The Kiera Hudson Prequels 2 (13 page)

“
Stop it! Stop it!” his accomplice suddenly cried out. “Just stop, Kevin. She knows what happened. She knows we killed Splitfoot.”

“
Shut it, Peter!” Barker hissed at him.

“
It’s over, Kevin,” Peter said. “It’s over.”

A heavy silence fell over the room. I didn’t break Barker’s stare once. Tom stood directly behind him, guarding the door.

“
Splitfoot was a fraud,” Peter suddenly said. “He killed my sister Claire. My sister was married to Kevin.”

“
Shut up!” Barker tried one last time to silence his brother-in-law.

Peter turned his attention from Kevin and looked at me. “Claire was in a car crash two years ago. My six-year-old niece died in that crash. Claire wasn’t to blame. It was an accident, but she blamed herself. Then six months ago she saw an advert in the local paper. It was for one of Splitfoot’s séances.”

“
I told her not to go,” Kevin suddenly spoke up. His anger seemed to have suddenly left him at the mention of his wife and dead daughter. He suddenly looked deflated, lost, and haggard. “I told her no good would come of going to a séance. They’re run by frauds just like Splitfoot who prey on the vulnerable. But he didn’t care as long as he got paid. So Claire went to one of his séances, and just like tonight she heard the voice of that little girl, Alice. But that was our daughter’s name too. Claire believed that she had been visited by our daughter. It drove Claire half insane with anguish. Her guilt intensified from that day on until she took her own life. Splitfoot knew the harm he had caused, but he didn’t stop. He carried on tricking those poor people like me who have lost the ones they loved most in this life. Someone had to stop him. That person was me. I wanted to send him to join the spirits he claimed to be able to speak to.”

Kevin stopped talking and lowered his head. He had given up. The fight had left him.

I took no pride in catching this killer. But sadly that’s what he had become. His grief had driven him to despair, just like grief had driven his wife Claire to Derren Splitfoot.

As I struggled to find the right words to say, Tom suddenly stumbled forward as the door was pushed open. Tom straightened as two uniformed police officers came into the room. I didn’t recognise either of them, but the officer who stepped into the room behind them was all too familiar. My heart sank.

Sergeant Phillips looked at me, then at Tom. His face was pale and his eyes burnt with fury.

“
You two, my office first thing tomorrow morning,” he barked, jabbing his finger at us. “Get yourselves back to Havensfield on the double before I have both of your badges.”

“
But…” Tom started.

“
Don’t fuck with me, Henson,” Phillips warned him with a dismissive shake of his head. “Both of you get out of my sight, right now.”

Without another word of protest, both Tom and I left the room.

Tom drove me back to his parents’ house. Not one word passed between us, although I could think of a thousand things to say. This was my entire fault and Tom was going to get busted off the force because of me. We pulled up in front of the giant mansion once again. I looked at Tom and he back at me. I think we both knew our fate. Come nine o’clock tomorrow, we were both going to be kicked out of police training school.

Before climbing from his car and into mine, I said, “I’m sorry, Tom.”

“
What for?” he frowned.

“
For getting you into this,” I said.

“
I got myself into this,” he half-smiled. “I didn’t have to come looking for you.”

“
So why did you, Tom?” I asked. “You never did explain.”

Tom stared at me for a long moment, like there was something he needed to say. But at the last minute, he changed his mind and simply said, “It doesn’t matter why. I just did.”

I pushed open the door to climb out. Tom suddenly gripped my arm. I looked back over my shoulder at him. “What?”

“
You never explained how Splitfoot created the sound of that girl’s voice and how she appeared in that room.”

“
I couldn’t
see
how he did that,” I said, climbing from the car and closing the door behind me.

The Mystery of Kiera Hudson & Tom Henson

Kiera

I stood in my bathroom and stared into the mirror fixed above the sink. I was wearing my police uniform. The silver numbers shone from the shoulders of my tunic. For how much longer would I be wearing them? I wondered. I was sure to be busted out of the police force today. Sergeant Phillips had demanded that we attend training school at his office at 09:00 hours. I glanced down at my wristwatch. I had just an hour. One last hour wearing my police uniform. My stomach clenched at the thought of leaving the force. Becoming a police officer was all I had wanted to do since my mother had gone missing. She had never been found and it had been my dream to join the police force so I could search for her. I wanted to get my hands on her missing person’s file and carry out my own investigation into her disappearance. I knew in my heart that if I read that file I would
see
what had truly happened to her. But now that dream was going to be taken away and with it any chance of finding my mum. I wiped away the tears stinging the corner of my eyes, then fixed my hair up in pins, tucking it beneath my police hat. I left the bathroom, stepping into my lounge. I looked at the walls of my poky flat and the several hundred newspaper clippings I had fixed to them. They seemed to crowd in on me. I slowly zig-zagged through the piles of yellowed newspapers stacked about my room. I stood before a dog-eared cutting tacked to the wall. My mum stared back out of it. She was dressed just like me, in her police uniform.
Police Constable Jessica Hudson – Missing!
The headline screamed in thick, black letters.

“
I’m sorry for letting you down, mum,” I whispered, brushing my fingers over her face.

I turned away. I couldn’t bear to look at that picture. But it wasn’t just my mum I had let down, it was my dad, too. I had made a promise to him just before he died that I would find out what had happened to my mum. I would do it for the both of us. He died not knowing what had ever happened to her. I turned the picture of him on the table to face the wall. I couldn’t look at him knowing I had failed him. With those tears building in my eyes again, I sniffed them back and left my rented rooms. I couldn’t very well stroll into Sergeant Phillips’ office with tracks of black mascara running down my cheeks. He would think I had gone in search of pity and I didn’t want that. I had brought this situation upon myself. There was no one else to blame other than me. I should have stayed away from Tom like Sergeant Phillips had warned me to do so. But I hadn’t been able to. Why not? It wasn’t just because we worked so well together. There was another reason I had been unable to put distance between me and Tom. And deep in my heart I knew what that reason was, however much I tried to hide it. God, what a mess. I had fallen in love with a guy who didn’t feel the same way about me and I was about to lose the job I needed if I was ever to find my mum and keep the promise I had made to my dad.

With those tears threatening again, I climbed into my beat-up old Mini and headed through the rain toward training school.

Tom

I straightened my tie and stood back from the mirror. Running my fingers constantly through my messy-looking hair, I jutted my chin out and inspected it for any patches of stubble I might have missed while shaving. I wanted to look my best. I wanted Sergeant Phillips to see that I was a good copper and worthy to stay in the force. I couldn’t get kicked out. Not today. Not ever. The thought of doing so and having to go back to my mother’s and father’s house with my tail between my legs made my heart sink. I wanted to do something for myself. I had wanted to make my own way in life without their help. I wanted to prove to them – to myself – that I could make something of my life without their constant help. In my heart I knew that I could’ve never wished for better parents. They had given me everything – they had given me too much. I could just carry on taking from them but I wanted them to be proud of me. I wanted to do something special with my life that would make them proud. And in my heart I knew that’s why I had wanted to be a copper. It stood for something, didn’t it? To be able to protect and help those in society who could least help and protect themselves, was something to be proud of. That’s all I had ever wanted to do. And working with Kiera I was starting to believe that I was doing something worthwhile with my life. For the first time I was doing something that would make my parents proud. So the thought of having to return home and tell them I had failed – been kicked out of training school for failing to obey orders made my heart ache. I could see the look on their faces already and it made me wince. But that wasn’t the only reason my heart ached as I put on my tunic for the last time. I knew that once I’d been kicked off the force there was little chance I would ever see her again. There was no way Sergeant Phillips would bin Kiera. She was way too bright. She was going to make a brilliant police officer. She would stay and I would go – go back home. Maybe that was for the best. The best for me. In my heart I doubted I could really stay friends with someone I had fallen in love with. It would hurt too much being around her knowing that she didn’t feel the same way for me. So perhaps being kicked off the force was the best thing to happen. It would force a break between Kiera and me. My heart was already breaking, so perhaps if some distance was put between me and Kiera, those breaks would slowly start to heal?

I left my bathroom and waded through the discarded cheeseburger wrappers and empty Coke cans that littered my room. My PS3 was still set to pause where I had sat up all night playing. I had been unable to sleep. I picked up the hand controller from off the sofa and hit the play button. A zombie lurched forward on the screen, its eyes wild and blood red. I shot it straight in the face.

“
Take that, Phillips,” I smiled to myself and turned off the PS3.

I left my flat, darting through the puddles to my car. I climbed inside and headed toward training school.

Kiera

Two uniformed officers stood on either side of Sergeant Phillips’ office door. The officers’ backs were so straight I feared that their spines might just snap at any moment. I sat on one of the chairs in the sterile corridor. I looked up at the officers but they just stared straight ahead like mannequins. I looked down at my watch. 08:56 hours. Where was Tom? He daren’t be late. Please, Tom, hurry up, I prayed. I didn’t want him to get into any more trouble than he was already in. I sat nervously strumming my fingers against my knees. There was a sound of footsteps and I glanced right. Tom was heading down the corridor toward me. He looked so smart in his police tunic. He carried his police helmet under one arm and with his free hand he tried to straighten his wayward hair.

He dropped down onto the seat next to me. “I’m not late, am I?” Tom sounded out of breath.

“
No, but you’ve cut it pretty fine. Where have you been?” I asked.

“
Killing zombies,” he smiled at me.

Although he smiled, I could see that he was nervous. We both were.

I looked at him and he stared back at me.

“
Kiera, I just wanted to say whatever happens today I want you to know…” Before Tom had a chance to finish whatever he wanted to say to me, Sergeant Phillips’ door swung open.

We both shot to our feet. Phillips nearly filled the open doorway. His grey hair was swept neatly back from his brow and his light blue eyes looked sharp. The silver buttons down the front of his uniform gleamed like stars, as did the toecaps of his boots.

“
Hudson and Henson, in my office,” he snapped.

We stepped inside and he closed the door behind us. Phillips walked around his desk and sat down. Both Tom and I stayed standing, our backs now as straight as the officers who stood outside. Several beige coloured folders lay open across the desk. Phillips thumbed through them, then looked up at us.

“
So whose bright idea was it to disobey the order I gave both of you to stay apart?” Phillips asked, the tone of his voice brusque.