by Ryan Casey
He moved closer to David. The skin of his face was pale and untouched with blood. His lips were sealed and his eyelids had been closed, as if to put him to rest. Brian looked around the room. He could barely breathe, and his pulse was rattling right through his body. He had to phone the police. He had to phone them, right now, and get the hell out of here.
But David had called him. He’d called him several times last night. Oh fuck—maybe that’s what he was calling him about. Maybe he knew he was in danger, or worse, maybe he’d called him in his dying moments. Did that make him partly responsible? Partly guilty?
As he turned around from David Wallson’s static body, he grabbed his phone from his pocket. It was supposed to be his engagement party day, for fuck’s sake. He should’ve just stayed at home, just like Hannah said. At least then he’d have been able to enjoy the night without finding out about this. At least then he’d have one night of normality—one night free of the clutches of this case.
Just as he was about to dial the direct line to Preston Police, something caught his eye over on the kitchen worktop. It was David Wallson’s silver Apple MacBook Pro. The lid was snapped off, and the screen was cracked down the middle. There were blood marks on it, too.
As a long-serving detective, Brian started to build a picture in his head of what might have happened. David Wallson must’ve discovered something. Judging by the number of times he’d called Brian, he had to assume it was related to the Harold Harvey II case.
And then somebody had made sure that information was going to stay under wraps.
One thing was for certain—Darren Anderson was not Harold Harvey II. He couldn’t be. He might’ve aided him in some way, but he was long dead now. Somebody else was pulling the strings. Doing the dirty work.
Brian started shaking as he walked across the room and went through the door, back outside. He couldn’t bear to be in that flat any longer, not with David’s dead body so near. Poor fucker. Poor, poor fucker. He was only trying to do the right thing by himself and his family. He might’ve been a tit sometimes, but it was all in the name of bettering his family’s quality of life.
He closed the door as he left. He squeezed his phone in the middle of his clammy palm, closed his eyes, and took a few deep breaths.
The phone began to vibrate in his hand. He almost jumped out of his skin. For a moment, he thought it must’ve been David Wallson, finally getting back to him, but fuck—what was he thinking? Wallson was dead.
He looked at the screen of his phone, his vision slightly blurred.
Vanessa Mobile.
He let it ring for a few moments. What would V be ringing about? Now wasn’t the time. Now really wasn’t the time.
And she definitely wasn’t getting a wedding invite any time soon.
He answered the call, making a quick break for the gloomy staircase. “Vanessa, now’s not—”
“Brian, it’s…I need to speak…I need to…”
Vanessa was sobbing. Her voice seemed quiet. Subdued.
“Are you…are you okay?” Brian asked, as he stepped back into the echoey, airy reception area. He needed fresh air. Fast.
“Brian…it’s Davey. He was here in the garden this morning and now he—he’s gone. He’s gone and—”
“Wait,” Brian said. Dread punched him square in the gut, as well as a hammer of déjà vu from when Davey had been hurt back when he was on the Watson case. “Gone? What do you—”
“He’s gone, Brian. Somebody took him. Somebody came and they took him and they…they left something. A note. They left a note and I just don’t understand. I don’t…”
As Brian stepped out into the frosty, chilly air, he didn’t get any cooler. His face grew clammier. People rushed past, not wanting to be late back from their lunch breaks, as clouds loomed overhead.
“It’s addressed to—to you, Brian. It’s addressed to you and…and you need to get here. The note says to bring you here before any other police or…or…Please. Please.”
As Brian put the phone down, the first thing he did was try to loosen all his muscles as he walked back up the street and towards the bus stop. He couldn’t handle this if he was tense, or stressed. He wouldn’t be able to think straight. Act straight.
Davey was gone. Davey had been kidnapped.
Harold Harvey II had addressed a letter to him. It was personal after all. Just as he’d suspected.
He called the police. An officer he didn’t recognise answered and took his call. Perhaps he did know them, but he was so zoned out as he waited for the bus that he wouldn’t remember.
“And you say he’s been killed? You found him that way?”
“Yes. You need to get down to that address I gave you now. Check the scene. Scan it for fingerprints and for DNA. The killer has to have left a trace. They have to.” He held his hand out as a silver taxi slowed down. Quicker option than a bus, anyway.
“We’ll need you at the scene, sir. To speak to you about—”
“There’s something else I need to see to.” He climbed into the taxi and threw a twenty-pound note at the driver. “Something really serious I need to see to.”
As the officer on the other end of the line started to protest, Brian cancelled the call.
“Where to, mate?” the Asian taxi driver asked, turning around to look him in the eye. “No sick in my car, by the way.” He pointed at his cheeks, suggesting Brian looked pale. “No sick or thirty pound charge.”
“Just take me to Belmont View. Number Four. Get me there as fast as you fucking can. Now.”
The taxi driver shook his head and tutted. The vehicle came to life.
He still wasn’t sure what the fuck was going on—who the hell was targeting him—but whatever was going on, he had a feeling he was going to find out very soon.
He stared out of the window as the high-rise flats of the city made way for the lower-built buildings in the suburbs.
Davey was gone.
Fuck.
Chapter Twenty Nine
Vanessa lived in a detached house a couple of miles away from Brian’s place. The road was called Belmont View, and it was one of those roads where every house looked identical. That Seventies “new brick” look, white-framed windows and tacky gold handles on the doors. It wasn’t such a bad area to live in—low crime rate, pretty quiet. But Brian had a deep hatred for all things tacky, and this place certainly fit the bill.
He jumped out of the taxi and jogged towards Vanessa’s front door. White. Gold handle. Just like the rest.
Before he could get there, Vanessa opened the door. Her eyes were blotchy and red, and her cheeks were damp. Her bottom lip quivered as she stood in the doorway, staring at Brian. She had something in her hand. An envelope, or a note.
“Have you notified the police?” Brian asked, walking right up to Vanessa. “Have you told anybody?”
Vanessa shook her head and sniffed. She held out the envelope. “I worried. It says…it says that you should open it first or…” She descended into more intense sobbing and turned away from Brian, walking into her house.
Brian stared at the envelope that Vanessa had handed him. It was a creamy white colour, similar to the one that had been posted through his door that Hannah had opened. He flipped it over, still standing in the porch area.
On the front, there was writing. The writing was different to the writing of that poem Hannah and he had received in the post. But it was still in red pen, thick and written with a clear force.
The words were simple. The instructions were simple.
Brian McDone reads this note before the police or your son dies a painful death.
Brian felt like he’d been punched forcefully, right underneath the ribs. He’d said his name. He’d addressed him.
And he had his son.
Brian stepped inside Vanessa’s house. He’d only been in here a few times, but the decor seemed to hav
e changed since his last visit. The carpet was beige. Archaic flowery wallpaper was replaced with a more neutral white.
Still so tacky. So boring.
“Vanessa,” Brian called. He could see her through a door at the end of the hallway, leaning against a silver kitchen sink. He walked in her direction. He figured it was only her in the house, especially as her boyfriend’s car was nowhere to be seen.
Vanessa turned around. She was shaking. “I don’t understand why, Brian. I don’t understand why.”
“Did you see anybody?” Brian asked, as he slipped a note out of the already torn envelope. “Hear anything?”
Vanessa shook her head. Her eyes were wide, filled with guilt. “Davey was playing out in the front. I went to check on him and…and he was gone. Just like that. Have you opened it?”
Brian’s stomach tensed as he unfolded the crinkled note that had come in the envelope. “About to find out. Have you…?”
“No,” Vanessa said. “I opened it and—and I thought about it, but then I couldn’t dare. I didn’t want to risk it.”
Brian nodded. His heart was racing but he was keeping calm in spite of the circumstances. Perhaps it was just a delayed shock reaction. Perhaps in a few moments, he’d fall to his knees in a heap of sorry grief.
But now, he had to see what was inside this note. He had a feeling that if it was addressed to him, he was the key to ending this entire fucked-up situation.
He opened it and let his eyes adjust to the writing.
The note was double-sided. On the side he was looking at, there was a familiar red question mark at the top of the paper, followed by another few lines of “poetry”.
The twelfth little rat that got away,
Spread its germs and lives today.
But no matter how much the little rat run,
One day, today, justice is finally done.
The words sent a shiver across Brian’s skin. He’d contacted David Wallson about the potential that one of the twelve supposedly murdered witches might have got away. It matched the sudden stopping of killings at eleven. It potentially explained David Wallson’s death. He must have found something. An answer that cost him his life.
But still, what did any of it have to do with Brian?
He flipped the note over. Vanessa stared at him, looking for a hint of change in his emotions. She didn’t speak. She just left him to it.
The second side of the note made Brian feel queasy upon seeing it. Again, it was headed by the familiar blood red question mark, but underneath, in the place of the usual lines of poetry, there was a note. A comprehensive note.
Brian McDone,
I hope it’s you reading this. If it’s not then I’ll know soon.
You have chased and chased but now’s the time for us to both meet our maker. I’m exhausted. But thrilled with how this has gone. So thrilled.
I sense you’re so close to understanding. And that’s why it’s time to make a choice.
The same choice Harold Harvey was forced to make by that filthy little rat fuck cunt fuck scum.
I have your boy. I also have your fiancé. If you don’t come to the place where the streaker washes by 2 p.m.—alone—both die.
Come.
Make your choice.
H.H.
Brian held the note completely still. He was still trying to process it all in his mind. His throat tightened up. His muscles were all completely rigid, in fact.
I have your boy. I also have your fiancé.
Hannah. They had Hannah too. Fuck. Fuck. This couldn’t be possible. It couldn’t be for real.
Come. Make your choice.
But what choice? A choice between the two people in his life he loved most? A choice of who lived and who—
No. He couldn’t think like that. He had to be rational. He had to think.
“Brian?” Vanessa’s voice sounded echoey. Distant. “Are you okay? What are we going to do?”
Brian stared into Vanessa’s reddened eyes. He shook his head. It was all he could do. All he could manage to do. There was so much in the letter that brought him crashing down to earth. So much that, even though he didn’t understand it at all, was starting to piece itself together.
If you don’t come to the place where the streaker washes by 2 p.m.—alone—both die.
He looked at his watch—12 p.m. He had two hours to save his family. His first instinct was to call the police. To call for backup.
Then again, the “alone” was rather emphasised in the note. He dreaded to think what this kidnapper might do if he didn’t comply. What he might do to his fiancé, on the day of their engagement party.
To his son.
“I need to borrow your car,” Brian said. He turned away from Vanessa and made a break for the door, which was still partly open.
Vanessa grabbed Brian’s arm as he walked away. “You can’t just walk off like that without telling me what the fuck’s going on. Brian, it’s our son. Our son is—”
“He’s got my fiancé, too. He’s got them both and if I don’t get to his location in the next two hours, on my own, both are going to die.” He held up the note for Vanessa to read. As she read, her face grew paler and paler.
“The…The place where the streaker washes…But where is that?”
Hearing Vanessa say it out loud made a wave of nausea wash up Brian’s esophagus. There was only one person who he’d joked with about that location. “The streaker’s washpit,” they’d once called it, amongst other things. He knew exactly where it was by the description.
And he knew exactly who had written it by the description.
Vanessa handed him the keys to her green Honda. “I’m worried, Brian. I don’t want to lose you too. I don’t want to—to—”
“If you don’t hear from me in the next hour, you call the police and you get them down to Mason’s Wood. Northern section, near the disused care home.” He pecked her on the cheek, then stepped out of the house and into the cold air.
“What is this about, Brian?” Vanessa asked, as he unlocked the car and opened the door to the driver’s seat. “Who is doing this to us?”
As he sat in the car, Brian pondered Vanessa’s question.
He didn’t want to answer it. Answering it would only make the whole situation all the more real, yet all the more absurd.
He nodded at Vanessa as he reversed out of her smoothly tarmacked driveway and headed up to the main road, Lightfoot Lane.
He had two hours to save his son and his fiancé, and even though he knew that was the situation now, he still had no idea what any of this was about.
Only “who” this was about.
And even that was beyond comprehension.
Chapter Thirty
The place where the streaker washes.
If Brian had known his life was going to reach a huge, course-turning point at this place some time ago, he might’ve just quit life altogether. The place where the streaker washes. How fucking ridiculous.
And yet, how very typical, that it should all come to this.
He pulled up in the embankment at the side of Sharoe Green Lane. There was a large hill that formed in the middle of the road. A cyclist struggled to get up it, huffing and puffing as she worked her chubby thighs. After a few moments of effort, redder in the face than ever, she gave up. They always gave up.
Brian headed towards the entrance of Mason’s Wood. The grass had grown out of control, untouched from summer, freshened by rain right through the autumn. To his left, there was a concrete path that led back up to the roadside. This wasn’t a pavement that anybody typically wanted to find themselves on. It was dangerous—especially in the dark, as gangs of hooded youths hung out here.
But he needed to be on this side, because what he was waiting for was in these woods.
His heart raced as he stepped onto the grass, spongy beneath his feet. He squinted into the distance. He could see the stream steadil
y running. A wooden footbridge led to the other side—more leafless trees, more dirt and more stones. If he walked straight on, he should reach the point he needed to reach. The point he’d been directed to reach.
The place where the streaker washes.
He eased himself down the side of the hill. The smell of damp mud was ripe in the air, as well as the sour smell of a kind of flower that Brian had never been interested enough to find the name of. He caught a glance of his watch. Twelve-thirty. An hour and a half. He had plenty of time to get to where he needed to be. He had plenty of time to save Davey. Hannah.
He hoped.
When he reached the bottom of the hill, he crossed the rickety wooden footbridge, which was lathered with green graffiti. He’d tried calling Hannah on the drive down here, just to be sure that the killer wasn’t bluffing. She hadn’t answered.
In a strange, twisted sort of way, this whole situation was beginning to make a lot more sense by not making any sense whatsoever.
The place where the streaker washes.
He knew exactly where the place was. He walked further across the path and took a left. If he walked quickly, he could be there in a matter of minutes.
The trees felt like they were surrounding him, closing out any daylight. They were like long, spindly fingers in the clouding sky above, getting ready to reach down and pluck him up.
He just had to get to the abandoned care home. Once he got there—once he finally knew what the hell was going on—he’d be out of his misery.
The wind kicked up a flurry of fallen leaves up ahead of him. The movement made him jump. He thought he heard something over his shoulder, behind him. Voices. He turned around and saw two golfers walking along, white caps on their heads, golf bags over his shoulder. Of course. The other route led down to a golf course. He needed to chill out. To focus.
As he turned around, he noticed something up ahead in the distance. It caught him by surprise at first, so obvious and in plain sight. The moss-covered brick walls, falling to bits. The cracked, stain-glassed windows. The overgrown garden.