A Need To Kill (DI Matt Barnes) (45 page)

“
Give it to me,” Lucas demanded.

Marjory extracted it from a pocket of her tailored jacket and stretched her arm out, not wanting to approach Lucas.

He went to her, walked past her and closed the bedroom door.  Took the card from her hand, studied it and turned it over.

“
Well, well.  Detective Inspector Barnes has even scribbled his mobile number on the back.  I take it he told you to contact him if I got in touch.  Right?”

“
Yes, Lucas.”

“
What did you tell him about me, Auntie?”

“
That you had a rough time of it as a kid.  I told him that Brenda...your mother, treated you badly.  That she―”

Lucas grasped her face in both hands and pulled it to within an inch of his own.

“Rough time...Treated badly!  She and that jungle bunny pimp tortured and disfigured me for life.  And you knew what was happening.”

“
What could I do?”  Marjory mumbled, trying unsuccessfully to pull free of his grip.

He enclosed her nose with his mouth
and bit it with enough force to make her cry out, before releasing it.  The urge to scythe through it with his teeth was tempered by the fact that he needed her help.

“
I want to crack your skull open like an egg and suck your brains out, Marjory.  But if you behave and do exactly what you’re told, you may survive this reunion.”

“
I’ll do whatever you say,” Marjory said with a sharp edge of fear to her voice.

“
I know you will.  If not, I’ll make sure that your doting, rich hubby is enlightened as to how you earned a crust.  And if you contact the police, then pray that they catch me, because if you shop me, then you’ll wish you’d never been born.  What I did to those other whoring bitches will be nothing compared to what you will suffer.”

“
What do you want, money?”

He kept hold of her face and walked backwards, pulling her with him, until the backs of his knees pressed up against the edge of the bed.  He then spun her round and threw her onto the
quilted duvet.

His mother
’s voice shattered the silence.  ‘
She was as bad as me, son.  My precious sister didn’t give a shit about you, or care how you were treated.  Kill the cunt, Lucas. Look at her.  Can’t you see me looking back at you.  The same red hair; the same eyes.  Slit her open and spill out her guts’.

Marjory pressed her lips together and remained silent as Lucas loomed over her.
  His face was flushed purple, and his eyes were drilling into her, full of undisguised hatred.  At that moment, she believed he would kill her.

The pressure caused damaged capillaries in his swollen nose to burst.  Blood drizzled out of his nostrils to pepper Marjory
’s face.

“
You look as if you’ve got measles,” he said, allowing a smile to dimple his cheeks.

The moment had passed.  He had restrained himself and rebuffed the insistent voice of his mother.

“A few quid wouldn’t go amiss, Auntie,” he said.  “But what I really need is somewhere to stay for awhile, until I get organised.”

“
You wouldn’t be safe here,” Marjory said.

“
I know.  But you have other properties.  I want the keys to somewhere out in the sticks, away from the maddening crowd.”

Marjory immediately thought of the cottage in the
Forest of Dean.  It was a rustic hideaway, only accessible by way of a rutted lane.  It was her retreat; a place where she could spend the odd weekend and let her hair down, so to speak, to be alone and sit by the nearby stream and practise her new-found hobby of watercolour painting. She knew that she would never be good at it, but found the process of being out in the fresh air with her easel and paints therapeutic.

“
Vincent bought me a little cottage.  It’s off the beaten track.  I think you would be safe there,” she said.

“
Where is it?”

“
In the Forest of Dean.  It’s well away from prying eyes.  You would have total privacy.”

“
Sounds fine.  Pack a few things.  I’ve decided that you can come along for the ride.”

“
I can’t, Lucas.  I’m supposed to be going to Paris tomorrow with Vincent.  If I take off with you, then it would look suspicious and the police would pick up on it.  You have my word that I won’t...Ooof―”

His fist hit her in the stomach.  Made her snap up into a sitting position, clutching at the source of pain.  She was winded and had to fight for breath.

Lucas looked around and saw an ashtray on the bedside cabinet next to him.  There was also a packet of cigarettes with a swank looking gold lighter on top of it.  He quickly lit one of the cigarettes and let it hang from his mouth as he grasped hold of Marjory’s jacket by the lapels and jerked it open to send the buttons flying.  He then ripped the pearl-coloured blouse apart to expose her bra, and nimbly undid the front fastener to release her breasts.  They looked too firm.  He grasped one by its nipple and lifted it to expose the thin, white scar line beneath.  Just as he had suspected.  It was not just her face that had been fixed up.

“
I don’t trust anyone’s word, Madge.  Least of all a conniving prostitute who screwed her way into a fortune.  You are out of the same rotten mould as my mother.  And in case you ever wondered, it was me that cut her throat.  I got back at her and Leroy fucking Brown, and no one ever suspected me.”

Clamping his left hand over Marjory
’s mouth, Lucas removed the cigarette from his own, blew the ash off its end and pressed the glowing tip onto the dark aureole of her left breast.

Marjory thrashed and
struggled to no avail.  He burned her breast three times, then stubbed out the cigarette on her stomach, grinding it into the soft flesh.

“
That was just a little demonstration,” he said.  “I want you to be fully aware of what will happen if you tell anyone that you’ve seen me.”

Marjory was made of stern stuff.  When Lucas sat back, she lashed out and
slapped him hard across the face.

“
Listen to me, you animal.  I don’t ever want anyone to know about my past, so I’ll help you.  But don’t hurt me again, or all bets are off.  Take the keys to the cottage, and what money I have, and get out of my life forever.”

“
All right,” Lucas said, not fazed by the mild sting of the slap.  “We understand each other.  But be warned, if I get caught, then I’ll reach out to you from a prison cell.  I’ll send someone to butcher you, Marjory.  You would be found and dealt with.”

Marjory pushed him aside and got to her feet.  Not bothering to cover herself, she went over to the dressing table and took a small bunch of keys from a drawer
, and then went into the walk-in dressing room, pushed aside a dozen hangers that held freshly dry-cleaned two-piece suits, still in plastic covers, and unlocked a small hidden door.  She quickly tapped out a four digit number on the panel of the exposed wall safe, opened it and withdrew three banded bricks of money.

“
Keys to the cottage and three thousand pounds,” she said to Lucas, who was leaning against the door jamb and watching her every move.  “Does that buy me your silence, and get rid of you?”

“
I don’t know that I could relax, with you knowing where I am.”

She took him by the hand, as though he was a little boy, and led him back through to the bedroom, to the bedside cabinet that had an open shelf over two drawers.

“Look on the underside of the shelf, Lucas.  Tell me what you see.”

Frowning, Lucas hunkered down and did as she bid.  There was a black button like a bell push screwed to it, with a cable running back, to vanish through a hole drilled in the back of the cabinet.

“Press it, and the police will be here in two minutes,” Marjory said.  “It’s a panic button; a direct, silent way of contacting and summoning the local Bobbies. Impressive, eh?”

“
Very,” Lucas said, standing and putting his hands on her shoulders.  He appreciated that she could have probably pressed it without him knowing.  It gave him the necessary confidence to believe that she did not want him to be found and in any way linked to her.

“
Write down the address of the cottage,” he said.  “And then I’ll be on my way.”

She took a small notebook from the top of the dresser
, scribbled the address on a blank page, ripped the sheet out and handed it to him.

Lucas hugged her, and gave her a tender kiss on the cheek. 
“Thanks, Auntie.  Don’t bother seeing me to the door, I’ll leave by the same way I broke in.”

After he had left, Marjory sat down on the bed and cried, mainly with relief.  After a few minutes, she went into the bathroom to tend to the blistering burns on her breast and stomach.  She hoped that he would have a fatal car crash.  While he was alive, her sordid past might yet become public knowledge.  Maybe she could ensure that it didn
’t. She was the only person who knew where he would be.  And she had access to Vincent’s collection of shotguns.

Matt
stopped at a pub in the village, just a four minute drive from the Walters’ estate.  On duty or not, he felt the need of a large JD.

“
You buying, boss?” Pete said.

Matt
fished out his wallet, took a tenner from it and pushed it into Pete’s hand.  “Get them in.  I need to take a leak,” he said, looking around the bar, seeing the
TOILETS
sign and heading off to the swing door at the right of the inglenook fireplace.

He stood at the urinal and let his mind wander as he
peed.  There was a part of him that was now coming to understand how his quarry thought.  Not a conscious effort to know Downey, but an intrinsic knowledge of his mind set.  He drifted, became the man he was pursuing.  Knew on some level how it was to be the psychopath tattooist. He assimilated the man’s background, to sense the affects of being tortured by the brutal role models of an aggressive mother and her probably even more violent boyfriend.  Downey had been patterned by abuse and a lack of parental love.  His personality had been metaphorically sculpted by clumsy hammers and blunt chisels, which had produced a malformed end product that – had he been a creation hewn from marble – should have been reduced to rubble and discarded.

Matt
felt the rejection and was consumed with a pathological maternal hatred.  Killing his mother was too little too late to negate the need for revenge.  All women were evil, untrustworthy, and ultimately guilty.  And yet each time he killed one of the bitches, he found only transitory satisfaction and had to keep repeating the act.  It was a circle that he could not and did not want to break.

“
You okay, boss?” Pete said, coming up behind him in the toilet.

Matt
swung round and drew his fist back.

Pete backed-up and put the palms of his hands up defensively. 
“Whoa, boss, what the hell are you doing?”

Matt
blinked to focus on his sergeant.  His rage dissipated as he lowered his arm and withdrew from the assumed personality of Lucas Downey.

“
Sorry, Pete,” he said.  “I was having one of my insights.”

“
You picked a funny place to have it.  Why not holster your weapon.”

“
Uh?”

Pete grinned and looked down to
Matt’s fly.

“
Jesus!” Matt said, turning his back to Pete and zipping up.

As he started in on a second JD,
Matt phoned Beth.  Got voice mail and left her a message to call him back ASAP.

“
You believe that Marjory Walters hasn’t had any contact with Lucas?” Pete said, wiping the froth from the pint off his lips with the back of his hand.

“
I’m not sure.  But I think that if he hasn’t already, he will approach her.  He’s got nowhere else to go. Put yourself in his position.  Every cop is looking out for him.  He needs somewhere to hole up, especially if he’s still got Julie with him.”

“
But why would he trust his aunt?”

“
He doesn’t trust anyone.  She has a history that she doesn’t want to become public knowledge, ever.  That gives him leverage.  If I was Lucas, she would be my first port of call.  We’ll go back and watch the place.  Phone the office and get a couple of the team out here to relieve us.  I want the woman under 24/7 surveillance.”

They bought sandwiches to go, and drove back to a vantage point that gave them a clear view of the main entrance of
what was named, The Willows.

It was an hour later when Beth returned
Matt’s call.  “I was tied up in a CPP meeting.  I just got your message,” she said.

“
No sweat.  I wanted to run something past you.”