Simon Kernick - Severed

Maybe, just maybe, if I'd had more time for the men who'd been flung out of the army for avenging what had happened to me and the others that day in South Armagh, none of this would ever have happened. But as Bolt pointed out on his last visit two days ago, if they hadn't tried to take the law into their own hands by avenging it, none of it would have happened either. I suppose you can keep going back, can't you? If the IRA hadn't planted that bomb; if the British hadn't intervened in 1969; if Oliver Cromwell had been a nice guy… The point is, what's done is done, and that's the end of it.

Anyway, Bolt's here now. He hasn't brought wine gums or grapes this time, but he's looking pretty happy, which I'm thinking is probably a good sign and, as he sits in the chair next to the bed, I quickly get confirmation that it is.

'We're going to be taking the police guard away from your room,' he tells me, 'so, officially, you're no longer going to be in our custody.'

I ask him if that means I can go. 'Technically, you're still under suspicion of murder, so you're going to remain on conditional bail for now, and we're keeping your passport until the situation changes. But, yes, as far as I'm concerned, you can go.'

'Thank God for that. I was never any good in hospitals.'

Bolt smiles. It's a look that suits him, even though it accentuates his scars. 'Me neither. I was in one for six weeks once.'

'Really? What happened?'

'Car accident.'

'Is that how you got the…?' I tap my face.

He nods.

'It must have been a bad one.'

'It was.' He clears his throat. 'I can also let you know that we've made some arrests in connection with the rape and murder of three Eastern European prostitutes. The arrested men include a government MP and a prison governor.'

'Jesus.' I shake my head. 'I thought I'd met some of the worst this world has to offer. It seems I didn't even know the half of it.'

'There are a lot of bad people out there,' he admits, 'some of them in high places. But we always get them in the end.'

I think back to the packages of decaying human flesh, and the photograph Alannah had shown me. 'And it was Ferrie's evidence, the contents of the briefcase, that led to them being arrested?'

He nods.

'How the hell did Ferrie get hold of all this stuff?'

'We believe he was already blackmailing a prominent businessman in an earlier sex abuse scandal, and that this man was also involved in the case we're investigating now. It's conjecture, but we think Ferrie was watching the guy, and that's how he found out about it. He compiled quite a dossier, which included details of burial sites, so it wouldn't have been that difficult to have recovered the body parts.'

'What good are the body parts?' I ask. 'From a blackmailer's point of view?'

'Well,' he says with a sigh, 'most importantly, they contain DNA traces and other physical evidence connecting them to the person or persons who killed them. But they can also be used to identify the victims, which is useful in building up a picture of how the whole operation worked, and who was involved in it.'

I try to make myself comfortable in the bed. My shoulder still aches intensely.

'What happens now?' I ask him.

'The arrested men are being questioned. So far, no charges have been brought, but if they are involved and we have the evidence we think can convict them, they'll be charged with murder.'

'You mean, it's not cut and dried?'

He leans forward in his seat, and speaks quietly. 'Off the record, the evidence against them is strong. That's as much as I can say.'

'And what about the major? Can you tell me what's happening with him now?'

He sits back. 'He's still in custody in hospital, and since his arrest he's refused to say a word to any of us, but his silence hasn't helped him. He's now been charged with a number of offences, including murder, so he's not going anywhere fast.'

I wonder where they've got the evidence from for charges. As far as I know, nothing implicated the major at any of the murder scenes. And with his business partner dead, there is no-one else, bar me, who can point the finger at him. And all it is is my word against his. I think again of Alannah's part in all this, but when I ask about her, I draw a blank. Bolt doesn't seem to know about her – or, more likely, he's not saying anything. So she remains, as ever, a mystery.

There's another mystery, too. 'Was Ryan really using his own daughter as a contract killer? Ferrie said she was nicknamed the Vampire.'

'I don't think we'll ever know the full story there,' he tells me. 'The thing is, you often get unsolved murders attributed to mysterious contract killers, and there's been talk in police circles in Europe of a killer known as the Vampire, but most of it stems from the triple murder in Paris, the one where your former colleagues Maxwell and Spann were murdered. Because of the way the killer got in and out so efficiently without anyone seeing him, he's now being conveniently blamed for killings all over the place, which is probably more to do with lazy police work than anything else. It's certainly possible that Alice Ryan committed the Paris killings, but there's no hard evidence to prove it. What we do know is that at the time of the Paris murders, Maxwell and Spann were under investigation by Interpol on suspicion of drug and gun smuggling, and from what we've been able to piece together, both men had ended their business relationship acrimoniously with Major Ryan and gone into partnership with the man they died alongside, so the major may have a motive for having them killed.'

I lie back in the bed and shake my head. You go through life thinking you know so much, but in fact you know nothing at all. These last few weeks have been a revelation to me, and mainly for the wrong reasons.

Bolt gets to his feet. 'You're a very lucky man, Tyler. You've come up against some very dangerous people and you're still alive.'

I don't feel very lucky, but then again, I am still here. With another couple of scars to add to my total, granted, but still here nonetheless, and largely intact. Maybe I should be thankful.

'You're still going to need to report in to us regularly, and we're going to want to speak to you again at some point, so don't go off on any long trips round the country, OK?'

'What about short ones?'

Bolt pulls a business card from his pocket and hands it to me. 'Call me if you leave town.'

'Sure.'

We say our goodbyes, and he tells me to stay out of trouble.

Fat chance of that, I think.

An hour later, I walk out of the hospital with my few meagre possessions in a bag and start off down the street. The heatwave's gone now, and the temperature's back to normal for early September. The sky's a gunmetal grey, and it's drizzling fine rain. I think about getting a cab home, but then decide that, having been cooped up in a hospital bed for the past week, a long walk'll probably do me a lot of good.

I haven't gone thirty yards when a car pulls up beside me and a very attractive blonde woman pokes her head out of the open window.

'Need a ride anywhere?' asks Alannah, the traces of an Eastern European accent still there, but less noticeable than before.

As usual, curiosity gets the better of me. 'You'll tell me who you really are this time?'

She smiles invitingly. 'Promise.'

The car's a Toyota Corolla, and not a particularly new one either. As I get inside, she pulls away from the kerb.

'I heard they released you.'

'You heard right,' I answer, not wanting to make it easy for her. Where Alannah's concerned, I still feel a sense of betrayal, although given the other people who've put the knife into me these past few weeks, hers is fairly small-scale.

'I also wanted to thank you properly for saving my life,' she adds.