by Conrad Jones
‘Shut up,’ Boyd shouted. ‘I don’t want to hear “sorry”.’ His lips were opening and closing but no words were coming out. His brain was in neutral. ‘You have no idea what sorry means, not yet, but you will.’ Boyd took a deep breath. ‘I’m going to be fair – I want you to have a choice, Kevin.’ Kevin looked at Boyd as he walked over to the corner of the cellar; he picked up a sledgehammer and carried it back. Jane Hill began squealing. ‘Shut up, Jane!’ She tried to calm herself.
‘Take it easy, Jane,’ Kevin said. She looked at him, teary eyed. He tried to smile but it didn’t work. ‘Please let my family go,’ he said to Boyd. Boyd frowned. ‘It is me that did you harm. They have done nothing to you,’ Kevin said. His voice was shaky. ‘Keep me, but let them go. My kids have never harmed you.’
‘You’re right,’ Boyd said, ‘but you did.’
‘Please, Frankie.’
‘Shut up,’ Boyd snapped. He shook his head. ‘I can’t think straight with you whinging like a bitch.’ Kevin looked at the floor, realising he was pushing Boyd too far. ‘I’m going to kill your family, but I want you to have to make a choice.’
‘Don’t hurt my family,’ Kevin said. Jane was blubbering again. ‘Please, don’t hurt them.’
Boyd looked at Alec and walked over to him. ‘You’re very quiet, Detective Ramsay,’ he said. ‘Will you please explain to Kevin that he’s annoying me?’
‘I would listen to what Frankie has to say, if I were you,’ Alec said, calmly. He looked Kevin in the eyes, to reinforce the message.
‘I’m sorry,’ Kevin said. ‘I’m listening.’
‘Good. I’m going to give you a choice.’
‘What choice?’ Kevin asked. His bottom lip quivered. He was close to losing it. ‘Please, don’t hurt my family.’
‘Shut your face,’ Boyd said, lifting the sledgehammer above his head. ‘You are not listening to me.’
‘Stop, stop, please!’ Kevin pleaded. ‘I’m listening. I am.’ He waited for Boyd to calm down. ‘Tell me what the choices are.’
‘Okay.’ Boyd lowered the hammer; Kevin sobbed but choked it back; Alec listened. ‘Here’s the choice you have to make: option one is they all go together, here. It will be reasonably quick.’ He explained calmly, as if he was talking about the weather. ‘One or two blows with the sledgehammer, and they’ll be gone. You choose which order the kids go in, and Jane goes last, of course.’ Jane Hill was hysterical. The kids were wailing. The noise was deafening. ‘You watch them die, but you live.’
‘Don’t do this, please,’ Kevin said. Tears ran down his face.
‘Listen to him, Kevin,’ Alec said. He wanted Boyd to keep talking. He was calmer when he was talking. ‘Let him finish.’
‘Thank you, Alec.’ Boyd nodded. He seemed to lose his thread. ‘Or, option two, you can all go together, but that will be long and slow and cold and wet, and you’ll have to choose who dies first because you won’t be able to keep them all afloat.’ Boyd smiled thinly. ‘You’ll all drown eventually, but you’ll have to choose who you let go of first.’ He smiled again, and shrugged as if the choice was obvious. ‘Make your choice, Kevin. Shall I bash their brains out right now?’ He lifted the sledgehammer above his head.
‘Let him choose, Frankie,’ Alec said. He sensed Boyd was about to flip.
‘No!’ Kevin shouted. ‘We all stay together.’ He was shaking now. Tears flowed freely. ‘We will stay together as a family.’ Kevin was angry now. He couldn’t contain it any longer. ‘I was right when I said you were a sick monster,’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘They were the truest words I have ever written.’ Frankie shook his head and frowned.
‘And there I was, being reasonable and giving you a choice. If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.’ He swung the sledgehammer down in an arc. The hammer struck Kevin Hill on the top of his skull. Blood and brain matter splattered Alec and Jane. Pink goo ran down her cheek. Kevin Hill toppled over and landed on her lap, and his brains spilled onto her legs. Alec closed his eyes as her muffled screams reached epic proportions. He heard the sledgehammer coming down, over and over, with a sickening sound. Jane Hill stopped screaming, and, one by one, her children did too. It was the soundtrack from hell.
Braddick was disappointed. They had another body and nothing else. There were still more questions than answers. Google and his team were sorting through the photographs they had recovered, trying to identify who was still alive and who was already dead. It was a jigsaw puzzle, which had more pieces now than it did when they began. It became more complex with every hour that passed; their image of the killer blurred with each murder. He was unravelling, now he was in the wind and could be anywhere. It was a waiting game until they uncovered something that gave them a clue; that was all he needed, just a sniff of Boyd. He looked at his phone to see he had missed a call from Alec; it was late and it unnerved him. He checked his watch. It was very late. He thought about leaving it until the morning to call him back, but something rankled him. There was no message. Why hadn’t he left a message?
Braddick called Alec’s number. The automated message told him it was not possible to connect the call. Alec was a retired detective. Detectives never turned off their phones, ever. He instinctively knew something was wrong. It took the communications section an hour to ping Alec’s phone and pinpoint its location. When Boyd was confirmed as the name of the property owner, Braddick knew where he was, and why he had gone there. He could only hope he was unharmed.
40
Frankie Boyd heard the sirens coming, they seemed to bring him back to earth. He studied the carnage around him – Kevin Hill and his family were no more; blood soaked the cellar walls and floor; his face was red with the sticky fluid and his eyes looked uncannily white in contrast. He seemed surprised at what he had done. Alec watched him, his heart racing. The police had traced his call, he knew they would. Boyd appeared bemused by the situation. He looked at Alec and shook his head.
‘Look at what he made me do,’ he muttered. He listened to the sirens. ‘Sounds like your friends are on their way. I guess it’s time to say goodbye.’ Alec pulled his knees up to his chest. Boyd went to the far end of the cellar, where Alec couldn’t see him. He heard a key in a lock followed by a door creaking open. There was a click. Boyd returned with a double-barrelled shotgun. He broke it and fumbled two shells into the barrels. ‘No more prison for me, Ramsay. I can’t do the time. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime, eh, Ramsay?’ He laughed dryly. ‘Isn’t that what they say?’ He snapped the shotgun closed. The sirens were louder now. ‘It has been interesting. I would say it has been nice to know you, but it wasn’t. You’re a cunt, Ramsay,’ Boyd said. He aimed the shotgun at Alec and pulled the trigger. Alec heard it roar and felt the force of the blast slam him into the wall, blood running from a dozen wounds, his body peppered with shot. The sound of the front and back doors being breached, echoed through the farm.
‘Armed police!’ He heard. The light was fading. He felt himself sliding away. Boyd put the shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Alec saw the top of his head splatter all over the ceiling. His body crumpled to the floor as the first policemen stormed down the stairs. Darkness descended.
41
One month later
Richard Vigne kissed Celia goodbye. She held him tightly, with meaning. They had become much closer since the nightmare of Nicola Hadley. It had made them appreciate how much they loved each other. He finished his orange juice and grabbed his laptop bag.
‘Hey Dad, what are we doing in PE today?’ Jake asked. ‘I want to know what kit to bring.’
‘What would you like to do most?’ Richard asked, taking a bite of Jaki’s toast.
‘Dad,’ she moaned.
‘Football, of course,’ Jake answered.
‘Football it is,’ Richard said, ruffling his hair. ‘Don’t tell your friends I let you choose.’
‘I won’t,’ Jake said, fist-bumping his dad. ‘See you later.’
‘How come
he gets to pick what game you’re playing?’ Jaki asked, pouting. ‘I never get to choose.’
‘Yes, but you’re orange,’ Jake said, leaving the breakfast table.
‘Knobhead,’ Jaki shouted after him.
Richard smiled as he opened the front door; the twins made him chuckle. He thought about Nicola Hadley, the poor girl had taken her own life. Despite never knowing her, her death had disturbed him greatly. He was a father first, and the thought of losing a child was unbearable. The entire episode was a struggle to overcome; the ramifications were still taking their toll. His life had disintegrated overnight and it would take a lot of time to rebuild it. The police had uncovered the truth too late.
Richard was vindicated and the local press printed a retraction, which was a paragraph on page ten, and the school apologised unreservedly and offered him the deputy head post again; this time, he accepted it. Events had taught the Vignes to look forward, not back. The murder of Kevin Hill and his family had made them realise that family was everything, but it was as fragile as everything else in life, there were no guarantees; it had made them value what they had. They had pulled through as a family and they were lucky.
Richard shouted goodbye to the twins and walked to his car. The summer was waning but it was still light in the morning, and it was warm, and the trees were still green. He unlocked the car, the lights flashed. A siren blared in the distance. He slung his laptop on the passenger seat and went to open the gates at the end of the drive. Their neighbour across the road waved. He had blanked Richard for weeks, until word had spread that he was innocent. Things were returning to normal. He heard an engine roaring and turned around. They had been fighting the council for a traffic calming scheme for years. He looked up the road and froze. The Scania truck hit him at fifty miles an hour, demolishing the gateposts and crushing him before careering into his car. Richard Vigne didn’t have time to blink.
When the articulated lorry stopped, the driver’s door opened and Billy Hadley climbed down from the cab. He walked to the back of the truck and looked underneath it; Richard Vigne was mangled beneath the back wheels. His wife and kids ran from the front door. He heard them screaming and shouting, phoning the police and an ambulance. It had no effect on him. Richard Vigne was as guilty as Ralph Pickford for Nicola’s death. There was no doubt about it. Vigne was the one who got her drunk, and he was the one who took her back to the apartment. Neither of them would see their children again, unless there was an afterlife, and he seriously doubted that. He walked towards the road and waited for the police to arrive.
Epilogue
Alec brought three mugs of coffee from the kitchen and put them on the table. The trees were bending in the wind, their leaves beginning to brown. Sadie was staring at his scars. They had made a mess of his face, but weren’t as bad as the ones on his neck and chest that he’d covered up. Alec noticed her looking. She looked saddened by the sight of them.
‘They’re not as painful as they look,’ Alec said. He smiled at Sadie and she blushed.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I didn’t mean to stare.’
‘I do it myself sometimes,’ Alec said. He chuckled. ‘In the mirror, of course. I’ll get used to them.’
‘I’m glad you’re okay,’ she said.
‘That’s because of you guys getting there in time,’ Alec said.
‘Not soon enough,’ Braddick said. The sight of the Hill family, bludgeoned to death, had been enough to cause three officers to seek counselling. ‘Are you sleeping better?’
‘That depends on how many whiskies I’ve had,’ Alec joked. He picked up the local paper. ‘I read about the teacher being killed – Richard Vigne. Makes you think.’
‘You followed the story?’ Braddick asked.
‘Only once I’d realised the connection to the Facebook group,’ Alec said. ‘I’ve become a bit of an expert on social media.’
‘The young girl that Vigne was accused of abusing, took her own life in hospital. William Hadley, the girl’s father, couldn’t accept the facts,’ Braddick said. ‘It seems he blamed Vigne for her death. He ran him over on his driveway then sat on the pavement and waited for the police to arrive.’
‘How sad,’ Alec said. ‘Just shows how differently we’re all wired.’
‘Doesn’t take much to push people over the edge,’ Braddick said.
‘True,’ Alec agreed. He sipped his coffee and touched the scars on his face. ‘Some people don’t need pushing. Some of them are born on the edge of insanity.’ He smiled. ‘Spotting them is the key.’
‘Amen to that,’ Braddick agreed.