A Good day to die

43

The rear of the property looked out onto a second lawn as large as the first, with a swimming pool at the far end. There were lights on inside the house, but the curtains were drawn so I couldn't see anything. I moved quietly forward and listened at one of the windows, picking up the sound of muffled voices. So they were here. I looked at my watch. Nine twenty-five p.m.

A substantial conservatory jutted out from the house and I walked across and tried the French windows that led into it. They were locked. I fumbled in my pocket for the keys, and tried them one by one. The fourth one opened the door and I crept inside, gently closing it behind me and removing the Browning and silencer from my pocket. The interior of the conservatory was bathed in the dim quarter-light provided by the lamps in the other rooms. Two long sofas ran down each side of it and a mahogany coffee table in the middle contained a selection of magazines. I noticed a Country Life and a Good Housekeeping, as well as the latest statement of accounts for Thadeus Holdings. Nothing controversial, then. But that was only to be expected. Like so many paedophiles, Eric Thadeus was bound to be a good actor.

The door connecting the conservatory to the rest of the house was open, and I went through into a panelled hallway with impressive watercolours of country scenes on the walls. The door to my left was ajar and I could hear voices drifting through from further inside the house. I stepped across the polished floorboards carefully, not wanting to make any noise as I made my way over to the door.

It led into a large pine kitchen with black granite worktops. On the far side of the room, another door was open, through which I could hear the clink of glasses as well as the voices of the people I'd come to kill, far clearer now.

'I'll open some more wine,' I heard the man say, and a second later his chair legs scraped across the floor as he got up from the table.

I made no move to hide as Eric Thadeus, a bigger man than I'd been expecting, dressed casually in chinos and a cotton shirt, came striding into the room carrying an empty wine bottle. I noticed he had worn leather slippers on. Then, as he saw me and opened his mouth to speak, I shot him in the left leg about six inches above the knee. He gasped, dropping the wine bottle as his leg went from under him. The bottle shattered on the floor's terracotta tiles and he fell awkwardly amongst the glass, banging his head on the door frame as he did so. I stepped over him and into the house's lavish dining room, leaving Thadeus moaning in agony and clutching at his shattered leg.

'Hello, Emma,' I said, raising the gun so it was pointed at her head.

She was at the far end of the table, the remains of a glass of white wine still in her hand. Her red-gold hair was tied back in a ponytail, and the elfin face beneath it a mask of shock. 'Dennis, please, I can explain.' She put the glass down on the table and burst into tears. 'He made me come here,' she sobbed.

'Sure he did. You look like you're under a lot of duress.' I walked over to the table, keeping the gun pointed at her head. 'Do you have any idea what this man's done, or the suffering he's caused?'

'You don't understand,' she replied, looking at me pleadingly through the tears. She was a damned talented actress, I had to give her that, and her expression was so genuine it made me doubt her role in all this myself. Even though I knew she was as guilty as sin. 'Thank God you're here,' she continued. 'He's got my parents hostage. He's had them for days. Either I do what he says or he's going to kill them.' She got to her feet and I saw that she was wearing a sleeveless white dress that made her look years younger.

'Stay where you are.'

She was sobbing uncontrollably now. Almost like a child. 'But they're downstairs in the cellar, that's where he's been keeping them. I've got to see them and check they're all right. Please, Dennis, you've got to believe me. I can prove it.' She came towards me, and I told her again to stay where she was. But she kept coming, because she knew as well as I did that I couldn't shoot her. The doubt must have been evident on my face. In the kitchen, Thadeus continued to wail loudly and dramatically in an effort to summon help.

'Emma, stop. I'm serious.'

She stopped. Five feet away, standing there with a vulnerability that made my legs go weak. She was truly beautiful in her misery, her big hazel eyes begging me to believe her. And I wanted to. Christ, I wanted to. I was faltering, and we both knew it.

There was a sudden sound behind me, and the next second I was pitched forward as someone grabbed me round the middle and knocked the gun out of my hand. It clattered to the floor, landing at Emma's feet. I hit the dining-room wall head on, knocking a painting off it.

Dazed, I didn't have time to think about resistance as I was pushed down to my knees and my arm pulled up painfully behind my back. I managed to look round and saw that I was being manhandled by a powerfully built young man in the same security guard's outfit as Bill and his friend. Unfortunately, this was where the resemblance between him and them ended. This guy, with his dark buzzcut and rugged outdoor features, was definitely ex-military, and by the speed and effectiveness of his assault, I'd have said marines or paras. Now I was in real trouble.

'You don't understand,' I told him through gritted teeth. 'These people are guilty of some horrendous crimes.'

'Shut the fuck up!' he demanded, then turned to Emma. 'Pardon my French, miss. I don't like criminals. I think you'd better call an ambulance for your father.'

Emma's face broke into a relieved smile. 'Oh, thank God you've come,' she told him. 'This man was going to kill me.'

'Don't listen to her,' I hissed, but his response was to put more pressure on my arm and I had to stop speaking as I gritted my teeth in pain. It felt like the damn thing was breaking.

'You were saying something about people in the cellar, miss?' he asked. 'Is there anyone down there?'

She started to cry again, then picked up the gun by her feet. 'Yes, it's my parents,' she sobbed. 'They're being held hostage…'

Her sobbing stopped abruptly as she turned the gun round so it was pointed at him. She gave him a sweet smile through the tears. 'But don't you worry your handsome little head about that.'

I tried to say something, but she never gave me the chance. With the coy little smile still very much in place, she pulled the trigger.

The gun hissed and the grip on my arm relaxed as the security guard tottered and fell to one side, a big red mark appearing where his right eye had been. His body shivered violently, then lay still. She was as good a shot as she'd claimed when she'd first pulled a gun on me.

'My, my, Dennis, you are proving resilient,' she said, her smile taking on a malevolence that until that moment I'd never seen. 'We keep putting these obstacles in your path, and you keep overcoming them. You were meant to be in custody facing murder charges by now. That's the whole reason you've been kept alive this long. Mind you, I think we should have suspected that you'd make it here.'

'Who are you?' I whispered, unsure what else to say.

'I'm Emma Neilson, of course; the woman you slept with. And this…' she motioned with the gun towards the door, beyond which Thadeus continued to moan loudly, 'this is my father.'

She took a sip of wine, enjoying my reaction, oblivious to the security guard lying dead on the floor a few feet away. It made me wonder how I could have been so blind to the blackness within her, how my instincts could have failed me so utterly.

'I suppose you thought he only went for kids, didn't you?' she continued. 'Well, they've always been his favourite, I have to admit, but he was married once. To my mother. Only she died in a car crash. They called it an accident, but I don't think so. I think he had a hand in it.' She walked past the body, still keeping the gun trained on me, until she was a yard from the door and looking through it. 'Isn't that right, Daddy? You had Mummy killed so you could have me? Because you're a dirty fucking pervert.' There was an undertone of bitterness in her voice, but also a measure of triumphalism, as if she was only now finally asserting her power.

'Help me, love,' I heard him say. 'Get an ambulance, please.'

She ignored him, turning her gaze back to me. Her face no longer looked pretty. It looked vicious. 'Do you know something?' she demanded. 'He started fucking me when I was eight years old. Eight. That's how old I was. And every time he did it, he'd give me an expensive present. A piece of jewellery; an antique doll. Once, when I'd been a particularly good little girl, he even bought me a miniature Aston Martin to drive round the garden in. Can you believe that?'

I didn't say anything. I didn't honestly know what I could say.

'And then when I was sixteen, and I had more presents than any girl could know what to do with, he stopped. Just like that. I'd got too old for him. He continued to give me the gifts, of course, and made very sure that his beloved daughter received everything she could ever want, but the sex finished. I was damaged goods. And he never gave me one fucking word of explanation, either. He simply carried on like nothing had happened. Bastard.' She spat the last word into the air, and I had the feeling it could have been aimed at any man.

'Emma, please,' moaned Thadeus. 'Finish him and get me some help.'

She ignored him. 'But what my father doesn't realize is that these days he's the one who's damaged goods. He means nothing to me.' Her words faltered slightly at this point, and I got the feeling that perhaps in some terrible way he meant far more to her than she was letting on. 'The only reason I even talk to him is because he's got what I want. The company. And now you've come along and things look like they might work out just right. Dennis Milne — fugitive from the law, brutal murderer — breaks in here, murders Eric Thadeus and his security guard before Thadeus's daughter overpowers him and shoots him with his own gun.'

'They'd never believe you,' I said, only too aware how plausible her story sounded.

'Oh yes they will. Your DNA's going to be discovered at the murder scene of Simon Barron, on his clothes, along with some of your hairs that I managed to remove the other night when you were asleep. It's also going to be found at the house where four people died last night, if it hasn't been already. I'll tell the police that both DCI Barron and I were some way to outing you as the man behind the murders of Khan and Malik. You killed Barron, and now you've come here to kill me.'

I felt my throat constrict. She'd played me perfectly. 'Motive?' I asked, aware that the word came out like a croak.

'Who knows what goes on in the diseased mind of the killer?' she replied, without much in the way of irony.

I watched her carefully, and had no doubt at all that she'd done what she claimed with my DNA. I'd always known she was switched on, and I think somewhere in the back of my mind I'd also known that certain things about her didn't add up — the amount of money she had; the sketchy family background; the fact that, in the end, she'd done everything to point my search for the truth in the direction of Nicholas Tyndall — but I simply hadn't wanted to suspect someone so pretty and vivacious. Someone I'd slept with. For an instant my thoughts flashed back to Coleman House and Carla Graham. I'd made that mistake before.

'So, it was you who killed Barron?'

'He was getting too close,' she said simply, giving a bored shrug. I could see she was about to end this conversation.

'But what I can't understand,' I said, playing for time, 'is if you're some big-shot heiress, how come you were working as a reporter for some provincial paper?'

'We needed someone on the inside, particularly given the size of the investigation into the cafe shootings, and I've always been good at writing. It was just a matter of greasing a few of the right palms to get me a job on the Echo. Nothing's very difficult when you've got money.'

I thought back to my initial call to the newspaper. 'No wonder the guy who answered the phone at the Echo didn't like you.'

She snorted derisively. 'Do you think I care? I'm the one with all the cards, Dennis. And I've played you all for fools. Even Tyndall, with his pathetic threats and silly little dolls, didn't scare me. In fact I found it quite exciting. And all I had to do was flutter my eyelashes at these hardened coppers and every one of them fell for my charms. Including you. The brutal hitman.'

I managed a half-smile, which I think annoyed her. 'Brutal? I don't begin to compete with you.'

'No,' she said, stretching out her gun arm, ready to fire. 'You don't.'

I willed myself to remain calm as I continued to look for my moment. 'How did the whole thing begin? I know it was with the therapy, but what did Jason Khan know? And why did he and Ann die so long after she'd exposed Blacklip for who he was?'

She shook her head dismissively. 'Sorry, Dennis, but I can read you like a book. You're just trying to delay things and I haven't got a lot of time. Comfort yourself with this: for an old man, you were very good in bed, and it was fun to sleep with another killer.'

And then she fired: three carefully aimed rounds that slammed into my chest like lead punches.

I gasped as my body jackknifed, and I felt myself rolling sidewards.

'Now it's your turn, Daddy,' I heard her say, her voice soft and gentle, and through the thin slits of my eyes I saw her turn and face her father in the doorway, raising the gun to finish him off too.

'Emma, no,' he pleaded. 'What are you doing? I love you.'

His voice had taken on a desperate urgency, and suddenly something in her expression changed. A ripple of doubt crossed her face, weakening the killing glare. There was something else there, too. It might have been love; it might have been hate. It was impossible to tell which, but when I think about it now, I'm convinced that it was both.

The gun in her hand shook ever so slightly, and for a long tense moment, she hesitated.

And consequently never noticed as I sat up, still reeling from the force of the bullets, the worst of which had been absorbed by the flak jacket Tyndall had given me, and pulled the.45 from where it had been concealed in the front of my waistband underneath my jacket, lifting it two-handed in her direction.

'Just one more obstacle, Emma,' I said as she turned my way, her face stretched tight with alarm.

She mouthed the word NO, the syllable seeming to go on for ever, and started to raise her gun.

Which was the moment I pulled the trigger, realizing that in the end she deserved it as much as any of them.

The bullet struck her right in the middle of the chest, her white dress erupting in red as the shot lifted her off her feet and slammed her against the wall. Her own gun went off, the bullet ricocheting off the floor and flying up into the ceiling, and then I fired a second time, this time hitting her in the face and blowing the back of her skull away. A huge chum-like mixture of blood, brains and bone shot three feet up the wall as Emma slid down it, her face disappearing under a falling red curtain.

I heard Thadeus cry out in pain, grief, maybe even relief, but the cry was weak and there were still questions he had to answer.

Staggering to my feet, I took two deep breaths and walked over to the door. He was leaning back on the door frame where I'd left him, still clutching his leg. Blood stained the tiles and ran in a steady stream across the kitchen floor. His face was pale.

'You've killed her,' he whispered. 'My baby.'

'She was no one's baby, Thadeus. You made sure of that. She was a monster, and one you created. I almost wish I'd let her kill you.'

'She wouldn't have killed me,' he snarled through gritted teeth. 'Couldn't you see that? She loved me. She was my little girl. And you've murdered her. You may as well do the same to me. It's all over now.'

'Not quite, it isn't. I've got some questions for you. If you answer them, I'll make it quick. If you don't, it'll be slow and it'll be painful.'

'Fuck you, Milne,' he spat, sending flecks of thick white saliva onto my jeans. 'I'm not going to make your life any easier. Our secrets will die with us and there's nothing you or any other bastard can do about it. Because you've got nothing left to threaten me with. The only thing you can do is end my life, and I'm ready for that now. Today's as good a day to die as any.' He spread his arms out, welcoming my final shot. 'So go on, do your worst.'

So I did.

I did things to him that I'm ashamed of, because those things debased me and dragged me far too close to his dank, black level. I ignored his cries for mercy, I ignored the blood that splattered my clothes, I ignored the stomach-churning disgust that grew as I applied the pressure. I ignored everything except the task of making him talk, knowing full well that both the ghosts of my past and the ghosts of his would never forgive me if he didn't.

And talk he did. In the end, he told me everything, and when he'd finished, I bent down and used the pistol that Nicholas Tyndall had provided me with to shoot him once in the head, an act which put us both out of our misery. I think at that moment he was pleased to go. Not because he really was in pain, although doubtless there was an element of that, but for other less obvious reasons. I genuinely believe that somewhere in his dark heart there was a part that was weighed down heavily with guilt, particularly where Emma was concerned. I believe that he loved her, and I believe too that she loved him. It was a corrupt, twisted love but it was there nevertheless, and by his actions when she was a child, he'd betrayed that love, and knew it.

It didn't make me feel any more sorry for him. Eric Thadeus had ended the life of Heidi Robes, and in doing so had sentenced her father to a life behind bars for a crime of which he was not only innocent, but also a victim. Only the cruellest of minds would have countenanced that. Thadeus was scum. He deserved everything he got. But Emma? I tried not to think about her.

Instead, I turned away and left them there together.