The Hanged Man

by Simon Kernick

  Tina turned round just as something slammed hard into her face, sending her reeling.

  Sixty-two

  Dazed, and with her face stinging ferociously, Tina rubbed her eyes and rolled over on to her back, keeping her knees up in a defensive posture as she tried to identify this new threat.

  The young woman she’d seen talking with Anthea at dinner – Katy, Anthea had called her – was standing above her holding a frying pan in one hand and the pistol in the other. Worryingly, her hands weren’t shaking as she glared down at Tina.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ she said in a small but determined voice.

  ‘These people, Mrs Delbarto and that man, they mean you harm,’ said Tina, sitting up.

  ‘No they don’t. You’re the one who’s trespassing.’

  She unlocked the door and pulled the bolt back, still keeping the gun trained on Tina.

  Tina considered jumping up and trying to wrestle the gun from her but dismissed the idea as too risky. This young woman had already shown she was perfectly capable of violence, and the gun could easily go off accidentally before Tina got to it, so she continued down the persuasion route.

  ‘Listen to me, Katy. The man who’s just arrived here is a murderer. That’s why he brought a pistol with him. There’s no innocent explanation for that.’

  ‘How do you know my name?’ she asked, keeping her grip on the door handle but not opening it.

  ‘I’m a private detective. My name’s Tina Boyd. I’m investigating Mrs Delbarto’s part in the Bone Field murders.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Don’t you remember the police coming to see Mrs Delbarto yesterday? They’re investigating the murder of a girl who stayed here twelve years ago, and whose remains have been found in the Bone Field. Her name was Tracey Burn. Mrs Delbarto set her up.’

  Katy’s expression became confused. It was clear she now had doubts. She looked down at the gun, with its long, cigar-shaped suppressor, like something out of a movie, and Tina pressed her advantage.

  ‘You’re in great danger here, Katy. You’re being groomed. Have you ever seen what’s in the basement? That should give you a real clue about the kind of woman Anthea Delbarto is.’

  There was a noise from inside the cellar and the door was pushed open. Anthea appeared, her face covered in blood. ‘Help me, Katy,’ she said, staggering out into the hall. ‘This woman is trying to kill me.’

  Katy immediately looked concerned. ‘God, are you OK, Anthea? What’s she done?’ She turned and glared at Tina, her grip tightening on the gun.

  At the same time, the old man known as Mr Bone appeared in the doorway and stepped out into the hall. Katy instinctively moved away from him, still keeping the gun pointed in Tina’s general direction.

  ‘It’s OK, honey,’ said Anthea. ‘This man is my friend. He’s a police officer. Please give him the gun.’

  ‘He’s not a police officer,’ said Tina. ‘He’s too old for a start, and police officers don’t carry guns like that.’

  ‘This woman is a liar and a thief,’ continued Anthea. ‘She broke in here tonight. Please, Katy. Give him the gun.’

  ‘Look in the basement, Katy,’ said Tina, knowing she was arguing for her life here.

  Mr Bone smiled at Katy, and took a step towards her. ‘Please. May I have it? That thing is dangerous in your hands. It may go off and hurt someone.’ His voice was strangely soothing, and even though his face was beaten and bloodied, it seemed to have lost its predatory air. Now he looked like a harmless old man. Even his smile seemed genuine.

  Tina tensed, and pushed her palms against the floor for leverage, knowing this was going to be her last chance to fight.

  But Anthea saw what she was doing. ‘Watch it, she’s going to try to go for the gun.’

  This seemed to tip things for Katy who placed the gun in Mr Bone’s hand.

  Quick as a flash, the smiling-old-man act was gone.

  ‘Thank you, my dear,’ he said to Katy, his bloodshot eye gleaming with malice as he shot her once in the side of the head.

  For a long second Katy simply stood where she was. A thin line of blood ran down her temple and on to her cheek like a thick tear, then she crumpled silently to the floor.

  ‘Grab a towel and wrap it round her head to stop the bleeding,’ Bone told Anthea as he pointed the gun at Tina. ‘Who else knows you’re here?’ he asked.

  Tina swallowed hard. Katy lay at her feet, her eyes closed now, blood dripping from her head wound on to the marble floor. Just one shot and Tina too would be gone, and all her dreams of love, children and domestic bliss would die along with her. She wondered how close Ray was, but however close it was, it was never going to be enough.

  ‘Ray Mason knows,’ she said, hoping this information might keep her alive a few minutes longer.

  ‘I thought he might. I saw him earlier.’ A thin smile crossed his lips. ‘I have unfinished business with him, just as I have unfinished business with you. Give me your phone.’

  Slowly, Tina reached into her pocket, unable to take her eyes off Katy as Anthea crouched down and wrapped a white towel round her head.

  ‘What a terrible waste,’ said Anthea as she stood back up. ‘And we’re going to get a lot of questions about this.’

  ‘We’ll get rid of the body as we always do,’ said Bone. He gestured to Tina. ‘Throw the phone to my feet.’

  She leaned forward and threw the phone across to him.

  Watching her carefully, he picked it up. ‘What’s the pass code?’

  She had no choice. Every delay kept her alive a little bit longer. She told him.

  He scanned the phone and smiled. ‘It seems the white knight is on his way here to rescue his damsel. We must prepare. Would you bring me one of the sacrificial knives from the basement, Anthea? Pick the biggest. It’s time to clip this one’s wings while her boyfriend listens in.’

  ‘With pleasure,’ said Anthea, stepping away from Katy’s corpse. As she came close to Tina, she spat in her face.

  The key method of surviving life-or-death situations is the ability to grab your chances with the minimum of delay when they present themselves, however small they might appear. Tina had survived a number of life-or-death situations and she knew this lesson all too well. When Anthea leaned down to spit on her, she came just a little bit too close, and Tina grabbed her leg and pulled as hard as she could. The movement sent Anthea completely off balance and she fell backwards into Bone. The two of them stumbled together, and Bone went down on one knee.

  This time, rather than try to disarm him, Tina scrambled to her feet and bolted down the hall towards the back of the house. A shot rang out with a loud pop and she heard something ricochet off the wall in front of her, but she kept going into a large, beautifully appointed lounge with a pair of glass doors leading out on to the terrace where earlier Anthea and Katy had been eating dinner.

  Tina ran over to the doors and tried to fling them open. They were locked. She looked down. There was no key in them either. She took a step back and kicked as hard as she could. The doors rattled but held.

  She took three steps back this time. She could hear footsteps coming down the hallway fast and the sound of heavy breathing. Bone was coming for her. And then he was in the doorway, crouching down to aim the gun at her, holding it in both hands, his open eye alive with rage.

  Tina charged the doors, shoulder first, diving into them with all the force she could muster. This time they burst open, and she crashed through them, hitting the ground hard. She rolled over, leaped to her feet, and vaulted a small adjoining wall before taking off along the grass, moving so fast that she tripped in the darkness and fell forward into the grass. In the henhouse in front of her the chickens started clucking ferociously.

  Panting, she took a look over her shoulder, and her heart plummeted. Coming across the garden towards her like some demon out of a nightmare who can’t be shaken off came Bone, his battered face deathly pale in the light of the moon. />
  It was over.

  Sixty-three

  I was moving towards Anthea Delbarto’s front gate carrying a portable stepladder I’d spotted in the bushes (and which I assumed belonged to Tina) when I heard the sound of doors crashing open.

  Ignoring Manning’s protestations, I’d driven there as fast as I could and parked the car down a lane about a hundred metres away, telling him to stay put and not move. Again he’d protested so I’d taken the keys with me just in case. My plan had been to sneak into the house, threaten anyone I came across with my empty pistol, and free Tina from the basement under the stairs.

  That plan had lasted right up until the moment I saw the black SUV with the shattered window parked in the driveway, which was when I knew that Mr Bone was here, and that Tina was either dead or in great danger.

  The sound of the crashing doors told me it was the latter and, propelled by a new sense of urgency, I climbed the stepladder, got a foot between two of the spikes topping the gate, grabbed hold of two other spikes with my hands and launched myself over, somehow managing to land on my feet as Tina came running into view round the side of the house. I pulled out my empty gun and ran towards her, the gravel beneath my feet turning to grass as I ate up the ground. She hadn’t seen me, and just as I was about to yell out, she fell, turning back towards the house as she did so, her face a mask of fear.

  Almost immediately Mr Bone appeared, marching towards her, gun outstretched. He looked dishevelled, and he wasn’t entirely steady on his feet, but none of that mattered because in a few seconds he’d be close enough to Tina that he couldn’t miss.

  Crucially he hadn’t seen me, and I kept running towards him.

  He lifted the gun for a headshot, then stopped, sensing my presence.

  Five yards separated us. I stopped running and pointed my empty gun at his chest. ‘Drop the weapon or I’ll kill you,’ I told him, keeping my hands steady, surprised at the confidence in my own voice.

  He kept the gun trained on Tina but looked at me with something close to amusement. ‘I have nothing to live for,’ he said. ‘But you do. You care for her. I can see that. So why don’t you drop the gun if you want her to live?’

  I didn’t move. ‘You know I’ll kill you.’

  ‘Then why don’t you?’

  ‘I want answers first.’

  ‘You won’t get any. I have no desire to talk to you. Now drop the gun or I kill her.’

  ‘Shoot him, Ray,’ said Tina, and I was proud of the strength in her voice. But I doubted she’d have felt so confident if she’d known that my gun wasn’t loaded. It was taking all my self-control to keep up the act and not let fear get the better of me.

  ‘Last chance,’ said Mr Bone. ‘Put down the gun or I kill her.’

  ‘Don’t put down the gun, Ray. He’ll kill us both.’

  She was right. He would. But still I didn’t move.

  We stared at each other, each waiting for the other to break.

  It was Tina who moved first. As Bone concentrated his gaze on me, she rolled round, leaped to her feet and sprinted into the darkness.

  Bone turned round, followed her with his eyes and pulled the trigger just as I jumped into him, driving my head into his with such force that the gun flew out of his hand as he went straight down.

  I stayed on my feet and grabbed the gun, turning it on Bone, who lay dazed on the ground, before looking round for Tina.

  She was lying on the ground, and I felt a leaden sense of terror at the prospect that she’d been killed. But then, slowly, she got to her feet and came over to me.

  ‘I’m OK,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry.’

  I wanted to take her in my arms and kiss her but knew I couldn’t.

  ‘It’s not a time for celebration yet,’ Tina said, as if she could read my thoughts. ‘Katy’s dead and Anthea Delbarto’s still inside. And he’s still alive.’ She pointed towards where Mr Bone was lying on his back, his head rolling from side to side. He was in a bad way but still conscious. ‘I’ll guard the front in case Anthea tries to get out that way.’

  Before I could say anything, Tina walked away towards the front of the house. I knew she was doing this to leave me alone with Mr Bone. She knew what was going to happen. So did I.

  I ejected the magazine on his pistol and checked the number of rounds. There were four. I reloaded it and walked over, pointing the gun down at him.

  He looked back at me with a defiant expression. ‘I told you, I’m not giving you any answers.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’ll find them while you’re rotting in hell. This is for my friend. For Dan.’

  For just a moment, the defiance left his eyes and I saw fear. Fear of the abyss he was staring into. The same fear that I had no doubt had been in the eyes of so many of his victims, including Dana Brennan. I thought of the picture in my wallet of the young, smiling girl who’d had her whole life ahead of her. But I was no longer angry. Instead I felt a real sense of inner peace, a sure knowledge that I was doing the right thing, as I shot him once between the eyes and watched him die.

  The night was warm and silent as I walked towards the back of the house. In the last hour I’d broken a dozen laws, and now I’d killed in cold blood. I should have stopped then. Left this place with Tina, headed home, and trusted that somehow no one would link me to the trail of bloodshed I was leaving behind.

  But I didn’t. It was almost as if I’d reverted to the frightened little boy who’d watched his whole family die, except this time I was fighting back. Because one way or another, these people – Mr Bone, Anthea Delbarto, even Cem Kalaman and the Sheridans – were all responsible for the loss I’d suffered all those years ago, and which I’d never managed to get over.

  The doors to the living room were still wide open as I approached them across the terrace where yesterday Dan and I had sat interviewing the lady of the house as she pretended to help us.

  I went in carefully, keeping a firm grip on the pistol as I looked around, conscious that she might attempt to ambush me.

  The living room was empty, but as I walked into the hall I saw Anthea Delbarto standing near the body of a woman in a short summer dress with a blood-drenched towel wrapped round her head. She had a bloodied face and a phone in her hand, and she was watching me with a confidence that instantly put me on the defensive.

  ‘I’ve called the police,’ she told me. ‘They’ll be here very soon. If I were you, I would leave now while you still can.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ I said, calling her bluff. ‘We’ll wait together. You’ve got some big questions to answer.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘You came here and shot the man outside – a man I don’t know. I even managed to film it on here’ – she waved the phone in her hand at me – ‘and, before you take the phone, it’s already uploaded to the internet. You also killed Katy, a young woman who’d been living with me. In fact, your prints are all over the murder weapon. I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong.’

  I pointed the gun at her, trying to keep the sense of defeat off my face because she’d caught me out, and she knew it. I heard movement and turned to see Tina come into the hall behind me. I saw she was bleeding from a head wound, and I felt a real urge to hold her.

  ‘Do you think I’ve survived this long by being a fool, Mr Mason? The police won’t believe a word of your story, or Miss Boyd’s. You came here making false accusations. You then committed two murders, one on film. I’m innocent. You’re the guilty one. You always have been. But you can explain all that to the police when they arrive. The operator told me they’ll be here in a few minutes. They’re sending armed units from Salisbury and they would be scrambling a helicopter except they’ve been rather busy at a nature reserve south of here. Perhaps you can explain to them what you were doing there as well.’

  I didn’t say anything for a moment as I tried to work out how I could salvage this situation. It didn’t take me long to realize I couldn’t. I was finished. It was as simple as that.


  So I made a decision. ‘Tina,’ I said, without looking over my shoulder, ‘Hugh Manning is parked in my car a hundred metres to the left of the bottom of the front drive. Take him back to your car then deliver him to whichever police officer you trust the most. No one will ever know you were here, I promise you that. Go now.’

  ‘What the hell are you going to do, Ray?’

  ‘Yes, what are you going to do, Ray?’ said Anthea in a mocking voice. ‘Of course Miss Boyd was here tonight. She broke in. Her DNA is all over the house.’

  ‘Just go, Tina, and trust me on this.’ I couldn’t look at her. ‘Do it. And don’t say a word about tonight to anyone.’

  Her voice faltered. ‘I’m not going without you, Ray.’

  ‘You are,’ I said, my voice colder than I was expecting. ‘Go. You need to get Manning into custody.’

  ‘Don’t do this.’

  It sounded like she was going to cry, and I felt a wave of emotion that almost knocked me down.

  But then I steadied myself. ‘It’s too late. It’s done.’

  Still she didn’t move.

  I stared into Anthea Delbarto’s eyes. ‘Tell me something,’ I said. ‘You were there, weren’t you, when Dana Brennan was taken?’

  She smiled. ‘You’ll never know, will you?’

  ‘And my father. You knew him too?’

  ‘Oh yes. For many years. We were lovers. It might even have been me who suggested he’d be better off without a wife and brats hanging round his neck … but again, you’ll never know.’ Her face hardened. ‘But right now, you are wasting your last chance of escape. You have a head start. I hear you’re a rich man. I’m sure you can outrun your colleagues and find yourself and your lover somewhere safe to hide.’

  I raised the gun. ‘I made a promise to Dana Brennan’s parents that I’d bring her killers to justice, and that’s what I intend to do.’

  ‘Don’t do it, Ray,’ said Tina. ‘Don’t kill her. It’s not worth it.’

  ‘This is for them. And this is for Dana.’

  I shot her in the belly.

  Anthea went down on her knees, howling in pain, and I turned to Tina. ‘Go, Tina. Now.’