The Reckoning (20 page)

FORTY-TWO

“Yes, Sir,” Anderson said wearily. “I
understand, Sir, this is a very sensitive matter and you’re receiving pressure
from a lot of people.” Looking over at his partner, he rolled his eyes
dramatically. “I assure you, we’re doing everything we can to find Michael Davis.”

“And just what do you mean by everything?”
Chief Inspector Franks wanted to know.

“We have officers contacting all of Davis’
friends and associates, and we’ve found the car that Davis stole from his
friend’s house, it was abandoned at the Tesco on Bender’s Hill. We’re
questioning the staff here as well as the occupants of the houses in the
neighbouring streets. We’re also examining the surveillance footage here so we
can track down all vehicles that left between the time the car was dumped and
when it was discovered.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes, Sir.” Anderson did the best he could to
keep the annoyance he was feeling from his voice. “I’ve scheduled a press
conference for three quarters of an hour from now, when I intend appealing for
information.”

The chief inspector was silent for a moment.
“Do you really think that will accomplish anything?” he asked pessimistically.
“Hundreds of people must use that store every day.”

“I can’t say, Sir, but someone must have seen
something. It simply isn’t possible that he could have ditched the car here,
and then vanished, without someone either seeing him get into a car or driving
away. An appeal for information might just jog someone’s memory.”

“You do whatever you think best, Inspector,
but on your head be it if you don’t find that kid soon. He’s been on the run
for what, ten hours now, and in that time he’s killed how many people?”

“Five, sir, he’s killed five people that we
know of since he escaped this morning, and seriously injured several others.”

“Five people dead in ten hours thanks to a
teen, and a detective inspector, a sergeant, a constable and three teenage
girls prior to that. The news reports are already condemning our incompetence,”
the chief inspector said. “If Davis isn’t caught by morning people are going to
lose their jobs, and that comes from the assistant chief constable.” With that
he slammed the phone down noisily.

Anderson snatched the phone from his ear as
he was almost deafened by the noise of his superior ending the call. He wasn’t
the least bit happy. That morning he’d thought the Davis case was a simple one;
the killer was caught, so all he had to do was clean up the mess. It must have
shown on his face, which didn’t surprise him.

“Everything okay?” Murphy asked, though he
didn’t need to be a mind reader to guess what the chief inspector had had to
say.

“No it bloody isn’t!” Anderson snapped,
replacing the phone on its cradle. “If we don’t find Davis by morning, we’re
all going to be out of work it seems. Jesus! How has this kid managed to avoid
getting caught? He’s not a master criminal, he’s just a violent thug. We should
have some idea of where he is by now.”

FORTY-THREE

Ellie Morgan fairly leapt to her feet as the
television was suddenly drowned out by a raucous noise from the chicken coop
across the yard. In seconds she was at the window, her eyes intent as she
peered out into the stormy darkness.

“What’s the matter with you, woman?” Frank
wanted to know, looking round in irritation at his wife, whose sudden movement
had done more to distract him from the show he was watching the noise from
outside.

“Can’t you hear the hens?” Ellie demanded.

Frank shook his head. “Of course I can hear
them, what of it?”

“They’re making such a racket I can’t hear
the TV.”

“That’s coz your deaf, woman; ignore ‘em,
it’s just the storm, they’re like this every time it’s bad.” With that he
turned his attention back to the television, and the re-run of ‘Allo ‘Allo he
was enjoying.

“They’re never this bad; something’s
disturbing them. You need to get out there and deal with it.”

“Don’t be daft, it’s the storm, they’ll
settle down soon enough. Now get away from that window.”

Ellie scowled at the back of her husband’s
head. “Don’t blame me if a fox gets into the coop, and you find yourself with a
bunch of dead ‘ens come morning.” As she’d thought it would, that got him on
his feet and making for the gun cabinet so he could get his shotgun.

Once he had the shotgun and had loaded it, he
headed for the front door. “You’d better hope I find something out there,
woman,” he said warningly as he disappeared out into the passage.

The sound of the front door opening reached
Ellie in unison with the first flash of lightning. As the sky was lit up she
caught a glimpse of movement by the chicken coop. It was gone in an instant,
almost before she had a chance to register it, but she was certain she had seen
it. “Frank!” she called out. “Don’t go out there, Frank!”

She had no idea why, given how fleeting had
been what she’d seen, but she had a presentiment of danger. When she saw her
husband crossing the yard, without seeming to have heard her, she hurried after
him. “FRANK!” she called out from the front door.

“Oh go inside, woman!” Frank called back over
his shoulder. “Just go inside and stay out of the way.”

*****

From the shadows by the chicken coop Michael
watched as Ellie Morgan appeared at the living room window. She looked out into
the darkness of the yard, but he was confident she couldn’t see him. He
remained where he was while he waited.

It was more than a minute before the front
door opened, but as he had been sure would happen when he deliberately
disturbed the hens, Frank Morgan appeared with his shotgun. Lightning split the
sky as the farmer stepped out into the yard and Michael shrank back deeper into
the shadows.

When he heard Ellie shouting for her husband
he thought for sure he had been seen, and he tensed himself to dive away from
the shotgun blast that he expected at any moment. It didn’t come, to his
relief, and he smiled a little as Frank ordered his wife back into the house
out of the way.

While Ellie disappeared out of sight, Michael
tightened his grip on the knife he was holding and got ready as Frank moved
steadily closer to the chicken coop. He would have to kill the farmer as
quickly and as quietly as possible, to avoid alerting Ellie and giving her the
time to call the police or anything.

Since he couldn’t see the farmer’s wife, he
had no way of knowing that he was already too late.

*****

“Stupid old fool,” Ellie murmured to herself
as she stepped back into the house and pushed the front door to, to keep the
rain from soaking the carpet. Snatching up the phone from the table in the
hallway she dialled the police station, and then waited impatiently for the
call to be diverted and answered.

“Constable Harp.”

“Donna, it’s Ellie Morgan,” she said as soon
as she heard the constable’s voice. “Can you come out here right away?”

“What’s the matter, Ellie?” Donna asked. “Has
Frank had too much to drink again?”

“No, it’s not that; I think there’s a prowler
up here,” Ellie told her. “Something’s disturbing the hens, Frank’s gone out
with the shotgun to see what it is but I think I saw someone in the lightning.
Can you come up and take a look around?”

“Sure, I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Donna
assured her.

“Thanks, Donna.” Ellie hung up then.

*****

The storm’s second flash of lightning
illuminated the yard again, making it as bright as day for a second.

From his place in the shadows by the coop,
Michael watched Frank Morgan approach. He was glad now of the mud he had become
covered with when he fell after leaving the car, certain that it was helping
him to remain unseen. His unexpected camouflage, which reminded him of a scene
from Predator – his favourite Schwarzeneggar film – wouldn’t keep him hidden
forever; he was sure that when he got closer Frank would spot him.

Knowing that he would only get one
opportunity to kill Frank Morgan without alerting his wife, Michael waited
until what he was sure was the optimum moment. When the farmer was just a dozen
or so feet away lightning split the sky again, Michael took that as his signal;
he sprang from the shadows and raced forward.

Caught by surprise, it was a moment before
Frank reacted. He recognised Michael in the dying light of the lightning
strike, saw the knife in his hand, and shrugged off his immobility to bring his
shotgun and shoot the teen.

Michael saw the muzzle of the shotgun rise to
point at him and thrust out a hand. He grabbed the barrel and pushed it away so
it was no longer pointing at him. At the same time, he stabbed the knife he was
holding into the farmer’s stomach. When he jerked the blade free to stab him
again the older man’s finger twitched on the trigger of the shotgun. The roar
of the discharge was loud enough to drown out both the chickens and the distant
rumble of thunder.

Michael hurriedly snatched his hand from the
barrel as the shot was fired. Before he could worry that his letting go of the
weapon would allow Frank a chance to fire again, Frank collapsed, his lung
having been punctured by the second knife thrust.

Without sparing even a moment to check if
Frank was dead, dying or merely injured, Michael bent to snatch the shotgun
from the old man’s grasp. With it in his hands he raced for the front door of
the house, which still stood slightly open. He burst through the door in time
to see Ellie Morgan reaching for the phone; he reacted instantly to prevent her
calling the police, or anyone else.

FORTY-FOUR

“I’m really sorry to be a pain, Jason, but
would you mind if we make a detour before I drop you off?” Donna asked. She was
glad that Jason had volunteered to drive again on the way back from town, she
was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open.

The thought of having to deal with another
situation didn’t sit well with her. All she wanted to do right then was go home
and collapse into bed. Her tiredness had reached the point where she wasn’t
even hungry anymore, despite how long it had been since she last ate a proper
meal.

“What’s up?” Jason asked, keeping one eye on
the road ahead as he looked over at Donna, who was yawning in the passenger
seat.

“Mrs Morgan thinks there might be a prowler
up at her husband’s farm,” Donna said. “Her husband’s gone out to take a look
but she wants me to go up there. Do you mind?”

“No, I don’t mind,” he said with a shake of
his head. “I take it, from what you said on the phone, that Mr Morgan is a
drunk.”

Donna shook her head. “He’s alright most of
the time, he’s just a crabby old bugger; every month or so, though, he gets
drunk and makes a pain of himself, mostly for his wife. When that happens she
calls us and we go out there, tell him to behave himself and take his shotgun
away for a day or so.

“Most of what we do involves us telling
people to behave. Until this Michael Davis business, I hadn’t dealt with
anything more serious than Gordon Pale getting drunk and causing aggro in the
pub.”

“Sounds like a nice relaxing job compared to
what I used to do,” Jason remarked.

“It was, and hopefully it will be again,”
Donna said, her voice filled with a longing that made Jason smile.

“We’d better go check out this prowler
situation then so you can have some peace. Which way do I go?” he asked; he
didn’t know the Morgans, or where their farm was.

*****

Jason got back into the car after opening the
gate and drove through into the yard in front of the Morgan’s farmhouse.

“Shit!” he swore, disturbing Donna, who had
been half asleep next to him, as he swung the car around and the headlights
illuminated the body on the ground by the chicken coop.

“What?” Donna wanted to know, opening her
eyes and yawning. “Oh Jesus!” The sight of the body made her heart sink into
her stomach. She’d hoped to never see another body after losing her breakfast
when she saw the mess that had been made of Danielle Pale. “I thought with
Michael gone that that would be the end of the dead bodies, and definitely the
end of the murders!”

“You don’t know yet that it’s a murder,”
Jason said. “You don’t even know for sure what you have a body to deal with.”

Donna looked unhappy as she undid her
seatbelt and pushed open the door. “What else could it be?” she wanted to know.
“Ellie Morgan reported a prowler and said her husband had gone to check it out,
we get here and there’s no sign of her and Frank’s on the ground, not moving.”

Jason joined Donna in getting out of the car,
and in getting thoroughly soaked again, after having only just dried out.
“Don’t jump to conclusions, Donna,” he told her. “Mr Morgan could simply have
been knocked out by the prowler; there might not even have been a prowler, he
could have simply slipped and hit his head.

“On the other hand…” he stopped when he
reached the farmer on the ground. “You could be right.”

While Jason squatted so he could get a better
look at the body, Donna remained standing, several feet back from him.

The dark stain on the farmer’s chest, visible
in the headlights of her car, was all she needed to see, and more than she
wanted to. She wasn’t all that squeamish about blood, she’d seen and dealt with
plenty of bloody injuries over the years, but after Danielle’s body, she
couldn’t bring herself to see what had happened to the old farmer.

“He’s dead, isn’t he,” Donna said, turning
away as Jason lifted the jumper Frank was wearing to examine him, so she
wouldn’t have to see the fatal wound or wounds.

“Yes,” Jason answered, his voice calm and
dispassionate – his detective’s voice, his wife used to call it. “He was
stabbed twice by the looks of it, once in the stomach and again in the left
lung; I’d say that’s the one that killed him. I can’t see any sign of the
shotgun his wife told you he had, can you?”

Donna looked around for a moment before
shaking her head. “No, it’s not here; that’s not good, is it,” she said,
troubled by the absence of the weapon, almost more than she was by the murder.

“No, not good,” Jason said. “Come on, we’d
better check the house for Mrs Morgan, and see if we can find any clues to who
killed Mr Morgan.” He was retired from the police force, but being in the
presence of a murdered body, after everything that had happened to and around
him over the past week and a half, had him reacting as though he was still a
detective.

Reluctantly – she was none too keen on the
idea of searching a house for a murderer who was almost certainly in possession
of a shotgun – Donna nodded her agreement and followed as Jason led the way
across the yard.

When he reached the front door he tried it,
but was unsurprised to discover that it wouldn’t open. Since that was the case
he took hold of the knocker and banged it loudly on the door, twice.

After waiting a minute for a response, Jason
knocked again. “Call out,” he told Donna. “She might be afraid to answer the
door without knowing who’s out here. If she hears your voice she might
respond.”

Donna could see the sense in that and stepped
up to the door. “Mrs Morgan, Ellie, it’s Donna! Are you in there?” she called
out, straining her ears for any sign that she had been heard. “Ellie!” she
called out as loudly as she could while banging the door knocker noisily.

While Donna tried to get the attention of the
woman of the house, Jason left the door so he could peer in through the living
room window. “I think we’ve got a problem,” he said suddenly, returning to the
door and bending down so he could peer through the letterbox. “We’ve definitely
got a problem.” He straightened up and took a step back.

“What’s the matter?” Donna asked, the worry
she had already been feeling magnified as Jason lifted his foot to kick the
door.

Jason didn’t answer, instead he kicked the
door a second time. The door was sturdy, as was to be expected of a house that
had been built to last, when people took pride in their craft, and it wasn’t
until he kicked it for a fourth time that it finally flew open. With a bang,
the door crashed into the passage wall and sprang back, and he quickly stepped
forward to throw out a hand and stop it.

“Christ!” Donna swore when she saw the body
in the passage and quickly turned away, her stomach heaving and the gorge
rising in her throat, brought on by the bloody mess that had once been Ellie
Morgan. At least she assumed that’s who it was, it was hard to be certain with
half her face missing, and she was too busy trying to avoid throwing up to look
closely.

Jason couldn’t blame Donna for her reaction,
the woman in the passage wasn’t a pretty sight. It was arguable that she looked
worse than Danielle Pale had. “How are you doing there?” he asked, thinking
that she was doing pretty well to have avoided losing her lunch when she suddenly
doubled up; a wet splattering sound revealed what she was doing.

It was almost a minute before Donna was in a
position to answer the question. “Wondering why I chose to become a police
officer,” she answered his question when she felt able to open her mouth
without being sick. “I must have had a reason, but right now I don’t have a
clue what it was.” Her voice was weak, and she sounded more than a little
unhappy. “At least I didn’t ruin your running shoes this time.”

“That’s true. Maybe you’d better wait here
while I check the house,” he said, certain that if there was an intruder in the
house, the noise he’d made when he kicked in the door would have brought them
running with the shotgun at the ready.

“I can’t let you do that,” Donna protested
weakly. “I shouldn’t even have brought you here, you’re a civilian, I’m the
police officer here; it’s my job to check the house for whoever killed the
Morgans.”

Jason couldn’t help smiling at that; she
might struggle to deal with dead bodies sporting horrendous wounds, but she
didn’t let that stop her doing her duty. He’d known tougher and more
experienced officers to baulk at the thought of entering a house where a
murderer might be hiding, especially one who was almost certainly armed.

“We’ll check the house together,” he said.
“It’ll be safer.” Before Donna could object, let alone try and stop him, Jason
moved further into the house.

Reluctantly, Donna followed the retired
detective as he led the way through the house, checking each room in turn for
any sign of the intruder who had murdered the Morgans. The house wasn’t large,
and it didn’t take them long to get back to the downstairs passage, where Donna
did her best to ignore the body of Ellie Morgan.

*****

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Mrs Livingstone,
it’s Donna,” she said when her phone call was answered. “I need to speak to the
Inspector, is he available?” she asked, hoping that her superior earlier was
feeling better. She needed help, there was no way she could handle this new
situation on her own; she lacked not only the seniority to investigate a
double-murder but also the experience and the knowledge.

“I’m afraid not, Donna, he’s really not very
good at the moment,” Mary Livingstone said. “Is it important, what you need to
speak to him about? It’s just the doctor has advised him to take a leave of
absence, until he’s feeling better.”

“No,” Donna said with a barely audible sigh
as she bit back the urge to swear. “It’s okay, Mrs Livingstone, I’ll take care
of it.” She ended the call then. “Dammit!” She allowed herself the luxury of
the profanity once she was off the phone.

“Something the matter?” Jason asked from the
window, where he was watching the storm; every couple of minute or so lightning
split the sky, illuminating the yard. If it hadn’t been for the body that was
revealed by every lightning strike, it would have been a beautiful display of
nature’s power.

Donna snorted. “Depends on how you look at
it,” she said, joining him at the window. “My inspector’s ill, he’s been told
to take a leave of absence. I can’t investigate this; even if I wanted to, I
wouldn’t be allowed. I need someone to take charge here, and my inspector’s
wife won’t even let me talk to him long enough to get him to call the chief
inspector or the superintendent and arrange for a detective.”

“Why don’t you try DI Anderson,” Jason
suggested, turning away from the display nature was putting on. “I imagine he
can put a call in to his superior and arrange a detective for you.”

Donna looked a little startled at that, the
thought hadn’t occurred to her. “Good thinking,” she said, redialling the last
number she had called.