“Yeah.”
“If you’re a tramp, how come—”
“Jessy. You don’t know… what you’re fucking with. Bail while you still can.”
“I’ll be leaving soon. After I’ve done you.”
He tried to laugh, but failed. “What you give me?”
“Methadone.”
“Jesus. Killing me. Hospital.” He looked like a puppy that had just been kicked. Pleading.
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll make sure I kill you before the methadone can.” She reached down and slapped his face, and was surprised to note that he barely responded. She could feel anger pulsing in her temple. She looked around. “So how come you only play at being homeless?”
He slurred, “Green tea? Bitch.”
“I’ll be giving you something else soon: the ultimate freedom.” She grinned, pleased that she’d managed to keep him alive so long, but aware that he might not last much longer. Time to get a move on.
“Why, Jessy? We’re s’posed to be lovers.”
“I’ll ignore that – I’ll put it down to delirium. And I won’t even answer the first question.” She stood, ready to make a start.
“You know… about Sebastian.” Clear. A statement, not a question.
Her fingertips prickled. Just the mention of his name caused her to tense up. “Couple of days ago, you were very good at offering me sympathy,” she said. “But you nudged it just a little too far.”
He struggled to swivel his head around and look up at her, confusion in his faraway eyes. “How d’you mean?”
“The coppers didn’t believe me when I told them the smoke alarm was blaring at me; there was no such sound on the three-nines recording. And they said the grill was cold, which it would have been by the time they’d thought to check.” She bit her lower lip to stop the tears, and eventually said, “Only me, Michael, and Sebastian knew the smoke alarm was going off. Just us – and the person who came into the kitchen and killed him. That person was you.”
He stopped struggling to keep looking up at her, and his chin fell to his chest.
“It wasn’t even brought up in court. And I never mentioned it to you.” She crouched beside him, grabbed his chin through his filthy beard, and pulled his face around so he could see her. And she asked, “Why did you do it? I can’t believe you’d let me suffer for twelve years when you knew the truth.”
His eyes began to close so she slapped him with her free hand.
“Answer me, or I’ll cram a full twelve years’ worth of pain into whatever life you’ve got left.”
“Horrible fucker. Got paid to kill him.”
Jess let go of his face, and she dropped backwards onto the chair, her mouth open and her mind reeling. “Who paid you?” When he didn’t answer, she scrambled to her feet and grabbed his face again. “Tony! Tony, who paid you? What do you mean?”
“Was just a scam.” He paused. “Never had no feelings for you. Just business.”
“Who fucking paid you?”
His rolling eyes finally found her. “Stanley.”
“Stanley? Sebastian’s brother?”
Tony squinted at her, and he managed a smile of sorts. “Was you shagging him?”
Her eyes widened at the insinuation.
“While you was with Sebastian?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she spat. But she said it too fiercely, looked away too quickly, and she knew that he knew.
Tony continued. “He got back in touch. Few weeks ago. Your brief was making noises. Wanting more money.”
“Marchant? He knew?”
“If you went down, they’d stop looking.”
Jess almost screamed. “He fucking knew!”
“He was in on it. Coming up for retirement. Got greedy. Shut him up with a pickaxe.”
Jessica’s fury almost twisted her mind away to somewhere black again, but she pulled it back, aware that she had things to do. Important things. “But why would Stanley—”
“Jessy. What’s everything always about?”
“Money?”
“Their dad was dying. Big inheritance.” He tried to move his arm, tried to grab her wrist – just to hold it, or to pull her close, she didn’t know. But she kept it out of his reach.
“Nothing personal, Jessy. Liked you.”
She sighed. “Business is business, right?” She sat on the cold floor, her back against the kitchen unit, in much the same position she’d found herself after taking her revenge against Bolton. And she found that she was shaking, much as she had done then, but this was not the fear she’d felt in the pathologist’s house. It was anger.
Jess had been angry her entire life, had lived in close confines with it for over a decade, and had seen it eat away at other inmates’ minds until they’d harmed themselves, or someone else. It was vile. And now she was experiencing it again, undiluted by time – full fat, high-octane anger – and she glared at Tony as his piece-of-shit eyes rolled around inside his empty skull, drifting in and out of consciousness.
It took a long while for the penny to drop, but eventually it did. Her mouth opened again, and her spine shuddered like someone had electrocuted her. “You set me up to kill the others too, to mask Marchant’s death. You even told me you’d killed him as a favour to me!”
His lolling head steadied, and eventually became still, eyes fixed on her. “You were entitled to your revenge. Still are.”
“You bastard!”
“Never thought you’d go down for Sebastian’s murder. Thought… thought they’d say suicide. But when they charged you… well, like you said. Business.
“I reckon,” he slurred, “when they knew I did him in your house, they got Marchant to point the finger at you.”
“You mean Stanley got my own lawyer to pin it on me? Why would he do that?”
Tony raised his eyebrows, challenging her. “This time, ain’t nothing to do with money.”
Jess sat there in the cold kitchen, marvelling at how shit her life actually was. Not only did someone kill her ex-husband and fail to make it look like suicide, but the police then fucked up and charged her with his murder. And Marchant locked her in the cell himself.
And now, no doubt, the police would have her lined up for another three deaths.
She stared at Tony. Make that four. “And is that why you dressed as a tramp? To make me think you’d been pining for me all those years?”
“Stanley… Married now. They want your boy.”
The creases on Jessica’s forehead pulled tightly together. She shrugged, “Married? Do I know her?”
“Valentine.”
When it all goes awfully wrong for you, Jessica, remember today. This was the beginning of it all.
Jessica’s mouth fell open and her eyes glided away as she remembered meeting Michael’s foster mother, and the private meeting they’d had. Stanley’s wife? “I won’t agree! I didn’t agree back then, and I won’t agree now. I’ll never agree!”
“They knew that.” He almost looked at her, but couldn’t manage to move his head upwards. He did, however, manage to grow a smile on his pale lips. “It’s why they want you… jail… again. Should’ve taken… fifty grand… Jessy.”
His head rolled around and settled against his chest again. He grunted.
“Tony?” She nudged him with her foot. There was no response. She scooted across to him and felt his neck with her fingertips.
“Shit!”
She stood, nudged him again, harder. “Don’t you dare fucking die on me! How fucking dare you, you bastard!” She kicked him, and his head lolled again, but there was no other movement.
Jessica hurried out to the cupboard underneath the stairs, where she’d left the stuff from the rucksack. She snapped on a pair of latex gloves and got to work. “This is what happens when you rush things,” she told herself. “This is what happens when the fucking cops call round before you’ve got your ducks in a row.” Tony’s death was a killing too soon, she knew that: there was one more increment t
o click through, one more killing to make her whole again. And if she’d done that one before Tony, the police would have suspected him of them all.
Not now, though. Thanks to Tony infuriating her, they’d probably soon figure it out. But she had a contingency plan.
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Eddie woke after four and half hours’ sleep and fell out of bed. On his way to the bathroom, he stubbed his little toe on the bedside table and screamed, hopping along the corridor, huffing at the pain. Twenty minutes later he dripped shower water all over the hallway carpet as he found himself staring into the full-length mirror.
He was mesmerised by the creases. The last time he looked this closely there had been none. And the grey hair at the sides, all stuck up in clumps like he had a blind barber – where the hell had that come from? And were they hairs poking out of his ears? And more out of his nostrils?
“Fuck.”
He was about to go and put the kettle on when some ignorant bastard knocked at his front door. Eddie groaned and shuffled through the lounge, praying it was just the window cleaner, someone he could get rid of in ten seconds flat.
The door, like his joints, groaned. Benson stood in the rain looking pissed off and cold.
“What?”
“Are you going to let me in? It’s fucking raining, Eddie. It’s only polite to let someone in when it’s raining.”
Eddie grunted and stepped aside.
“And now go and put some clothes on. No man wants to see another man’s Walnut Whip while they’re talking.”
Eddie turned and shuffled away. “Make me a coffee, Benson.”
* * *
“I put Khan on tracking down that Tony fella.”
“Did he get anywhere?”
“Nope. But Leo Brightman called, got me a name from the fingerprints you lifted.”
Eddie raised an eyebrow. “So my undercover work came up trumps, eh? I always knew I should have been a covert operative. I could be the new Jason Bourne.”
“You don’t have the figure for it.”
Eddie stared at Benson’s gut.
Benson ignored him. “I don’t want to know where you got that fingerprint from—”
“No, of course you don’t. You’d rather remain ignorant and just have the fucking answers to life’s little problems land in your lap. It’s people like me who make people like you look good, and don’t you forget it.” Eddie was pointing a finger, and he’d become much more serious than he’d intended.
“Down, boy.”
“Well, come on. Don’t back away from me, Benson, join me. I’m pushing your investigation forward and you’ve got your nose in the fucking air over where I got a fingerprint from and whether it’s legal and all that bollocks. If you’re going to get high and mighty with me, you might as well forget the name Leo got for you and wait for your meathead Khan to track him down.”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry, alright?”
Eddie nodded. “Yeah, I should bloody well think so. My dad said something to me last week that hurt. He said I was selfish. And I’m standing here proving that I’m not.”
Benson took a little step back. “Okaaay,” he said. “Back to business?”
Eddie shrugged. “Just saying.”
“Tony Longbottom’s real name is Anthony Hardwick. He’s a monster. He’s known to us for three counts of Section 18 wounding, and he got away with an attempted murder charge up in Newcastle in ’99. Rumour has it he fancies himself as a bit of a hitman, and I think he’s playing a bigger role in these murders than meets the eye. I know he did Marchant, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he did Bolton too.” And then he stopped, and thought. “No idea why he’d do Sidmouth, though.”
Eddie sipped the brown liquid that Benson had claimed was coffee. To him it tasted how he imagined sieved vomit would. “You want another?” he said, waving the mug at Benson and walking towards the kitchen.
“No. Now listen—”
“I thought we’d agreed that he did Sidmouth and tried to frame Jessica for it so she’d get sent down again.”
Benson was halfway through constructing a word, complete with pointing finger, when he paused, dropped his arm, and said, “Good point.”
Eddie fixed a fresh coffee, one that actually tasted like coffee. “So you were saying you got Khan on the job?”
“I did, yes. There was no Tony Longbottom driving for any Leeds bus company between 2004 and 2006.”
“So he was using another alias, or his real name.”
Benson shrugged as Eddie lit a cigarette and breathed it like it was a honeysuckle bouquet. “Nope, certainly not his real name. But why would he use an alias?”
“So people like you couldn’t find him? So people like Jessica…”
Benson turned to him. “Go on.”
“So she wouldn’t know who he was.”
“You’re saying he topped Sebastian?”
“We’ve been through all this.”
“Yes, we have. But now we find out he doesn’t exist as Tony Longbottom.”
“Seriously” —Eddie grinned— “who would choose to call themselves Longbottom?”
“But Jessica Ripley—”
“You’re fucking obsessed.”
“Of course I am. She’s the centre of this series of deaths, Eddie, even if she’s not the killer. Marchant’s dead; she was his client. Bolton is dead; he worked her case. Sidmouth is dead; he was her Probation Officer.”
“They’re called Offender Managers now.”
“Whatever. Shut up.” Benson slid a pause into the conversation that was like white noise in a nightclub. Then, thinking aloud, he said, “Having said that, she’s been bothering his office, looking for him.”
“Sidmouth’s office?”
“Yes, Sidmouth’s office. Keep up. She’s been there asking to see her son. Sidmouth was the one who signed her off, let her go and see him provided she kept to the conditions of her parole.” He rubbed his chin, “They’ve given her another Offender Manager to sort out those appointments.”
“You told me. But if she’s been seeking him out even after he was dead, doesn’t it tell you that she didn’t kill him?”
“No. It tells me she’s a wonderful actress.”
“Whoa. Come on, she’s no actress. You saw how scared she was.”
“Bollocks,” Benson said.
“Listen. She didn’t kill Sebastian. If she had, why would she go around killing everyone who was involved with her case? She can’t hold a grudge against them if they were right, can she? Do you see what I mean?”
“Suppose so.”
“And in all my years of doing this shit, I’ve never yet seen anyone commit suicide by stabbing themselves in the heart. Never.”
“I have.”
“Well you would have, wouldn’t you? You’re as bad as my dad: if I’ve got an elephant, he’s got a bag to put it in.” He sighed, stared at Benson and drew on his cigarette. “Just acknowledge me for once, and say, ‘Hey, Eddie, you’re right’.”
Benson’s eyebrows knotted in confusion. “You really are so full of shit, Collins, it’s a wonder you don’t explode through your arsehole.”
Eddie downed the coffee and wiped a sleeve across the drop hanging off his chin. “Which all adds weight,” he said, “to the killer being Tony. Anthony. Whoever.”
“Well” —Benson turned to face him— “we’ll soon see.”
“I already don’t like where this is going.”
“You’ll need to get your van from MCU.”
Eddie looked to the ceiling, closed his eyes. “I just want one fucking day off. Is that too much to ask? I’m knackered, Tom.”
“If you’re right that Tony is the killer, you can have all the rest you can manage, beginning tomorrow,” Benson said. “He won’t be killing anyone ever again.”
Chapter Eighty
Jess snapped on the gloves, felt nauseous, but swallowed it down and got to work. She picked up the hatchet in her right hand and worked from beh
ind him to keep the angles true.
There wasn’t much room for a swing – the thick end of the hatchet banged into his chest – but she found that she didn’t need much of one. The blade was sharp like a razor; all she needed to do was drag it along the skin and it left behind a red trail of weeping blood that gathered and teemed across the hairs on his arm and dripped onto the table. Fascinating. Horrific. Same measure.
She stood, arched her back, and knew it wasn’t enough. At this rate he’d heal before he bled to death. She leaned in close again, her chest against his right shoulder, her left ear near his mouth. He breathed hot rancid breath against her, and even when the axe cut deeper, that breathing didn’t change.
She cut along his arm towards his wrist, and saw it jump as though it’d caught an electric shock somehow. She saw the muscle, and she saw the miniature fountain as the blade severed an artery. The blood flowed fast, washing across the side of his arm, and flowing across the table to pour over the edge and onto his lap.
From there it dripped onto the floor, splashing like water. Blood is thicker than water, but not by much, and it travels a long way before it dries. And the blood splashes hit the chair leg, and they hit Tony’s legs, hit his shoes, and left a shadow beyond them, clear of blood.
More blood hit the floor and splashed onto Jess’s shoes, leaving a shadow of clean floor beneath them too.
As the blood slowed, and then stopped, she took a step back and breathed hard, fighting tears that had appeared from nowhere. She was confused by them, by this sudden surge of an emotion that had been so lacking with Bolton and the others. She extended a gloved hand to rest it on his shoulder. “Goodbye, Tony,” she whispered. “It was good to know you.”
But the anger came then, blew apart the sadness, obliterated any feeling she ever had for this bastard, and she swung the blade at his head.
* * *
But she stopped the hatchet in mid-arc, less than six inches from his stupid fat fucking dead head.
Jessica screamed and sank to her knees, stinging tears blinding her. This was the culmination of all the hatred her mind had nurtured, and to let it run free right now would mean the destruction of the entire house, the annihilation of his body, and quite possibly even of herself. She breathed hard, long, deep breaths that scalded like heartburn. She stood, closed her eyes, made herself breathe through her nose, slower, shallower. Eventually the pressure inside her head subsided.
The Death of Jessica Ripley Page 31