Captives (50 page)

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Authors: Shaun Hutson

BOOK: Captives
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    Finn noticed that the figure next to Dexter was holding a doll like the one that lay on the lawn outside. She was prodding the glass eyes.
    'I knew I could do something. They said she was violent. The brain damage had caused some kind of psychosis. My colleague and I experimented on her. Her and a number of others. The others died, but she responded. I've looked after her ever since, here at this house.'
    Finn was breathing deeply, his gaze moving from the figure then back to the shotgun.
    'You would have been kinder letting her die,' he said, I his voice a hoarse whisper.
    'No,' Dexter said, shaking his head. 'I wouldn't let her die. Never.' There was a note of anger in his voice as he looked at the policeman. 'Not my own daughter.'
    Finn swallowed hard.
    The woman smiled at Dexter, streams of mucus running from her mouth, hanging from her lips like thick, elongated tears.
    'Daddy,' she slurred.
    Finn clenched his teeth together until his jaws ached.
    'When I'm gone there'll be no one to care for her,' Dexter said. 'No one.'
    'Daddy,' she whined in metallic voice.
    'I won't leave her,' the doctor said.
    With that he spun round, aiming the shotgun at his daughter's head.
    'No,' roared Finn.
    The sound was lost beneath the blast as Dexter fired.
    She dropped like a stone, the doll falling from her grasp. Blood spattered the walls behind. Finn saw fragments of brain and bone dripping from the ceiling.
    He lunged towards Dexter, who spun the shotgun in his grasp, bit down hard on the barrels he'd stuck in his mouth and pulled the other trigger.
    The top of his head erupted like a bloody volcano as the blast carried most of his skull away.
    He fell backwards, sprawled across the legs of his daughter, the Purdey falling with a thump.
    'Oh Jesus,' Finn murmured, holding one hand to his mouth, gazing at each body in turn. The air smelt of death.
    The DS picked up the doll the girl had dropped.
    Girl? Woman? God alone knew how old she was. And God had long ago tired of watching over this particular wretch.
    Finn held the doll in his hands, looking into its cold eyes, then dropped it.
    As it hit the floor he heard a whirring sound followed by one word, a metallic whine:
    'Daddy.'
    He turned and walked away, heading for the stairs, for the phone.
    The word echoed in his ears. In his mind.
    'Daddy.'
    
    
He who considers more deeply knows that, whatever his acts and judgements may be, he is always wrong…
    -
Nietzsche
    
    
You can't win. You can't break even and you can't even get out of the game.
    -
Ginsberg's Law
    

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