Written In Blood

Chapter Fifty

Zack felt his stomach lurch into his throat as his car came to a sudden stop outside the village shop. Next to him in the driver's seat, Sophie laughed at the look on his face.

"Did you think I was going to lose control and crash your baby?" she asked, amused by his reaction to her driving – she wasn't about to admit it, but her own stomach had given a bit of a jolt when the car stopped more quickly than she expected; the brakes on the Aston Martin were much more responsive than those on her own car.

"You came close a few times," Zack said once his stomach had settled back into its usual location.

"Rubbish," Sophie scoffed. "I was in complete control. I'm a very good driver."

Zack looked at his friend sceptically. "How do you explain your car then?" he asked. "I don't think I've ever seen it looking like it's capable of passing an M.O.T.."

"It might not be pretty to look at, we can't all afford fancy sports cars, but it runs, without any problems, and it's never even come close to failing an M.O.T.." Sophie was proud of that. "I'll be back shortly," she said, throwing open the door at her side. "I haven't had a chance to stock up your fridge, I've had too much other stuff to do, and I don't much fancy going hungry tonight." Before Zack could say or ask anything she had the door closed and was across the pavement to the door of the shop.

While Sophie browsed the aisles in the shop, Zack did his best to make himself comfortable in the passenger seat. It wasn't easy because the last batch of pain relief the hospital had given him had worn off, and he could feel a multitude of tiny pinpricks of fire shooting through his back where the shotgun pellets had struck him. The pain was more intense where his back pressed against the seat behind him. His injuries were minor compared to those suffered by Isobel, but he couldn't help wishing for a magical remedy to heal them.

"Bloody hell!" The profanity came from Rod Baylor; the mechanic was standing outside the pub with the rest of the smokers. "That's that Wild bastard, isn't it," he said, pointing down the road to the Aston Martin outside the shop.

"Yeah, looks like," Gary Fredericks agreed as he puffed on his cigarette. "He's the only one in the village with a car like that. What the hell's he doing out of hospital?"

"How'm I s'posed to know?" Baylor asked. He looked around at his fellow smokers, but none of them showed any sign of knowing the answer. "I guess Malcolm didn't do a good enough job of putting him out of business. Useless bastard!" he swore. "He can't have been more than a dozen feet from Wild with a shotgun and he still couldn't manage to kill him."

"I suppose you'd have walked up to Wild, shoved the shotgun in his balls and blown his dick off," Gary said contemptuously.

"Damn right." Rod turned to Sergeant Mitchell, who had come out from the pub to see what was going on. "I thought you said he was going to be in hospital till you had the evidence to prove he's the killer, that our wives and daughters are safe. Why's he out of hospital, and what's he doing back here?"

"Not a bloody clue," Mitchell admitted. It was clear that he was as unhappy with things as the smokers were. "I'm not in charge of the case anymore, some DI from town is, I'm not even in the loop. Did you know he was being released?" he asked of Melissa, who had followed him out with her drink and was now watching and listening to everything that was happening.

"No, I didn't have a clue," Melissa said. "I thought he'd be in for at least a couple more days, so did Inspector Harrison as far as I know," she continued, pre-emptying the next question.

"What good are you then, either of you," Rod demanded. "You guys are supposed to protect us and our families from assholes like him, but you don't even know when he's around and when he ain't. If we hadn't been out here and seen him, who knows how many girls he could have attacked before we knew he was back. Someone needs to do something about him."