by Ryan Casey
Brian tried to shrug, but his shoulders nipped against the bed sheets. Was there any part of his body that didn’t hurt?
Price cleared his throat. “How are you…how are you doing?”
“Price, just tell me something. Cassy–I saw her there, didn’t I? She…she untied my hands, and then somebody else came in for me. Price?”
Price’s head slumped against his chest as he looked towards the floor. He couldn’t make eye contact.
“Price, she’s okay, isn’t she?”
Price took a deep breath and stuck his hands into his pockets. He returned to his police officer stance, detached from the situation. “Detective Sergeant McDone, I’m sorry to have…”
Brian’s head spun as Price recited the words. The room seemed fuzzy, distant, as it buzzed around him. All of the pain and aching in his body receded.
“…to tell you this, but Cassandra Emerson died in hospital two hours ago.”
A warm tear slipped down Brian’s cheek. His throat was dry. It felt like a bullet had pummelled through his chest and knocked him back against the bed in which he already lay.
“She…Why? How?” He knew the answer. He just couldn’t process the words. It couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be real.
Price’s jaw shook as he wiped his cheek. “She…she took your call. Said your location came up on Location Services or something and found it weird, so she went to check it out. She saved your life, Brian. She sacrificed her life for you.”
Location Services. She’d set it up for him before they’d investigated the old hospital. I always prefer to be cautious…“No.” Brian sniffed. “No–fuck. No, no no. Why the fuck would…She had…Get out.”
“Brian, you need to calm down–”
“Don’t fucking tell me to calm down,” Brian shouted, rattling his arms against the side of the bed. Price’s face was grey and filled with grief, too. The lump in Brian’s throat took hold of his entire neck.
The pair was silent for a moment, only the bleeping of the heart rate monitor cutting through the air. After what seemed like hours, Price broke the silence again.
“She was a brave officer, Brian. She was like nobody we’d had in years. The best acting DS I can remember. So much promise. I hope you…I think she’d like you to say a few words at her funeral.”
Brian dug his teeth into his bottom lip and shook his head. Her funeral. This wasn’t right. It wasn’t real.
Price stood up from the seat at Brian’s bedside and walked to the door. “I should go and let you rest. Sorry. I just thought I should be the one to tell you.”
“What happens now?”
“What with?”
Adrenaline rushed through Brian’s body. “Robert Luther. He killed Nicola Watson because she was threatening to open up about corrupt activities in BetterLives. It wasn’t Michael Walters. He was in the wrong, and he was doing horrible things, but he didn’t kill her. We need to get back to BetterLives. We need to do a thorough investigation. We need to punish Luther–”
“Brian. Robert Luther killed himself and burned down his office. You know that.”
“We need to investigate his office. We need to find out if anything else has gone on in the past and for how long. I was only there for a moment, but I saw stuff. I saw stuff, Price.”
Price stared at Brian. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Brian. Robert Luther killed himself because he’d lost everything. His best friend and longtime assistant had been abusing his position for years, then murdered Robert’s lover, and the charity looked to have collapsed without any hope of resurgence. You should get some rest.”
Brian’s mind froze. How could he let Luther get away with this? How could he let Walters take the blame?
“No, it’s not right. I was there for a reason, and he tried to kill me. He fucking killed Cassy, Price.”
Price halted and turned back to face Brian. Accusation glimmered in his eyes. “Brian, sometimes you’ve got to make the tough decisions. BetterLives is no more. Luther’s documents were incinerated in the fire. Michael Walters will be formally charged with the murder of Nicola Watson. Besides, it’s easier for the public to take. It’s easier to accept a twisted paedo did this and not the city’s symbol of hope. People would go mad, Brian. The city would kill itself.”
“I thought I was wrong about you.”
Price pulled open the door. “You should have let it go, Brian. You should have let it go.” He exited into the corridor.
Grief and misunderstanding ran through Brian’s body. Cassy’s death was all for nothing. It was all his fault, and it was all for nothing. Price was happy to use Michael Walters as the scapegoat. Luther had killed Nicola Watson, but he wasn’t dangerous. He just had his secrets to cover up. It was in the interests of the people.
Tomorrow, the press would portray Robert Luther as a shamed and embarrassed martyr. A victim of circumstance.
And there was absolutely nothing anybody could do about it.
The door clicked open again. It was Vanessa, on her own this time. He tried to keep the frog in his throat at bay. Tried to keep the tension behind his eyelids from letting itself all out.
“Are you okay, Brian?”
Brian’s jaw shook as he tried to smile. “Yeah, I’m…No. No I’m not.” His body exploded with emotion as he crumbled with tears.
Vanessa cradled his head against her warm chest and cried with him.
Chapter Thirty Seven
The sun shone down on the church. The grass was a rich shade of green, and premature daffodils sprouted from the ground. The church was in one of the nicer spots just outside of town in the little village of Woodplumpton. People always said it would be a nice place to be buried. Brian wasn’t so sure the buried would be all that fussy.
“Are you not going to go inside?”
Brian sucked on a hard-boiled sweet as he sat in the car park. The hearse had arrived a few minutes ago. He’d made sure to miss the coffin being carried inside.
“I shouldn’t. I…I’ll wander up to the grave later. Say my piece.” He turned ‘round to Vanessa and smiled.
She tilted her head in understanding. “You’re going to have to stop blaming yourself, Brian. It’s just got to stop.”
If she knew what Brian knew, maybe she’d understand. It wasn’t just the fact that Cassy had untied him, saved his life, and lost hers in the process. It was the repression of the truth, the truth about Robert Luther and BetterLives. Her death was, ultimately, for nothing.
Vanessa turned the page of the newspaper quickly before Brian had the chance to see it, but he knew what it was already. “BetterLives Closes Amidst Crisis”. And then the footnote: “Funeral for Police Hero Today”. A “horrendous accident” had resulted in her death, apparently. That seemed to work for the press. A horrendous accident where two officers heard news of Robert Luther’s attempted suicide, and one of those officers lost their life trying to prevent it. That was the truth to the people of Preston and the people of the country.
The nearby echo of music played through the church hall. Biffy Clyro’s first song, “Hope for an Angel”. Brian smirked.
“What you laughing at?” Vanessa asked.
Brian shook his head and wiped his nose. “Nothing, it’s…She always said she wasn’t keen on the old stuff. I wondered if she was telling the truth or not.”
Vanessa looked back at the newspaper and read the piece on inflation or deflation, or whatever the economy was doing nowadays.
A few minutes later, people started to emerge from the church. Brian tensed up in his seat, his legs still sore from the rubbing of the bandages.
“It’s okay. We don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”
Brian glanced back at the open church door. Officers he recognised from work, holding their hats against their laps, arms around each other. A shadow grew near to the door, and he knew what it was they were carrying.
He hit the clutc
h and reversed out of the car park, driving away from the church and leaving the guests behind.
The journey to drop Vanessa back at her dad’s was a quiet one. Vanessa coughed when they reached the Guild Merchant roundabout–it was always her way of asserting her presence.
“I know it can’t be easy, Brian. She was your partner. But you’ve tried, and that’s the main thing. People would love to see you, though. They know you were both heroes.”
“I’ll drop you off at your dad’s, yeah?”
Vanessa nodded and returned back to her silent shell. She was wrong about the other officers loving him. Perhaps on the surface, they’d celebrate him and pretend he was heroic, but he knew what they’d be thinking deep down: It should be you in that coffin and not our daughter. Our sister. Our friend.
He thought back to his phone conversation with Nicola Watson’s parents earlier that day. Something about it sent a chill up his spine. “Is it over?” Shenice Watson had asked. “Michael Walters. He’s the man, isn’t he?”
And Brian had just gritted his teeth and said yes.
Maybe Price was right about best interests all along.
Brian pulled up outside his father-in-law’s semi-detached house. Years of wear and tear stained the grey brick front, the paint flaking. He looked through the smoggy window and saw Davey waving at him. Vanessa’s dad placed a hand on Davey’s shoulder and moved him away.
“You should come inside,” Vanessa said, reluctant to meet Brian’s eyes.
“I…I don’t know. I mean, your dad…”
“Oh, he’s just a silly old man. He’ll get over it.”
Brian swallowed the lump in his throat. The sun peered through his windscreen, forcing a squint out of him.
“Yeah, I will. But there’s something I need to go and get first. Something for Davey. That’s okay, isn’t it?”
Vanessa shrugged and hopped out of the car. “Don’t be long.” She walked over to the front door and let herself in. Brian watched the three of them behind the window, smiles on their faces, their lungs filled with conversation. He started the engine and drove back towards the roundabout.
The churchyard wasn’t as busy when Brian returned. A few visitors dressed in black, but not many people here for Cassy, not anymore. He reached into his CD case and pulled out the album artwork of Radiohead’s latest album–Cassy loved it, Brian hated it.
He stepped up to the bed of flowers and makeshift wooden cross. Something seemed abstract about it, something less than human. The gold-plated name plaque on the coffin shone up, reflecting against the sun. Cassandra Emerson.
Brian smiled down at the coffin. “I thought I’d bring you something to listen to. I figure you’ll get more use out of it than me.” He looked over his shoulder. Their own losses, their own visits, occupied the other visitors.
He dropped the artwork onto the coffin and turned away, but he still had something to tell her. Something niggling at him. “Offload the burden,” she’d told him. He kneeled down beside the open grave and took a deep breath. “In September, I came in from work, and I felt this loathing in my body. My mum had just died a few weeks earlier, and my dad was as good as dead. And my wife, she was nagging on at me– ‘You’re an incompetent husband. You’re a shitty father.’ So I got a rope and I hung myself. I wrapped my neck with rope, and I jumped from the bannister. And I remember the last thing I saw.” He sniveled and wiped the salty tears from his face. “I saw Davey walking in through the front door, Ness behind him. I saw his face, and I remember just seeing that look in his eyes. That look of, ‘Why? Why, Daddy, why?’ But I was sick. I was at the end of my tether. I was pressured at work, and I was sick of it all. It wasn’t me.”
Brian crouched by the grave for a few more seconds, his hands buzzing as the burden lifted from his shoulders. He plucked some grass from the ground. “‘Ness knew it wasn’t me, too, but I needed to get away. I needed to see a therapist and spend some time away from them, because Vanessa didn’t want Davey to remember his dad like that. It was the right thing–for everybody. But I didn’t go to the therapist, not much. I controlled it myself. I cut myself, and I drank a little to convince everybody that I was just an alcoholic. Nobody asks questions of an alcoholic. I got worse and worse, and I punished myself. And now I know what I have to do. Now I know what’s right and wrong. Now I don’t need a release. I feel free. I feel better. Thank you.” Brian took one last look down at the coffin, a tear dripping onto the polished wood. “Thank you, Cassy. You saved my life in more ways than you can ever imagine.”
He stood up and walked away from the churchyard.
Brian stepped into the 24-Hour shop just down the road from his father-in-law’s house.
“Can I help you?” the shop assistant asked. Brian wasn’t sure whether he’d served him before, or whether it even mattered. His furry top lip was in need of a shave, his red t-shirt begging for a wash.
Brian looked up at the whisky and then back at the shop assistant. “I’ll just have a Chocolate Kinder Egg, please. For my kid.”
The cashier raised his eyebrows as Brian smiled and paid for the chocolate egg. “You not a Gillette man anymore, sir? Just we have them on special offer. Two for a fiver.”
Brian took a deep breath. “I think I’ll pass. I prefer electric razors these days. Thanks.” He left the shop and drove back round the corner to Vanessa’s dad’s.
The three of them were still visible through the front window. Brian clutched the chocolate egg in his hand and took a deep breath as he stepped out of his car and walked to the front door of the run-down house.
He knocked on the door. Words he had recited spun around his head. Should he go for a handshake? Was a hug too far? Or just a friendly “Hello”? He’d gauge it on the greeting. He’d work it from there.
The flaky white-painted door opened, and Vanessa’s dad stood tall and wide, blocking the view to the back of the house.
“Hi again, Fred.”
Fred reached out and shook Brian’s hand, his wrinkly face attempting something that resembled a smile. “Welcome back.”
Brian peered out of the rectangular window at his car. He thought he saw himself still sitting out there, an outsider looking in with a razorblade in his hand.
“They’re just outside now.” Fred pointed towards the small garden at the back of the house.
Brian smiled and turned away from the window, the phantom of himself outside in his car left behind.
“Thanks, Fred. Thanks.”
They stepped out into the garden, side by side. Back to his family. Back to reality.
What Next for Brian McDone?
To read the next book in the Brian McDone crime mystery series, Buried Slaughter, click here to get started: http://smarturl.it/BuriedSlaughter
Or turn the page for an exclusive excerpt of the second book in the series.
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Buried Slaughter (Brian McDone, #2) Excerpt
Prologue
Darren Anderson had never believed his mother when she told him there were witches on Pendle Hill.
He ploughed his spade into the ground. The rain lashed down from the cloudy sky. The blanket of thick, stormy cloud carpeted over the archeological dig site like it was trying to protect some secret from escaping. A secret, buried beneath the Davidson Archeological Contractors’ dig site on Pendle Hill.
He pulled up some mud on his spade. Saw something poking out of the almost vertical trench that his team and he had been digging for the last seven days. He reached down and squinted at it. The people who hired his team hadn’t told them what they were looking for exactly. Like finding a needle in a haystack, or a clean whore in a Preston brothel. Impossible
.
He plucked the damp object that had caught his eye out of the mud and held it between his index finger and thumb, smiling and shaking his head as the torrential rain dripped from his hair. A cigarette. Brown and damp. Tossed into the ground years ago, never to emerge again. Not until today.
“Any luck down there, Daz?”
Wayne leaned over the trench. He had an orange helmet on his head, a high-visibility jacket provided by the contractors wrapped around his chubby waist. A few crumbs from the Ginsters pasty he was chewing crumbled down into the trench, softening in the rain and sprinkling into Darren’s face.
Darren spat the crumbs away and wiped his nose. “Not a thing. Oh—an old cigarette stub. Is that what they had us out here looking for, you reckon? Old cigs?”
Wayne took another large bite out of his pasty and chewed it with his mouth wide open, looking down into the trench. In the distance, the sound of a digger rattled into the ground. Perhaps it’d find a cigarette of its own. Lucky day for all.
“I hear there’s a load of weird history around here,” Wayne said. He crouched down and scanned the area above Darren. “Load of crazy witchcraft and stuff. Gives me the creeps.”
“And which history book is that from? Harry fucking Potter? Viz?”
Wayne tossed his empty pasty packet at Darren and shook his head. “Heard it from Pete, actually. And you know what Pete’s like with his history.”
Darren ploughed his spade into the ground and tossed another heap of mud to the side. The trench was around ten foot deep now. He felt like he was digging his own grave. Might have been worthwhile.
“Witches. Ghosts. Spooks. All kinds of shit like that.”
“And you believe it, do you?”
Wayne shrugged. “Well, like I say. Pete’s good with history, isn’t…Hold on. Stop.”
Darren kept on digging into the ground and tossing mud to the side. He barely acknowledged Wayne’s shout. Figured he was calling for somebody else on the dig team. There were eight of Preston’s best archeological minds on the task, including him. Unfortunately, being one of Preston’s best archeological minds was derisory next to being one of Preston’s most average call centre attendants.