Untangling himself, he rolled the teen over and pulled her towards him. “That was really – fucking – stupid.” He punctuated each word with a punch that threatened to dislodge Daisy’s teeth. “You had to make things worse, didn’ you.” He continued to berate her between blows until he was out of breath and his knuckles were beginning to get sore, at which point he got to his feet. After several long moments, during which he regained his breath, he bent to grab Daisy’s foot, so he could drag her into the farmhouse.
30
A little out of breath after running up the road Tara hurried across the yard to the house. She was late home, and dreaded what her father was going to say; she was too old to be spanked, but that was only a small consolation. She hadn’t meant to be late, if it hadn’t been for her friend distracting her with videos on Youtube when she was about to leave, she would have been home on time.
All thought of the punishment she might receive was driven from her mind when she pushed open the door, which stood ajar and a cloud of thick black smoke billowed out to engulf her. She stumbled away, choking, until she found fresh air and could breathe again.
It took her a short while to recover enough to wonder what was going on, and once she did she cautiously approached the door; the worst of the smoke had cleared, but she still felt her throat close up as she stepped over the threshold and started down the passage.
“Em. Em. Emily!” Tara called out as she headed along the passage to the kitchen. She realised before she got to the kitchen that the smoke was coming from the dinner Emily was supposed to have been cooking; how the dinner came to be burned, she didn’t know, but she was certain it meant Emily was going to be the one in trouble, not her.
There was no response from Emily by the time she got to the kitchen, and no sign of her dad. Tara’s first thought was to go looking for them; she resisted that instinct, however, realising that it was more important to deal with the situation in the kitchen.
She paused long enough to collect the fire extinguisher from the cupboard under the stairs, and then she entered the kitchen with her breath held to avoid choking. The smoke made her blink rapidly, but she found her way to the stove, and once there she put the fire extinguisher down – there were no flames for her to deal with just then.
Since there was no fire, she focused instead on the smoke. Grabbing the pans off the top of the stove, she carried them to the sink, where she turned on the cold tap to douse the contents – at one time it might have been described as food, but that was no longer the case. That done, she returned to the stove.
She groped through the smoke until she had turned off all the hobs, and the oven, and found the oven-gloves. As ready as she was going to get, she pulled open the oven door, releasing a fresh cloud of smoke that threatened to choke her, and reached in for the roasting pans. She dumped them in the sink with the other pans, and with that done she yanked open the back door so she could make for fresh air.
Tara remained outside until the last of the smoke had cleared, returning to the kitchen to turn off the water before the sink could overflow and flood the kitchen when it was safe. The last thing she needed was more mess, even if she wasn’t responsible for the state the kitchen was in, and had no intention of being the one to clean it up. Once the water had stopped, she checked the oven to be sure it was out and there was no fire to be dealt with – there wasn’t, thankfully – and went in search of her sister.
As she headed nervously up the stairs, afraid of what she was going to find – she knew that something had to have happened for Emily to have let the dinner burn – Tara took out her phone to call her dad.
“Where are you, daddy?” she wanted to know, almost sobbing into the phone, when it had reached the answer phone for the second time. “Why aren’t you answering. I need you. I think something’s happened to Emily; the dinner’s been burned and…and…” Her voice stumbled when she reached the top of the stairs and she saw the mess that had been the door to her sister’s bedroom. “I’m s-scared d-daddy,” she stammered as she edged towards her sister’s bedroom; she wanted to turn and run down the stairs and out of the house but she couldn’t, she had to know if Emily was there. “Emily’s door’s broken.”
She saw the messed-up quilt straight away but wasn’t troubled by that. It wasn’t until she reached the end of the bed and saw that Emily was not in the room, and that there was blood – her brain leapt to an answer for what the red stuff was – on the bedside cabinet that she lost control of herself. Screaming, she fled the room with such haste that she tripped when halfway down the stairs and fell the rest of the way. Bruised and shaken, but somehow still in possession of her faculties and her phone, Tara got to her feet so she could run from the house; she had always felt safe and secure at home, but now she felt scared to be there.
She wanted to keep running, across the yard, out the gate, and down the road, but she forced herself to stop in the yard so she could call for help – not from her father, since he was clearly not answering his phone.
31
Glen Wright was surprised and alarmed to find both of Oakhurst’s patrol cars in the yard outside his house when he got home. He brought his Land Rover to a stop and threw open the door, almost falling out of the vehicle in his haste; once on his feet he ran across the yard and into the house – the front door was already open, so he didn’t have to waste time fumbling for his keys, but that only made him more concerned.
“Emily, Tara,” he called out as he started down the passage. He stopped almost immediately as he caught sight of his youngest daughter out the corner of his eye. “Tara, what’s going on?” he asked as he strode across the living room to the sofa, where the fourteen-year-old was sitting with Melissa.
“Where were you, daddy?” Tara asked in a desperate voice. She was torn between the urge to leap to her feet and throw herself into her father’s arms, and the desire to remain where she was on the sofa, where she had been made to feel safe by Melissa. In the end she stayed where she was; the distress she felt at her failure to get hold of her father kept her from going to him. “I called and called, but you didn’t answer. Where were you. I needed you!”
“I’m sorry, honey,” Glen apologised, pulling his daughter up and into his arms so he could comfort her. “But you know how I am with that damned phone – if I’m not right there when it rings, I don’t have a clue that anyone’s tried to call me. Are you alright?”
“I-I guess so, d-daddy,” Tara half sobbed into her father’s chest. “I just got really scared when you didn’t answer.”
“What scared you? What’s going on, Lewis, and where’s Emily?” Glen asked over his daughter’s head. “She should be home, and dinner should be ready to go on the table.” He sniffed at the air, as though searching for some sign of the dinner he was expecting. “All I can smell is something burned.”
“We don’t know for sure what’s happened yet, but if you’ll come with me. I’ll tell you what I know,” Mitchell said. “Would you stay here and look after Tara a little longer?” he asked of Melissa.
Mitchell led his friend from the living room and down the passage to the kitchen; only when they reached the smoke-blackened room did he speak, and then it was in response to a question from Glen.
“What the hell happened here?” Glen wanted to know. He crossed to the sink to look down on the pots and pans encrusted with food that was too far gone to even be called well done; he knew straight away that it should have been the dinner he had spent all afternoon looking forward to.
“We don’t know,” Mitchell said. “But I’ll tell you what I do know. Tara came home a little after six and found the dinner burned; she did the right thing and got the stove turned off and the pans in the sink, and she opened the back door to get rid of the smoke. Once she did that she tried calling you while she looked for her sister.” He led the way back down the passage and started up the stairs. “She found the door to Emily’s room busted, as you can see.” He had to hurriedly put out a hand to sto
p Glen before he could rush into his eldest daughter’s bedroom. “Emily isn’t in there; we don’t know where she is. It looks – I’m really sorry – but it looks as though she’s been kidnapped. We’ve got the room sealed off, so the forensics people can make an examination of it when they get here; in the meantime, we’re trying to work out who could have taken her, and where.”
“What the hell d’you mean you’re trying to work out who took her?” Glen demanded angrily, his gaze moving between Mitchell and the broken mess that was all that remained of his daughter’s bedroom door. “You know who did it, that maniac down the road, the one you let go. If you’d kept him locked up, like you should have, he wouldn’t have been able to hurt my Emily. I blame you for this.” In his anger he seemed to grow, until he loomed menacingly over Mitchell.
Mitchell opened his mouth to protest, but could not get any words out because he agreed with Glen, up to a point, the point where he was supposed to take the blame for Zack Wild being released. He could not deny that if Wild had remained locked up, Emily would almost certainly not have gone missing, but he disagreed with the idea that he was responsible for Wild being released – that was solely down to Wild’s solicitor as far as he was concerned.
“I didn’t want to let him go,” he said once he was able to speak. “I didn’t have a choice. If I hadn’t released him, his solicitor would have had my job. Don’t worry, I’ll get Emily back.”
Glen ignored Mitchell’s efforts to reassure him, and instead glowered angrily at the older man. “You’d better get her back, quick, and unharmed, and you’d better put him away where he belongs, so he can’t hurt anyone else. If you don’t…” He didn’t get a chance to finish his threat, for just then Kieran came through the front door.
“What’s going on, dad?” Kieran called out in a worried voice.
“It’s your sister,” Glen told his son as he slowly descended the stairs. “It looks as though Emily’s been kidnapped by that sick bastard down the road.”
“What is it, Kieran?” Glen asked, seeing the concerned look on his son’s face. “What’s the matter?”
Hesitantly, Kieran said, “I saw him, Wild, earlier, he was here with Emily.”
“What do you mean?” Glen demanded.
“I saw him. My bloody car broke down, again, and I had to come back for a part; I was in the shed when a car pulled into the yard, and when I looked out I saw his car, you know, that Land Rover he’s got that looks like mine; he wasn’t alone, though, Em was with him. I was about to go out and confront him when…when…” Kieran’s voice tailed off until he was prompted.
“When what, Kieran?” Glen asked of his son.
“When Emily kissed him,” Kieran said. “I was so surprised I just sort of froze where I was. I thought at first he’d made a move on her, was about to attack her or something, then I realised she wasn’t objecting to what was happening, wasn’t trying to stop it. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. By the time I recovered and grabbed a wrench so I could sort him, Em was out of the car and in the house, and he was heading out of the yard and down the road.”
“So you did nothing, while the monster who killed your girlfriend and your ex attacked your sister. What the hell kind of brother are you?” Glen wanted to know.
He glowered so angrily that Mitchell felt it prudent to place himself between father and son to keep Glen from doing something he might regret later.
“You should have protected your sister,” Glen said, fighting the urge to push past Mitchell and attack his son.
“I thought she was alright,” Kieran protested. “She was in the house, and he was gone. I was gonna tell you first chance I got. I wanted to confront Em about what I’d seen, her kissing that sick bastard – I don’t know how she could do it, when I know she knows what he did to Georgie and Lucy, but you know how she is, she’d never have listened to me.
“Since I knew she’d just tell me to mind my own bloody business, I went to get my car so I could come back and tell you everything. It took longer to get the damned thing going than I expected.” His face fell in an expression of horrified dismay then. “It’s all my fault. He must have realised I was there or something, waited ‘til I left, then come back. It’s my fault Em was attacked,” he all but wailed. “If I’d just forgotten about my car and stayed here, I could have protected her, kept her safe from that maniac; she’d still be here, and he’d be in handcuffs or hospital, where he couldn’t hurt anyone else.”
“It’s not your fault,” Glen said, reversing his accusation of just a minute ago. “You thought Emily was alright. It’s his.” He rounded on Mitchell, who retreated quickly from the anger that radiated from every pore of the younger man’s body. “He had that sick sonofabitch in custody, he had him in a cell; he knew what that bastard did to Georgina and Lucy, he arrested him for it, and then he let him go.”
“It’s not my fault,” Mitchell protested. “I didn’t want to let him go, I had no choice, his lawyer forced me to – I didn’t have enough evidence to charge him. If I hadn’t released him, she’d have had me fired.”
“You let him go, and now he’s grabbed my Emily,” Glen snarled. “If he’s hurt her, I’ll kill him.”
“You can’t talk like that, Glen,” Mitchell cautioned his friend.
“I’ll talk any way I bloody well want,” Glen said angrily. “Especially in my own home. Either you get my Emily back safely, and deal with that perverted murdering bastard, or I will. If I have to deal with him, there’s no way in hell he’s ever gonna be able to hurt anyone again.”
32
Isobel could only stare when she saw the state of her client. She had gotten the impression that something wasn’t right when she spoke to him on the phone, but she hadn’t expected what she was seeing.
“Jesus!” she said finally. “What the hell happened to you? You look as though you’ve gone twelve rounds with Mike Tyson.”
“I wish,” Zack said through gritted teeth. “At least then I’d feel better about being in this kind of shape.” Limping around the table, he settled onto the seat next to his solicitor. “Sergeant Mitchell and his constables were a little overzealous when they came to arrest me.”
“A little overzealous.” Isobel couldn’t keep her incredulity from her voice. “This is more than just someone being a little overzealous,” she said. “You were a detective; you know how bad this is. It’s assault, Zack, they assaulted you, and if the way you’re moving is anything to go by, quite badly. Look at you, they’ve broken your nose, blacked both your eyes – you can barely see; you’ve got a split lip, a cut on your forehead and your cheek, and that’s just what I can see. And your arm’s bleeding, you must have pulled at least one of your stitches.
“This is disgraceful. We’re going to sue them over this, they’re not getting away with it.”
Zack shook his head, slowly to try and minimise the pain the movement caused. “I don’t want to do that,” he said. “Suing will just cause more hassle, and I’ve had enough of that the last couple of days. I just want to put all of this behind me as quickly as possible, so I can move on.”
“And just how do you expect to manage that?” Isobel wanted to know. “This sergeant has made it pretty clear he thinks you’re guilty of the murders he’s investigating – if you can call what he’s doing investigating – and whatever else has happened; which is what? You didn’t say when you called, just that you’d been arrested again.”
“I didn’t tell you because I don’t know myself,” Zack told her. “All I got was a demand to know where a girl was; I don’t have a clue what girl they were talking about, let alone what I’m supposed to have done with her.”
Isobel’s sense of outrage over the treatment of her friend increased. “Are you trying to tell me that not only were you assaulted, they didn’t tell you why you were being arrested?”
“Yes, but let’s not make a fuss about it, all I want is to get this interview done, get home, and take as many painkillers as possible.�
�
“You can’t just let this slide, Zack; that sergeant is a menace, and given how unwilling he is to even consider the possibility that someone else is responsible for the murders, he’s never going to find the real killer until he’s forced to back off from you,” Isobel said. She couldn’t understand why he wasn’t more interested in punishing the prejudiced sergeant, he was not normally so passive. “Not only that, but you need to go to the hospital and get checked out; who knows how bad your injuries are.”
The two of them argued back and forth about what they were going to do for several minutes, before finally coming to an agreement, at which point Isobel called for Sergeant Mitchell.
“Are you ready to get this interview started?” Mitchell asked the moment he entered the interview room.
“If I had my way, no,” Isobel said bluntly, seeing no reason to sugar-coat her words. “My client wishes to get the interview over and done with, however. Before we start, I wish to make it clear how unhappy I am with the treatment he has received at the hands of you and your officers; it is nothing less than appalling, and I can assure you I will be registering a complaint at the highest level possible – not only was my client physically assaulted during your ham-fisted arrest of him, he was prevented from making the phone call he is legally permitted for over an hour, he has not been told why he was arrested, and, worst of all, he has not been seen by a doctor. He could be suffering from internal injuries for all we know.”
“The doctor is busy,” Mitchell said sharply, not at all happy with the way he was being spoken to. “He is dealing with the family of the girl your client kidnapped, and has most likely murdered. As for the suggestion that your client was assaulted, that’s utter nonsense – he resisted arrest, and my officers had to use force to restrain him.”
Written In Blood Page 18