[Alicia Friend 01.0] His First His Second Read online

  Ball mock-saluted and turned. He stopped. “Hey, boss-lady?”

  Alicia said, “Yes, underling-man?”

  “Isn’t Richard Hague the name of Katie’s dad?”

  “Sure is.” She felt a silly little flutter in her chest. “Why?”

  “Because they just put out an arrest bulletin for him. He’s wanted for the murders up at Eccup.”

  Murders? Richard? Nah, different Richard. Had to be. She almost giggled at the stupidity, her misinterpretation. But no. Ball said Katie’s dad.

  “If this is some sick joke,” she said, “you better tell me.”

  “No joke, love.” Ball licked his spoon. “They’ve got a witness, watched him dump the body.”

  “The nut? They’re taking the word of a mentally ill vagrant?”

  Murphy’s hand on her shoulder. “Easy, now,” he said softly. “If it’s a mistake, it’s a mistake. Right now, we have other priorities.”

  No. Alicia had no higher priorities. Her mind was crashing, shutting down. It needed to reboot. She fled the room, memories of last night playing out again, but blurred, like images on a wall speeding by.

  Outside the station, the cold smacked her face like a dead hand, the sun now extinguished, huge white-grey clouds blanketing the sky. But Alicia ran, not knowing where to go, no plan, finally resting on the borrowed Vauxhall in the freezing midday air.

  Her fake-self was fighting her true-self, and fighting hard. An appearance was imminent. She wouldn’t cry, though, not in view of the station, many eyes most likely watching her.

  She climbed in, started the engine. And she desperately tried to remember where Roberta worked.

  While the vehicle revved, then set off out of the car park, high above all that was happening, plummeting temperatures and increasing pressure teamed up against the moisture of clouds, flinging particles one way, then the other, so they were forced to gather together as if to share warmth. And, when the many particles bonded, they were too heavy for the cloud to hold. In a pattern that would never again be replicated, the now-solid mass descended, buffeted by a mild wind, finally coming to rest upon the ground, pursued by hundreds of thousands of similar, but not identical, objects.

  The first snowflakes of winter landed silently on the Earth.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Through the chipboard partition, Celine Dion warbled something indecipherable. Alfie couldn’t decide if it was worse hearing the song properly or trying to work out which one it was. Nor was it easy to tell if the nausea he was feeling was down to the music or the movement of Red McCall’s van.

  The man stirred.

  Richard Hague.

  Alfie felt strangely depressed at finally having him here, defeated and helpless. In the years since Stacy died he’d thought about this moment so many times. Capturing Stacy’s murderer, the man who killed at least forty others, who treated it like a hobby or mission; indiscriminate except for that one thing: the single, solitary wound through the heart.

  Alfie had envisioned hours of unmitigated torture. Not asking questions, not demanding anything from him, just putting him through the worst experience imaginable. Hence his specifications regarding the vehicle.

  A sturdy wooden board bolted to the floor with large metal loops screwed in; two at the top, two at the bottom. Through each of these McCall had cranked a set of handcuffs, solid ones that he assured Alfie were liberated from police storage by one of his many contacts. The wooden board raised slightly at the head end and sagged gently in the middle, creating a crude drainage system. In a toolbox the size of a trunk, McCall supplied a number of instruments: scalpels, razor, bone saw, and a shit-ton of black plastic bags. The bags were not yet necessary.

  Alfie never intended to kill this man, despite his desire to do so. For twenty years, he searched. For twenty years, fifteen of them with the FBI, he searched for similar slayings, for that tell-tale wound, the randomness of the victim. He thought so much, for so long, his internal voice no longer his own. Each thought in his head was now spoken by Stacy. Whether a recipe for kung po chicken or a plan of vengeance, it was always her, always with him. And she didn’t want Alfie to become a monster.

  Justice.

  This was what he sought, what he’d always sought. From his fledgling experiences with the Feds, his fast promotion from a field office in North Dakota to a robbery task force blanketing L.A., he always believed in the Right Thing. Stacy was so proud of him, too. She followed him, followed his career. She didn’t want one herself, old-fashioned and proud of it, desiring only a family, babies, a house, the cheesy American dream made real. And then another promotion took them to New York, where property was so expensive, and Stacy took a part-time job at Wicker Securities, soon becoming personal assistant to one of their top salesmen. An easy job, since he was hardly ever there. Her boss headed sales teams all across the country, training people to get into houses and flog security systems, making them explain to the potential customers how easy it would be to break into their homes right now, how Wicker products would protect their families from anything up to, and possibly including, alien invasion.

  When her boss was present, he was good to Stacy. He didn’t grumble about her tardiness, the odd mistake when filing, nor her habit of taking an extra five minutes at break time. She was the envy of the other secretaries whose bosses all but had them clocking in and out for bathroom breaks. At times, Alfie grew a little jealous when she’d say over dinner what a great guy Richard was, how she’d been terrified to tell him about another little mishap on the phone or with an invoice, but then he smiled and said, “Mistakes happen. Learn from them.” Alfie didn’t really believe there was anything going on, their sex-life better than it had ever been, and not only because they were trying for a baby—it was so rich, so hot. But the doubt is always there in men. To assuage this nagging fear, the stupid, irrational, totally unfounded fear, he suggested Stacy invite Richard for dinner one evening.

  Steaks. On the deck.

  She was so excited and nervous that any doubts Alfie had were scorched from his mind. Were she having an affair, no way would she be so cold as to eat dinner with both him and her husband.

  Richard seemed like a nice enough guy. His handshake was firm and they all relaxed into easy conversation. Work, family, love lives. Of these three Richard only dealt with the first; the others could wait, he said. It was then he revealed the wine Alfie was drinking cost twelve hundred dollars a bottle. Alfie nearly put it back in the bottle and buried it.

  That was the first time he met Richard Hague. The last had been Stacy’s funeral. Until now. A twenty-five-year-old upstart with a great job, good looks, and a mediocre secretary. And now he was cuffed to the floor of a van, positioned like a letter X, travelling at non-suspicious speeds through a small “big” city in England.

  Richard Hague’s eyes opened into slits.

  “Hello.” Alfie sat cross-legged next to Richard’s head. “You know who I am?”

  Richard shook his head. He was weak, groggy. Then, suddenly, he spasmed, his hands yanking at the cuffs, feet likewise. They clanked and pulled, Richard furiously whipping his head around to see why the hell he couldn’t move. Alfie didn’t flinch.

  “Stop it,” Alfie said. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

  Richard calmed down some, the cuffs still tight on his wrists. “Where am I?”

  “In a van. Leeds. Is that what this shithole’s called?”

  “Sure is,” McCall said from the driver’s seat. He couldn’t be seen behind the chipboard partition, but his voice was clear. “Though I think ‘shithole’ is a bit harsh.”

  “It’s a shithole, pal. And I can’t wait to get out of it.” He turned his attention back to Richard. “I don’t know what to do now.”

  “You could let me go,” Richard said. “Please. I have to be somewhere.”

  “I’m sure.” Alfie opened the trunk-like toolbox and tipped out the contents. He selected a scalpel, held it so Richard could see. “I’m conflict
ed now. I got a voice in my head telling me not to do this, that it’ll make me like you. But I got another voice pleading with me to go right ahead. Jail ain’t good enough for folk like you.”

  “I think you have the wrong person, sir. I don’t know who you’re looking for—”

  “I’m looking for you!”

  He raised the scalpel and Richard cringed, closed his eyes like a big ol’ baby. Alfie lowered it slowly, placed it back with the others. Richard opened one eye, then the other. Alfie shook his head, unsure why he was smiling. It was as if he’d scored some victory with that action, not giving in to anger, allowing the man to live.

  “You’re the playground bully, Richard. Look at you. You’re terrified. You’re shaking like some kid being led to the principal’s office the first time.”

  Enough with the similes, Alfie, get on with it.

  “I don’t know how I feel,” Alfie said. “That’s my problem. I kill you, I become you. I torture you, cripple you, whatever, I’m worse than you.”

  “That’s right. That’s right, sir. Don’t be like me.”

  “But that leaves me with a problem. A question of justice. And something else, something I’m trying to … I’m trying to … what’s the word?”

  “Articulate?”

  “That’s the one. Thanks. I can’t articulate it. I don’t wanna kill you, but I do want something that I won’t get if you’re in jail.”

  Alfie stood. The swaying of the van didn’t unbalance him much. He kept his centre of gravity low, the way he’d trained, although the purpose for which he trained was not to stand up in moving vans.

  “That’s what I need,” he said. “I need to know why.”

  “W-why what?” Richard said.

  “Why her.”

  “Who? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Alfie steadied himself with a hand on the roof. “You killed my wife along with around forty to fifty others over a ten-year period. You used your job to travel to cities all over the States where you butchered innocent people, randomly as far as I can tell, but who knows. Your knowledge of security systems meant you could break into houses and apartments at will, but sometimes you snatched ’em right off the streets.”

  Richard’s expression darkened and the cuffs rattled and bit into his wrists even deeper. Still no blood yet.

  “Don’t,” Alfie said. “Those are police-issue. The wood’s solid. You’re going nowhere.”

  Richard relaxed his arms, lay his head back, and stared at the roof of the van.

  Alfie picked up the surgical bone saw from the collection littering the van. It was wire-free, charged up earlier. “Okay. Now you are going to tell me what I want to know. Or I’m going to start cutting things off.”

  “Yeah, man!” came McCall’s voice. “Gonna get medieval on his ass.”

  That man has seen too many movies, Alfie thought. “Quiet, and drive.”

  “We’re nearly there, mate.”

  Alfie didn’t respond to that one. They’d scouted the site yesterday, an area of national park—a pissy little orchard really—close to where Richard dumped his two latest bodies. He couldn’t see the well itself, but the proximity was enough irony for Alfie.

  “Why my wife?” Alfie said. “Why my wife?”

  Alfie turned on the bone saw, a device that reminded him of a large pizza slicer. The circular blade whined and spun, and Alfie truly hoped Richard would talk to him. He needed answers. He needed what all bereaved people need: why my child? Why my husband, my girlfriend? Why did my daughter walk into the road? Why did cancer take my mother?

  Why me?

  Over the saw, Alfie said, “Why did you murder my wife?”

  He held the blade near Richard’s mid-section, having decided to cut open the man’s stomach. He wasn’t a surgeon, hadn’t studied anatomy, but he knew a bullet in the gut was the most painful place to be shot, apart from the kneecap, and he also knew it took a long time to die from it.

  The blade connected with Richard’s clothing, ripping wool blend and cotton as if it wasn’t even there. Closer to the skin.

  “Alright!” Richard yelled. “Alright, alright.”

  Alfie turned off the saw and dropped it on the floor. “Tell me. Why her? Why?”

  “Who was she?”

  “You don’t even know her. You don’t remember me.”

  “Sorry. I killed a lot of people.”

  “How many?”

  Richard chuckled. “How many do you think?”

  “You got to around forty, maybe fifty. Then you stopped. I’d like to know why you stopped as well. If it ain’t too much trouble.”

  “My plan,” Richard said, calm now, no fear in him at all, “was to achieve one hundred perfect kills. I made my quota. So I stopped.”

  One hundred.

  Alfie let this process. The emotionless voice, the matter-of-fact tone. “And my wife?”

  “How did you find me?”

  “Saw you on television. Shame about your little girl, by the way. But I knew. Those murders in the well, plus my wife, plus your old job, it was too much of a coincidence. I followed you from the police station last night, to that hotel. Then I watched you follow that old guy to this house. I take it you killed whoever was inside.”

  “Actually, I didn’t. I don’t want to kill any more people. I never did. I met my wife, and I didn’t need to do it anymore.”

  “What about my wife? What about Stacy?”

  Richard observed Alfie for a long while. Then smiled. “I know you now. You’re Stacy’s husband!” He sounded so happy, so normal, like he’d recognised an old school pal at a party.

  “Ten out of ten,” Alfie said. “Now explain.”

  “Usually it was just whether the fancy took me, but occasionally there was a reason. I had a reason for Stacy. Is that what you want to hear? My reason?”

  “You know it is.”

  The van bumped up and then crunched to a halt. They were here. From the front, McCall said, “Hey, man, you getting medieval on him yet? Are ya?”

  “Not yet,” Alfie called back.

  The driver door opened and closed, and a moment later the back door opened, allowing natural light to flood in. It was snowing. Quite a lot.

  “This country is seriously dumb,” Alfie said. “It was sunny when I got in here.”

  “How about some pliers and a blow torch?” McCall said.

  “No pliers, no blow torch.”

  “Oh, come on, mate. Let’s get—”

  Alfie sighed. “Okay, fine. Go get some.”

  “Can I have some money?”

  “No. If you want them that badly, take the other car and go steal some.”

  He sulked as he closed the door. Alfie listened to his footsteps recede and then an engine fired up. The car they’d stashed here—in preparation for this event should they need to set fire to the van—drove away with the annoying ex-marine at the wheel. Finally, they were alone.

  “Back to business,” Alfie said. “You killed Stacy. Why?”

  “She was a lovely lass, your wife.” Richard said this with an air of nostalgia, as if happy to be discussing it. “She’d knit these cute little booties for the baby you guys wanted so badly. She’d do it on her breaks and sometimes at her desk. She was always late, presumably screwing you before work, which wasn’t a problem when I was away. But I like people to be where they’re supposed to be when they’re supposed to be there. One day, when she mentioned you were away for the night, I broke into your apartment using a lock pick and a little black book of alarm codes. I believe I used one of her own knitting needles. I thought it was making a statement or something. I’m not sure exactly what I was saying, but hey.”

  The van rocked gently with the breeze, a flurry of snow pattering sounding off the side.

  “Can you imagine,” Richard said, “how hard it is to get a knitting needle into the heart? You have to hold it with your fingers close to the pointy end, puncture the skin, then break through the i
ntercostal muscle—you know, the stringy bits that hold the ribs together—and go in at an angle.”

  Alfie took the scalpel and knelt beside Richard.

  “I found my way up there, holding little Stacy quite easily around the neck. Her heart beat so fast. On each out-beat I let it touch the point of the needle without piercing it. When I thought she was going to pass out, I shoved it right in.”

  “You watched her,” Alfie said.

  “Oh yes. She was quite the death. I sat in the chair next to her makeup cabinet. It’s the weirdest thing. You can virtually see the life draining. And it wasn’t the blood. There wasn’t that much, at least not externally. But the life, slowly slipping from her eyes. It was beautiful. It was perfect.”

  Alfie put the scalpel to Richard’s throat. His wife’s “beautiful death” now played out, vivid in his mind.

  “You letting me go now, Alfie?” Richard said. “I have to speak to the police.”

  “No. I don’t think so.” Inside him, Stacy cried at him not to do it, not to kill this man. But it was too hard not to. He’d never taken a single life, not one criminal, not one innocent, but here, at his mercy was someone who’d murdered a hundred.

  A hundred!

  A century of kills. And what was he asking? To be let go?

  Alfie said, “You have to die, man. You have to die like all those other people.”

  “Please … one phone call…”

  “You ain’t under arrest here. You don’t get a lawyer.”

  “I need to speak to the police. Please. Give me my phone…”

  Now it made sense. Now Alfie realised what Richard was doing. And this made him so happy, he nearly forgot where he was.

  “You know where your daughter is,” Alfie said.

  Richard nodded. “Please. She’s not a part of this. She’s nothing to you…”

  “Like Stacy was nothing to you. Like all the others.”

  “Not only my daughter. Someone else’s too.”

  “Oh, yes. The pop star.”