Epitaph (19 page)

Gina Hacket slammed the phone down and stood motionless, gazing angrily at it. She waited a moment then blundered back into the living room and slumped heavily into her chair.

‘Useless,’ she exclaimed, looking blankly at the television set on the other side of the room.

‘Who was it?’ Frank Hacket wanted to know, seeing the anger on her face.

‘The police,’ she informed him. ‘I rang to find out how their investigation was going but they still haven’t got anyone.’

‘Give them time, Gina, they’re doing their best.’

‘Well, it doesn’t look as if their best is good enough. Jesus Christ, when are they going to find Laura’s killer?’

‘They told us they didn’t have much to go on from the beginning. You can’t expect miracles. They’ll find whoever did it, you’ll see.’

‘When, Frank? When will they find him? It’s already been two months since she was killed. They’ll never find who did it.’

‘And perhaps you should stop bothering them with phone calls
all the time. They’ll contact us when they’ve got something worthwhile to tell us.’

‘I won’t hold my breath.’

Gina got to her feet and crossed to the window where she peered out into the gloom of the early evening.

‘They said that the success rate was pretty good with cases like this,’ Frank reminded her.

Gina nodded.

‘Great,’ she chided. ‘I feel so much better now.’

Frank rose and crossed to where she stood. He slipped an arm around her waist but she pulled free of him.

‘They don’t care, Frank,’ she said dismissively. ‘We’re just another job to them. Another statistic.’

‘That’s not true,’ he offered. ‘They’re doing their best to find Laura’s killer.’

‘And even if they get him, what then?’ she rasped. ‘It’s not as if he’s going to be hung, is it? Even if they catch him what’ll he get, Frank? Ten or fifteen years? Twenty at a push?’

‘He’ll get life.’

‘Life is thirty years. If the bastard’s in his twenties he’ll be out before he’s sixty. He’ll have plenty of time left to live his life when he gets out. That isn’t justice, Frank. Justice would be that he loses his life, too. Why should he have the right to live when he took Laura’s life?’

Frank regarded her evenly for a moment then he retreated to his chair and sat down again.

‘Even if he was executed it still wouldn’t bring Laura back,’ he offered.

Gina turned to face him, an expression of fury on her face.

‘What are you saying, Frank?’ she snarled. ‘That life would be good enough? Have you forgotten what he did to our daughter?’

‘I’m saying that whatever they do to him isn’t enough,’ Frank snapped. He sat back in his chair and exhaled wearily. ‘If we still had capital punishment, and he was caught and sentenced, what’s the worst they could do to him? He’d have been hung. It would have been over in seconds. A quick and painless death. What I’m saying is that I wouldn’t have wanted him to die quickly and painlessly.’

Gina’s expression softened.

‘What would you have wanted?’ she pursued.

‘I’d have wanted him to suffer,’ Frank announced. ‘I’d have wanted him to go through agony for hours, the way Laura did before he killed her.’

Gina sat down again. When she spoke, much of the anger had gone from her voice.

‘But that won’t happen to him,’ she breathed. ‘Even if he’s caught. He’ll be in prison, in a single cell, locked away for twenty-four hours a day but he won’t suffer. Not the way we do every day. Every time I look at a picture of Laura it’s like someone’s sticking a needle in me. I can’t even enjoy my memor ies because all I’m thinking about is that there won’t be any more. Once
he’s
caught, that’s it. It’s over for him. All he has to do is serve his time and wait until they let him out. And they call that justice.’

‘If there was anything we could do, I’d do it,’ Frank said flatly.

Gina looked evenly at him.

‘He’s an animal, Frank, he doesn’t deserve to live,’ she continued. ‘He deserves to suffer. He deserves pain. As much pain as anyone can give him.’

Frank nodded almost imperceptibly.

‘I often think about what I’d do to him if I got the chance,’ Gina mused. ‘People would think I was sick for some of the thoughts I’ve had.’

‘What kind of thoughts?’ he wanted to know.

‘I’d break his legs with an iron bar,’ she said quietly. ‘Every bone in his body. I’d beat him until he was begging to be put out of his misery and then I’d cut his balls off. One at a time. And I’d stuff them in his mouth.’

Frank watched her expressionlessly.

‘Or I’d cut him,’ Gina continued. ‘Very slowly. Every part of his body. I’d ram splinters under his nails and push my fingers into his eyes until they popped like balloons. I’d use a drill on his kneecaps and then on his elbows. I’d rip his teeth out one by one with pliers. I’d cut out his tongue.’ She bowed her head as if ashamed at the extent of her fantasies.

‘I want him dead, Frank. I want him to suffer.’

‘I know. So do I.’

‘But that’s not going to happen, is it?’

Frank didn’t answer. He was momentarily lost in his own thoughts. And if he was honest with himself, the nature of them terrified him.

‘Was she your only child?’

Paul surprised even himself with the question.

‘Your daughter,’ he repeated. ‘Was she your only child?’

Very clever. Try to make them think you care. Catch them off guard.

‘Yes,’ the voice told him.

Paul wished he could hear more clearly. The sound of the voice was still so badly distorted that he was still unsure as to even the sex of the owner. He wondered if the reception was as bad at the other end.

The other end.

Where was the other end? Where was his captor listening to him? If there were microphones and speakers they would have to be hooked up to receivers somewhere.

And what good is knowing going to do you?

‘Did you have anyone who you could talk to about what happened?’ Paul asked.

Silence.

‘Hello,’ Paul said sharply. ‘I asked if there was anyone.’

‘I heard you,’ the voice cut in. ‘Who did you talk to after your father died?’

‘I spoke to my mum sometimes but otherwise I didn’t like to bother people with the way I was feeling.’

‘No, because people aren’t really interested, are they? They think that there should be a time limit on how long you grieve for. People tell you that life goes on and that time’s a great healer and all that sort of shit. And then, when you don’t start perking up within their time limit they tell you not to dwell on the past. They tell you to look forward. How can I look forward when I know my daughter is dead? I’ll never see her get older. Never meet her first boyfriend or see her get married. There won’t be any grandchildren for me. All the things that other parents look forward to I can’t. There’s nothing for me now. There hasn’t been since she was killed.’

‘I can’t imagine what it’s like.’

‘No, you can’t.’

‘I had a friend whose brother was in the army. He was killed in Iraq.’

‘Killed doing his job. He wasn’t murdered.’

Paul had no answer.

‘That morning when I dropped her off at school she was talking about the summer holidays,’ the voice went on. ‘About what she was going to do when she broke up. How she was going to play with her friends and how she was looking forward to going to the seaside to stay with her grandparents. You should have seen the effect it had on them. I’m surprised they didn’t die, too. If having to identify my daughter was the worst thing in my life then
having to tell her grandparents she was dead was the next one. Having to tell them that she’d been murdered and raped by some fucking animal who should be punished.’

Paul swallowed hard as he heard the building rage in the voice.

‘It must have been terrible,’ he offered. ‘I’m really sorry.’

‘No, you’re not,’ the voice said flatly. ‘Because if you were sorry, you wouldn’t have done it in the first place. You would never have killed her.’

‘I didn’t kill her,’ he said despairingly.

‘Liar.’ The word was shouted and it echoed inside the coffin, throbbing inside Paul’s ears.

‘All right,’ he shouted back. ‘All right. If you want me to talk then I’ll talk. I’ll tell you what happened. I’ll tell you what I did to your daughter. Every detail. But I want you to swear that when I’ve finished you’ll let me out of here. I want you to swear on the soul of your dead daughter.’

‘You bastard.’

‘Tell me you’ll release me if I let you hear what you want to hear. Swear, otherwise I’m saying nothing.’

‘You’re not in a position to bargain.’

‘You’ve already told me that. Now you’ve got a decision to make. You want to hear the truth? Well, the only one who can tell you that truth is me. The only one who can tell you what happened is me. Make your decision.’

‘Gina, it’s impossible.’

Frank Hacket lay on his back gazing at the ceiling of the bedroom, his own words echoing inside the small room as well as inside his own head.

‘But our daughter was the one who was murdered. Why shouldn’t we be informed of how the investigation is going?’ Gina insisted, moving closer to her husband. ‘If they’ve got a man in custody then we should be told.’

‘They won’t give us that kind of information,’ Frank went on, looking at her.

‘How do you know that?’

‘Because that’s not the way things work.’

‘Why won’t the police give us information about the man who killed her? We have a right to know.’

‘They’re not going to give us details about a man who they might only have taken in as a suspect. That’s not how the police work in these cases.’

‘How do you know that, Frank? How come you’re the expert all of a sudden?’

‘I didn’t say I was but I’m telling you that they won’t give us details of every person they bring in for questioning. Chances are this guy isn’t even the one who did it.’

‘And what if he is?’

Gina’s words hung in the air like cigarette smoke.

‘If he’s the one then the police will find out,’ Frank went on. ‘They’ll find out while they’re questioning him and if they charge him then they’ll inform us and that’ll be it.’

‘Yes, it’ll be over. He’ll be locked up. Locked away without ever really paying for what he did to Laura.’

‘There’s nothing else we can do, Gina.’

‘We talked about this, Frank.’

‘Yes, we did, and what we talked about was ridiculous. It was crazy. We weren’t thinking clearly. We’re crazy even to think about it now.’

‘If wanting justice is crazy then you’re right: I’m completely insane.’

She lay motionless, gazing questioningly at Frank.

‘You wanted it as much as I did when we spoke,’ Gina reminded him. ‘Why have you changed your mind?’

‘I haven’t changed my mind,’ he told her. ‘But what we talked about doing and what we can actually, physically, do are two different things.’

‘Why?’ she demanded. ‘You said there would be some way. You said we could do it.’

‘In theory. I was talking about something that could be done in theory. It’s too risky.’

‘Have you forgotten why we’d be doing it?’

‘Don’t start, Gina,’ Frank snapped. ‘Don’t try and make me
feel guilty. I know this would be for Laura. It was always going to be for Laura.’

‘Then why the hesitation?’ she insisted.

Frank swung himself out of bed.

‘We need to think things through,’ he told her, pulling up his pyjama bottoms as he headed for the bedroom door and the landing beyond. ‘We need some kind of plan.’

‘So let’s talk about it now,’ she continued, sliding out of bed and following him out of the room.

She saw him enter the bathroom, saw him push the door shut behind him. She heard him urinating.

Gina stood on the landing facing the bathroom door. She heard water running, the toilet flush and then, moments later, Frank emerged once again.

‘Gina, forget it,’ he said, raising a hand dismissively.

‘Do you know what I did today?’ she asked him, allowing him to pass and make his way back to the bedroom.

Frank shook his head and clambered wearily back into bed. Gina sat at the small dressing table opposite him. She glanced at herself briefly in the mirror there, noticing the dark smudges beneath her eyes. Her hair needed washing and she hadn’t worn more than a touch of make-up for days.

‘What did you do?’ Frank asked her.

‘I sat in Laura’s room wondering what to do with her things,’ she told him quietly. ‘Her clothes, her books, her toys.’

‘I’m not with you.’

‘Eventually we’ll have to decide what to do, Frank. We’ll have to decide whether we keep them or get rid of them. If we keep them then that room will be like a shrine to her but if we sell them or give them away then it’ll be like betraying her. It’ll be as if we don’t want any reminders of her in this house any more.’

‘No, it won’t, Gina,’ he said tenderly. ‘Even if we give everything of hers away we’ll never lose the memories of her that we have.’

Gina sat silently in the gloom, gazing across at her husband.

‘I read somewhere that the first thing people forget about dead loved ones is how they sounded,’ she said sadly. ‘They forget what their voices were like. How their laugh sounded. Stuff like that.’

‘We won’t forget,’ he assured her.

‘How can you be so sure?’ she said challengingly.

Frank shook his head.

‘Then after that you start to forget what they looked like,’ Gina continued. ‘You can remember their features but you forget little things like how they smiled and cried. Little by little they fade in your mind, like old photos and then, in the end, all you’ve got is old photos.’

‘That won’t happen with us,’ Frank insisted. ‘We’ll never forget her.’

‘Because if we did, that would be betraying her, wouldn’t it, Frank?’ Gina said.

Again he nodded.

‘Just like letting her killer escape would be betraying her,’ she added.

‘It’s not down to us to catch her killer. That’s the police’s job,’ Frank reminded her.

‘But it should be down to us to punish him.’

Gina’s words came at him in the darkness of the room like stones fired from a slingshot.

‘We should have that right, Frank,’ she went on. ‘We should be able to decide the way he lives or dies. If we want to make him suffer then we should have that option.’

‘But we can’t.’

‘We could if we did what we talked about.’

‘It’s not possible. No matter how much we might want it. It can’t be done.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because if we went after the man who killed Laura that would make us murderers, too.’

‘Not unless we took his life. Just trying to find him wouldn’t be wrong. We’d be helping the police.’

‘We’re not detectives. Where the hell would we start?’

‘The police told us the kind of man they were looking for. His approximate age, his build.’

Frank listened silently.

‘They said he probably lived alone. That he was strong.’

‘That’s hardly a description, is it?’ Frank murmured.

‘But it’s a start, Frank,’ she told him, her voice more animated than it had been for a while. There seemed to be genuine enthusiasm in her tone and her words. As if someone had pumped her full of adrenaline. It was a side of her that he hadn’t seen for longer than he cared to remember. ‘If we could just find out things like his hair colour, any distinguishing marks he might have, then we’d be able to find him.’

Frank shook his head and exhaled.

‘That’s what you want, too, Frank, I know it,’ Gina said. ‘You want to find him as much as I do. You want him to suffer as much as I do. You want him dead as much as I do.’

Frank Hacket didn’t answer.

He merely sat in silence, the thoughts tumbling through his mind.

‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ Gina added.

Frank nodded.

Gina crossed to him and kissed him lightly on the cheek and, as she drew back, there was a smile of triumph on her face.