Neil White - Beyond Evil

‘The police are coming, Henry,’ he said. ‘It’s over.’

Henry tried to grin, but it turned into a groan and a grimace.

There were footsteps behind him. It was Donia. She was holding a length of barbed wire. The look in her eyes was pure hatred.

‘Tie him up with this,’ she said.

Charlie was about to say no, that it would be cruel, but then he thought of how close they had come to dying. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Wrap it tight.’

Henry shook his head, moaning, but Charlie just pushed him harder against the tree.

Donia grabbed a piece of the wire that had no barbs on it, and bent it back and forth until it snapped. Then she did it again, until she had two long pieces.

Charlie let go of Henry’s shirt and grabbed his arms instead, stretched them both along the two dead branches. ‘Put the wire around his wrists. Make it tight, so he can’t move.’

He held Henry up as Donia did that, moans escaping from him as his weight made the barbed wire dig into his wrists, one loose end trailing towards the floor, the other curling upwards, so that it caught in Henry’s hair. When both wrists were bound, Charlie hobbled backwards.

Henry’s outstretched arms made his head slump forward, his bearded chin touching his chest, blood pumping out of the wound in his side, the barbs on the wire in his hair standing out as a silhouette against the moon.

Charlie slumped to the ground. As Donia went to him, her arms around him, he rested his head. Gemma joined them, but she was looking at Henry, transfixed.

The night sky began to flicker with blue lights. Charlie closed his eyes. It was over.

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Charlie stepped back into the road to admire the window. He winced as his knee twisted on the cobbles, sending a jab of pain up his body. It had been a month since the confrontation at the farmhouse and his knee was still strapped up. He had twisted it badly, damaged some ligaments, but it would mend, he knew that.

It wasn’t the pain in his knee that kept him awake though. It was the image of Amelia, dead in her living room. And Donia, tied up in that cottage. He had worked in criminal law for many years, but he realised now that he had only ever skirted the fringes of criminality. The true horror of the human psyche had visited him now, and it was raw and ugly.

Henry Mason was safe from everyone now, locked up in prison waiting for his trial. He didn’t have a lawyer, and was fighting against judges who wanted him to have one. He knew his fate would be prison for life, and so he was settling for what he liked best: notoriety. He still had supporters, those who had become hooked on his message, spread along the internet, on forums and blogs, just looking for excuses for their lives. They peddled Henry’s flawed logic and gave him the fame he had always craved.

He felt an arm come around him. It was Donia.

‘I like it,’ she said.

Charlie smiled. ‘Yes, me too.’

Barker and Diaz was written in gold leaf across his office window. Henry Mason might have murdered his business partner, but that didn’t mean that he had to forget her. It was only a name, he knew that, but he wanted to keep it going, just his way of saying thank you.

It had been a tough month, Amelia’s funeral the most painful part. Her English relatives had cried and mourned, but they had tried to hold in their grief to maintain something they thought of as dignity. Her Spanish relatives had been much different. It was as raw to them as it was to the English, but they had let it out, sobbing loudly, wailing sometimes, words coming out that he couldn’t understand. Charlie had felt himself crack a little.

Donia had been there for him, holding his hand, both of them still bearing the scars of what they had been through. Charlie had hobbled his way into church, with Donia’s face bruised and scratched. Amelia had been murdered, but the scars on Donia were living reminders of how brutal her death had been. The hug Charlie had received from Amelia’s father had been tight and long. He had helped to catch her killer. That was enough.

It was at that moment that Charlie had decided to keep Amelia’s name alive, which meant that whatever thoughts he’d had of giving up on the law ended then. To keep Amelia’s memory alive, he had to keep the practice going.

‘Are you going to keep your promise?’ Donia said.

He smiled. ‘For as long as I’m working with you, will I have a choice?’

Donia returned the smile. ‘I’ll keep an eye on you.’

‘You’ll leave, when you get a better offer.’

‘Is there a better offer than working with your father?’

Charlie couldn’t answer that one, although he was going to keep his promise.

It had been Donia’s idea. Act for the innocent. She thought he had become jaded because he had become sick of peddling lies and excuses. It was time to get a conscience. He would represent only the people who were telling the truth. If they wanted to admit their guilt, he would help them, but the spin would stop. No more of the ‘his life is at a crossroads’ speech, the mitigation-by-numbers bullshit that most lawyers use. If Charlie had to say that the client wants to change, the client would have to show it. Get a job, apply for rehab, go to college.

The not guilty cases would be the tough ones, he knew that. It would make him judge and jury even before the cases started, because unless he was convinced by their innocence, he wouldn’t be interested. No more ‘no comment, you prove it’. That just acquits the guilty. No, this was the new way. Take a moral stance. Let people like Henry Mason squirm around with someone else’s help.

Charlie had liked the idea as soon as Donia said it. It had a certain innocence, like youthful hope, where everything is painted in stark colours, and nothing has been smudged into dull grey by cynicism and experience.

‘So when do we open for business?’ Donia said. ‘My student bills will need paying soon.’

Charlie laughed. ‘I’ll work you hard, you know that?’

‘Work me all you want. This is my route to qualification. My fees are expensive. I need this job to fund my studies.’

‘It beats serving pints and pizzas, I suppose.’

Donia grinned.

Sheldon Brown came out of the doorway, holding a piece of red ribbon and a pair of scissors.

‘So have we decided which will be my room?’ Sheldon said.

‘Amelia’s old room,’ Charlie said. ‘I still want to keep some of my old ways.’

Sheldon nodded that he understood and then joined Charlie in the road, to take in the new lettering on the window.

Sheldon had taken early retirement from the police. They had decided on it pretty quickly, unsure about what he might do if they let him stay. Chief Inspector Dixon hadn’t been quite so lucky. She had interfered too much to keep her daughter out of trouble, and so she was heading for a court appearance of her own soon.

Charlie felt some remorse for her, because he knew that she had done what she had to protect her daughter, that her motherly instincts had overridden everything else. Charlie could understand a fraction of that, because of the protective feelings he had for Donia, and he knew his emotions must be a long way short of what Dixon must have felt. She had given birth to Gemma, nurtured her. She wasn’t some absent father trying to take up the reins too late, when all the hard work had been done.

At least Dixon still had her daughter though, although it would be a few decades before Gemma would be free from prison. Family visits would be done in communal rooms, with Gemma wearing a sweatshirt and a red bib. She had promised to give evidence against Henry, which would help her get an earlier release date. Marie Cuffy hadn’t been so lucky, and now her parents knew that she hadn’t been on the run, but had died at Billy Privett’s house, bleeding out onto his floor after Arni had slashed her throat and then buried in a field, just a stone to mark her grave.