Despite the mistrust he’d intimated earlier, he was happy that Hunter had not set him up and that his friend Jared Rington wasn’t poised to shoot him from the darkness. He parked alongside the nearest car, recognising it as the one in which the killer had fled Clarendon Heights, and got out. He swayed in place as the blood rushed to his head, but then he went forward. Hunter met him, studying his face.
‘You OK, detective?’
‘Just Gar, OK? Or Jones. I’m not here in my official capacity.’
‘Suits me fine,’ Hunter said.
Jones pressed a palm to his face, scrubbing at his cheeks and forehead, stimulating the blood that had drained from his features during the drive over. Hunter watched him, a frown creasing his brow. Jones looked down at his hands and saw that they were still stained with his partner’s blood.
‘Your friend didn’t make it?’
Jones shook his head. ‘I tried to save him, but it was…’ His features crumpled and for a second or two it was a struggle to hold his emotions in check. Hunter stared at the floor, but he finally looked up and met Jones’s gaze.
‘I’m sorry to hear that. Tyler was a good man. So are you, Jones. I’m sorry I was such an obstructive arsehole to you. It’s like I said though: good, decent folk would have suffered if I’d told you what I knew.’
‘That doesn’t matter now. Not when you’ve done the right thing in the end. I’m not interested in what happened in the past, or what sent Colby on his killing spree, I’m only pleased he’s been stopped.’ He approached Hunter. ‘Show me where the bastard is.’
Hunter moved away without another word, leading the detective along a steep gully over which loomed the crowns of maple trees. The earlier clear skies had filled with clouds bearing in from the distant mountains, driven by strong winds. Stars winked in and out of the gaps in the clouds, while the moon was a faint halo low on the horizon. Night would soon give way to dawn, but darkness prevailed for now. It suited Jones, both his mood and his intention.
They approached a large log structure, and by its decrepit state Jones could tell that it was seldom visited. He thought that it would be unlikely for anyone to discover what Hunter and Rington had done if they hadn’t purposely led him here. That was discounting the various corpses scattered around the building.
Jones looked at Hunter for an answer, but received nothing in return.
He looked up at the sagging roof, the walls that were overgrown with briar and moss, and then at the open door through which he was about to step. For a second he faltered before his mind flashed back to how Markus Colby had stood over his mortally injured partner, poised to execute him like an injured dog. He recalled the grin of pleasure on Markus’s face as he began to squeeze the trigger, and that made up his mind. He walked over the threshold in full knowledge that there would be no turning back.
Jared Rington was standing with his back to him, and he barely turned to acknowledge his presence. In the gloom Jones could just make out another figure beyond Rington, a small Japanese woman he recognised as the man’s mother. She was sitting on a chair, looking pale and weak from whatever she’d endured.
Lying on his back, his mouth wide in an eternal shout, was Sean Chaney.
‘What the hell?’ Jones whispered.
‘They were working with Markus,’ Hunter explained. ‘Chaney and his gang. They kidnapped Yukiko in order to flush Rink and me out. Don’t know if you heard any reports about an arson blaze this evening? That was Chaney’s crew; they attacked Yukiko’s house, set it on fire then snatched her on Markus’s behalf.’
‘I was too busy trying to keep Tyler alive,’ Jones admitted. ‘But, yeah, I did hear something over the airwaves.’
‘We had to kill them,’ Hunter went on. ‘Self-defence you understand? And to release Mrs Rington who they were planning on murdering.’
‘Where’s the other one? Markus Colby?’
Rington pointed, and Jones saw the murderer standing further back in the hall. Markus had to be a giant of a man to stand so tall. It was only when Rington fully moved aside that he saw the rope around the man’s neck. He moved forward, a sound of dismay in his throat. He got to within feet of Markus when the man’s eyes snapped open.
‘He’s still alive.’ Rather than as a question, his words came out in a relieved statement as he saw that Markus was perched on an old wooden chair. It looked rickety enough that any injudicious movement by Markus would send him to a neck-snapping death.
‘We’re not murderers,’ Rington said. ‘The others died in the heat of battle, but we couldn’t kill him in cold blood. He’s all yours to do with as you wish.’
Then Rington led his mother away, joining his friend by the exit door. Hunter had collected a sack of some kind, and Jones realised both men had cleared the room of any evidence that they’d ever been there while awaiting his arrival. He once wondered how they had got away with the other killings they were suspected of, but it was clear to him now: they were careful. And they had never killed anyone who didn’t deserve killing, so their involvement was never fully investigated or was covered up entirely. He wondered now what the outcome would have been if he hadn’t gone to Markus’s house at the moment he did. If the man standing before him hadn’t subsequently murdered Tyler, would he have been happy to cover for them in the same way? Would they be as happy to cover for him?
He was sure they would.
He stared up at Markus.
Then he wandered back to where Chaney lay. A gun was in the man’s dead hand. It was the same model as the gun on Jones’s belt, but a quick check showed him that it was empty. He fed one bullet from his gun into Chaney’s.
He returned to Markus, saw how difficult it was for the man to remain upright on the stool. He unloosened the rope holding him upright and Markus collapsed to the floor. Jones stood over him in much the same way Markus had stood over Tyler.
There was pleading in the man’s eyes, but he was unable to form words through what was undoubtedly a broken jaw. Drool pooled on his chin. He was pitiful, but there was no pity in Jones’s heart. Markus Colby was responsible for eight murders that he had learned of, all of his victims brutalised for the man’s demented pleasure, but it was the face of his friend, Tyler, that came to mind as he studied the broken man at his feet. Jones thought of how Tyler had peered up at him, a look of complete faith that his friend would save him on his face, even as the blood bubbled out from under Jones’s hands. Jones had been unable to save him. He saw that as the ultimate failure.
But he could avenge him.
He shot Markus in the head.
Chapter 44
I was never sure how events would play out when bringing Detective Jones to the abandoned meeting house, or if duty would win out and we would be brought up on charges. Only as we walked away, and I heard the single crack of a gun, did I suspect that we were safe from prosecution. It was sickening, considering the events that had led to that moment, but I have to admit to being relieved. I was happiest for my friend, because all the way through I’d been worried that he would give in to his base emotions and execute Markus himself. I knew Rink would be tormented by such a decision and he’d carry the guilt with him for the rest of his life. I didn’t want him to suffer the way his parents had, and looking at the way in which his problem had been resolved I concluded that it was the best for all of us. Perhaps Jones would regret the impulse killing of Markus, but maybe he had a different sense of justice than we had.