Alex quickly alternated his glance between the two brothers, blood trickling across his vision.
“It will be the end of both of you.”
Curtis tilted his head back in frustration, taking a long, hard breath. Tommy stood silently, staring at the battered man in the chair. Alex began to feel the woozy from blood loss, feeling his mind beginning to spin along with the room whilst his body wouldn't move. He shuffled slightly, willing himself not to fade to black.
He heard feet shuffling ahead of him, the blurred vision somehow deciphering the black shoes that moved closer.
He heard the click of metal and moments later he felt the cold, circular press of it against his forehead.
He leant against it, whatever it was pressing against his blood-covered head held his balance. The steely grip of unconsciousness began to wrap its fingers around him. He heard an echo of a voice.
“An eye for an eye.”
Alex took a deep breath, his vision distorting and relaying nothing to him. All he could see was the beauty of his wife, that wonderful moment when she’d told him she was expecting his child.
They were sitting together, he kissed her gently and their fingers interlocked as they rested their hand on her stomach, the warm home that surrounded their child.
Somehow, despite the pain, a smile formed on his face.
Curtis pulled the trigger.
The entire station fell silent when the news filtered through. With the search for Lucas now at the top of every priority list, it didn't take long for word to reach London.
To reach Bailey.
Fletcher had been seated in his front room, the radio crackling as he sunk another glass of Jack Daniels in the smoky room. When the notification of Alex's murder filtered through the airwaves, Fletcher felt his skin turn cold. The grey hairs that adorned his now wiry, wrinkled arms stood to attention like miniature grey soldiers.
The entire Metropolitan Police Service had been waiting for a reaction. They didn't know how or when, many officers even fearing it would be one of their own who would suffer Drayton vengeance as Lucas picked off their family members. Some of them worried about the threat towards the higher-ups, like Chief Inspector Hurst who’d been seen recently on TV, unfaithfully dispelling the myth of a vigilante in London.
But it had been worse.
Much worse.
An innocent father-to-be, whose only crime was to be a friend to a man done wrong. A man who would never get to hold his new-born baby, or watch them grow. Memories that Fletcher began to cherish tenfold from that moment onwards.
He sat the glass down on his coffee table and turned the radio off. The silence in the house made him feel ill at ease. He sat still for a few moments, remembering the discussion he’d had with Alex at Helen's funeral.
Alex had been incredibly charming without being arrogant, his smile magnetic. When his wife, Helen's best friend, broke down as the coffin was lowered into the earth, he’d shouldered her pain. He loved his wife dearly, and in turn had been loved by many people.
Now he was gone.
Murdered.
Without thinking, Fletcher pushed himself up from the beaten sofa, a trail of dust swimming aimlessly through the air behind him. He slid his arms into his jacket and snatched his car keys from a neglected pile of memoir notes. He raced through the door, propelling himself through the rain to his vehicle.
Lucas had to know.
He drove carefully through the London night, his windscreen wipers rhythmically swiping back and forth, clearing his line of sight. Everything looked the same. Each street was indistinguishable from the last in the darkness of night and the sheeting rain.
Fletcher drove on autopilot.
As he stopped at a red light, he tried to downplay the surging feeling of guilt chipping away at his conscience. He had given Lucas the Drayton name.
He had set the course.
If he’d just held strong, not allowed his emotions to take over then maybe this wouldn't have happened. So many deaths, in such a short space of time. Innocent people brutally murdered in the horrendous concept of vengeance. Lives obliterated by association.
All because of him.
Paul Fletcher: guilty of murder.
The lights flashed green and Fletcher put his foot down, the car shooting forward in a spray of water and leaving the idea of responsibility behind. He drove for the next few minutes in complete silence, not even comprehending listening to his increasingly gnawing conscience. The gate to Soho Square was chained shut as he pulled up to the curb outside it. It hung off old hinges and shook in howling, wet wind which burst through the evening. Fletcher vacated his car, locking it with the fob as he approached the metal gateway. Rust clung to the metal bars like a fungus. Beyond them, the world was black.
Fletcher grasped two of the sharp, slippery bars at their peak and placed a foot on the metal beam that ran along the bottom of the fence panel. He then hoisted himself up, planting a shaky foot on the slick metal beam at the top, the rainwater playing mayhem with his balance. He hauled himself over the protruding metal spikes and fell to the ground on the other side.
Cursing his age, he stood upright and ventured into the darkness, pulling his coat tight to his body for warmth. His footsteps crunched on the gravel pathway. The looming presence of a pavilion grew to his right, the whiteness of the painted bricks reflecting the small fraction of moonlight cast upon it. Fletcher followed the path, his footsteps slowing and grinding to a halt as he reached the intersection.
All paths in the park ended here.
The King Charles II statue, rich in history and beauty, years of wear and tear only adding to its awe.
Lucas Cole stood a few feet from the stone figure, his head down, allowing the cold rain to wash over him. His rounded shoulders hung slightly, his leather jacket glistening in the moon-stained rain.
Fletcher took a step, his foot crunching on the stones below.
“What are you doing here, Fletcher?”
Lucas's voice was barely audible, carrying an irritation from being interrupted. He didn't move a muscle.
“I needed to find you.”
“If you’ve come to stop me, you’re wasting your time.”
Fletcher took a tentative step, his eyes squinting to form Lucas entirely in his vision.
“I haven't.”
Lucas nodded, his short, wet hair flicking extra droplets into the night sky. He looked up at the statue, his hands firmly in his pockets.
“How did you find me?”
“Give me some credit here,” Fletcher offered a light-hearted chuckle. '” used to be a detective. Besides, this is your statue, right? Yours and Helen's?”
“It was.”
The past tense hit Fletcher harder than he would have imagined. Despite all the violence and carnage since he’d last seen Lucas, all he felt was his grief. Lucas wasn't murdering his way to a happy ending. He was simply lost within his grief, navigating through his pain through the only means he knew how.
It was hurting him to grieve.
It was hurting Fletcher just to witness it. His trail of thought was broken by Lucas's solemn voice. The rain hissed around them, beyond that, the faint whisper of a howling siren.
“Helen used to say to me that I never deserved what happened. That I was a good person in a bad world.”
“There’s truth in that.”
“She used to say that I was a good man.”
Fletcher took another careful step.
“You are.”
“Am I? Every step of this she’s been with me. I see her every single moment I close my eyes, every corner I walk around. She’s there, but it's not her. I can never recreate my wife with all of her beauty. I knew her better than anyone but to try and envisage her would do her an injustice.”
Lucas shook his head, peering into the enveloping nothingness.
“Every time I see my projection of her, I can hear her begging me to stop. I know she’s right, Fletcher, but I don't kno
w what else to do.”
Fletcher took another step forward, his trousers clinging wetly to his legs. He thought about extending a comforting hand, but withdrew quickly.
“I've done some terrible things. Bad, bad things.”
Lucas turned on his heels to stand face-to-face with Fletcher merely a few feet away. He read the concern on Fletcher’s face and registered its sincerity.
“How the hell can I be a good man?”
Before Fletcher could open his mouth, Lucas took a step to the side and trudged lazily away. He passed the old, trustworthy visitor who span around in surprise.
“Remember what you told me all those years ago, Lucas?”
He stopped in his tracks. He turned, his head looking over his shoulder, his face strained with the realisation of the acts of violence of the past few days.
Fletcher took a few steps towards him.
“Sometimes bad people need to be shown what bad really is.”
The two men nodded, a silent bond of trust that had been generated all those years ago. Another time in Lucas's life that had been haunted by violence and a deep sense of isolation. Lucas nodded again, Fletcher's words almost reaffirming what he was doing. Before he could leave, Fletcher spoke again.
“But, like I said before, the Draytons will come at you with everything they have.”
Lucas would regret ever asking what he meant. As soon as Fletcher mentioned that they’d received a phone call from Officer Chamberlain in Brinscall, he knew. The same officer who’d informed him of his wife's demise was-again the bearer of an unspeakable horror.
The closest thing Lucas had ever had to a brother.
The one man that Lucas had trusted with his life.
Fletcher continued, the details only adding to the sheer brutality of the ending of his best friend’s life.
Lucas turned and stared up into the dark sky, searching for anything to distract him from the facts before him.
Alex was dead.
It was his fault.
And as the wind swept around him and the rain pelted him with cold, relentless drops, Lucas shed a tear for the first time since Helen had died in front of him.
An extract from ‘Life on the Beat: Memoirs of a thirty year police officer.’ by Paul Fletcher.
It's always the innocent people who get caught in the crossfire. It has to be one of the biggest clichés in the history of language. It sits proudly on the list alongside 'If you love them, let them go' and 'Time heals all wounds.'
However, it is based in truth.
Clichés are founded on the back of truthful experience. The reason they’re mocked by some people is because nobody wants to fall in line anymore. Everyone wants to believe that their experiences are unique, that they have somehow carved out an individual niche in the universe and that their world spins on a slightly different axis to others.
But everyone deals with the same problems.
Heartbreak. Anger. Grief.
These are the guarantees we all face at some point in our lives. But we all feel that, when we face them, we do it differently. God knows I thought I was on my own, and I cut the world off when I watched Susan fade away. But let’s face it, it's a cliché to shut the world off when you don't want to deal with it. The lone struggler, dealing with his feelings the only way he knows how.
Lucas falls into that category. He just dealt with his own feelings a little differently to how I did.
Let me make it clear to you all now, as I sit here casting my mind back over those crazy few weeks, when the worldwide view of right and wrong was skewed, that Lucas was not innocent.
Helen was.
Alex was.
Lucas was one of the people who got dragged in by the ripple effects caused by brutality. As was Starling. Good men who were broken by the beastly acts of others and let down by those people they relied on for protection.
But the things they did in retaliation were NOT innocent.
Helen was ripped from this world in a way that should be unimaginable. Alex was murdered because he knew her.
Because he knew Lucas.
As I’ve said, I had the pleasure of speaking to Alex after Lucas's introduction to the Draytons and he told me he didn't think Lucas had done what we’d reported. He did however, say he thought Lucas, would be capable of it. He knew both Lucas and Helen so well, his time with them spent in a cocoon of smiles and laughter.
Did he deserve to die because of it?
A family man, who’d spent his entire life living by strict principles and a dedication to a discipline. Happily married to a wonderful woman, and ready to become a father to his first child and help mould a person for the future.
Alex did not deserve to die.
The cliché once again showing that, despite the eyes that roll when it’s spoken, it’s heavily bathed in truth. His poor wife, Dianne will forever remember the image of that night, discovering her husband's lifeless body. Every time her daughter, who I hear is doing well, asks what her father was like, she will only have one image of him.
The dead, lifeless stare looking up at her.
Another person who didn’t deserve the pain that hangs from her shoulders like an evil cloak.
Cliché or not, it’s like I said.
It's always the innocent people who get caught in the crossfire.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
All the excitement of the 'Lucas Cole Manhunt' had almost evaporated from the station once the details of Alex's murder filtered through the offices. Fletcher could visibly see the effect it had on the hard-working officers; the feeling of failure in a situation that had got out of hand long before.
A father-to-be with nothing but good intentions with a long list of people willing to say kind words about him. A man who’d been a rock in his community, who’d committed himself to charity event after charity event, cruelly sent to the afterlife because of a friendship.
Bailey informed the officers through a couple of briefings, explaining how Dianne had been in the kitchen, warming up the stir fry meal she’d prepared for her husband, walking slowly around the kitchen with her hand on her protruding stomach. Their child snugly curled up within her, growing with every moment as they took their shuffling steps towards parenthood. A car had pulled up outside and a faint sound of shuffling up the garden path had made her feel warm and safe.
It was when she heard the second slam of car doors, followed by the roaring engine as it sped off down the street, that she became concerned. Peering through the window, she could see her husband's feet lying across the steps, his legs stretched out as he sat against the door. As she opened it, her worst nightmare fell at her feet.
Alex's body slumped over the threshold, his lifeless eyes staring up at her. There was nothing behind them.
Blood trickled from the bullet hole in his head.
The police had turned up within minutes, called by the neighbours who had heard the pain-stricken screams from the Thornley house. They found her sitting by his side, cradling his head and weeping uncontrollably, begging him to wake up.
A renewed sense of urgency now radiated from the officers, the need to catch Lucas had taken a new turn. Fletcher realised that many of them had been caught up in the romance of his whole crusade.
A man wronged and doing what was necessary in the name of the wife they took.
It was all so poetic.
But now, an innocent man had been delivered to his wife, with a bullet through his skull and a message sent loud and clear.
This was Lucas's fault.
It was Fletcher's fault.
A man who had been so polite when Fletcher had attended Helen's funeral and again when he’d called about the first set of Drayton murders. The guilt weighing down on him made the menial tasks of the office admin a struggle. Every file now felt like it was made out of solid concrete. Every step through the office felt like he was walking in thick tar.
Bailey had lost his usual impervious swagger, instead respectfully delegating r
esponsibilities to his officers. Officer Starling had still not reported in since his rash outburst that night outside the Hamden Trading building. No word had filtered in on whether he had officially resigned, but his colleagues offered the notion that seeing that young girl die in such a brutal way had hit him harder than they would have thought.
Whatever it was, something had enraged the young man and Fletcher silently worried about his well-being.
He slid his fingers under his glasses and gently massaged the bridge of his crooked nose.
All he wanted was to return home and continue his abandonment of his promise to stop drinking. A glass of whiskey was all that was getting him through the day.
Dianne had made the arrangements quickly, the funeral was to be held on Sunday morning in the same place that her best friend had been buried. Where, only a week prior, she’d stood, tears in her eyes, watching someone important to her be committed to the earth.
She would repeat it again.
Fletcher sat at his desk, his head in his hands as he imagined how alone she must feel. Her husband murdered, her best friend taken from her. Lucas missing.
The only light in the young woman's life would be mothering a child, but she would be forever reminded of the brutality of Alex's murder when she looked at it.
He had set the chain of events in motion.
It was his fault.
Lucas had said very little after Fletcher had told him of his friend's demise. He shed a tear, nodded his head and then walked off into the downpour. Fletcher had called out after him, saying he would take Lucas home to pay his respects.
He got no response.
The search continued throughout Thursday and Friday to no avail. No trace of Lucas. No more violence. No more Drayton death. Speculation mounted that Lucas had stopped his vengeful quest on account of Alex's death. Others speculated that the Draytons had found him and the Metropolitan Police would be receiving another dead body soon.
One by One: A brutal, gritty revenge thriller that you won't be able to put down. Page 32