Epitaph (20 page)

The woman sat back in her chair, breathing heavily.

The arrogant bastard. How dare he dictate to her? How dare he try and bargain for his worthless life?

Her eyes were fixed on the speaker before her. The speaker through which she could hear Paul Crane’s voice. It was distorted to the extent that she sometimes had difficulty hearing everything he said but she heard enough.

She wondered what he looked like. He’d had a pillow-case fastened tightly over his head when he’d been brought to the car and dumped unceremoniously in the boot the previous night. That, and the fact that it had been so dark, had made any kind of identification impossible. Not that she really cared what he looked like, but there was part of her that wanted and needed to see this man who she had been interrogating. She had felt the burning desire to look upon the face of the man she was convinced was responsible for the death of her daughter. She had wanted to look at him before he was put into the coffin but she’d
been denied that pleasure. There was no need, she’d been told. Besides, they had to get this over with before dawn. The coming of the daylight would leave them exposed and they couldn’t allow that to happen. They couldn’t allow themselves to be caught.

It had all happened so quickly she’d barely had time to take it in.

She had driven the car the previous night. She had been the one who had ferried them to this place where they now were. This place of confession, possibly of execution, too. The thought of a man dying by her hand didn’t bother her. Why should it? He deserved to die for taking her daughter’s life. It was a simple equation. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, even the Bible said that. There was nothing else to it. No room for moral dilemmas and questions of right and wrong. He had been untroubled by those things when he’d raped and murdered her child. Why should she be bothered by them now? The only thing she did find a little troubling was that she wasn’t going to see his face before he died. There was a part of her that would have relished looking into his eyes as he got closer and closer to his final moments on this earth. She wanted to see him suffer. Hearing him beg for mercy was all right but it didn’t match actually watching him die.

The woman wondered if she should be feeling this way but every time she had doubts about her right to end his life she imagined what her own child must have gone through at his hands. When she considered that, there was no room for doubt at all.

Wouldn’t any parent who had lost a child secretly take
this kind of justice, she wondered? Any parent whose offspring had been raped and murdered would want this for the killer, wouldn’t they? If they were honest. She’d seen people on the news emerging from court saying that vengeance wouldn’t bring their kids back and that they were satisfied with the court’s decision. But were they really? Wouldn’t they have preferred to know that the one who had ended their child’s life was going to lose his own life, too? And how much better that they should be the controllers of that fate as she herself now was.

For all that, she wished she could see him.

She reached for the bottle of Coke beside her and took a swig. The beginnings of a headache were gnawing at the back of her neck and she fumbled in her handbag for some painkillers and swallowed two with another mouthful of Coke, tasting their bitterness as they stuck briefly in the back of her throat.

The speakers and microphones that had been set up inside the coffin were simple, crude, even, but they did their job. The woman knew nothing of how they worked and cared even less. They ensured that her daughter’s killer could hear what she was saying to him and that was the only thing that mattered even though she would have appreciated being able to hear him with a little more clarity.

She herself now sat in a bare-walled Portakabin listening to the sound of his breathing as it rasped through the speakers. It was cold inside the small hut and it smelled of damp and wet earth in there. There were several shallow puddles on the floor and, when the wind blew strongly it felt as if the entire flimsy structure was going to either collapse or be blown away. But the woman realised that
she would only be inside for another hour or so. It would do until this was over with, one way or the other.

If she was honest with herself there was only one possible outcome.

The man in the coffin would be left to die.

If he was guilty of murdering her child then that was his just and deserved fate.

If.

For a fleeting second, for only the first time since she’d arrived at this place, did she pause to consider that he might not be guilty of the crime.

She was still considering this fact when the door to the Portakabin opened.

Gina Hacket turned to greet the newcomer.

Paul gritted his teeth.

He wanted to shout to his captor that he was ready to speak again. Ready to tell them whatever they wanted to hear.

Don’t provoke them. You’re in deep enough shit as it is. If you provoke them they might just walk away and leave you. Just for the hell of it.

But he knew that wasn’t the case, or hoped it wasn’t. He’d been put in this coffin for a reason. Someone didn’t go to these lengths just to walk away.

So, basically, you’ve played your last card.

Paul wondered if he should have bargained for the right to be let out of the coffin before he started speaking again.

No, don’t push it. One step at a time. Take it easy and you might just talk your way out of this.

He knew it was going to take all his strength and will to come out of this situation alive but, as earlier that night, he felt that energy surging through his veins once again. Paul
had almost convinced himself that he could escape this wooden prison simply by using his powers of persuasion.

And lies.

He sucked in a warm, bitter breath and coughed.

His captors had told him that he had enough oxygen left to last him an hour. What if they were lying?

They want a confession before they leave you to rot. What would be the point in letting you die now?

But if they didn’t intend to let him out anyway, then why bother about the time limit?

Just concentrate on getting them back on that fucking microphone. Keep them talking.

Even though talking was also using up the oxygen quicker.

Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t.

Or just damned.

Oh no, not back to that. Not the Heaven or Hell scenario. Not now.

Paul felt light-headed. He tried to hold his breath for a moment, attempted to inhale while he counted to three, hold it and then exhale to a count of three or more. It had, he reminded himself, worked earlier on when he was attempting to calm himself down and limit the number of deep oxygen-draining breaths he’d been taking. Perhaps it would work again. He put his hands to his face, cupped them over his mouth and nose and exhaled. He did this five times in succession and some of the terrible light-headed feeling of unreality began to subside a little.

You’ve got to keep your mind sharp now. Now, more than ever. If you’re going to persuade them to let you out you’ve got to be one hundred per cent focused on what you’re saying.

But this person only wanted to hear one thing. All they wanted to hear was that he had killed their daughter. They wouldn’t settle for anything other than a full and frank confession.

Then give them one.

Paul closed his eyes, his heart thumping a little harder.

Confessing isn’t normally your strong point, is it, but then again, your life doesn’t normally depend on it. Christ, asking someone in the advertising business to be honest was a bit like asking Hitler to become a rabbi.

‘Very funny,’ he murmured to himself, his eyes jerking open again despite the fact that it was still pitch-black within the box.

Had they heard him? He strained his ears to detect any sounds at all coming from the speakers but he could hear nothing.

What about other sounds like the squealing of the graveyard rats or the slithering of those big, fat flesh-eating slugs? They’ll still be coming for you, no matter what happens.

Paul shuddered involuntarily and stretched his left hand down the side of the coffin, fumbling at the satin there. Perhaps trying to reach the speaker or the microphone that had been inserted. And yet they had told him it was pointless.

Even if you find one, what are you going to do? Even if you find the microphone and you can disable it, what good is it going to do you?

The thought struck him like a thunderbolt.

There
was
a way out.

‘Tell me you don’t want to do this, Frank.’

Gina Hacket looked at her husband who was seated in his living-room chair, his head slightly bowed.

‘Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want to do it,’ she repeated.

‘It’s not that I don’t want to,’ he said evasively.

‘But?’ she challenged.

‘The risks are incredible,’ he stated, finally looking at her in the darkened room.

‘Not if we’re careful and not if we do things the way we said we’d do. The way we planned.’

‘More intelligent people than us have tried to do things like this over the years and got caught,’ he said, managing a smile. ‘It isn’t always down to organisation. Sometimes it’s down to luck and we haven’t exactly been blessed with good luck during our lives, have we?’

‘So what do we do? Forget about it? Let it go?’

Frank shook his head.

‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘We do what we said we’d do.’

Gina smiled.

‘When?’ she wanted to know.

‘Everything should be ready by tomorrow,’ he informed her. ‘I found a perfect place. Isolated. Nothing for miles around. We won’t be disturbed.’

‘How long do you think it will take?’

Frank shook his head again.

‘I don’t know,’ he confessed. ‘I really don’t know.’

Gina got up and moved towards him. She knelt beside his chair like a supplicant before the throne of a king.

‘We’ve got to stick together, Gina,’ he told her. ‘Once this is done there’s no going back.’

‘I know that,’ she admitted. ‘It’s what I want. I don’t care about the risks.’

‘Perhaps you should,’ Frank snapped.

‘I’d do anything for Laura,’ she told him softly.

‘Even spend time in prison?’

‘If that’s what happens. At least I’ll know that her killer has got what he deserved.’

Frank sucked in a deep breath.

‘Are you sure about the dosage to give?’ Gina wanted to know.

‘I spoke to someone in the pharmacy,’ Frank said. ‘Just a hypothetical conversation. We were talking about some cop programme on the TV and I asked what kind of chemicals would be needed and how much. That kind of thing.’

‘And no one saw you take it?’

‘I was very careful.’

They sat in silence for a moment, then she reached out and rested one hand tenderly on his thigh.

‘You know how much this means to me?’ she murmured.

‘I’m doing it for my sake too, not just yours,’ he said quietly.

‘We’re doing it for Laura,’ she said.

‘Is that how we’re going to justify it to ourselves, Gina? Is there anything we couldn’t excuse by saying it was for Laura?’

‘You’re having second thoughts.’

‘No, I’m not,’ he snapped. ‘I just don’t want any mistakes.’

‘And I’m not going to make any. Just make sure that you don’t. Don’t give him too much of the sedative or you’ll kill him.’

‘I told you, I know what to do and how much to give.’

Again silence descended. Gina got to her feet and moved back to her own chair. The television was on in one corner of the room but the sound was muted. The only light inside the room was from the flickering images on the silent screen. They both stared blankly at the set. The ticking of the carriage clock seemed thunderous in the stillness.

‘What’s his name?’ Gina wanted to know.

‘Does it matter?’ Frank sighed.

‘I was just curious,’ she persisted.

‘Then you ask him when you get the chance.’

‘I won’t see his face either.’

‘Is it that important to you?’

‘I would have liked to look into his eyes. Just once.’

‘There’s no need.’

Another long silence fell upon them, finally broken by Gina.

‘Tomorrow night,’ she murmured.

Frank nodded in the gloom.

They both continued staring at the soundless television set. The insistent ticking of the clock filled the room.