'I'm Emma Neilson, of course; the woman you slept with. And this…' she motioned with the gun towards the door, beyond which Thadeus continued to moan loudly, 'this is my father.'
She took a sip of wine, enjoying my reaction, oblivious to the security guard lying dead on the floor a few feet away. It made me wonder how I could have been so blind to the blackness within her, how my instincts could have failed me so utterly.
'I suppose you thought he only went for kids, didn't you?' she continued. 'Well, they've always been his favourite, I have to admit, but he was married once. To my mother. Only she died in a car crash. They called it an accident, but I don't think so. I think he had a hand in it.' She walked past the body, still keeping the gun trained on me, until she was a yard from the door and looking through it. 'Isn't that right, Daddy? You had Mummy killed so you could have me? Because you're a dirty fucking pervert.' There was an undertone of bitterness in her voice, but also a measure of triumphalism, as if she was only now finally asserting her power.
'Help me, love,' I heard him say. 'Get an ambulance, please.'
She ignored him, turning her gaze back to me. Her face no longer looked pretty. It looked vicious. 'Do you know something?' she demanded. 'He started fucking me when I was eight years old. Eight. That's how old I was. And every time he did it, he'd give me an expensive present. A piece of jewellery; an antique doll. Once, when I'd been a particularly good little girl, he even bought me a miniature Aston Martin to drive round the garden in. Can you believe that?'
I didn't say anything. I didn't honestly know what I could say.
'And then when I was sixteen, and I had more presents than any girl could know what to do with, he stopped. Just like that. I'd got too old for him. He continued to give me the gifts, of course, and made very sure that his beloved daughter received everything she could ever want, but the sex finished. I was damaged goods. And he never gave me one fucking word of explanation, either. He simply carried on like nothing had happened. Bastard.' She spat the last word into the air, and I had the feeling it could have been aimed at any man.
'Emma, please,' moaned Thadeus. 'Finish him and get me some help.'
She ignored him. 'But what my father doesn't realize is that these days he's the one who's damaged goods. He means nothing to me.' Her words faltered slightly at this point, and I got the feeling that perhaps in some terrible way he meant far more to her than she was letting on. 'The only reason I even talk to him is because he's got what I want. The company. And now you've come along and things look like they might work out just right. Dennis Milne — fugitive from the law, brutal murderer — breaks in here, murders Eric Thadeus and his security guard before Thadeus's daughter overpowers him and shoots him with his own gun.'
'They'd never believe you,' I said, only too aware how plausible her story sounded.
'Oh yes they will. Your DNA's going to be discovered at the murder scene of Simon Barron, on his clothes, along with some of your hairs that I managed to remove the other night when you were asleep. It's also going to be found at the house where four people died last night, if it hasn't been already. I'll tell the police that both DCI Barron and I were some way to outing you as the man behind the murders of Khan and Malik. You killed Barron, and now you've come here to kill me.'
I felt my throat constrict. She'd played me perfectly. 'Motive?' I asked, aware that the word came out like a croak.
'Who knows what goes on in the diseased mind of the killer?' she replied, without much in the way of irony.
I watched her carefully, and had no doubt at all that she'd done what she claimed with my DNA. I'd always known she was switched on, and I think somewhere in the back of my mind I'd also known that certain things about her didn't add up — the amount of money she had; the sketchy family background; the fact that, in the end, she'd done everything to point my search for the truth in the direction of Nicholas Tyndall — but I simply hadn't wanted to suspect someone so pretty and vivacious. Someone I'd slept with. For an instant my thoughts flashed back to Coleman House and Carla Graham. I'd made that mistake before.
'So, it was you who killed Barron?'
'He was getting too close,' she said simply, giving a bored shrug. I could see she was about to end this conversation.
'But what I can't understand,' I said, playing for time, 'is if you're some big-shot heiress, how come you were working as a reporter for some provincial paper?'
'We needed someone on the inside, particularly given the size of the investigation into the cafe shootings, and I've always been good at writing. It was just a matter of greasing a few of the right palms to get me a job on the Echo. Nothing's very difficult when you've got money.'
I thought back to my initial call to the newspaper. 'No wonder the guy who answered the phone at the Echo didn't like you.'
She snorted derisively. 'Do you think I care? I'm the one with all the cards, Dennis. And I've played you all for fools. Even Tyndall, with his pathetic threats and silly little dolls, didn't scare me. In fact I found it quite exciting. And all I had to do was flutter my eyelashes at these hardened coppers and every one of them fell for my charms. Including you. The brutal hitman.'
I managed a half-smile, which I think annoyed her. 'Brutal? I don't begin to compete with you.'
'No,' she said, stretching out her gun arm, ready to fire. 'You don't.'
I willed myself to remain calm as I continued to look for my moment. 'How did the whole thing begin? I know it was with the therapy, but what did Jason Khan know? And why did he and Ann die so long after she'd exposed Blacklip for who he was?'
She shook her head dismissively. 'Sorry, Dennis, but I can read you like a book. You're just trying to delay things and I haven't got a lot of time. Comfort yourself with this: for an old man, you were very good in bed, and it was fun to sleep with another killer.'
And then she fired: three carefully aimed rounds that slammed into my chest like lead punches.
I gasped as my body jackknifed, and I felt myself rolling sidewards.
'Now it's your turn, Daddy,' I heard her say, her voice soft and gentle, and through the thin slits of my eyes I saw her turn and face her father in the doorway, raising the gun to finish him off too.
'Emma, no,' he pleaded. 'What are you doing? I love you.'
His voice had taken on a desperate urgency, and suddenly something in her expression changed. A ripple of doubt crossed her face, weakening the killing glare. There was something else there, too. It might have been love; it might have been hate. It was impossible to tell which, but when I think about it now, I'm convinced that it was both.
The gun in her hand shook ever so slightly, and for a long tense moment, she hesitated.
And consequently never noticed as I sat up, still reeling from the force of the bullets, the worst of which had been absorbed by the flak jacket Tyndall had given me, and pulled the.45 from where it had been concealed in the front of my waistband underneath my jacket, lifting it two-handed in her direction.
'Just one more obstacle, Emma,' I said as she turned my way, her face stretched tight with alarm.
She mouthed the word NO, the syllable seeming to go on for ever, and started to raise her gun.
Which was the moment I pulled the trigger, realizing that in the end she deserved it as much as any of them.
The bullet struck her right in the middle of the chest, her white dress erupting in red as the shot lifted her off her feet and slammed her against the wall. Her own gun went off, the bullet ricocheting off the floor and flying up into the ceiling, and then I fired a second time, this time hitting her in the face and blowing the back of her skull away. A huge chum-like mixture of blood, brains and bone shot three feet up the wall as Emma slid down it, her face disappearing under a falling red curtain.
I heard Thadeus cry out in pain, grief, maybe even relief, but the cry was weak and there were still questions he had to answer.
Staggering to my feet, I took two deep breaths and walked over to the door. He was leaning back on the door frame where I'd left him, still clutching his leg. Blood stained the tiles and ran in a steady stream across the kitchen floor. His face was pale.
'You've killed her,' he whispered. 'My baby.'
'She was no one's baby, Thadeus. You made sure of that. She was a monster, and one you created. I almost wish I'd let her kill you.'
'She wouldn't have killed me,' he snarled through gritted teeth. 'Couldn't you see that? She loved me. She
