She took a measured breath. Padding stealthily across the room, she woke the girls and apologised for doing so in a low whisper. Both were groggy and disgruntled but did as she instructed without complaining.
Instincts heightened, and with the Webley on point, she led them through the house, inspecting each room, checking windows and potential hiding places. With each door they opened there was a deathly silence as all three breaths were held. They moved upstairs and did the same, double checking window locks, peeking beneath the beds and inside the wardrobes.
‘Should’ve left out some mince pies,’ Chloe mumbled as they finished the upstairs inspection.
Jessop shot her daughter hard eyes. She got the Santa Claus joke but didn’t find it funny. Back downstairs she led the girls into the kitchen and filled the kettle. She then did something that left both girls wide-eyed and open-mouthed.
‘What the hell’re you doing?’ Chloe gasped.
She pulled up the second blind to welcome in the grey, overcast day outside.
‘I thought you said this guy’s a crack-shot sniper!’
‘That’s right. He is. He’s also super suspicious, which is why I can’t afford to have him think I’m setting a trap for him.’
‘So instead you thought you’ll open the fucking door for him?’
She spooned coffee into three cups. ‘We act normal. If he’s watching then we don’t want to scare him off.’
Chloe pulled Vicky away from the window. ‘Speak for yourself.’
Chapter Ninety-nine
Turkey was not on the menu for Christmas dinner. Instead, Chloe and Vicky cooked up a couple of frozen pizzas. The smell stoked Jessop’s appetite, and seated back in front of the TV, she consumed a 12” pepperoni stuffed crust to herself, and felt a hell of a lot better for it. The girls, however, just picked and nibbled, conscious of the large bay window through which Chambers may be watching them from his secluded vantage point somewhere in the woods behind the back garden. Just as an actor on TV was not allowed to look directly at the camera, none in the room was to look directly out the window. Little things like that would spike Chamber’s suspicions, Jessop had told the girls.
‘You know,’ Chloe said, pushing her plate aside. ‘It’s gonna look really weird if we continue to all do things together like we’ve been doing.’
Vicky looked at her friend, and then at Jessop, as if to agree with Chloe’s observation.
Jessop had been thinking the very same thing. ‘True enough.’
Chloe raised her eyebrows, seemingly astounded she had said something right. ‘So can I go take a piss in private, then?’
‘Uh-huh. And while you’re up, grab yours and Vicky’s coats and shoes.’
‘What? Why?’
Discreetly, Jessop tucked the Webley into the waistband of her jeans and pulled her jumper over the top. ‘Because we’re going out for a walk.’
Chloe gawped. ‘You’re shitting me, right?’
‘Nope. It’s tradition. We always go for a walk after Christmas dinner.’
Chloe’s mouth remained agape as she skulked from the room alone for the first time since her crazy mother had taken back control of her life.
Jessop eased off the chair and relished the thought of having a cigarette once they were outside.
‘You’re drawing him in, aren’t you?’ came Vicky’s quiet voice from the sofa. ‘You’re thinking he’ll sneak in while we’re out, just like he did when me and mum were out, right?’
Jessop eyed the girl and noted the trust and hope in her face. Unlike Chloe, Vicky had a personal interest in watching one of the gun’s bullets blow Chambers’ head off. Vicky, like herself, wanted this to happen. Neither was afraid, for they were no strangers to death. Chloe, however, was. Other than Ray, she had lost no one close, and so had not experienced the pain of the breaking of the shell of her understanding.
Jessop shook off a shiver as suddenly she felt closer to Vicky than her own daughter. In answer to Vicky’s questions, she said, ‘Yes. If he’s out there, he’s not going to try and sneak in while we’re up and about.’
Vicky nodded more to herself than Jessop. Her lips parted as if to speak, but then closed tight as Chloe stalked back into the room holding a bunch of shoes and coats.
‘Wrap up warm,’ Jessop said. ‘Looks cold out.’
Chloe shrugged on her coat and mumbled something beneath her breath about not being alive long enough to feel the cold.
Chapter One-hundred
The air outside was chilled and refreshing. It was also a potent stimulant Jessop had forgotten about since she’d locked herself in the hotel room.
Ambling through the maze of bare, brittle trees, she recalled this time last year walking the same makeshift path and listening to Ray and Chloe talk about getting a dog. Ray wanted a big sloppy Labrador, who would curl up on his feet of an evening in front of the TV. Chloe wanted a spaniel because she adored their floppy ears. Seeing as though she didn’t want to take responsibility for the dog once Chloe and Ray’s interest had waned, Jessop hadn’t voiced much of an opinion
Of course, Ray and Chloe had sworn that wouldn’t happen, and when pushed for preference of breed, she had played it neutral and suggested a Doberman so as to keep the peace between them. By Boxing Day the subject had been forgotten, suggesting she’d been right, and neither had really wanted the responsibility that came with owning a dog.
As the advert said: Pets are not just for Christmas, they are for life.
She looked ahead at the two girls enduring the worst Christmas of their lives so far, and a shiver ran up her spine.
She’d been big enough to admit not wanting to take responsibility for a dog, and yet here she was, playing God with these girls’ lives.
Just because she had given Chloe life did not mean she had the right to take it away. Chambers may have targeted her and Chloe, but that didn’t mean she could use her daughter as bait.
She stopped in her tracks, dug in her pocket for her mobile. ‘Just making a quick call,’ she called to the girls, who were ten paces ahead of her and dragging their feet. Only Vicky looked back and acknowledged her. Chloe, meanwhile, had found a gnarled branch and was absently beating the undergrowth. Jessop waited until the girls were out of earshot before dialling Mason’s number.
The answer service kicked in immediately, telling her to leave a message. This was the first time she had known Mason not to pick up, and it could not have been a worse time.
She wanted him here. No. She needed him here. This was a bad idea. The girls shouldn’t be here, and she needed Mason to take them away from here now. Instead, he was probably celebrating Christmas day like most normal people, tucking into a turkey dinner with family or friends in front of the Queen’s speech.
Somehow, though, she doubted it. And this unnerved her.
She hung up without leaving a message and pocketed the phone. Turned back to the way they had come and saw the back of the house through the thicket of bare branches half a kilometre away. From where she stood she could see her bedroom window, but at such a distance could not see through it into the room. What she needed was a high powered sniper scope like the one Chambers probably used to scope out his victims’ houses. She wondered if at this moment he was watching her and the girls through the trees from the very room she was looking at.
She felt her hand drawn both to the gun and back to the mobile as the doubts about what she was doing intensified. She lit another cigarette and drew hard, watching Vicky snapping a thin branch from a tree and remembering what cuddling the girl had felt like last night. Life was as fragile as that branch, and to some, like Chambers, just as easy to break.
‘Girls…’ she called out. This time, as well as Vicky, Chloe acknowledged her. For she knew by the tone of her mother’s voice what she was about to say. ‘Let’s go.’
Chapter One-hundred and one
Something had happened. Whereas Chloe had kept a distance from her mother on the journey out here, now
she huddled close enough to make contact. To Jessop’s left, Vicky was even closer, her arm linked tight through Jessop’s.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Here’s the drill. Once inside you two stay behind me just as we’ve been doing. Same routine as before starting downstairs with the living room, then my office, then the toilet, and so on.’
‘Do you think he’ll be there?’ Vicky asked.
‘I honestly don’t know. But I want you both to assume he is and be ready for anything.’ She felt Vicky’s arm squeeze tighter around hers. ‘But most importantly, stay behind me. If I have to open fire, the last thing I want is to hit either of you two.’
‘What if he knows it’s a trap? What if he knows you have the gun?’
Jessop turned to the voice from her right. Beneath her coat, Chloe’s shoulders were high and tight. The frown she’d become so used to over the last twenty-four hours had gone, and so, it seemed by the frightened tone of the questions, had the angst. ‘Then I’ll have to make sure he knows I can use it,’ she said, injecting a bravado she didn’t feel into her voice.
The remainder of their return was spent in familiar silence. Only the tweeting of birds from above and cracking of twigs under foot could be heard. She knew what the girls must be feeling because she felt it too: apprehension infused with terror. She was potentially leading them to their deaths, and so words were redundant. There were none that could alleviate this act of madness.
They reached the gate fence that separated the woods from the garden. Hopped over onto the lawn and ambled up to the kitchen door through which they had left an hour ago. Jessop had locked it on the way out, and was relieved to find it was still locked.
‘Cathy…’
Both she and Chloe turned to Vicky, who looked half her age huddled deep in her thick coat.
‘Yes, sweetie?’
‘I don’t want to die like my mum.’
Jessop realised Vicky was looking at the gun in her hand. Only then did she understand what Vicky was trying to say. The poor kid would rather she end her life quickly with a bullet than have the life bled from her. ‘I won’t let that happen. I swear.’
‘Same goes for me,’ Chloe said. ‘I don’t want that sicko thinking he got one over on me.’
That’s my girl, Jessop thought. There was she and Vicky worrying about losing their lives, and all Chloe was concerned about was losing her pride. ‘If it comes down to it,’ she said, ‘I’ll send us all to hell.’ She turned to Vicky and winked. ‘Imagine the look on your dad’s face when we all turn up together.’
And for the first time since she could remember, Vicky smiled.
‘Ready?’
Both girls nodded unconvincingly.
Heart thumping so loud she was convinced the girls could hear it, she went to unlock the door when from her pocket her mobile pinged informing of a text.
Mason replying to her missed call, she thought with relief.
Under the girl’s wide eyes, she fished out her phone. Bit back her anxiety as once again she failed to recognise the sender’s number. She opened the message and read:
Coincidence ur family’s murderer was killed the day u were due to meet him in prison…ISN’T IT?
Mouth going dry, her flesh prickled beneath a sudden cold sweat. She read again, refusing to believe her eyes. Refusing to believe the words actually existed.
But they did. And what they implied was beyond her comprehension.
Whoever had typed the message suspected she had arranged to visit Malcolm Hoyt that day seven years ago for more than just a talk about a case she was working on. And they would be right. She was going to kill him.
But no one had known that.
No one could know that! Because she had not told a soul.
Yet someone bloody knew. And that person was right about the timing of Hoyt’s death being a coincidence. Because an hour later and it would have been her hand stabbing the bastard, not Vincent Dodd’s. And an hour after that, she would be the one being slammed in a cell.
‘Mum… What is it?’
The voice sounded distant.
‘Cathy, what’s wrong?’
She looked up from the message, saw Chloe and Vicky staring at her.
‘Is it from Chambers?’ Chloe asked.
The question reverberated around her already spinning head.
The answer stopped the spinning dead, and kicked her hard in the gut.
Of course it was from Chambers. It was another one of his psychological power plays to mess with her head. He’d targeted her, which meant he’d done his homework on her to get the edge he needed to win the game. He’d learned of her family’s murder and knew all about Hoyt and Dodd. Had probably followed her on Tuesday to Dodd’s flat, and put two and two together.
But how had he known about her request to see Hoyt that day seven years ago?
‘Mum…Are you alright?’
She blinked at Chloe. Realised where she was and why she was here.
‘Fine,’ she mumbled. She pocketed the phone and took a deep breath. Felt a bit easier knowing if Chambers was still playing games with her then he wasn’t likely to be in the house.
‘Are we still going in?’ Vicky asked.
Refocused, Jessop nodded. Stepped in front of the girls, unlocked the door, and stepped into the kitchen.
All was quiet and still. Too quiet and too still, she thought, remembering what the house had felt like on Halloween when she’d returned from Dodd’s flat.
She shrugged off her coat and waited until both girls were inside and the door was closed and locked behind them.
‘Remember, stay behind me and be ready,’ she whispered.
The girls fell in tight behind her, and together they walked through the kitchen and out into the hallway to begin the search.
They didn’t have to look far.
Perched on the armchair she had been sitting on all night was Corporal Phillip Chambers.
Chapter One-hundred and two
‘Don’t move! Don’t you fucking move!’ Jessop had the Webely trained on Chambers’ head. The black barrel wavered in her trembling hand, but at that distance she could not fail to miss. ‘Now slowly put your hands on your head and lie face down on the floor.’
Shaven head, and dressed in a generic black jacket zipped to the neck, faded blue jeans, and beige army boots, Chambers just sat in the chair, seemingly oblivious to the command and the gun.
Adrenaline pumping, she took a step closer to the hunched figure, acutely aware of her girls huddled together behind her. ‘I said put your hands on your fucking head. Do it now or I will shoot you!’
Still the hands remained clasped tight in his lap.
‘I’m gonna count to three…One!’
Chambers looked up from his lap.
She’d spent weeks studying every contour, every ridge, curve, bump, blemish, and hair on the young soldier’s face, and was as familiar with it as she was her own. Yet what the picture in the newspaper had not conveyed was the emptiness behind his eyes. But then it wouldn’t have, because it been taken before his friend had died in his arms.
‘I hate to shatter your confidence, Detective, but this aint the first time I’ve looked down the barrel of a gun.’ The voice was but a whisper, an exhalation.
‘No, but it’ll be your fucking last if you don’t do as I say…Two.’
Chambers neither blinked nor made any attempt to do as he’d been instructed. ‘Must be frustrating knowing you didn’t catch me.’
‘I’ll live with it…Three.’ She steadied her aim between Chambers’ eyes and applied pressure to the trigger.
‘Maybe you can,’ Chambers whispered. ‘But can Detective Inspector Mason?’
Her aim faltered on hearing her colleague’s name spoken by the monster before her. What the hell was he talking about?
Just as she remembered calling Mason earlier and getting his answering service for the first time, Chambers’ hands unclasped to reveal a mobile phone, which he tossed on the s
ofa next to her.
Was this the phone he’d just texted her on?
Dread spilled into her gut as she took two steps back and carefully retrieved the phone. Only then did she risk taking her eyes off Chambers to glance at the mobile’s screen. What she saw made the weapon in her moist palm feel as useless as she now felt.
Mason lay on top a bare mattress. His arms were above his head, and, she assumed, tied to the bedstead. Gagging him was what she assumed to be a white pillow case. He was moving but not conscious, as if in the grip of a nightmare. There were no signs of violence, no blood staining his sweatshirt, and for this she was thankful. At the bottom of the screen the date and time informed her this was indeed a live feed, and that Mason had made Chambers’ list, and that the bastard had just put her in a corner she feared she may not be able to fight her way out from.
‘I know what it’s like to live in constant fear,’ came a whisper from the chair. ‘As I’m sure you’re aware.’
Jessop tossed the phone back on the sofa and realigned her aim on Chambers. ‘Let’s get one thing clear,’ she hissed. ‘I don’t give a shit about your past and what you did in the war. There are thousands of veterans out there with PTSD who get by without butchering their innocent countrymen. So if it’s a shoulder you want to cry on about how the war or the system back here screwed you over, you’re leaning on the wrong person. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just another sick fuck with a craving for attention.’
Chambers didn’t react, just sat with his elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped back together. ‘Yeah, but the difference between me and them is I know what I’ve done is wrong.’
‘Which makes you worse than them. At least they have the excuse of being insane.’
Chambers nodded to himself. ‘Does God warrant that same excuse? Is He insane? I mean, we are talking about the biggest mass murderer in history, right? The supreme being, who kills millions indiscriminately where and when He feels like it and gets away with it.’ The empty eyes looked up, blinked. ‘You ever wonder how he does that? And how millions still worship Him and pray to Him even after one of His so-called acts of nature has wiped out their families?’
Hurt (The Hurt Series) Page 28