The Hanged Man Read online

  ‘Give me the phone, Mr Watts, and do as you’re told, or I’ll order my man here to shoot you. I’d rather not have to do this. We’ve worked hard to get you in this position, and you are far more useful to us alive than dead, but …’ Mr Bone shrugged. ‘Your death will only be a minor inconvenience.’

  Dan was sensible enough to know he had no choice. He was also certain they weren’t going to kill him if he cooperated. It hurt him to have to admit it, but if they’d wanted him dead, he already would have been.

  ‘Let me keep my phone,’ he said.

  ‘You can have it back shortly. Put it on the floor and kick it over. Then sit down and put your hands where I can see them.’

  Reluctantly, Dan did as he was told, perching on the edge of the seat and wondering if it was worth trying to run.

  ‘Let me explain how things work,’ said Mr Bone, picking up the phone from the floor in front of him. ‘The woman you’ve just slept with was an actress. We hired her to make contact with you online, knowing your habit of meeting women like this. She believed she was working on behalf of your wife and signed a strict confidentiality clause. In other words, no one knows about what she was doing except us. And now you. As I see it, you have three choices. Firstly, you can refuse to cooperate with us. In which case we will kill you. Secondly, you can pretend you’re going to cooperate, then leave here and report the girl’s murder to your colleagues in the police, blaming us for it. However, I can guarantee you that this won’t work. The police will see that the two of you have been talking online and made arrangements to meet tonight, and that you had sex with her just before she died. They will also find your fingerprints on the murder weapon.’

  Dan met his gaze. ‘Except I haven’t touched it.’

  ‘No,’ said Mr Bone, ‘not yet.’

  He nodded to his associate, who walked over to Dan’s chair pointing the gun down at him.

  Dan saw that the blond man had a knife in his hand. It was a stiletto with a long, thin blade covered in blood and he was holding it away from his body by the tip, so that even if Dan managed to get hold of it he wouldn’t be able to stab him before getting a bullet in the head. Not that he’d be able to stab someone anyway, whoever they were. It had been hard enough punching Ugo the previous evening and his reward for that had been a restless night of tossing and turning.

  As if he was reading Dan’s thoughts, Mr Bone produced a pistol of his own, complete with suppressor, from beside his chair, and pointed it at him.

  ‘Place your right hand on the knife’s handle and grip it firmly,’ he said. ‘But don’t try to take it.’

  Dan hesitated. He knew the moment he did as instructed it was all over, and they had him. But he also knew they would kill him if he didn’t. What they’d done to Vicky was proof enough of that. He cursed himself for getting into this situation. If he’d just been a decent husband none of this would have happened. This was God punishing him for his weakness.

  ‘Do it,’ said Mr Bone.

  Dan’s hand slowly enveloped the handle. He had a vision of shoving the blade into the blond man’s gut and going down in a blaze of glory, but the moment passed, and when Mr Bone told him to let go, he did so.

  The blond man retreated into the shadows along with the knife, and Mr Bone continued talking.

  ‘You of all people can now see that the evidence against you for the girl’s murder is overwhelming. But it doesn’t have to be this way. If you take the third option and help us, all of this will go away. The woman’s body will be removed and buried where no one will find it, along with the murder weapon. This place will be cleaned and disinfected from top to bottom. Her online account, which was set up in a fake name, using fake details, will be removed. It will be as if she never existed. She’ll be reported missing at some point, but without suspicious circumstances, no one will really care.’

  Dan felt sick. It was the casual way this man talked about the literal erasing of a human being, someone Dan had been talking to only a few minutes ago. A woman who was someone’s daughter, someone’s sister, whose passing would cause pain. And in its own indirect way, it was his fault. He stared at Mr Bone with a combination of loathing and frustration. Mr Bone stared back with the blank indifference of a true psychopath. Dan had seen their kind before – you could hardly avoid doing so during a career in the police – but never had he felt so vulnerable in the presence of one.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ he asked, after a long pause.

  ‘Your knowledge of the NCA investigation into the Bone Field killings and the hunt for Hugh Manning. You need to make sure we stay ahead of the police, so that when Manning is eventually tracked down, we get to him before he talks.’

  ‘I’m not in that kind of position.’

  ‘You are, and you’re going to make sure you stay in it. If Manning talks, or the Bone Field investigation progresses significantly without you telling us about it in advance, your colleagues will receive an anonymous call giving them the details of where the woman you just slept with is buried. With our help, it won’t take them long to trace her back to you, then you will go to prison for life. But I’m afraid that won’t be the end of it.’ Mr Bone leaned forward in his seat, resting the gun on his lap so that it still pointed at Dan, and his lips formed a cold, knowing smile. ‘One day – it might be in a few months, perhaps a few years – one of your daughters will be out walking, and then out of nowhere someone will throw acid in her face, disfigure her for life … and there’ll be nothing you can do about it.’

  Dan clenched his fists at the mention of his beautiful daughters by this man, this thing, in front of him, and he began to shake as a deep rage welled up inside him.

  ‘But, as I said, it doesn’t have to be like that,’ Mr Bone continued. ‘All we are after is information. We protect our sources very carefully, and we won’t do anything to compromise your position. Your secret will remain buried for ever. We will even pay you from time to time. Your family will remain safe. You can lead a happy life. All you have to do is help us.’

  Dan let out a long breath, and tried to think straight. But it was impossible. There was no turning the clock back. This was his reality now. For the first time in his life he was a victim.

  ‘What are you going to do, Mr Watts? You have one minute to decide.’

  Forty-six

  It’s hard for me to quantify the shock I felt when I saw my father’s photo in among those of the people who’d attended that occult party forty years ago. The last time I’d set eyes on him in real life I’d been seven years old and about to jump out of a first-floor window to escape him. After murdering my mother and brothers, he’d come rushing into the room where I’d been hiding, the long coat he was wearing already in flames, a look of utter madness in his eyes, and a bloodied knife raised high above his head as he moved in for the kill, no longer my father, no longer even a human being. In those final moments, he was a malevolent demon made flesh.

  All my life I’ve wondered what drove him to commit such a horrendous crime, and I’ve never been able to come up with an answer. He wasn’t a good man. Born into money, he drifted through life, not bothering to work, living off his trust fund, and when that ran dry, living off other people. My mother had been twenty years his junior and, even though I was only very young, I remember him treating her badly. He would go away for days, occasionally weeks at a time, and when he was at home he seemed to break up the family dynamic with his dark moods and angry outbursts.

  The problem was that after his death no one ever talked about him, so I was never able to find out much about who he really was. Nor, in many ways, did I want to. He was responsible for all the darkness in my life, and he would always be the demon from that final night. My strategy had been to turn my back on my past and let my father rot, alone and ignored, in hell.

  And yet now, suddenly, he’d been thrust right back into my life, somehow connected to the Sheridan family and the killings I’d been trying to solve these past three months.


  After I told Tina that it was him in the photo, she tried to get me to sit down and talk about it. She knew my story as well as anyone, and there was no one else I could have talked to about it. But right then I needed to be alone.

  I went outside and walked round the village and beyond, trying and failing to come to terms with what I’d just discovered, until at last, tired and exhausted by the stresses of the last twenty-four hours, I found my way back to Tina’s in the darkness.

  ‘I was worried about you,’ she said, and kissed me.

  ‘Don’t be,’ I said, and kissed her back, hard and with passion, wanting to clear my head of all that was wrong in the world, and replace it with just a few moments of peace.

  Afterwards, when we were lying in each other’s arms, trying to enjoy the warm silence, neither wanting to spoil the moment by bringing up the subject of my father, my phone started ringing. I was comfortable where I was and considered leaving it, but I still hadn’t heard from Hugh Manning, and now more than ever I didn’t want to miss his call, so I got up, found my trousers, and pulled out the phone.

  Dan’s number flashed up on the screen. I looked at my watch. It was 11.15, and I suddenly remembered that he wasn’t living at home any more. That he’d split up with Denise a couple of months ago without telling me.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, ‘how are you? First of all, I’m sorry about today. I didn’t mean it to happen like that.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said vaguely.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I said. ‘You sound, I don’t know … different.’

  ‘Ah, I’m fine.’

  ‘I tried to get hold of you tonight and, er, after I left my message on your mobile I phoned your home number. Denise said you two had split up. I’m sorry to hear that, I really am. You should have told me.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s in the past now.’

  ‘Where are you at the moment? It sounds like you’re on speakerphone.’

  ‘At the flat I’m renting. The phone’s playing up a bit. You said you had information you wanted to share with me.’

  ‘Yeah, I do.’ I told him about how Anthea Delbarto had been having an affair with Alastair and Lola Sheridan’s father and was involved with devil worship and occult parties, right from when the kids were very young. ‘I’m guessing she’s a big part of their operation,’ I told him. ‘The point is we – I mean you – are going to have to put her under some sort of surveillance. Bug her place, see who she talks to. I’m worried for that girl who’s staying there, Katy. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s destined for the Bone Field.’

  ‘This is good information, Ray,’ Dan said, but it sounded like he wasn’t that interested, even though he should have been.

  ‘And you need to act on it,’ I told him.

  ‘I’ll speak to Sheryl in the morning. Have you heard anything from Hugh Manning?’

  ‘Nothing yet. I’m going to leave it until first thing tomorrow. If I haven’t heard from him by then, I’ll forward the message to you and you can bring Sheryl in.’

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘If you hear anything from him in the meantime, call me. It doesn’t matter what time it is. I want to hear.’ He paused. ‘We can’t afford to let him slip through our fingers.’

  I frowned at the phone. It was almost as if he was speaking from a script.

  ‘Seriously, are you all right, Dan? If there’s anything you want to talk about – you know, personal stuff – then let’s talk. Don’t suffer in silence.’

  He managed a laugh. ‘I’m fine, Ray. Just tired, that’s all.’

  ‘Get some sleep, then,’ I told him.

  I wanted to say something else, something to make him feel better about life and the world, because I imagined him alone and depressed somewhere away from home, knowing he couldn’t go back there, and I’d spent so long in that position I knew exactly how he felt.

  But none of the right words came to me, and in the end I just said goodbye.

  Forty-seven

  Dan put the phone back in his pocket, feeling sick to the gut. He knew that by giving up Hugh Manning he was destroying any chance of bringing the Bone Field killers to justice. Manning was their Achilles heel. Get him out of the way and the killers were strong once again. But what choice did he have? They had him where they wanted him and, in the end, self-preservation had prevailed.

  Across the room, Mr Bone gave a satisfied nod and got to his feet. ‘You’ve done the right thing, both for yourself and your family.’

  ‘I don’t want anything to happen to Ray. Or the deal’s off.’

  ‘Your friend is a dangerous fool and he will destroy many others before he destroys himself.’

  ‘He’s no longer in the police. He can’t do you any harm. Leave him alone.’

  Mr Bone stood up and threw the phone into Dan’s lap. ‘Your priority should be closer to home. If Hugh Manning makes it into police custody your life is over, and your children will suffer horrendously. Nothing will stop that.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Now we’re going to leave. Wait here until half past eleven, then exit through the front door, keep your head down, and go home.’

  Dan looked at him. ‘How do I know you’re not just going to call the police?’

  Mr Bone gave him a dismissive look as if he couldn’t believe he’d been asked such a foolish question. ‘Remember this, Mr Watts. You’ve never been a threat. We’ve watched your lack of progress against us for years now. You’ve never even been close. And right now, you’re far more use to us inside the investigation. This is your one chance. Make sure you take it.’

  In that moment, Dan knew his life was over. The Kalamans would never let him live a peaceful life. They would milk him for information, force him to betray everyone and everything he held dear, and one day, when his usefulness to them ran out, which it would, they would get rid of him, just as they’d got rid of Vicky.

  Shell-shocked and beaten, he sat there for ten minutes staring into space, thinking about his wife, his children, and finally the man he’d just betrayed, and who would, he was sure, be dead very soon.

  ‘Forgive me, Ray,’ he whispered, and slowly got to his feet.

  Forty-eight

  ‘What am I going to do?’ I said, looking out of the bedroom window into the warm night, still unable to make sense of what I’d found out. ‘The fact that my father was directly linked to the people I’m hunting …’ I paused, trying to find the right words. ‘It throws everything on its head.’

  Tina was sitting up on her bed, her body partly covered by a single sheet. ‘But what does it really change, Ray? Your father’s been dead more than thirty years. Robert Sheridan’s dead. And his children may be monsters in their own right, but they had nothing to do with what happened to your family.’

  Her words made sense on a rational level, but emotionally they hardly registered, and I paced the room relentlessly, unable to settle, wondering whether more wine might do the trick.

  Tina watched me, her expression pragmatic rather than sympathetic. ‘You ask what are you going to do. I’d say take a break. Let’s go somewhere for a few weeks. Forget about all this.’

  ‘We will when it’s over.’

  ‘It is over, Ray. You’re no longer in the force, and neither am I. So what can we do?’

  I was still pondering that particular question when my phone rang again from the bedside table. It was a withheld number, and half eleven at night, so I picked up.

  ‘Is this Ray Mason?’ said the man at the other end.

  I recognized the voice immediately. We’d pulled a couple of videos from Hugh Manning’s Facebook account in which he’d been larking about with friends. He had a public-school Home Counties accent, delivered with a slow, confident drawl that didn’t quite hide its high pitch. There was no confidence in it at the moment, though. He sounded scared.

  ‘It is. And I assume you’re Hugh Manning. I’ve been waiting for your call.’

  ‘Don’t try to trace this.’

  ‘I’m not going
to. The only people who know you contacted Tina on her website are her and me. But I’m not going to wait around for you. You need to come in now. If you drive here, we can give you up together.’

  ‘No, I’d rather we meet somewhere where I know you’ll be alone.’

  ‘How do I know you’re not setting me up?’

  ‘Look, I just want to make sure I give myself up to you personally, because I know that you’re not working for my old employers. But there are plenty of people in law enforcement who are, and if it gets out that I’m giving myself up, I won’t last twenty-four hours. I need guaranteed protection. You can give me that.’

  And that was the problem. I couldn’t guarantee him anything. Somehow I was going to have to involve the NCA, and the only person who’d help me was Dan. He could set things up with Sheryl. But I didn’t want to spook Manning.

  ‘So, what are you proposing?’ I asked him.

  ‘I’ll hand myself in to you, and only you, tomorrow night. When we’re in a safe place, like the inside of your headquarters. Then you call your bosses, and get proper protection organized. I assume you’re able to provide me with that.’

  ‘We are.’

  ‘Good. I’ll call you from a different phone tomorrow to make arrangements, because I want to make sure that it’s only you who turns up. And don’t say a word to anyone.’

  ‘I’m not going to be messed around, Mr Manning, or sent on a wild goose chase. Tomorrow’s the cut-off point. You either hand yourself over to me then, or this is all over.’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ he said. ‘And you definitely want to hear what I have to say.’

  ‘What do you know about Alastair Sheridan?’ I asked, just to make sure he wasn’t put up to this by the Kalamans.

  He replied immediately. ‘That he’s a cold-blooded murderer. But if you want any more then you’re going to have to give me immunity.’ And with that he cut the call.