Green Light
Page 19
“No.”
Sutton shook his head.
Daniel said, “I don’t…I don’t understand.”
He pointed to Denby with the lamp. Denby flinched.
“I’m already convinced it was his idea,” he said. “The fact he got into the car, the fact he knew she was stabbed in the neck…I’ve no real doubt in my mind that he suggested it to Suzanne. But even if he did, that doesn’t let her off the hook. She didn’t have to do it. She wasn’t a puppet. She could have chosen not to.”
Daniel shook his head, agitated, upset.
“But…but he forced her to. He made it seem like she had no choice. I mean, this was our life, our future. If she didn’t get it done –“
“It wasn’t your life, it was your money,” Sutton said. “And the deal’s failed and you’re still alright. You’re still breathing.”
“But she’d been poor, she’d never known what it was like –“
“Let me ask you this: would you have done it?”
Daniel stared at him.
“Would you have killed Maggie?” Sutton pressed.
Daniel tried to stare him down, but in the end he couldn’t. In the end some resolve failed him. They both knew he wouldn’t have, and it was pointless to insist otherwise.
“No,” Sutton said. “But he” – he pointed to Denby with the body of the lamp again – “he needs to understand.”
“Understand what?” Daniel asked, coming back to the conversation as if from a distance.
“That there are consequences to your actions,” Sutton said, staring at Denby. Now, the Regional Manager for the South West only had eyes for him. “That, as an adult, you are accountable. That, despite the lies you tell yourself, those numbers on that spreadsheet are people. I don’t know, maybe he missed it the first time around. Maybe in the nursery his Mum covered for him, or his father hushed things up, or his elder brother protected him. Whatever trials and tribulations makes you into a normal human being, somehow Phillip here missed them. So now the lesson has to be harder. Because after a certain age, the pathways in the brain become less flexible. After a certain age, skills are not so easily acquired. Learning becomes impaired. After a certain age, bad behaviour is not so easily eradicated. Do you understand, Phillip? I’m here to beat you. Until you understand. Until you learn.”
Denby looked about to ready to say something, to protest his innocence, to forestall any judgement. Some kind of creeping mortal terror seemed to rise up behind his eyes, some last vestige of hope seemed to slip away.
But in the end he did not speak. He seemed paralysed with incredulity; that, of all people, this was happening to him.
Sutton would have liked it to have ended it there. He would have liked to have been able to untie Denby, to help him to his feet, to put a consoling hand on his shoulder, and tell him that there would be no pain, that it had all been a ruse. They would each acknowledge the benefits of what had been done, and why it had to be done. Perhaps they would shake each other’s hands. Certainly they would all be wiser for the event. They might even part as unlikely friends.
But no lesson would be learned if he withdrew at this stage.
So he started to hit him.
Phillip Denby screamed…and kept on screaming.
THE END
TATTOO
(SUTTON MILLS BOOK 1)
Within the city of Bristol, a man is targeting beautiful young women and murdering them in the most brutal way: he is torturing them, and then cutting off their heads. Seven days later he disposes of the bodies, leaving the police with only one clue as to his identity: a tattoo.
In desperation, Detective Sean Bocksham and Dr Robin Sails enlist the help of Sutton Mills to find Andrea, the killer’s latest victim and Robin’s sister.
Tall, dark and handsome, Sutton Mills is not a detective, a private eye, or a vigilante. When the police can do no more, when there is no one else to turn to, then people go to Sutton. He is a lover of puzzles and a diligent student of Art; a man living off the grid; a man with an uncanny ability to find things.
Calling on all his resources, Sutton must chase this cunning and intelligent psychopath through the streets of Bristol and find Andrea…before her time runs out.
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