‘Then if necessary, we’ll have to sedate her again …’
Emilia’s stomach hollowed.Sedate her again?When and where had he sedated her before? Did he have something to do with where she first woke up?
As the voices grew louder, she backed away and let herself out of a door and into the garden. Nausea washed over her as she hurried across the driveway. She became distracted by the barking of two fox-red Labradors running towards her, poker-straight tails aggressively aloft. She tried but failed to remember their names.
‘Hey, guys,’ she said as they snarled at her. ‘Did you miss me?’
But after a cursory sniff from each, they went on their way. They were as familiar with her as she was with them.
Emilia needed space and privacy to think about what she’d overheard. She remained where she was for a moment, the house behind her, mown lawns ahead. Was she trapped here? Was she being kept prisoner but hadn’t even realised it?
She made her way towards the woodland until she was out of view of the main house, then continued along a flattened path curved between the pines and ash trees. Eventually she reached a different entrance from the one she’d arrived at. Approaching this new set of gates, she jumped when Josef appeared from nowhere.
‘Can I help you with something?’ he asked.
‘Have you been following me?’
‘Did you want to go somewhere?’
‘I’m fine on my own, thank you.’
‘I’m sure we can organise something if you need to leave the premises.’
‘Why can’t I just go outside if I want to?’
‘Perhaps it might be a good idea if you spoke to your husband first?’
‘Are you asking me or telling me?’
When he didn’t reply, she knew the answer.
Emilia turned and walked slowly back towards the property, emerging from the woods and stopping at the perimeter of the lawns. Ahead was the man who claimed to be her husband, standing behind the lounge windows, watching her watching him.
Chapter 25
BRUNO, EXETER
‘Please, I can give you anything you want,’ the man begged.
‘I doubt that,’ Bruno replied, an image of Louie and him side by side in their family home coming to mind.
‘Do you want the money we took from you? I can get you it. Just let me go. I’m sorry, I really am.’
Bruno found it difficult to read the man’s expression under the blood covering his eyebrows, cheeks and mouth. It was impossible to tell if the apology came from the heart or from fear. As Bruno approached him, his victim contorted his naked torso, twisting it away from him so that it was less vulnerable. It was a futile effort. Bruno noted purple and red fragments of muscle tissue poking out from the deep lacerations in his back. Broken glass crunched under the soles of Bruno’s boots, from the panes that he’d twice rammed the man’s head through. Like his first killing in the motorway service station toilets, he had taken the second name on his list by surprise too.
‘I have a family,’ the man sobbed. ‘I have a son.’
‘So did I,’ Bruno deadpanned and another image of Louie prompted his fist to fly with a life of its own, punching the man in the kidneys many times. ‘You took him away from me.’
Bruno looked at the rope around his victim’s neck, the other half looped around metal beams holding up the greenhouse’s vaulted roof. It was the fault of parasites like this that father and son were separated.
His victim gasped for breath as Bruno recalled the last time he’d seen his boy, almost five months ago. He’d felt such joy watching Louie dancing barefoot on the artificial lawns of his care facility. Now when he thought of his son, he alternated between grief and anger. Louie no longer had either parent in his life and Bruno hated himself for that. Hot, raw tears streamed from Bruno’s eyes as he hit the man again.
Bruno had visited lawyer Robert Graph’s country house on a previous occasion, shortly before Bruno enrolled in the programme. His address hadn’t been hard to find and then, Bruno had only wanted to reason with him; to explain how he and his colleague Jacob O’Sullivan had been lied to which resulted in Bruno losing everything. Bruno turned up unannounced on his doorstep, begging him to ask his client to reconsider. But Graph had laughed, told him he didn’t care what the truth was and threatened to call the police before slamming the door in his face.
Today, he had no such opportunity. When he’d opened the door, Bruno had shoved him inside and, armed with a hammer, launched into a brutal attack. Then he’d dragged the unconscious lawyer to the greenhouse, pushed his face through glass, looped a rope he’d brought with him over the beam and hauled him up, allowing his feet to rest on a stepladder.
‘This is your own fault,’ Bruno began. ‘You have turned me into someone I don’t want to be. This is for every man, woman and child whose lives you have destroyed with no fucks given.’
