Hurt (The Hurt Series) (33 page)

Chloe sighed. ‘You know, the funny thing is Vicky doesn’t blame you. She knew how charming and manipulative Ray could be, and that what he did he did for her.’

This didn’t make her feel any better.

‘Thing is, though, that still doesn’t change the fact you could’ve saved him.’ Chloe leant further across the table. The compulsion to reach out and hold her daughter was overwhelming. ‘You killed him, Mum. Just remember that tomorrow at his funeral.’

Chloe pushed herself off the table and pulled a small white envelope from her coat pocket. She tossed it on the table and stormed out through the door.

Jessop retrieved the envelope and opened it. The card had a picture of a happy snowman on it under the heading Merry Christmas.

There was no message inside.

Chapter
Ninety-one

She’d been in the ward for five days, lying on the same bed and staring blankly at the same mint green wall. She did not remember coming here, did not remember Brooke and Davies coming to visit her. She did not remember attacking one of the orderlies because she was convinced he too was Philip Chambers. She did not remember the cold sweats and the sickness as her body cleansed itself of the alcohol. She did not remember the bed baths and the constant changing of her wet sheets and sodden gowns from the relentless nightmares she’d endured.

She did not remember any of it.

But it had happened, because the doctor had told her so. He had also told her she should try to eat something, to which she had eyed the food put before her and had felt her stomach knot into a tight ball.

And so the meal remained untouched, sitting on the bedside table next to Chloe’s Christmas card. On her lap sat the confidential file. She’d tried to read it but the effort to do so was enormous. No sooner would she finish a sentence then she’d forgotten what she’d read, and would have to start again. What she had learned, though, was that no one had died since Mark Hughes back on November 6
^th
, reinforcing the belief Chambers was waiting for her - his number 9.

She’d also learned that Chloe and Vicky had moved back to the house in which Ray had confessed his secret to her and had made her promise not to tell.

Reluctantly she’d agreed to keep that secret, and tomorrow she would be facing the consequences of doing so.

Chapter
Ninety-two

Saturday, December 23
^rd

The atmosphere in the car was as frosty as the world outside. After reassuring her Daniels had inserted a hidden team of armed spotters around the cemetery in case Chambers decided to make a move, Mason had clammed up. Just stared at the road from beneath a frown as heavy and deep as she’d ever seen it. Snippets of their last conversation whilst she was in the hotel had returned to her, and realising what a bitch she’d been, she decided to respect the man’s silence.

After all, what was there to say?

Can’t be easy hearing your mentor and inspiration telling you to fuck off.

Mason turned into the drive that led up through the city’s largest cemetery. A light dusting of snow gave the tired expanse of grass and headstones an almost mystical appearance she found both enchanting and eerie.

Eerie in that somewhere out there, hidden behind a headstone or tucked behind one of the skeletal tress, Phillip Chambers could be waiting for her.

‘One of the final tests of the sniper cadre is to move undetected over a distance of one and a half kilometres, both rural and urban…move to a position one hundred and fifty metres away, and fire off two rounds.’

And as much as she trusted Daniels and his team, they weren’t as good as the man who had such legendary status in their community.

‘Then extract without being seen and without leaving a clue of ever having being there.’

Stepping out of the car, she had never felt so exposed and vulnerable. This was the first time she had been out in the open for two months. And now she was on God’s hallowed land. And she felt as if God Himself was watching her.

But not that God.

‘Never misses…and was deadlier than God himself.’

A second later she had reached the sanctuary of the church.

She recognised most of the congregation but talked to none. Whenever one of Ray’s friends from past or present offered condolences, she would just nod her head and avert her eyes before the festering guilt within gave up her dirty secret: they were all gathered here today because she had been too cowardly to speak up against the man they were mourning and save him.

She sat at the back of the congregation flanked by Mason and Brooke. The minister’s soft words were punctuated with sobs and sniffles and the blowing of noses. None, she noticed, came from the front row, where Chloe and Vicky sat as still and silent as the decorative stone angels guarding the graves outside. Neither of the girls had greeted her on her arrival, and she suspected neither would they bid her goodbye when she left.

Chloe had chosen the music, Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, consistently voted has having the best guitar riff of all time. Ray had agreed with the consensus, and had always told of how he would like it played at his funeral. Chloe had argued about it being hardly original, to which Ray had replied: ‘Why the hell should I care? I’ll be dead.’

Throat tightening, Jessop shut her eyes and recalled another of Ray’s dark jokes about death:

‘Better to burn out than to fade away,’ he’d joked about his wish to be cremated rather than buried. It was one of many drunken topics they had breached in that getting to know each other
stage
of their relationship. She had said her wish was to be buried because cremation just seemed so final.

‘Oh, yeah, I forgot,’ he’d chuckled. ‘You’re a slut for the zombie genre.’

It was true, and she loved the fact that Ray had remembered that little detail about her taste in movies. ‘You just never know,’ she’d said. ‘What with global warming and all the shit they’re dumping in the ground these days, it could happen.’

‘And you’d want that, right? You’d want to come back as a decomposed, stumbling corpse with a taste for human flesh?’

‘If you ask me, every day above ground is a good one.’

Ray had sipped his bourbon and considered this. She also liked that he listened to her, even when she was fooling around. ‘You know, for a cop you’re extraordinarily optimistic.’

‘Don’t believe a word of it. I just like the idea of biting someone’s dick off and not getting arrested for it.’

Ray flashed the grin she would come to know so well and love so much. ‘Yeah, that’s more like it.’

The service over, Jessop huddled in the church doorway inhaling freezing, crisp air. The tip of her nose was damp and frozen from the tears that had escaped her eyes when Ray’s coffin had disappeared through the curtains. These were the first she had shed since hearing of the news. She’d imagined when the day came she’d be in floods. But then, she’d had time to prepare for this day, because subconsciously she’d been grieving for her man from the day he’d announced he was postponing the treatment.

To Mason, who had just joined her, she asked, ‘What’s happening to Ray now?’

Dressed in black overcoat, black suit, white shirt and black tie, Mason blew on his hands before answering. ‘Vicky hasn’t decided yet. The ashes will remain here until she does.’

She watched Chloe and Vicky huddle arm in arm into the back of Brooke’s car. Brooke was to take them straight home, where she would stay with them as a friend and as a little extra peace of mind. As much as she trusted Brooke, the young DS was no match for Chambers should he come for her girls. However, she was in no position to delegate duty or voice her opinion anymore. Because from the second she had pulled the trigger on poor Alistair Waters, despite aiming at the wall away from the poor waiter, she was on garden leave pending dismissal.

‘Time to go,’ Mason said.

Jessop took a look around. The tranquillity of her surroundings still unnerving her. Her flesh prickled as she pictured herself in the crosshairs of a sniper rifle. She thought about the moment Chambers had waved to them on the CCTV footage before disappearing back into the crowded high street.

Making sure Mason couldn’t see her, she looked across the cemetery, where in the distance sat a dense crop of trees. She flicked up her middle finger then ducked into the car. Slid down low in the passenger seat.

Chapter
Ninety-three

Mason tapped the steering wheel with his thumbs as he steered casually passed a parked bus on their way back to the hospital.

Jessop’s thumbs were also fidgeting. She had not smoked for six days and her body was beginning to punish her for it. She tried to quash the craving by looking out of the window and focusing on the traffic funnelling into the city as the late Christmas shopping rush began. She wondered what she would have been buying Ray and Chloe this year if their lives hadn’t gone to hell. Chloe was at that age when all she wanted was her freedom and independence. Barring buying her a flat, Jessop would have been stuck for ideas. And that was where Ray would come in, as he spent more time with her daughter than she, and was attuned to her wants and needs. But what of Ray? What would she buy the man who wanted nothing? Well, that was where Chloe came in, because Chloe spent more time with Ray and…

Her chest tightened. Suddenly her flesh felt clammy and her head felt light and detached from her body. ‘Stop the car, Scott.’

Mason snapped his head round. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I don’t feel well.’

‘Why?’

‘Just stop the damn car!’

Mason stamped on the breaks and swerved toward the curb. No sooner had he stopped then she was out and pacing the pavement, sucking in great gulps of fresh air, deafened by the sound of her heart pounding in her ears.

Mason joined her, his face heavy with concern. ‘What is it?’

‘I’ll be alright.’

‘Then why’re you holding your chest?’

She didn’t realise she was, and now felt foolish for doing so as the fresh air began to neutralise the anxiety attack and re-oxygenate her blood. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got a cigarette?’

‘No, I haven’t. And by the looks of it, that’s the last thing you need.’

Jessop bent over and rested her hands on her knees.

‘What you do need,’ Mason said, ‘is to get back to the hospital. You’re weak and malnourished.’

Regulating her breathing, she glanced to Mason’s shoes shuffling on the pavement. Snuck a peak up at her DI, whose hands were stuffed deep in his coat pockets. Noted the tension in his shoulder and neck and his eyes darting from one direction to another. ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Sure, but let’s get back in the car, huh?’

‘Why? What’s wrong with here?’

‘It’s bloody freezing.’

‘You sure you don’t mean
exposed
?’

Mason’s eyes stopped moving and focused on her. Only then, seeing the fear in the wide pupils, were her instincts confirmed.

She righted herself. ‘You still think Chambers is coming for me, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

The single word reply and the speed in which it was spoken sent chills through her body. A
big
piece of her wanted to be assured she was just being paranoid, and only Mason could assure her of that with his instinct and honesty.

He said, ‘Thing is, since Chambers disappeared I’m the only one who thinks so, hence the withdrawal of your protection detail.’

‘Yet The Undertaker authorised Daniels and his team to be at the cemetery. Why?’

Mason looked to his shoes, kicking at the pavement. ‘Did you see any of Daniels’ boys today?’

‘No.’

‘Wanna know why?’

‘Because they were hid − ’The sentence caught in her dry throat. ‘Oh, Jesus! It’s because they weren’t there, isn’t it?’

‘You more than anyone knows how much an operation like that costs.’

Her chest began to restrict again.

‘If you had known, would you have still gone?’

‘You lied to me,’ she hissed.

‘You needed to be there. It was only right.’

‘But at the risk of my own fucking life?’

‘Shooting you doesn’t fit with Chamber’s MO.’

She pictured herself in Chambers’ crosshairs, flicking him the finger, safe in the knowledge Daniels team had her back. Her heart missed a beat.

Was this how it will always be now? Was she destined to spend the rest of her life alone and trapped in those crosshairs, not knowing when or where the marksmen would choose to pull the trigger or invade her house? If Chambers really was still coming for her, and she was certain he was, he knew damn well the security had been dropped, and that there were no snipers waiting to take him out at the cemetery.

So why the hell hadn’t he taken the shot?

Because Mason had been right. There were lessons to be taught. Up close and personal lessons, which could only be taught with a knife and a loved one to watch and learn from. In this case an eighteen-year-old girl, whose mother was not her favouriteperson in the world right now. And who may be number ten on some fucked-up ex-marine’s kill list.

Out of the corner of her eye she spotted a figure approaching. Puffing on a cigarette, he wore jeans, a khaki army jacket, and had a grey hood pulled up over his head. She glanced to Mason. Watched him clock the figure and tense.

She waited until the smoker was upon them then pounced. ‘Hey!’

The smoker stopped, frowned his confusion at the woman.

‘Couldn’t nick a smoke from you could I?’

The lad mumbled something beneath his breath then reached into his pocket. A second later he was offering the woman a cigarette and a light. She lit up and inhaled deep, thanking the lad, much to Mason’s obvious relief.

‘Now you know how I feel,’ she said between drags. ‘To me everyone is potentially Chambers.’

Mason shook his head wearily. ‘If we knew how to find him we would’ve done it by now.’

‘There’s one thing we haven’t tried,’ she said.

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. But I’m gonna need your help. And after you lied to me about Daniels, I think you owe me.’