A Good day to die

'So, it was you who killed Barron?'

'He was getting too close,' she said simply, giving a bored shrug. I could see she was about to end this conversation.

'But what I can't understand,' I said, playing for time, 'is if you're some big-shot heiress, how come you were working as a reporter for some provincial paper?'

'We needed someone on the inside, particularly given the size of the investigation into the cafe shootings, and I've always been good at writing. It was just a matter of greasing a few of the right palms to get me a job on the Echo. Nothing's very difficult when you've got money.'

I thought back to my initial call to the newspaper. 'No wonder the guy who answered the phone at the Echo didn't like you.'

She snorted derisively. 'Do you think I care? I'm the one with all the cards, Dennis. And I've played you all for fools. Even Tyndall, with his pathetic threats and silly little dolls, didn't scare me. In fact I found it quite exciting. And all I had to do was flutter my eyelashes at these hardened coppers and every one of them fell for my charms. Including you. The brutal hitman.'

I managed a half-smile, which I think annoyed her. 'Brutal? I don't begin to compete with you.'

'No,' she said, stretching out her gun arm, ready to fire. 'You don't.'

I willed myself to remain calm as I continued to look for my moment. 'How did the whole thing begin? I know it was with the therapy, but what did Jason Khan know? And why did he and Ann die so long after she'd exposed Blacklip for who he was?'

She shook her head dismissively. 'Sorry, Dennis, but I can read you like a book. You're just trying to delay things and I haven't got a lot of time. Comfort yourself with this: for an old man, you were very good in bed, and it was fun to sleep with another killer.'

And then she fired: three carefully aimed rounds that slammed into my chest like lead punches.

I gasped as my body jackknifed, and I felt myself rolling sidewards.

'Now it's your turn, Daddy,' I heard her say, her voice soft and gentle, and through the thin slits of my eyes I saw her turn and face her father in the doorway, raising the gun to finish him off too.

'Emma, no,' he pleaded. 'What are you doing? I love you.'

His voice had taken on a desperate urgency, and suddenly something in her expression changed. A ripple of doubt crossed her face, weakening the killing glare. There was something else there, too. It might have been love; it might have been hate. It was impossible to tell which, but when I think about it now, I'm convinced that it was both.

The gun in her hand shook ever so slightly, and for a long tense moment, she hesitated.

And consequently never noticed as I sat up, still reeling from the force of the bullets, the worst of which had been absorbed by the flak jacket Tyndall had given me, and pulled the.45 from where it had been concealed in the front of my waistband underneath my jacket, lifting it two-handed in her direction.

'Just one more obstacle, Emma,' I said as she turned my way, her face stretched tight with alarm.

She mouthed the word NO, the syllable seeming to go on for ever, and started to raise her gun.

Which was the moment I pulled the trigger, realizing that in the end she deserved it as much as any of them.

The bullet struck her right in the middle of the chest, her white dress erupting in red as the shot lifted her off her feet and slammed her against the wall. Her own gun went off, the bullet ricocheting off the floor and flying up into the ceiling, and then I fired a second time, this time hitting her in the face and blowing the back of her skull away. A huge chum-like mixture of blood, brains and bone shot three feet up the wall as Emma slid down it, her face disappearing under a falling red curtain.

I heard Thadeus cry out in pain, grief, maybe even relief, but the cry was weak and there were still questions he had to answer.

Staggering to my feet, I took two deep breaths and walked over to the door. He was leaning back on the door frame where I'd left him, still clutching his leg. Blood stained the tiles and ran in a steady stream across the kitchen floor. His face was pale.

'You've killed her,' he whispered. 'My baby.'

'She was no one's baby, Thadeus. You made sure of that. She was a monster, and one you created. I almost wish I'd let her kill you.'

'She wouldn't have killed me,' he snarled through gritted teeth. 'Couldn't you see that? She loved me. She was my little girl. And you've murdered her. You may as well do the same to me. It's all over now.'

'Not quite, it isn't. I've got some questions for you. If you answer them, I'll make it quick. If you don't, it'll be slow and it'll be painful.'

'Fuck you, Milne,' he spat, sending flecks of thick white saliva onto my jeans. 'I'm not going to make your life any easier. Our secrets will die with us and there's nothing you or any other bastard can do about it. Because you've got nothing left to threaten me with. The only thing you can do is end my life, and I'm ready for that now. Today's as good a day to die as any.' He spread his arms out, welcoming my final shot. 'So go on, do your worst.'

So I did.

I did things to him that I'm ashamed of, because those things debased me and dragged me far too close to his dank, black level. I ignored his cries for mercy, I ignored the blood that splattered my clothes, I ignored the stomach-churning disgust that grew as I applied the pressure. I ignored everything except the task of making him talk, knowing full well that both the ghosts of my past and the ghosts of his would never forgive me if he didn't.

And talk he did. In the end, he told me everything, and when he'd finished, I bent down and used the pistol that Nicholas Tyndall had provided me with to shoot him once in the head, an act which put us both out of our misery. I think at that moment he was pleased to go. Not because he really was in pain, although doubtless there was an element of that, but for other less obvious reasons. I genuinely believe that somewhere in his dark heart there was a part that was weighed down heavily with guilt, particularly where Emma was concerned. I believe that he loved her, and I believe too that she loved him. It was a corrupt, twisted love but it was there nevertheless, and by his actions when she was a child, he'd betrayed that love, and knew it.

It didn't make me feel any more sorry for him. Eric Thadeus had ended the life of Heidi Robes, and in doing so had sentenced her father to a life behind bars for a crime of which he was not only innocent, but also a victim. Only the cruellest of minds would have countenanced that. Thadeus was scum. He deserved everything he got. But Emma? I tried not to think about her.

Instead, I turned away and left them there together.

44

Eric Thadeus told me that Jason Khan died – and Asif Malik died with him – because of a television programme.

This, effectively, was what started everything off. Jason had known for some time about the abuse his girlfriend, Ann Taylor, had suffered at the hands of her father and his so-called friends in the days when she still lived with him. Her trial for GBH had taken place before Jason met her, and having come to terms with the details of her past herself, she'd told him everything when they'd become lovers, including the fact that she'd witnessed a murder seven years before.

Thadeus confirmed that the murder victim had been Heidi Robes, and that she'd been killed during a violent sex game that had got out of control. Usually the parties they held never went that far, or so he'd claimed. I wasn't so sure.

Thadeus called his group of paedophiles the Hunters, and there was a perverse hint of pride in his voice when he mentioned their name. One of the Hunters, and a participant on that night, was Les Pope. Pope had been charged with getting rid of Heidi's body and framing her father, John, in order to keep suspicion as far away as possible from the group. According to Thadeus, Pope had used one of his lowlife clients to do the dirty work, something that the client had obviously done very efficiently, given how things had turned out.