Mark Pearson - The Killing Season

She didn’t want to die like this.

And then she remembered what had happened to Len Wright and she had to fight to control her bladder. There was a creak as the door opened.

I had the phone on hands-free now and was driving back to Sheringham.

The rain had stopped. Blown over by the wind as suddenly as it had come. But that wind was getting stronger — I could feel it buffeting Kate’s car as I headed down the twisting coast road. It was blowing straight off the North Sea again, its fury unabated as it headed southwards from Siberia.

‘Amy, it’s Jack.’

‘For God’s sake, Jack. Is everything all right? I’ve been trying to call you and your phone has been engaged or out of signal.’

‘You know everybody in town, Amy, don’t you?’

‘Hardly. I know a few.’

‘Do you know Ruth Bryson?’

‘Not really. But I know her nephew.’

‘Who is?’

‘Solly Green.’

‘Solly Green the odd-jobs man?’

‘Yeah. You must have seen him — he does work up at the golf club.’

‘Does she have any other relatives?’

‘None that I know of.’

‘What about Solly? Does he have any sons or grandsons?’

‘Nope.’

‘How do you know him, then?’ I had to shout at the hands-free set because the wind was howling so loudly.

‘Professional capacity, Jack. I’ve had to represent him a number of times.’

‘On what charges?’

‘Assault, affray, actual bodily harm.’

‘He’s an old man, Amy.’

‘Don’t let that put you off. He’s as strong as an ox, Jack. Ask any of the police: it takes six of them to get him out of a pub when he starts scrapping — which he does often enough, even now. William Solomon Green is not a man you want to get on the wrong side of.’

‘Where does he live?’

‘With his aunt. Up in Weybourne in a field off Beach Road.’

I nodded.

‘Where’s Kate?’

‘I don’t know.’

I could see the golf club a few hundred yards ahead of me. ‘I’m going to the golf club, Amy. I’ll get back to you.’

I should have noticed the headlights in my rear-view mirror, but I didn’t.

I clicked the phone off and when the entrance appeared I swung hard left into it, over the railway crossing, into the car park and over it onto the practice range. My car wheels spun in the soft mud as I gouged my way across the turf to the maintenance hut.

I jumped out of the car and ran to the hut. It was locked but I had chucked the tyre lever on the passenger seat of the car when I’d left Ruth’s field and it didn’t take me long to get it open. A locksmith was certainly going to have some work to do in the area. I flicked on the light and walked in. The place was piled with maintenance equipment: tools, paint, hedge-trimming shears. Old furniture. There was also a mattress in the corner and a bin full of empty vodka bottles and beer cans. There was nobody in the hut, though. I was about to leave when something under a stack of folding chairs caught my eye. I bent down to have a look and saw that it was the heel of a shoe. I pulled the shoe out and looked at it.

It was one of Kate’s.

I slammed my hand against the frame of the door and looked out into the night. I was too late.

I stepped out of the hut, the wind rocking me. I looked up at the cliffs where it had all started seventy-three years ago. I pretty much knew it all now. Fat lot of good it did me.

My eyes blinked against the wind. I thought I had seen a dark malformed shape up on the hill, but when I blinked again there was nothing there. I started to walk towards it anyway. I couldn’t afford to be wrong.

I had run a few steps into the wind when a familiar figure stepped out from the side of the clubhouse and blocked my way.

Bill Collier.

‘I’ve been waiting for you, Delaney.’

‘I haven’t got time for this, Collier. Just step the fuck out of my way and you won’t get hurt.’

He slid the baseball bat that he was holding down into one hand. ‘I’m not the one who’s going to get hurt, you Irish fucker!’ he said. ‘And I am going to do more than just hurt you.’

I sighed, pulled my pistol from its shoulder holster and levelled it at him.

‘Like I say, I haven’t got time for you, Collier. Back off now or I will drop you.’

‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Jack,’ said a voice behind me.

I turned halfway round, still keeping Bill Collier covered with the pistol.

My mind raced back to what Kate’s uncle had said earlier in the day. About the police knowing more than they were letting on. Remembering him saying it with a smile. Knowing something that I didn’t. I had thought later that he’d been talking about Susan Dean. The fact that she was the granddaughter of Patrick Preston.

Right now, though, it was another police officer that I had to worry about. Standing there behind me was Sergeant Harry Coker, holding a shotgun in the business position.

I looked back at Harry Coker.

Calculating whether I had time to swing and fire my handgun before he had time to pull the shotgun’s trigger. Not liking the odds but not liking the alternative, either.

‘Do you know where Kate is?’ he asked, puzzling me.

‘No.’

‘I saw some movement up on the hills. Get going.’

I didn’t move for a moment.

‘Amy told me you were here, Jack. For God’s sake get going before it is too late! I’ll take care of this bag of shite.’

I nodded and took off at a run.

I could hear Bill Collier’s taunting laughter behind me as the sergeant approached him. I glanced back in time to see the laughing stop abruptly as Harry Coker smashed the stock of the shot gun straight into Collier’s forehead. He dropped like a stone.

I carried on running. Thanking God for my new morning running routine and breathing evenly as I worked my way to the edge of the golf course and up onto the slope that climbed to the clifftop. I saw a brief flash of light ahead against the dark outline of the coastguard hut that sat on top of the hill. I pumped my legs, feeling the heat in my thighs, burning and tightening as my lungs fought to force enough oxygen into my bloodstream.

As I neared the top I could see Solly Green was waiting for me outside the hut, holding Kate with one large hand. He was standing upright now and for the first time I realised just how big he was. The moon sailed clear of the clouds as they scudded east and I could see that he had a feral smile on his face and a challenging look in his eyes.

‘It’s all over now, Solly. Let her go.’

‘Not over yet, policeman. Not hardly.’

‘I read the letter.’

‘Then you know why it’s not over.’

‘Why didn’t she take the letter to the authorities like David Webb asked her to?’

‘Because she didn’t know.’

‘Didn’t know what?’

‘Didn’t know what was in the letter. Because she couldn’t read it. She weren’t even sixteen yet. He didn’t know the first thing about her. All he knew was to shag her and get her pregnant.’

‘She was pregnant?’

‘Yeah. He didn’t know that, either. Turns out I’m a Shannock after all,’ he said bitterly

‘You’re Ruth’s son?’

‘Yeah, and seventy-two years later she tells me it.’

‘Let Kate go, Solly. This has nothing to do with her.’

‘She’s a Walker. She’ll have to do.’

I pulled out the gun again.

‘Let her go, Solly.’

‘No.’

So I shot him.

He threw Kate to one side and charged at me.

I had shot him in the side and low. Mistake.

Should have shot to kill him. He was on me before I had time to fire again. He had an animal strength, I could tell that now. The strength of a madman. He wrapped his arms around me and slammed me to the ground. The gun fell out of my hand. I could see Kate’s desperate eyes watching as we struggled.