Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
LIAM
I’m ready to pounce when I see a guy lurking near the alley, looking shifty.
He hovers there, and I’m three seconds from crossing the road and tearing him a new asshole when he steps into the light and looks over at the bar.
It’s Darren.
Not that that’s much better.
He heads down the alley, and I’m out of my seat like a rocket.
Because I hadn’t considered Darren. He must be the same age as Kat and me. Could he have been one of the boys from my past?
Loitering at the mouth of the alley, I get a closer look at his face, as best I can in the near dark.
If the fucker’s been sleeping with Kat while terrorising her, it’ll be the last thing he does.
Thuds echo as he knocks on Kat’s door, and I’m glad that Ellie is home too, just in case. A square of light falls over him as she answers the door.
I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I don’t think there seems to be any anger in his body language. No, he doesn’t look filled with rage, but rather a man pleading his case.
Kat steps out, wrapping her arms around herself, popping a hip and looking utterly done with him already. The thread of satisfaction I feel at his rejection is probably a bit pathetic, but it’s there anyway.
She’s not going to let him in.
Because she’s mine.
I stay where I am as the cold settles around me, trying my best not to think of Darren’s hands on her. Darren’s mouth on her. Darren being someone she wanted.
He pleads for so long that even I’m rolling my eyes. Can’t blame the guy, though. I’d beg if she left me, too.
To give her her due, she listens to his pleas.
I’d have slammed the door in his face long ago.
When she leans forward and places a hand on his chest, I clench my fists tight.
Dejection pours over him like a bucket of water with the finality of whatever she says.
Like he’s a deflated balloon, and she’s stolen all the breath from him.
And then she steps back, and the door closes on their relationship for good.
I watch him gather himself before kicking the wall full force. Darren lets out a yelp and starts limping toward the end of the alley. Making my way back to the bar, I can’t help but laugh.
Martha’s tip leads me to start with the police officers who worked at the local precinct during my summer in that cottage. Retired. Dead. Still working. I worked through the list until I saw a face that made my guts turn to ice.
Despite the years and my experience turning men like him to pulp, seeing him shocked me to the core.
That’s what brought me to standing outside of his quaint little bungalow.
It’s wild, really, how such an evil man can live in a house that looks fit for Postman-fucking-Pat.
It even has goddamned window boxes. Though they look a little unloved.
It could be because it’s on the cusp of winter, or maybe his late wife dealt with them.
Probably as a way to avoid being in the house with him as much as possible.
The house stands on a quiet lane at the edge of the village.
A village where people haven’t bothered with doorbell cameras.
Thank goodness.
I watch him through the window as he scratches his balls and then uses the same hand to eat a custard cream. What a pig.
He’s fatter than I remember, his stomach hanging from the white vest he wears and practically eating a swath of his boxers.
Guess not having a wife to look after him means more packets of biscuits for dinner than he’s used to.
The years have softened his body and slackened his face. Let’s hope his mind is still intact.
Well, I can’t hang outside like a bad smell all day. Best get this show on the road.
He hasn’t locked up yet, so getting in won’t be any problem. I pull on my mask and gloves and set out to get some information.
And revenge.
The handle depresses with the faintest of clicks, and I pause, looking back through the window. His white hair is still rim lit by the TV. Perfect.
I’m in, and he doesn’t even shift in his chair, his head starting to loll as the news bores him.
As I step closer, a wave of cold dread washes over me, like an iron gate has fallen down and clamped me in place.
Suddenly, I’m eight years old, and the floor of the cottage is rotting carpet that digs into my knees.
Cuffs bind my arms behind my back, his cuffs, because I’d tried to get away.
My chin aches where he’d thrown me onto the floor, and the carpet had claimed a layer of flesh.
Stay down. Stop your bloody crying, lad.
He smells like tobacco and sweat, and the other men’s laughter echoes from behind me.
I’d twisted my face toward my dad, thinking that he might save me. The idiocy of childhood, believing somehow the monster in my home would suddenly become a saviour. I begged him. Please. Dad. Tell him to leave me alone.
My dad looked down at me, and for a moment, I thought that he might rescue me. Instead, he reached out to another boy, who reluctantly took his hand. Then I was left to PC Ashworth’s pleasure.
I come back to myself as the news ends, the exit music cutting through my past like a well-needed scalpel.
There’s an ache in my jaw where I’ve clenched my teeth.
The house smells like stale food and even staler armpits.
Sour and unloved. Likely doesn’t wash much without someone to make him go do it.
It’s amazing how many men turn into feral animals the moment they don’t have someone to hold their hand through life.
Wilful ignorance. There’s little that excuses a man to manage a successful career, but be unable to take a fucking shower.
Ah, well, he won’t have to worry about doing that again.
I take the cord from my pocket and stretch it between my gloved hands, pulling it taut.
He doesn’t even hear me coming.
The cord is around his neck before he can say glurgggghhhh.
But he doesn’t say it, while both of his hands go to his neck.
Got to give it to the old codger, he’s stronger than he looks, fear only compounding his strength.
Not that it’ll help. I have years of pure rage driving me on, and the advantage of surprise.
His fingers scrape at his throat until they slacken.
It’s then that I release him. Hopefully in time.
I want him incapacitated, not dead.
Not yet.
Grabbing the generic supermarket brand of duct tape, I work quickly to tape his wrists to his thighs, looping and looping the tape until he looks like some bizarre high school art installation.
Can’t have him getting free.
Then I sit on the coffee table across from him and wait.
It takes him two minutes to come back to himself with a start. His face is red and sweat-soaked as he takes in my mask, chest still working to catch his breath.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ he croaks.
I say nothing.
A panel show on television comes on behind me. Laughter echoes around the room, replacing the laughter that once mocked me. A nice touch provided by the universe.
He tries again, already moving on to the bargaining part of the process. ‘I’ve got money upstairs.’
‘I don’t want your money, Pete.’
His name stops him. His eyes narrow. ‘How do you know who I am?’
‘Why don’t you know who I am?’ I ask.
A pause.
‘I can’t see your face,’ he says.
I pull the mask off and stare at him, waiting to see if recognition will come. It’s been a long time, and I was likely one of many boys.
I watch his face ripple through emotions, seeking to match my face to a name. His expression shifts, not in recognition, but perhaps in realising why someone my age might hold a grudge against him.
‘Take your time,’ I say.
‘I don’t—’ He stops again.
‘No.’ I lean forward, close enough that he can’t look anywhere except at me. ‘You don’t. That’s a problem, isn’t it? It meant nothing to you. You ruined my life, and you don’t even remember. Didn’t you think those little boys would grow into men?’
The colour leaves his face.
Bingo.
‘I’m going to ask you some questions,’ I tell him. ‘You’re going to answer them, or I’m going to start lopping off fingers.’
His mouth opens and closes, searching for a denial or an excuse. I pull the bolt cutters from my pocket and wave them at him.
He lets out a shrill scream that makes me wince.
I punch him in the face, sending a cascade of blood streaming down his vest. It shuts him up.
‘Stop your bloody crying, lad,’ I mock.
And there it is, the recognition comes with a widening of his eyes. ‘You’re Jake’s boy.’
‘Mhm.’
‘What happened to him? You went off into care, we guessed he up and left you.’
‘He’s at the bottom of the Elliott family’s well. Has been ever since. You’d have known if you ever tried to investigate. But you know the secrets digging would unearth, didn’t you?’
Pete swallows hard and nods.
‘What I want from you, Pete, is a list of names. Everyone who was there that summer, man or child. Everyone you know. I want all of them.’
He shakes his head, and I don’t know if it’s a refusal or panic.
‘I’d think carefully,’ I say, ‘about what you decide to do with the next few minutes.’
The television laughs again.
He pales when I grab his pinkie finger and set the tip in the jaw of the bolt cutters. The finger comes off with a sickening crunch and a spray of blood, his scream mingling with the tinny laughter.
It’s a good thing he’s at the far end of the village, and that his neighbours left in their car a while ago. Still, I punch him again anyway.
I want to say I enjoy his pain, but I feel hollow.
When no names come forth, I set the next finger in the cutters. I’m just about to press down when he relents.
‘Okay. Okay. I don’t know many names. Other than the local guys, we tried to keep things as anonymous as we could. There’s Bill. I don’t know his last name. Alan Jeffries. Martin Green. Jimmy.’
He looks green when he glances down at his missing finger.
‘Ummm… uh. There’s more. Just give me a minute.’
I snap the cutters, and another finger tip lands on the floor.
‘Please… Oh god.’
‘Who else?’
There’s a meow off to the side, and I see a chunky ginger cat watching us. Despite his owners crying and begging, the cat seems unfazed. Maybe it hates him as much as I do. I kick a finger tip over to it, and it gladly accepts it like a prize treat, gnawing on it much to Pete’s dismay.
He loses six more fingers, but I only gain three more names.
Unfortunately, old Pete is starting to wilt. And I can’t have him dying before I’m done with him.
He’s been repeating the same names on a loop for a while now, the words getting less coherent by the second.
He’s given me seven names. Seven men that I intend to look into one by one until I get to whoever this fucker is who’s after my girl.
It’s seven more than I had this morning.
Soft sobs and the cat’s chewing fill the room. I hope he finally regrets everything he’s done now that the past has turned up.
I think about the boy who I could have been if it weren’t for men like him. The man I became because of them.
He did this to me.
When I remove his cock from his boxers, I want to vomit. It’s almost too painful. But he deserves to die like this. I take a knife from his kitchen, grip his dick in my hand, and sever it in one quick swipe.
Huh, I guess knife sharpening must have been one of his domestic duties he kept up with.
He makes sounds I’ll never forget. But that I’ll never regret extracting from him.
It doesn’t take long for him to bleed out, a red puddle growing at the base of the chair.
I sit back down on the coffee table and breathe.
Outside, a car passes on the lane. Its headlights drag briefly across the ceiling, and then they’re gone.
I scoop the fat cat up into my arms before tipping the lighter fluid onto his body. Just before I leave, I tuck the cord and all my belongings into the long pockets of my coat, the cat surprisingly well behaved in my hands.
The last thing I do is take a match and set Pete alight.