Hurt (The Hurt Series) (35 page)

Or maybe upstairs, in one of the bedrooms.

Chloe’s bedroom. Hunched in her wardrobe, waiting patiently for her to pick out an outfit before driving the blade into her heart.

Her heart sped up at the thought and a cold sweat broke on her brow.

She shook the thought away, focused on keeping her heavy eyes open. She knew she should sleep. Knew it would do her good. Knew the house was secure and that they were safe.

Knew that was bullshit. Locks and bolts would not deter Chambers.

What if she awoke and found Chloe and Vicky had been numbers 9 and 10, sliced open and bleeding to death on the carpet before her? Then what? She would not be able to help them because Chambers would have a knife pressed tight against her throat.

But that wouldn’t matter, because by then it would be too late. If Chambers didn’t finish her off, she would do the job for him.

Chapter
Ninety-eight

The penknife looked familiar. It was the one she had bought to gut Vincent Dodd with. Reflected in its virgin blade, familiar eyes brimmed with regret.

‘Your pain is the breaking of the shell of your understanding. Do not fight it. It is your aversion that hurts, nothing more.’

But she had fought it, hadn’t she? Her shell had been broken thirty-six years ago, and only now did she understand.

‘It is the bitter potion which the physician within you heals your sick self, so therefore trust your physician and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity.’

Sitting in the silence and tranquillity of his armchair, Chambers had drunk the bitter potion, had been healed by the physician within. Had learned that he who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness.

She, however, had not drunk the bitter potion. Had not trusted her inner physician, and had not experienced supreme happiness through the deepest of grief. Instead, she had festered in her grief for her family. She had allowed it to consume her and poison her with hate and anger. She had let it dictate her life and to choose a career which would ultimately end the life of Angela Hardy, and drive the man she loved to take his own life.

And now, to gamble with her daughter’s life.

‘To live is to suffer, and to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.’

She had not found that meaning.

And now she was going to pay the price.

Chambers smiled at her. A sympathetic smile that creased the scarring on his cheeks. He regarded her with disappointment in his eyes. Shook his head.

‘Compartmentalise. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. Ciao, Detective Inspector. Only then will you find some meaning to your suffering.

The blade broke her flesh and pierced her breastbone. Sank deep into her heart. The pain was exquisite.

'We must have felt what it is to die, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life.’

He spoke the truth. She realised that now.

But it was too late.

Jessop gasped awake. Grabbed her chest. Dug her fingers deep into her jumper, clawing at the pain within. Searching for the knife.

Panicked, she whipped the gun from beneath the cushion and aimed it into the dark. Searching for Chambers.

She caught her breath. Blinked against the hazy light seeping through the curtains. Sat up and exhaled slowly, silently

Neither the knife nor Chambers existed. Only in her dreams.

But that meant she’d fallen asleep.

And had let her guard down.

Let her guard down, allowing Chambers to sneak into the house.

She leapt up from the chair. Saw the girls as she’d left them before she’d gotten so careless: Vicky tucked up beneath the duvet on the sofa, and Chloe curled up on the armchair wrapped in a blanket. Both were breathing, and there were no traces of blood.

She
took a measured breath. Padding stealthily across the room, she woke the girls and apologised for doing so in a low whisper. Both were groggy and disgruntled but did as she instructed without complaining.

Instincts heightened, and with the Webley on point, she led them through the house, inspecting each room, checking windows and potential hiding places. With each door they opened there was a deathly silence as all three breaths were held. They moved upstairs and did the same, double checking window locks, peeking beneath the beds and inside the wardrobes.

‘Should’ve left out some mince pies,’ Chloe mumbled as they finished the upstairs inspection.

Jessop shot her daughter hard eyes. She got the Santa Claus joke but didn’t find it funny. Back downstairs she led the girls into the kitchen and filled the kettle. She then did something that left both girls wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

‘What the hell’re you doing?’ Chloe gasped.

She pulled up the second blind to welcome in the grey, overcast day outside.

‘I thought you said this guy’s a crack-shot sniper!’

‘That’s right. He is. He’s also super suspicious, which is why I can’t afford to have him think I’m setting a trap for him.’

‘So instead you thought you’ll open the fucking door for him?’

She spooned coffee into three cups. ‘We act normal. If he’s watching then we don’t want to scare him off.’

Chloe pulled Vicky away from the window. ‘Speak for yourself.’

Chapter
Ninety-nine

Turkey was not on the menu for Christmas dinner. Instead, Chloe and Vicky cooked up a couple of frozen pizzas. The smell stoked Jessop’s appetite, and seated back in front of the TV, she consumed a 12” pepperoni stuffed crust to herself, and felt a hell of a lot better for it. The girls, however, just picked and nibbled, conscious of the large bay window through which Chambers may be watching them from his secluded vantage point somewhere in the woods behind the back garden. Just as an actor on TV was not allowed to look directly at the camera, none in the room was to look directly out the window. Little things like that would spike Chamber’s suspicions, Jessop had told the girls.

‘You know,’ Chloe said, pushing her plate aside. ‘It’s gonna look really weird if we continue to all do things together like we’ve been doing.’

Vicky looked at her friend, and then at Jessop, as if to agree with Chloe’s observation.

Jessop had been thinking the very same thing. ‘True enough.’

Chloe raised her eyebrows, seemingly astounded she had said something right. ‘So can I go take a piss in private, then?’

‘Uh-huh. And while you’re up, grab yours and Vicky’s coats and shoes.’

‘What? Why?’

Discreetly, Jessop tucked the Webley into the waistband of her jeans and pulled her jumper over the top. ‘Because we’re going out for a walk.’

Chloe gawped. ‘You’re shitting me, right?’

‘Nope. It’s tradition. We always go for a walk after Christmas dinner.’

Chloe’s mouth remained agape as she skulked from the room alone for the first time since her crazy mother had taken back control of her life.

Jessop eased off the chair and relished the thought of having a cigarette once they were outside.

‘You’re drawing him in, aren’t you?’ came Vicky’s quiet voice from the sofa. ‘You’re thinking he’ll sneak in while we’re out, just like he did when me and mum were out, right?’

Jessop eyed the girl and noted the trust and hope in her face. Unlike Chloe, Vicky had a personal interest in watching one of the gun’s bullets blow Chambers’ head off. Vicky, like herself, wanted this to happen. Neither was afraid, for they were no strangers to death. Chloe, however, was. Other than Ray, she had lost no one close, and so had not experienced the
pain of the breaking of the shell of her understanding.

Jessop shook off a shiver as suddenly she felt closer to Vicky than her own daughter. In answer to Vicky’s questions, she said, ‘Yes. If he’s out there, he’s not going to try and sneak in while we’re up and about.’

Vicky nodded more to herself than Jessop. Her lips parted as if to speak, but then closed tight as Chloe stalked back into the room holding a bunch of shoes and coats.

‘Wrap up warm,’ Jessop said. ‘Looks cold out.’

Chloe shrugged on her coat and mumbled something beneath her breath about not being alive long enough to feel the cold.

Chapter
One-hundred

The air outside was chilled and refreshing. It was also a potent stimulant Jessop had forgotten about since she’d locked herself in the hotel room.

Ambling through the maze of bare, brittle trees, she recalled this time last year walking the same makeshift path and listening to Ray and Chloe talk about getting a dog. Ray wanted a big sloppy Labrador, who would curl up on his feet of an evening in front of the TV. Chloe wanted a spaniel because she adored their floppy ears. Seeing as though she didn’t want to take responsibility for the dog once Chloe and Ray’s interest had waned, Jessop hadn’t voiced much of an opinion

Of course, Ray and Chloe had sworn that wouldn’t happen, and when pushed for preference of breed, she had played it neutral and suggested a Doberman so as to keep the peace between them. By Boxing Day the subject had been forgotten, suggesting she’d been right, and neither had really wanted the responsibility that came with owning a dog.

As the advert said: Pets are not just for Christmas, they are for life.

She looked ahead at the two girls enduring the worst Christmas of their lives so far, and a shiver ran up her spine.

She’d been big enough to admit not wanting to take responsibility for a dog, and yet here she was, playing God with these girls’ lives.

Just because she had given Chloe life did not mean she had the right to take it away. Chambers may have targeted her and Chloe, but that didn’t mean she could use her daughter as bait.

She stopped in her tracks, dug in her pocket for her mobile. ‘Just making a quick call,’ she called to the girls, who were ten paces ahead of her and dragging their feet. Only Vicky looked back and acknowledged her. Chloe, meanwhile, had found a gnarled branch and was absently beating the undergrowth. Jessop waited until the girls were out of earshot before dialling Mason’s number.

The answer service kicked in immediately, telling her to leave a message. This was the first time she had known Mason not to pick up, and it could not have been a worse time.

She wanted him here. No. She
needed
him here. This was a bad idea. The girls shouldn’t be here, and she needed Mason to take them away from here now. Instead, he was probably celebrating Christmas day like most normal people, tucking into a turkey dinner with family or friends in front of the Queen’s speech.

Somehow, though, she doubted it. And this unnerved her.

She hung up without leaving a message and pocketed the phone. Turned back to the way they had come and saw the back of the house through the thicket of bare branches half a kilometre away. From where she stood she could see her bedroom window, but at such a distance could not see through it into the room. What she needed was a high powered sniper scope like the one Chambers probably used to scope out his victims’ houses. She wondered if at this moment he was watching her and the girls through the trees from the very room she was looking at.

She felt her hand drawn both to the gun and back to the mobile as the doubts about what she was doing intensified. She lit another cigarette and drew hard, watching Vicky snapping a thin branch from a tree and remembering what cuddling the girl had felt like last night. Life was as fragile as that branch, and to some, like Chambers, just as easy to break.

‘
Girls…’ she called out. This time, as well as Vicky, Chloe acknowledged her. For she knew by the tone of her mother’s voice what she was about to say. ‘Let’s go.’

Chapter
One-hundred and one

Something had happened. Whereas Chloe had kept a distance from her mother on the journey out here, now she huddled close enough to make contact. To Jessop’s left, Vicky was even closer, her arm linked tight through Jessop’s.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Here’s the drill. Once inside you two stay behind me just as we’ve been doing. Same routine as before starting downstairs with the living room, then my office, then the toilet, and so on.’

‘Do you think he’ll be there?’ Vicky asked.

‘I honestly don’t know. But I want you both to assume he is and be ready for anything.’ She felt Vicky’s arm squeeze tighter around hers. ‘But most importantly, stay
behind
me. If I have to open fire, the last thing I want is to hit either of you two.’

‘What if he knows it’s a trap? What if he knows you have the gun?’

Jessop turned to the voice from her right. Beneath her coat, Chloe’s shoulders were high and tight. The frown she’d become so used to over the last twenty-four hours had gone, and so, it seemed by the frightened tone of the questions, had the angst. ‘Then I’ll have to make sure he knows I can use it,’ she said, injecting a bravado she didn’t feel into her voice.

The remainder of their return was spent in familiar silence. Only the tweeting of birds from above and cracking of twigs under foot could be heard. She knew what the girls must be feeling because she felt it too: apprehension infused with terror. She was potentially leading them to their deaths, and so words were redundant. There were none that could alleviate this act of madness.

They reached the gate fence that separated the woods from the garden. Hopped over onto the lawn and ambled up to the kitchen door through which they had left an hour ago. Jessop had locked it on the way out, and was relieved to find it was still locked.

‘Cathy…’

Both she and Chloe turned to Vicky, who looked half her age huddled deep in her thick coat.

‘Yes, sweetie?’

‘I don’t want to die like my mum.’

Jessop realised Vicky was looking at the gun in her hand. Only then did she understand what Vicky was trying to say. The poor kid would rather she end her life quickly with a bullet than have the life bled from her. ‘I won’t let that happen. I swear.’

‘Same goes for me,’ Chloe said. ‘I don’t want that sicko thinking he got one over on me.’