Shaun Hutson: Heathen/Nemesis

Julie.

Donna had given up even trying to suppress her anger towards her sister. They’d exchanged words only briefly that morning, most of them unpleasant.

Now Donna turned back to face the counter where the .357, the .38, the Beretta and the Pathfinder were laid out. She selected the .38 and began thumbing in bullets from the box to her left.

She still felt numb from the revelations of the previous night.

Her own sister involved in an affair with Chris.

Donna shook her head.

Perhaps it would have been easier just to let Julie walk away. Walk out of her life. If she did, there would be no one left for her. Better the company of one she hated than complete loneliness.

Donna snapped the cylinder shut.

Did she hate Julie? Hatred was a very strong emotion. Stronger, she was beginning to think, even than love. But did she truly hate the younger woman?

She raised the .38 and took aim, firing off the six rounds evenly.

No one is to be trusted.

Christ, how prophetic the words in Chris’s letter had proved to be.

She brought the target back and looked at the damage. Two in the centre, two in the head. Two in the groin. She covered the holes with white spots, sent the target away again and began pushing 9mm shells into the magazine of the Beretta.

How many times had she done this when Chris had been with her?

She almost smiled.

They’d been coming to the shooting club in Druid Street for almost three years. As she thought of her husband she felt a familiar but fleeting twinge of sadness but it was rapidly replaced by anger.

She hated Julie for what she’d done. She hated Chris for his part in the deception. She hated The Sons of Midnight for what they too had done.

Someone had to pay for her anger; someone must be forced to suffer for her pain. It would be that organisation. Those who had tried to tell her that not only was her husband a liar and adulterer, he was capable of murder too.

Adulterer.

The word seemed peculiarly archaic.

Murderer didn’t.

That was one of the things which really troubled her. She didn’t find it easy to dismiss the suggestion as effortlessly as she would have liked. Why would Dashwood lie? Some kind of psychological trick? But why taunt her about facts she could never prove or disprove? Why?

Why?

There were so many questions; she knew that she would never know answers to most of them.

She continued thumbing bullets into the magazine.

Why had Chris decided upon an affair with Julie?

There were ten in the magazine now.

What had been so wrong with their marriage to make him do such a thing?

Eleven. Twelve.

Had Dashwood been telling the truth? Had her husband not merely wanted to expose The Sons of Midnight? Had he joined their ranks?

Thirteen.

Had the man she’d loved been capable of murder?

Fourteen.

And there still remained the mystery of Suzanne Regan. If it had been Julie embroiled in the affair with Chris, then why had Suzanne Regan been with the writer when he died?

Was there no end to these mysteries? No end to the pain?

She pushed in the last bullet, slammed in the magazine and worked the slide, cocking the weapon. She raised it, drawing a bead on the centre of the target.

If there were answers she would find them.

And then?

What was there to live for after that?

Donna gritted her teeth and tried not to think about it. For now she had something to drive her on.

The desire for vengeance. And she would not stop until it was hers. Someone was going to suffer for her torment and she didn’t care who it was.

She fired off all fifteen rounds with remarkable rapidity and accuracy, the shots shredding the centre of the target, the pistol bouncing in her grip, empty shell-cases flying from the weapon until finally the slide shot back, signalling the weapon was empty. Donna lowered it, her breathing heavy, the stench of cordite strong in her nostrils.

Dark smoke surrounded her like a dirty shroud.

Eighty-Five

‘It has to be the place in Conduit Street.’

Donna prodded the sheet of paper with the locations on, her eyes moving swiftly back and forth over the names:

RATHFARNHAM, DUBLIN.

BRASENOSE COLLEGE, OXFORD.

REGENCY PLACE, EDINBURGH.

CONDUIT STREET, LONDON.

The meeting places of The Sons of Midnight.

‘How can you be sure?’ Julie asked. ‘What about Oxford?’

‘London would have been easier for them to reach after leaving Essex but,’ she exhaled deeply, ‘I can’t be sure. All we can do is check it out. If they’re not there, we’ll keep looking.’

Julie regarded her impassively across the table. The tension between the two women was almost palpable.

‘Didn’t Chris ever mention them to you?’ Donna asked, not looking at Julie. ‘Did he ever talk about his work to you?’

‘No. He wouldn’t discuss something with me that he refused to discuss with you, would he?’

‘I don’t know. I thought I knew him up until the last few weeks. Now I’m not sure of anything he would or wouldn’t do.’ She looked at Julie irritably. ‘I thought I knew you too, Julie. Looks like I was wrong about both of you.’

‘Why do you want me around, Donna?’ Julie demanded. ‘You can’t stand me near you any more because of what happened. It would be best for both of us if I left.’

‘I told you why. You owe me your help, because of what happened between you and Chris.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t think I enjoy looking at you and imagining what you and he used to get up to, but I’m damned if I’m going to let you walk away from what you did. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? To think it was over and you’d escaped the consequences.’

‘I’m not proud of what I did, Donna. If you think I am then you’re even more fucked up than I imagined.’ She spat out the words angrily.

Donna allowed her fingers to touch the butt of the .357 that lay on the table but she kept her gaze fixed on Julie.

‘Why don’t you use the bloody gun on me,’ Julie said challengingly. ‘That’d solve your problems, wouldn’t it?’

‘Don’t think I haven’t thought about it,’ Donna told her. ‘Don’t think I haven’t imagined how much I’d enjoy killing you.’

‘I can understand that. Revenge seems to be the most important thing in your life now, Donna,’ said Julie sardonically.

‘Perhaps it’s because there’s nothing else in my life any more,’ Donna told her. ‘Chris is gone, even my memories of him might as well be gone. You destroyed them, Julie. When I think of him I think of him with you. I think of his deceit. Your deceit. I shared him for ten months with you.’

‘I saw him once a week, if that,’ Julie said. ‘In all that time, if you add up the hours I spent with him it’s probably no more than two weeks.’

‘And that’s supposed to make it more acceptable, is it?’

‘Look, Donna, I thought you wanted to destroy this group of men. I thought you wanted revenge on them. That’s your mission now, isn’t it?’ She made no attempt to hide the sarcasm in her voice. ‘Then concentrate on that.’

‘And forget everything else?’ She smiled thinly.

They sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity.

‘So what do we do?’ Julie asked finally.

‘We find them. All of them.’

‘And then?’

Donna looked down at the .357.

‘Kill them.’

‘I think the police might have something to say about that,’ Julie observed.