Dying Eyes (28 page)

“I know it can’t be easy, Brian. She was your partner. But you’ve tried, and that’s the main thing. People would love to see you, though. They know you were both heroes.”

“I’ll drop you off at your dad’s, yeah?”

Vanessa nodded and returned back to her silent shell. She was wrong about the other officers loving him. Perhaps on the surface, they’d celebrate him and pretend he was heroic, but he knew what they’d be thinking deep down:
It should be you in that coffin and not our daughter. Our sister. Our friend.

He thought back to his phone conversation with Nicola Watson’s parents earlier that day. Something about it sent a chill up his spine. “Is it over?” Shenice Watson had asked. “Michael Walters. He’s the man, isn’t he?”

And Brian had just gritted his teeth and said yes.

Maybe Price was right about best interests all along.

Brian pulled up outside his father-in-law’s semi-detached house. Years of wear and tear stained the grey brick front, the paint flaking. He looked through the smoggy window and saw Davey waving at him. Vanessa’s dad placed a hand on Davey’s shoulder and moved him away.

“You should come inside,” Vanessa said, reluctant to meet Brian’s eyes.

“I…‌I don’t know. I mean, your dad…”

“Oh, he’s just a silly old man. He’ll get over it.”

Brian swallowed the lump in his throat. The sun peered through his windscreen, forcing a squint out of him.

“Yeah, I will. But there’s something I need to go and get first. Something for Davey. That’s okay, isn’t it?”

Vanessa shrugged and hopped out of the car. “Don’t be long.” She walked over to the front door and let herself in. Brian watched the three of them behind the window, smiles on their faces, their lungs filled with conversation. He started the engine and drove back towards the roundabout.

The churchyard wasn’t as busy when Brian returned. A few visitors dressed in black, but not many people here for Cassy, not anymore. He reached into his CD case and pulled out the album artwork of Radiohead’s latest album‌–‌Cassy loved it, Brian hated it.

He stepped up to the bed of flowers and makeshift wooden cross. Something seemed abstract about it, something less than human. The gold-plated name plaque on the coffin shone up, reflecting against the sun.
Cassandra Emerson.

Brian smiled down at the coffin. “I thought I’d bring you something to listen to. I figure you’ll get more use out of it than me.” He looked over his shoulder. Their own losses, their own visits, occupied the other visitors.

He dropped the artwork onto the coffin and turned away, but he still had something to tell her. Something niggling at him. “Offload the burden,” she’d told him. He kneeled down beside the open grave and took a deep breath. “In September, I came in from work, and I felt this loathing in my body. My mum had just died a few weeks earlier, and my dad was as good as dead. And my wife, she was nagging on at me‌–‌ ‘You’re an incompetent husband. You’re a shitty father.’ So I got a rope and I hung myself. I wrapped my neck with rope, and I jumped from the bannister. And I remember the last thing I saw.” He sniveled and wiped the salty tears from his face. “I saw Davey walking in through the front door, Ness behind him. I saw his face, and I remember just seeing that look in his eyes. That look of, ‘Why? Why, Daddy, why?’ But I was sick. I was at the end of my tether. I was pressured at work, and I was sick of it all. It wasn’t me.”

Brian crouched by the grave for a few more seconds, his hands buzzing as the burden lifted from his shoulders. He plucked some grass from the ground. “‘Ness knew it wasn’t me, too, but I needed to get away. I needed to see a therapist and spend some time away from them, because Vanessa didn’t want Davey to remember his dad like that. It was the right thing‌–‌for everybody. But I didn’t go to the therapist, not much. I controlled it myself. I cut myself, and I drank a little to convince everybody that I was just an alcoholic. Nobody asks questions of an alcoholic. I got worse and worse, and I punished myself. And now I know what I have to do. Now I know what’s right and wrong. Now I don’t need a release. I feel free. I feel better. Thank you.” Brian took one last look down at the coffin, a tear dripping onto the polished wood. “Thank you, Cassy. You saved my life in more ways than you can ever imagine.”

He stood up and walked away from the churchyard.

Brian stepped into the 24-Hour shop just down the road from his father-in-law’s house.

“Can I help you?” the shop assistant asked. Brian wasn’t sure whether he’d served him before, or whether it even mattered. His furry top lip was in need of a shave, his red t-shirt begging for a wash.

Brian looked up at the whisky and then back at the shop assistant. “I’ll just have a Chocolate Kinder Egg, please. For my kid.”

The cashier raised his eyebrows as Brian smiled and paid for the chocolate egg. “You not a Gillette man anymore, sir? Just we have them on special offer. Two for a fiver.”

Brian took a deep breath. “I think I’ll pass. I prefer electric razors these days. Thanks.” He left the shop and drove back round the corner to Vanessa’s dad’s.

The three of them were still visible through the front window. Brian clutched the chocolate egg in his hand and took a deep breath as he stepped out of his car and walked to the front door of the run-down house.

He knocked on the door. Words he had recited spun around his head. Should he go for a handshake? Was a hug too far? Or just a friendly “Hello”? He’d gauge it on the greeting. He’d work it from there.

The flaky white-painted door opened, and Vanessa’s dad stood tall and wide, blocking the view to the back of the house.

“Hi again, Fred.”

Fred reached out and shook Brian’s hand, his wrinkly face attempting something that resembled a smile. “Welcome back.”

Brian peered out of the rectangular window at his car. He thought he saw himself still sitting out there, an outsider looking in with a razorblade in his hand.

“They’re just outside now.” Fred pointed towards the small garden at the back of the house.

Brian smiled and turned away from the window, the phantom of himself outside in his car left behind.

“Thanks, Fred. Thanks.”

They stepped out into the garden, side by side. Back to his family. Back to reality.

What Next for Brian McDone?

To read the next book in the Brian McDone crime mystery series,
Buried Slaughter
, click here to get started:
http://smarturl.it/BuriedSlaughter

Or turn the page for an exclusive excerpt of the second book in the series.

***

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Buried Slaughter (Brian McDone, #2) Excerpt

Prologue

Darren Anderson had never believed his mother when she told him there were witches on Pendle Hill.

He ploughed his spade into the ground. The rain lashed down from the cloudy sky. The blanket of thick, stormy cloud carpeted over the archeological dig site like it was trying to protect some secret from escaping. A secret, buried beneath the Davidson Archeological Contractors’ dig site on Pendle Hill.

He pulled up some mud on his spade. Saw something poking out of the almost vertical trench that his team and he had been digging for the last seven days. He reached down and squinted at it. The people who hired his team hadn’t told them what they were looking for exactly. Like finding a needle in a haystack, or a clean whore in a Preston brothel. Impossible.

He plucked the damp object that had caught his eye out of the mud and held it between his index finger and thumb, smiling and shaking his head as the torrential rain dripped from his hair. A cigarette. Brown and damp. Tossed into the ground years ago, never to emerge again. Not until today.

“Any luck down there, Daz?”

Wayne leaned over the trench. He had an orange helmet on his head, a high-visibility jacket provided by the contractors wrapped around his chubby waist. A few crumbs from the Ginsters pasty he was chewing crumbled down into the trench, softening in the rain and sprinkling into Darren’s face.

Darren spat the crumbs away and wiped his nose. “Not a thing. Oh‌—‌an old cigarette stub. Is that what they had us out here looking for, you reckon? Old cigs?”

Wayne took another large bite out of his pasty and chewed it with his mouth wide open, looking down into the trench. In the distance, the sound of a digger rattled into the ground. Perhaps it’d find a cigarette of its own. Lucky day for all.

“I hear there’s a load of weird history around here,” Wayne said. He crouched down and scanned the area above Darren. “Load of crazy witchcraft and stuff. Gives me the creeps.”

“And which history book is that from? Harry fucking Potter? Viz?”

Wayne tossed his empty pasty packet at Darren and shook his head. “Heard it from Pete, actually. And you know what Pete’s like with his history.”

Darren ploughed his spade into the ground and tossed another heap of mud to the side. The trench was around ten foot deep now. He felt like he was digging his own grave. Might have been worthwhile.

“Witches. Ghosts. Spooks. All kinds of shit like that.”

“And you believe it, do you?”

Wayne shrugged. “Well, like I say. Pete’s good with history, isn’t…‌Hold on. Stop.”

Darren kept on digging into the ground and tossing mud to the side. He barely acknowledged Wayne’s shout. Figured he was calling for somebody else on the dig team. There were eight of Preston’s best archeological minds on the task, including him. Unfortunately, being one of Preston’s best archeological minds was derisory next to being one of Preston’s most average call centre attendants.

“What is it? Whatever…‌Whatever you want, man. Whatever the fuck you want. Just…‌just lower that gun. Lower it. Please.”

Lower that gun.
Darren ran over Wayne’s words in his head, one by one. Lower. That. Gun. He tried to make sense of it. Tried to comprehend what Wayne was saying. A gun? Who would be carrying a gun in the north of England?

Before he had time to shout back to Wayne, he heard a series of shots.

Darren fell to his knees. The shots rang out around him. He heard crying out. Screaming.

“Please, don’t‌—‌”

“Stop‌—‌”

He panted. His entire body shook. He curled up against the wet, slimy mud of the trench and clenched his eyes together as the shots continued to fire. The screams gradually became less frequent. The rain waterfalled down onto his body.

And the shots stopped.

Darren eased one eye open. Peeked up at the top of the trench. Nothing but grey sky. More rain falling. He had to do something. He had to get away.

Then, footsteps. Footsteps getting closer to the top of the trench. Boots sloshing in the sinking mud.

Darren completely froze as the footsteps stopped at the top of the trench. The person was right above him. They could be staring down. Watching him. Waiting for him to squirm before firing.

But then, the footsteps started to move away. Somewhere over towards the digger on the left. He kept himself still. He wasn’t sure if he had much of a say in the matter. The shots. The screams. The footsteps.

“Lower that gun…‌”

Darren wasn’t sure how much longer he was lying there. He heard shuffling. Struggling. The sound of squelching, like a watermelon being sliced in half.

But he waited. Waited until he had a chance‌—‌a real chance to leave. There could be somebody out there still. Somebody preparing to fire. Somebody watching.

He waited for what felt like an hour longer, his body completely rigid. Mud dribbled down the side of the trench and covered his face. His jaw shook. His stomach turned. He’d have to get up. He’d have to get off Pendle Hill and he’d have to leave. They couldn’t find him here. They might suspect him. Think he’d been up to something.

He took a few deep breaths and steadied himself. His head spun after being laid down for so long. He stood upright and placed a hand on the ladder at the side of the trench, climbing back up it, step by step.

The bodies. They would be waiting for him at the top. Wayne’s body. He’d seen real gunshots on those Internet videos. It wasn’t like the movies. Eyes popped out of sockets. Pieces of skull shattered, sending the brain spilling out of the skull like a thick soup. He had to be ready. He had to be composed.

He lifted himself up the top step. His entire body went numb as he looked around.

There was nobody in sight.

The engine of the digger rumbled on. Darren took a few steps around the site. He couldn’t see any blood on the ground. Couldn’t see any signs of a struggle. Had he gone mad?

“Guys?” He peeked around the side of the digger, where the other trench was and the bulk of his team had been working. “Stop…‌Quit messing around now. Please.”

He stepped to the edge of the trench. Stared down it. His eyes widened. His legs turned to jelly.

He pulled himself away and threw up on the ground. This couldn’t be real. That couldn’t be…‌that couldn’t be them.

He took a few deep breaths then returned to the edge of the trench, staring down at it. He dialled
999
and held the phone to his ear with his shaking hand. This wasn’t right. All seven of them. Like…‌like that.

“Emergency, which service?”

“I…‌I…‌”

“Which service, please?”

“I…‌There’s been‌—‌there’s been a massacre. There’s been…‌Pendle Hill. Something’s happened.”

“Okay, I’ll put that through to the police. Pendle Hill‌—‌which region is that?”

The words buzzed through Darren’s ears as he stared at the trench. The bones. The skeletons, all of them circled in that pattern, with their arms pointing out like they were doing star jumps. Leg bones attached to the arm bones.

“Sir, can you please…‌”

And in the middle of the circle, a pile of heads. Pete’s head. Shenice’s head.