Shaun Hutson - Heathen/Nemesis

She found the first of the photos sandwiched between a Medical card and a bank statement.

It showed Chris and Suzanne together.

Pale. Unsmiling.

Donna swallowed hard and looked at another.

It was of Chris dressed in a leather jacket and jeans. He was smiling, leaning against a tree. The land behind him looked barren: only fields and hills.

Where the hell was that?

There was another of Chris, alone again, hands tucked in the pockets of his jacket.

Donna felt that all too familiar feeling building inside her, that combination of rage and sadness.

Then she found the last two pictures.

‘Jesus,’ she murmured, her breathing deepening as she studied them. For long moments she sat looking at the pictures then, as quickly as she could, she gathered the spilled contents of the envelope together and replaced them, shoving the manilla container itself back into the drawer.

The photos she tucked into her jacket.

She moved quickly through the flat, switching off lights as she went, heading for the main door, concerned to make sure she had left everything as she’d found it.

She paused at the door, listening for any sounds of activity from the landing or other rooms. Hearing none, she slipped out and closed the door behind her. She scuttled downstairs, the photos still tucked in her coat, returned the key to Mercuriadis, thanked him for his help and hurried from the house, resisting the temptation to run back to the waiting Fiesta.

As Julie saw her approaching she leant across and unlocked the passenger side door, watching as her sister slid in and buckled up.

‘Did you find what you were looking for?’ she asked, starting the engine.

Donna was staring straight ahead, but even in the dull glow of the streetlamps Julie could see how pale her sister was.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

Donna continued staring out of the windscreen.

‘Get us home,’ she said quietly, ‘as quick as you can.’

Twenty

Julie was the first to see the police car, parked close to the front door of the house. Even in the darkness she could make out two figures inside.

As the headlights of the Fiesta illuminated the short driveway the car was picked out and held in the beams as if by some magnetic force.

‘Donna ...’ Julie began but she was cut short.

‘I can see them,’ her sister said curtly. She gripped the photos inside her coat, tucking them into the waistband of her jeans.

One of the figures inside the car clambered out and watched as the Fiesta parked. Donna could not make out his features in the gloom.

Had someone reported her?

What were the police doing here at this time? She glanced at the Fiesta’s dashboard clock and saw that the time was 11.23 p.m.

Had the occupant of the flat next to Suzanne Regan’s reported mysterious movements in the dead girl’s place?

How would they know to look for her ?

Had Mercuriadis become suspicious?

Why should he?

Donna knew that the police could not possibly be at her house in connection with the visit to Suzanne Regan’s, yet she felt uneasy, the way teenagers feel who have stolen penny chews from a sweetshop.

She swung herself out of the car and walked across to the police car and its occupants.

The plain-clothes man approached her, clearing his throat.

Donna Ward, you are under arrest.

‘Mrs Ward, I’m very sorry to trouble you this late,’ he said apologetically. ‘My name is Mackenzie. I was at the hospital the other night.’

Donna felt a sudden, joyous feeling of relief sweep over her.

I realize this is a difficult time for you,’ Mackenzie went on, ‘but I would like to talk to you if I may.’

‘Come in,’ Donna said and the policeman followed her. When Julie entered she introduced them briefly. Then, as Julie went through into the kitchen to make tea, Donna ushered Mackenzie into the sitting-room.

‘I hope you’re feeling better,’ the policeman said, standing self-consciously in the centre of the sitting-room.

‘Sit down, please,’ Donna said, slipping a hand inside her coat with her back to him, dropping the photos onto a coffee table. She pushed the newspaper over them, then turned back to face him and pulled off her coat.

Mackenzie perched on the edge of one chair, his hands clasped together as if he were cold.

‘The other night, when you arrived at the hospital, I know you probably weren’t thinking straight. It probably didn’t occur to you it was unusual that a plain-clothes man should be present at an identification. I didn’t think it was a good time to explain.’

‘Explain what?’ Donna asked.

‘There were questions I needed to ask you about your husband; only trivial things. Well, trivial to you, probably.’ He attempted a comforting smile but failed miserably. ‘I need to know how often he had his car serviced.’

Donna looked puzzled, then she too smiled thinly.

‘I know it sounds like a stupid question but it is important, believe me,’ Mackenzie told her.

‘He had it serviced once a year,’ she said.

‘And he never complained about it? About things going wrong with it?’

‘Like what? Everyone complains about their cars, don’t they?’

‘Did he ever complain about the brakes?’

Donna met the policeman’s gaze and held it, the colour draining from her face.

‘It’s a routine question, Mrs Ward,’ the DS said quietly. ‘When your husband’s car was examined following the crash, his brakes were faulty. It could have been that which caused him to crash.’

‘Are you saying the brakes were tampered with?’ Donna said, her voice low.

‘No, definitely not,’ the policeman qualified. ‘We have no proof that anyone interfered with the brakes on your husband’s car. I’m sure it was an unfortunate accident and nothing more.’ He shuffled his fingers together like fleshy playing cards, then looked at her again. ‘And your husband was hardly the kind of man to make enemies, was he?’ Donna shook her head.

‘No, Chris didn’t have any enemies,’ she said quietly.

‘None.’

‘Well then, that’s it. It was the brakes, I’m afraid.’

Julie arrived with the tea but Mackenzie declined and insisted he must go. It was the younger of the two women who saw him out.

Donna sat alone in the sitting-room, listening to the police car pull away. She moved the paper from on top of the photos, her mind spinning.

Enemies.

She looked at the photos lying on the table.

Enemies?

Twenty-One

‘Why would anyone want to murder Chris?’

Donna looked at her sister in bewilderment.

‘You said they were convinced that he wasn’t murdered, that it was a mechanical fault with the car,’ Julie insisted. ‘It’s just routine, Donna. They have to be sure of everything.’

The older woman nodded slowly and shifted her position slightly in the seat, looking down at the photos.

In particular of Chris and the five men.

One pile were those she’d taken from his office; the others those she’d taken from Suzanne’s flat that very evening.

Identical.

The same young faces, the same blurred images of two of the figures.

Those same gold rings on the left index fingers.

Who the hell were these people?

‘How could that happen?’ Donna said, prodding the photos of the group, outlining the fuzzed shapes of the older men’s faces.

‘A fault in the emulsion,’ Julie told her, inspecting the photos. ‘But it’s unusual. The negative could have been tampered with. The point is, why? Obviously, whoever these two men are, they didn’t want to be recognised.’