He felt that. The pain was so immediate and so visceral that he swooned briefly before suddenly and uncontrollably throwing up in the boot of the car as he fell against it.
Then Reed was up on his feet again, with victory written all over his face. “Good shot,” he said, and pointed the knife at the cool box in the boot, now dripping in blood and vomit. “On both counts.”
Kevin’s stomach turned over again, but he kept it in. “What do you mean?” he panted.
Reed shrugged. The bastard was just standing there, playing with him now. He knew he’d won.
“Oh, come on.” Kevin’s head swam. He was losing too much blood. His foot was probably severed inside his shoe. He’d definitely lost a finger somewhere. His chin was literally hanging off. Christ, he hoped they glued him back together before they let Gemma see his body. Duct tape. Anything. Don’t let her remember me in pieces. “Oh God, what’s in the box?” he gurgled.
“Open it and see.”
He knew what Reed was doing. He wanted him to turn his back. Lean forward. Offer his neck. Let him lop off his head with honor. Well, fuck that. Kevin didn’t take his eyes of the man standing before him as he fiddled the handle of the box with his knuckles and hooked his wrist under it and lifted it onto the lip of the boot.
It was moderately heavy—about five kilos, he thought—and whatever was inside was one big lump that slid around and thumped on the sides. “What is it?” he said. “What’s in the box, Tom?”
“Open it.”
“No.”
“Alright. Well, look, I need to be getting on. I only came back here to pick up the rest of my shit.” He laughed. “It’s the first chance I’ve had when no one’s been around. I mean, what were the odds, mate, seriously? Your timing’s impeccable, I’ll give you that. Anyway, whatever, hang a lampshade on it for now. I really just need you to die. Sorry. Nothing personal. Gotta go. Shit to do.” And with that, he flicked the machete up over his shoulder, and brought it around in a fast, sweeping arc, straight at the top of Kevin’s head.
Kevin was ready, both shredded hands gripping the handle of the cool box, and with a grunt he swung it at the incoming blade.
They connected. Kevin saw the shockwave travel through Reed’s shoulders as the machete stopped dead, and before the other man could react, he pitched the ten-pound box at the center of his face.
It wasn’t a perfect shot, but it was good enough. Reed got a hand to it, but it punched him in the nose and cheekbone and sent him back three steps, four, an angry “Ow” his immediate response.
It wasn’t a lot of space, but Kevin took it, hopping around to the driver’s door of the car, leaving a thick smear of blood from his hands across the windows. He got two of his good fingers to the handle and threw the door open, roared through the pain as he scrambled inside and punched the lock button as Reed made a grab for it. “Fuck off!” he yelled, trying not to watch as Reed drew back the machete and aimed it at the window.
They both noticed at the same time that the passenger-side door was still open. Reed bolted for it as Kevin hoisted himself over the center console and grabbed the handle and pulled it shut.
The key was still in its slot. Kevin jammed his foot onto the brake pedal and stabbed at the starter with a knuckle, waking the engine; he knocked it into Reverse with his wrist and stamped on the throttle with his left foot, pulling Reed across the driveway as he backed clear of the garage and knocking him down again when he hit the brake. He tipped the lever into Drive. Floored the throttle. The rear wheels spun in place, the big BMW squatting and fishtailing and leaping forward.
He jerked the wheel. His palms opened up and he sucked in a sharp breath, the pain flooding his senses as his hands slid uselessly around the leather rim.
Kevin froze as the car punched through the garage door, tearing it off its rail and smashing the windscreen a split second before it hit the far wall at thirty miles an hour. The wall didn’t give, but Kevin did, folding in half like a ragdoll and mashing his torn face into the air bag and his knees into the dashboard. His lungs filled with smoke and his head filled with pain and now he had blood in his eyes as well as everywhere else.
Reed was on his feet and advancing on the car. If Kevin was still alive in there, he’d be a damn sight easier to kill now.
Kevin was still alive and, more crucially, still semialert. He twisted around to look out through the back window and saw his furious would-be assassin crossing the driveway apace. He tried the starter again, despite the front end of the car being crumpled into a pile in front of the windscreen. No go. So he did the only other thing that entered his head.
Kevin shouldered the door open and pitched himself out of the car, crawling on his elbows and knees for the door not ten feet away in the center of the garage wall. He didn’t look back; he knew it wouldn’t help to know what was there. Instead, he dragged himself to the top of the basement stairs and, using his three good fingers and one working foot, pushed himself over the precipice.
Every stair on the way down put a dent in one of his ribs. His hands were all but useless for the task of stopping him at the bottom, and he accordioned when he hit the floor, flipping onto the top of his head and crashing down on his back.
He could see the top of the stairs from where he lay; see the shadow fall across them as Reed’s frame filled the doorway.
Kevin summoned the last of his strength to roll over onto his front and dragged himself, commando-style, along the concrete floor. Reed was halfway down the stairs by the time he got his backside into the cage, and was at the bottom as he pulled his legs in and swiveled around to reach for the door.
It was heavy, too heavy for a man with hands like Kevin’s, but as Reed made a dash for it, he managed to get it to move.
Reed’s fingertips were brushing the door as it slammed shut and the twin locks clicked into place. And then they were both on their knees, foreheads all but touching through the mesh, Reed hissing furiously, Kevin blowing blood bubbles out of his nose and both of his mouths.
“Fuck you,” Kevin said.
Reed blew out a breath and nodded. “Fuck you too.”
“You’re not killing me today, you bastard.”
“I’m not even bothered,” Reed panted. “I just don’t care enough not to. Where are the keys?”
“In my pocket.”
“How are you going to get out?”
Kevin looked up at the lock. There was no keyhole on the inside. The mesh was too small to get a hand through. “Shit,” he said.
“I didn’t take a spare. Your lot have got them all.”
Kevin looked at his hands, his shoe, the blood pooling under him on the floor. I’ll make a stain like Eli, he thought. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll probably bleed out. You win anyway.”
Reed looked him in the eye, and smiled. “Nah,” he said. “I’ll give you that one. Round’s over and you’re still alive.”
“Awesome.” Make sure you tell my pregnant wife that; she’ll be fucking thrilled.
“Tell me something.” Reed sat back on his feet, regarding Kevin with something that looked like childish curiosity, but surely wasn’t. “Your head. Where Erica hit you. Does it hurt when the weather changes?”
In spite of himself, Kevin shook the offending head. “No.”
“Oh.” Reed looked...disappointed? “My arm kills me when it rains,” he said.
“Good.”
Reed laughed. “That’s fair.” He considered him for a moment, and then said, “For what it’s worth, she didn’t kill anyone. The things you’ve been saying about her? All me.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Well, sometimes it doesn’t matter what we think, does it? It’s all about what we can prove. You know that as well as anyone.”
Kevin stared at him through the cage door, and wondered what the hell he was trying to say.
Whether Reed sensed he was about to die or simply grew bored, Kevin couldn’t tell, but a minute or two later, he stood. “She’ll come looking for you,” he said. “Maybe she’ll get here in time. Maybe I’ll even still be here.” He smiled sadly through the mesh. “I hope not. I don’t want to have to kill her, as well. I still feel bad about...you know. Anyway. Better get on,” he said. “No hard feelings, eh?”
And then he was gone, and the lights went out.
Episode 6
Chapter 31
I don’t know how long I’d stood there, or how much vodka Annie had put away by the time I’d collected my thoughts and ducked back inside the house, but she seemed eerily calm, perched on the edge of the sofa beside her empty glass, her eyes dry, her back straight and her hands wedged between her knees like she was about to tell a story. Lost for words, I waved a “WTF” at Erica’s angelic little face.
“Yeah, that’s totally normal,” she shrugged. “She’s high-functioning. What can you do?” She smiled and gestured to a mug of coffee on the table. “Not sure how you like it,” she said, “but it’s warm and wet.”
Same way I like my women, I thought, and tried and failed not to giggle. Erica was biting her lip. She totally knew.
“I’m sorry about before,” Annie said.
I nodded. “So talk to me. Just the facts, ma’am.”
Erica gave me the side-eye.
“Just...tell me what happened, in small words and short sentences. And make it convincing, because right now it’s looking really, really bad for you, Annie.”
She nodded. “I was all ready to tell you, you know. I thought I was being sent to headquarters to get fired. I was going to tell Riley everything, but...well, the next thing I knew, I still had a job, and then once I’d not said anything, it was too late to say anything, wasn’t it? I could have handled going to jail if I’d had nothing left to lose, but not then.”
“So tell me now.”
“Mark Boon,” she said.
The dead sex offender in the flat smeared in Erica’s DNA. I looked at Erica; it didn’t seem to register. “Okay.”
“I was on a date in the city. I got stood up. I went for a walk and ended up down by the river. It was the middle of the night, there was no one around. He came at me.”
“Mark Boon did?”
She nodded. “He knocked me over and started trying to pull my trousers down. I just...froze.”
This wasn’t the opening I was expecting—the one where I realized I had no idea of anything this woman might have been through.
“And then he was there. James. Or Thomas Reed, as you call him.”
“Or Rob, if you’re me,” Erica said.
“He dragged him away, might have hit him with something, I don’t know. But he rescued me, at any rate. He was really kind. Brought me home, made sure I was okay. Didn’t try anything on, didn’t make me feel unsafe in any way. He just looked after me, and then he left. And no, I never asked him what he’d been doing there that night.”
My heart sank. This was not what I wanted to hear, although it explained why Annie might not have considered him a viable serial killer.
“Your DI, Fairey. He came here a couple of days later, asking questions. I told him James...Reed—” she glanced at Erica with a sympathetic smile “—Rob, whatever. I told him he’d been with me all night, because as far as I knew he had. He didn’t seem to like that.”
“He wanted him not to have an alibi?”
She nodded. “I think so, yeah. But I told the truth, as far as I knew. I passed out at some point and didn’t wake up until lunchtime the next day, so I had no idea what time he’d left. I had no idea who he was. I just thought he was a nice guy. And then, a while later, he came back saying he needed my help, and I figured I owed him, so I said okay.”
“To what?”
“I said he could stay here for a couple of days, like, officially. That if anyone asked me, I’d tell them he was here. But no one ever asked.”
“When was this?”
“When Mark Boon was killed.”
I looked at Erica again. She looked at me. “Who’s Mark Boon?” she said.
“A dead rapist who had your knickers in his flat.”
She was blank for a moment before her face drained of color. Then, a spark of recognition. “Wait. Rob said something to me about framing me for murder. I thought he was—”
“Google him,” I said. I turned back to Annie. “So you’re saying that the night Boon died, you agreed to give Reed a false alibi?”
She flinched, but nodded. “He left his van here, and some other stuff, but he was gone for at least a day and a night.”
“Did he stay here with you at all?”
“Yeah, he was in my bed when I came home the second night. But...nothing happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he didn’t even try to touch me or anything.”
Erica raised a hand. “Me, either. Well, apart from... Well anyway, he didn’t try to rape me. I don’t think he could, to be honest.”
“Could what?”
“Like...get it up.”
“Wait,” I said. “Apart from what?”
Erica shrugged. “Well, I let him give me a bath. I thought it might make my life easier, but he just fumbled about and started crying, so...”
“And that was it? That was all that happened between you?”
“Mate, he kept me in a cage, in case you didn’t get that memo. I might be batshit but I’ve got some self-respect. He killed Sarah and Kerry. I tried to shoot him, remember?”
“You know he killed Sarah?”
“I didn’t see her. I only saw a pile of bin bags before he knocked me out. He told me later she didn’t suffer, though. So yeah, I know.”
“So Sarah and Kerry... Wait.” Kerry. A surge of excitement. “What do you know about Kerry?”
“She was my roommate for a few days. She wasn’t much fun. Then he took her away to play some sort of game with her.”
“A game?”
“I don’t know, but she didn’t come back.”
I put my head in my hands and tried to rub the insanity out of it, but to no avail. I gave Annie a long, hard look, and asked her, “When did you last see him?”
“That was it,” she said. “But he’s been here. He’s still got a key. He keeps leaving things. That money was here a couple of days ago.”
“Why haven’t you changed the locks?”
“What’s the point? I didn’t want to make him angry. I hoped I’d just prove he isn’t a monster and make everything okay. He’s the only guy who’s ever been nice to me.” She laughed. “God, I’m so lame.”
Erica nodded her agreement. I considered her for a moment. She looked so small sitting there, curled up like a little girl. But she wasn’t small. However much Annie had screwed up, the image she’d pulled out of ViPER was no less real. I had to know the answer. “I’ve got a picture of you,” I said. “Driving that Transit van, the day my partner disappeared.”
Erica didn’t look shocked, or frightened, or even dismayed. She just shrugged and said, “Yeah, probably.”
I waited a beat, but that was her whole answer. “Explain,” I said.
“He made me drive it there. He said he wanted to get rid of their car. I was scared if I didn’t do it he’d kill my mum or my sister. I bought petrol, I drove it to where he said, he set fire to the car, then he took me back and let me sleep in the house for being good.”
“It was him who set the car on fire?”
She paused, perhaps a moment too long. Her mouth said, “Yes,” but her eyes said no. “And I didn’t know there were bodies in it, before you ask.�
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“But you knew there were bodies somewhere?”
“I knew they’d been to the house. I didn’t know what he’d done to them.” She held my stare, unblinking. Didn’t back down. Finally, she said, “I’m sorry for what I did to you.”
The air left me like I’d been punched in the chest. I felt Annie stiffen beside me. Jenny’s crackpot theory about loops through the woods flashed through my mind. An image of Eli Diaz, his head flopping uselessly in the puddle of blood in my lap. “Tell me what you did,” I gasped.
Erica’s face didn’t change. There was nothing in her eyes, no more menace than remorse. “I didn’t want you to die,” she said. “But I knew you would if I left you. And I left you anyway. I’m sorry. I can be a bit of a bitch sometimes.”
Annie put a hand on my back and held it there silently as I collected my breath. “It’s okay,” I said. “You did what you had to do.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Not yet, I haven’t. I ran away instead. But hey, I’m not running now, am I?”
I looked at Annie. Annie looked at the gun.
“Don’t even,” I said. “Jesus Christ. What am I going to tell Jen?”
Annie shrugged. “The truth, I guess. It’s either my career or both of ours, right?”
My career. That was a funny one. How much of a career did I have left? Sure, I’d caught up with Erica and uncovered Annie’s secret, but I could barely walk or remember my own name, so really it could go either way right about now.
I needed to talk to Jenny. God alone knew what I was going to say, but all of the bullshit had to end, right now. I stood and took my pad and pen from my back pocket. Flipped to a fresh page and wrote down everything I’d just heard while Erica went to the toilet and Annie guzzled another vodka. Then I dialed Jenny’s number and, again, reached her voicemail.
I tried Kevin. No answer.
Where the hell were they?
I rang the incident room and got through to Dan again. “Is everything alright?” he said.
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