Hell To Pay (Crime Files Book 1)

by Jenny Thomson

  Hell to Pay

  Crime Files, Book One

  By Jenny Thomson

  Hell to Pay

  Copyright © 2015 by Jenny Thomson. All rights reserved.

  First Print Edition, April 2015

  Limitless Publishing, LLC

  Kailua, HI 96734

  www.limitlesspublishing.com

  Formatting, Limitless Publishing

  ISBN-13, 978-1-68058-097-6

  ISBN-10, 1-68058-097-3

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To my mum Rosemary and dad Sam

  for always being there.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  “How deep down do we need to go?”

  He can see her plump silhouette in the torchlight and imagine her tight, frightened face as she speaks. “How the fuck do I know, Maureen? It’s not like I’ve done this before.”

  He instantly regrets biting her head off, but he doesn’t feel well, the sweat’s coming off him in waves, and his heart’s beating so fast a heart attack is a distinct possibility. The last one had very nearly finished him off.

  “You said you knew what you were doing, Willie.”

  She left the part she usually got to about him not having a clue hanging in the air, but he knew it was there. It was always bloody there. He’d spent the last forty-five years pretending not to notice the tone that spoke of umpteen disappointments and things he’d done wrong.

  He carries on digging. His back’s buggered, but he needs to keep on filling the spade with dirt and then dumping it to one side before it gets light and the neighbors start asking questions. He’ll take the soil to the dump later. Much later. The way things were going, he’d need to sleep for a week first.

  The flashlight Maureen’s holding starts to dip; her hands must be cold (she’s always had bad circulation—there was a fancy medical term for it, but he could never remember it). It occurs to him that she might be shaking with fear, and he knows he should tell her that everything’s going to be all right, so he stops for a moment, glad of the rest and props his body against the muddy spade, wiping a dirty hand across his sweaty brow.

  “We’re doing the right thing here. You know that, hen. If the police find it, it’s an automatic five years. He won’t last that long in prison. Not one long stretch. You know that. He’s too damn soft.”

  In the darkness, he hears her crying. “How did it come to this? Where did we go wrong?”

  As he resumes digging, the crunch of the spade on the soil drowns out the sound of her tears.

  ***

  Two Days Later…

  “You know, Nancy, it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile.”

  The workmate who’d kindly pointed that out to her got a two-fingered gesture in return.

  Today had been a right bitch of a day. Nancy frowned, not giving a monkey’s whether it gave her wrinkles. All she wanted to do now was curl up on her parents’ couch, hands curled around a bowl of Mum’s homemade lentil soup, with butterbeans the size of canoes, and listen to the latest gossip as Dad snorted from behind his book.

  The prospect of going home, to her real home, made her want to punch someone. Michael was being a right moody bastard these days, and she wanted to avoid him and his soulless apartment in Glasgow’s West End that she’d stupidly moved into. If he put down one more coaster and warned her once more not to mark his Charles Rennie Mackintosh coffee table, she was going to turn into the Hulk and smash him over the bloody skull with it.

  She pulled up outside the house, relaxing as she took in the view. Little lanterns glowed in the windows, and the Christmas tree—a real one, not one of those “plastic mutants” as her mum called them—was the usual grand affair with twinkling lights and enough tinsel to wrap around the whole of Glasgow. Perched on top was the fairy she’d made when she was six years old; the poor thing was lopsided with a grin that was more troll than fairy, but her mum always insisted on placing it on the tree every year along with Shug’s star. He’d made it when he was seven; probably the last time he’d made his parents proud.

  Nancy trotted up the short gravel path, surprised to find the door ajar. Her parents weren’t usually that careless. No one left their doors open in this city, not unless they wanted their house to be burgled. There were too many thieving scumbags around. She knew that because her brother was one of them, what they called a “career thief.”

  As she strolled down the short hall, she heard drawers being pulled open and cupboard doors being slammed and raised her eyes to the ceiling. Whoop-de-do, she was just in time for her parents to have one of their “I don’t know where it is, you saw it last” arguments. That’s all she needed when she’d come here for some peace and quiet, not their bickering.

  But she couldn’t hear any voices. Something else struck her as odd. She couldn’t hear the TV, either; usually it was blaring away as her parents watched the latest crime drama.

  Something wasn’t right.

  She wanted to leave, to get back in her car and drive. But that was ridiculous. This was her home. Where she’d always been safe.

  “Mum, Dad,” she shouted.

  She expected them to appear at any moment and start arguing with each other about who’d left the front door open.

  She took a few more steps into the living room and walked straight into hell.

  Chapter 1

  I’m cold, colder than I’ve ever been in my entire life, and I don’t know why. Slowly, I open my eyes, tentatively at first because even opening them a fraction feels like someone’s shoving red-hot pins into them. The light is so bright.

  What’s with the light anyway?

  Has Michael wandered in blootered on some poncy new beer and left it switched on after collapsing in a heap onto the bed? I’ll brain him if he has. I’m no good to anyone when I don’t get my eight hours.

  Pulling myself up in bed, I reach out my arm to nudge him awake so I can give him a right mouthful. My hand finds empty space.

  Where is he?

  My eyes sting as I pry them open. It’s as though there’s been an accident with false lashes and I’ve glued my eyelashes together. And, that’s when I realize I�
�m not in our flat. The reason I’m freezing is because I’m wearing a tracing-paper-thin hospital gown—the kind that shows off your backside when you’re being whisked off to x-ray.

  A tidal wave of panic hits me, and I jerk into full consciousness.

  What’s happened to me?

  I try to remember, but my brain’s all bunged up as if the top of my head’s been removed and the cavity’s been filled with cotton wool.

  My arms are bandaged up. Have I been in an accident? If I have, I don’t remember. Maybe I hit my head.

  I take in my surroundings. If I’m in hospital, it’s no ordinary one. For one thing, my room’s more like a cell. There’s a bed and a table bolted to the floor but no personal stuff, photos, cards, or stuffed animals from people wishing me well. Does anyone even know I’m here?

  I grope for a Call button to get a nurse, but there isn’t one. What the hell? This place is a prison.

  Staggering out of bed, I fight the wave of nausea and dizziness that makes me want to yell at the world to stop moving because I want to get off the carousel. The tile floor is stone-cold, and there are no slippers by the bed. My feet are ice blocks. Why don’t I have any socks or tights on?

  Before I reach the door, there’s a jingle of keys, then a key scrapes in the lock. Holding my breath, I brace myself for what’s coming.

  A woman I don’t recognize with brown hair tied back in a ponytail appears. She’s dressed in a nurse’s uniform, and there’s a small smile playing at the edge of her lips.

  “Good, you’re awake, Nancy.”

  She sounds pleased, as if we’re bosom buddies. I’ve never seen her before in my life.

  “Where am I?”

  My voice comes out as a rasp, as though my throat’s been sandpapered down.

  The nurse puts a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s get you back into bed, Nancy.”

  I do as she says, but only because I’m worried if I don’t lie back, I’ll faint.

  “You’re in Parkview Hospital,” she says, fixing the pillows so I can sit upright.

  I know all the hospitals in Glasgow, but I haven’t heard of that one. I ask her what kind of hospital it is, and she tells me it’s a psychiatric facility. Perhaps because it’s full of nutters they want to keep away from society.

  The prospect terrifies me because that would mean they must think I’m crazy. Why else would I be here?

  I suck in my breath. When I ask her if this is a nuthouse, she presses her lips tightly together and tells me no one refers to psychiatric hospitals that way anymore. Suitably chastised, I mumble an apology not because I think one’s needed, but because she’s the one with the keys.

  “Why am I here?”

  I’m dreading the answer, but I need to know. I don’t feel any different. Surely if I’d lost my mind, I’d know.

  “You had a breakdown.”

  The way she says it, she could be talking about the weather.

  She asks me if I want anything. I tell her a pair of proper pajamas, a dressing gown, and slippers would be nice because I’m an ice block. If she gets in touch with my mum, she’ll bring me in some stuff.

  The nurse’s smile is still there, but its breaks down around the corners of her mouth. There’s something she’s not telling me, because she’s worried how I’ll react. There’s fear in her eyes.

  I notice she’s wearing a lucky heather brooch, the same one I got for Mum. I’m staring at it as she tells me she’s going to fetch a doctor, when a memory stirs inside me, and no matter how hard I try to push it away, someone’s taken their finger out the dyke and the water’s rushing in.

  Blood, blood everywhere. Dad’s slumped in his favorite armchair, head bent forwards as if in prayer (he never prayed a day in his life), and a single bullet hole in his head. I know it’s him, even although his face has been beaten to a pulp, his blood staining the fireside rug Mum was so proud of. Even in death, my dad has this presence. He fills a room with the sheer weight of his personality. Discarded nearby is the baseball bat they must have used on him. It’s covered in blood and something sticky and dark brown, resembling raw mince.

  Mum’s sitting at the kitchen table. From an angle, she appears to be sleeping until my eyes are drawn to the bullet hole smack-bang in the middle of her forehead like a third eye. Her eyes stare straight ahead as if she knew what was coming. She saw the gun, felt the terror, but didn’t close her eyes. One arm’s resting on the table, and there’s a smell of burnt flesh.

  I bite back a scream. There are noises coming from upstairs.

  I need to get out of here and drive off until I’m far enough away to phone the police. It’s not safe in this house; the house I grew up in.

  I lunge for the door, but I’m grabbed from behind and slammed against the wall.

  “Not so fast, doll,” a voice says.

  Dazed, I look up and see a fat man in a mask grinning at me. His stinks to the high heavens.

  There are footsteps on the stairs and another voice. “Now what have we got here?”

  This one’s tall, and there’s merriment in this voice as he peers down at me through dishwater-gray eyes. He licks his lips and they glisten like worms. He’s holding a gun. The one he must have used to kill my parents.

  My heart’s hammering away. He’s going to shoot me.

  Worm Lips pokes me in the chest with the gun. It hurts, but I manage to stay quiet.

  I give him a fuck-you stare when he orders me to take off my clothes.

  There’s no way I’m letting that happen to me, not here. He’ll have to shoot me first.

  “Don’t fuck with me, sweetheart.”

  Without warning, he slams his foot into my stomach. His boot connects, and I curl up in the fetal position, screaming with pain as both men hoot with laughter.

  Before I can pull myself to my feet, Fat Man looms over me with a knife in his hand. I can do nothing as he cuts away my clothes.

  In my head, I go somewhere else as they take turns raping me…

  A scream rises in my throat, and I’m back in the hospital. More people have appeared. They hold me down as I try to wriggle free, kicking at them and punching, screaming she-devil style until they pin me down and one, a man in a white coat with a sympathetic smile, injects me with something and the room dissolves…

  Chapter 2

  “The knife. I remember him showing it to me, gloating about having the one from the kitchen drawer. Shoving it right under my nose, the sharp end dragging across my outer lip, as though he was gonna carve me a new smile. He told me he was gonna use it on me. Fuck me with it. My hands were tied behind my back so I couldn’t struggle; my feet were bound so I couldn’t kick him in the balls so he’d crumple and leave me alone. There was nothing I could do.”

  I stop talking because I don’t want to go back there. To be that powerless victim again.

  Dr. Drinkell hands me a box of tissues. There’s a cartoon sheep design on it, as if that will make any difference to how people will feel when they use them to wipe away the snot and tears.

  He straightens up in his chair, builds a pyramid with his hands and rests his chin on it. His motions are so slow and deliberate, I wonder if he’s doing it for dramatic effect. Everything about the man is contrived—he thinks I don’t know this because I don’t have fancy certificates from different universities hanging on my wall in look-at-me frames.

  When he speaks, he has a voice some people might describe as soothing, but which becomes monotonous after dozens of forty-five-minute sessions dissecting things you’d rather stayed buried.

  “How does that make you feel? Knowing there was nothing you could do?”

  I fight the urge to give him the same answer I gave the first time he asked me that months ago—how do you think I feel? But, I’ve gotten past that. At least that’s what I want him to believe because I want out of here.

  Dr. D thinks his treatment’s working if I give him the answers he wants; if I don’t blame myself for what happened. When I do.

&
nbsp; If only I’d been there earlier, maybe I could have saved them.

  Dr. D calls it survivor’s guilt. I call it giving yourself a mental kicking for allowing someone to shit all over you, even though deep down you know there’s nothing you could conceivably have done. Not that knowing that helps, because what happened, happened. No amount of talk therapy can change that or bring them back.

  But I won’t let him know that’s how I still feel, because I’ll do whatever I have to do to get out of here, to protect the illusion his bullshit therapy is working and it’s safe to discharge me.

  Since the police discovered me at my parents’ house all broken and torn inside, blood draining out of me and onto the kitchen linoleum (as I lay there, all I could think was, Mum will never get the bloodstains out, no matter how much she scrubs.), they told me I’ve been unable to function. I’d been nonresponsive to anything or anybody, including Shug, who was given a day pass from prison on compassionate grounds. They said they’d no choice but to section me.

  When they got me to hospital, I’d had to be sedated or I would start screaming, tearing at my own clothes, pulling out my own hair, dragging my nails into my skin until it bled.

  How does it make me feel? I swallow, which isn’t easy to do when your mouth is as dry as an alcoholic in rehab. I don’t need to think too hard to answer his question in an acceptable way, but I want to give the illusion of introspection. That I’ve deliberated and given my answer a great deal of thought when all I’m doing is ticking another box.

  It’s all about ticking boxes in here. Medication. Tick. Therapy. Tick. Socialization—tick. Conning the good doctor. Tick.

  Bullshit, the lot of it. But it keeps Dr. D happy, and it’s keeping him happy that’s going to get me home. Whatever the hell that means. It’s just me and Shug left now, and he’s in Bar-L Prison. I don’t even have a place to stay.