Blood and Ashes

Chapter 7

A little under a year ago, I’d launched an assault with my friend Rink on a derelict building in Little Rock, Arkansas. We’d been searching for my brother, John, who’d been in the employ of the men inside. Though we’d both expected to be met with violence, I’d cautioned against the use of lethal force. The men inside were little more than low-end criminals and, without knowledge of John’s fate, I couldn’t reconcile myself to the thought of murder. Even when the guns started blasting, I’d reined in my instincts and hadn’t aimed to kill.

So what’s happened here?

I held back the blanket so that Don could look at the two dead men. I avoided looking at their purpling faces and their staring, accusatory eyes.

I concentrated instead on Don’s reaction to their identity. Please tell me that you don’t recognise them, I prayed.

My worst fear was that the two men were merely local punks, who, misreading my arrival in town, thought I was someone looking into their criminal activities. Maybe they were dealing dope or had an illegal cook shop hidden out in the hills and they thought I was there to upset their enterprise or even take their customers away from them.

‘I don’t know them.’

There was relief at Don’s words but only for the space of a heartbeat.

‘You’re sure? Take another look.’

‘I don’t need another look. I’ve lived here in Bedford Well for years and know every deadbeat out there. They’re not from round here, Hunter.’

This second wave of relief was tinged with the realisation that Don’s original suspicion was probably right. Someone had sent these men to watch Don’s house and to dissuade anyone from lingering there very long. It went some way to justifying my actions, but also it would be likely that more men were coming. And that could mean I might have to kill them too.

‘How’d you do it, Hunter?’

I allowed the blanket to drop back in place. The smell coming off the corpses wafted out of the interior of the SUV, and we moved away hurriedly. When I didn’t immediately reply, Don added, ‘I didn’t see any bullet holes. How’d you take them out?’

In the worst way imaginable.

‘Does it matter?’

Don shook his head. Then he planted his fists on his hips and looked around. The forest encroached on all sides, and an outcropping of limestone jutted across the trail, hiding the SUV from anyone who might travel up the service road. But it wasn’t exactly the middle of nowhere.

‘They’ll be found sooner or later,’ he said.

‘Let’s hope that it’s later then.’ I closed the door and sealed the men in their tomb. It would stop the wildlife from getting at them but wouldn’t deter the insects for long. ‘You OK with that, Don?’

‘Not really. I was a cop and I have to admit that this really goes against the grain.’

‘I hear you. But now you’re just a father looking out for his family.’

‘Exactly.’ Don rubbed his hands over his face, the bristles of his beard rasping against his palms. ‘That’s why I’ll keep this secret. If they were here to hurt my family, well, I’m glad that you killed the bastards.’

But what if they weren’t?

I mentally shook myself. Enough worrying about the identity of the two I’d killed; they were punk criminals and given the opportunity they would have killed me. They got what was coming to them. That was all I had to keep telling myself.

We’d left my Audi a short stroll away on the main service trail and we walked back to it in silence. It gave us the opportunity to clear the fetid breath of decomposition from our lungs. I started the engine and threw the car into reverse. Driving back down the trail until I found an area flat enough to turn on, I then directed the Audi down towards the road.

We had to wait until a yellow school bus had passed before nosing out on to the road and following in its wake, allowing enough space between the two vehicles that no one would recall anything about the car seen leaving the scene of the body dump. Sooner or later the corpses would be discovered and I didn’t want a group of school kids carrying tales to the cops. Kids noticed much more than they were given credit for.

‘I guess I’d best warn you,’ Don said.

Concentrating on the road ahead, I merely flicked Don a glance.

‘Adrian isn’t happy that I’ve called you in.’

I’m not happy either, I thought. ‘Why not?’

‘He has just lost his wife. He has come to terms with the police findings and won’t accept that her death was anything but a tragic accident. He might be a little… difficult.’

‘Yeah.’ Better and better. ‘When all comes to all, he’s the children’s father. If he doesn’t want me there I don’t see what I can do about that.’

‘ No. Whatever he says, he’s wrong. I won’t have my grandchildren put at risk.’

‘He’s their father, Don. He decides what’s best for them.’

Don shook his head adamantly. ‘He doesn’t realise the enormity of the threat.’

Maybe he does and has realised that you’re just a paranoid old man. But I had to bite down on that thought. If Don was misguided, then what did that make me?

Don was chewing on the end of his moustache. His eyes were fixed on a spot only a couple of inches from the end of his nose. Suddenly he turned towards me, quivering in anger. ‘Apart from when I was a policeman, Adrian knows little about my past, what I did or what I was involved in. He doesn’t understand what kind of enemies I’ve made. And anyway, he does not have a final say on what happens to the children.’

‘I think you’ll find that he does.’

‘No, he doesn’t. I’ve asked you to look after my family and even he won’t be able to do anything about that.’

‘He’s their father, Don. He has every right in the world to tell me to sling my hook.’

Don snorted. ‘Adrian has no say where Beth or Ryan is concerned. He was married to my daughter, yes, but he isn’t the kids’ biological father. They’re my blood, not his.’

I was surprised by this announcement but didn’t let it show. If the truth were known, I’d already suspected that the children weren’t Adrian’s. Brook and Adrian were dark-haired, with green and brown eyes respectively. In the photographs dotting the living room of Don’s house, both kids were blond with the palest blue eyes I’d ever seen. There were often anomalies in birth, but the difference was a bit too dramatic to be explained by ancient DNA reasserting itself.

Then there were the dates.

Beth and Ryan’s births both pre-dated their parents’ wedding. Not unusual in this day and age, but enough to have placed doubt about parentage in my mind.

‘Who is their dad?’

Don shook his head, unprepared or unwilling to answer.

‘It may be important, Don.’

‘You think that this has something to do with him; a waste-of-time drunkard who left her with two small babies when the going got too tough for him? No, Hunter, you can forget that line of thinking. I’m telling you: this is all Hicks’ doing.’

Up ahead the school bus was a yellow stain in the steamy haze rising from the road. Then it was gone and I realised that we were approaching the intersection where the mountain road joined the main highway.

‘Take a left,’ Don said.

Don had already informed me that Adrian and the children lived in a house in its own walled enclosure, but had been a little vague on its location, saying that he’d direct me when we were on the road. So it was a distance from the city of Hertford where the school bus was heading to? Good and bad. Cities made things difficult if I had to respond in kind to violence: the cops were too close by and that severely hindered my options. But out in the wilds a house was exposed and difficult to defend. It was beginning to look like I was going to have to call in back-up.

No, not yet, I decided, I still didn’t know what I was up against. For all I knew I was just being sucked into Don’s fantasy. It wasn’t a nice thought, but perhaps it would be better if the two men I’d killed turned out to be nothing but local low-lifes who’d made the mistake of confronting me.

Something in me, though, also hoped that wasn’t the case.