The Teacher: A shocking and compelling new crime thriller – NOT for the faint-hearted! (27 page)

‘Can you hear me, darling? What’s your name?’ said the paramedic leaning over her.

‘Imogen, like Shakespeare.’ She laughed, at least inside her head she laughed.

The steering column pressed against Adrian’s bladder, he didn’t have the will to stop himself from urinating; when all was said and done that was the least of his problems. His mouth was both dry and wet at the same time and there was a crunchy feeling that he first assumed to be his teeth but soon realised was in fact the windshield, which had shattered on impact with the tree. The metallic wetness he could taste must have been blood from the tiny incisions the reinforced glass had made as it rolled around in his mouth.

He was still disoriented, the memory of the last few moments was trying to claw its way to the conscious part of his brain. A branch loomed near his face; he could smell the wet bark as it hovered under his nose. He could see Harry’s body protruding from beyond the windshield. His body was stretched across the bonnet of Grey’s car. There was no movement. He was dead.

Adrian gasped involuntarily, a desperate cry escaping his mouth. He was no longer able to subvert his feelings. He knew he would never find Tom now. There had been a distinct possibility since he went missing that there was no Tom any more, that Harry had lied and Tom was already dead. If Tom was still alive then Adrian had no idea how he would find him, he had no idea if he would even make it out of this car. The salty taste of tears mixed with the metallic taste of blood made him queasy, his head was pounding. He reached down and unclipped his seatbelt. He couldn’t feel his legs. He could see the light of his phone in the foot well of the car as it rang. He knew it was Andrea; even if he could have reached it he had no idea what he would say. He had no idea if he could even talk. He gathered just enough energy to spit the glass from his mouth. He pushed his arms against the wheel to no avail. Dizziness returned and the fog came down on him again.

Adrian could feel hands on him. He could hear a drill of some description followed by an unholy mechanical moan, the car cracking as the Jaws of Life spread it apart to make a safe passage for him. His whole body jarred as they moved him on to the rescue board, his muscles tensing against the movement, resisting liberation. Adrian’s subconscious didn’t want him to survive, neither did the fragment of consciousness he was trying to ignore. He knew that when he woke up the reality of losing Tom would be unavoidable so he tried to stay in this limbo as long as he could. He was somewhere between life and death, where time was both eternal and unmoving. He heard the voice of the paramedic trying to lure him back to the now but still he resisted. He wanted to scream at the man.
Leave me alone, leave me to die.
With every laboured breath Adrian was being sucked back into the present. No longer able to hide inside the safety of his own injured body and broken mind.

‘Detective Miles, can you hear me?’ The paramedic’s voice was getting clearer. Adrian groaned, it was too late, he was waking up.

‘Detective Miles, you have some fractured ribs and a nasty cut to your head, but you are fine.’

Fine. Now there’s a word that means nothing, a word that people throw around. Adrian wondered if he would ever be ‘fine’ again. He ached inside and out.

‘Harry,’ he finally managed to utter through the oxygen mask. The paramedic leaned in and pulled the mask away slightly. ‘Harry?’

‘I’m afraid he didn’t make it,’ the paramedic said in a consoling voice.

Adrian closed his eyes, he was so tired, the oxygen made him feel lighter; he wanted to drift past the pain and into sleep. He was crying, he couldn’t swallow, and he felt as though the weight of the world were gathered in his throat. Tom.

The next time Adrian opened his eyes he saw the blurred image of Andrea sitting by his hospital bed, her hair was down, no make-up on. She had been crying. He wondered if he should continue being asleep to avoid this inevitable interaction. He could hear the beeping of the heart monitor; the rhythm must have changed slightly because Andrea looked over. She came into focus and his heart broke yet again.

‘Did he say anything about where Tom was before he died?’ she asked. He could see that glimmer of hope in her eyes, hear it in her voice. He had no choice but to shake his head. She erupted into tears, he reached his hand over to hers and held it; she pulled away.

‘How long have I been here?’

‘A few hours. The police got a call when your car went off the side of the road last night. It was on the news, too. It’s almost six a.m. now.’ Her voice was monotone, there wasn’t even any hate in there.

He struggled to sit up. He pulled the drip from his arm and ripped the wires off that were taped to his chest. He swung his legs out of the bed, instantly wishing he hadn’t moved so fast. His ribs burned as he placed his feet on the ground, a jolt of pain surged through him like lightning. He steadied himself on the bed with his one bandaged arm.

‘I need some clothes.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘I need to look for Tom.’

‘You can hardly move.’

Adrian heard the familiar sound of Denise’s voice arguing with the lady at the nurses’ station. He turned back to Andrea and squeezed her hand.

‘I promised you I would get him back.’

Walking was a new level of pain, his bruises had bruises. Denise caught sight of him and rushed to help him, he put his arm around her and she took some of his weight.

‘Oh my God, Adrian, what the hell is going on?’

‘I’m still pretty fuzzy on those details myself.’

‘Morris is dead, Mike’s dead and Imogen’s just got out of intensive care.’

‘She’s here?’

‘Yeah, I have been here most of the night, they wouldn’t let me see you though because I wasn’t family or something. Not until you woke up properly anyway. I can take you to see her, if you want?’

Denise found a wheelchair and helped Adrian into it. She pushed him through the hospital to the room where Grey was. As he looked at her body covered in wires and tubes he remembered the deathly shade of white she had been. He remembered leaving her there to die.

‘Back again?’ Grey smiled at Denise.

‘Yeah, I brought you a visitor.’ Denise went over and smoothed the hair away from Grey’s forehead. ‘I’m gonna go and get myself a coffee.’

Grey’s lips were trembling; her eyes were full of tears. Adrian couldn’t bear the weight of the guilt he was under but he had brought this on himself. He had allowed himself to be manipulated, he had been too trusting – not something he ever thought himself capable of. The goalposts had moved, the definition of evil that he had been labouring under had changed. It happens in other places, not in Adrian’s world.

Grey held her hand up, reaching for his, he moved forwards and took it, she squeezed his hand tight.

‘I’m so sorry, I let you down.’

‘What are you talking about, Grey? You have nothing to apologise for. I’m the one who should be sorry. I didn’t want to leave you there alone.’

‘You didn’t leave me alone.’ She smiled.

‘I left you with a psychopathic serial killer.’

‘The doctors said he saved my life, he tied off the bleed and packed my wound. He called the ambulance and held my hand until he heard the sirens.’

‘That should have been me. I should have been there for you.’

‘Did you find Tom?’

‘No.’ Adrian shook his head, fighting back the tears. ‘I’m going to go look for him now.’

‘Good luck.’

Denise reappeared with two coffees and handed one to Adrian.

‘Got anything stronger?’

‘Sorry, Imogen, you are still nil by mouth.’

‘You’re lucky, this coffee tastes like shit.’ Adrian forced a smile.

‘I hope my car looks better than you, Miley.’

‘About that …’

‘It’s my fault for insisting I drive, I could have done you a favour and let you drive that rusty old lemon of yours into a fricken ravine instead.’

‘I should go. I’ll come back and see you later though.’

‘You better.’

Adrian walked into his house. It felt lonelier than ever. But it wasn’t loneliness that he was feeling, it was loss, a loss he refused to accept. He thought of all the parents out there he had spoken to in the past whose children had gone missing, how he had felt bad for them and tried to comfort them. He realised now how empty his words must have been. Empty like his promise to find Tom. He had no idea how. He thought he knew Harry, he thought he was one of the few people in the world he could trust. He made his way upstairs into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. He was still wearing his hospital gown, he looked at his arm and pulled at the bandage, exposing the stitched cut. He dug his fingers into the wound, ripping the stitches from the skin. He couldn’t cry. He wanted to invoke a physical response that would make him cry; he needed to expel this knotted ball of anger, fear and sadness from his body. As a kid he was taught that crying was weakness and so he fought against it on a level below consciousness, it was out of his control. The blood came out but still no tears, always threatening but never delivering. Instead the saline clung to his eyeballs until they stung, but never venturing out. He watched the blood fall on to the carpet. He didn’t care. He wanted to get dressed, to get up and fight some more, but he was just so tired. He fought against the urge to crawl inside a bottle and went to the cupboard, pulling out jeans and a shirt. He ripped the hospital gown off and threw it on the floor.

He looked down at the bandages across his ribs, red seeping through. He had an overwhelming urge to remove the bandages and put his fingers inside, to find the source of the bleed and make it bigger, until it swallowed him whole. He ignored the feeling and put his clothes on. The shirt immediately became saturated with the blood that was seeping from his arm. Walking down the stairs was every bit as painful as walking up them. He thought his ears deceived him but as he approached the lounge he heard the television. Had he failed to notice it was on before? He picked up speed and saw Tom. Was he hallucinating? Had he passed out on the bedroom floor? Tom lay down and stared ahead. Yet again Adrian found himself wondering what the hell was going on. He rushed to Tom’s side and finally the tears came, he put his arm around Tom, not noticing the sharpness of his jagged ribs any more.

‘I thought I’d lost you!’ Adrian sobbed.

‘I didn’t know where I was, I tried to get out. It was so dark,’ Tom mumbled in between sniffs.

‘Are you really here? How are you here, Tom?’

‘A man helped me. I’m so tired, Dad.’

‘OK, shhh, you go to sleep. It’s OK, you’re safe now.’ Adrian stroked his hair and pulled out his phone ready to dial Andrea, God only knows what she was going through.

As he stood up he turned and saw Parker standing in the doorway.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘Sorry? Why are you sorry? Where did you find him?’

‘I have been following Harry Morris for a while, I know all of his secrets. He rents a single lock-up garage in that little village Pinhoe, just outside the city. This is all my fault. I’m sorry that I didn’t kill them all a long time ago. If I had this never would have happened.’

‘Who are you? Are you the boy in the pictures?’

‘I was once, not any more.’

‘How long ago was that?’

‘Eighteen years ago now. I managed to get away from them.’

‘The police are going to want to talk to you. Why did you come back? I told you I would have to arrest you if I saw you again.’

‘I know. But I wanted to bring him home. It was important.’

Adrian looked over at Tom laying on the sofa. A part of him thought Tom was dead, he could still feel that ache in him. He had to keep checking Tom was real.

‘Well, it’s a good job I never saw you again, then,’ Adrian said after some consideration.

‘You don’t need to do that, Detective. I knew when I started this that the possibility of me even surviving was slim. I am ready for my punishment.’

‘I know it’s not my call, but you have been punished enough, in my opinion, anyway.’

‘Abbey told me she gave you the book. You can give that to the authorities if you want. They need to know what happened.’

‘She’s your girl? She cares about you a lot, I can tell.’

‘She had nothing to do with any of this, she didn’t know a thing.’ He paused. ‘There’s another boy in that book, his name was Nathan Cole. I don’t know the other boys’ names but I knew him. His body was never identified. His family never knew what happened to him.’

‘The boy in the case?’

‘We were good friends once, apparently our friendship was cause for concern and my grandfather in his wisdom took me to see his friends.’

‘Your grandfather?’

‘He was a bitter, twisted old man. I was the only reminder of his dead son. In the end he did help me, it’s the only reason I am still alive. Nathan wasn’t so lucky. I watched them kill him, they made me watch.’

‘Are you done now? Why did you wait so long?’

‘I had promised the old man I would disappear. He provided me with a new identity and I was to stay hidden. I would not retaliate, but when he died there was no one to protect them any more. He left me the majority of his estate. I had more than enough money to finally put things right, for Nathan. In answer to your question though, yes, I am done now.’

‘Grey and I are the only ones who know who you are, we won’t be on the case any more and we only found you because you let us.’ Adrian knew he couldn’t take Parker in.

‘How is she?’

‘Alive, thanks to you.’

‘I understand the burden of keeping secrets, Detective. I am not asking you to do this for me.’

‘I know. I’ve done plenty of things I can beat myself up over, I have a feeling letting you go won’t be one of them.’

‘Then I am indebted to you.’

‘You already gave me more than I can ever repay.’ Adrian looked over at the sofa.

‘Go be with your son, Detective. He isn’t hurt, just a little confused. He was drugged I think, but he’s OK. Take him with you when you go back to the hospital.’

‘Thank you.’ Adrian reached out and put his hand on Parker’s shoulder. ‘What will you do now?’