Carly held the gun at Aidan’s head, ready to fire again.
‘It was me! I killed him! I had to. Your old man told Tyler I had to do it. It was my bro had fucked up, so I had to sort him.’
She was taking it in, processing this piece of truth, that her beloved Ryan had been killed by his own brother. On the orders of her father. She didn’t get the chance to squeeze the trigger again. She didn’t get a chance to raise her hands in surrender. She turned to face them, pointing her gun. It was obvious to the armed officer that she would use her weapon. Three shots. Two in the body and Carly slumped to the floor; the third bullet entered her body through her forehead.
Chapter 81
I’d been fucking careless. Me, the meticulous planner, had messed up. Should have kept them tied up the whole time. Tied up and fucking out of their heads on roofies. But I just couldn’t wait to have them. I thought by getting my end away with Aisling first, it would leave me time to do all that I wanted and dreamed of and fantasised about doing with Tara. Then FUBAR — Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition. I stuck a knife in Aisling to shut her up, to get her off me.
I knew I couldn’t stay in harbour and wait for the storm to pass. Things were turning nasty. I tried to focus on my real purpose for snatching Tara. I had to rid myself of the one person who had sussed me out. The one person who knew what I’d been up to, for years. Tara had guessed at the number of women I’d taken, and she wasn’t far wrong. But she didn’t have real proof, only her suppositions had led her to suspect me. But that was already too much for me. I had to get rid of her, before she ruined my life completely. Wish I’d never laid eyes on the clever wee bitch.
With Aisling bleeding away and Tara still out of it, I planned how to get myself out of a bad situation. First, I motored Mother Freedom into a rough sea. When I got far enough out from land, I would have my final reward from Tara. I would leave a little something of myself inside her and then dump her in the sea, along with her mate. Then I would make for Ireland. The best alibi I could think of was to concoct a story of me fishing off the County Down coast and having to make for a port to avoid the storm.
The sea was as rough as I had ever experienced. It was all I could do to keep Mother Freedom’s bow pointing into the swell. Couple of times I thought she would roll over. I prayed the wind would soon drop, giving me time to do my best for Tara. I was still off Anglesey, the shore only a quarter of a mile away, when everything went tits up.
I heard something below. A series of noises, the first was a whistle. I slowed the engine and hoped I could leave the wheel for a few seconds to check it out. One of the girls was moving about.
I opened the hatch to the galley and stepped inside. I caught a glimpse of what was coming my way, but I had no chance. Suddenly, the pain on my face was unbearable. I was doused in boiling water as my head hit the kettle. For a second, I couldn’t be certain it was Tara. I yelled and collapsed onto the bunk, my hands trying to wipe the scalding liquid from my face, my eyes and then my neck, as water trickled down my front and back. She poured the water over me until the kettle was empty. Then, she pushed past me and climbed outside. I went after her. I could see only with one eye. The left side of my head had borne the brunt of the impact with the hot kettle.
‘C’mere you fucking bitch!’
I scrambled outside, my whole body shaking from the heat now sinking into my flesh. She was yelling her tits off, calling for help. Mother Freedom had swung about, her bow pointing towards land. Waves were crashing into her side, causing her to pitch one way then the other. I was sure we would roll over. Tara watched me stagger towards her. I wanted to rip the clothes right off her, ram myself inside her and be done with her. But she moved easily to avoid my lunging. I collapsed on the deck. I could feel my face pulsing, and with a hand I felt the blisters rising. Suddenly, the engine roared. She was fucking about with the controls. I could do nothing to stop her. I was in too much pain. Gradually, I found the strength to get to my feet. When I turned, I saw her watching me. But only I saw what was about to happen.
Chapter 82
There was a thud, followed by a prolonged scraping as the hull rode over those rocks lying just beneath the surface. Then Mother Freedom tilted sideways and Tara was thrown off her feet. The engine whined as its power forced the hull onwards before the bow crumpled into a wall of black basalt. Slowly regaining her feet, she saw James Guy on all fours, moaning, disoriented by pain. Then he raised his head and stared her full in the face. She was shocked by the damage she’d wrought upon him, the boiling water having loosened and reddened his skin that now drooped below his chin in plump blisters.
But she saw the look in his one open eye and knew she was still not safe from him. The stern of the boat rose and fell with consecutive waves, but the bow remained grounded among the rocks.
In only her black tights and white blouse, soaked with Aisling’s blood, she grappled her way over the side and dropped waist-deep in foaming water. She saw Guy watching as she let go of the boat. A malevolent wave threw her against the rocks and for a second she floundered, trying to get a grip of something to prevent herself being washed away. She coughed and swallowed a mouthful of salt water, her stomach retching as she caught hold of dark brown seaweed. At first, it came away in her hands but there was so much for her to grasp that she held on as the water receded.
In the lull, she crawled over the weeds and made it to rocks that sat above the tide. When the next wave broke, only the spray caught her as she stood trying to figure out a route to safety. To her left and right there was nothing but rocks and seaweed as far as she could see. There were no sandy beaches, no paths or piers and not a living soul. Shivering, she realised that if she didn’t get to help soon, the cold would claim her if James Guy didn’t.
She could see no easy escape. Cliffs directly in front of her, she stumbled and picked her way over the flatter rocks searching for a break, a route to safety. Her feet had to feel ahead for a painless step, her tights already torn on jagged slabs. In her mind she had been walking for ages. She hoped she had put quite a distance between her and the boat and, more importantly, James Guy, but when she glanced behind she’d made no more than twenty yards. Sniffing back tears, not so much for her plight but for having to leave her friend behind on the boat, leaving her to the hands of a monster, she struggled on, hoping that soon she would spy an easy way out. Might someone already be searching for her? Would she see a rescue boat, a helicopter, someone waving from the cliff top? Surely, around the headland a cottage, a road, a sandy beach awaited.
Rain lashed down but she was soaked already from jumping into the sea and from the continued spray sent up by crashing waves, a cruel and torturous gauntlet to run. Her feet were numb and gave way beneath her, so she toppled over a low precipice and splashed into a rock pool. She could give in now. Lie in this chilled pool, let the water take the remaining warmth from her body. At least Guy couldn’t have her.
But she had justice to serve on this man. Justice for every soul he’d taken, stolen from their families and discarded as garbage. She would make him pay. He must pay. She would make sure he paid for her beloved Aisling. Without that hope, that aim, why should she bother to survive?
Dragging herself from the pool, Tara stumbled on, daring once more an instinctive glance toward the boat. The vision sent another chill striking through her. He was coming. Unsteady on his feet, but heading her way. She could only press on and hope to find escape. He was gaining quickly. She was essentially barefoot while he, despite his injury, was at least wearing shoes of some kind. If there was no change in the terrain, soon he would be upon her.
She looked once again at the cliffs rising above her. Could she climb her way out of here? Surely, there must be another way. She struggled on, whimpering in fear and shivering from cold. Suddenly, her last hope revealed itself. A narrow gully, a fault in the rock-face of the cliff. Could she climb up there? She had to try. James Guy wasn’t giving up.
Spurred on by the fai
nt prospect of escape, she scrambled to the base of the cliff and looked up at her route to freedom. Water trickled down the gully. In places it looked quite benign, at others it appeared vertical. A place for the gulls — and she saw a few gliding high above her. She must try. Another look towards the boat and she saw James Guy now at the spot where she’d tumbled into the rock pool. She turned her back and began to climb.
Immediately, she felt the vulnerability of height. She could be ten thousand feet up on a mountain peak, or twelve feet up a cliff face. It didn’t matter, she could fall easily either way. In places the rocks were slimy with moss, and she gripped helplessly at tufts of grass spurting from cracks in the cliff. At times she had purchase and could heave herself upwards. Then, something would give and she slid back down, the rocks and stones scraping her flesh and drawing blood. She couldn’t yet see the top. Didn’t know how far she’d climbed, but her pace had slowed, exhaustion and cold set to claim her. She looked downwards, guessed that she’d covered twenty feet, hoped it was more, and then cried out when she saw him take to the cliff.
‘Playing hard to get, eh Tara?’
She heard his call above the roaring wind that, for a second, pinned her to the rock face. She could no longer summon strength. She could do nothing but hang on, keep a hold of the long grass with both hands. She could pray.
It took what seemed only a few seconds and she knew he was almost onto her. She cried in pain and frustration. She was about to die. Something gripped her left ankle, and she could do nothing but weep. He had her now.
She steeled herself to look him in the face, defiant to the last. But what she saw was a now desperate man. A man who needed to kill her, to secure his own survival. She was the only one who knew. Knew what he’d done. His left eye had closed entirely, his face ravaged by the boiling water, his hands reddened also from her attack. But he had taken a strong grip of her ankle. He pulled hard, and she began to slip.
But she kept a firm hold with both hands on the tough grass. She had purchase. With all her remaining strength, she kicked downwards with her right foot. She felt it making contact... but she couldn’t be sure. Not until the responding cry and the sudden release of her ankle. She’d caught him in the throat. James Guy at first slipped downwards, then toppled into the air. When next she saw him, he lay sprawled on his back on the jagged rocks.
Chapter 83
She opened her eyes to see Kate sitting by her bed and holding her hand. She wanted to smile at her, but Kate wasn’t smiling and instantly she realised why. For the two of them should be three. As it had always been. Kate, Aisling and Tara. There should be heady laughter, glasses of Chardonnay, wonderful clothes and outlandish hair colours. There should be plans forming for their next night out, for their next holiday, for news of their latest fella.
Empty. She felt that way already, despite waking only a few minutes ago. Comfortable in a hospital bed, her friend beside her, caressing her hand. Asking her how she was feeling. Yet apart from her warmth, her relative comfort and her steady breathing, Tara was dead. She had no feelings of a life within her. How could she? She was every bit as dead as Aisling, except she had this bizarre consciousness wherein she had to deal with shock and fear and sadness and utter despair.
She closed her eyes again.
A while later, might have been days, she wasn’t counting, and Murray was at her bedside. He’d hugged her close when he came into the room, so glad was he to see her safe and sound. If only. Then he tried acting all professional — as if she cared how he behaved anymore. She knew he wanted to ask all manner of questions, all the hows, whys and wherefores of her ordeal, but he did at least show some sensitivity. Then, he told her how he really felt about her, and she warmed slightly to his praise. She loved him in a way she could not and could never explain. He had been at her side throughout the past few years. Had saved her life once already. She knew he was trying to say that he cared for her. But what did it matter, between work colleagues? None of this comforting chat would bring Aisling back.
Tara hadn’t even asked about James Guy. She had a faint recollection of being hauled up a cliff face in a stretcher, of multiple voices telling her she was OK, of the steady rumble of a helicopter hovering above her. Then sleep.
On what she believed to be his second visit, Murray had thought it prudent to up the chatter. He began talking about Wilson and his great work done at St Anne Street when they’d been searching for her. He’d traced her mobile as a signal pinged off masts all the way into Wales. He’d done the same with Guy’s phone and discovered frequent registration with a mast in the Bangor-Penrhyn area. Immediately, they had local police check out the harbours and marinas in the vicinity. An air and sea search ensued until the wreck of Mother Freedom was spotted on the Anglesey coast.
Murray passed on regards from Tweedy and his message that he would pay her a visit later that same day. All of this served only to bore and irritate her. Callously, she asked something she hoped would steer him away from her own recent experience.
‘What about the Boswell case?’
He looked at her, as though trying to convince himself that she was really interested in receiving an answer to her question. When she said nothing further he launched into an account of the incident on the Treadwater Estate, where nineteen-year-old Carly McHugh had died from a gunshot wound to the head, dispensed by Merseyside’s finest. Tara found difficulty in showing any emotion. Her bruised and scratched face remained passive, although she did remind Murray that she’d wondered about Carly McHugh from the start.
‘It seems she was besotted by Ryan Boswell and completely devastated by his murder. She went on the rampage. Did a lot of damage, shot two people dead. Aidan Boswell was screaming like a baby when he was rescued and confessed to the killing of his own brother.’
Murray paused, no doubt expecting an informed response from his DI, but nothing came. She looked exhausted by the subject, and he quickly rounded it off.
‘DCI Weir was half right about a gang feud,’ he said. ‘The heavies from Belfast were pulling all the strings as far as the Vipers were concerned, but the whole episode has put paid to months of undercover work by his men and the PSNI in trying to dismantle the drug business between Ireland and the North of England. McHugh and Fitter have been arrested in Belfast, and it seems that Aidan Boswell will implicate the pair of them in the murders of his brother Ryan and the members of the Tallinn Crew. But Weir will have to explain why he let Carly McHugh go free — and she then kills Craig Lewis and two days later she ends up shooting Aidan Boswell.’
When Murray looked at her, Tara was fast asleep.
Epilogue
I told them everything. Everything I could remember. Didn’t see the point in holding back. I knew the names of each and every one of my girls: their real names and the pet name I’d given them when I had first chosen them.
I don’t think the peelers were particularly grateful. They didn’t thank me or anything. My solicitor said that it would help with my sentence, but he made it sound as though I’d been done for multiple episodes of shoplifting. Like I’d stolen from Marks and Spencer as well as Sainsbury’s. What an arse. Besides, my sentence didn’t much matter to me. Not with the way I am now.
Officially, I was convicted of the murders of Aisling Doherty and Linda Meredith. Seemed logical, since they had both of their bodies. I disputed the murder charge for Aisling, which resulted in my having a trial. As far as I was concerned, I’d stabbed Aisling in self-defence. The jury didn’t seem impressed by that.
I told them the approximate locations where I’d dumped the bodies of the others. Don’t know if they will ever find all of them, but I suppose the families now know that their daughters had some kind of resting place. During my trial, my defence counsel wanted to wheel in a bus load of psychologists to explain why I had ended up the way I am. That because my mother had abandoned me, I was somehow scarred for life and it drove me to do what I did. They thought it might elicit a certain amount of sym
pathy from the jury. I didn’t care much. What’s the difference between one life sentence and twenty or even thirty-four life sentences? I wasn’t going to see the light of day again, anyhow.
Tara, of course, appeared as a witness at my trial. She looked well. Tucked nicely into a plain dark trouser suit and heels but her hair was nice and shiny and her wee cheeks glowed. She had the strength, even during the questioning about Aisling, to look me in the face. Takes a lot of guts, that does. Tara is definitely made of strong stuff. I’ll forever rue the day I first set eyes on her when I saw her on TV at that motorway services. Funny, that was the day I had Lady Victoria and Lucy the TV star lying in the back of my van. Those were the days.
I suppose I stirred up quite a bit of interest after my arrest. Lots of stories and theories appearing in the papers. The pictures of me weren’t terribly flattering. Seemed to be a competition in the press over who could print the ugliest shot of me. Loads of speculation too, over the exact number of girls I’d killed. At one point it ranged from twenty to three hundred when journalists began looking into every case of a missing girl in the last fifteen years. And then I started getting letters from women who were apparently turned on by me and what I’d done. Some of the things they were willing to do for me would make your teeth curl. But things quietened down after my trial.
Quiet is right. You see, I don’t say much these days. Tara did a good job on me. Her foot caught me in the throat, virtually ripped my vocal chords from their moorings, to use the nautical term. Broke my spine when I landed on the rocks. As they say, it’s not the fall that does the damage, it’s the sudden stop when you land.
So, after I was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, with the recommendation that it be a full life term, no chance of parole, I did receive one consolation for all of my confessions. I didn’t actually go to prison. I was deemed unfit, or I should say that there were no prisons in England deemed fit to house me. As a quadriplegic I require specialised nursing care, so I was placed in a specialised unit attached to a swanky nursing home in Cheshire. Now, you might think that’s a disgrace, a serial killer living in the lap of luxury at the taxpayer’s expense, but how would you like to spend the rest of your days in a wheel chair, unable to speak, paralysed from the neck down, shitting in a bag and peeing in a nappy? I’d be better off at the bottom of the Irish Sea.
Lethal Dose; Lethal Justice; Lethal Mind Page 76