Birthdays for the dead

Downstairs, she s downstairs I m sorry.

You will be.

He staggered along the hall to a door, opened it, and flicked a switch. A flight of stairs led down into the basement. I didn t mean to I didn t.

He d built a mock-up of the Birthday Boy s torture room. Not all of it just three walls, identical to the ones in the cards. Enough to fake up a photo. Katie was sitting in the middle, on a wooden chair, her ankles fixed to the legs with cable-ties, her hands behind her back. Slumped forwards in her seat, long black hair hanging over her face.

Not moving.

I didn t I didn t mean to hurt her, it was an accident. Ethan leaned back against the wall, breathing hard. She wouldn t stop screaming

Alice brushed Katie s hair away from her face.

Her eyes were open above a rectangle of silver duct tape, throat covered in bruises. The left side of her forehead was torn and bloody, distorted, as if the bone underneath had caved in.

Oh God

The walking stick fell to the basement floor, sending up a little puff of dust.

Katie

Didn t Didn t mean Only meant to get my own back Make you make you Ethan slumped against the wall, clutching the cast on his shattered left hand. Never hold a pencil again

No

He sank down until he was sitting on the ground, eyes half shut, breath heaving in his chest like an aqualung.

Not again

I lurched forwards, fell to my knees, and put two fingers against Katie s throat. Pulse there had to be a pulse. Something. Her skin was cold. No. Katie, no, no, no, no, no Please!

Didn t mean to

Oh, Ash, I m so sorry. Alice knelt beside me, wrapped her arms around me and squeezed. I m so sorry.

I don t know when Alice let go, but one minute she was there, and the next I was on my own looking up into Katie s blue eyes.

Retching noises echoed around the room from somewhere behind me. I turned.

Alice had Ethan bent over her knee, sticking her fingers down his throat. His back heaved and stinking yellow splashed against the basement floor. And again. And again. Come on, get it all up.

Bitter-smelling vomit flecked with little white pills.

I stood. Leave him alone.

He s going to die if I don t LEAVE HIM ALONE!

She stared at me, then dropped him, backed away from the little fuck who killed my daughter.

The gun sang in my hands. One loud, deafening note that echoed around the room, back and forth, and back and forth, slowly fading to nothing.

Ethan lay on his side with a tiny black hole in his face, half an inch below his cheekbone. The back of his head was wide open, the contents making a scarlet peacock s tail up the wall.

Alice eased the gun from my fingers. Shh it s OK. It s OK.

She wiped it clean on her stripy red-and-black T-shirt, then placed it in Ethan s hand, pointed it away from herself and pulled the trigger. Another echoing bang.

She let go and Ethan s arm flopped across his chest. Alice stared at him for a bit. Then nodded. He s got a hole in his head, gunshot residue on his hand, and a bloodstream full of sleeping pills. She straightened her top. He was ranting and raving when we came in. He threatened us, then he shot himself.

I cradled Katie s head against my chest.

Ash, this is important: if anyone asks we have to be on the same page he threatened us with the gun, then he shot himself.

Katie

Tuesday 22nd November

The curtain slid back.

Katie was lying on her back, on the other side of the viewing room window, eyes closed, hair brushed, a sheet pulled up to her chin covering the bruises on her throat hair arranged over her battered forehead. Hiding the damage. It looked as if she was sleeping. As if she d wake up at any moment.

Michelle stepped forwards and put a hand on the glass, lips trembling.

The uniformed constable cleared his throat. Is this your daughter?

A nod. Eyes shining and wet. Yes

Alice put an arm around Michelle s shoulders. I m sorry.

I stayed where I was. Not breathing until the curtain slid shut again.

We stepped out into the car park. A knot of journalists jockeyed for position outside the hospital s main entrance, waiting for the photogenic moment when Megan Taylor was reunited with her parents.

Michelle stared as Andrea Taylor walked out through the doors and waved. It s all her fault, isn t it? She made those two bastards what they were

Alice shook her head. Their father made them, she was just the catalyst.

She gets her daughter back and I get Katie s body.

I know, Alice gave Michelle a hug, it s horrible and it s not fair.

Two figures broke away from the pack and marched towards us: DCI Weber and DS Smith, both dressed in funereal black.

My phone rang. I dragged it out, answered without really looking. Operating on automatic.

A nasal Irish accent blared in my ear. Two times ye had the chance, an ye bottled it. Mrs Kerrigan.

Fuck off, I m not in the mood.

Wanted to let yez know no hard feelin s. In fact, I ve gone and got you a present. Hope ye like it. A little laugh, and then she hung up.