Anyone watching from their windows might see me as suspicious if they’re familiar with the homeowners, but I act with such calmness that I’m counting on not drawing the eye. I head right up to the door with the key in my hand and within seconds I’m stepping inside. I shut the door behind me without once looking back.
Preparedness. It’s the be-all and end-all for me. The owners have no clue that three days ago, after coming in the hard way, so to speak, I took a little souvenir for myself in the form of their spare key. Their spare key which is now back where I left it on my second visit to this house yesterday. The newly cut key in my pocket is my very own.
I take a deep breath and listen. The house is silent, just as I knew it would be. For now no one is home, but me.
I smile to myself then set off to find the perfect place to hide.
That perfect place to hide, I decide, is the kitchen. I’m sure he’s gone to the shops. Perhaps the first thing he’ll do when he comes back is to take a piss in the toilet under the stairs, but after that he’ll be coming in here with whatever goodies he’s just bought. I’m excited to find out what kind of night he had planned.
And I don’t have to wait too long. A little over twelve minutes, to be precise, before I hear the clump, clump of footsteps coming up the drive outside, and then the slide and click as the key is pushed into the lock on the front door…
Chapter Thirty-Three
Dani’s car had no flashing blue lights, no blaring sirens, but that didn’t stop her racing through the streets from City Hospital and across to Harborne. At least the Friday evening traffic, with the time now approaching seven p.m., had died down some.
‘He’s still not answering,’ Dani said, as yet another call went through to voicemail.
‘What do you want to do?’ Easton asked. ‘We could get the blue lights there before us easily.’
Dani hadn’t yet made that call. Yes it was possible, based on what Constable had found, that Jason was on whatever kill list Curtis had concocted, but he surely wasn’t the most obvious next target, was he? He was the arresting officer all those years ago, not someone who’d been instrumental in the trial which had seen Curtis sentenced for manslaughter.
At least that’s how she kept trying to reassure herself, yet she was still in a state of panic and didn’t let up on her rapid drive across Birmingham.
She fiddled with the buttons in the centre console to ring Jason again. It rang through twice before it was finally answered.
Dani heaved a sigh of relief, but then two long seconds passed where all she could hear was heavy breathing and grim thoughts quickly took over once more.
‘Jason?’
Her voice was high-pitched and panicked.
‘Jason!’
‘Dani? You OK?’ Jason finally said.
‘Where are you?’ Dani asked.
‘I’ve just walked in the door. Sorry, babe, I had a load of shopping, I couldn’t get to my phone.’
‘But you’re OK?’ Dani asked.
‘Yeah?’ he said, a little unsure. ‘But you don’t sound it?’
‘I’ll be home in a few mins. Jason, listen to me very carefully—’
There was a blip from the dashboard and the phone call disconnected.
‘What the hell?’ Dani shouted. ‘Grab the phone, it’s in my bag.’
Easton dug into the bag by his feet. ‘Battery must have gone,’ he said as he came back up with the phone in his hand.
‘Got to be kidding me,’ Dani said, hitting the steering wheel in frustration. ‘Can you call him for me?’
‘Dani, he’s fine. Just try and relax, we’ll be there in two minutes.’
But Dani couldn’t relax, not even slightly. ‘We can still call for back-up,’ she said.
‘Back-up for what? To help him put the cornflakes in the cupboard?’ Easton said with a smile.
Dani knew Easton was only trying to lighten the mood, but his jibe only pissed her off.
‘Jesus, Dani, stop!’
Dani thumped the brake. Tyres screeched and she weaved the car left and right, trying to keep control as the wheels lost traction. The car behind her honked as it nearly rammed them. The cyclist in front who’d pulled out on her stopped and stepped from his bike, pure nonchalance, as Dani’s car jolted to a halt next to him.
‘Are you blind or something!’ he yelled at her.
‘You bloody pulled out on me, you idiot!’
‘Dani, let’s just go.’
Dani was het up, and really wanted to give the guy a piece of her mind, but she relented and put her foot down to pull away. She checked in her mirror to see the cyclist disappear into the distance behind them.
If anything, the unwanted interlude had taken just a fleck of her anxiety away, and they made it to her road two minutes later, unscathed. Dani parked up in the spot directly outside her house. She looked up at her home as she stepped from the car. All was quiet and… normal.
‘You want me to come in?’ Easton asked as he got out.
‘No, it’s fine, wait here. I’ll only be a couple of minutes, then I’ll drop you off back at the ranch.’
‘I can get the bus from here.’
‘It’s not a problem. Just give me two minutes.’
Dani left Easton hanging off her car and she headed up the drive. She unlocked and opened the front door and stepped inside.
‘Jason?’
There was a bang from across the hall, somewhere in the kitchen.
‘Dani!’
It was Jason. His voice was rushed and muffled.
‘Dani. Run!’
The panic in his voice was clear. A muted thud followed. Dani stood frozen to the spot as the figure stepped into the doorway in front of her, blood dripping from the tip of the axe in his hand.
Damian Curtis.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Dani had no idea how long the moment lasted as her eyes locked with Curtis’s. One second? Two? It felt like several minutes. And after the initial shock of what she was facing, in her own home, she found herself not staring at Damian Curtis at all, but at her brother, on that fateful night when he’d bludgeoned her and left her for dead. That night she’d been frozen to the spot, just like this. Panic, surprise, fear, all taking control and preventing her from properly defending herself.
She couldn’t let that happen again.
Dani snapped into focus and launched herself forwards, roaring with determination as she did so. Curtis just stood there, a grin spreading across his bloodied face as he pulled the axe up above his head.
Dani was three yards from him when a shadow appeared in the kitchen behind Curtis. Jason. Covered in blood. He was coming forwards, towards Curtis, kitchen knife in his hand.
But Curtis must have sensed him. Or was it the movement in Dani’s gaze which gave it away?
With the axe aloft, Curtis spun and drove down…
‘No!’ Dani screamed.
She barged into Curtis from behind and the stumble in his step meant the axe’s blade jolted forwards and sliced across Jason’s shoulder rather than bedding in. He yelped in pain, and his own momentum wavered as he drove forward the knife he was holding. It glanced across Curtis’s side. Not even a groan of pain from him.
All three bodies collided haphazardly, and they fell to the ground in a tangled heap, both Curtis’s axe and Jason’s knife came free. Dani hit her head on the laminate floor. She was dazed, but not seriously hurt, but she also had no weapon. And Curtis was an animal. As Dani tried to find the strength to hit him and to pull away, Curtis bucked, spitting and growling as he threw out his fists and elbows at both Dani and Jason, who was barely mustering any response at all now. Dani took several blows as she scrambled backwards.
‘Jason!’ she screamed as she finally broke free.
In front of her, Jason was unmoving. He was covered in blood, head to toe, and it was impossible to tell what wounds he’d already suffered.
There was a bang on the front door behind Dani.
‘Call back-up!’
‘Fuck’s sake, Dani! I’m coming in.’
There was an even louder thump this time, but the door didn’t budge. Dani pushed herself another half yard back as Curtis got to his knees. The axe lay out of his reach in the kitchen. But the knife, the one Jason had wielded, was right there on the floor next to him.
Curtis, almost oblivious to Dani now, balled his fist and hammered it down onto Jason’s exposed head.
‘No!’ Dani shouted.
Curtis smashed Jason’s head again and again with his fist. Then he went for the knife.
‘Get off him!’
Dani was back on her feet. She wasn’t even thinking what she was doing now as she rushed forwards again. The knife was in Curtis’s hand. He drove it into Jason’s back. Once. Twice. Dani grimaced each time. The sound as the blade sliced into his flesh was horrific. Jason didn’t even flinch.
Was he unconscious or dead?
Dani lifted her heel to smash it into Curtis’s head. He pulled the knife out and turned. Slashed the blade across. Dani’s foot connected with skull, but the blade sliced through her ankle. She gritted her teeth but tried to stay strong. The blow to Curtis’s head didn’t seem to deter him at all. He sprang upright as Dani tried in vain to adjust her stance and deliver another blow.
She simply couldn’t outmanoeuvre him in time.
The uppercut from Curtis was a perfect contact and sent Dani’s head spinning. Her legs abandoned her, and she plummeted to the floor.
‘Dani!’
His voice was loud yet felt distant. Easton.
Another thud at the door. It still hadn’t opened.
Dani’s eyelids were heavy. She fought to stay awake as Curtis hovered over her. There was a snarl on his face, but he stared down at her almost with curious fascination. The blood-dripping knife was still in his hand, Dani realised. But she couldn’t move. Curtis lifted his arm—
BANG
This time the door did open.
‘Drop the knife!’ came Easton’s shout.
Dani was drifting, but she was sure she could hear the distant sound of sirens. Curtis didn’t look in the least perturbed by his predicament. He lifted his hand and flung the knife. Dani didn’t see where it landed, but the sound it made, and the sound Easton made, told her he’d been hit.
The next time Dani groggily closed then opened her eyes, Curtis was gone.
‘Easton! Don’t… let him get away!’
That was what Dani had thought at least, though she wasn’t even sure if the words had passed her lips, and if they had, whether they’d been in any way intelligible given the state her brain was in.
A shadowy image of Easton hobbled over her, heading into the kitchen and after Curtis.
As hard as she fought it, moments later Dani finally succumbed, and her brain shut down.
Chapter Thirty-Five
‘Dani.’
His voice was distant and weak.
‘Dani, wake up.’
It was Jason. He was OK?
‘Dani. Open your eyes.’
She felt his touch on her skin. It jolted her from darkness and her eyes sprang open as she lurched up gasping for air.
She expected to see Jason over her. She’d heard his voice so clearly, had felt his hand on her.
Yet she was simply staring up at the ceiling.
Sirens blared outside now. Blue light strobed across the hallway. She could hear footsteps rushing, getting louder by the second. Dani pushed herself up onto her elbows. Her head throbbed with pain and confusion.
‘Jason!’
He was still lying on the floor across from her, in a heap, unmoving. No sign of Curtis or Easton.
How long had she been out for?
Dani dragged her body across the floor.
‘Jason, please.’
She was sobbing by the time she reached him.
She put her arm on his shoulder. His T-shirt was thick with dark blood. In fact every inch of him was.
‘Jason?’
She gently shook him, but there was no response. As carefully as she could, she moved him onto his back. His eyes were closed. There was no movement in his chest at all.
Dani heard shuffling up ahead, somewhere outside the open back door. Easton hobbled into view in the kitchen doorway, his face screwed in pain. His eyes met Dani’s. He didn’t even need to say it.
‘I lost him,’ he said. ‘He’s gone.’
And as Dani looked down to Jason, those exact same words took on a whole different meaning.
‘Ma’am, let me see him.’
A calm, female voice. A paramedic rushed to Jason’s side and dropped her weighty bag on to the floor next to him.
‘Is he breathing?’ the paramedic asked in a hurry as she felt around his neck for a pulse.
Dani looked to Jason’s chest again. It remained flat and still, just like the rest of him. As tears flowed Dani said nothing, just slowly and abjectly shook her head.
But then she saw it. Just the tiniest of movements. Not in Jason’s chest, but in the blood around his nostrils that pulsed ever so slightly in and out, the movement almost imperceptible.
Yet it was enough. Enough for hope. Curtis was gone.
But Jason was alive.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Dani hated hospitals. Even before she’d lived in one for over a year following her brain injury, she’d never felt comfortable inside them. Her prerogative was always making sure she got out as speedily as she could. That was particularly the case this time. She, Easton and Jason had all been taken to A&E at nearby Queen Elizabeth Hospital, albeit Jason had been blue-lighted there and Dani hadn’t seen him since. All she’d been told so far was that he’d been rushed straight into theatre.
That had been more than three hours ago.
Easton, with only a gash on his ankle from the knife Curtis had thrown, had already been discharged, but Dani was in a bed and had been through several series of tests already to try to determine the extent of her concussion, her previous history of brain damage meaning she was considered particularly high risk – even more so as she had a history of seizures, which she still took daily medication for, along with the raft of antidepressants.
‘At least you got a bed,’ Easton said as he pulled back the curtain around Dani’s cramped space. He limped over.
‘Take it if you want,’ Dani said, before wincing in pain. The simple act of using her voice caused a tremor-like stabbing at the front of her head.
‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t look too good,’ Easton said.
‘As good as I feel.’
Yet however poorly she felt, she couldn’t think of anything worse than lying there.
‘What news?’ she asked.
‘Nothing,’ Easton said, hanging his head. ‘Maybe if Curtis hadn’t been some bloody knife-throwing circus freak aficionado I would have had a chance to catch up with him. He legged it over the fence, through the next garden onto Ivy Road. He carjacked some poor middle-aged woman.’
‘I meant news on Jason,’ Dani said.
‘Oh. No, sorry.’
‘But carry on.’
‘They found the car just off Bristol Road, a couple of miles away, so he wasn’t in it that long. From there, no one knows. He must have had another vehicle down there or something to have just disappeared like that.’
‘So he’s just vanished without a trace?’
Easton shook his head in despair. ‘It seems that way. Obviously, we can try and track his movements as best we can on CCTV, but for now, we don’t know where he is.’ Easton paused for a few seconds, looking pensive. ‘There’s something else. His dad is missing.’
Dani shuffled up in her bed a little more. ‘Go on.’
‘We sent that request out to other forces earlier today… or was it yesterday? My brain’s all screwed with the time now… what time is it?’
‘Two a.m.’
‘
Yeah, anyway, he wasn’t in his apartment at his place in the Peak District, but they found a lot of blood there.’
‘So Curtis killed him but took the body? That doesn’t match.’
‘No. Like it didn’t match that he killed Oscar who had nothing to do with his trial, and like it didn’t match that he held Sophie hostage.’
And Dani still didn’t like any of those apparent deviations from what otherwise appeared to be a simple case of vengeance. What was going on in Curtis’s mind?
‘I need to get out of here,’ Dani said, raising herself from the bed. Easton reeled back, although he didn’t look particularly surprised.
‘I won’t stop you,’ he said. ‘But are you really sure you’re up to it? I mean, brain injuries and all that. You know more than anyone what it can do to you.’
‘If my brain is more damaged now than before, then what can I do? They’ve given me all the medication they can. But Curtis is still out there, and I’m not going to lie in a bed while he carries on his killing spree.’
‘I get that. But there are other coppers out there who can help to catch him too, you know.’
‘So you’re going to be taking a long holiday now, are you?’
‘I didn’t say that, but, Dani—’
‘Easton, he was going to kill Jason. He could have killed both of us too.’
Easton said nothing to that. He stepped aside, and Dani pulled back the curtain and stumbled out into the ward. She took a few curious glances as she walked along with Easton, most likely because both of them had limps and bloodied clothes, but no one tried to stop them. But Dani wasn’t leaving the hospital yet. She had to find Jason.
The Rules of Murder Page 22