Chapter Thirteen

"Do you really think this will work?" Chad

asked, peeking a look out of the window.

"Yes," James hissed, and yanked Chad out of

sight by his shirt collar. "If you don't get seen."

James's black sedan and an escort of three

marked police cars and two motorbikes took off from the car park at

speed. James paced reception back and forth until the slap of his

shoes began to grate on Chad's nerves. Lucy sat on a plastic chair,

tugging her bottom lip.

"They bought it," Lynn confirmed. Unlike

Chad who'd been yanked from the window, James allowed her to

look.

James's decoy plan had worked, and the press

had taken the bait and packed up their things to pursue the black

sedan.

"No escort?" Chad asked.

James stopped. "I'm sure we can handle

Vincent."

"Is the superintendent okay with this?"

"The superintendent just wants us to find

Harriet. Whatever we have to do to achieve that he's happy to turn

a blind eye to as long as we get the result we want."

Lucy snorted drawing James's glare.

"Sorry," she said, covering her mouth. "The

result you want , sounds like the police, out for themselves.

As usual."

"We're ready for Vincent." James told Lynn,

before speaking to Chad. "I'll meet you in the car."

"Where am I going?" Lucy asked. "I'm not

sitting in the middle seat. I don't want to be up close and

personal with the man that killed my sister."

"You can follow behind us in your truck."

James replied before hurrying out of reception.

Chad knew it would take time for Lynn and

Pauline to get Vinicent ready, time he could spend alone with

James. He sighed, pushing to his feet. The Romeo and Juliet tactic.

James seemed more likely to cave Chad's face in than open up about

his relationship with Harriet, but he had to at least try.

He paused. "Lynn, have you got that list for

me yet?"

Lynn stiffened. "Almost."

"Almost?"

She didn't meet his eye.

"What list?" Lucy asked.

Chad frowned at Lynn's obvious avoidance. "I

asked for a list of Vincent's contacts. People he wrote to, called,

had visit him."

"Why do you want to know that?" Lucy bit her

lip. "In case he told them something about Harriet?"

"Yeah," he shrugged. "So I can contact them

to ask for information."

Lucy nodded. "That sounds smart."

"I better help Pauline with Vincent." Lynn

said, avoiding the topic entirely.

Lucy fished her keys out of her pocket.

"James better drive sensibly today."

"He will," Chad promised, holding the door

for her.

They strolled across the car park in

silence. Lucy shot him a small smile as she climbed in her truck,

and Chad took a deep breath, approaching James.

James sat in the driver's seat with his head

in his hands. He shot up when Chad opened the door, and got in next

to him.

"I honestly don't know why it takes them so

long to get him." James pressed back in his seat. "They should just

… throw him in here and let me make him tell us."

"I don't think the superintendent could turn

a blind eye to that."

James smirked. "You'd tell him, would you?"

He looked up at Chad. "Even if we got the result, you'd tell him

the means I used to get it?"

Chad didn't answer.

"Pauline would, that's for sure. I don't

know how that woman can look after him."

"She's doing her job."

James drummed his fingers against the wheel.

"You know, I'd still do it."

"Do what?"

"Beat a location out him—"

"James—"

"DI Poole," James growled. "You made it

quite clear you didn't want to be on friendly terms. And if I

thought I could beat a location out of him, I would, but the fact

is, I don't think I can. I don't think he'd tell me. The last

drive, with him … talking about my daughter," he filled up with a

deep breath before easing it out, "it proved to me he's a lot more

with it than I first thought. This is a game to him."

Chad swallowed. "I told you that. I told you

he had no intention of giving us anything."

"Well, I didn't believe you, all right, and

now we've got to save face, and go along with this until we run out

the clock, do what he wants for the slimmest chance he might

give us something. We're in it for the 1% chance of finding her,

but it doesn't mean I like the idea of sitting in a car with him.

It doesn't mean I don't want to reach into the backseat and

strangle him, because I do, and I'd rather not be observed by the

press while I battle with myself not to."

"James—DI Poole," Chad corrected, crunching

his toes in his shoes. "You were the last person to see Harriet

alive. I have to ask, what was she doing in your car?"

"You've read my statement, no doubt. I was

cautioning her for possession."

"Michael and Lucy seem to believe—"

"Oh, I've heard all about you getting pally

with Michael…"

"I visited him."

James snorted. "Nice to know who's side

you're on."

"I'm on nobody's side. They have their

opinion, and I have mine."

"And what do you think, Chad? Am I the

predatory pedophile protected by the badge on my chest?"

"So far that's the only explanation I've

been given over your past behavior. If you could tell me—"

"I don't need to prove my innocence, to you

least of all."

"I know. I'm not asking for your innocence.

I just want the truth. Your truth."

"No one ever wanted to hear my truth."

"I thought I was in love once," Chad began.

James tensed beside him, but didn't interrupt. "It was safe,

comfortable, and I could've spent my life like that. It would've

been a hell of a lot less painful if I'd just have stayed in that

numb bubble forever, but I'm so glad I didn't. The pain, the

humiliation, the times where I physically wanted to rip my own

brain from my skull was all worth it to feel love. Real love."

James shifted his focus to Chad. His eyes

were cold, and hard, but he didn't snarl or interrupt, he waited

for Chad to continue.

"And I've never told anyone. Never admitted

how I felt because no one would understand, they couldn't possibly,

they'd not even give me a chance to explain it, they cast me out,

and you'll hate me for it, you'll probably scream at me to get out

the car, but I'm going to say it anyway. I fell in love with Romeo

Knight in that farmhouse."

"He was a serial killer."

"But he was also Romeo, and I fell in love

with him. He burst the numb bubble I'd built around myself. He

listened to me. He was there for me. And maybe if I'd have been

stronger, it wouldn't have happened, but it did."

James leaned away from him, pressing into

the door of the car, he twisted his body to face Chad, and looked

at him, really looked , then he laughed, a rumbly mocking

laugh that lifted the hair at Chad's nape.

"Seriously?" James sneered.

"What?"

"I know what you're trying to do Chad.

You're trying to find out about me and Harriet, but fuck me," he

shuddered. "Telling me you loved Romeo Knight, that's seriously

messed up to compare the two. He was a fucking monster, a

psychopath who murdered innocent people for the thrill of it, and

you're trying to pull comparisons?"

Chad looked away. "I just—I understand what

it feels like to care about someone you know you shouldn't."

James chuckled, "You're continuing with

this? Are you serious? I wasn't searching for a victim, I didn't

kidnap Harriet and brainwash her in the hope she'd love me, or am I

you in your messed up comparison, Chad? Was I in a numb

bubble and she was there to pop it for me? She was the one who

manipulated me?"

"Forget it," Chad snapped. "I was just

trying to understand."

"I cautioned her for possession—"

"You are lying," Chad shouted. "You picked

her up from school that day and drove her to Melbourn Spring. You'd

been sending her gifts—"

"Gifts? Name me one. One gift."

Chad couldn't. But he was angry and James's

smug smile only made it worse.

"You waited around the church after her

choir practice. You were obsessed with her, and Michael tried to

get you to back off, Harriet told you to leave her alone."

James shook his head. "Michael made her go

to the station with him. She didn't want to report me."

"She was afraid of you."

"No! She wasn't. She liked me, and I liked

her, and yeah, it was fucked up. I'd buried my daughter, and my

wife was barely talking to me, and Harriet was seventeen. All we

did was talk. And maybe I wanted more, and maybe she did, too, but

it never happened."

"Why was she in your car?"

"I told her it had to stop. Whatever was

happening between us, it had to stop before it truly started. It

was already a mess. I'd been warned off her at work, and Michael

had run a smear campaign against me, making fliers about the

pedophile on the police force and handing them out at every school

in Bardhum." He took a deep breath. "My wife needed me, and I'd

been selfish, I'd been flattered getting attention from this pretty

seventeen-year-old. That was all it was. I didn't love her. That's

not what this has all been about." He gestured to the prison. "She

was upset and left the car. I went after her, but she screamed at

me to let her go. She said if I didn't, she'd go to her dad and

they'd drive to the station and report me, and she'd make sure I

was arrested, so I backed off. I got in my car, and I drove

straight home to my wife. It was my fault she was walking alone on

that road. I put her in the path of that monster."

The reception doors opened, and Chad spotted

Lynn wheeling Vincent over to them. Pauline walked beside them,

stern faced, with her bag of equipment over one of her

shoulders.

"But to compare me and Harriet, to you and

Romeo to get your answers, that's low, and I hope they were just

foolish words, in a desperate attempt to know about us, because if

they weren't, if you really did fall for a psychopathic serial

killer and you're some kind of sympathizer," he tilted his head to

the window, nodding at Wiltknot, "I'll do everything in my power to

make sure you end up in there with the rest of the animals."

The back passenger door opened. Lynn helped

get Vincent onto the backseat, then slammed the door. Pauline

jogged around to the other side and climbed in.

"Didn't interrupt something, did I?" Vincent

asked.

Chad inwardly cursed, and glanced at James,

but he didn't meet Chad's eyes.

James stabbed his keys into the ignition and

twisted. "As it happens, you did miss a bit of a bombshell."

Chad tensed. "James—"

"DI Poole," James corrected. "Chad here told

me he was in love with Romeo Knight. You know, the psychopathic

serial killer who kidnapped him."

Chad squeezed his eyes shut, inwardly

counting to ten.

"That was obvious," Vincent murmured. "I

assumed everyone knew."

Chad opened his eyes, and turned to look at

Vincent.

Vincent smiled. "But what I've always

wondered is whether Romeo loves him back."

"Of course he didn't." James snorted. "How

could he?"

"Quite right, DI Poole. Psychopaths can't

love, they can't feel, but they're very good at manipulating na?ve

people into thinking they can."

Then he smiled his devil's smile, directing

it right at Chad.

****

Magpies.

Chad hated them, but they made it impossible

not to look, clucking and cawing down at their car from the trees.

When Chad looked out the side mirror he spotted Lucy's truck, and

her anxious face peeking above the steering wheel.

Melbourn Spring was somewhat of a beauty

spot, set back in the trees, a pool of clear water, so clear condom

wrappers could be seen on the stones at the bottom. Vincent had

only made it to the edge of the spring with Pauline's help. He'd

slid down his nose canula and taken a deep breath of fresh air. The

absolute wonder on his face as he gazed around made Chad feel like

he encroached on a private moment.

The look didn't last, though, Vincent had

slumped, and hastily shoved the tube back under his nose before

Pauline helped him back to the car. Lucy hadn't left her truck.

Chad and James followed Vincent, and then sat in silence while

Pauline dosed Vincent up on more morphine on the back seat.

"I remember driving along here." Vincent

pointed out the windscreen, and James started the engine.

"Here?" James pressed.

His voice had softened since Vincent had

started to remember things. Chad zoned them out, and let

James and Vincent talk back and forth without comment. He picked up

on a few bits, like Vincent remembering Harriet leaning against the

huge oak tree beside the road. How she'd been reluctant at first,

but he charmed her, told her he was the swimming coach for St

Mary's, and it wasn't safe for young women to be walking around on

their own. He'd killed her, and drove her back to his house which

had been long ago knocked down, and a developer bought the land for

cheap, and built an office block on top.

Conveniently, when it got to what happened

next—what he did with her body— Vincent grew tired and asked to be

driven back to Wiltknot.

James didn't kick off like Chad expected. He

nodded, fully pulled back in by Vincent and his cooperation during

the drive. Silver tongued. Chad didn't know who'd first used the

term for Vincent, but it had stuck for a reason.

"What the hell?" James mumbled, slowing the

car to a stop. The ones in front of them were awkwardly reversing,

turning around, and driving off. Chad could spy the bridge in the

distance, a car askew between the flashing police lights.

"Road's closed." Chad said, spotting the

sign propped up, and the police officer beside it in hi-vis,

circling his finger in a gesture for everyone to turn around.

James ignored the gesture and drove up to

him. "We need to get through."

"No. You need to turn around and find an

alternate route."

James gritted his teeth, reaching into the

side of his door, he pulled out his ID and showed it to the

officer. "This is the most direct route to Wiltknot. We need to get

through," James waved a flippant hand, "we'll drive on the hard

shoulder if we need to while you clear the road."

The officer paled. He glanced back. "I'm

sorry, sir, but that won't be possible."

Chad flung open his door, and got out. He

frowned at the police cars in the distance, their blue lights

strobed in the darkness.

"What's happened?" Chad asked.

"Someone … jumped."

Chad looked back up the road to the blue

lights flashing against the bridge.

"My sergeant told me to close the road while

we wait for the ambulance."

"Ambulance?" Pauline gasped. She tried her

handle, only to curse at the locks James had on in the back before

clambering onto Chad's seat and leaving the car that way.

"I'm a nurse."

The officer nodded. "I don't think there's

much you can do—"

Pauline took off down the road with her

shoulder bag swinging.

"I'm going to check it out," James said,

unbuckling himself. "You stay here with Vincent."

"I'd prefer if—"

"I'm your superior, Chad. Get back in the

car."

Chad slumped, dropping back into his seat.

He closed his door, then winced when James slammed his shut. James

didn't take off in a sprint like Pauline had, he strolled closer to

the flashing blues like he was enjoying a casual walk.

"Alone again at last."

Chad ignored Vincent and adjusted the mirror

to see Lucy behind him.

"DI Poole was eating up my every word today,

but not you, not Chad Fuller. You weren't listening at all."

"I'll listen when you say something

interesting."

"These little trips, our meetings. I've

found them quite enjoyable."

"I'm glad someone has."

"Why did you break your promise?"

Chad exhaled through his nose. "I didn't

want to see you."

" Want doesn't come into it. We made a

deal. I helped you save Shawn. If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't

have gotten to him in time… I read that you gave him CPR until an

ambulance arrived."

Chad found Vincent's glare in the mirror.

"What is this whole spectacle about?"

"I wasn't the one who turned it into a

spectacle."

"You went to the press."

"I can assure you I didn't. I don't

go to the press. They come to me, and they beg, plead and

bribe me to give them something, but they get nothing from me.

Someone else got them involved."

"Why are you doing this?"

"The why is obvious. I'm angry at you for

not visiting, but what is this exactly?"

"You talk in riddles."

Vincent leaned between the seats. His spine

creaked, and he took an extra wheeze of oxygen. "I'll make my words

plain enough for you to understand. Four words."

"Four words?"

"Will bring about your downfall."

Chad frowned. "Let's hear them? Do your

worst."

"I'm not ready to speak them yet," Vincent

held up four fingers for Chad to see. "But that's all it's going to

take. Four words that will poison your life forever. That is how I

win."