The Sister(119)

He retrieved the baseball bat he’d left outside by the door. When he’d first stolen it, he knew it would come in handy one day. Not quite the use he had in mind for it, but it still fitted in with his overall plans.

One of the men cried out for an end to his misery. The other one was already dead.





Afterwards, he calmly took a mobile phone from one of his victims and dialled 999.

‘Stay here, kid. The police are coming to get you out of here, okay?’ The boy nodded quickly, obediently not looking at him.

On the way out, he retrieved his knife from the dog’s skull. Stuck so tight, he had to use his boot to hold the head in place as he used both hands to twist and wrench the blade free.

He surveyed the carnage. A voice was in his head. You risked everything to save a kid!

‘It isn’t just one kid though, is it? It’s for all the other kids those deviants have kidnapped, and for every kid they would have,’ he said quietly. He shook his head to clear the voice.

You’re going soft.





Chapter 103



West Lothian Police HQ, Scotland.





Detective Michael Brady entered DCI Caulson’s office with a report. The DCI didn’t turn to look at him. He stood with his hands folded behind his back looking out of the window onto the car park below. Brady was the new, boy, the bright young thing transferred just a few weeks ago from London. Brady sensed the DCI hadn’t been particularly impressed with him so far. This could be his chance to shine.

‘I have the pathologist’s initial findings, sir.’

‘Good, leave it on my desk. Shut the door behind you.’

Brady raised his eyebrows, and with a shrug, did as he was told. He could tell from the brusque manner of his dismissal the chief was in a foul mood. He dropped the report into the in-tray. As he reached for the door handle, Caulson spoke again.

‘Read it for me, Brady, and not the whole bloody thing. Just pick out the relevant points for me.’ The DCI continued looking out of the window.

Brady turned away from the door and approached the desk to retrieve the document. Reaching for it, he realised Caulson could see his every move reflected in the glass against the darkness outside.

‘You’ve read it already, I take it, Brady?’

‘Yes, sir, I have.’

‘Then don’t just read it, tell me what it says.’

Brady cleared his throat. ‘Well, sir, it confirms the two men were basically beaten to death and violated with a large blunt instrument. We recovered a baseball bat from the scene. In fact, it was protruding.’ The chief turned away from the window; he was a pinch-faced man with a stern expression and abrasive manner. Tall and thin, he looked ten years older than his sixty years. He wasn’t popular, and Brady was finding out why.

‘Sit down, Brady, I know all that already. What else do we have that is relevant to finding this character?’

‘Well, there’s evidence he actually finished the second man off with the bat, by forcing it so far into him it ruptured everything in its path.’

‘You think that’s relevant?’

‘I do, sir, it tells us that we are dealing with someone who isn’t afraid to inflict—’

The DCI did not let him finish. ‘So what sort of person are we looking at? The father of a previous victim looking for revenge; a butcher or a psychopathic baseball fan? Tell me about the bat.’

Brady had suddenly become very hot under the spotlight of Caulson’s glare. The man wouldn’t let him settle, kept catching him off guard. He realised gaining Caulson’s respect was going to be nigh on impossible. If he wanted to impress him at all, he’d have to come up with something smart. And quickly.

‘The baseball bat has letters carved in just above the handle, spaced out with each one exactly one third of the way round, so the shaft, if rotated, says variously FKJ, KJF or JFK. It’s extremely unlikely the initials belong to the assailant. It’s also extremely unlikely – given its low value –it’s been reported lost or stolen.’

‘Anything else?’

‘The bat wasn’t used to beat the men. Strangely enough, it seems he preferred to do that with his fists. He wore gloves. Apart from tiny pieces of leather scuffed off them and some footprints, we don’t have anything else at all.’

‘We got nothing from the kid I take it?’

‘The man ordered him not to look, but he did see him. He told us there was only one man, and that was about it. He’s a wee bit traumatised as you can imagine at only seven years old, so I don’t—’

‘Then don’t.’ He withered Brady with a harsh glare; he didn’t like how the Sassenach tried to ingratiate himself with the use of a Scot’s term. ‘Any wee ideas on how he tracked them down?’

‘Not at this stage. He could have been watching them for weeks. We’re checking out the computers we found and mobile telephone records. We also found recording equipment, DVDs and so on. Early indications are they were part of a paedophile ring.’

‘Sounds like this vigilante did us all a favour.’ He lifted a cigarette from the inside pocket of his jacket and put it between his lips. He didn’t light it, but he drew through the tobacco deeply. He caught the look Brady had given him. ‘Trying to give it up, it’s not easy in this job.’ He exhaled with a sigh. ‘So, in a nutshell, at the moment we don’t know if it was revenge, a hate crime, or what the motive was. All we have on him, is he’s likely got bruised knuckles.’ He drew hard on the cigarette. ‘Getting back to those initials.’