No Help For The Dying

Chapter 42

Palmer jogged towards the spot where the van had left the tarmac. There was no need to hurry now. He couldn’t see what damage had been done to the front of the truck cab, although the driver had been able to bring it safely to a stop. But the impact had been considerable. Then the door opened and a stocky figure dropped to the road, looking back with a stunned expression to where the collision had occurred.

Satisfied he was unhurt, Palmer veered off and jumped a ditch, following the trail of smashed branches and gouged earth, littered with bits of metal and broken, tinted glass. A box of Flowing Light pamphlets lay gutted in a patch of thick briar, and a computer terminal lay face up to the sky, the screen broken and disgorging bits of circuitry.

The van had come to rest between two large trees, jammed tight and suspended three feet off the ground. One of the rear wheels was still spinning with a soft grinding noise, and a thin plume of smoke was rising from the exhaust. There was no sound of movement from inside, and no noise from outside. The smell of leaking petrol was very strong.

There was a click as Palmer opened the baton he had used at the arches. He stepped clear of the bodywork and approached the driver’s door. It was badly buckled and revealed a man lying across the wheel, arms flung forward as though hugging the vehicle in a last fond embrace. His legs had merged with a third tree-trunk which had snapped off with the impact, the stump rearing up through the floor where the pedals had been. The man had short, cropped hair, and a pair of rimless glasses hung from one ear, one lens shattered.

Quine. He’d suffered massive damage to the side of his head and body.

Beyond Quine was the bulky shape of de Haan in the passenger seat, his once-smart suit littered with leaves, shattered tree bark and a heavy splattering of blood. Palmer guessed most of it was Quine’s. The pastor seemed unaware of Palmer, too intent on struggling to free himself from his seatbelt while uttering a high-pitched keening sound. But his struggles were hopeless; the belt was pinched hard back against the door pillar by a tree branch as thick as a man’s leg, having penetrated the side panel like a spear and stopping short of de Haan’s body by millimetres. Everywhere there was broken glass and the smell of fuel.

He heard a shout from the road, and turned to see the truck driver hovering nervously at the edge of the trees. He looked stricken with shock but was holding a mobile phone in the air. Palmer ignored him; he guessed the man had called the emergency services but was unwilling to come any closer.

He clambered round to the other side of the van, stepping over broken and twisted saplings and branches. Through the open space that had been the windscreen, he saw de Haan watching him with a malevolent stare while still tugging at the seat belt. The pastor was muttering ceaselessly beneath his breath as if reciting a prayer, small bubbles popping from between his fleshy lips with each word. A trail of pink mucous was running down his chin and staining his shirt collar, and a larger bubble appeared from the side of his nose and blossomed like an obscene flower, pink and vivid, before popping and spraying blood down his cheek.

It was only when Palmer stepped up alongside de Haan that he saw something he had missed from the other side of the van: the tree branch piercing the vehicle’s bodywork and pinning the seatbelt had a secondary arm lower down. This had penetrated even further, pinning de Haan to his seat below the waist. A slick of blood was running down the fat man’s thigh and puddling on the floor, staining it a deep, dark red.

‘Get me out.’ De Haan’s voice was surprisingly clear. His eyes flickered across Palmer’s face, but if he recognised him, he gave no indication. He seemed short of breath, and the colour had drained from his face. ‘Help me, damn you!’ He flailed a pudgy hand against the seat belt, but to no effect. He looked towards Quine for help, and when he saw the man’s open, faded eyes, he struggled even harder, as if aware that death was a mere moment away and would soon embrace him, too.

Palmer braced himself against the van and tried to ignore the sharp smell of fuel permeating the air around him. He reached in and lifted de Haan’s face so the pastor could see into his eyes. ‘I’ll help you,’ he said softly, ‘if you tell me about Katie Pyle.’

‘Who?’ De Haan’s eyes seemed to slip sideways as he considered the question. Then he nodded eagerly and gulped for air, his whole body shuddering. ‘Bush,‘ he murmured. ‘Jen… Jennifer Bush. She changed her name.’

‘Why? What did you do to her?’

‘Nothing! We did… nothing. She… said she couldn’t go home. Not our fault… people do what they want.’ He coughed up a small gob of blood and spat it out. When he spoke next, his voice sounded stronger. ‘We offered to take her home. She refused. She’d got herself pregnant by some kid at school… said it was a one-time mistake. Her father wouldn’t have understood, she said. It was her choice.’

‘She was just a kid. Scared and vulnerable.’ Palmer’s voice was bleak, and something in the tone made de Haan flinch. ‘Did you arrange the abortion?’

The pastor nodded and looked away. ‘She was being stupid…she wanted to keep it. It was easier… not to. Questions would have been asked. We did her a favour.’

‘Then you lost her, didn’t you? You lost track of her.’

‘She wanted to leave!’ de Haan hissed, and winced ‘We couldn’t hold her — why should we? She was no good to us!’

‘So why did you take her in? Was she one of your unwitting Sirens — a lure for Nicholas Friedman?’

De Haan looked stunned at the extent of Palmer’s knowledge. He shook his head. ‘I don’t know what you… It wasn’t like that. They were friends. He needed guidance and she… she agreed to help us.’

‘By pulling him in for you?’

‘Call it what you like. They both did what they wanted to… nobody forced them.’

‘And afterwards? Why did she leave?’

‘She wanted to. She said there was no going back, and agreed to keep quiet about… Friedman and to start a new life.’ He stared at Palmer. ‘She knew what she wanted, unlike some of them.’

To Palmer his words had the hollow ring of self-delusion. If he could convince himself others were to blame, de Haan could do almost anything. ‘So why kill her after all this time?’

But de Haan had run out of words.

Palmer continued relentlessly, knowing he had little time. ‘Had Henry threatened to talk? To expose your scummy operations and get Katie to back him up? Is that why your men went to her mother’s house — to find out where she was?’ When de Haan remained silent, Palmer knew he had touched on the truth. ‘What about the other kids who died? Like Nicholas Friedman. Were they a threat, too?’

De Haan rocked in his seat, obviously in pain, his jowls wobbling as he struggled with the seat belt. ‘They were weak, that’s why!’ he spat, eyes wild with fury. ‘They’d outlived their usefulness — is that clear enough for you? They would have died sooner or later, anyway, from drugs and… their filthy lifestyles!’ He jerked his head sideways at the man in the seat beside him. ‘It was Quine who did it. Blame him! He finally managed to get into Pearcy’s database and discover Katie’s new name and address. He killed her, like he killed the others. He enjoyed it — always had done. I couldn’t control him.’ He gave a sob and a trickle of blood oozed from his mouth. ‘Quine insisted that when the parents wouldn’t pay up or the kids made threats against us, the only thing to do was silence them.’

Palmer nodded. ‘And you went along with it.’

‘Yes, all right — I did!’ De Haan’s voice rose to a scream and his eyes took on a demented look that made the hairs on Palmer’s neck bristle. ‘But so what? She was only a stupid little tart.’

Palmer stepped back from the van, his eyes stone cold. He could smell something burning, and a plume of oily smoke trickled past him into the air. He thought of the steady drip of fuel beneath the van and wondered if the truck driver had bothered to call for help yet. He hoped not.

‘Wait!’ De Haan’s face wore his terror like a mask, and he began to struggle furiously when he saw the absence of emotion on Palmer’s face. ‘You said you’d get me out of here! You said you’d help me!’ De Haan’s voice was hoarse with desperation. ‘I’ll give you money — anything!’

It was the last ounce of weight needed to tip the balance. When he’d considered the idea moments earlier, in a part of his mind capable of dealing objectively with such concepts, Palmer had decided he could never do it. But now it came down to it, it was remarkably easy.

Maybe later he’d have to deal with what followed.

‘I lied,’ he said simply. He put the baton away, then turned and walked away through the trees.

‘What’s happening? Are they alive?’ The truck driver’s voice was tight and edgy. He was standing at the edge of the ditch, clutching the phone like a talisman, as if it might hold the power to reverse the damage that had been done. He stared in the direction of the van, then at Palmer, his eyes imploring him to say that everything was all right. ‘I tried to stop, honest… but they just came out of the gate. It was so sudden… I had a big load on and my brakes couldn’t cope… ’ He dropped his hand to his side with a look of despair. ‘I don’t believe this.’

Palmer felt sorry for him. He would have to live with this forever, even though it hadn’t been his fault. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said softly. ‘I saw it happen. There was nothing you could have done.’

‘What?’ The driver’s look was of dawning comprehension, but still ready to clutch at any lifeline and avoid the unthinkable. He turned and stared towards the van. ‘Shouldn’t we do something? There might still be a chance-’

Before Palmer could answer, there was a soft, muffled whump from among the trees, followed by a roar as the petrol-soaked ground around the van ignited. Vivid flames crackled among the lower branches and climbed around the smashed bodywork, and there was a loud crack as a surviving pane of glass broke in the heat. A lick of fire ate its way greedily up the length of a pine tree, and a dark column of smoke curled snake-like among the treetops and blossomed out into the air. Palmer thought he heard a shrill, intense cry of someone in agony.

But it might have been his imagination.

‘There’s no point,’ he said, pulling the driver away towards the road and breathing in a lungful of fresh country air. ‘They’re beyond help.’