.
‘Into the light.’ The voice boomed from that direction, probably via the left doorway but Harry couldn’t be sure. He still couldn’t see much. The only light hung on a bare wire from the middle of the ceiling. It was a side-step left — and he took it. Most of the staining on the floor was also directly under the light and he now stood in the middle of it. The floor felt softer here, as if carpeted with sponge. Now he was closer he could see that the staining was more of a red around the edges. There were also red spots on the wall and even on the ceiling. He could feel the heat of the bulb on his head and its brightness meant that his view of the opposite end was now even poorer.
‘You’re here for me, are you?’
HE WILL FIND YOU an absolutely gripping crime thriller with a massive twist Page 32
