Alex Barclay - Darkhouse

‘Nothin’ to see here,’ he said to the deputy as he stepped into the cool night air.

D.I. O’Connor wrenched open the door to the interview room and charged down the corridor. He grabbed the phone from the front desk and punched in the number for Mountcannon station. He was instantly diverted back to his own switchboard. He ran for his car. The siren rang out through the city as he sped onto the road to the small village.

Joe was bent over the drawer in the kitchen, dragging his hands frantically through blister packs and bottles of medicine that would do nothing to stop the pain building all over his skull. He filled a glass of water and tried to drink, but the cold ripped through his teeth and made his head spin. His mind ran through images like slides from a projector, flashing white corpses and black blood. He tried desperately not to imagine Anna among them, injured or dead or... he couldn’t consider what else Duke Rawlins was capable of. Somewhere inside him, a shutter descended to preserve his sanity. He willed himself to think of every beautiful image he had of Anna — walking down the aisle, holding Shaun on her hip, painting their new apartment, standing in the hallway with her tousled hair when he was going to sleep in the spare room.

He wiped away tears and concentrated on the man he knew he would be forced to face. Duke Rawlins had gone to jail for a minor stabbing, but had got away with his vilest crimes. He had managed to get an alibi from a Police Chief that lasted him over ten years. Joe knew he was unlikely to ever find out why. What mattered now was that he had been sucked into the world of a psychopath. His actions on a sunny day in a New York park had brought this killer to his family and to the village they loved. Joe decided he deserved the pain he was feeling.

His one consolation was that he had already struck what he hoped was the final blow to Rawlins’ plan. He had stripped it of its reason for being. He had told him that his wife and his best friend had betrayed him. Then he realised, with a desperate surge of panic, that he had just created a situation where Duke Rawlins had nothing to lose.

The phone rang.

‘There is somebody waitin’ for you at the end of your garden,’ said Duke. ‘And I mean... Some. Body.’

Joe’s stomach spasmed. He ran, grabbing a torch and sprinting from the house into the dusk. He slipped on the damp grass, breaking his fall with his hand, pushing himself up again and running until he came close enough to see the figure lying face down by a tangle of wild bushes. He moved the beam slowly across the grass towards it. His breath caught, then slipped out as a small, guilty sigh of relief. Siobhán Fallon had been trying to run away when two arrows from behind had pierced her flesh. Blood pooled out from under her, showing up black against the grass. Joe recognised the slash on her arm. He remembered the way she had looked at it, surprise replaced by anger. Now he understood. It was the first wound from a man who had promised her the world to join his game, then taken it all back when her part was played.

The phone rang in Joe’s pocket. He pulled it out. After a silence that stretched for several seconds, Joe realised Duke was struggling to breathe he was laughing so hard.

‘Aw, man!’ he said, chuckling. ‘Aw, man.’ Then his voice dropped to a growl. ‘Happy now? It’s just you and me — one on one.’

Joe closed his eyes and spoke slowly through a mouth he could barely open.

‘In some dark corner of your mind, you think what you do is noble, that what you do when you hunt down and rape and murder is noble. You have your technique, your games, your bullshit. But when you strip away the technique, Rawlins, what’s left? Vengeance. Plain old vengeance. A low motivation that makes you no different to the next pathetic piece of shit and the next and the next.’

‘And if you got the chance,’ said Duke, ‘you wouldn’t put a bullet through my heart for what I’m about to do?’

‘What do you mean what you’re about to do?’ Then Joe pulled the phone away from his ear and shouted into it. ‘You know what? I’m not playing anymore, you cowardly, fucked-up son of a bitch!’ He threw the phone across the grass. His vocal cords were raw. Pain erupted across his face. He buried his head in his hands. Then he realised Duke Rawlins wouldn’t be getting any pleasure from all this if he wasn’t watching. So he stopped and looked around, focusing on the best vantage point he could see.

‘Don’t you want the file?’ he roared into the dark. ‘I’ve got the file.’

Suddenly a thick beam of light swept across him and out to sea.

‘Ah, for God’s sake,’ said O’Connor, leaning to his left, trying to watch the road and punch Frank’s number into the new mobile phone mounted by his radio. The tiny joystick in the centre was lost under his finger. ‘You fiddley little shit,’ he said, pulling into the side of the road. He took the phone in his hand and scrolled to Frank’s number. He dialled and got his message minder.

‘Where are you, you dozy...’ He instantly felt bad. He liked Frank. But right now, he wanted to slap him, even though this was something everyone had missed. O’Connor swerved back onto the road and put his foot to the floor. What happened to Katie was so wrong. A wave of sadness swept over him as he thought of a girl he knew only from a photograph. With D.I. Myles O’Connor at the helm, they had all let her down. His name would always be associated with a travesty of an investigation. All he could do now was get there in time to bring it to the only close that would do Katie Lawson justice.

Richie Bates had parked the squad car carefully behind a row of bushes outside Shore’s Rock. He was transfixed by Joe Lucchesi, cast in an eerie light from an upturned torch on his lawn, slamming something into the air and roaring. He saw him run for the lighthouse.

O’Connor screeched to a stop outside the station within an inch of the wall. He jumped out and ran for the door, about to slam the heel of his hand into the intercom. He stopped, took a deep breath and pressed the button gently. He waited. He rang again. He shouted for Frank. There was no answer.

Anna was slipping in and out of consciousness, slumped forward, folded over the rope that bound her to the ladder, weak with the pressure that cut through her stomach. Her knees had buckled, her feet desperate to take the weight. Bound by thin strips of wire, her wrists were curled tight behind her. A thick piece of tape stretched across her mouth.

‘Jesus Christ!’ said Joe, his voice cracking. Her eyes were closed, her body limp. He slipped the file into his jacket and pulled the tape from her mouth. He reached around the back of the ladder and pulled at the bloody rope. It quickly slipped free and hung in loose folds around her thighs. He tried to pull her close but his hand slid across her lower back with a sensation that turned his stomach. He drew his hand up slowly and, over her shoulder, saw his hand and forearm dripping with blood. He looked down. Her sweatshirt and the top of her jeans were soaked.

Suddenly, he heard footsteps, then a roar behind him. ‘Mom! Mom!’

He spun around. Shaun stood and stared at his parents, shocked into silence.

‘I told you to stay in the house,’ Joe yelled over the noise. Upstairs, the wind howled around the lantern house, slamming the door loudly back and forth.

Joe shouted at him, ‘Close the door up there.’

Joe tried to ease Anna onto the floor in the tiny space and had to kick the loose rope out from under her... rope that had come free with the smallest of efforts. A chill swept over him with a buried memory. Too. Easy. Anna spasmed against him and she was awake. She shook her head violently from side to side. Her eyes were screaming.