Souls At Zero (A Dark Psychological Thriller) (20 page)

"I should cut your fucking finger off as well…"

"Gemma, your foot…"

"This is all your fault!"

"Your foot, Gemma. You're bleeding."

Gemma looked down to see bloody footprints on the floor. A sharp pain indicated there was a shard of glass in the sole of her foot. She put the knife down as she groaned in pain, lifting her foot up off the ground while holding onto the worktop for balance.

Harry came forward. "Let me see."

"Don't come near me," she said sharply, as she tried to bend her leg up so she could see her foot.

"You've got glass stuck in your foot, Gemma. Please sit down on the floor so I can take it out."

A look of disdain came over her face, but she nonetheless hopped one-footed to the corner of the kitchen and sat down on the floor, wincing at the pain in her foot. As Harry knelt down in front of her she looked away from him, closing her eyes and wincing as he gently pulled out the shard of glass that was stuck in her foot. "You have a first aid kit here?"

"The cupboard up there," she replied, still not looking at him.

He went to the cupboard and found the first aid kit, then knelt down in front of her again as he proceeded to wipe her foot with antiseptic soaked in a ball of cotton wool.

Tears ran down her face as she kept her head turned to one side, but not because of the pain in her foot. She hardly felt that. "What happened, Harry?"

He applied a large square Band-Aid over the cut in her foot. "It's not deep," he said.

"That's not what I asked you."

"I know." He sat down on the floor and leaned against one of the kitchen cupboards, then sighed. "I fucked up, Gemma."

"How?"

"McGinty should be dead by now. Twice I went to the cunt's house to kill him, and both times the cops stopped me. I was arrested."

"Arrested?" She turned her head towards him. "Why are you out then?"

He shook his head. "I was released. Somebody arranged it. I don't know who."

"The bastard who has Kaitlin?"

"No. He says he had nothing to with it."

"You spoke to him?"

Harry nodded. "After I got out of the cop station."

"Why did he hurt Kaitlin like that?"

"Because I failed to do what he asked of me." Harry closed his eyes for a second. "I'm sorry, Gemma. I tried. That fucking detective…"

"Black? The one who came to see me?"

"He's like a dog with a bone. He won't let the whole thing go. And it's not just that."

"What?" she asked, not liking the sound of his voice.

"That McGinty, he's a fucking paedophile. I saw the stuff he had on his computer at home. Sick fucking stuff."

"Is that why you're supposed to kill him?"

He shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know. The second time I went back to do him, McGinty started talking about the people who arranged my release from the police station. He didn't say who they were, but he said they only let me out so they could kill me."

Gemma shook her head. "Jesus Christ. This can't get any worse."

"I'm confused by the whole thing," he said, standing up and lifting the vodka from off the worktop, drinking it straight from the bottle. "I don't know what any of this has to do with me."

"Or Kaitlin." She shook her head as tears began to flow again. "He cut her fucking finger off, Harry."

Harry said nothing, just stared at the floor.

Gemma stood up, wiped the tears from off her reddened, puffy face. "There's a message written on that envelope. Did you see it?"

"A message? No."

"It says, call me. You need to phone that bastard and see what he wants this time. We need to get Kaitlin back."

As she said it, a measure of resolve seemed to pour into her. No more tears, she promised herself. No more blame. She had to be strong until they got Kaitlin back. She had to be strong
for
Kaitlin.

"I'll call him," Harry said. "But not here. I want to get a fix on his location this time. I'll have to call him from the office, where the equipment is."

She watched him take out his phone and dial a number. A few seconds later, he said, "Donna. I need you to meet me at the office. Can you do that?" He nodded. "Okay, thanks Donna. See you shortly." He looked at the phone and dialled another number. "John. Can you meet me at the office? I'm going to try to get a fix on Kaitlin's kidnapper again. Donna will be there…sure…thanks, John."

"I want to come too," she told him. "I can't hang around this house any longer on my own. It's driving me insane."

He looked at her a moment, then nodded. "Okay. You can come. Afterwards, you stay with John. He'll look after you until this is sorted."

"
If
it's sorted."

"Hey," he said, gently taking her by the arms, the deep brown eyes she once loved so much fixing upon her. "We'll get her back. Nothing is going to stop me."

A sad smile creased her lips. "Thank you for not promising."

He maintained his stare for a moment, then let go of her arms.

"You're bleeding," Gemma said. "What happened?"

"Cops shot me."

She shook her head. "Jesus…"

"The bullet just grazed me."

"Let me look at it."

He took his jacket off, then the tight long-sleeved top he had on, which now had a tear in the left shoulder where the bullet went through. "A surgical pad and bandages will do."

"It needs stitched, Harry."

"It'll be fine. Just patch it up."

As she went to get the first aid kit, she wished she could say the same about herself, for she knew after this, no matter what happened, she would never be the same.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

They took Gemma's blue Ford Fiesta to Rankin's office in Donegal Square. After being shot at by the cops, Edger abandoned his silver Skoda outside of Andersonstown, figuring the cops would be looking for it. Even though someone went to great lengths to ensure he remained a free man, he wasn't entirely sure the cops would just forget about him, especially after making a second attempt on McGinty's life, and most especially after injuring that cop and taking her gun. To be on the safe side, he had to assume he was now a wanted a man, so he had to be careful.

The office was open when they got there shortly after 6:00 a.m. The morning light had yet to break through the dark cloudy sky, and Belfast city centre was quiet with little traffic on the roads. Another hour and the place would be heaving with traffic as people made their way to work.

Rankin was alone in the office as Edger and Gemma walked in. He was dressed in dark jeans and a black pullover. He got up out of his chair to introduce himself to Gemma. "I'm very sorry about your daughter," he said to her. "We'll do everything we can to help."

"Thank you," Gemma said, forcing a smile. "We
will
get her back."

Rankin's smile faltered slightly as he looked at Edger, who looked away. "I hope so."

"Donna not here yet?" Edger asked.

"She phoned. She should be here shortly."

Gemma went to the window and looked across to the city hall and the street down below. "Nice view you have here."

"Yes, it is," Rankin said, exchanging looks with Edger again.

"She's holding up," Edger said quietly. "I was hoping she could stay with you today. She doesn't want to be alone."

Rankin nodded. "Sure, I'll look after her. I'll clear my schedule. What happened, Harry?"

"I need a smoke," Edger said. "Come out to the stairs with me."

The two of them left Gemma alone in the office and went down the hallway to the stairs where Edger rolled and lit up a cigarette. "That fucker cut Kaitlin's finger off."

Rankin's eyes widened in shock. "Fucks sake, Harry. I'm sorry."

"Put it in an envelope and pushed it through Gemma's letterbox for her to find."

"Christ. How's she holding up?"

"Okay, considering. She blames me for all this. She's right."

"Fuck off, Harry. You can't say that. You're being targeted by a psychopath. That's hardly your fault."

"The cunt made it clear this was all to do with me."

"Well," Rankin said. "Whatever you are supposed to have done, I'm sure it doesn't justify taking your daughter and…cutting her finger off because you didn't kill the Lord Mayor. Christ."

Edger took a drag from his cigarette and blew a long plume of smoke out into the stairwell. "I went back to McGinty's house again after I phoned you. McGinty was waiting on me with a gun. Told me the only reason I was released from custody was so some group of people could kill me. Then the cops came and I had to run. That's why Kaitlin lost a finger."

"Jesus, Harry," Rankin said, running a hand through his grey streaked hair. "This is getting out of hand."

"Tell me about it."

"Who are these other people supposed to be? Are they in league with the kidnapper?"

"No idea. The kidnapper said my release had nothing to do with him." He took a last drag on his cigarette and crushed the butt underfoot. "But McGinty might be involved in some fucking paedophile ring. It could be them he's talking about. I don't know. I'm hoping the kidnapper tells me something when I call him."

They went back to the office to find Donna there, standing by the window with Gemma, both of them holding coffee mugs. "Right," Edger said. "We can't leave this much longer. I need to phone this cunt now. You set up yet, Donna?"

"I will be in a moment," Donna said, going to her desk in the corner of the room, sitting down and opening up her laptop. While she tapped away on the keyboard, Edger took the burner phone out of his jacket and flipped it open, half expecting to see some ominous message from the kidnapper on it, but there was nothing.

Donna stopped typing and looked up at the three of them gathered around her desk. "Okay. I'm ready when you are, Harry. Try to keep him on as long as possible. I need a good minute."

Edger nodded and looked at Gemma, before hitting the call button on the burner phone and setting it to speaker. He half expected the call to go straight to voicemail like it did the last time he tried to contact the kidnapper, but the phone rang this time.

It was picked up on the third ring. "Harry," the kidnapper said. "Good of you to finally call."

Edger and Rankin looked at each other in surprise. The kidnapper appeared to have ditched the voice changer. He was speaking in his own voice this time. Edger wasn't sure what to make of that.

Gemma stood behind the desk next to Donna. She put a hand over her mouth when she heard the voice of the man who had taken her daughter.

"What went wrong, Harry?" asked the kidnapper. His accent was strange. A mixture of Southern Irish and possibly American. Mid-Atlantic. He pronounced his "R's" the way someone from Northern Ireland would though.

Edger stared at the phone in his hand for a moment, trying to see if he recognised the voice from anywhere, though he didn't appear to. "I fucked up," he told the kidnapper eventually. "Does it matter what went wrong?"

"To me it does. I want to know why you didn't do all you could to save your daughter from the pain I had to put her through."

Gemma shut her eyes. When she opened them, they were wet with tears.

Edger clenched his jaw. "I'm doing all I can here. Let me talk to my daughter."

"Kaitlin is still sleeping after the Ketamine I injected her with. She wisely chose the no pain option just before I cut her finger off."

"Why are you doing this?" Edger gritted his teeth. It took all of his willpower not to scream down the phone that he was going to kill the man on the other end of it.

"I told you why, Harry. There are people I want dead and I want you to kill them for me."

"People? I thought it was just one."

"The vile Mr Mayor is just one of
nine
people I want you to kill for me, Harry."

Everyone looked at each other, including Donna, who stopped what she was doing to express her horror at what the kidnapper just said. Edger motioned for her to keep going. "Nine people? You think I'm some kind of serial killer?"

"Well, you have killed people, Harry."

"In the line of duty. That's different. I was protecting people."

"And now you're protecting your daughter. What's the difference?"

Edger shook his head. "Who are these people? What have they done to do you that you want them all dead?"

"They each played their part in making me what I am today."

"And what's that?"

There was silence for a moment, then the kidnapper said, "A monster."

Edger glanced at Rankin, who shook his head, a weird look on his face like he was rattled by the kidnappers words. "What do you mean?" Edger asked. "What did these people do to you?"