The Devil's Due: A Cooper and McCall Scottish Crime Thriller by Ramsay Sinclair (nonfiction book recommendations TXT) 📕

inspector. “Why did they deserve it, Paul?” McCall used his name to create an association between the two.

A sympathetic tear rolled down Paul Robert’s pale cheek. It shocked me to see his tears weren’t formed from blood or other creepy, voodoo crap. My attention closed in on the machines beeping all around us.

“They didn’t follow the rules,” Paul stubbornly shouted. A mixture of personalities, so it appeared. The pillow beneath his head moved from pressure, and he pushed down even further, so it almost suffocated him.

“Rules?” I sounded unimpressed.

“What rules?” McCall queried.

“His rules,” Paul drooled onto the pillow, a wreck of a man. A shadow, in fact. There would be no way of worming out of jail time now that he’d admitted to killing them both.

McCall’s brain ticked over, taking a while to catch up to the meaning. “God’s rules? They didn’t follow the bible?”

“Don’t talk to me about that… liar,” Paul’s anger reached a new high, as blood vessels swelled in his temples, and grey eyes flashed sinisterly. “God doesn’t exist. The devil lives inside us all. God can’t purify us. Not even me, or you.”

“Not even Linda?” McCall asked slowly. I half expected Paul to erupt in flames and char the hospital to pieces at the sound of his wife’s name.

Paul’s anger instantly exchanged to hearty sobs, heavy and full-bodied. The office guard checked through the window to ensure we weren’t hurting the murderer.

“I prayed for her. For God to save her life, right here in this very hospital,” Paul’s voice amended to a scarily low pitch. My ears strained even to hear. “At one point,” he chuckled, sending shivers down our spines. This guy felt like a rollercoaster that wouldn’t end, “I even struck up a deal with God. My life for Linda’s. I prepared to die so that she could live.”

The hospital chair squeaked beneath my changing weight as I intently awaited an explanation that made sense.

“I devoted my entire life towards serving God's purposes, His larger plan. Linda couldn’t have altered her life anymore to suit His wishes. I served Him for years of my life, and He still stole her away from me. God lied to me.” Paul paused, taking a deep breath. “I vowed to live my life as intended from then on. To dabble in the sins as never before, instead of being so painstakingly… good. I was happy for the first time since Linda was stolen away. I gambled for the first time, had sex outside of marriage. Lots of sex. Alcohol on a night out.” Paul listed several reasons he enjoyed dancing with the devil, for some reason speaking directly in my direction.

“For what? What is it achieving?” I couldn’t help but get involved in this debate.

“Satan promised me a joyous return to the underworld. Where we can do as we want when we want,” Paul kept referring to ‘we.’

“What if he’s lying to you, as God did?” McCall asked curiously.

Paul refused to listen to McCall’s interjections.

“You can’t break laws depending on your personal beliefs. If that were the case, thousands of Christians or Jews alike would be out there, wreaking havoc. Believing in Satan doesn’t excuse anyone from committing a murder, let alone two,” I finished, heaving from anger.

McCall’s fury also struggled to subside. I could tell by the way her ears changed pink on top.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Paul shook his head, oblivious to seeing this in any other light. “You small-minded, petty, oblivious police officers who—”

“Watch your mouth, or I’ll send you down for two lifetimes instead of one,” I warned him.

“You mentioned rules. If not God’s then who’s?” McCall altered the original statement ever so slightly to fit Paul’s warped perceptions.

“My saviour. I live my life by his rules, but some people break those rules.”

Now, it got interesting. Paul fisted the bed sheets tightly, an inner dialogue playing out in his head to help him decide whether to spill the beans or not. A literal angel and devil on his shoulders. The guy was a walking symbol of faith.

“The dead boy found me walking on the Bay, alone at night,” Paul said at last. “He came to mug me, treating me like all the other pitiful people he’d mugged before me. I warned him, and when he refused to leave, I destroyed him.”

“I’ll say,” McCall’s horrific memories of Gavin’s body came back to haunt the unsuspecting sergeant.

“I remembered seeing the kid’s face plastered over the news once, for raping somebody’s young girl without consent. I served real justice, unlike you,” Paul’s eyes hardened as he stared at us.

“An eye for an eye never works,” I half quoted the bible, having seen many revenge acts in my career. They never solved another crime or bettered an act committed in the first place.

“Not in God’s book, because he wants us to be weaker than Him,” Paul asserted. “I’m not the bad guy here.”

I scoffed and nearly choked on my own bile in disbelief. Paul reached out for a clear plastic cup of water, filled at the nurse's expense by their drinks fountain. I would’ve filled it up from dirty toilet water, personally. His set of rotting teeth bit down on the plastic. Once. Then twice. Then again, before finally downing a load of water in one.

“And Laura? What did she do wrong? What rule could she possibly have broken?” McCall’s tears shone in her eyes but not from sadness. No, those were tears of intense wrath at this man who could sit there and admit to killing people so easily.

“I found Laura by the Bay, and she recognised me from the church. Her faith in God was wavering too, so I told her nothing but the truth. She invited me back to her house for a chat, and that’s when she told me she didn’t want to live anymore.” The plastic cup pinged in between Paul’s squeezing fingers, imagining the feel of flesh from Laura’s twisting body. “Laura begged me to relieve her from all her inner conflicts.”

“You didn’t