Hurt (The Hurt Series) (9 page)

‘He’s a power seeker,’ she said. ‘Likes to play God by exerting ultimate control over his victims.’

Mason nodded to himself. ‘But it’s not about his victims. It’s about their loved ones.’

‘Right. He thinks he’s teaching them a lesson.’

‘Emancipation through suffering.’

Jessop arched an eyebrow at her astute DI. ‘Uh-huh. I’m thinking a rough childhood, probably abusive. At some point in his young life he was forced to watch a loved one − most probably a sibling or a parent − get beaten badly, or even killed, possibly by another loved one. He believes he’s come through the trauma unscathed and enlightened, and feels compelled to pass on what he’s learned to others by making them watch a loved one die in the hope they too will benefit from the experience. He believes they should be grateful, and that they should actually
thank
him. For without his intervention in their lives they would not be able to fully appreciate life.’

Mason rubbed his clean jaw, his forehead furrowed deep in thought. ‘Does he enjoy it?’

That was a good question. The right question to ask at this point. She thought about what Rebecca had said about the killer just sounding normal after he’d gutted her boyfriend. But who had he really seen slouched there with the life spilling from the cut? His mother, after his father had given her yet another beating? Or maybe his father, after the young killer had had enough of watching his mother’s abuse at his drunk father’s hands and had finally done something to stop it?

‘No,’ she answered. ‘I don’t believe he does.’

A quietness filled the room as she allowed Mason to digest what he’d learned. Thankfully the excitement she’d seen dancing in his eyes yesterday at the squat was still there, even when he asked, ‘So where does it end for him?’

Jessop stretched her aching back and cricked her stiff neck. ‘Behind bars or beneath the ground. Whichever comes first.’

Chapter
Twenty

Yesterday it had rained hard. Today there was no trace of the downpour. Even the sun had made a rare October appearance. Of all the countries he’d visited, England still had the most unpredictable weather.

He sipped hot, weak tea and watched his hunter stepping from the HMV.

She looked tired. Heavy eyes and pasty flesh. Hadn’t even bothered to apply the little make up she usually wore or run a brush through that thick curly hair of hers.

Suppose she’d had a long night.

He placed his tea on the bench and unwrapped the burger. Took a bite. He wasn’t hungry, of course, but eating in public gave you the excuse to stop and watch your surroundings without drawing attention.

He chewed the rubbery meat, a Burger King Whopper with cheese. Olly used to love these things. Talked about them all the bloody time. Drove him mad with his burger obsession. Even had one of the damn things tattooed on his shoulder blade to add to his collection of ink. 38 tatts at the last count. Everything from ex-girlfriends’ names to Celtic bands to The Devil sneering out from a gash along his ribs to a fucking cheese burger.

Loved the ink, did Olly. As addictive as cheese burgers.

He didn’t think so, which was why he had just the two tatts, the latest being
Carpe Diem,
inked on his right inner wrist for added irony.

Seize the day.

It was good advice.

Advice the person he had inked across his heart would soon heed.

He tossed the burger into the bin, pulled his bag over his shoulder and stood up from the bench.

He looked up at the sun, the same sun under which the owner of the name across his heart breathed the life he had given her.

Incredible.

The world was truly a small place.

‘Carpe Diem, my darling.’

Chapter
Twenty-one

‘He was a good bloke...Always up for a laugh...Wouldn’t hurt a fly…Didn’t have an enemy in the world.’

Standing next to the counter in the HMV where Darren was the assistant manager, Jessop sighed and pocketed her notebook. Statements from friends and colleagues were all the same. Why were the victims always saints? Why not for once did someone say: “Nah, he was a real tosser, no one liked him, especially that suspicious looking guy who was in here the other day looking all disgruntled with the world”?

Don’t speak ill of the dead.

Why not, if it helped stop another innocent person becoming that way?

Of course, Darren may have been the
actual
victim here, but it was Rebecca who the killer was really targeting. She was the one to whom he wanted to teach his lesson. Darren was collateral damage, but it was his car the killer had followed last night. And that was as good a starting point as any to find the bastard who had taken Darren’s life and ruined Rebecca’s.

Along with agreeing Darren was the nicest person in the world, all his distraught work colleagues were unanimous in their denial about knowing anything about Darren’s midnight excursion with Rebecca. Brooke, who Jessop had brought here instead Mason, who chaired this morning’s press conference before investigating a possible suicide across town, had seen no abnormalities in any of the team’s behaviour to suggest they were lying. Of course, grief and shock often distorted peoples’ natural body language and responses, and it was probably an idea to have another chat with them next week, she’d said. Maybe she’d have more luck with one of Darren’s close friends.

Dressed in a tanned trouser suit and catching the eye of the two male employees behind the cash-desk, Brooke joined Jessop and said something she couldn’t hear over the banging bass of a track playing so loud she was considering slapping the grieving manager with a noise abatement order.

‘What you say?’ she yelled

‘I got the security tapes!’

‘Good. Let’s go!’

Outside, Jessop welcomed the warm sun on her face. The high street was bustling with shoppers laden with bags and workers taking early lunches. As usual the air was scented with the tantalising aroma of fried onions from the hotdog stand outside Boots, while the street’s soundtrack came courtesy of the panpipes from a Peruvian quartet and the call of ‘Working not begging’ from the Big Issue vendor on the corner of Lewis’ department store.

A typical Monday morning with typical people doing typical things, she mused.

Except it wasn’t a typical Monday morning, was it?

No, because it was the tail end of October and the sun was shining. No, because a young man who “wouldn’t hurt a fly” and “didn’t have an enemy in the world” who worked in the shop behind her had been brutally slain last night. No, because the monster who had slain him had appeared from nowhere and disappeared just as mysteriously, seemingly evading all the CCTV cameras and speed cameras en route from the mall to the park, of which there were numerous.

And no, because this time tomorrow another monster would be walking these streets among the many fake ghosts and demons Halloween would rouse.

But this monster was no fake. It was very real, just as deadly as Darren Spencer’s killer, and
had
been locked away for too long.

‘Boss?’

Jessop snapped back to the here and now. Turned to Brooke, who was motioning to her pocket and the ringing phone within.

She fished out the phone, looked up at the blue and white sky above, in which hung the sun she shared with the real ghosts and monsters among them. Marveled at how this time next week she’d be 4000 miles away and still staring at the same sun shining on the ghosts and monsters of her past.

Maybe it was impossible to exorcise such demons after all.

She answered the phone with a blunt, ‘Yes?’

‘I got something you might wanna see,’ came Davies’ excited voice.

Chapter
Twenty-two

On seeing Brooke enter the war room alongside Jessop, Davies’ tired eyes widened and a grin spread across his face. ‘Morning sexy?’

Brooke glanced at her watch. ‘Don’t you mean afternoon?’

‘I was just practising for that first morning when you wake up beside me in my bed.’

Suppressing a grin, Brooke rolled her eyes and took a seat. ‘Keep practising, Tom. When it’s perfect, gimme a shout.’

Jessop shook her head, recalling a time she used to be the target of flirtatious innuendo and complimentary cups of coffee thoughtfully fetched by her male colleagues. The coffee still happened occasionally, but now more out of fear than lust. ‘What’ve you got?’

Davies brushed away a sandwich wrapper and an empty can of Red Bull and positioned his laptop so that both Jessop and Brooke could see the screen. Instantly, she recognised the CCTV footage taken at Revels nightclub the night Tanya Adams had allegedly lost her keys. ‘There...’ He paused the footage. In the centre of the screen was a good looking guy in his early twenties with wayward blonde hair and an arm draped around the shoulder of a slender, scantily dressed redhead, who was happily chewing on the guy’s neck.

‘Okay,’ Davies said, printing a copy of the image, ‘now check this out.’

The footage disappeared. A second later she was looking at the inside of the Burger King in the mall opposite the cinema. The footage was taken last night, the time: 11.06pm. Jessop shivered as the ghost of Darren Spencer leant across a table and kissed Rebecca Forrester on the lips. The kiss lingered and Rebecca giggled. Darren then shoved a handful of fries into his mouth and pulled a gormless face. Jessop closed her eyes and took a measured breath.

‘There,’ Davies called.

Her eyes snapped open in time to see a guy with wayward blonde hair taking a seat in the booth behind the young, fated lovers. She leant in closer and scrutinised the image. It was definitely the same guy from the club, albeit this time he was alone.

‘He’s close enough to listen in on their conversation and overhear where they were going next,’ Brooke observed.

He was, Jessop thought. ‘Skip forward, Tom.’

A moment later they were watching Darren and Rebecca leave the restaurant at 11.23pm, closely followed by wayward hair guy.

Stomach knotting with anticipation, Jessop barked, ‘Can you follow them?’

‘Only as far as the mall car park. That’s where our guy disappears.’

‘What, in the car park with them?’

‘Afraid not. He cuts down the side of Nandos on foot. No sign of him after that.’ Davies pulled the ring from another Red Bull, took a sip. ‘Even if the bastard drove flat out, and knew every damn camera blind spot on route to the park, given the time and distance he would have to cover on foot through the woods to reach Darren and Rebecca, it’s next to impossible he would make it.’

‘
Next
to impossible, but not impossible.’ Jessop beckoned for the security tapes Brooke had taken from the HMV. A moment later Davies and Brooke were speeding through the footage, whilst she mapped out the quickest route from the mall to Crossfields Park, avoiding all traffic cameras. When Mason had finished with the suicide, she’d get her super fit DI running time trials through the park.

‘
Whoa,’ Brooke said.

Jessop looked up in time to see Davies pecking at the keyboard and the footage on the screen freeze.

‘Guess who?’ he grinned.

Jessop sidled in closer, regarded the frozen image of Darren’s HMV store, wherein a guy with familiar wayward blonde hair was browsing the Rock CD section. The date, she noted, was three days ago. Davies hit PLAY, and from the left of the screen the ghost of Darren Spencer approached the guy and engaged in a short conversation about a CD wayward hair was holding. Darren then disappeared. The footage had no audio.

Davies said, ‘Could just be a coincidence? Finding the same white, twenty-something male both in a nightclub, a Burger King, and an HMV is hardly unusual. I should know, because those are the places I hang out.’

‘So maybe we should arrest
your
sorry arse,’ Brooke groaned.

‘Only if you promise to slip back into uniform and handcuff me.’ Davies turned to Jessop. ‘I confess, boss…It was me.’

But Jessop wasn’t listening. Because on the screen before her a girl had stepped into view and was snaking an arm around wayward hair guy’s waist. With her back to the camera, she rose onto her toes and pecked the guy on the lips. Jessop’s stomach somersaulted, because she too had wayward blonde hair, but instead of hanging lank like her boyfriend’s, it was tied into a loose bun and secured with a blue butterfly clip Jessop had worn in her hair yesterday.

Chapter
Twenty-three

Recently refurbished and now looking like something out of a futuristic sci-fi movie, the steel and glass art and design college no longer fitted with its surroundings. The east side of the city was the oldest part, with listed buildings aplenty, and a heaving Asian community who had made the postcode their own.

Rarely was there any trouble here, and although she’d driven through this district on a number of occasions to access the motorway, Jessop had not stopped at the college since she’d escorted Chloe to her interview for her placement two years ago.

The college’s reputation had met her approval and she’d found the tutors both friendly and professional. On receiving the news Chloe had secured the placement, she could not have been prouder of her daughter. She’d always encouraged Chloe to pursue a career doing something she enjoyed and felt passionate about because she would be spending the next forty years doing it. When Chloe had asked if she did what she did because she enjoyed it and felt passionate about it, Jessop had smiled warmly and said yes.

That was the only time she had ever lied to her daughter.

She grimaced at the memory as she watched the swarm of students exiting the college for lunch. Among them, her daughter, who on noticing her mother’s car, did not look best pleased.

Wearing a baggy denim shirt splattered with paint, black leggings, and red and white Converse trainers, Chloe greeted her with a sharp, ‘What’re you doing here?’

‘Happened to be in the neighbourhood. Thought I’d say hi and maybe shout you some lunch.’

‘You could’ve texted me.’

‘You know how I hate texting. Anyway, what’s the big deal? You’re not ashamed of your old mum are you?’