Kill Who You Want

Chapter Thirty-Two

Plot reminder: It has now been confirmed the Mark Cosgrove is not the evil mastermind. Wye is sleeping with Kubič. The previous chapter ended with Clive Bone, the recently released burglar Kubič has been following, being attacked as he makes a break-in...

~~~~~

The mood inside the CID room that evening was almost funereal. Far from at its end, the investigative journey seemed not yet to have even fumbled the ignition key into slot. Those of Ravensby's residents who had been lured by the optimism of the last twenty-four into returning from their refuge would be reunited not with the former safe haven the town had always been, but instead with the lip-curled snarl of a very real and imminent menace. Though six days remained until deadline, it seemed unlikely that the third recipient would wait much longer.

"If it were me," remarked Larkinson macabrely, studying the newly elaborated board notes, "I'd strike now, this evening, while everyone's guard's down."

Despite the spring warmth of the evening, Wye found herself shivering beside him. "You can just feel it in the air," she murmured. "Tonight. Something's going to happen tonight."

She it was who two minutes later responded to the squeal of the internal phone, Yardley too busy at the desk beside manically poring over the same case notes she herself had studied innumerable times in vain search of some inconsistency, some minor overlooked knot on which to spear an investigative hook.

"Best get yourselves over to Bancroft Avenue ASAP," came Sergeant Mullin's breathless voice. "There's reports of an incident. They're saying... Christ, they're saying Kubič is involved!"

*

For George Shreeves of the Echo and his journalistic brethren arriving at the scene, it was hard at first to get a take on things. A rather shocked looking DC Larkinson and the gaggle of uniformed officers in attendance were remaining unusually tight-lipped.

As Shreeves had pulled up along Bancroft Avenue an ambulance had been blaring its way past in the opposite direction. One of the crowd of onlookers was not only able to confirm that its occupant had been conscious - indeed, wildly gesturing - as the paramedics had stretchered him onto the back, but was also able to provide the victim's name. As the town's principal crime chronicler over the last thirty years, Clive Bone was well known to him. Hadn't he only very recently been released from Her Majesty's Pleasure? Sixth or seventh time, but clearly enjoyed prison life so much he'd been itching to get back. He'd been attacked as he'd been making his way over the back gate of an unoccupied house. Even in the dim evening light, even amidst the milling legs of the attending officers and the SOCO photographer, it was possible to make out a dark, sinister stain halfway along the taped off alley.

But really, all this paled into insignificance when put alongside the media bombshell which was the identity of Bone's aggressor.

As Nathan Edwardson three and a half weeks earlier, it seemed Kubič had pulled himself back from the brink just in time.

*

Abigail had always considered Giles not quite good-looking enough to be boyfriend material. He wasn't ugly exactly, just that there was something not quite right about his face - a disproportionally long nose, principally, everything else sort of squashed up a little to accommodate it. His acne problem, meanwhile, really was quite nauseating to behold in full daylight. Then there was his ungainliness - so tall and so thin at the same time. All angles and sharp, sticky-out bits.

But maybe she shouldn't be so shallow. In the dim sheen of her phone torch there in Underhill's master bedroom, it was in any case difficult to make out facial details. The shoulder against which the side of her head was nestled might equally have belonged to Johnny Depp.