Kim managed to lift herself up his body and spread her legs over his backside to stop him from wriggling. If he managed to get his arms free with that rifle, it was game over for one of them; and the odds were not on her side.
Kim managed to clamp her left palm around the barrel of the gun. She punched him in the throat as she snatched the gun from his grip.
She launched it across the room, heard it skid across the concrete floor.
Yes, she could have tried to shoot him, but by the time she’d positioned the firearm he would have managed to wrestle it back from her.
Now, it was a fair fight.
‘Move away from him, Inspector.’
She froze at the cold, emotionless voice.
‘Dale, thank God,’ Bart said, scrabbling to a sitting position. ‘She tried to take the gun; it went off. She killed our grandfather.’
‘So, you’re a lying coward as well as a sick racist bastard, Bart?’ Kim asked, breathlessly.
‘Shut up, Bart,’ Dale said, stepping into the room.
The rifle was poised at his shoulder.
Kim felt the fear in her stomach as she stared at the coldness in the face she’d beaten outside.
‘I told you not to hurt him,’ Dale said, pointing the gun at her.
‘And I haven’t, yet,’ she said. ‘I want him to face a jury. I want him to pay for what he’s done. I want the world to know what a sick, racist bastard he is. And I want him to suffer for it.’
He met her gaze and nodded. ‘I know you do.’
Kim glanced towards the old man. He was dead, and now she was the only thing standing between the brothers and some semblance of a relationship. Despite the competition that had existed between them, they had managed to maintain a deep bond. Throughout it all they loved each other. Their views and their young minds had been twisted out of shape like molten glass but they’d always had each other.
‘Just shoot her, Dale,’ Bart cried.
They would always protect each other.
‘We’ll blame all this on her and—’
His words ended abruptly as a shot rang out.
Kim waited for the bolt of pain, the feeling of her flesh being ripped apart by lead. It didn’t come.
Bart Preece slowly crumpled to the ground as his brother lowered the gun to the floor and left the room.
ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN
Kim parked the Ninja on the pavement to the right of the hospital doors. Despite the two degree temperature outside, she needed the solitude of the bike today. Too many people were still in her head.
She had spent the night staring at her bedroom ceiling, questions swirling around her mind. And there was only one person who could give her the answers.
She headed towards the surgical assessment ward. Her earlier call to the hospital had confirmed the location of her target.
She edged inside the ward as a patient was being wheeled out.
The reception desk was unmanned, and Kim did not have the time, patience or inclination to wait.
She found the person she sought in the second bay along.
Fiona’s bed was nearest the window. Her head was turned towards the grey, featureless sky.
Her petite body was clad in a long cotton nightdress, which told Kim some member of the family had been by to bring her own things.
The dressing around her ankle and foot was padded and clean. A grey furry slipper was on her good foot, the spare one discarded on the bed.
‘Hey,’ Kim said, quietly, as she approached.
Fiona turned to her with a look of hostility, and then seemed to realise that she didn’t need it any more. Her face dropped to neutral.
‘Hey,’ she said.
‘How’s the pain?’ Kim asked, sitting on the easy chair.
She shrugged and nodded towards the machine on her left. ‘Better because of this.’
‘Morphine?’
Fiona nodded.
‘What’s the prognosis?’ Kim asked, looking towards the bandaged foot.
‘No promises, basically. The doctors don’t know if it will be weight-bearing again, and if it is, I’ll have a limp for the rest of my life.’
Kim thought about what could have been.
‘I know what you’re thinking, and I agree,’ Fiona said, appearing to read her thoughts. ‘Is your colleague okay?’
Kim nodded. ‘Thank God,’ she said, and then added: ‘We searched for you. I never thought for a minute you’d been taken.’
‘You thought I was in on it, didn’t you?’
‘Can you blame me?’ Kim defended. ‘You blocked me at every turn.’
Fiona tipped her head. ‘Was it you that fed Gizmo?’
‘Did I… oh, the funny thing in your shed?’
The first real smile touched Fiona’s lips, followed by a grimace and a press of the button. For just a second it had lit up her face and offered a glimpse of the person inside.
‘How many other people died last night?’ Fiona asked, quietly. She’d obviously been told about Robson and Bart Preece.
‘Is that what you were thinking about when I came in?’
Fiona nodded.
‘Just one, and I’m not sorry for saying that he deserved it,’ she said, honestly. The sight of his chewed-up limbs in the dog cage had been horrific to witness, but easier to bear when Kim realised that it was Gary Flint who had suggested her colleague as the main event, following the police interview. Stacey’s snooping had simply played into Floda’s hands. Kim guessed the theft of Justin’s laptop had been ordered by Floda, to search for anything incriminating, and then used to bait Stacey out of the station.
‘How many hunters were there?’ Fiona asked.
‘Nine,’ she answered.
‘Did all of them actually kill to get into the?…’
Kim held up a hand to stop her. ‘We don’t know yet. They hail from six other counties. The investigation will be ongoing for some time yet.’
West Mercia had already formed a task force to conduct the interviews of the nine people who had been apprehended. The team included psychologists, behaviour experts, computer forensics and eleven detective inspectors. The photos Penn had retrieved from Stacey’s phone would be invaluable in matching the person to their username. The website itself had disappeared an hour before the event had begun, and she had asked to be informed specifically when the killer of Brandon ‘Bubba’ Jones was identified.
Despite what they’d uncovered, Derbyshire Constabulary was determined to treat the acid attack on Shay Chakma as an honour killing. Kim only hoped that the poor woman got the justice she deserved.
‘Explain the timeline to me, Fiona. How much did you and your brother know?’
Kim knew that Fiona would be questioned formally by West Mercia but this wasn’t for the investigation. This was for her.
Fiona took a deep breath. ‘The first one took place twenty-seven years ago. My grandfather mentioned the lawsuit of Jacob James to Robson Preece, who came up with the idea for a hunt. You know how foul and racist he was.’
Kim nodded.
‘The second my grandfather agreed, he sealed the fate of us all. By the time he knew about the other two victims he was in too deep. He didn’t take part in the event, but he did take the bodies and bury them in the lower field.’
‘The one that flooded?’