misguided nobodies, but we are the people with the vision for a better life. We’ve talked about how the world is, how we want to change it. They know what we stand for, and then suddenly someone is in the paper for writing graffiti about wanting to be a free man
John didn’t answer. He swallowed and licked his lips.
‘Lucy did well,’ Henry continued. ‘They put your address in the paper, but you knew that, John, because that’s how we were supposed to find you. Except that Lucy checked you out first, followed you around. She saw your little meets with your minders.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything, Henry?’ Gemma said, her voice filled with anger. ‘I slept with him. You told me to.’
‘Because it was a test of my message,’ Henry said. ‘What if my message was so strong that it could turn the mind of someone who came to us to betray us? And it worked. John is with us now, not against us. He proved that tonight.’
All eyes turned to John, who nodded, panting and scared. ‘I’m with you,’ he said.
‘So prove yourself,’ Henry barked, and pointed towards Ted. ‘You know what to do.’
Ted took a step back. ‘So Billy Privett was about your message, and my daughter, Alice?’
John stopped.
‘One of these people killed my daughter,’ Ted said, tears jumping into his eyes. ‘If he is your inspiration,’ and he pointed at Henry, ‘then I pity you, because he is just a murderer. And just as greedy as everyone else, because he hooked up with Billy Privett because of his money, nothing more.’
‘John, kill him,’ Henry said, his voice rising in pitch.
‘And then when Billy wanted to tell all, they silenced him. You know nothing of humanity. Who did you use as bait? Lucy?’
‘John!’
‘I know what happened to my daughter,’ Ted said. ‘And so will everyone else, because you didn’t get every copy of the video.’
Henry clenched his jaw and took a deep breath through his nostrils.
‘What happened, Henry?’ John said.
Henry pointed at Arni, and then grinned. ‘Tell him, Arni.’
Arni put his cane under Ted’s chin. When he spoke to John, his eyes never left Ted. ‘If the girl doesn’t want to join the party,’ he whispered, ‘sometimes it takes a little persuasion.’
Ted swallowed but didn’t move. A tear ran down his cheek. ‘You raped her, Mason,’ he said. ‘A sweet, intelligent, beautiful young woman.’ Then he snarled at Arni, ‘And you killed her, you cowardly bastard.’
Ted went to lunge at Arni, rage in his eyes, but Arni jabbed the tip of his cane into Ted’s neck and he stopped. His hands were balled into fists.
‘We drowned the evidence,’ Henry said. ‘We had to protect the group. No man is perfect, and Arni did wrong, but my humanity, my kindness, forgave him. You are just vengeance, nothing more. A little bundle of hate.’
‘I look at you and I see cowardice,’ Ted said.
‘John, kill him,’ Henry said.
John’s breaths were coming fast now. He looked at Henry and then at the knife that was next to Dawn’s sprawled body.
Ted was looking at him, shaking his head, eyes wide and imploring.
John looked towards Gemma, but she shook her head, her mouth set in anger. He cast his eyes to the sky and the stars seemed to swirl around him, some faded out by the moon, small wisps of cloud moving across it. Emotions welled up inside him as he was assailed by past memories. The thrill of his passing out parade, the early days in uniform. Arrests. Escapes. Deaths. The laughter of those who walked away. The tears of those who didn’t get justice. His first year undercover, living amongst the junkies and thieves, and how he came to like them, knowing that he could have ended up like that himself, just a few decisions in his life that went the right way. He had sat in judgement too much, and forgotten that everyone is the same, just people trying to make their way through life. He had ended up lost, not knowing why he was doing what he did. Going undercover had cost him a lot, he knew that. His marriage. His life. All the police had done was strip his life away. Henry hadn’t given him the answers, it was the group. The togetherness. The bond. It felt like he belonged somewhere.
John thought of Gemma. Her touch, her hair soft in his fingers. Her skin under his fingertips.
He looked round at the group again. Gemma had a tear in her eye. He had let her down, had kept secrets, but that was Henry’s way. They left their old life behind when they entered the group.
The knife was still sticky from Dawn’s blood as John picked it up. He pushed his way through the group and stood in front of Arni, who pressed on Ted’s shoulder with his cane, so that he went to his knees.
John took some deep breaths. He glanced back at Gemma, who was nodding slowly. Henry was grinning now.
John nodded to himself and moved towards Ted Kenyon.
Charlie watched, transfixed, as Ted confronted the group. He fought the urge to go across and help him, but Ted was outnumbered and Charlie wouldn’t change that. He needed to stay alive to get Donia. But it was such a waste, because the woman on the stone slab was obviously dead, and so nothing Ted could have done would have saved her.
He realised then why Ted had done it. Ted was acting as a distraction, because he couldn’t let another daughter die. It was a message to Charlie to get Donia out of there.
He looked at his phone again. There was one bar, just, but it kept flickering, the signal wavering. He scrolled through the numbers he’d dialled before and called Sheldon. He cupped his hand around the phone, and when it was answered, he whispered into it, ‘It’s Charlie. They’ve just killed someone, and now Ted is in danger. A farmhouse on Jackson Heights, with standing stones. Hurry.’
He couldn’t hear anything. He looked at his phone again to see that he’d lost the signal. He didn’t know how much of that had gone through.
Charlie looked back towards the group. They were looking at Ted. This was his chance to slip into the front door. He would be in view, but it seemed to be the only way.
He gripped the corner of the wall and edged forward slowly. Nobody looked over. As he moved towards the doorway, the light from the hall started to shine on him. The best thing to do was not to go too quickly, to make sure that nothing attracted their peripheral vision. He just kept on moving steadily, and then he was facing down the hallway, and those people at the stones were fifty yards behind him. He couldn’t see them, because he was facing away from them, and so he wouldn’t know if they could see him until he heard the shouts from behind.
When he stepped inside the house, he put his back to the wall, so that he didn’t make shadows across the grass. He edged along, his hand making light brushing noises as it ran along the wallpaper. The cottage smelled of stale food, boiled vegetables, and of piss and shit. He covered his mouth and nose with his arm as the stench made him recoil.
He looked along the hallway and saw that he was heading towards some kind of living room. There were ashtrays on the floor and cushions around the edges of the room. There was a clock on a mantel, but the hands were still. The way ahead was dark.
He didn’t have an exit plan, he knew that. What would he do when he got in there? What if the door into where Donia was held was locked? He hadn’t thought any of this through, and the more he moved inside the cottage, the more his escape routes narrowed. He had already seen from the outside that the room had a metal grille on the window. He thought again on what Ted had said, that Donia was just bait, for whatever it was that they wanted.
The thought of what they would do to her when she wasn’t required as bait anymore emptied his mouth of moisture.
