Epitaph (23 page)

‘I’ve heard enough.’

Frank Hacket got to his feet, shaking his head, his breath coming in gasps.

‘Where are you going?’ Gina asked him irritably.

‘I told you, I’ve heard enough,’ Frank snapped.

‘But this is what we wanted. He’s confessing. That’s why we brought him here and put him in that coffin, to make him confess.’

‘I know it is.’

‘He’s telling us what he did to Laura.’

‘We know what he did, Gina. You might want to hear it but I don’t.’

‘She was your daughter too, Frank.’

‘That’s why I don’t want to hear it,’ he snarled. ‘Him giving us all the gory details isn’t going to bring her back, is it?’

‘Nothing’s going to bring her back.’

‘Then just leave it now. He’s confessed. He’s admitted what kind of thoughts he had. We’ve heard how warped
he is. No normal bloke has thoughts like that. How much more do you need? It’s Frank who doesn’t want to hear any more details. I certainly don’t need details. He killed her and he’s confessed to that. That’s all I need. That’s all I ever needed.’

‘Well, it’s not enough for me.’

‘Then you listen to what else he’s got to say. I don’t want to hear it.’

‘What kind of man are you?’

The words were said with a sneering contempt that Frank wasn’t slow to detect.

‘The kind that doesn’t want to hear how his eight-year-old daughter was raped and murdered,’ he roared at her. ‘If this is what you want. If this is what you need to get over Laura’s death then that’s fine. You deal with it your way and I’ll deal with it mine. It’s enough for me knowing that the bastard’s dead.’ He stood with his back to her, his breathing gradually slowing down. The veins on his neck and at his temple had been throbbing madly and he could still feel them pulsing. Frank kept his teeth clenched, his jaw muscles as tight as fists.

‘If that makes me less of a man in your eyes, Gina, then I’m sorry,’ he said finally, almost apologetically. ‘What would you rather I did? Dug him up and beat him to death in front of you? Is that a more fitting punishment?’ He turned to look at her once more. ‘I did this for you. I kidnapped a man and buried him in a coffin for you. I stole the drugs from the hospital where I work, broke into his flat and brought him out. I found this place. I set up the microphones and speakers. I buried him. I took the risks.’

‘I drove the car,’ she reminded him.

He nodded.

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to overlook your part in all of this,’ he sighed.

‘You were supposed to be doing it for Laura, for your daughter,’ she chided.

‘It was for Laura, too,’ he told her, battling to keep his temper in check. ‘But you were the one who wanted this. You wanted him to die this way.’

‘So did you, Frank,’ she reminded him. ‘Don’t try to blame me for this. You wanted him to suffer as much as I did.’

‘Yes, I did and he has suffered and he will suffer more before he dies. But that’s it, Gina. Once he’s gone, he’s gone. It has to stop somewhere.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘We can’t do this again.’

She looked at him evenly.

‘You said you were sure he was the one,’ she snapped.

‘You said you knew it this time. You knew that he was the one who killed Laura. What if he isn’t? What if we have to do this again? What if we have to keep doing it until we find the man who actually killed her?’

‘I told you, it stops tonight.’

‘Why were you so sure it was him, Frank?’

‘I know it’s him.’ He turned away from her again, his voice low. ‘I know it. You’ve got to trust me. He’s the one. He’s been right so far, hasn’t he? He’s told you details that only the murderer could know.’

She nodded almost reluctantly.

‘Then why do you doubt that it’s him?’ Frank insisted.

‘Because we’ve been wrong before,’ Gina breathed. ‘Because of the others.’

It was silent inside the coffin.

Paul wiped his face and waited for the sound of the voice to invade the solitude yet again but that distorted, unnatural and indistinguishable vocalisation didn’t begin again as he’d expected.

‘Hello,’ he called.

There was no reply.

‘Can you hear me?’ he said, raising his voice but trying not to sound too challenging.

There was still no sound from the speakers.

This is not good.

Perhaps there’d been a fault at the other end, he thought. Perhaps they weren’t speaking to him because there had been some kind of electronic failure. Maybe the equipment wasn’t working at this precise moment.

Never considered that, did you?

And if it was broken? If they couldn’t hear him or speak to him then, he realised with a shudder, he was finished.

Fucks your plan and you, doesn’t it?

Paul shook his head. It couldn’t be that. The silence couldn’t be down to some kind of electronic failure. If someone had gone to the trouble of kidnapping him from his flat and imprisoning him in a coffin for the purposes of forcing a confession from him, then they would have checked and double-checked the quality of the equipment they were using to monitor such an event.

Wouldn’t they?

But what if the kidnappers weren’t technical wizards? What if this failure in communication was as much a surprise to them as it was to him?

‘What we have here is a failure to communicate.’

Another line from a film that he couldn’t remember the name of. It popped into his mind as unwelcome as the others before it.

Focus.

If there were a technical problem, some kind of mechanical hitch, then his captors would be trying to repair it. That was only logical. They’d put him in this place for the express purpose of communicating with him and hearing him speak, so they wouldn’t just leave it as it was, would they? He could imagine them, even now, rushing around to make good the fault so that they could continue their interrogation. The thought comforted him a little.

But what if the problem is not that easy to put right? What if they get fed up with waiting and just decide to leave you here and now?

Paul wouldn’t entertain that eventuality. Instead he focused his mind on visualising his captors above the ground somewhere, desperately attempting to repair the microphones
and speakers that were their only connection to him and him to them.

He found it difficult to picture them, though, because he had no idea at all of what they might look like. He knew there was more than one of them. That much had been revealed when the voice had repeatedly said we, our, and any other word that indicated more than just a singular presence.

They told you there was more than one of them because it isn’t going to matter in the long run. You’re not going to get out of this fucking box to do anything about it anyway. It doesn’t matter if there’s one of them, two of them or an entire bloody gang. They’re up there and you’re down here. That’s it. That’s why it doesn’t matter how much information they give you. They could tell you their fucking names and it still wouldn’t make any difference. Christ, you already know the name of their daughter. Why not just ask them for their names? You could ask for their addresses and phone numbers while you’re at it.

Paul tapped gently on one side of the coffin, wondering if the sound would galvanise his captors into some kind of response.

If they can’t hear you then it’s not likely to work, is it?
But, Paul reminded himself, he didn’t know that there’d been some kind of electronic failure. He was just telling himself that to try and explain the uncomfortably long and rather worrying silence. He was humouring himself, he thought.

Or clutching at straws, depending on your viewpoint.

He tapped the coffin again, beginning with the sides then transferring his attention to the lid, particularly the area above him where he’d torn the satin away. The sound
was louder when he hit it there. The material didn’t muffle the impact the way it did on either side of him.

He continued with his knocking for a moment longer, then allowed his arms to flop back to his sides once again.

‘I haven’t finished,’ he called. ‘There’s more you need to hear.’

There was still no answer.

Paul swallowed hard and waited.

‘We can’t think about them now.’

Frank Hacket reached for his cigarettes and lit another, sucking hard on it.

‘That’s in the past. We thought we were right at the time. We thought they were the ones. That’s all that matters.’

‘We’ve done the same thing to two other men, Frank,’ Gina reminded him. ‘Two others who we’ve left to die in the holes we put them in. Two other men who we were sure were Laura’s murderers. What happens if we’re wrong again?’

‘It’s a bit late for second thoughts,’ he reminded her.

‘It’s not that,’ she insisted. ‘I’m not complaining. I’m just saying. If we’re wrong then that’s three innocent men who are dead because of us.’

‘No one’s innocent in this world, Gina.’

She looked at him and held his gaze.

‘What did the others tell you?’ Frank wanted to know.

Gina looked puzzled for a moment.

‘What did the other two say?’ Frank went on. ‘About Laura?’

‘The first one didn’t say anything about her,’ Gina informed him. ‘He just kept saying over and over again that he was innocent and that he hadn’t done anything. He begged for his life. So did the second one but he said that he’d help us find her killer if we’d let him out.’

A thin smile creased Gina’s tired features.

Frank nodded.

‘But you were sure it wasn’t either of them,’ he muttered.

‘They didn’t give the right answers,’ she reminded him.

‘Exactly. They made out they didn’t know anything about what had happened to her.’

‘So did this one to begin with.’

‘Isn’t that what you expected?’

Gina nodded.

‘He’s given you more information than you could ever have hoped for,’ Frank observed. ‘Doesn’t that prove to you once and for all that he was the one who killed Laura? How could he know the kind of details he’s given us if he hadn’t been there?’

Gina regarded her husband evenly, her nails absently scratching the top of the desk where she sat.

‘Why wouldn’t you let me see his face?’ she enquired. ‘You let me see the other two?’

‘Does it matter?’ Frank intoned.

‘I suppose not.’

‘The man who raped and killed our daughter is lying in a coffin out there. What the hell does it matter if you saw his face before I put him in there?’

She had no answer.

‘It’s him, Gina, I’m telling you,’ Frank insisted. ‘I can feel it this time. I just know.’

‘Then why won’t you listen to him?’

Frank sighed.

‘I told you,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard enough. And you should have, too. How much oxygen has he got left?’

‘Thirty minutes, perhaps a bit more.’

‘Then get it over with, Gina. If he’s got more to say then let him say it and let’s go. Let’s get out of here. Let’s leave this once and for all.’

There was a bone-crushing weariness in his tone that she hadn’t heard before. He looked drained. His face was pale and there were dark rings beneath his eyes. When he lifted the cigarette to his mouth she noticed that his hand was shaking.

‘What will happen to us, Frank?’ Gina said finally.

He looked at her with an expression of bemusement on his face.

‘No one will find the bodies,’ he began. ‘There’s no reason to think the police will link us to the three dis -appearances.’

‘No,’ Gina said, cutting him short.

‘After this is over. There’ll be nothing left for us. We’ll have done what we wanted to do. We’ll have avenged Laura’s murder. Not the police but us. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’

‘But what will be left for us? What is there in the future for us? For you and me?’

‘Not much. But there never was, was there?’

She looked at him expressionlessly.

‘We’re the same as a lot of couples, Gina,’ Frank went
on. ‘We see time passing and we can’t do anything to stop it. We don’t try to change the way we are. Life just passes us by. It’s something that happens to other people. At least when this bastard is dead I’ll feel as if I’ve done something. As if I’ve made a mark. My life won’t have been wasted. I couldn’t stop my daughter being murdered and that will haunt me for the rest of my life but at least I can comfort myself with the knowledge that the bastard who did it will be dead as well. Dead, thanks to me. Dead, because of what I did. If there is a Heaven I hope Laura’s looking down at us now and I hope she’s happy with what we’ve done for her.’

‘Do you think she will be?’

He could only shrug.

‘We can only hope,’ he murmured.

‘Hope,’ Gina breathed. ‘We haven’t got too much of that either, Frank.’

He got to his feet and nodded in the direction of the small microphone on the desk before her.

‘Let him say what else he has to say,’ Frank offered. ‘It’s time to finish this.’

‘Are you going to listen?’ Gina wanted to know.

He remained motionless for a moment then, very slowly, he seated himself once more.