Fifty Fifty (Detective Harriet Blue #2)(55)

Whitt hated to admit it, but he was beginning to wonder if Sam Blue was exactly where he belonged.





Chapter 83


IT WAS A massacre plan. As the missing page emerged, my heart sank lower and lower. Before, when the diary had been mainly praise for spree killers, research into bombs and weaponry, I could underestimate the diarist’s plans for the people of Last Chance Valley. But I could see now this killer planned to make sure no one survived.

The buildings of the main street made two identical columns down the centre of the page, on the right the post office, a hardware store, a tiny cafe and a supermarket, among others. On the left, across the street from the post office, lay Snale’s tiny police station, a single-storey square with a single interrogation room, a single cell, desk space for two and the armoury. Next came the pub with its rear car park, a farming supply store and a mechanic’s, also with a wide asphalt parking lot.

Four main buildings, shoulder to shoulder, forming two identical blocks.

Around the buildings, the diarist had marked a dotted line, the path of his plan.

Step one: Kill Officer Snale in police station. Acquire weapons.

Step two: Plant device #1 in the car park behind pub. Set timer.

Step three: Take the semitrailer from the mechanic car park and use it to block off bottom of the main street, creating a U-shape to trap victims.

Step five: Plant devices #2 and #3 in semitrailer. Set timers.

Step four: Get John Destro and secure upper balcony of the post office.



Kash, Snale and I looked over the faint map, following the steps.

‘This is terrifying,’ Snale murmured. A thin sheen of sweat glistened at her hairline.

‘You’re the tactics guy,’ I told Kash. ‘What do you think?’

A brief smile flashed over his features. A truce between us, his mass-casualty expertise finally coming into play.

‘It’s a single-man operation,’ he said. ‘All the steps are sequential. There’s nothing here to indicate that there are two people acting simultaneously. Whoever he is, he’s pretty confident. Step one – taking out you, Vicky, as you man the police station. That’s no mean feat. I don’t imagine he’s just going to waltz in there and you’re going to hand him the keys to the armoury.’

‘Unless he’s already got a gun,’ Snale said. ‘And he’s just going to surprise me and upgrade from whatever he has to one of the semiautomatics.’

There was a moment of tense silence. Kash put a finger on the paper and traced the dotted line.

‘He then goes and plants what I can only imagine is one of his bombs in the car park behind the pub. He takes a semitrailer and uses that to block off the street, effectively making a trap. This first bomb must be to drive everyone out of the pub, into the street. The truck explodes, blocking off an escape that way. Everyone is herded into this space.’ He pointed to the centre of the map, the U-shape made by the buildings and the burning truck. ‘They’re rounded up like cattle. The road up past the post office is the only way out. And from the balcony, with a semiautomatic, he’s ready to pick them off one by one as they run for their lives.’

‘It’s …’ Snale was lost for words. She pursed her lips.

‘It’s very sophisticated,’ Kash finished for her, looking over the page. ‘It uses crowd-herding tactics to maximise the death toll. He’d have learned that from the spree killers he’s studied. Anticipate where the victims will cluster naturally. Predict their movements when they panic, and channel them into the line of fire by securing the exits. It’s interesting, though, that he doesn’t channel the survivors of the initial blasts into a final explosion. He wants to shoot them down one at a time.’

‘It’s the same reason he left the note on the steering wheel,’ I said. ‘The same reason he was pacing at the site of Theo Campbell’s death. He wants to give them time to think about what’s happening to them. Time to …’ I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. To feel …’

‘Sorry,’ Kash said.

‘Sorry for what?’ Snale said.

I flipped through the diary. The only thing I could think that united all the spree killers in the diary was their rage. Their desire to be punishers.

I didn’t want to die, but I would have no choice. Vengeance is the only path.

I will get you all back.

You could have stopped this.



‘ You were right, Harry,’ Kash said. ‘You were right from the start. It’s not terrorism. He’s not trying to make a political statement. To get people to act. This is pure vengeance. He wants the people of Last Chance Valley to feel sorry for whatever it is they’ve done to cause this.’

‘What have we done?’ Snale asked. There were tears in her eyes now. She sighed helplessly. I watched her leave the table for the bathroom, swiping at her cheeks.

I turned back to the map. ‘The plan really seems to be all about maximising casualties,’ I said. ‘So we can assume it’ll go off when the most people possible are at the local pub, if the killer hasn’t abandoned his plan.’

‘I don’t see why he would have,’ Kash said. ‘He knows we have the diary. But he doesn’t know we have the plan page. He has no reason to suspect that the plan has been compromised.’