Whisper For The Reaper, Jack Gatland [good books for high schoolers txt] 📗

her happy, but I’ll tell her,’ he said as the van drove away into the Berkshire night.

There was a moment of silence in the car park.

Declan stretched, feeling his shoulder, wincing at the pain.

‘Gunshot wound opened?’ Monroe asked as Declan nodded. ‘Well, it serves you right for being a bloody martyr, then.’

‘How did you find me?’ Declan looked up to all three officers. ‘I didn’t tell anyone.’

‘Tracker in the car,’ Doctor Marcos smiled. ‘It’s always the tracker, Declan. God, you still have so much to learn.’

‘Jess?’

‘Being taken to St Mark’s hospital now,’ Freeman patted Declan on the arm. ‘You know how you’ve been a pain in my neck on this? I’m afraid I had to return the favour, and I called her mum. Sorry.’

Declan nodded. To be honest, having Lizzie angry at him while Jess was safe was the best of the outcomes he’d envisioned for this night.

‘We should get out of here too,’ Doctor Marcos continued. ‘We need that shoulder looked at, and we need to confirm the story that we’re telling everyone.’

‘It’s simple,’ Monroe nodded to Declan. ‘Karl and Ilse kidnapped his kid, he went to negotiate, our guys saved Jess and realising this, Karl ran, never to be seen again.’

‘That works for me, as long as you’re all okay with that,’ Declan nodded, but then stopped, looking out across the car park.

‘Have any of you got torches?’ he asked.

‘What now?’ Monroe muttered. ‘Did you lose your car keys?’

‘More a fatal overdose of heroin,’ Declan replied, scanning the floor. ‘Thought it might be an idea to pick it up before we leave.’

And with their smartphones out as torches, Declan, two DCIs and a Divisional Surgeon played a midnight game of hunt the syringe, while in a van three miles to the east, the Red Reaper was taken to face real justice.

Epilogue

It took another week before the fallout finally settled.

Declan had returned to the hospital to face a furious Lizzie; he’d expected this, and although Jess was awake and explaining that she’d only passed out due to shock, the bruises on her wrists and around her throat gave the true story that she was trying to gloss over with bravado and, when Lizzie grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into a corridor, he was ready for whatever words she had to say.

He wasn’t however ready for the words that she did say.

‘I’m speaking to a solicitor later,’ she hissed at him, pushing him against a corridor wall. ‘We’re going to petition to have you removed from custody for Jess. I don’t want you near my daughter ever again.’

‘Lizzie, you can’t—‘

‘I can’t what?’ She snapped back, tears welling in her eyes, tears of anger and fury. ‘Jess almost died, Declan! She almost died, and you put her into that situation! She’s fifteen!’

Lizzie looked away, taking in deep breaths to calm herself.

‘I don’t know what’s happened to you, but you’re not the man I married, fell in love with. You’ve thrown yourself at every opportunity to kill yourself ever since your bloody dad died. And I’m sick of it, Declan. And I’m sick of you trying to drag our daughter with you. If it’s not men stealing her bag, it’s women trying to murder her.’

She looked away.

‘Not anymore, Declan. You’re toxic. You destroy everything you touch. And I’ll be damned if I’m losing Jess to that.’

Declan stared at Lizzie for a long moment before speaking.

‘I agree,’ he whispered. ‘You don’t need to spend money on a solicitor, I agree. I didn’t think this would happen, and I didn’t look after my daughter enough.’ He looked through the window at her, currently laughing at something PC De’Geer, who’d been with Declan since he arrived to have his own wound stitched up, was saying.

‘Just tell her I’m sorry,’ he continued. ‘That I’ll call her—‘

‘You’ll do no such bloody thing,’ Lizzie interrupted. ‘You’re a ghost, Declan. I don’t expect to hear from you apart from birthdays and Christmas, you understand?’

Before Declan could answer, Lizzie turned from him, walking back into the ward where she embraced Jess. After a moment of conversation, Lizzie and Jess left together; Lizzie staring straight ahead, while Jess managed a brief nod to her father, standing alone in the hospital corridor.

Karl Schnitter, or Wilhelm Müller rather wasn’t the only one to lose a daughter that day.

After that, things had been a little more normal around the village. Declan still received glares from some villagers, and he understood that. To some of them, people who didn’t know the full story, Declan was involved with one of their own, and the result was a missing, popular local mechanic. There were even rumours that Declan had murdered him, hiding the body in the woods near the Dew Drop Inn, but rumours were just rumours. The truth was far wilder, and Declan had ensured that nobody would ever learn that.

Billy gave Declan back his dad’s iMac, now reunited with its hard drive, but the only thing on it was the image of a receipt, the one that Billy had deduced the location of Ilse Müller on. Declan had shivered at that; he’d had faith in his team to come through, as they always came through, but for the first time he realised just how close they came to failing.

How close Jess was to dying for his own mistakes.

Lizzie was right to keep her from him.

Later the same day, Declan had taken a sledgehammer to the fake wall in his dad’s study, making sure not to re-tear his shoulder wound, and by the end of the day he’d removed a chunk of framing wood and plasterboard, and beginning a long route to removing the secrets and lies that had ended Patrick Walsh’s life. He didn’t know what to do with all the rubble though, so he placed it in his Audi and drove to the Dew Drop Inn; the contractors were still there, working on the place, but didn’t mind Declan dumping a few more pieces into their