by Emmy Ellis
Randall walked to the sofa and flopped down casually, as though what they’d been discussing wasn’t a matter of life or death, of subterfuge and crime-riddled dealings. Yeah, Jackson knew this kind of thing went on, but it was usually between governments, as far as he’d been aware, or those in the underground crime rings.
But it is to do with governments.
He shook his head, having to admit now that there were covert outfits he’d heard about but hadn’t fully believed were real. Outfits who had men at their disposal who thought nothing of threatening men like Randall on the street. In his own home.
Why didn’t you believe they were around? You work for Sid, you dickhead. He’s the same kind of outfit. Christ Almighty…
Jackson had buried his head in the sand, going about as though his job wasn’t anything to write home about. Pretending that killing people didn’t hurt anyone. Yeah, he knew deep down he wrecked lives, but he hadn’t allowed himself to really think about it. Now, here, Randall had yanked Jackson’s head up out of that sand, and Jackson was left with the gritty taste of the beach in his mouth—as though all those he’d killed were wet dust on his tongue, returning to choke him for what he’d done.
Chapter Fourteen
Langham woke, cold, the room in total darkness. He glanced at his watch—eleven p.m.—wide awake.
Shit.
He padded over to the window. Looked out onto the street. There was activity out there—he hadn’t expected anything less. A couple of uniformed officers milled about on the path.
Something was going on at The Running Hare. Fairbrother must have got inside—or got the old woman to open the door at any rate. Several police vehicles were in the car park, left at random angles, as though they’d arrived in haste, the officers needing to get inside quickly. He leant on the sill, hands flat, arms ramrod straight, and contemplated going down there for a nose. What kind of help could he even be anyway? They’d have everything under control. He wasn’t needed.
Curiosity gripped him, though. He wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. He got ready and, keys in pocket, left the room. In the lobby, an officer, the one from earlier, was stationed there. Langham walked outside. The fresh air slapped him hard, and if any remnants of sleep had had a mind to hang about, they fucked off then. He stood there, chilled, shivering, and thrust his hands into his trousers pockets. Made for The Running Hare.
The sign swung in the breeze, one that had picked up in its intensity since the last time he’d been out here. Something about that sign still bothered him and, once he got to the car park, he kept away from it, convinced it would lift itself off its hanger and throw itself at him. As he approached the main door, Fairbrother was on his way out, a bit green around the gills, despite being a seasoned officer.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Fairbrother sniffed in a huge lungful of air.
“Couldn’t sleep.” Langham shrugged. “You know how it is.”
“Yep, but I reckon you’d be better off going back to where you came from, mate. This shit’s got a damn sight worse since I spoke to you last.”
Langham frowned. “Why? Playing you up, is she?”
“Nope, we’re searching for her now. She may well have done a runner, considering the mess in there.”
Langham was going to go inside without an invite. He had to see the mess for himself. “I’ll go and have a look, shall I?”
“If you have to, but you’ll probably regret it. I’ve come out here for a breath of fresh air. It’s just inside there, and not only that, shit’s going on out the back.”
Langham frowned again. Grabbed some protectives and suited up. Went inside. Was assaulted by the grim sight of a man who had once sipped Guinness in his ratty chair—a man whose head had been caved in, and the only reason Langham knew it was the old man was because he recognised his clothes.
Someone had given him quite a battering, and Langham found it difficult to imagine the old woman doing this. Then again, she’d had a bit of a mad glint in her eyes earlier, when they’d come back here to collect their things. And she wasn’t a spindly little thing, incapable of hurting someone. But to inflict this kind of damage? That was a lot of rage. The dead man may as well have had no head. It had been walloped so many times the skull had split, then bits of it had broken away. Knowing the strength of skull bone and how much force was needed to cave a head in, Langham realised she’d been beyond angry—at the seeing red stage. Hurt had to have been behind this attack, perhaps years of upset and suffering coming to the fore, giving her the strength to render this man facially unrecognisable. And fear. If she had thought she was going to get caught for killing the lady over the road…
“Jesus fucking wept.” He covered his mouth with his wrist.
Blood spatter had sprayed quite a distance, the majority of it dried, or drying farthest away from the victim, but the area immediately surrounding him was still tacky. Thick in places. The man’s clothing was soaked with it. The old woman had to have been covered, and if she hadn’t washed before she’d left, someone would have spotted her, given the state she’d have been in.
Where is she?
“You searched this place?” he asked a young officer standing near the bottom of the stairs.
“Yes, sir.”
“Right.” He walked out the back, alarmed that forensic tents had been erected while he’d slept.
What the hell?
Fairbrother joined him. “Grim business, eh? We noticed the earth had been disturbed out here, and one of the new lads had a bit of a look and found a bone sticking up out of the ground.”
“A bone?”
“Yep. Seems the old girl—or that fella in there—likes killing people. Quite a few bones have been found so far—more than one person, definitely a man and a woman. There might be others. You know, buried deeper.”
“I knew something was off about her, but bloody hell!”
“We’ve searched this place once, but I’ve sent men upstairs again. Loads of nooks and crannies in a gaff like this. I’d say she’s long gone, but you never know, do you.”
“No.” Langham took a few seconds to process things. Who the hell was buried out here? And why had they even been killed? Shit, he was glad this wasn’t his case. There were too many loose ends that needed tying up.
Back inside, he stood as far away from the victim as he could so he didn’t contaminate the scene. Stared around, trying to think of where she could have gone. The attic would have already been checked, as would the rooms, but…
A smudge of blood caught his attention, on the wall beside the stairs. Like a thumb print that had been dragged downwards. He walked towards it, examined farther up. Faint, bloody fingerprints, as if someone had needed to touch the wall for balance in order to even make it up the stairs.
“Fairbrother!” he shouted.
The thud of running feet on wooden flooring sounded, then Fairbrother was beside Langham.
“See those?” Langham asked.
“Fuck.”
Fairbrother took the lead, going up the stairs two by two. Langham followed, careful not to touch the walls. Fairbrother stared at those on the landing then went up another flight, one that was narrower and possibly led to the private quarters. A large swipe of pink blood was on the wall beside a door, as though clothing had pressed against it. Fairbrother walked in, and Langham peered over his shoulder—a bedside cabinet door open, nothing inside it. Another impression of blood on the doorjamb. Why the fuck hadn’t the officers followed this or even seen it?
“She’s been up here all right,” Fairbrother said. “And heads are going to fucking roll. Even I missed this. Shit.”
“Let’s just find her—don’t worry about it.” Langham left the room and moved down the hallway to another door that had blood on the threshold. “In here!”
A double bed, like something out of the past with its ancient bedspread. Time hadn’t moved on. Oddly, considering the amount of blood clues up to this point so far, this r
oom didn’t appear to have any inside. Something clonked, and Langham cocked his head, trying to work out where the noise had come from.
“You do the honours,” he said to Fairbrother, nodding at a built-in cupboard.
Langham stood back and waited in case the woman burst out and barrelled into them. Fairbrother crept to the cupboard and looked like he wished he were anywhere but there. He tugged on the small handle, and the door creaked open. Langham held his breath, his stomach contents souring, but no one charged out, no one screeched or attacked.
The cupboard seemed deep—and dark.
Fairbrother produced a torch, flicked it on, then shone it inside.
Langham moved closer. The old woman sat on the floor, her cheek on her shoulder, as though she were just taking a nap. Blood covered her clothes, her hair clumped with it, and a bottle of some description was on the floor beside her. It rocked—must have been what that clonk was—and vomit, thick and lumpy, coated the fabric of her top over one breast.
“She dead?” Langham asked.
Fairbrother stepped back. “D’you want to be the one to find out? Fucked if I want to touch her.”
Langham swallowed. Picked up a small compact mirror off the dresser. Took Fairbrother’s torch and stepped into the cupboard, bracing himself for the woman to wake up, see him, and freak the fuck out. He went up close, holding the mirror beneath her nose, pointing the torch beam at her face. Her skin had a greenish pallor, the wrinkles somehow grey at the edges. Her eyes were closed, and crusts of blood had lifted from her face, on the verge of drifting away.
He concentrated on his task. Held his breath.
No mist on the mirror.
“She’s long gone, I think.” Langham put the mirror in the hand he held the torch with. He breathed through his mouth, battling the urge to be sick, and took her wrist in hand so he could check for a pulse. Didn’t find one. “Yep, gone.”
He stepped out of the cupboard. Released a sigh—one of relief that he wasn’t in such a confined space with a once-crazy old woman. The stench was also getting to him—alcohol-laced vomit wasn’t one of the better things he’d smelt.
“We’ve got to be bloody mad,” Langham said, “to do this job.”
“You have,” Fairbrother said. “You’re on holiday, yet still you’re willing to get in there with a blood-covered, sick-riddled old woman. Something wrong with you, mate.”
Langham nodded. “Maybe.”
Or maybe I’m just married to my fucking job. Maybe I’ve just been pretending, kidding myself that I can take a break and forget it for a while. Trying to be someone I’m not—someone who can walk away from what’s a part of him.
The thoughts bothered him so much he left the room, going into the bar to ask for a statement pad. He scribbled down what had happened since he’d got here. When Fairbrother appeared again, Langham handed it over.
“Here’s my statement. Saves holding your paperwork up while I’m in Spain or wherever we end up going—you know, you waiting for me to get back and whatever. I need to get away from here. I should never have come out.”
“I did wonder,” Fairbrother said. “But thanks all the same. For, you know…”
“Like I said, don’t worry about it. She’s found now. No one needs to know she was missed the first time or that I arrived after the initial search.” He raised his hand in farewell and stepped past the cordon that had been erected around the old man.
Outside, he sucked in some much-needed fresh air. A shiver ran through him, and an image of the old woman in the cupboard loomed in his mind. He glanced at the swinging sign. Shuddered and hunched his shoulders to try to stop the gusts of wind sneaking down his shirt collar. He walked to Simmons’. Went straight upstairs, knocked on Oliver’s door.
Oliver opened it, his hair tousled, face flushed. “There are several people in a strawberry patch out the back of the pub.”
“Yep, bones have been found.”
“She did them all in, you know. The old woman,” Oliver said.
“Yep, nutty as a fucking fruitcake, that one.”
“I got the sense her head was broken,” Oliver said.
Hers wasn’t the only one… “Yep, she can’t have been right up top. And if you know why she did it, maybe leave it until we get back from abroad before you report it in? I’ve just found the batty old bird in a cupboard of all places. Seems like she killed a bloke—caved his head in with a poker by the looks of it—then must have taken some pills or something. Had a bottle of booze in there, and she’d puked on herself. May well have brought up a load of tablets but choked on her vomit. Possibly suffocated. I don’t know, but I can’t wait to get out of here. Get the hell away.”
Chapter Fifteen
With Randall’s revelations, clarity had come. Jackson would have preferred that clarity to have hit him after the kill, once he’d returned home. He could flounder in it then, chastise himself for being so stupid in thinking his current line of business was what kept Christine’s betrayal at bay. That his work was what made everything all right again. But it blared at him now, that he’d been pretending, making out this was who he was and that was that. All a load of bullshit. Yeah, he’d killed bad people—and if it wasn’t him doing it, someone else on Sid’s team would—but shit, how could he have ever believed killing them meant killing Christine and what she’d done? Where was the logic in that? He’d be classed as fucking crazy if he ever went for counselling.
But heartbreak meant things appeared differently, it seemed. Having his heart broken justified his actions. Or so he’d thought. Jackson had grabbed on to that way of thinking instead of facing his shit—instead of facing Christine and telling her exactly what he thought of her before he’d returned to the war and found himself a changed man.
Still, the past was done, wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it now. After tonight, he could do what he should have done a long time ago. Admit that maybe Christine had been lonely and had reached out for another man because missing Jackson had been too much. Or that she wasn’t who he’d thought she was. Yeah, that was more like it. Jackson had fallen for someone who didn’t have the same values, who hadn’t meant it when she’d said she loved him. Jackson had seen and believed what he’d wanted to, because it had made him feel good, it had felt right. If he thought about it properly, the signs had been there. Christine’s letters may have contained the right words, but the feeling hadn’t come across in the last few months like it had before. If Jackson read them now he’d see it—see those words as bland, something just written as a duty, to fob him off and get him thinking everything was okay back home.
Maybe Christine hadn’t wanted to end it while he’d been away fighting. Or maybe, just maybe, what with the cruel way it had ended, Christine was a bitch and had orchestrated it that way, had wanted to see the pain in his eyes. To punish him for ever leaving her in the first place, even though she’d known he’d been a soldier right from the off.
Some people are like that. No rhyme or reason.
Jackson acknowledged he’d become like his ex-lover on that fateful day he’d caught her in bed with that young bloke. Expressing no genuine feelings of love, going about with a sneer because it was easier to put on a mask and be someone else. He’d raked in the cash to prove he could do this thing called life by himself.
And now he wanted to be who he really was. Jackson, a man who had a lot to give to the right person.
He paced the lounge while Randall was in his study. He glanced at his watch. Midnight. Time had crawled by since they’d last talked, and Jackson had stayed in this room in order to give Randall space. Time to think about whether he’d destroy the software, keep it active in his home to remain safe, or sell it on. A life on the run wasn’t something he thought Randall could cope with either, but if he let Sid take care of things, set him up with a new identity, he wouldn’t be running. He’d be someone else entirely.
It wasn’t too late to walk away.
Jackson left the lounge and wa
lked to the study. The door was ajar, and he peeped through the crack, viewing one half of Randall from the back. His hair had been gathered into a low ponytail. Jackson contemplated returning to the lounge and waiting for Randall to join him.
“I know you’re there,” Randall said. “Saw you coming.”
Of course he had. The alarm would have told him someone was up and about. Colin had retired to his rooms, although he’d said he’d come out once three a.m. neared. Jackson had told him he wasn’t needed, but the old man wouldn’t hear of it.
“I was here for Randall the first time, sir,” Colin had said. “And I’ll be here again.”
Very noble of him—or stupid. Still, this time the man wouldn’t lose an eye, wouldn’t lose anything if Jackson could prevent it.
“Why don’t you come in?” Randall asked.
“Because you’re busy.”
“I was, but I’ve gone through the data on the main computer in my upstairs room and I’m sure everything is set now. It’s as ready as it’ll ever be.” Randall didn’t turn around, didn’t swivel in his chair to lift an arm and beckon Jackson in. He remained hunched over, gaze undoubtedly glued to the monitor.
Jackson pushed the door and went inside. Closed it behind him. He approached the desk but stopped a few feet away. The man might not want him to see what was on the monitor, which appeared to be a screen full of random numbers and symbols. Nothing he’d be able to decipher, but that code had to have taken a lot of work, and Randall might be protective of it.
Randall pressed a button, and the code disappeared, replaced by the eerie, night-vision-like image of something outside. Jackson couldn’t make it out.
“Grab that spare chair and come and sit by me,” Randall said.
Jackson sat on Randall’s left. He wanted to be the one who was closest to the door.
“You see this here?” Randall touched the screen with his fingertip.
Jackson squinted, leaning forward. Nothing but a dark rectangle filling the bottom half of the screen and a lighter one above.