Justice for the Damned (25 page)

‘Yeah, but Reece is off Harding’s case.’

‘Are you sure of that?’

‘Course I fucking am. He thinks I went to Garrett with what he told me. He wouldn’t dare go near Harding, especially not when it might put his little whore at risk. And anyway, I trust Reece. I realise that doesn’t mean much to you, Tyler. But I’m a copper. And if a cop can’t trust another cop, then he’s in the wrong line of business.’

Now it was Tyler’s turn to laugh – a laugh as silent and empty as the dilapidated farmhouse.
Do you know how fucking absurd that is coming from a bent copper?
The words passed through his mind, but he knew saying them would achieve nothing other than to trip Doug’s hair-trigger temper. Doug might have been as bent as a six-pound note, but he retained a perverse pride in his job. That much was obvious from the way he spoke about the cases he was working. He’d been a copper for nearly twenty years. His sense of identity and honour was bound up in the job. Tyler had long ago given up ideas such as honour. They served no purpose for him. He lived by one simple rule: deceive everyone else but never yourself. If Doug wanted to indulge in self-deception that was up to him, just so long as he didn’t put his co-conspirators in danger. ‘In this line of business, trust alone doesn’t always cut it,’ said Tyler. ‘I want you to take Reece with you on that thing we were going to do today.’

There was a slight uncertain pause before Doug spoke. ‘I’m not sure he’s ready.’

‘It doesn’t matter whether he’s ready or not. What matters is that he gets some dirt on him. I mean real dirt, the kind that could cost him ten or twenty years if he ever opens his mouth.’

‘What about you? Are you still coming?’

‘No. Let’s just see how your boy gets on before we expose ourselves any further.’

‘Don’t you worry about Reece. He’ll come through with flying colours.’

Doug spoke with his usual gruff confidence, but Tyler caught a forced note. Doug may have been guilty of self-deception, but he was no fool. He knew exactly what was at stake. ‘So what’s the plan?’ asked Doug, shifting the focus away from himself. ‘How do we deal with Jim Monahan?’

‘Well there’s no way we can get at him in hospital. Not after everything that’s happened recently.’

‘We could put someone on his house.’

‘I can’t see him going back there. He’s probably guessed by now that we’ve got Reynolds. So he’s got to assume Reynolds has spilled about his involvement. Which means we’ve got to assume he’s going to be ready for us.’

‘Then we sit on Forester’s house. If you’re right, Jim will come to us sooner or later.’

‘
If
I’m right. And even if I am, it’s asking for trouble just sitting around waiting for him to come to us. I prefer to be the hunter, not the hunted.’ Tyler’s voice grew thoughtful. ‘What we could do with is some kind of bait, something that would bring the good detective to us at a place and time of our choosing.’

Doug made a low noise in his throat as if he might have an idea. But he hesitated to speak his thoughts.

‘You’ve got something on your mind,’ stated Tyler. ‘Let’s hear it.’

‘A possibility occurred to me, but it would be risky. Jim has an ex-wife. Everyone in the department knows he’s still in love with her. If we snatched her, heart attack or no heart attack, Jim would come running.’

Tyler considered the idea, the faintest of creases between his dark brows. ‘It could work, but I’m not sure I want to complicate matters further by bringing yet someone else into this. Let me think on it a while.’

‘And what about Forester? How do we deal with him?’

‘The way things stand there’s a lot more money to be squeezed out of Mr Forester. Once Monahan’s out of the picture, we take a long hard look at the lie of the land and make a decision. Bear in mind, though, that if Forester goes, his mother has to go, and maybe even Freddie Harding too.’

Doug was silent a moment, as if weighing up whether it was worth having all that death on his conscience. He gave a little laugh. ‘Well at least the pigs wouldn’t go hungry for a while.’

There was a hollow ring of bravado in Doug’s tone. And well he should be worried, thought Tyler. Taking out a cop was bad enough. But getting rid of people with the Foresters’ wealth and influence could bring down a shit-storm too great for any of them to survive. ‘Let’s just try and make sure it doesn’t come to that. From now on we need to keep things tight. Do I make myself understood?’ The silence on the other end of the line told him that he did, but he wanted to hear Doug say it. A note of warning cold enough to freeze a man to death came into his voice. ‘Do I make myself understood?’

‘Yes,’ Doug responded, his voice sharp with stung pride. ‘Look, I know I fucked up putting Reece on to Vernon Tisdale. But let’s get one thing straight, Tyler, I’m not some goon for you to talk to like shit. We’re equals in this, remember?’

‘Just don’t let me down again.’

‘Or what, eh?’ Doug crossed over from anger into rage. ‘Or fucking what?’

Now it was Tyler’s turn to hold his silence. He let its meaning sink in a few seconds, before hanging up. Doug’s rage didn’t concern him. He’d been dealing with men like Doug Brody – arrogant pricks who thrived on confrontation – his whole life. He knew how and when to push their buttons. Sometimes the best way to do that was by lying, other times it was by making sure everyone knew exactly where they stood. Now was the time for the latter. And if it made Doug hate and fear him, all the better. In his experience, when the shit came down, hate and fear were as strong a bond as love.e staed on the lkine

Tyler swapped SIM cards again and phoned Edward Forester. ‘We’re not going to be able to buy Jim Monahan off,’ he told the politician.

‘Oh, come now, everyone’s got their price.’

‘Not Monahan.’

Edward made an unconvinced sound. ‘So how much is it going to cost me to
deal
with him?’

‘Five hundred thousand.’

Edward let out a huff of wry laughter. ‘My, my, a relative bargain compared to the last little problem we had to deal with. Hang on a moment.’ The muffled sound of Edward speaking to his mother filtered down the line.

Mabel Forester came on the phone. ‘Do it and the money’s yours.’

That was all Tyler needed to hear. He hung up and headed back into the barn. The pigs had almost emptied their troughs. Kong squinted at him with that little gleam in his ever-hungry ruby red eyes. Careful not to let the boar move into his blind spot, Tyler picked his way through the milling mass to the ladder. He knew that if he slipped over in the ankle-deep mud Kong would be on in him a heartbeat. The thought of being eaten alive by that big bastard was almost enough to make him shudder.

In the hayloft, Tyler took down the chainsaw and yanked it to life. The pigs squealed in chorus as the deafening roar filled the barn. Slowly, precisely, he lowered the rotating blade. As it chewed into the dead gangster’s ankle, Tyler dispassionately wondered how many more times he was going to have to do this to keep Edward Forester’s skeletons hidden.

All the way back to Southview, all Edward could think about was how he’d felt as he watched Tyler torture Reynolds. Even when Tyler phoned to tell him Detective Inspector Monahan needed to be got rid of, it only briefly distracted him from the memory of
that
feeling. To look in someone’s eyes, to see them seeing their life and death in your eyes. Nothing came close to that. Not money. Not politics. Not sex. And certainly not love.
Love!
The word made him want to spit. What was love anyway, if it wasn’t about power and control?

Several times during the drive, Edward caught his mother glancing disapprovingly at him. He knew what she was thinking – she was thinking the tremors running through him were a nervous after-effect of what he’d seen at the farm. But that wasn’t it at all.
The hunger
– that was what he called his need to indulge his appetites – always came on like the beginnings of a fever. At first everything would buzz and tremble hotly inside him. Then the hunger would hit him, cold and hard. He knew how to control it nowadays. Most of the time. When he was younger, it had been different. A name came into his mind.
Wendy Atkins.
He blinked and her plain, freckled, eleven-year-old face passed like a ghost before him. Christ, he hadn’t thought about her in years. Her mother had worked as a cleaner at his house. One summer’s day, she’d brought Wendy with her. He was thirteen at the time, just over the cusp of puberty. The instant he’d seen her, the hunger had hit him with overwhelming force. It wasn’t simply that he’d been sexually attracted to her. It was that he’d scented her weakness. In the timidity of her movements and the shy glances she’d given him, he’d read a neediness, a yearning to be liked.

Edward licked his lips at the memory. He’d always had a talent for identifying weakness in others and manipulating them into doing what he wanted. It hadn’t been difficult to entice Wendy to the old lumber shed in the woods at the bottom of the garden. It had been more difficult to convince the silly little girl to let him tie her up, but he’d managed it. And then he had his way with her. His fumblings had been over-eager and clumsy, and upon putting his hand between her legs he’d prematurely ejaculated in his underpants. But that hadn’t bothered him. The real satisfaction had come from the fear he saw in Wendy’s eyes. It had made him feel as if he could do anything he wanted in the world. Afterwards, he’d shown her his Polaroid collection of animals he’d tortured and killed, threatening to do the same to her if she told anyone what had happened. She’d promised to keep quiet, and for several weeks she kept that promise. But then it had all come out in a wave of anger and bitter accusations. His mother hadn’t even asked him if the accusations were true. She’d simply paid whatever it had taken to buy the silence of Wendy’s family.

That experience had taught Edward two valuable lessons. Firstly, that no one would ever know or love him as completely as his mother did. And secondly, and most importantly, that everything was for sale to those who could afford it

By the time they got to Southview, the hunger was on Edward like a hand pulling invisible strings. He tried to resist it, knowing he shouldn’t risk going to the bunker. But it was no good. His appetite demanded satisfaction. ‘I’m taking Conall for a walk,’ he told his mother. ‘I need some fresh air.’

‘Don’t go too far,’ Mabel cautioned.

‘Don’t worry, Mother.’ Edward patted the wolfhound. ‘I’ve got my bodyguard here to take care of me.’

Mabel arched a dubious eyebrow. ‘He’s as soft as a puppy. Aren’t you, boy?’

She ruffled Conall’s shaggy grey coat, before puckering her lips at Edward. As he bent in to give her a quick peck, she caught hold of his cheeks and held his lips against hers. Several long seconds passed. His stomach was churning, but he didn’t pull away. Finally, she released him. He forced a smile and turned to leave.

Once outside, Edward wiped away the sticky-sweet scum of his mother’s lipstick. The bitch had paid her money and now, he knew, he was going to have to start making good on her investment. But even that nauseating prospect couldn’t dent his mood. He felt strangely light on his feet. As the invisible strings carried him towards the woods, he held the image of Bryan Reynolds’s final moments in his mind, savouring it like the memory of a lover’s last embrace. He’d watched plenty of weak people die. But to watch such a powerful man die, and to know it was because of him… God, it made him feel as if he could walk on water. His mother had always drummed into him that he could achieve anything if he put his mind to it. He’d grown up believing he was destined for greatness. But as he’d been passed over time and again for Cabinet, his belief had curdled into doubt then bitterness. The false expectations his mother had instilled in him had become just one more reason to hate her. At that moment, though, he felt his self-belief returning like a tide.

I won’t be passed over again
, Edward swore silently.
Now is my time. Now is my turn to be the one with the real power.

He’d encountered so much disappointment in the last few years – the ousting of his party from government, the stagnation of his career, and now all this recent nonsense. But as he hurried towards his destination, he was thirteen years old again. Everything was ahead of him. Everything was possible.

On his way out of the city, Jim stopped to stock up on supplies for the stakeout of Edward Forester’s house. Instead of the usual caffeine- and sugar-loaded snacks, he filled a basket with bottled water, fruit and salad. He stared gloomily at the packets of cigarettes and Pro Plus behind the checkout counter, wondering how he was going to keep himself not only awake but alert during what might be long hours of surveillance. He’d only been up a few hours, but already tiredness was washing over him in great, dizzying waves. As he returned to his car, another wave hit him. He pinched his eyes shut, leaning against a lamp-post. Frank Geary’s words echoed back to him.
Christ, look at us. Some of the nastiest bastards in South Yorkshire used to fill their pants at the sight of us. They’d laugh in our faces if they saw us now.
He opened his eyes, glancing around as if worried someone might have seen him. But there was nobody.

Following the satnav’s instructions, Jim headed along Ringinglow Road. Large houses lined the leafy suburban street, which rose gently towards a brown hump of moorland with scraps of mist drifting across it. A mile or two beyond the edge of the city, he passed the turn to the house of secrets and horrors that had started him on this path – the Baxley house. A deep furrow appeared between his eyes. Had that really only been a matter of days ago? It felt more like a lifetime.

Jim flicked on his fog lights as mist enveloped his car. He hoped the conditions were clearer at Southview, otherwise there wasn’t going to be much to see. When he passed through the other side of the mist, the landscape unfurled itself in front of him like a lush green carpet. A mile or so away, and far below, the stone houses of Hathersage nestled in a deep valley. The road descended towards them, snaking its way down steep hillsides of bracken and sheep-grazed grass. Still high above the bottom of the valley, he turned onto a road that ran parallel to the imposing gritstone escarpment of Stanage Edge. The mist moved in again, thicker than before. The satnav led him unerringly through a tangle of undulating, drystone-walled lanes to his destination.