The Hanged Man (Bone Field 2) Page 30

I shot her in the belly.

  Anthea went down on her knees, howling in pain, and I turned to Tina. ‘Go, Tina. Now.’

  She looked at me, tears filling her eyes, her face battered by defeat. ‘We could have made a life,’ she said. ‘And I wanted to, Ray. I really did. It didn’t have to end this way.’

  But, of course, it did. Everything in my life eventually crumbled. Those I loved always went away in the end.

  With a barely suppressed sob, Tina walked away from me down the hall and I felt my heart sink as she disappeared from view.

  With a deep sigh, I went over to Anthea Delbarto and lifted her chin up with the pistol’s suppressor. This time the fear and panic were coming off her in waves as she realized that, like Mr Bone, she too was staring into the abyss, a place where I hoped all her sins would return to haunt her.

  ‘I’d like you to suffer longer,’ I told her, ‘but I haven’t got the time. This is for my mother and brothers.’

  And then I pulled the trigger a final time.

  The house was already well ablaze, extinguishing any trace of Tina’s DNA, when I heard the police cars pulling into the lane on the other side of the front gates, their arrival announced by the sirens and flashing blue lights.

  And it was with a strange sense of relief, as if I no longer had to prove myself, to anyone, that I stood up to meet them.

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  Epub ISBN: 9781473535206

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  Published by Century 2017

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  Copyright © Simon Kernick, 2017

  Cover © Arcangel and Colin Thomas

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  First published in Great Britain by Century in 2017

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  ISBN 9781780894478