“No, we balance the scales of justice. Someone gets away with murder, we kill them. An eye for an eye and all that. From what you’ve said, this perverted asshole hasn’t murdered anyone, so we can’t kill him, it’s against the code.”
“Fuck the code. He deserves to die. The things he went on about, twisted fuck, he videoed a lot of it and put it online, too. Go watch it, you’ll want to murder him then.”
“You’ve gotta know, we wouldn’t shed a tear if he dropped down dead, but we can’t kill him.”
“Fat lot of use you are.” He glared at me then turned. “Fucking useless.”
“But wait,” I said, following him. “Give us his information, we can find out who is supplying these girls, take out the wheels of the machine if we find they fit our criteria. Good chance they do if we scrape back through their history. These pricks are always trigger happy.”
“And then you’ll kill him? My cellmate.”
“If he’s murdered, yes, if the guy or guys he got these girls from have, yes, we’ll take them all out.” I paused. “We’ve done it before. You know we have. We’re solid for our word.”
“Yeah, I do know.” He retrieved a slip of paper from his faded jeans pocket. “Here’s his details. And when you do decide to waste him, just before you put a bullet in his brain, say hi to him from me.”
“I’ll be sure to.” I took the tatty piece of paper.
Leo Green, Northcourt, Abingdon.
“Not a lot to go on here, mate.”
“You’ll find him.”
“He go home when he was released?” I asked.
“Said he was.”
“Then, sure, we’ll find him.”
“Let me know, yeah, I’ll sleep better when I know he’s in Hell.”
“Sure, we’ll let you know.” I held up the paper. “Could be great intel this, might connect a few dots on something we’ve been working on.”
“Always glad to help.” He strode away, holding up his left arm in a half wave.
“Say hi to The Convicts for me,” I called. “Tell them to keep their noses clean.”
He didn’t reply.
I glanced at my watch. I had an hour before I was due at Amy’s, so I found a park, sat on a bench, and phoned Andrew and filled him in on the lead. He was excited, keen for the hunt now he had a scent, and said he’d be in touch soon. The sooner we paid Leo Green a visit the better.
I then called my kids, Nathan and Harry.
They’d had a fun weekend, been out with Sarah andhimto some water park. I struggled to keep my voice bright and inject interest in their day when inside I was being eaten alive by the fact I wasn’t with them, wasn’t watching them grow, bantering, play fighting, making memories at damn water parks.
And not one iota of it was my fucking fault. I hadn’t had the affair. I hadn’t sneaked around, lied, deceived, fucked another person. That was all on Sarah, and yet she got my damn house and my kids, and the second our divorce came through she movedhimin.
Wanker.
I ended the call with promises to see them on my next weekend off and take them somewhere even better than the water park. They were in a hurry for dinner, starving, they said, and so disappeared quickly from my phone.
I sighed and rubbed my temples. Tried to push out the hate I felt for the man who’d quite literally stolen my life.
For so long I’d brooded on what I could arrest him for, how I could set him up, frame him, get his ass thrown in jail for so long he’d be a wizened old git by the time he got out.
But Andrew had talked me down from that plan, said it would be bad karma, would feel great at the time but would undo the work we’d done on balancing the scales of justice.
So I’d agreed not to do it…for now. Things could change. Minds could change. So could freedom.
