Epitaph (21 page)

‘Where have you been?’

Gina Hacket glanced questioningly at her husband as he closed the door of the Portakabin behind him. Frank Hacket took a deep breath and shrugged.

‘Walking around,’ he informed her. ‘Trying to clear my head.’

‘You should have been here.’

Frank didn’t speak. He merely slumped down in the seat next to his wife and dug in his jacket for his cigarettes.

‘Has he said anything?’ he wanted to know.

‘Only what I expected him to say,’ Gina informed him. ‘That he’s innocent.’

‘What else did you expect him to say?’

‘You should have been here with me. If he’d confessed you would have missed it.’

‘I’d have heard it on the tape later.’

Frank lit a cigarette and drew heavily on it.

‘I can’t hear him very well,’ Gina complained. ‘There’s
so much distortion and interference coming through these speakers.’

‘They were all I could afford,’ Frank snapped. ‘Besides, it’ll be the same for him. He won’t be able to recognise your voice either.’

‘Well, he couldn’t do that unless he knew me, could he?’ she chided.

‘If he got out he might be able to identify it later.’

‘He’s not going to get out though, is he?’

Frank took another drag on his cigarette and nodded towards the microphone.

‘So, what did he say?’ he wanted to know.

‘He says he’ll confess if we release him,’ Gina murmured.

‘That’s what you expected, wasn’t it?’ her husband enquired. ‘I thought that was the idea, to get him to confess.’

‘It was, but not to release him.’

‘He’s going to know that, Gina. He must know that he’s fucked, no matter what he says.’

They regarded each other silently for a moment then Gina exhaled wearily.

‘How did you know it was him?’ she asked quietly. ‘How did you know it was this man? Out of all the ones it could have been. What made you pick him?’

‘I told you,’ Frank informed her. ‘I had my reasons. You didn’t care what those reasons were when I said I could get him. What’s wrong? Are you starting to think this was a bad idea now?’

Gina shook her head.

‘He’s the one, Gina, I’m telling you,’ Frank insisted. ‘Do you think I would have risked going to these lengths if I wasn’t sure? What we’re doing, we’re doing for Laura. For
our dead daughter. Our murdered daughter. If you start having second thoughts just remember that.’

‘I know why we’re doing it,’ she snapped. ‘And I want him dead. I want him to suffer.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘We don’t even know his name.’

‘He fits the description that the police gave us. He’s the man who killed our daughter. That’s all we have to know.’ Frank blew out a stream of smoke and closed his eyes.

‘Do you want to talk to him?’ Gina asked.

‘Not yet,’ he told her. ‘I’m sure you can handle it.’

Frank massaged the back of his neck with one hand and sat forward slightly in his chair.

‘Don’t you want to hear what he’s got to say, Frank?’ Gina said challengingly. ‘Don’t you care how our daughter died?’

‘We know how she died, Gina.’

‘Well, I want him to tell me.’

‘How is that going to help?

‘I want to know what she said. I want to know if she called for us before he killed her.’

‘Why torture yourself any more? Just leave him where he is and have done with it.’

‘Not until I’ve got all the facts. I want to hear from his lips what happened and why. That’s what I really want to know. Why he did it.’

‘I’m not sure I do.’

‘Then leave now,’ Gina snapped.

Frank regarded her silently for a moment then took another drag on his cigarette.

‘I’m going to speak to him again now,’ Gina told him. ‘Do you want to hear or not?’

Frank hesitated for a moment longer then nodded gently.

They wanted answers to their questions, Paul Crane thought. Well, he’d give them answers.

Too fucking right he’d give them answers.

And they’d hear them when he decided. Not when they decided. No longer would his captors dictate to him. From now on, he was the one making the decisions.

Paul actually managed a smile. For the first time since waking inside the coffin that night he forced his lips to crease upwards in that unmistakable expression. Surprised by his own audacity, he lay still in the coffin feeling relatively composed. His breathing had slowed and his heart was beating relatively normally. The air still tasted stale and acrid to him and it was uncomfortably warm inside the box, but Paul was able to consider all those factors with uncharacteristic calm at this precise moment. He felt that, despite his situation, he was gaining some measure of control. Or at least he would be.

Now all he needed was for his captors to begin speaking
to him again; then he would give them exactly what they wanted.

Again he smiled.

You’re very smug for a man who’s still buried six feet below ground. What if this master plan doesn’t work? The others haven’t exactly been roaring successes, have they?

This plan would work. He felt it in his bones. Despite the seemingly inescapable surroundings he found himself in, and the sheer soul-crushing hopelessness of the situation, Paul had almost convinced himself that victory was just a short time away. He would be getting out of this coffin. He had decided.

And then?

He felt pain from his injured hand and he flexed the fingers slowly.

How he wanted to drive that fist into the faces of his captors. How he wanted to make them suffer when he finally got out of this wooden prison. He gritted his teeth, visualising himself standing triumphantly before them at the graveside. They would cower from him as he loomed furiously above them, desperate to make amends for the agonies they’d put him through. But their entreaties would do them no good.

He would grab one of the shovels that had been used to bury him and he would smash the metal across their heads and faces.

And he would keep swinging until their heads split open and their twisted, febrile brains spilled out on to the earth of the cemetery where they’d buried him.

‘Fuckers,’ he hissed aloud.

He could see himself standing over the first of them,
driving the blade of the shovel down on to an outstretched neck, pressing down with all his weight, cutting through the flesh, muscle and, finally, through spinal cord. He wouldn’t stop until the head was severed. And, when it was, he would prop it on the headstone of the grave in which they had buried him. That would be fitting, he decided.

The other one he would disembowel.

Paul could see himself using the shovel again like some massive blunt but deadly scalpel. Cleaving the torso of his other tormentor from sternum to pelvis. Then he would pull the intestines free with his bare hands, holding the slippery lengths like bloated worms before him. He would hope that the owner of the vital organs was still alive so that he could see his own viscera being held before him.

He would then be drawn. That was what the next part of the process was called, wasn’t it? Hanging, drawing and quartering? He would dispense with the first step, preferring the spade as his weapon of destruction. But he would use the second phase of that execution so feared in days gone by with relish.

He would hold the dripping entrails before the bulging eyes of his captor, watching as the flickering light of life gradually diminished and then disappeared in those orbs.

He would make him pay.

And then what? Call the police and calmly give yourself up?

Paul hadn’t thought of what would come next. He didn’t care. All that mattered was getting out of the coffin, and now he was sure he had a way. Whatever happened after that he would deal with in due course. Things had to be taken one step at a time and this was the first step.

So your plan’s foolproof, then? You’ve thought through every single eventuality and you’re still satisfied that it’s going to work? Is that why you’re still smiling?

The smile faded from his lips but Paul was still sure that what he planned to do would be enough to get him free. It had to be.

‘Come on, you bastards,’ he murmured. ‘Talk to me.’

And what if they’ve gone? What if they didn’t appreciate being shouted at and given ultimatums? What if they’ve just thought, fuck it, let’s leave him where he is? Then what, genius?

But Paul was sure that he wouldn’t have been abandoned to his fate. Someone had gone to a fair amount of time and trouble to kidnap and imprison him inside this coffin; they weren’t just going to walk away without the answers they wanted, were they?

You seem very sure. I hope you’re right. Trying to call someone’s bluff from six feet under doesn’t seem like a very good idea to be honest, but I suppose you know what you’re doing. After all, the success of this venture depends on your ability to lie convincingly, doesn’t it? And no one would want to diminish your skills as a liar.

Paul shook his head irritably.

Sorry, that same raw nerve keeps getting touched, doesn’t it? Liar, liar, pants on fire. Ha, ha.

‘Yeah, very funny,’ he whispered.

There was a sound inside the coffin. Something like a dull thud.

Are you sure it was inside? Maybe the graveyard scavengers have turned up early for their feast.

Paul heard the same noise again and he recognised it. It was the sound of someone breathing close to the
microphone. He was sure of what was going on now. It wasn’t the graveyard rats or anything ridiculous like that. It wasn’t something that had forced its way from his imagination through to his consciousness and it wasn’t the product of his tortured mind and an atmosphere now badly short of oxygen. The noise he’d heard meant just one thing.

His captor was about to speak to him again.

‘Can you hear me?’

Paul heard the muted, distorted voice and experienced that familiar feeling of defiance flowing through his veins.

Come on, you fucker, bring it on.

‘Yes, I can hear you,’ he said, not sure whether or not to disguise the newly found strength in his tone. He knew he had to play this carefully. He couldn’t antagonise his captors too much or they would merely leave him to rot in his subterranean container. However, so convinced was he of the possibility of success that he was struggling to control that confident edge to his voice.

Just calm down and play it by ear.

Paul took a breath.

One step at a time, remember?

‘Have you thought about what I said?’ Paul asked, wondering instantly whether or not he should have taken the initiative.

There was a long silence during which he feared he might have lost his final chance for freedom.

‘Are you saying that you’re prepared to admit murdering my daughter?’ the voice asked.

‘I’ll tell you what you want to hear,’ Paul answered.

‘I’m taping this conversation. I’ll play the tape to the police. You’ll be arrested. You’ll go to prison for killing her.’

Fuck you. Go and fetch the law now. Let them dig me out of this fucking grave. At least I’ve got a chance of getting out now. Prison is better than a slow death by suffocation.

‘I don’t care if you tape it,’ Paul said.

‘But you might lie.’

‘I won’t. I’ll tell you just what you want to hear.’

There was another long silence. Paul clenched his left hand into a fist as he waited for it to be broken.

‘You want to know what happened to your daughter, don’t you?’ he offered. ‘I said I’d tell you.’

‘I know what you said. And I know the conditions you made. Don’t try to play games with me. I’m still the one in control here.’

‘I know you are. That’s why I’m prepared to say what you want. I know that my life is in your hands. I’m going to have to trust you, though.’

‘And about me swearing on my daughter’s soul?’

‘I want you to do that. It’s the only way I’ll be able to believe that you’re going to release me once I’ve told you what you want to hear.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Swear.’

Silence.

‘You want to hear, don’t you?’ Paul said. ‘You want to know what happened to her? Swear.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Do it or I’ll say nothing. I’ll die in here, I know, but everything you’ve done to me will have been a waste of time.’

‘All right, I swear I’ll let you go if you tell me the truth.’

‘On your daughter’s soul.’ ‘I swear on her soul, you bastard,’ the voice snarled. ‘Now talk.’

Paul licked his lips and took another muggy breath.

‘What did the police tell you?’ he wanted to know.

‘How she died. When she died,’ the voice informed him.

‘Then what can I tell you that you don’t already know?

‘Details. The police wouldn’t give details.’

‘Like what?’

‘Just tell me what happened from the beginning. From the time you picked her up in your car. And don’t lie, I’ll know. I’ll sense it.’

Yeah, right.

‘I still don’t know what you expect from me,’ Paul said, his voice lower now.

‘A confession and a reason why you did it. I need to understand that. Why my daughter and not someone else’s? I have to know.’

Paul nodded to himself. He swallowed hard, licked his lips again and prepared himself.

After this there was no going back. No more chances. Nothing else.

‘All right,’ he began. ‘Turn your tape on.’