Blood & Guts by Ed James (best books to read now TXT) 📕

She rubbed her eyes. ‘Carly and Teri. Those girls… Carly… I don’t know how she did it, but she made him think he was her boyfriend, and she got him to send her a…’ She clamped her eyes shut.

‘What?’ Vicky was clenching her fists tight. The motive was getting stronger and stronger. ‘What did he send?’

‘A dick pic!’ Gary shouted it loud. ‘I sent them a photo of my hard-on!’

Jane slumped back against the fridge, making the metal rattle. ‘Carly and Teri shared it on social media, and not by accident either. They were cruel witches.’

‘Given your son’s age, that would actually be distributing child pornography.’

‘Well, you should have a word with your colleagues. The useless sods who didn’t investigate it. Just said it was anonymous.’

Gary wrapped an arm around his mother. ‘I thought Carly loved me, but she ruined my life.’

That all made perfect sense. Getting a kid to share a photo like that, shaming him. Ruining his life, or at least making him feel like it was ruined. Certainly enough to warrant an attack, if not outright murder.

‘Did you speak to their parents?’

‘I didn’t have direct proof, did I? It was all anonymous, they’d been so careful, hadn’t they? But Carly was the one who had the photo. She’s responsible for it.’

‘As painful as it is, Gary, you’ll get over this. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last.’

‘What would you know?’

Vicky stared hard at him. Nothing, except for a school trip when she was fourteen. Her boyfriend, or so she thought, photographing her breasts. A Polaroid shared with his friends. Nothing like the number of people as if it was on social media, but still. A lot of damage was done.

Vicky could’ve told them about her dad and a couple of his mates threatening to beat the living shit out of the boy, but she didn’t. She got over it, but it still hurt. She had that acid bubbling in her stomach, like she was walking the halls of Carnoustie High School, with kids joking about her breasts.

Gary couldn’t look at her.

Karen grabbed hold of him again. ‘Come on, let’s get you to the station.’ She frogmarched the boy out of the kitchen into the hall.

Vicky stared at Jane. ‘I know what you’re going through, okay? It’s going to be really tough for you. And I’m really sorry—’

Gary pushed his head towards Karen.

She was way too quick for him, ducking inside, then grabbing his throat and choking him against the wall. ‘Come on!’

Jane shot after her son. ‘Gary! No!’

Vicky followed outside, the cold air hitting her own burning cheeks.

‘NO!’ Jane was over by Karen, her resolve and calm given way to slapping and shouting. ‘LET HIM GO!’

Karen opened the pool car’s back door and dipped Gary’s head to nudge him inside.

But he wouldn’t go. He just stood there, resisting Karen’s pushing, staring back at his mother.

Jane was looking between them. ‘I can get his therapist here! I can get her on the phone!’

Gary collapsed to his knees, crying. ‘I didn’t do anything!’

‘Please!’ Jane was in Vicky’s face. ‘I can get her here. Will it help?’

‘We’ll need to speak to his counsellor as part of our investigation.’

‘Please, don’t do this. Let me have a Christmas with him.’

Vicky kept her arms out in case the mother tried to attack her. ‘I suggest you call a lawyer.’

Jane let a gasp escape her lips. She looked back at the house. Her husband was standing in the doorway, clutching a whisky glass. ‘Mike! Please! You’ve got to help!’

But Mike just sank the whisky and rested the glass on the side table by the door. He stared at his wife, close to hysteria now, then at his son, sobbing on the pavement, then shut his eyes. ‘It was me. I killed her.’

17

Like father like son.

Mike Wilkie leaned forward, breathing whisky-breath across the table. He was frozen, unable to move or to talk.

The interview room still reeked of Gary’s earlier sickness – no amount of cleaning fluid could get rid of that so quickly.

His lawyer sat next to Mike. An overweight man, pushing towards obese. Tidy beard and close-cropped hair. He stood up and thrust out a hand that was bigger than Vicky’s head. ‘Jason Adamson of McLintock and Williams. Pleased to meet you.’

Vicky shook it with a smile. ‘An Edinburgh firm, right?’

‘Well, aye, but I’m a Dundee lad. Well, Monifieth. But I live in Edinburgh now. Just got home for Christmas, and I was deep in a sleep in my old room, when I got the call from him upstairs. Campbell McLintock himself. And you don’t bounce his call, let me tell you. You don’t sleep through it.’

‘Well, you were in the right place at the right time.’

‘Indeed.’ Adamson sat down and clicked his pen, ready to write on the yellow legal pad in front of him. His lips quivered, like he was stifling a yawn. ‘I’m just here to make sure our client’s confession is duly noted.’ He gave in to the yawn now.

‘Of course.’ Vicky hoped that was the last exchange she’d have with him. But then again, she didn’t believe the sudden flash of honesty from Mike Wilkie, especially with his son in cuffs by a police car, mid-arrest. ‘I need you to go over your confession again, for the record.’

Mike nodded. ‘You know why I did it. Why I killed Carly Johnston. I mean, it was an accident, but…’ He sighed. ‘But you know why, right?’

‘It’s important to get it on the record.’

‘Okay.’ Mike gripped his thighs, head forward, almost touching the desk. ‘My son had shared a… a… a photo of his penis with Carly. It somehow ended up on Schoolbook and other social networks, shared among his supposed friends at school.’

‘And you believe Carly was responsible.’

‘Who else? My son deleted the image from his phone and she was supposed to, but… but she didn’t. Next thing I know, my son is crying about how it’s ruined his life. And it did, at least for