The Winter Killings, page 25
But don’t believe that depression, addiction, homelessness, is a big enough price to pay for what you’ve done. Please, don’t believe that.
Not for a second.
Laura arrived and Elizabeth embraced her at the front door.
Hold tight, Elizabeth. This act… this nauseating display of forgiveness and affection… it’ll end soon.
‘Thanks… again…’ Laura said, speaking quietly, so as not to wake Elizabeth’s parents. Elizabeth had told her that James wasn’t in this evening and was staying at his girlfriend’s. She’d never have come otherwise. ‘Are you sure that James—’
‘He’s out.’
‘I haven’t eaten all day.’
You’re desperate… I understand, Laura… but there it is again. That uncontrollable impulse to use others.
‘Come and eat,’ Elizabeth said and watched her eat the food she’d already prepared.
Afterwards, Laura started to cry. ‘I don’t deserve this.’
No, you don’t.
‘He manipulated me.’
Elizabeth nodded, offering a sympathetic look. Not an excuse.
‘I wish I could give you more. I wish I could tell you where your child was.’
Elizabeth considered the pages of notes she’d scribbled down during Laura’s confession in the hotel room. The locations of the children remained a mystery. Although heavily involved, the details of the transactions made with the purveyors of children had been a guarded secret by James, and she’d not even been paid well for her contributions!
But, with time, Elizabeth would unlock the truth and bring accountability to everyone who deserved it. And she’d find her own daughter.
It’d happen. She knew that now. As certain as the sun rose. One day, justice would be served, and she’d be reunited with her daughter, and save her from this vile world.
After Laura had eaten, they sat together on the sofa in the lounge for a while.
Laura let her head droop on Elizabeth’s shoulder.
Repulsed, Elizabeth ran her fingers through her matted hair.
‘You know you can never do anything, Elizabeth. You know that they’ll kill you if you try.’
‘Who?’
‘The company that closed all of this down. They’re powerful. So, so powerful. I’m sorry I can’t give your daughter back to you, Elizabeth. But if you confront them, they’ll silence you.’
Let them try.
‘So, tell me, again, about my daughter,’ Elizabeth said, stroking Laura’s hair.
Tell me again, you lying bitch, about the girl who was too deformed for me to look upon.
Laura, through a mouthful of tears, told Elizabeth about how her daughter had a lot of dark hair, and a beautiful button nose.
I dreamed about her. I saw her. I saw you carrying my crying child away from me.
It wasn’t long before Laura was asleep.
She stared down at the nurse.
She was older, of course, but they had similar slight builds. Their hair was also the same dark brown, and their eyes, green.
She stroked her face.
Soon… you’ll be all gone. And I’ll find them all. The children… the parents… all of them. Even if it takes decades.
She headed upstairs to her brother’s room.
Having spent the last couple of nights searching it, she knew exactly where to go.
The back of his wardrobe.
So much money.
Two bags full.
More than enough to lie low, until a suitable time to emerge from the shadows. Laura had dropped from the radar two years ago, so maybe she’d leave it another two years before taking on her identity. Time for her to research new passports, and photo identities. She lifted the bags and smiled. She certainly had enough to fund such illegal processes.
Moving forward, if she needed to make the money last, she could get a job as a nurse. It may be prudent to do some refresher training, because it’d be all new to Elizabeth, and she imagined those long shifts were full of challenges. But this was something for later. Much later.
As she carried the heavy bags downstairs, she thought of the private investigators she could now afford to help root out the truth.
She knew it’d be a long, arduous road.
But if it took years, so be it.
If it took decades, so be it.
Downstairs, she took one last look at Laura, sleeping on the sofa, and then grabbed the petrol canister she’d stored around the back of the house.
Then, she doused the stairs in petrol, and set her home alight.
As she walked, leaving three poisonous entities to their demise, she thought of her brother.
The evilest of them all.
She could wait.
She’d watch over his life, ensure he was miserable, and when she finally knew everything, she’d tell him that it was she who ruined his life. Then, he’d die knowing that the truth was coming, and his whole existence was a shameful mess.
Oh, how I’d love you to suffer.
Just like she’d done.
From a distance she watched the house burn, and the monsters die, and realised that the pleasure she felt wasn’t normal.
Her bloodline was not how she’d always believed it to be.
The Sykeses were evil.
And the world would benefit – it truly would – when they no longer sucked like leeches from the world around them.
61
The drugs worked quicker than Elizabeth had anticipated.
Jess was working hard to keep her eyes open, so Elizabeth moved frantically with the truth.
‘I could sense that you knew, dear, deep down. When we embraced… when I touched you… when you looked at me. The connections burned. So, I know that this isn’t as shocking to you as it could have been. I doubted you would’ve given me those keys to the storage room… or let me into your home… or into that imposter’s room upstairs… unless you knew. Unless you genuinely felt it.’
‘Dad…’ Jess managed, drool bubbling at the corner of her mouth. ‘Dad… is he okay?’
‘I’ve told you, dear, he wasn’t your father. A man, a beast, who paid my brother, your uncle, another creature, to take you from me. And that imposter has gone now, along with your uncle, and some of the others. These are people who believed they were above what nature intended. They weren’t natural… not in the sense that they should be… and we, too, dear, are the same. Must be the same. We carry the same genes. The same blood. We are both Sykeses.’
‘My life… a lie,’ Jess managed. Her eyes closed.
Elizabeth reached out and placed a hand to her cheek, attempting to rouse her.
Jess opened her eyes.
‘Not any more,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Be empowered by the truth as the truth empowered me, dear. It gave me strength, patience. It took me so long to untangle the web. KYLO… the government… they were sealed containers. For so long, the private investigators baulked at my requests because they feared for their own safety. But eventually, I found someone who helped. And he found threads… threads he could pull… and eventually, dear, the truth began to untangle. James lived far longer than I intended. He couldn’t die until I had everything, you see. Every part of the story. His death would risk my exposure before it was finished. But he suffered. He lived a life of wanting, a life of crawling around for pennies to survive. I told him this before I chained him to an old cart and listened to him beg for food and water for days… and then I watched him rot.’
She noticed Jess’s eyes were closed, so she squeezed her arm this time.
Jess opened her eyes, weakly.
‘There were times when I considered failure, quitting, ending myself before it was finished, but I persevered. A few strokes of luck there, and several people who emerged in later years, now willing to help, and the truth just came faster and faster. And I found you. I found you, Jess.’ She leaned forward and kissed her forehead. ‘Twelve months ago… I found you. You were the hardest and final piece. The best for last. And with that, it began, and today, it ends.’
Jess’s eyes were closed now, and Elizabeth was disappointed with the speed of the drugs. ‘What a thing for you to find out. I’m sorry for that, but you deserved the truth. The life they gave you was, as you said, a lie.’
Jess managed to say something.
Elizabeth leaned in. ‘What was that, dear?’
‘Circumstances… aligned…’
‘Circumstances?’
‘Aligned,’ Jess said, and her head slumped to the side.
Elizabeth sighed. Maybe, after all, it was for the best, that Jess didn’t know what came next.
Elizabeth had believed it may have offered her peace, closure, in this final moment, but Jess had been different from how she’d always imagined her. Reserved and awkward. With a range of idiosyncrasies that made her anxious.
The closure may have caused her fear.
She stroked her sleeping daughter’s face. ‘Maybe it’s for the best. You’re so loveable, dear. So unlike the rest of our kin. But I know it lies within you. It lay within me without my knowledge. And it most certainly lay within my parents, and James. I wish I could have been there to prepare you for the burden you carried, but I wasn’t allowed that. And now it’s too late. I can’t protect you, like no one protected me. I’ll give you peace. You’ll never face the rage I faced. The devilish instincts. It’s my responsibility to stop you evolving into your uncle… your grandparents… into me…’
Elizabeth stood and moved to the front door, thinking of all the truth that was coming to those stolen children, and the judgement that was coming to the fraudsters who’d paid her brother.
She also thought of Robert Thwaites, trying to erase the truth, predicting that he’d die where he belonged. In jail.
She hoped the world would find a way to tear down KYLO, too, but knew that was rather ambitious thinking, considering their power.
Outside, she retrieved the petrol container she’d left by the front door on the way in and took it into the house.
As she drenched the rug in front of the two-seater sofa, she looked down at her sleeping daughter.
Gentle… innocent… harmless, even.
Hard to believe that the same blood is in your veins as mine.
Elizabeth thought of the night she’d killed her parents, and her belief that the world would benefit when the Sykeses no longer sucked like leeches from the world around them.
She pulled out her lighter. ‘I won’t leave you to the same fate… but, at least, dear, you can finish your life in the same way you started it. With me.’ She knelt and lit the rug. ‘Your mother.’
62
Barnett sat alongside Gardner in her vehicle as they headed back into Knaresborough.
She wanted to be close to Laura Wilson’s property when response arrived there. En route, she’d drop Barnett at home. He’d left his car at the Atkinson farm when the paramedics advised him not to drive until he’d calmed from his near-death experience. O’Brien had accompanied him back to HQ in a taxi.
The journey was slow, because of the weather, and she had to be vigilant, but she still threw several concerned glances in his direction.
‘You don’t need to worry,’ Barnett said.
‘When it comes to personal issues, I’ve got my fair share of history, you know.’ A sociopathic brother who tried to brain me as a kid for example. ‘If you ever need to talk.’
‘Clarissa Trent,’ Barnett said, looking at Gardner. ‘My sister.’
‘I know,’ Gardner said, nodding and indicating to change lane on the carriageway.
‘Wow… she’ll probably know by now.’
‘Yes. Marsh sent officers to inform them,’ Gardner said.
‘Wonder what Clarissa thought? How she feels?’
‘She’ll be stunned at first, I imagine.’
‘I hope she doesn’t think Mum abandoned her.’
‘Why would she? The narrative behind what really happened is compelling. Your mother’s hardly to blame.’
‘But is she completely blameless?’ Barnett asked.
Gardner indicated off into Knaresborough. Who knew for sure? But Gardner couldn’t see it herself. Amina would’ve taken the money, because, well, why wouldn’t you? She wouldn’t have known the truth.
‘I think she knew she had a child out there,’ Barnett said.
‘It won’t do you any good to think like that. And how could she possibly know?’
‘She wrote poems, boss. About losing someone. She knew something had been torn away from her. That something unjust… unnatural… had happened.’ He shook his head. ‘Maybe I’m overthinking it?’
Again, who knew? You’ll drive yourself mad thinking about it, Ray. ‘Losing her child to death, in itself, would’ve felt unnatural to your mother. As if something had been torn away. She may have suspected nothing.’
‘What do they say though, boss? That a mother knows.’
‘Maybe… but I know this, Ray, so listen carefully. I know Amina Ndiaye’s son. Very well. And if she was anything like him, which I’m sure she was, she wouldn’t have turned her back on the truth. In fact, like her son, she’d have stopped at nothing to find it.’
He nodded, looking tearful. ‘Thanks boss. I hope Clarissa wants to make contact.’
‘She will. In her own time. Just let her come to you.’
The phone rang. It was response. Laura Wilson wasn’t home.
Frustrated, and desperate, she used every part of her willpower to stop herself hitting the steering wheel. The individual beside her right now was rather sensitive. It was better to avoid sudden moves.
She parked beside Barnett’s house.
This time when her phone rang, her blood froze.
‘You all right, boss?’
‘I don’t know, yet.’
She answered the phone. ‘Neville.’
‘Hello, Emma.’
63
Neville Fairweather had got straight to the point.
She shouldn’t have contacted him yet.
He admonished her for it, but she fought her corner, explained that this was his one chance to prove himself to her… prove that he, like all the others, wasn’t a monster.
He’d sighed and relented, but not without ensuring he snared another bargaining chip. ‘After this… you must come good on our deal.’
Except, she still had no real idea as to what that deal was.
She agreed anyway; she was tired, and so desperate to find Elizabeth Sykes and put a stop to this madness.
‘I removed myself as a shareholder from KYLO when they decided to bid on the homeless shelter.’
‘Because you knew. You knew what was going on there.’
‘I repeat, I removed myself.’
‘Knowing makes you complicit.’
‘Emma… if any of us were judged on all the things we knew… it’d be a busy courtroom. Have you seen Bright Day, itself? The building?’
‘Yes… it’s interesting.’
‘Sleek, eh? A modern masterpiece. Have you looked into the person that designed it?’
‘No, why—’
‘Goodbye, Emma. Next time we speak, it’ll be about what I want, not what you want.’
And then he was gone.
She turned to Barnett. ‘Find out who designed Bright Day’s building.’
Barnett nodded. He hoisted his phone out. His finger moved swiftly over the screen as he researched. Fast. Efficient. A natural.
He looked up, his eyes wide. ‘Nigel Beaumont.’
Gardner started the engine. ‘Father of Jess Beaumont. Which puts him in Elizabeth Sykes’ crosshairs. With that sweet girl, Jess Beaumont, caught in the middle.’ She checked the mirror and drove out. ‘Clara Atkinson was not the last baby born there. Jess Beaumont was. And Nigel was the last bastard to benefit.’ She glanced at Barnett, who was fastening his seatbelt. ‘You’re coming because I don’t know where Elizabeth Sykes is. But if everything is in order, and she’s not at the house, you stay in the vehicle. Understand?’
64
But everything wasn’t in order.
‘Shit! Jess’s home! Can you see it?’ Gardner said.
At this distance, near the end of the road, the front windows of Jess’s quaint home flickered in the gloom of the dying day.
‘It’s on fire!’
‘Phone it in now.’
While Barnett radioed in to have emergency services sent out, Gardner screeched to a halt and pounced from the car. She darted towards the home. From within, the fire alarms squealed. The flickering flames through the glass were ominous, as was the smoke weeping out of the house.
It may not have been a raging inferno yet. But it wouldn’t be long.
She tried the front door. Locked.
Shit!
She barged it. Once… twice… she stumbled back, shooting pains flying down her arm.
The door had barely moved.
‘Stand back,’ Barnett hissed.
She stepped to one side. Being a large man, Barnett could grip a solid, fixed canopy sheltering the front door. With support, he thrust his foot into the door. Once… twice… it splintered… three… four… it burst open. Smoke swirled and danced before escaping its confines like some dark spirit. The sound of the wailing alarms was suddenly ear-piercing.
Covering their mouths, Gardner and Barnett turned away.
Gardner looked at Barnett, her heart pounding in her chest. ‘Look, you stay out here and wait for emerge—’
Barnett, jaw set, eyes wide, shook his head, had already turned. He shot in past the hanging door.
Predictable.
Covering her mouth, she followed him.
‘Jess!’ Barnett called.
No reply.
Gardner tried as well. ‘Jess!’
Nothing.
And the alarms were so bloody loud…
Coughing now, Gardner looked inside the burning lounge. The black smoke was swelling, so it was difficult to see clearly. There was a large blazing rectangle on the floor, which Gardner recalled as the rug. Some of the wooden floor that covered most of the lounge had caught and the flames were already licking at the walls on the left side of the room. Jess Beaumont lay, presumably unconscious, on the sofa to the right of the room. Why had she not woken? Had she succumbed to the smoke? The edges of the sofa were catching and would certainly be close to eruption.
