Hurt (The Hurt Series) (36 page)

That’s my girl, Jessop thought. There was she and Vicky worrying about losing their lives, and all Chloe was concerned about was losing her pride. ‘If it comes down to it,’ she said, ‘I’ll send us all to hell.’ She turned to Vicky and winked. ‘Imagine the look on your dad’s face when we all turn up together.’

And for the first time since she could remember, Vicky smiled.

‘Ready?’

Both girls nodded unconvincingly.

Heart thumping so loud she was convinced the girls could hear it, she went to unlock the door when from her pocket her mobile pinged informing of a text.

Mason replying to her missed call, she thought with relief.

Under the girl’s wide eyes, she fished out her phone. Bit back her anxiety as once again she failed to recognise the sender’s number. She opened the message and read:

Coincidence
ur family’s murderer was killed the day u were due to meet him in prison…ISN’T IT?

Mouth going dry, her flesh prickled beneath a sudden cold sweat. She read again, refusing to believe her eyes. Refusing to believe the words actually existed.

But they did. And what they implied was beyond her comprehension.

Whoever had typed the message suspected she had arranged to visit Malcolm Hoyt that day seven years ago for more than just a talk about a case she was working on. And they would be right. She was going to kill him.

But no one had known that.

No one
could
know that! Because she had not told a soul.

Yet someone bloody knew. And that person was right about the timing of Hoyt’s death being a coincidence. Because an hour later and it would have been her hand stabbing the bastard, not Vincent Dodd’s. And an hour after that, she would be the one being slammed in a cell.

‘Mum… What is it?’

The voice sounded distant.

‘Cathy, what’s wrong?’

She looked up from the message, saw Chloe and Vicky staring at her.

‘Is it from Chambers?’ Chloe asked.

The question reverberated around her already spinning head.

The answer stopped the spinning dead, and kicked her hard in the gut.

Of course it was from Chambers. It was another one of his psychological power plays to mess with her head. He’d targeted her, which meant he’d done his homework on her to get the edge he needed to win the game. He’d learned of her family’s murder and knew all about Hoyt and Dodd. Had probably followed her on Tuesday to Dodd’s flat, and put two and two together.

But how had he known about her request to see Hoyt that day seven years ago?

‘Mum…Are you alright?’

She blinked at Chloe. Realised where she was and why she was here.

‘Fine,’ she mumbled. She pocketed the phone and took a deep breath. Felt a bit easier knowing if Chambers was still playing games with her then he wasn’t likely to be in the house.

‘Are we still going in?’ Vicky asked.

Refocused, Jessop nodded. Stepped in front of the girls, unlocked the door, and stepped into the kitchen.

All was quiet and still. Too quiet and too still, she thought, remembering what the house had felt like on Halloween when she’d returned from Dodd’s flat.

She shrugged off her coat and waited until both girls were inside and the door was closed and locked behind them.

‘Remember, stay behind me and be ready,’ she whispered.

The girls fell in tight behind her, and together they walked through the kitchen and out into the hallway to begin the search.

They didn’t have to look far.

Perched on the armchair she had been sitting on all night was Corporal Phillip Chambers.

Chapter
One-hundred and two

‘Don’t move! Don’t you fucking move!’ Jessop had the Webely trained on Chambers’ head. The black barrel wavered in her trembling hand, but at that distance she could not fail to miss. ‘Now slowly put your hands on your head and lie face down on the floor.’

Shaven head, and dressed in a generic black jacket zipped to the neck, faded blue jeans, and beige army boots, Chambers just sat in the chair, seemingly oblivious to the command and the gun.

Adrenaline pumping, she took a step closer to the hunched figure, acutely aware of her girls huddled together behind her. ‘I said put your hands on your fucking head. Do it now or I
will
shoot you!’

Still the hands remained clasped tight in his lap.

‘I’m gonna count to three…One!’

Chambers looked up from his lap.

She’d spent weeks studying every contour, every ridge, curve, bump, blemish, and hair on the young soldier’s face, and was as familiar with it as she was her own. Yet what the picture in the newspaper had not conveyed was the emptiness behind his eyes. But then it wouldn’t have, because it been taken before his friend had died in his arms.

‘I hate to shatter your confidence, Detective, but this aint the first time I’ve looked down the barrel of a gun.’ The voice was but a whisper, an exhalation.

‘No, but it’ll be your fucking last if you don’t do as I say…Two.’

Chambers neither blinked nor made any attempt to do as he’d been instructed. ‘Must be frustrating knowing you didn’t catch me.’

‘I’ll live with it…Three.’ She steadied her aim between Chambers’ eyes and applied pressure to the trigger.

‘Maybe you can,’ Chambers whispered. ‘But can Detective Inspector Mason?’

Her aim faltered on hearing her colleague’s name spoken by the monster before her. What the hell was he talking about?

Just as she remembered calling Mason earlier and getting his answering service for the first time, Chambers’ hands unclasped to reveal a mobile phone, which he tossed on the sofa next to her.

Was this the phone he’d just texted her on?

Dread spilled into her gut as she took two steps back and carefully retrieved the phone. Only then did she risk taking her eyes off Chambers to glance at the mobile’s screen. What she saw made the weapon in her moist palm feel as useless as she now felt.

Mason lay on top a bare mattress. His arms were above his head, and, she assumed, tied to the bedstead. Gagging him was what she assumed to be a white pillow case. He was moving but not conscious, as if in the grip of a nightmare. There were no signs of violence, no blood staining his sweatshirt, and for this she was thankful. At the bottom of the screen the date and time informed her this was indeed a live feed, and that Mason had made Chambers’ list, and that the bastard had just put her in a corner she feared she may not be able to fight her way out from.

‘I know what it’s like to live in constant fear,’ came a whisper from the chair. ‘As I’m sure you’re aware.’

Jessop tossed the phone back on the sofa and realigned her aim on Chambers. ‘Let’s get one thing clear,’ she hissed. ‘I don’t give a shit about your past and what you did in the war. There
are
thousands of veterans out there with PTSD who get by without butchering their innocent countrymen. So if it’s a shoulder you want to cry on about how the war or the system back here screwed you over, you’re leaning on the wrong person. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just another sick fuck with a craving for attention.’

Chambers didn’t react, just sat with his elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped back together. ‘Yeah, but the difference between me and them is I
know
what I’ve done is wrong.’

‘Which makes you worse than them. At least they have the excuse of being insane.’

Chambers nodded to himself. ‘Does God warrant that same excuse? Is He insane? I mean, we are talking about the biggest mass murderer in history, right? The supreme being, who kills millions indiscriminately where and when He feels like it and gets away with it.’ The empty eyes looked up, blinked. ‘You ever wonder how he does that? And how millions still worship Him and pray to Him even after one of His so-called acts of nature has wiped out their families?’

Jessop squirmed. ‘No. I haven’t.’

‘It’s a good trick. One of his best, if you ask me.’

‘I didn’t ask you.’

‘You see, that’s all God is, a cheap con artist who gives with one hand and robs us with the other when we’re not looking. He knows without pain and suffering He can’t exist. What would be the point of Him in a world of perpetual happiness? He’d have no purpose. So to keep His name on everyone’s lips, He inflicts tragedy on us, just to remind us He’s still The Man, and that we shouldn’t take what He’s given us for granted. And then what do we do, we call on Him for help to get us through the hardship and ease our pain, when all the time
He
was the one that caused it.’ Chambers tilted his head up toward her. ‘And you think
I’m
fucked-up?’

She’d heard similar rantings before, but none spoken with such calm assuredness. Usually the speaker was wild eyed and crazed. Chambers was right in that he was not like the others she had caught, but only as far as he wasn’t trying to escape from his restraints by chewing his hands off. And, of course, less she forgot,
he
had caught
her
.

Chambers stretched his long, slender fingers and looked back to the carpet between his feet. She considered the fingers and how many lives they had taken.

‘Don’t worry, Detective, I don’t expect you to understand.’

‘Good, because I don’t. But I am curious about one thing. If you regard God as such a fraud, then why are you trying to emulate him? I mean, aren’t your actions contradicting your beliefs?’

Chambers shook his head. ‘No, because I don’t believe in God. I’m not doing what I’m doing for adulation. I’m doing it because people need to take a minute to stop and think and re-evaluate their lives. Complacency and ignorance are what’s really killing society, not the likes of me. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, standing on that street corner these last couple of months. Everyone’s bitching about the price of this and the price of that, about how unfair it is that the shops close early, or that their favourite TV programme’s been cancelled, or that their boss is a twat and they didn’t get a measly two-percent pay rise this year. Big fucking deal. Try living in a fucking war zone for a month. Try holding your best friend’s guts in with your hands for half a day with a face full of burning metal, knowing you may die without saying goodbye to your daughter.’

She noted a small break in Chambers’ voice when he mentioned his daughter. Behind her all was quiet. She knew the girls were still there, and that whatever Chambers had planned they would be safe. Because if it came down to a choice between Mason and the girls, there would be no choice, and she would have to apologise to Mason’s family later.

Chambers clasped his hands back together and squeezed tight. ‘People need to understandlife’s lessons aren’t taught through wisdom but through suffering and hardship.’

‘And the pain they feel is the breaking of the shell that encloses that understanding, right?’

‘
Exactly.’ Chambers looked up to her. ‘But not in your case, right?’

‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’

‘February 18
^th
, 1977.’

The day her family was butchered. ‘Fuck you.’

‘You ever think where you’d be now if that sick fuck Hoyt hadn’t taken offence to your father’s report about his baby murdering bitch of a girlfriend? Hadn’t knocked on your door that day with his veins full of heroine and vengeance?’

‘Shut up.’

‘And where do you think you’d be now if you hadn’t been hiding behind that sofa when your mum answered the door?’

‘Shut your fucking mouth!’

‘I’m not one for coincidences, Detective, but like your enemy, you cannot ignore fate. I mean, think about it. You and me, right here, right now, in this city where we were both born at this point in our lives. The hunter and the hunted, both of us at the top of our games, our paths paved by the horror of having to watch loved ones die before us. Kindred spirits. Incredible, don’t you think?’

She didn’t. Neither did she believe in fate, but she was not going to get into a debate about it.

‘One of us, though, has learned from our past.’ Chambers glanced at her. ‘The other has not. She cannot find meaning in it all. It’s as if she thinks she deserves to suffer the perpetual torment of her past. A penance she must perform for not being found behind the sofa that day whilst her family were tortured and killed. Survivor guilt syndrome, they call it.’ Chambers chewed on his bottom lip. ‘Do you know what I call it?’

Jessop didn’t. All she knew was she wanted Chambers to stop talking. Her finger curled around the trigger.

‘I call it a wasted life,’ Chambers whispered. ‘That hotel room you locked yourself in… You weren’t just in there for two months. You’ve been in that room watching yourself die for the last thirty-six years. You just needed someone to make you realise it. Someone to make you try to find some meaning in your suffering and break the shell of your understanding.’ Chambers nodded to himself. ‘We all need a little guidance, Detective. No shame in it. And I promise you, soon you’ll thank me, just as all the others will.’

‘The fuck she will, you fucking freak!’ Chloe’s shrill voice ignited every one of Jessop’s nerves.

Over her shoulder, she yelled, ‘Go in the kitchen and close the door − now!’

‘But − ’

‘Do it!’ She didn’t look back, keeping both eyes on Chambers, who was watching the girls disappear into the kitchen. When finally she heard the door close, she said, ‘If you know so much about me, then you’ll know I’ll do anything to protect my daughter. And if that means fulfilling your list and sacrificing Scott Mason to save her, I’ll do it without hesitation.’

Chambers shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’d do the same if my daughter was threatened. Thing is, though, Chloe’s in no danger. Neither are you or Vicky. I’ve done my part to help you all. Now its up to you.’

Jessop bit down hard on her gums, thinking about Samantha splayed across her kitchen floor. And Vicky, having to stare at her own shivering reflection in the pool of her beloved mother’s blood. ‘Did Samantha die because of me?’

‘Yes.’

The word speared her heart. Her worst fear had just become reality: Vicky was an orphan because of
her
. ‘Why?’