by Conrad Jones
She remembered what was said in the ambulance. She’d heard the paramedics talking to the detectives and armed response officers and they said she was critical, and it was a race against time to get her to theatre. It was surreal listening to people talking about her when they thought she couldn’t hear them. They didn’t mean any harm; their concern was very touching. It didn’t matter now. There was nothing she could do but hang on to life for the sake of her children and her family; she would fight for her life again. Mather Hudson could vouch for that. Fighting Hudson was always going to be difficult, but she did what she had to do. She’d taken the last roll of the dice and rolled a double-six. Hudson was badly hurt, and he was gone; that was all that mattered. She wasn’t in danger from him anymore and that was all she could ask for. Being a captive with death hanging over her had taken its toll. It sapped her energy, her hope, and her positivity. The relief of being free of him was incredible regardless of the physical damage she’d suffered during the process. The possibility of being mutilated by his billhook and his knife, suffering a prolonged and agonising death at his hands was soul destroying. It had nearly suffocated the life out of her. She could understand why some people gave up. The fear was indescribable. It had crippled her to the point of being frozen with terror. She couldn’t describe it to another human but that didn’t matter right now, because she had felt it and would never forget the feeling. Now, her life was in the hands of the surgeons and the amazing nurses and doctors and there was nothing more she could do. It was all in their hands now.
She heard Casey’s voice from a distance. He was upset, God bless him. He was crying. She felt his tears, wet on her cheek. She didn’t like to hear him cry; he was such a strong man. It was nice to hear his voice and feel his hand on hers, squeezing a little too hard. Her hands were sore.
Clumsy bugger, she thought. She wanted to ask him where the kids were and if they were okay, but she knew the answer, anyway. The family would be there rallying around; that’s what they did through sickness and health; they were always there for each other. They were close. She wondered what would happen to everyone if she died. Would Casey be okay? Would her children be damaged by it? What would they do with her? Would they opt to bury her in the ground, or would they cremate her? She hadn’t left instructions; death had always been so far away in the future. She didn’t want to be burned, but she didn’t want to be buried in a hole in the ground either. She wanted to stay much longer. Being a parent was everything and growing old enough to become a grandparent was a powerful reason to stay. There were so many years to come; at least there were before Hudson took her. His senseless quest to kill and maim had steamrollered through the lives of so many. The faces of her family flashed through her mind and she had so many things to say to them; she tried to tell them in her mind, but their faces vanished as soon as they appeared. There were so many things to think about and so many questions left unanswered, but something told her there was no more time left to answer them. The clock had stopped ticking.
She heard an alarm beeping in the distance, and she heard Casey calling her name, over and over. ‘April, April. April!’ His voice was thick with emotion, but he seemed further away now, much further; he was fading away. Other voices were around her talking quickly, some giving orders. She felt the trolley being pushed quickly; the sensation of movement was still there. Then everything started to fade to grey, then slate, then inky blackness darker than anything she’d seen before. Suddenly there were no more questions to ask; they’d gone away. Nothing mattered any more. As her heart stopped beating, there was nothing but darkness and peace.
CHAPTER 40
Alan arrived at home just after ten o’clock. His eyes were tired and bloodshot, and his head felt like it was full of cotton wool. His stomach was tied up in knots of frustration and he felt angry. Angry that they’d been so close to Hudson that he could have touched him. Had he known he’d jumped he could have followed him out of the window and landed on him. When they entered the bedroom, the natural assumption in that split second was that Hudson was attacking April. They’d heard him ranting all kinds of weird shit as they were running up the stairs. At the time it made no impact on him; it was only on reflection that he couldn’t understand what he was shouting. He was talking a language he’d never heard before. One second earlier, and they would have been on him. He would have been handcuffed and dragged away or shot dead; Alan would have been happy with either result. Dead would probably be better as there would be no more trauma for the families of the victims; attending trials and appeals and all the other circus-circus bullshit which was part and parcel of a murder case took a toll. Losing a family member to murder ripped some families apart; marriages ended in ruins, siblings became estranged, and close friends became lifelong enemies. Grief was a powerful emotion; powerful and uncontrollable. There was no closure for some of them until it was all over and for others, it was never over. Their lives would never be the same again, tarnished by the fact that their loved ones had been ripped from them by the hands of another.
The way things had panned out tonight, they got neither capture nor death as a resolution. It was bitterly disappointing. Feeling disappointment was part and parcel of being a detective but today was a new low.
Hudson had jumped through a pane of glass and disappeared. There was no sign of him. He’d simply vanished into thin air. Despite an extensive search of the surrounding area, they had no idea where he’d gone. Alan couldn’t fathom it. There was no rational explanation. His mind was racing with what ifs, but they were all irrelevant. He could do no more tonight. The search would resume at daybreak when the dark couldn’t hide him anymore.
The bungalow was in darkness apart from the living room. There was a dull glow coming from underneath the curtains and he could see the light of the television flickering on the ceiling. It was late and he wondered who was at home. The two older boys, Kris and Dan had flown the nest and were living in Holyhead and Jack had been travelling around Vietnam for the last few months. So far, he hadn’t asked for him to send him any money, which was a bonus. Vietnam was cheap to travel, and he envied him. Travelling with the sun on his face, flipflops on, and the toughest decision to be made was what to eat; it sounded like heaven. He yearned for the freedom to travel but the shackles of a career held him tightly. The dogs were scratching at the curtains like a pair of looneys; the pole was attached to the wall with two tubes of no-more-nails because he was sick of them ripping it down every time he came home. He could swing from that pole should he choose to. That curtain pole would be the last thing standing in that building.
He opened the front door and the dogs came bounding down the hallway. Henry snapped at his trouser leg while Gemma jumped at his chest. Kris poked his head around the living room door and smiled.
‘What are you doing here?’ Alan asked. He was pleased to see a friendly face, despite the late hour. Dan appeared too. ‘I should say, what are the pair of you doing here?’ he asked, suspiciously. ‘I haven’t got any money on me.’
‘Nothing new there,’ Kris said.
‘Seriously, is anything wrong?’
‘No. We’ve been following the news and thought you might fancy a beer and some company,’ Kris said, holding up a can. ‘It sounds like you’ve had a shitty day.’
‘That’s very thoughtful,’ Alan said. He walked into the kitchen and opened the patio doors for the dogs. They bolted through the gap into the night, charging across the farmer’s field at full speed. Henry couldn’t keep up anymore and his eyesight was failing. Lately, Gemma had started to bark as they ran so he knew which direction she was going. Unusually, their bowls were charged with food and water. ‘Did you feed the dogs, or have I been burgled by an animal lover?’
‘Yes. We fed the dogs.’ Kris rolled his eyes.
‘You’re making me nervous. What do you need, money, somewhere to stay, have you been arrested?’
‘Funny,’ Dan said. ‘Do you want a beer or not?’
; ‘What have you got?’ Alan asked.
‘Guinness.’
‘Ideal,’ he lied. He wanted something much stronger but didn’t want to offend them. ‘Whatever it is, I’m going to have a little chaser with it, if you don’t mind.’
‘The Guinness is in the fridge.’
Alan opened the fridge and took a tin out. He cracked it open and drank thirstily from it. ‘That’s good,’ he said. He took a crystal tumbler from the sink, rinsed it out and half filled it with Monkey Shoulder. It was his new favourite malt. ‘Let’s go and sit down. I’m knackered.’ They went into the living room and sat down, Alan in his armchair and the boys on the settee. Alan had brought the whisky with him. The boys had been watching a replay of Marvin Hagler fighting Sugar Ray Leonard. ‘My favourite boxer of all time,’ Alan said, slurping his Guinness. ‘Have I mentioned that before?’
‘Once or twice,’ Kris said.
‘Several thousand times,’ Dan added. ‘How’s April Bifelt ?’
‘She’s in theatre. It’s touch and go. Fifty-fifty at best.’
‘What happened to her?’
‘She was stabbed in the abdomen.’
‘Nasty bastard,’ Kris said.
‘With hindsight, I was amazed she was still alive. Hopefully, she’ll pull through. All we can do is wait.’ There was a minute or so of silence; the three of them lost in their own thoughts.
‘How’s the search going?’ Kris asked.
‘Shite,’ Alan said, emptying the can. Dan went into the kitchen and got three more. ‘We had him cornered in a farmhouse, but he jumped through a bedroom window and we lost him.’
‘He jumped through an upstairs window?’ Dan asked.
‘Yes. There’s a lot of blood around but he got away. I don’t know how but we lost him.’
‘How did you lose him?’ Kris asked. ‘Didn’t you surround the place?’
‘I never thought of that,’ Alan said, finishing his whisky. He opened his second tin and sipped from it. ‘Next time we’ll surround him. Every day is a school day.’
‘So, it was surrounded?’
‘Of course, it was,’ Dan said.
‘How did he get away then?’
‘I don’t know. He went back into the house and went down into the cellar and then climbed out of a window on the other side. There’re a lot of bushes and long grass to hide in and it was dark. I don’t know how but he sneaked through the cordon and got away. He’s cut quite badly, but he’s still out there somewhere. We’ll start the search again in the morning.’
‘Didn’t you have the helicopter up?’ Kris asked. ‘They have heat seeking cameras, don’t they?’
‘It was up but developed a fault and had to leave about an hour before.’
‘Nightmare,’ Dan said.
‘We were talking about Hudson today in the pub and we googled the Order of Nine Angles,’ Kris said. ‘And the Nine Angels. That’s what he’s all about, right?’
‘We think there’s a connection to them. Hudson spent a lot of time in their chatrooms. They seem to have had an influence on his behaviour.’
‘We couldn’t believe it. They’re massive, Dad,’ Dan said. ‘I didn’t realise how big they are. How can so many people believe in that Satanic shit?’
‘You could ask how so many people believe in Christianity or Buddhism or Islam,’ Alan said. He was a lifelong atheist. ‘They can’t all be right. Someone is going to be disappointed when they die and there are no pearly gates and St Peter has pissed off on sabbatical. The struggle between light and darkness and good and evil is as old as time. Surely, it’s no surprise some people follow the opposition.’
‘Yes. I get that but so many?’ Dan said.
‘That’s why we came to talk to you, to be honest,’ Kris said.
‘What is?’ Alan asked, confused. ‘I don’t follow?’
‘We were having a pint in the Cambria earlier and the news was on the telly. They mentioned the link to the O9A and the landlord, Tuffty said he’d heard of them before.’
‘He’d heard of them before on the news?’ Alan asked.
‘No. He said he’d heard of them on the island,’ Dan said.
‘On the island? That’s interesting. Go on.’ Alan sat up, interested. He topped up his whisky.
‘Tuffty said you’d remember it when we told you. He was doing a conversion on an old chapel near the bottom of Plas Road about ten-years ago.’
‘He said Uncle Tim did the plans,’ Kris said. Tim was Alan’s brother-in-law.
‘I remember Tim talking about that job,’ Alan said. ‘It was near Blackthorne Farm. They were turning it into four flats for some guy from Cheshire somewhere, if I remember rightly.’
‘Yes, that’s it,’ Dan said. ‘Tuffty told us that Tim had a nightmare getting access to measure the place up but when they finally did get in there, there was all kinds of weird shit in the cellar. Satanic shit. Tuffty said there was an altar down there, old daggers, goblets, books bound in goatskin, candles, and a tape recorder with weird chanting on it.’
‘And dead animals hanging from the rafters,’ Dan added. ‘Lots of them.’
‘I remember Tim mentioning that,’ Alan said. ‘But I can’t remember where it happened.’
‘Tuffty said when the work began, there was a lot of weird stuff going on; tools were being moved, scaffold was dismantled overnight, and one morning when they got there, the walls in the cellar had been sprayed with graffiti, all satanic, pentangles and the like. He said the job was already way behind schedule when the owner started getting skittish and trying to slow the work down, saying he was receiving death threats online from a group calling themselves O9A. They wanted the chapel left untouched.’
‘That rings a bell,’ Alan said. ‘The owner vanished, and they never got paid?’
‘Yes,’ Kris said. ‘He disappeared without a trace. The police were working on the theory he’d thrown himself in the sea or something.’
‘I remember it now,’ Alan said. ‘We looked into it at this end, but it was Cheshire’s case and it was only a missing person case. There was no activity on his mobile, social media, or bank accounts but I don’t recall the mention of O9A in the case. Is Tuffty sure they were mentioned, or has he just put two plus two together and got five?’
‘Tufty reckons it was them sending the emails,’ Kris said.
‘I would have remembered that,’ Alan said. ‘I know I have a goldfish memory but if they’d been mentioned at the time, I would’ve remembered when they were linked to Hudson.’
‘Maybe it didn’t come out until later on in the investigation,’ Dan said.
‘Probably. Unless he’d made a formal complaint at the time, no one would have looked into his emails and phone records until he was reported missing. I’ll get one of my officers to take a look into that tomorrow. Thank you.’
‘Do you think it’s linked to this case?’ Kris asked.
‘Who knows? The fact that the group may have been established on the island as far back as that could be significant or it might have no relevance whatsoever. It’s worth looking into.’
‘Do you think they killed the guy who owned the chapel?’ Dan asked.
‘I have no idea. People vanish all the time, but the threatening emails are significant. They may not have killed him, but they may have frightened the life out of him to the point where he took his own life. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.’ Alan emptied his glass and topped it up. ‘You’d be surprised at how many crimes have been linked to their wider membership,’ Alan said. ‘Did the recent case in Liverpool come up?’
‘Yes,’ Dan said, nodding. ‘Stanley Towers. It said they hooked people in by inviting them to sex parties and then once they’d been going for a while they were blackmailed to go further.’
‘I don’t think all of them needed to be blackmailed,’ Alan said. ‘I think most of them were happy to go along with it.’
‘They must have been smoking crack,’ Dan said. ‘They were eating people a
nd cutting them up, tossing the bodies down the toilet. How screwed-up is that?’
‘Very screwed-up. That’s the one that most people have heard of. Obviously, that’s an extreme example of this type of group acting out on their rhetoric. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens.’
‘You wouldn’t think of it here though, would you?’
‘It’s much more likely to happen in a big city with millions of people. The island has a tiny fraction of the population so, there’s less chance of like-minded people meeting up.’ Alan shrugged. ‘Hudson may think he’s part of a wider community, but the truth is he’s a loner.’
‘You don’t think he’s part of a cult?’
‘No, I don’t,’ Alan said, shaking his head. ‘Despite what you’ve told me tonight, I don’t think he’s part of an active cell on the island. There may be other followers here, but I don’t believe Hudson is in touch with them. His association with O9A is online. We have his laptop. There’s no evidence of communicating with anyone local. He’s been brainwashed by people online.’
‘That’s a good thing,’ Kris said. ‘I don’t want to think there’re more like him around. Having kids makes you worry about dick-heads like him.’