My Heart Belongs To You: A Psycho Thriller (31 page)

‘
Send me the co
or
dinates
,
Sir
.’

‘
On their way
,
John
.’

‘
What about Richard?
’

‘
He’s my next call
,
but he has at least sixty miles to cover
.’

‘
Hel
i
copter?
’

‘
Still
n
one available
.’

Hanson fed in the coordinates.

‘
I could mob
i
lise some locals
,
John
,
’
suggested Blue Eagle.

‘
No thank
you
,
Sir
.
No
disrespect to them
,
but I don’t want anyone blundering in there
.’

‘
Your call
,
John
.’

‘
I’m on my way
.’

‘
God speed
.’

Hanson
’s
Bluetooth
b
e
eped
as the line was closed.
He wasn’t holding his breath for any help from God
.
T
he
only per
s
on that was going to save Tom was him.
If he had
to,
he would sign with the Devil
right now
,
if it g
u
a
ranteed his friend
’
s life.
Running from the terraced house
,
he left the front door swinging wide open
.
Black would not be coming back here.
 
Feeding in the coordinates
into his
S
at
N
av
,
he noted the time, 5.42
p
.
m
.
, 1 hour and 18 minutes of life remaining, travel time given as
o
ne hour twenty minutes.

Hanson
sped
down the road
,
reaching fifty before he had to brake for the first corner
.
 
Too
many miles
were
left to balance against remain
in
g life.
He made a silent vow to reverse that equation as he
st
o
mped
on the accelerator.

Chapter Twenty S
even

14
February
-
18:
3
1

(
L
ife
r
emaining 29
minutes)

‘
Whoever you are
,
you
’
r
e
too late
.’

For
two
and a half
hours,
Cupid had been standing behind the table above Tom and Karen
’
s heads,
sp
eaking
inces
sa
ntly about his mission,
and
his quest for perfection in the p
u
rsuit of love and commitment.
His rambling rhetoric of explanation ana
e
sthetised Tom into submission,
and
Karen never made a sound.
Tom knew from the news coverage of Cupid over the years
,
t
hat a couple
was
killed on Val
entine
’
s night
.
To
be discovered and spread across the tabloid
s and TV screens
of the nation,
and
the world
the
following day
.

Now as he lay with his hand glued to his beloved Karen
,
he had mentally given up on life
.
He
was tired to the point
that
he couldn’t think
.
The
sores along his back, his legs and buttocks radiated a constant searing pain and he just wanted this to be over
.
He
wanted the pain
to
stop and the
ni
gh
tmares
that happened each
time he closed his eye
s
to end.
What he didn’t know was how the couples were killed, this along with many other details relating to Cupid were kept from the general public.
Some were withheld for tactical reasons
,
others because they were trying to be sympathetic to the families of the victims.
It was as Tom floated within his world of ph
ysical pain and
ment
a
l anguish that a group of words used by Cupid cut through the woo
l
ly protection
that
his mind
spun
envelop
ing
and protect
ing
him.

‘
That is why
,
Tom and Karen
,
I must open each of your chests, cut out your hearts and exchange them
.
For
only the
n
can your love find immortality, only then can you be as one for all eternity.
’

Tom replayed the words in his head
,
struggling to see if he had the combination wrong
.
Even
this maniac couldn’t be thinking of cutting out their hearts, he had to have misheard.

The sound of a trolley being wheeled behind them caused Tom to strain against the head restraint
,
but suddenly it didn’t matter
,
because the trolley came into view in the overhead
m
irror.
On it
,
he could clearly see a number of surgical
instruments, bright chrome imple
ments that told Tom he hadn’t misheard
.
Cupi
d was about to cut them open to
exchange their hearts in some morbid belief
that
he was giving their love eternal life.

‘
Don’t do this
,
’
spat Tom
,
thrashing with renewed energy
against the straps
,
as Cupid lifted a shiny sca
l
pel from the table and moved to the side of the table next to Karen.

‘
It will soon be o
ver
,
Tom
.
Karen will be first to give her heart
,
then you. E
mbrace this moment, eternity awaits you
.’

‘
Please
…,
please don’t do this
!’ 
Blood was now seeping freely from the deep sores on Tom
’
s wrist
s
and ankles as he continued to buck against his bonds
.
His
breathing collapsing into ragged gasps as he tired
,
his weakened state robbing him of his strength.

Cupid
moved with slow
deliberation placing
the tip of the sca
l
pe
l
onto Karen
’
s chest
,
directly between her breasts
, and
then
he
lifted his head back
, staring to the rafters
as if in prayer
.
Karen remained motionless, paralysed with fear
.
‘
A
c
cept this woman into the eternal life as she gives her heart
freely
to this man
,
’
sc
reamed Cupid.

‘
Get away from her
!’
screeched Tom
,
unable to pull his gaze away from the scalpel and his
fiancée
.  His pleadings
col
lapsed
into a pitiful wail of acceptance of the horror that was about to take place.

Adam exited the hanger through the side door
.
He
knew from experience that the first cut would come
shortly
;
when it
did,
the screaming would begin.
The woman was quiet now
,
but when the bla
de bit into her
flesh
that would change
.
The
same thing
had happened before. For
now,
h
e had done his part
.
Now
he would
leave
C
upid to his coupling, to his quest.
Closing the hanger door
,
h
e m
oved across to the parking bays
lit by a single halogen light fixed to the
sidewall
of the building
.
Here
his
bright red
J
aguar sat next to Cupid
’
s car.
He would sit inside his beloved
XJ
6;
turn up the music on his sound system until Cupid had completed his work
,
then
when cupid had been fulfilled
and
left
,
he would
clean up behind him
.
Then there would be the period of calm that followed until next year,
and
the next coupling.

Adam got w
ithin six feet of his car
,
when the sound of running caught his attention
.
Turning
he caught the sight of a shape coming at him out of the darkness.
Had he been a little quicker
,
he might have been able to avoid the baton that arced down from his right
,
catching him across the left side of
his
face
,
opening a deep laceration and causing him to stumbl
e back
,
crashing into the Jaguar
.

…………
……………………………………………………………………………

Hanson
had
made the trip in less than fifty minutes
,
pulling up in a small copse of tre
e
s a hundred yards from the gates of the airfield.
He could see why it had
had been chosen as he killed the lights and rolled
to
a stop.
The only road that fed past it had a
signpost
at its entrance
,
a mile back from where Hanson now parked
,
claiming private access
only
.
No
unauthori
s
ed vehicles allowed.
The grass
and weeds growing across it gave
testament to the lack of traffic.
A quick look through night glasses showed two cars parked inside the fencing next to a large building that could have been a hanger
at one time
.
One of the cars was clearly a Jaguar
,
and
the other had to be
C
upid
’
s.
Hanson checked his watch, 6.32 p
.
m
.
,
28 minutes of life remaining.
There was no time for surve
i
l
l
ance, no time to
reconnoit
r
e
;
he had to get ins
ide the fence line
.
Tom and Karen
´s
lives were in his hands
.
He jogged towards the razor
-
topped fencing a hundre
d metres from the main gates
.
Quickly
he
cut several of the fence links with a pair of wire
cutters
kept in an extensive
toolbox
in the back of the people carrier.
Many items were never used
,
but under the rule of Hanson
,
he would rather have it and not need it
,
than
to
need it and not have it.
Inside the fence
line,
he tucked under his arm the item he had taken from James Holt
’
s office
,
as he
moved quickly and quietly towards the parked cars
.  T
wenty metres out
,
a door opened in the side of the building allowing a splash of we
a
k light to fan out onto the grass outside the
dilapidated
building
.
A
large man followed
;
his shape alone telling Hanson this was Adam Black.
He almost faltered on his approach as a scream from inside the building cut into the still night forcing Hanson to draw on all his professionalism to ignore the pitiful cry that despite it
s
distortion
he knew
came from his friend Tom.