Trial by Execution

by T. M. E. Walsh

  ‘Bollocks,’ she said to herself after they’d ended the call.

  She glanced up and saw her reflection in the café window and she saw that, where her cheeks were once hollow, the fuller face she was used to was beginning to return.

  It’d been a long two years since she’d quite literally stared death in the face, and before that she hadn’t exactly been in great shape, letting events of the past take their toll mentally as well as physically.

  The weight she’d lost back then had only just started to return in the last six months. It hadn’t been easy, but Claire had been determined to get back to some kind of normality. To a time when she had been truly happy, just before she’d met her now ex-husband.

  She crossed her legs, clad in skinny jeans. They still bagged a little at the waist – reminding her of before.

  Health-wise she wasn’t completely out of the woods just yet.

  But Claire was determined not to be beaten. There were so many things that happened in her life that she couldn’t control, but she would be damned if her outward appearance would be one of them.

  Another customer sitting near her unfolded their newspaper. Claire stared at it and found herself biting the inside of her cheek.

  Truly evil-looking eyes stared out at her, under bold, damning headlines. The familiar face of Raymond Knox.

  She felt a shiver dance up her spine.

  She remembered that case well, was close to it in some small way, even though she hadn’t worked on it herself.

  There was a smaller photograph accompanying the article on Knox.

  It was of Knox’s father, Rupert. He looked bedraggled, older than his years. The paparazzi had caught him midway between his front door and his wheelie bin, his face half turned towards them, shrouded in his dressing gown, half hanging loose at the waist, his face grey with rough stubble, unshaven for a few days at least.

  Claire’s eyes narrowed. This man used to be a doctor, respected, trusted.

  He didn’t look like someone who would have dark secrets hidden from the world; his type rarely did.

  It was this sort of person who really could be anyone. You next-door neighbour, your closest friend, even a relative.

  For Claire, that’s what made it much more frightening

  CHAPTER 5

  31st March

  Knox had spent the last few days getting used to his new surroundings and the fact he had to sign in four times a day at the hostel. It meant he couldn’t stray far, but given that there had already been speculation in the media as to his whereabouts, he hadn’t wanted to leave the premises for longer than half an hour at a time.

  Sitting outside, he stared at the high fence at the foot of the garden and longed to scale it, and just run. He didn’t know where he’d go, but anywhere would’ve been better than where he was now.

  Some residents had made their intentions more than clear; that they wanted Knox as their new best friend. Like attracting like, as Knox had feared.

  Devon was different, though.

  He seemed to get Knox and, right now, that’s what counted until he could get out of here.

  Then there was Janet.

  There seemed to be something there between her and Devon.

  Something that had remained unspoken, but Knox had seen it. Their eyes couldn’t always hide what was obvious. Janet wasn’t just his offender manager – it went deeper than that. They had a connection.

  And Knox wanted to know what it was.

  He rolled a cigarette as Devon came out into the garden with a handful of cardboard and dropped it into the recycling bin.

  ‘How long?’

  Devon’s face turned to the side, glancing at him. ‘What?’

  ‘I figured you might tell me now, how long you were in the pen for.’ He lit his cigarette, took a few drags. ‘I mean,’ he said, expelling coils of smoke, ‘you know what I did.’

  ‘Everyone knows what you did.’

  Knox stared at him and Devon shrugged. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Life… minimum of thirty, reduced to twenty-five.’

  ‘Shit, man. Twenty-five?’ Knox looked impressed. ‘What you go down for?’

  Devon looked at his hands, clasped them tight together. ‘Murder.’

  Knox didn’t even flinch. ‘Wife?’

  Devon shook his head.

  ‘Girlfriend?’

  Devon turned to face him. ‘Girlfriend’s lover.’

  Knox nodded, as if he understood it all. ‘You regret it?’

  ‘I’ve learnt to live without regret. I can’t change what happened.’

  Knox leaned in closer to him. ‘I get that, I really do, but you’re, what, forty-something?’

  ‘Forty-five.’

  ‘Shit, that’s your whole life spent in the pen… you don’t regret those lost years?’

  Devon took his time before answering. ‘Like I said, it is what it is. I can’t change it.’

  Knox looked away in disbelief. At length he spoke again. ‘What did you do to the guy?’

  Devon smiled inwardly. Bait the line, reel him in.

  ‘Does it matter?’ he said, feigning reluctance.

  ‘It matters,’ Knox said, his face serious.

  Devon put some distance between himself and Knox. He didn’t want to be closer to him than was absolutely necessary. Knox watched him closely.

  ‘I took a knife to him.’

  Knox smiled. ‘Man after my own heart,’ he said. ‘The knife’s always so much better than a gun. More personal, like that moment you make the first cut, the blood that rises over the skin…’

  ‘I stabbed him, twice,’ Devon said, cutting him off. He tried to hide the disgust on his face at Knox’s words. ‘Once in the throat, once through the heart.’

  Knox eyed him with care. ‘That was quick.’ His head cocked to one side, confusion on his face. ‘If he was fucking about with your woman, that was letting him off light.’

  Devon clenched his jaw, tried to stop grinding his teeth.

  ‘You plan it?’

  Devon nodded.

  ‘Hell, if it’d been me, I’d at least have enjoyed it, knowing my arse was going away for a long time.’

  Devon’s face remained stony. Serious. ‘I never said I didn’t enjoy it’

  Knox looked at him for several seconds, before his lips broke out into a grin. ‘I don’t know whether to like you or fear you.’

  Devon edged closer towards him, and dropped the severity of his stare. ‘Some might suggest you do both.’

  Knox laughed heartily. He kicked a chair out towards Devon. ‘Sit down, will you? Getting a crick in my neck looking up at ya.’

  Devon sat and tried his best to look at ease. A few moments of silence drifted by and Knox didn’t miss a single thing when Devon stared at the fence surrounding the garden.

  ‘You ever think about running?’

  Devon glanced at him. Knox’s cigarette was hanging from the side of his mouth. Devon shrugged. He did a quick three-sixty of their surroundings, checking no one was in earshot, and nodded.

  Knox plucked the cigarette from his lips, and exhaled a plume of smoke. ‘How’d you do it?’

  Devon shook his head. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘There’s always a way,’ Knox said, turning to stare at the end of the garden. ‘All it takes is a plan.’ He turned back to Devon, eyes teasing.

  ‘You wouldn’t make it past the gates.’

  Knox grunted, stuck his leg out, catching another spare metal garden chair, kicking it.

  ‘I’ve got a meeting soon,’ Devon said.

  Knox smiled. ‘Ah, yes. Janet.’ He flicked the cigarette from his fingers and watched it roll across the patio, still alight. ‘She’s quite taken with you, you know?’

  Devon’s grin was wolfish. ‘I don’t know. I think she has a soft spot for you.’

  Knox’s eyes lit up. ‘You reckon?’ He slouched down lower in his chair. ‘She’s got something about h
er all right,’ he said.

  Then he sat upright again, the metal chair legs scraping on the patio. ‘I long for freedom,’ he said, changing the subject, watching Devon’s face. ‘This place is worse than being inside.’

  Devon’s eyes narrowed. ‘You serious?’

  ‘Yeah, at least in prison I knew what was happening each day. Here,’ he broke off, shaking his head. ‘Here, I can’t settle. Sure, I can leave and walk about in the open, but I can never go wherever I want.’

  ‘And where would you go if you had no restrictions?’

  Knox turned and regarded him for several seconds. ‘Well, let me ask you where you’d go?’

  Devon shrugged. ‘I guess I’d go back to my old house.’

  ‘There, you see?’ Knox said, suddenly more animated. ‘It’s in our nature to go back to where it all happened, where it all went wrong.’ He gave a mock laugh. ‘It’s like a fucking homing beacon.’

  ‘You want to go back to where you committed your crimes, is that what you’re saying?’

  Knox nodded. ‘Hell-fucking-yeah.’ He turned to Devon again, voice low. ‘You want to go back to your home, the one you shared with your girlfriend. You want to relive it all, remind yourself why you sacrificed your freedom. You had to do what you did, but prison has made you think about whether or not all those lost years were worth it.’

  Devon shook his head. ‘If I could go back to my old house, it would be to relive the good times, not the bad. Back when I was happy.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ Knox said with a sneer. ‘You got that same burning itch I have.’ He paused. ‘When I think about that first time, that first girl, I get… nostalgic.’ He grinned to himself.

  Devon tried to swallow his anger, when he felt his cheeks flush. ‘You’re planning on doing it again?’ he managed, throat feeling dry.

  Knox gave him a sideways glance, and grinned. ‘I’ve seen someone close to home that we both know.’

  Devon felt his stomach tighten.

  ‘She bears a striking resemblance to someone I… shared a dalliance with a long time ago. A beautiful creature, she was.’ Knox let himself drift away with his thoughts for a few moments and Devon felt sick to the core.

  ‘I think she’d love it, though,’ Knox said at last. ‘Janet, I mean… and that’s just not the same as when they’re running scared.’

  Devon tried to control his anger.

  ‘Do you think she’s corruptible?’

  Devon lowered his eyes.

  ‘I think with a little persuasion she’d help cure my fifteen-year itch.’

  Devon pointed to Knox’s ankle. ‘One slip and you’re back inside. Even just one indiscretion.’

  Knox thought for a second, and then grimaced.

  Devon saw his chance. ‘Maybe talking about it might help?’

  Knox scoffed. ‘Fuck that, I did enough of that in the pen.’ He shook his head. ‘No, what I need is the real thing.’

  Devon felt sick. ‘I’m serious. Talk about your victims,’ he managed.

  ‘Victims?’ Knox spat. ‘If they weren’t walking around looking like they did, I wouldn’t have touched them.’ He leaned across the arm of the chair towards Devon. ‘No, my friend, they tempted me. None were innocent.’

  Knox leaned back in his chair again, hand rubbing his chin as he thought. ‘Have you read about the three girls?’ he said, looking at Devon. He saw the man nod. ‘I never liked the number three.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You’re an intelligent man, you work it out. Why stop at three?’

  And here we go, Devon thought. ‘There never were just three?’

  Knox clapped his hands together in mock applause. ‘First prize, my man, first prize.’ He lit another cigarette. It hung from his lips, smoke coiling up towards his eyes.

  Eyes that watched Devon like a hawk.

  ‘You know they say people like me escalate?’ he said, voice teasing. Devon shrugged. Knox’s eyes widened in fake surprise. ‘Oh, come on, don’t act stupid. Psychologists say it, the filth say it – hell, even the fucking papers say it – we’re supposed to step each act up a notch, like we can’t contain ourselves.’

  Knox grinned, looked around. They were still alone. He gave Devon a wink. ‘It’s true. I took a step up with Raja Clarkson. All thanks to that video everyone was talking about.’

  Devon’s lips were dry, throat parched. ‘How many?’

  Knox shrugged. ‘A few. I never counted. The real masterpieces were the three the media paid attention to. They’re all that mattered. Sick generation.’

  Devon’s eyes crossed towards the back door. It repulsed him to talk to Knox, to even be within a few feet of him. He glanced at the man’s hands, imagined a Stanley knife clutched in his fingers. He imagined the pain those women would have felt as the tip of the blade cut through tender flesh.

  ‘…the younger the better, I’ve found…’

  Devon’s head snapped up to look at Knox, who had carried on talking while he had zoned out. His eyes narrowed in disgust. Had he caught that right?

  A dark look crossed Knox’s face. ‘They are tighter, you know?’

  Devon stood up, his chair skidding back.

  ‘Offended the big man, have I?’ Knox said, laughing.

  ‘No, I just have to prepare for my meeting with Janet.’

  ‘Ah, Janet. Those fucking legs of hers. I could just…’ He mimed a sexual gesture.

  Devon forced a smile. ‘I’ll see if I can put in a good word for you,’ he said as he headed back inside the hostel.

  CHAPTER 6

  It was nearly five when Knox left the hostel. He had to be back to make curfew by seven, so didn’t waste any time heading down the drive, pulling the hood of his jumper up over his head.

  He knew he had very little time to satiate his desires. He smiled to himself when he relived his earlier conversation with Devon.

  Knox stopped at the end of the drive and breathed in deep, taking the slight chill in the air down to his lungs. His eyes did a sweep of the street, counted the cars parked along the side of the road. Nothing looked odd, out of place.

  In prison Knox had learned to be suspicious of everyone. Enemies came in all sorts of guises and, since the media seemed to be getting closer to disclosing his location, he wasn’t taking any chances.

  He walked along in the middle of the road before taking the path into Haverbridge wood.

  The trees blocked out much of the light and Knox felt as if the wood itself was swallowing him whole. The air smelt earthier the deeper he ventured.

  Branches and bushes looked like Mother Nature’s traps, dead undergrowth pulling at his ankles, twigs snapping underfoot. The crunch of discarded beer cans and the faint scent of dog shit wafting on the breeze.

  Haverbridge wood was a godforsaken place. It felt and looked like purgatory – everything appearing to be dead and rotten, even though signs of spring were signalling an end to the bleak winter months.

  Mother Nature, it seemed, wanted to hold on to the misery and sadness.

  Knox knew nobody came here much, not even the local teens looking for a quick fix of whatever the drug of choice was for the disillusioned youth these days. That was one of the reasons the hostel was situated as close to it as it was.

  Relative isolation. With what was housed in the hostel, it was ideal; ideal for Knox, given who he was about to meet.

  Right now he was using the land to his advantage.

  He headed through the thick of trees. He heard twigs snap.

  Knox slowed his pace.

  Somewhere off in the distance he heard a dog bark and knew he’d have to be careful if there were dog walkers in the area. He couldn’t afford to attract too much attention. Knox knew how to handle himself, though. He just couldn’t be seen to be in any sort of trouble.

  He’d been here earlier in the day with Devon in tow. Knox had taken the chance to scout, look for some remote pa
tch.

  A dark spot for dark deeds.

  He’d liked that idea.

  Right now, though, he had bigger issues to overcome first.

  He trudged over the uneven earth, and slipped between more trees until the woodland path was out of sight.

  Then Knox stopped and slowly turned around.

  Someone who had been following him was now out in the open, no longer hiding behind trees. He was around Knox’s height, with dark hair. He was wearing a long coat, with a bag slung across his body.

  He eyed Knox with uncertainty.

  When Knox edged forward, he saw the man flinch. It made him smile.

  ‘You want something?’

  The man looked unsure for a brief moment. Then he took a deep breath. ‘You’re Raymond Knox.’

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  The man paused, his eyes narrowing. ‘Well, the victims for one thing.’ The man reached for the opening of his bag. ‘This has all been a long time coming, don’t you think?’

  Vengeance is mine.

  CHAPTER 7

  The blood stained the ground, turning the soil black. Drops of it clung to thick grass blades. Ants were crawling over the tree trunk, exploring what was slumped against it.

  Flies had already started to come in their numbers, drawn to the thick smell of blood in the muggy air.

  Standing in a Tyvek paper suit, Claire pulled the face mask down under her chin. She’d had a straightforward flight back from Scotland, and after she’d been home barely half an hour, she’d headed straight into the station, much to everyone’s amusement – it was like she’d never left.

  When the call had come in about the body in the wood, with a strong possibility the rumours were true as to the deceased’s identity, DSI Donahue had been keen for Claire to be involved.

  Standing rigid and with her eyes cast over the body, Claire breathed in hard, drawing the smell inside her. In a strange sort of way, it helped her process what she was seeing and understand the mindset of the murderer she was going to be hunting.

  It was after nine at night. The body had been there barely ninety minutes.

  SOCOs were completing their search of the area, which had been cordoned off from the hostel, the neighbouring streets and the boundary of the wood itself.