Sixteen Horses by Greg Buchanan (readict TXT) 📕

So many were dead, now, within the space of days.

So many of them, linked by animals, by violence, by blackmail.

They’d found the answer to the Eltons just hours before. They’d sent officers round to their property after they had caught up on the case history; Charles Elton had shot himself in the head. His potential testimony had died with him. It was a waste.

His suicide note, blaming the police for their unjust attention, claiming they drove him to it – an innocent man – that was just embarrassing.

Ada knew there was no such thing as an innocent man.

He’d tried to burn a letter in his fire. KILL YOURSELF. An encryption password was found on the back of an envelope, presumably left by the blackmailer as proof of knowledge.

The idiot hadn’t checked it before departing this world.

One of the computers confiscated by the police had contained a hard drive.

1,592 images and 314 videos of child sexual abuse were found within. The forensic work would take weeks – it would scar the officers who had to look at it – but the images and videos didn’t appear to be created by Charles himself, at least not on initial examination.

He was evil.

Like most evil people, he was mundane, in the end. Not clever. Not bizarre or beautiful.

He was an idiot who couldn’t burn a piece of paper.

Who died rather than face the truth of all he’d done, a truth manipulated by whoever had pulled his and Kate’s strings. Whether that was an individual . . . a group . . . a place. In mundane Ilmarsh, too . . . there was evil.

One of Ada’s subordinates came into the room. He didn’t say anything. She knew he was waiting for her to turn.

‘What?’ she asked, not moving.

‘Dr Allen’s finished, ma’am. She wants to talk with you.’

Ada gave the room one final look. She stared at the hole in the wall.

She thought about all her friend had done to this place and to himself. She thought about his charred body, found hunched in prayer, one child crying in the distant sheds. The others had been found in the grass.

She’d read her uncle’s books, once.

Even though he hadn’t read them, she had – perhaps because he hadn’t, she didn’t know.

The act of killing your child – it was a godly act. It was Abraham and Isaac. It was fear and trembling, being willing to break all laws – even that of the divine – just because a voice in a bush told you your child was meant as a sacrifice.

Had a voice told her friend to do what he had done? Had the world, had this place? What had made him the way he was? What made anyone the way they were?

If the world was in our heads, then the end of a life was the end of the world.

The taking of a single life, it was an apocalypse.

To kill a person was to be close to God.

She went out into the poisoned air once more.

Forty per cent of homicides went unanswered, whatever stories said. At least she’d known who had killed her friend’s family. At least they knew who, if not why.

She walked towards the tent, trying not to look at all the strangers stooped to the soil, trying not to listen to the silence.

Within an hour they were back on the water, and she’d never see that place again. She’d never go back, not even if they made her. She’d do anything to leave this place. Anything.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

‘Rat poison,’ Cooper said. ‘Warfarin pellets were given to the crows over a few days. Based on how many were killed, it’s probable whoever did this had fed the birds for a sustained period of time beforehand. They were comfortable with him. The necks were snapped post-mortem. Likely after defrosting.’

‘The killer froze them?’ Ada’s eyebrow rose.

Their boat moved back along the surf, the fog almost faded now, but the sky itself had grown cloudy, darker. Both women stood at its stern.

Cooper nodded. ‘We’ve not been able to locate any other sites of contamination,’ Ada said. ‘From what we can tell, the soil used to bury the horses’ heads was taken from the same pit we found the birds in.’

‘What now?’ Cooper asked.

The island receded in the distance. It held Ada’s gaze.

‘The local police have alibis for Alec Nichols. For key times in this and more.’

Cooper said nothing.

‘But it’s interesting,’ Ada went on, ‘looking at Alec’s record. There’s evidence he was suffering from depression. He discontinued grief counselling. There seems to have been a shadow over his time at his previous department, though we’re still working on clearing that up. There’s also evidence his son was skipping school. Apparently DS Nichols told his counsellor he wished, sometimes, that he’d never even had a kid. That life would be easier once he was alone again. It’s all here.’

‘I thought that kind of thing was confidential.’ There was a slight edge to Cooper’s voice as she spoke.

Ada shrugged. ‘Not in times like these. The boy’s gone, blood found at the scene . . . a letter saying “you could have saved him”. His son is most likely dead, of course. And if he isn’t, if someone’s taken him, well . . .’

Ilmarsh grew nearer.

‘This is about Alec,’ Ada said. ‘He was part of this . . . or part of this is aimed at him. Either way, we want you to find out.’

‘Find out what?’

‘The truth.’

Cooper looked at her temporary home, closer and closer now. ‘I’m not a detective.’

‘If someone’s watching Alec, they’ll be watching you.’ Ada hesitated. ‘No one in my department has your expertise in this type of crime. I’m confident you’ll—’

‘I’m not right for this.’

‘It has to be you,’ Ada pressed. ‘You’ve worked with him. He trusts you.’

Cooper thought of Alec lying in a hospital somewhere, not knowing what these people thought, not knowing his boy was gone, not knowing anything at all.

She thought of a farmer, lying in a field.

She thought of smoke, of carelessness, of burning sheep.

‘Who else knew about the bird, the snapped neck?’ Ada asked.