Choked

The two police officers had disappeared. Her glass was empty. Glen reappeared behind her. She turned. He really was good-looking, she’d give him that. Talented and endowed. But expendable. There were plenty more where he had come from.

‘I’ve got to go out, darling. Wait for me.’

He would. As long as she was paying him.

34

Michael Sloane stared at the laptop’s screen and willed its secrets to appear before him. He punched more keys. Waited. Nothing.

He stretched and looked round. Dee was silent, which wasn’t unusual. He knew where she would be, who with and what she would be trying to do. And he had a good idea how far she would get, too.

He didn’t mind her playing her games. Took part in them, even, encouraged them, like their psychiatrist had told him to do. It kept her grounded. Happy. And, if he was honest, he enjoyed them too.

Michael put it all out of his mind and concentrated on the laptop. His keyboard skills were good; usually his fingers just glided. But on this laptop, it wasn’t easy. The keyboard was old, the letters kept sticking. He made mistakes. And when he made mistakes, he got angry with himself. And that wouldn’t do at all.

So he controlled the anger, accepted that it wasn’t his fault and kept working. It was on here somewhere. It had to be. Locations, intentions, plans. How they were going to attack, when and where. Everything. All he had to do was find where Hibbert had hidden it.

He hit another key. It stuck. Blocked him entry to where he had been going.

He sat back, about to shout at the screen, but caught himself. No. This wasn’t working. He had to change his approach.

He closed his eyes.

What would I do, where would I hide something, if I was Jeff Hibbert?

He thought himself into Hibbert’s head. What did he like? What were his interests? His ex-wife. Everyone knew that. He could bore for England talking about her.

He opened his eyes. Photos. That was it. He checked the hard drive. And there they were. He opened them. Smiled. Helen Hibbert in various stages of undress, sometimes on her own, sometimes with various partners, often more than one. Sloane laughed.

Dirty bastard …

He scrutinised the photos, checked the files they were in. Kept scrolling through.

And found the folder he was looking for.

He sat back, reading. Once he had finished, he smiled. How obvious …

He reached for his phone. It was easier to phone rather than shout. Dee answered.

‘The Golem’s with you.’ A statement, not a question.

Dee said nothing.

‘Tell him I’ve got a job for him.’ He looked at the laptop. ‘Tell him he’s going hunting.’

35

Marina stood on the beach at Wrabness, reading the email. Now she knew why she had been sent here. And it wasn’t the reason she had first thought.

Stuart Sloane. Somehow this was all connected to Stuart Sloane.

She walked upriver along the beach, putting the dilapidated farmhouse behind her. The trees were thickening, blocking out the sunlight as she went. The beach huts were set back from what passed for sand, up on stilts, accessible only by wooden steps. Most of them looked occupied, people there for Easter. Some seemed to have permanent occupants. Marina thought it a curious place for a holiday, and certainly to live. But then the place was forever tainted for her.

This is everything you need to know, the email had said. Read it.

As she walked, she worked through in her mind what she had just read.

Once upon a time, there was a little boy called Stuart Milton. Stuart was different. He was special. He had learning difficulties. He was socially awkward, missed the cues other kids didn’t, was out of step with the other kids by at least one beat. But a good kid. A nice kid.

A harmless kid.

He had never known his father, who had left when Stuart was very young. His mother, Maureen Milton, had taken any job that came along, anything to feed herself and her son. She ended up working for the Sloanes, a local landowning family. They, as the brochure said, ‘had farming concerns, and were the producers and harvesters of most of the seafood from the area, particularly cockles, mussels and oysters’. Maureen worked in their house, cleaning and serving. She did work hard, we’ll give her that. And she made herself popular with most people. One in particular.

Jack Sloane was the head of the family. He had just lost his wife, so he was in a bit of an emotional state. He liked Maureen and asked her to move in. She brought her son with her. Now Jack Sloane liked Maureen a lot, and let her know it. For her part, she was happy to respond to his attentions. Jack proposed marriage and Maureen accepted. The wedding was arranged and Stuart was adopted. He was now officially a Sloane.

So far, so happy ever after, Marina thought. But then the tone of the email had changed, become angrier.

But not everyone shared Jack and Maureen’s delight. Michael and Deanna, his son and daughter, for instance. Because they saw Maureen for what she really was, a common gold-digging bitch, and they thought her son was a thick, useless mong. They told them so before the wedding. And how did Jack respond? Threatened them with disinheritance.

The next part of the email was a link to a local newspaper from sixteen years ago. Marina had opened it. It was headlined: Bloodbath in Wedding Day House of Horror.

The article told how the Sloanes had enjoyed a perfect wedding day and couldn’t have been happier. The following day, however, the police were called to the scene of one of the biggest and bloodiest massacres they had ever come across. The house had been destroyed. Every ornament smashed, every piece of furniture upended, gutted, broken. Phone lines ripped out. The family had been stalked through the house by a maniac with a shotgun. Jack Sloane and his new wife were both dead. The son and daughter, Michael and Dee, had been shot and left for dead. One of the family’s workers, Graham Watts, had phoned the police to raise the alarm. There had been horror on finding who was discovered holding the shotgun: Stuart Sloane.

Marina could remember the rest. Stuart Sloane was arrested and charged. Although he was technically an adult, his defence lawyers claimed he was unfit to stand trial as he was not mentally competent. They brought in as many psychologists and psychiatrists as they could afford, to assess Stuart and back up this claim. To diminish his responsibility, to plead for him as mentally unfit.

It was damage limitation and the defence knew it. The evidence, although circumstantial, was too damning. They were in no doubt that he had done it. All they wanted was for him to avoid prison. Serve his time somewhere that could help him, not harm him.

And that was why Marina knew the story so well, even without the email, because it was one of the first cases she had been assigned after leaving college. She knew that newly qualified psychologists were rarely presented with opportunities like this, and if she didn’t mess it up, there would be a lot more work coming her way. It was also an opportunity to show just what she could do. But she remembered it for another reason.

She hadn’t believed Stuart Sloane was guilty.

She remembered him being led into the psychologist’s office in HMP Chelmsford. Everyone referred to him