Heathen/Nemesis (22 page)
Authors: Shaun Hutson
Questions. But no answers.
Donna closed her eyes again.
Her husband had been having an affair with Suzanne Regan.
That was about the only other thing she knew for sure. She wondered how the other woman was involved in this chain of events. Had she been to these places
with
Chris? Had he shared information with her he wouldn’t share with his own wife?
with
Chris? Had he shared information with her he wouldn’t share with his own wife?
Donna clenched her fists beneath the water. The knowledge of his affair still ate away at her, and it was knowing that she could never speak to him about the affair that hurt most.
No, not hurt,
angered
her.
angered
her.
He had escaped her wrath when he died. Both of them had. They’d been wiped off the face of the earth before they could taste her fury. That was what truly enraged her.
She sat up, splashing her face with water, catching a glimpse of herself in the steam-clouded mirror. Her reflection looked distorted. She hauled herself out of the bath, pulled on a bath-robe and wandered through into the sitting-room. She picked up the phone and reached reception, asking them for the phone number of the Dublin National Gallery.
Perhaps if she could speak to Mahoney again, tell him what happened out by Mountpelier that morning, he would tell her more.
She got the number, thanked the receptionist then jabbed the digits, reading them carefully from her pad.
A voice told her she’d reached her chosen number.
‘Can I speak to Gordon Mahoney, please?’ she said.
She was asked to hang on for a moment.
Donna shifted the receiver to her other ear and began doodling on the pad.
The other voice returned.
Gordon Mahoney had gone home about an hour ago.
‘Could you give me his home number, please?’ she asked.
The voice at the other end of the line obliged and Donna pressed down on the cradle to sever the connection before ringing the new number.
She waited for the phone to ring at the other end.
Waited.
It was finally picked up.
‘Gordon Mahoney, please,’ she said.
Silence at the other end.
‘Hello.’
Nothing.
‘Gordon, it’s Donna Ward.’
She heard the click as the phone was replaced.
‘Shit,’ she murmured and punched the same digits.
Dead line.
She heard nothing but the endless whine over the wire. After a moment or two she replaced the receiver.
It was dusk by the time she checked out of the Shelbourne; night was approaching rapidly. The sun left a red stain behind as it retreated below the horizon.
The taxi took her to the airport. By the time the plane rose into the air it was dark.
Donna closed her eyes as it climbed through turbulence.
The flight to Edinburgh should take less than an hour.
Forty-Seven
The pistol was pressed against his cheek so hard that it almost broke the skin.
The sudden cold chill against his warm flesh woke him but, as Martin Connelly tried to sit up, shocked into consciousness by the sensation, the muzzle of the .45 was jammed against his face with incredible force.
In the darkness, and still half-asleep, he was unable to focus immediately on the figures standing around his bed.
All he was aware of was the deathly cold of the gun barrel. For a fleeting second he wondered if he might be dreaming, but this time he had woken
into
a nightmare.
into
a nightmare.
Connelly blinked myopically, trying to clear his gaze, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. He felt his bowels loosen, felt the hairs on his neck and forearms prickle as he saw the face of the first intruder, the one who held the gun.
‘Get up,’ hissed Peter Farrell, stepping back. He kept the gun pointed at Connelly’s head the entire time, the barrel never more than inches from his face. The muzzle seemed to expand, to grow into a vast black tunnel before his eyes.
‘Move,’ Farrell continued, grabbing Connelly by one arm and jerking him towards the door of the bedroom.
The other man picked up the dressing gown lying on the end of the bed and threw it at Connelly. He looked at Farrell as if asking permission to put it on, to cover his nakedness; although, at the moment, decency was the last of his worries. Nevertheless he pulled it on and padded out onto the landing. Farrell kept close by, the gun still held at his head.
‘I told you before I don’t know anything,’ Connelly said quietly, his voice cracking. His mouth felt dry, as if someone had filled it with sand.
Farrell grabbed the back of his hair and yanked his head back, forcing the gun hard against his temple.
‘I didn’t believe you then and I don’t believe you now. I want some fucking answers,’ he hissed.
‘For Christ’s sake ...’
He was cut short by a shove in the back that nearly made him overbalance and fall down the stairs.
He shot out a hand and caught the banister, steadying himself. On shaking legs he began to descend.
Farrell and the other man followed him.
‘Have you been in contact with the woman?’ Farrell wanted to know.
‘Which woman?’
‘Ward’s widow, who do you think?’
‘Why should I have been?’
Farrell drove a foot hard into the base of Connelly’s spine, the impact knocking him off balance. He toppled forward, pitching off the steps. He crashed against the wall then fell, rolled the last few stairs to the hallway.
Farrell was on him in an instant, dragging him upright, the gun held beneath his chin.
‘Have you been in contact with her?’ he repeated.
‘No,’ Connelly said, hurt by the fall. ‘Look, I swear to you, I don’t know anything.’
Farrell pushed the agent’s head back sharply, banging it against the wall with a sickening thud. For a second Connelly thought he was going to pass out, but a hard smack across the face kept him conscious. Farrell grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him towards a closed door leading off the hallway.
‘What are you doing?’ said Connelly, realizing which room he was being shoved towards.
‘Move,’ snapped Farrell.
Connelly was about to push the door when it was opened from the inside and he found a third man there.
Farrell pushed the agent inside and was joined by the other intruder.
All four men stood in the room and Farrell raised the pistol once more so that it was aimed at the agent’s head.
‘What the fuck are you playing at?’ Connelly babbled timorously.
‘We’re not playing, Connelly,’ Farrell told him and pulled him across the hot and clammy room.
The kitchen was large but the air was warm and dry.
Connelly didn’t know how long the rings of the electric cooker had been on but one of them was almost white-hot.
Forty-Eight
‘No,’ Connelly shouted as he saw the glowing rings and felt their heat.
Farrell took a step towards him and swung the butt of the .45 hard, catching him across the forehead.
The agent went down heavily, a gash on his head weeping blood down the side of his face. He rolled on the floor, moaning, and Farrell nodded to one of his companions.
‘Shut him up,’ he said. The second man reached into his pocket and pulled out a long length of what looked like ribbon. He slipped it around Connelly’s chin and tugged it tight across his mouth, gagging him, then he dragged the agent upright. The other man moved over to join them, gripping Connelly’s right arm so that his hand was groping at empty air. Farrell held the gun steady and looked directly at Connelly.
‘I’m only going to ask you these questions once,’ he said, ‘so listen. When I ask you to answer, the gag will be removed. If you attempt to shout for help, I’ll kill you. Do you understand?’
Connelly nodded, the action making his head ache. Blood had begun to run into the corner of his eye and he blinked to try and clear his vision.
The heat from the cooker was intense and sweat already beaded his forehead and face.
‘Where is the book?’ Farrell said.
The gag was pulled free.
‘I don’t know,’ Connelly said, his eyes filling with tears of terror. ‘I don’t ...’
The gag was pulled tightly back into position.
Farrell nodded.
The man holding Connelly’s arm pushed it forward, forcing it down onto the largest of the electric rings, holding it there.
Searing, excruciating agony ripped through his hand and up his arm until it seemed to engulf his entire body. His scream was muffled by the gag; the sound was like a child shrieking inside a locked room.
As the hand was held on the blazing ring, the stench of burning flesh was clearly noticable in the hot air.
As the hand was finally pulled away, flesh stuck to the ring as if welded there by the heat. Tiny pieces of skin shrivelled and cooked on the red-hot ring and wisps of smoke rose into the air.
Connelly felt himself losing consciousness but he was aware of being slapped hard across the face, even if the pain of the blow was negligible compared to the mind-numbing suffering he felt from his burned hand. Blisters rose immediately, some of them in the shape of the ring. He felt as if his entire arm and hand were ablaze; as if someone had turned a blowtorch on them.
‘Where’s the fucking book?’ Farrell snarled, moving closer. ‘What did Ward do with it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Connelly sobbed, tears mingling with the blood and sweat on his face. There was a dark stain on his dressing gown and he could feel urine running freely down his leg.
‘Tell me,’ Farrell said, glaring at him.
‘He never told me about his work. I swear on my fucking life I don’t know where it is.’ His eyes bulged madly in their sockets, like bloodshot ping-pong balls threatening to burst from his skull. ‘I don’t know anything about the book, I don’t even think he’d started writing it.’
Farrell looked puzzled but merely nodded to his companion.
The gag was tugged back into place, cutting off Connelly’s exhortations for mercy. The muffled scream rose in his throat again as he felt the heat growing more intense, the closer to the blazing rings his hand was pulled.
Three inches.
He would rather died on the spot than endure that pain again.
Two inches.
The man tugged harder, using his immense strength to force Connelly’s hand down towards the large ring.
One inch.
‘Where’s the book?’ Farrell said again.
As his hand was crushed down onto the red-hot ring again, Connelly’s body jerked convulsively and so savagely that the man holding him up was almost knocked off balance, but he stood his ground while his companion pressed down on the limb.
Blisters which had formed the first time now burst, weeping clear fluid onto the burner which hissed like an angry snake. The whole hand turned a deep shade of scarlet, the flesh itself heating up. Connelly, barely conscious now, felt as if his blood was boiling, as if his bones were calcifying under the incredible heat. Pain hit him in one intolerable wave and he blacked out.
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