Eye Snatcher (28 page)

He stared down at Adrian. Stared down at his bloodied, swollen face. Another punch or two and he’d be gone. Another punch or two and this man would hurt no one ever again.

“You’re a killer, detective. Just like me. I see it in your eyes. You’ve not got the barrier. Just like I don’t have the barrier. So go on. Enjoy it. You… you deserve it. Kill me. Kill me for what I’ve done. For what I’ll do again and again and—”

“Brian!”

The soft female voice came from just ahead. It seemed distant, distorted.

“Go on,” Adrian said. “For all the times I fucked their dead little bodies. For all the times I made them scream. Go on.”

Brian grabbed the knife.

“Brian! Don’t do this. Seriously, step away right now. We’ve got him. This is over. It’s all over.”

“She’s just trying to save your job,” Adrian muttered, blood drooling out of his mouth. “Trying to save her own job, in fact. Police reputation, all that. But you know what you’ve gotta do. You know where to put that knife.”

“Don’t do this, Brian. Don’t listen to him.”

He held the knife tightly. His thoughts were blurry. All of his senses were out of tune.

He wanted to make Adrian pay for what he’d done. That’s all he knew right now.

Adrian forced the best smile a man with a broken face could. “Do it. End it. End it.”

Brian heard more footsteps surrounding him. Realised there were torches lighting up the scene. Heard voices all telling him to step away, to not do anything stupid.

He was about to ram the knife into Adrian’s throat when he saw Hannah in his mind. When he saw an image of her holding a bump on her tummy. When he saw her in hospital, Brian beside her as they welcomed a new life into the world.

“Do it,” Adrian whispered. “Do it.”

The knife started to shake in Brian’s hand. Tears dripped from his cheeks and onto Adrian’s body.

“Don’t do it,” Samantha shouted.

“Do it,” Adrian said.

Brian lifted the knife.

Then he dropped it and he rolled off Adrian’s body and into the mud.

He didn’t see the officers rush towards Adrian and cuff him. He didn’t see more of them flock around Ainsley’s body, dead or alive, and drag him away from the scene. But he knew that’s what they were doing. They moved around him, passed by him, but he was just a passenger.

A passenger who had nearly killed Adrian and ended his police career, his life.

A passenger that had so, so wanted to kill.

He felt a hand on his head. Heard a voice. “It’s okay. We’re here now. We’ve got you.”

Carter.

Brian moved his head into the curvature of her neck. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I—I shouldn’t have left him. I shouldn’t have… I’m so sorry.”

“Left who?” Samantha asked. “We’ve got Adrian now. We’ve got them all. It’s over.”

Brian sniffed. “Not Adrian. Brad. I… I shouldn’t have left him.”

Carter narrowed her eyes as the police who were at the scene struggled to drag Adrian away, to get the scene in order. “Where did you leave him?”

“The car, I…”

It was that look Samantha gave him that terrified Brian. That realisation that something wasn’t quite right. The realisation at her end that something was amiss.

She didn’t know about Brad yet.

“You… Don’t go to the car. Carter, please. Don’t—”

“What’s in the car?” she asked.

Brian shook his head. Grabbed her arm. “Don’t go to the car.”

But it was too late.

Carter was already on her feet. Her wander through the mud turned into a little jog. A few officers were already gathered around Brad’s car. Some of them had their heads in their hands, some of them were covering their faces.

“Don’t go to the car,” Brian whimpered, but Samantha was already there.

He knew she knew from the way her entire body froze.

The way she just stood by the window and stared.

She waited, completely still, for a few seconds, while another pair of officers dragged a cuffed Adrian away.

And then she pulled something out of her pocket and Brian didn’t quite understand at first, but he understood enough when he saw her walking towards Adrian.

Jogging towards Adrian.

“Samantha,” he shouted. “Don’t!”

But it didn’t matter what Brian said because Carter was stabbing Adrian in his back and his neck, and then officers were dragging her away, dragging her to the ground, and the last thing Brian remembered seeing before the scene erupted into chaos again was Adrian’s relieved smile as he let out his final, blood-splattered breath.

“You really should be getting some rest, Brian. You’ve been through an ordeal yourself.”

Brian stood outside the secure ward where Jed Green was recovering. The smell of disinfectant was as rife as it always was in hospital, bringing back all the bad memories he had of being in the place. When he’d woken up with burns after the Nicola Watson case. When he’d had his heart attack. After his suicide attempt.

And now, looking in through the small window of the secure ward at one of the two men involved in the Eye Snatcher killings.

DC Arif was beside him crunching away on some hard boiled sweets. It was early morning, but Brian had been here all night. He’d called Hannah. Explained to her what had happened, even though he couldn’t quite wrap his head around what happened himself.

Brad’s death. The standoff with Adrian. Adrian slicing Ainsley Pratt’s belly open.

Resisting the enormous urge to beat Adrian to a pulp.

Carter stabbing Adrian in his back, in his neck.

“You’ve been awake all night,” Arif said, taking a sideways glance at Brian and crunching down on another sweet in a way that went right through Brian.

“Expect me to sleep?”

Arif sighed. Shook his head. “Still can’t get the image out of my head. Of… of Richards. Of seeing him in that car.”

“You’re telling me,” Brian said. “I had to shift his stiff body out of the driver’s seat and drive a car into the middle of nowhere while his blood seeped through my trousers.”

Brian didn’t have to look at Arif to know he was going red. “Sorry,” he said.

Brian shook his head. It was tender, tired, completely and utterly worn out. “This whole situation’s sorry. Any idea when we can have a chat with Jed?”

“He’s still in a bad way. Lost a lot of blood when he slashed open his wrists. Hopefully later this morning.”

“And Adrian?” Brian asked.

Arif looked at Brian with a dread-filled stare. Gulped. “Still as dead as when you last asked.”

The news never seemed real to Brian when he learned of Adrian’s death. Even though he’d seen Samantha Carter step up to him and stab him in a revenge-fuelled rage for what he’d done to Brad. Even though he’d learned of his death a couple of hours ago. It was like he couldn’t be dead. Like he couldn’t accept it, because being dead was exactly what Adrian wanted when he’d egged Brian on, and it seemed so unfair that he’d got what he wanted.

“I don’t know what it means for her,” Arif said.

He stared through the little glass doorway of the secure room which a member of security had the key for. He’d read Brian’s mind. Nobody knew what the stabbing meant for Samantha Carter. The way she’d succumbed to rage, walked up to Adrian West in the middle of an arrest and stabbed him. There were some cases where a police officer could get away with murder, quite literally. In that basement last year, what Brian had done to Luke. It was self-defence. It was kill or be killed.

And nobody witnessed it, so it didn’t really happen. Even to Brian, he struggled to accept what he’d done, but it had been in the means of survival.

What Samantha Carter had done, whether justifiable or not, was in the means of self-interest.

And that fucking sucked.

“Oh, er, Andrew Wilkinson’s been released,” DC Arif said, as he stuck his hand in for another hard boiled sweet—his thirtieth of the day. “Still being trialled for witnessing the murder in Adrian West’s garage three years ago. But better than murder, right?”

Brian grunted. Walked away from the room where Jed Green was being kept. Made his way down the hospital ward.

“New Blue Brook’s under investigation too. Adrian’s room, we found Janine Ainscough’s earring there. No way that went under everyone’s nose. No chance. Same with Galaxy—under investigation.”

“Any word what was in that garage of Adrian’s?”

Arif shrugged. “Meeting place between Darren and Adrian? Place where he left him or his Galaxy cronies instructions so they couldn’t meet face-to-face, something like that. Bloody Tories and their privatisation. None of this would’ve happened if Labour were in power. Private services my ass, Mr Cameron.”

“Sure he’ll find a way to spin it,” Brian said.

They stopped when they reached the end of the ward. Nurses and surgeons rushed by in blue uniforms, all of them half-smiling at Brian as they passed, as if they all knew exactly who he was, what he’d witnessed, what he’d got out of.

“You’re a hero, you know?” Arif said. “That’s a positive, right?”

Brian turned around the corner into the next ward and looked over at the bed right by the window.

“Don’t feel like it,” he said.

All of the beds were empty and tucked in except for that one by the window, where Ainsley Pratt rested in his blue hospital pyjamas. His eyes were closed, and he was hooked up to all sorts of drips and wires. He had huge bandages around his torso.

But the little beeping of the heart monitor. That was all he needed to hear. All he needed to know Ainsley Pratt was alive.

Beside him were his mum and dad. His dad was skinny and black. Had a Nas T-shirt on which looked like it’d been in the wash a few too many times, baggy blue jeans. His mum was white and chubby, but pretty-faced, as she wore an inside out white T-shirt that she’d obviously just thrown on at the last second upon hearing about her son.

“Lucky you flew into Adrian when you did,” Arif said, as they stood by the entrance to Ainsley Pratt’s ward.

“Don’t feel all that lucky.”

“Yeah, well what you did took balls. Anything could’ve happened. You could’ve got killed. Ainsley could’ve got more than a slit tummy. And between you and me, I don’t think Adrian ever planned on slitting Ainsley’s throat. Woulda been too easy. He just held the knife there because he knew it’d deter you.”

“Geez,” Brian said, nodding his head at a short ginger nurse who wheeled some drinks past him and towards Ainsley’s bed. “Wish you’d been there to tell me that before I drove into the middle of nowhere.”

“You know what I mean,” Arif said. Popped another sweet into his mouth. “You did what you could.”

“We didn’t,” Brian said, the anxiety and stress of the entire case bubbling over from within. “Adrian West. How did we not know he was Damien Halshaw’s father? How could we not know that?”

Arif shook his head. “I… I don’t know. But we didn’t. There was nothing linking Adrian West and the Halshaw family. Not a thing. So we did what we could with what we knew.”

What we could with what we knew.

It wasn’t a good enough justification for Brian. Not a good enough answer. “Too many people have got away with things on this case. Too many people have gone under the radar. Yeah, we did what we could with what we knew. But what we could isn’t good enough anymore. We’ve failed these kids. Not just Beth Turner, Sam and Janine. We’ve failed all the kids Patrick Selter exploited. We’ve failed everyone Adrian West has ever hurt. We failed…”

He was about to say, “We failed Brad, and we failed Samantha,” but he couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge what had happened to them, not yet.

Arif simply frowned. Nodded at Brian. He understood what he meant. Understood completely.

Brian walked away from the ward where Ainsley was resting. Headed towards the lift area, the way out of this hospital.

“You’re going home, right?” Arif said.

The idea of going home still wasn’t right to Brian. There were still too many unanswered questions on this case. How Adrian had been sectioned, for one. What his real identity was. What had actually happened to the Halshaw family.

What was in the garage at the Halshaw household, and why Darren Hopps had been there.

“We’re talking about Ainsley Pratt as damage limitation,” Brian said.

He kept on walking.

“So?” Arif called.

Brian hit the button to call for the lift. Watched as the silver doors slid open almost immediately. “So it’s not right. We can’t treat three dead children as a victory just because we’ve saved one. I won’t settle until I understand.”

Arif looked like he was going to protest, and then he just nodded his head and sighed. “Your wife. She—”

“Girlfriend,” Brian cut in.

“Girlfriend, then. Go home to her. Take today off. Then come back tomorrow. We can speak to Jed then if he’s in a better condition. I’ll look into the Halshaws today. Get some more answers.”

Brian wanted to protest. He wanted to tell Arif to stop getting in his way. That he absolutely
had
to wrap this case up today or he’d go crazy.

But he was just too tired to argue anymore. And he knew Arif was right.

He nodded. Stepped into the drearily-lit elevator.

“Thanks, Arif,” he muttered.

The doors slid shut.

Brian was alone.

For the first time in a long time, he cried.

Brian planned to take the entire day off, but then he got a call that Jed Green was available to speak with the police for thirty minutes, so he figured he could make allowances.

Jed looked in better shape than Brian expected considering he’d tried to kill himself the night before. He was sat upright in his hospital bed, a couple of plump pillows propping him up. The room he was in was windowless, and the white walls resembled a prison cell more than a hospital room. There were no other beds in here, just that one. Security watched through the door as Brian stepped around to the foot of his bed, and Jed looked back at him with complete confidence, complete composure.

“It’d be good if we could just skip through the niceties here and get straight to the point. We know you covered for Adrian West. We know you picked him up with Sam Betts and took him to the Whittingham Hospital grounds in your car. We’ve confirmed Sam Betts’ DNA in your car, and we’ve found CCTV putting you between Westhaven Road and the old hospital.”