Dead Heat

Twelve

A quarter of a mile away, another man shivered at the same time as Henry Christie. This man was laid out on the hillside overlooking the Wickson household. He was comfortable, but getting cold in spite of the layers of clothing on him. He had watched the arrival of Henry Christie with interest and, as Henry stood by his car, held him in the cross hairs of the powerful night sights on his rifle.

He adjusted the sights minutely and zeroed in on Henry’s head, just to the temple by his left ear. The man had been testing the rifle the day before and knew it was perfectly sighted. The tip of his forefinger rested on the trigger. If he had pulled he would have blown a hole in Henry’s head, probably taken the top half of it off.

Henry Christie would have been very dead indeed.

If only he knew he had been in the sights of a high-powered rifle.

But Henry was not his target.

The man lifted his cheek from the stock of the rifle, his keen sharp eyes watching as Henry said something into his mobile phone, then walked up to the house.

The man on the hillside wriggled his toes to keep the circulation going. He adjusted his position slightly and manoeuvred the plastic straw into the corner of his mouth to sip the high-energy drink next to him.

He was playing a waiting game, knowing that sooner or later his prey would appear. He was a patient man. Snipers had to be.

The front door was unlocked. Henry pushed the heavy oak-panelled piece of wood open and crossed the threshold.

‘Tara, that’s me coming into the house.’

She did not acknowledge.

There were no lights in the hallway. Henry let his eyes adjust. He saw something at the top of the stairs to his left. A dark shape. Charlotte sitting on the top step, knees drawn up under her chin, rocking back and forth.

‘Are you OK for the moment?’ Henry whispered just loud enough for her to hear.

She nodded.

‘Good girl. Everything’ll be fine.’

He gave her the thumbs up, then turned his attention to the hallway in front of him. He knew the last door on the right was the kitchen. He braced himself and said, ‘I’m coming down the hallway and into the kitchen,’ into his mobile phone. He ended the call, probably the longest he had ever made in his life — and dropped the phone into his jeans pocket.

It immediately started to ring, making him jump. He fished it back out and saw it was Jane Roscoe calling him. He knew he could not answer it. For the sake of Tara he had to keep things going, so he switched it off, put it back into his pocket, set off down the hall.

‘It’s me opening the door,’ he called softly and pushed it open, clueless as to what he would find. That old song, ‘Behind Closed Doors’, came to mind. ‘No one knows what goes on behind closed doors.’ Back to song lyrics again, he thought. It was mad, the things that went through his head at times of crisis.

Had the sight that greeted him not been so horrendous, he would have giggled.

Jake Coulton sat white-faced at the kitchen table. Henry immediately saw the shotgun damage to the cupboard door above his head. No wonder he looked pale. He had almost lost his head. Henry could smell cordite.

Across from him was an equally pale John Lloyd Wickson in a dressing gown. His hands were palm down on the table and he looked very afraid.

Henry saw the relief in the faces of the two men as he came in.

Leaning against the cooker was Tara Wickson, holding the single-barrelled shotgun in her hands, wavering it dangerously at a point midway between the men. The cordless phone was on a worktop. She’d obviously had it wedged between her shoulder and ear whilst talking to Henry because there was no way she could have held the gun in one hand and kept proper control of it.

She looked as sick and colourless as the men, but uptight, nervy and close to the edge.

‘I’m here,’ he said softly, ‘here to help out.’

How, he had no idea.

The sniper on the hillside raised his eye from the telescopic sights and looked into the night-vision binoculars on the tripod next to his head. He had watched Henry Christie enter the house and close the door behind him, more curious than hell as to why the suspended detective should have appeared at such an hour.

It complicated matters.

He swept the binos across the front of the house to the stables and back again. He saw nothing untoward. . but then he did and he froze tight. He looked across the field behind the house in the direction of the river, behind the dilapidated farm buildings.

Something had definitely moved.

There it was again.

He relaxed. A fox.

In their different ways, each of the three faces in front of him held expectation. To the men it was to save them from death; the woman wanted to be saved from herself.

Henry knew he had to take control.

‘Right, Tara, first things first. . I only know what you’ve said to me over the phone and it sounds like a hideous offence has taken place.’ Henry paused, licked his lips, looked from face to face again, coming back to Tara. ‘But even so, there is no cause for a shotgun, no reason to do anyone any harm, none whatsoever. Two wrongs do not make a right. So let me promise you this: this incident will be fully investigated and — ’ here Henry shot a shadowy look to Coulton — ‘if this man has raped your daughter, he will go to prison for life.’

‘What do you mean “if”? He has raped her, defiled her-’

‘Yes, OK, OK,’ Henry intercut in an effort to pacify her. He saw that Tara’s fingers had taken a better grip on the shotgun, saw the forefinger on the trigger twitch portentously. He knew she was close to discharging it and that he needed to judge things supremely well here if there wasn’t going to be a cold-blooded murder in front of his eyes. ‘I believe you, Tara, but shooting him will not help you.’

‘I’m not bothered about me anymore.’

‘I know. . That’s OK. . That’s how you’re feeling now, at this moment, but it won’t be how you’ll feel in the future, believe me. So come on, let’s do away with the gun. Let’s get the police here. Let’s get them to deal with it properly. Let them make an arrest. Let them gather evidence. Let them get this brute sent to prison. Let them do the job they’re paid to do. Like I said — ’ Henry looked at Coulton with contempt — ‘killing is too good for him.’

‘Fuck you, Henry,’ Coulton spat malevolently.

Henry quickly took a further step into the room, judging distances, working out reaches, how far he would have to leap to grab the gun if necessary. The odds were pretty poor. He inched a little closer to Tara, surreptitiously, he hoped.

He ignored Coulton’s little outburst. ‘Tara, how are we going to do this?’ He actually stepped towards her openly. She swung the gun in his direction. He stopped. ‘Give me the gun. Just hand it over, then let’s get the police here.’

Tara shook her head. ‘This man has degraded my daughter. He has screwed her and made her suck his dick.’ She stood upright. ‘Before I hand this gun over, I want two things.’

Henry waited. The demands were coming. He only hoped they could be met.

‘I want him degraded and I want him to admit what he’s done.’

‘How?’ Henry did not like the way this was going.

‘You talked about securing evidence? You talked about clothing, my daughter’s clothing, how it needed to be kept?’ Henry nodded. ‘I want him to take his clothing off. I want him to stand there naked and ashamed and then I want him to confess his crime.’

This, Henry thought, is not progressing terribly well. Even though Tara had called him, had made a cry for help, she was still very close to a killing.

He shook his head. ‘No, Tara,’ he said softly. ‘That is not a good idea-’

Before he could finish his rationale, Tara snarled, ‘I don’t give a fuck if it’s a good idea or not. He does those things or he dies.’

She meant it. Henry swivelled to Coulton. ‘It’s your play, Jake.’

‘No way.’

Henry chortled. ‘Strip or die. I know what I’d rather do, because if you ask me, that’s what I’d do in your position. Fact is that your clothes will be taken off you for forensic anyway.’ Henry shrugged, glanced at Tara, then back at Coulton. He was trying to manage a situation that was almost out of his control, ‘She’s more than capable of blowing your head off and if this appeases her. .?’ Henry looked at John Lloyd Wickson, the silent tycoon now, a man who had very little to say in the present circumstances. ‘What do you say, John? Naked or dead?’ Wickson remained schtum.

Coulton stood up slowly.

An expression of extreme satisfaction crossed Tara’s face.

He began to unbutton his shirt. ‘You do know that this will get the case kicked out of court, don’t you, Henry?’

‘I doubt it. And just at this moment in time, I wouldn’t be too concerned about a court case, pal. I’d be more bothered about walking out of here still breathing.’ Actually Henry agreed that this could compromise any legal proceedings, that the defence would use it very much to their advantage, but he wasn’t going to admit this to Coulton or to Tara. All this was about was getting three people out of here alive. The worry about the court case could come after.

Coulton tugged his shirt out of his trousers, unfastened the cuffs and slid the garment off. He held it up between thumb and forefinger before letting it waft to the floor. ‘That enough for you?’ he said to Tara.

Once again she gripped the shotgun tighter and raised it to her shoulder, sighting Coulton down the barrel.

Henry saw him judder with fear.

‘You strip naked, Jake.’

Coulton’s jaw rotated. Henry could see him weighing up the distance between himself and Tara, knew what was going on inside his head: Can I do it? Can I get to her before she pulls the trigger? Is it too far?

He unbuttoned his trousers and unzipped the fly. His decision apparently had been that tackling her was too much of a risk. Live coward or dead bastard?

The trousers dropped. He kicked them to one side and stood there in boxers and socks. He had a very well-maintained body, Henry saw, though he did have some rather large, red and unsightly spots on his shoulders and back, which made Henry feel better.

‘Socks and underpants,’ Henry said.

The night air was cold, very cold. Cloud rolled in with a harsh wind. Rain began to fall, getting progressively heavier. It was turning into a horrible night.

The sniper did not notice the weather in as much as it affected him personally. He had lain in fields before, in far worse conditions than rain. Often lain for days on end when he was younger and did this sort of thing more regularly.

This was easy — and he was certain he would be there for this one night only.

Tonight his victim would die.

It was also a relief for Henry to see that Jake Coulton’s penis was no great shakes. It was certainly not in proportion to the rest of his body, so shrivelled up and insignificant it seemed. Terror, though, Henry conceded, could have had some bearing on that. A display of his privates was not enhanced by the presence of a shotgun-wielding mad woman.

Coulton stood there, shoulders drooping, not covering himself.

‘Now what?’ he asked. The shape of his mouth was a mirror of his anger.

‘Now, Jake, I want you to tell me what you’ve done.’

‘Can he sit down?’ Henry said.

Tara shook her head. ‘No, I want him to stand there. . actually, no I don’t.’ She changed her mind abruptly. ‘What I want him to do is get down on his knees and I want him to admit what he’s done and then I want him to beg for mercy.’

‘Tara!’ John Lloyd Wickson said. ‘This has gone far enough. At least let him sit down, for God’s sake.’

She spun on him and growled, ‘Then it’s your turn.’

‘Tara,’ said Henry. ‘Come on, love, this is getting silly.’

‘No, it’s not,’ she said, looking at Henry, but keeping the shotgun pointed at her husband. Henry knew straight away he had said the wrong thing. ‘If the rape of my daughter is silly, then I’ve called the wrong person, haven’t I, Henry?’

‘You know what I mean,’ he insisted.

The shotgun arced back to Jake Coulton, naked, pale, spotty and withered.

‘All right, you can sit down,’ Tara relented. ‘Then admit what you did.’

He sat.

‘Come on, then.’

Henry closed his eyes in hopelessness, feeling he had lost what little control he’d had; maybe he had never been in control and maybe the cops were right about him. Maybe he was guilty of what he was accused of, maybe he was a man who misjudged things and, worst of all, maybe he didn’t deserve to be a cop.

‘Tara, don’t do this,’ he tried. ‘It will weaken the case against him.’

She gave him a withering look and he knew she did not care now. He could see it in her eyes that she was going to kill him now — whatever he said. Her primal instincts had been broken open and she was reacting in a very extreme way to protect her child.

‘Speak,’ she said to Coulton.

She crossed the kitchen and lifted Coulton’s chin with the muzzle of the shotgun, then pushed the gun into his throat.

‘For fuck’s sake, Tara,’ Henry protested. ‘I’ve come to get you out of this and you’re not listening to me.’

It was as if she hadn’t heard a word he said.

‘Speak,’ she repeated. She raised his chin even higher so he could look at her along the barrel, eye to eye.

He swallowed a big dollop of fear.

‘Did you rape my daughter?’

‘I. . I. .’ he stammered.

‘Not good enough.’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I raped her.’

‘Tell me more. . admit it all, you bastard.’

‘I. . picked her up from the disco like you asked me to do. . and I drove her home.’ In spite of his nakedness, he was sweating. Rivulets poured down the back of his neck, down his face, under his nose. One drop of sweat rolled on to the barrel of the gun.

‘Tara, that’s enough,’ Henry said.

‘No, actually, it’s not, because I want him to tell me everything, every last detail.’

‘There is no victory in this, Tara.’ Henry was desperate. ‘Can’t you see?’

‘It’s not about victory, Henry, it’s about truth and justice. . So, go on, Jake, tell me about how you raped a fourteen-year-old girl.’

‘I did it on the back seat of the Bentley,’ he said shakily. ‘I forced her down and forced myself on to her.’

‘Did she resist?’

He nodded as much as the barrel of the gun would allow.

‘And yet you still did it?’

‘Yeah,’ he gasped.

‘Did she enjoy it?’

‘No.’

‘Did you enjoy it?’

Coulton did not reply.

‘Did you? Did it give you a feeling of great power?’

Coulton closed his eyes. ‘Please, take the gun away.’

Henry watched the scene, feeling powerless to intervene. The well-built, strong figure of Jake Coulton seemed to be shrinking with each second. He had become small, insignificant and pathetic. Whilst part of Henry’s mind liked this, another bigger part hated what he was witnessing. He hoped it would end soon. Without bloodshed.

‘Now you know what it’s like to be degraded, don’t you Jake?’

Tears streamed down his face. ‘Yes.’

‘To be powerless, to have all your dignity stripped away.’

‘Yes,’ he squeaked.

‘Why did you do it? What gave you the right to think you could do this to my daughter?’ commanded Tara.

Coulton’s tear-filled, frightened eyes looked across at his boss, John Lloyd Wickson.

‘Because he said he didn’t care if she got raped because she wasn’t his daughter, not his flesh and blood.’

Silence hit the room with the speed of a lightning strike.

Henry felt a chilly draught from the kitchen door as though someone had come in through the front door and let the night in.

Please cops, get here soon, he prayed.

No one moved. Jake sat there, chin resting on the barrel of the gun, stricken by fear into immobility, having realized he had said the wrong thing, in the wrong situation, as Tara’s head revolved slowly to look directly at her husband.

Henry knew in that instant just how John Lloyd Wickson must have felt. It was that single occasion when something dark is revealed, some inner secret outed, when your stomach churns over and a frozen prickle runs over your body, and every square millimetre of skin contracts tighter than cat-gut strung across a tennis racket.

Wickson shook his head. ‘I didn’t,’ he croaked, wilting under Tara’s eyes. ‘It’s not true,’ he back-pedalled, sensing the imminent danger to himself.

‘You are as much a bastard as him,’ she said. Her chest rose and fell as she struggled to maintain control. Henry recognized the moment: she had lost it.

Everything then slowed down. Every infinitesimal detail of what took place in the following seconds was seen and analysed microscopically in Henry’s head and, he had no doubt, in the heads of the people fortunate enough to stay alive.

He was watching the shotgun and Tara’s fingers on it.

The forefinger that was wrapped around the trigger.

The trigger being pulled back at the same time as the muzzle was pushed harder into the soft skin underneath Coulton’s chin, the shotgun angled upwards.

Henry heard himself roar: ‘Nooooo!’

He flung himself towards the gun, like a goalkeeper diving for the low, hard-struck penalty. Both feet left the ground. His hands were outstretched, but he knew he could not stop it happening.

The trigger went back.

There was a massive blast.

There was recoil.

And Henry would never forget what happened to Jake Coulton’s head.

The blast went in below the chin, diagonally up and through his head.

Henry’s ears pounded with the shock wave.

He was still in mid-air.

The cartridge blasted a hole in Coulton’s chin no bigger than the diameter of the muzzle.

The shot burst through his skin up through the ‘V’ in his jaw, expanding and widening all the time as it travelled, destroying bone, tissue, skin and organs, until it emerged, ten times bigger than it had entered, from the roof of his head, completely removing the top third of Coulton’s skull, taking with it brain, blood and membrane, covering the wall and cupboards. At the same time, Couton’s body was lifted completely from his chair and thrown back against the wall with a thud.

Tara recoiled, controlling the shotgun, racking another shell into the breech like an expert. She twisted away from Coulton, knowing she had done the job she set out to do, with the intention of carrying out another job, one that had just come along: to murder her husband.

Henry knew intuitively what she intended.

Tara turned the weapon on Wickson. He threw his arms up. Some defence!

But Henry was on her now, grappling for the gun, forcing his weight on to her. She attempted to push him away and in so doing discharged the weapon again, the shot this time blasting into the ceiling.

Henry tore it out of her hands. She turned on him with the look of a tigress blazing in her eyes. For safety he threw the shotgun across the kitchen, skimming it across the floor before turning back to Tara. She powered into him, beating his chest with her fists, hitting his recent wound, hurting him. He wrapped his arms tightly round her and held on for dear life as she squirmed, fought, wriggled. All the while he spoke hypnotically to her, did not raise his voice.

‘Tara, Tara, hold it, come on down, it’s over, just hold it,’ he said. She managed to free an arm and punched him on the jaw, cricking his head back with a snap. That hurt too. But he trapped her arm again and held on, never easing his grip, until the fight dissipated out of her and she became a floppy mess in his arms, could no longer stand up. She sank to her knees. Henry let her down and she began to sob dreadfully.

Henry looked over at John Lloyd Wickson. He sat there wide-eyed, stunned and speechless. Henry panted, gathered himself and turned to Jake Coulton.

He was sitting against the wall, having slithered down like a ragdoll, his head lolling forwards on to his chest, exposing the massive, gaping wound on the crown, which was disgusting. A mass of blood smeared the wall. His right foot twitched as though he was keeping time with music.

‘Jesus,’ Henry hissed.

John Lloyd Wickson moaned, turned on his chair and dropped to the floor, retching.

Henry swallowed back his own revulsion. He had seen such death before, seen people shot to death, but had never watched someone have their head blown off with a shotgun. He had always turned up post-event at shotgun deaths. He knew he was deeply shocked by the spectacle and wondered what he had got himself into — not for the first time. Involved with a family cut through with abuse, adultery, mistrust and criminality. It was like many of the families he dealt with on council estates, but of a much greater proportion. Everything with this family seemed to be magnified and he put that down to one thing: money.

Wickson coughed up vomit.

Tara wept at his feet on the floor.

Jake Coulton sat there, horribly murdered.

Upstairs, a young girl shivered after being raped.

Henry blew out his cheeks, his eyes and mind not believing the tableau around him. His hands rested on his hips. He prayed even harder for the arrival of the cops because he just wanted to hand it all over.

The kitchen door creaked and opened slightly.

‘Charlotte, love, don’t come in,’ Henry called. ‘Please stay out there.’

The door continued to open. And it wasn’t Charlotte who was standing in the hallway.

Henry stiffened up; his jaw, though, fell slack.

‘Hope you don’t mind me coming in?’

Not as if there was any choice in the matter. Verner pushed the door open, and stepped into the kitchen, as confident as he could be, a smile of victory on his face and a pistol in his right hand. He placed his foot on the shotgun which Henry had thrown across the floor. ‘Goodness, what a mess. Still,’ he said, looking at Henry with a big smile, ‘saved me a job.’