Souls At Zero (A Dark Psychological Thriller) (15 page)

Edger kept the gun pointed at McGinty's wife. "Mr Mayor," he said calmly. "Come in, close the door, and don't anything stupid, or I'll shoot your wife."

A look of horror came over McGinty's gaunt face as his wife made a squealing sound when Edger said he would shoot her. Edger didn't blame the man for looking horrified. In fact, McGinty was doing a good job of not panicking, considering there was a 6'3 masked man in the room, pointing a gun at his wife. Edger knew McGinty was a Sinn Fein councillor, and he wondered if the old man had ever used a gun back in the day in the name of politics instead of a ballot box. There was nothing in McGinty's record to indicate he was ever a terrorist, but that didn't mean he never was one. It just meant he never got caught.

McGinty, who was taller in person than Edger expected him to be, cautiously made his way into the living room, a long dark over coat covering his grey suit. McGinty was in his early sixties and looked it, most of his hair having long departed, leaving only loose strands either side of his head and a small patch on the front. His wide blue eyes never left Edger as he closed the door behind him. "What is this?" he asked Edger. "What do you want?"

Edger stood up and levelled the gun at him. "Why don't you take a seat beside your wife, Mr Mayor."

McGinty did as he was told, sitting down beside his wife, who burst into tears again as he put his arm around her. "Its okay, Maureen," he said, trying to reassure his wife.

"Its not, Brian!" she screeched back. "He's got a gun!"

Edger moved quickly before McGinty could even gauge what was happening. He stepped forward and punched McGinty hard in the face, hearing the older man's nose crack under the impact of his knuckles. Then Edger put the gun inside his jacket and took out the duct tape. As Maureen McGinty screamed and cried, and as Brian McGinty groaned, blood running down his face, Edger grabbed McGinty's hands and bound his wrists in duct tape. Then he bound the Mayor's ankles as well. McGinty never struggled, or even protested, as the pain in his nose was all consuming. Which is why Edger hit him in the first place, so the older man wouldn't try anything while he was securing him.

With the Lord Mayor now bound alongside his wife, Edger stood over him. "Now, Mr Mayor," he began. "I don't have a lot of time, and neither do you for that matter. So it's in your best interests to tell me exactly what I want to know."

McGinty had trouble speaking with all the blood running into his mouth from his broken nose. His bound hands were up trying to stem the flow. "Who are you?" he said. "What do you want?"

"Who I am isn't important," Edger replied. "What's important is that someone wants you dead, and I want to know why."

McGinty stopped groaning and playing with his nose for a second. "What? Who wants me dead? Why?"

Edger sighed. Either McGinty was clueless, or he was hiding something. "That's what I'm asking you. Can you think of any reason as to why someone would want to kill you? Think hard. Your life may depend on it."

"My husband's a good man," McGinty's wife said, half turned into her husband, her bound hands resting in his lap. "He has no enemies."

"You've got your facts wrong," McGinty said. "I'm the bloody Lord Mayor of Belfast. What would anyone have to gain from killing me?"

"That's exactly what I'm trying to find out here," Edger said. "Someone told me to kill you, that's all I know."

McGinty's eyes suddenly focused hard on Edger's. "There must have been some kind of mistake," he said. "I help this city. I help
people
. There's no reason why someone would want me dead."

Edger shook his head and stood in silence for a minute. This was going nowhere. Whoever had taken Kaitlin, they had chosen McGinty as a target for a reason. Maybe it was just because of McGinty's position in City Hall, or maybe it was because of something else. Edger didn't think McGinty had been made a target solely because he was the Mayor of the city. It was hard to see what could be gained, politically at least, by killing the Mayor. Edger knew in his gut that this was personal, which meant McGinty was somehow connected to the kidnapper. Although that didn't explain why the kidnapper wanted
Edger
to kill McGinty. Why didn't the kidnapper just do it himself? Why go to all this trouble? There had to be a reason as to why the kidnapper wanted to implicate Edger in all this as well. Edger himself had never met McGinty before tonight. So what was it? Why him and why McGinty? If he could find that out, he could also find out who was doing this to him and who had taken Kaitlin.

"I can see you're confused, son," McGinty said. "Obviously this has all been a big misunderstanding. Why don't you just be on your way and there'll not be a word said about this."

"We won't say anything," Maureen McGinty added. "You can just go."

If only I could.

Although he had never exactly been schooled in the ways of interrogation, Edger knew enough to know that he would have to up the ante to get what he wanted. Earlier, when he had asked McGinty's wife why someone would want her husband dead, she had a look of shame or guilt in her face, even as she protested that her husband was a decent man, which suggested to Edger that she might be hiding something. He could be wrong of course. The woman may have just been scared, or he may have misinterpreted her reaction, but he didn't think so.

He took out his gun again.

Maureen McGinty screamed.

"No, please…" McGinty said.

Edger walked over and pointed the gun at the politician, who cowered into the sofa and closed his eyes as if Edger was going to shoot him right there and then. Looking at McGinty's stricken wife, Edger said, "Tell me what your husband is hiding, or I'm going to shoot him."

"No!" Maureen McGinty screamed, a look of utter horror on her face. "Please…"

Edger pressed the barrel of the gun down into McGinty's head. "Last chance. What are you both hiding?"

"Oh God…" McGinty groaned, sounding like a man who thought he was about to die.

"Brian…" McGinty's wife cried.

McGinty was crying himself now. "Maureen…"

"Tell me!" Edger shouted.

McGinty's wife jumped when Edger raised his voice. "Alright!" she wailed, shaking her head, then she looked at her husband. "I have to, Brian…"

"Maureen, no," McGinty pleaded, his face wet with blood and tears. "He'll kill me."

Edger aimed the gun at Maureen McGinty, who threw her hands up in front of her as if to shield herself from an oncoming bullet. "Somebody better start talking, or I'm going to kill you both," Edger said, disgusted with his own brutal actions. For a second, he lost his resolve, but then he thought of Kaitlin, lying somewhere, alone and afraid, thinking she was going to die.

His resolve soon returned.

Maureen McGinty looked up at him, almost defiantly, her eyes wet and puffy with bitter tears. "The study next door," she said, her lower lip trembling uncontrollably as she tried in vain to keep herself together.

Edger kept the gun trained on her. "What about it?"

"The computer on the table," she said in a near whisper.

"Maureen…" McGinty groaned beside her. "What have you done?"

Maureen McGinty turned her head slowly to look at her husband, unmistakable anger in her eyes now. "Saving our fucking lives," she said, sounding like a different person altogether now, like her previous behaviour had just been an act. Now her face had hardened and she didn't look as scared anymore. It was the like the game was finally up. All she had left was her defiance.

"He'll kill us both," McGinty said, shaking his head. "You stupid bitch."

Edger stared at Maureen McGinty in disbelief for a moment, then he said, "Don't move."

He left the room, went down the hallway to the study and retrieved the laptop that was sitting on a table in there, then he brought it back into the living room, wondering what the hell he was going to find on the computer.

The McGinty's sat staring at him, saying nothing as he sat down on one of the other seats across from them. He put the Glock on the arm of the chair and opened the laptop. "Password?" he asked.

"Maureen, think about this," McGinty pleaded.

"He wants to know," Maureen McGinty said, her tears dried up now as she sat straight backed with her hands in her lap like she was attending some kind of job interview. "I've looked the other way for long enough, Brian. No more. I won't die for your…your…" She trailed off and shook her head, turning her back on her husband.

Brian McGinty sat shaking his own head, blood still running from his mangled nose.

"Password?" Edger asked again. Maureen McGinty gave him the password and he typed it in. "What am I looking for here?"

"Maureen, please don't…" Brian McGinty said.

Ignoring her husband, Maureen McGinty directed Edger towards a password protected file on the laptop. The politician looked shocked when she called out the password. Obviously he didn't know his wife knew what it was.

Edger opened the file to find a huge batch of other files inside. He double clicked on the first one to open it. Inside was hundreds of images. He sat in taut silence while he opened another file, this one containing video clips. He opened two more files before he decided he had seen enough. Sick to his stomach, Edger slammed the laptop closed and put it on the floor. His anger boiled as he turned and looked at the McGinty's. Maureen McGinty had her head bowed as she stared at the floor in shame. Brian McGinty refused to look at Edger.

Edger grabbed the gun of the chair and gripped it tight while he stared at McGinty. "Fucking children, you sick cunt," he growled.

McGinty still couldn't look at Edger. His wife made a small squeal of despair and kept her head down.

"You knew about this," Edger said to McGinty's wife. "That makes you as bad."

Maureen McGinty started crying again, but she said nothing.

Edger stood, walked over to the cowering politician, and pointed the Glock at him.

"No, please," McGinty said, crying himself now. "I can't help it. It's a sickness, you have to understand…"

Edger clenched his teeth. He would be wholly justified in pulling the trigger on McGinty right now. But he still didn't understand what McGinty's vile predilections had to do with him. So McGinty was a paedophile. Why would someone kidnap Edger's daughter just to force him to kill McGinty, however despicable the man was? There had to be more to it. "What are you not telling me?" he demanded of the stricken Mayor.

"Nothing," McGinty blubbered. "You know my dirty little secret. That's it, I swear."

Then his wife mumbled something that Edger didn't catch.

"What?" he asked her.

"That place," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

McGinty's head snapped round. "Maureen—"

"Shut up!" Edger told him, then looked at Maureen McGinty again. "What place?"

"That vile place," she said, a blank look on her face.

"Maureen, you stupid cunt!" McGinty shouted. "Shut up!"

Edger grabbed McGinty by the lapels and stuck the gun in his face. "What the fuck is she talking about?"

"I don't know…"

"Tell me!"

McGinty was about to say something else when there was a loud knock on the front door.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

DI Black stood outside Mayor Brian McGinty's house and waited, having just knocked on the front door. For the last half hour he had been sitting in his car in the street outside, waiting for Edger to show his face again, all the while wondering what the hell Edger was doing at McGinty's house in the first place. Black doubted Edger had any relationship with McGinty, before or after the councillor became Lord Mayor. What worried Black was that Edger was there uninvited, maybe even forced his way in. It was possible that Edger had gotten it into his head that McGinty had something to do with his daughter being taken, which sounded ridiculous to Black. Black knew McGinty had ties with the Provos in the past. The man was a Sinn Fein councillor after all, but he was also the Lord Mayor of Belfast. It was a stretch to think that the politician was involved in any kind of kidnapping scheme. Although Black also knew of McGinty's vile sexual leanings, having arrested the politician over them a few years ago. The charges ended up being dropped, despite evidence to the contrary. More powerful people than McGinty had pulled strings to get him released. Could that be why Edger was in that house right now?

Black banged on the door again. "Mr McGinty," he called out, knowing the Mayor was in there because he had seen him arrive not long ago. "This is Detective Inspector Paul Black from CID here. I need to speak with you."

Black waited. Still no answer.

The feeling that something wasn't right hit him hard.

He tried the door once more, identifying himself again, but there was still no response from inside.

"What the fuck are you doing, Edger?" he hissed as he stepped back from the door and began to walk around the side of the house to the back.