She was tired now, tired to death. Yes, she could say that Josh had done it. She could get rid of the gun. She could say it was him, not her, who shot Ciaran and Rowan dead, but she was too exhausted to even speak the lie.

So fuck it.

Fuck it all.

She was still sitting there in the dark hours later when headlights lit the drive. A car had stopped at the gates. There were blue lights flashing. Now the intercom was buzzing, someone was speaking. Shauna stood up, went over to the intercom and pressed it, to let in the police.

Then she went back to the counter, picked up the Magnum, took careful aim, and shot herself in the head.

164

164

Connor and Aysha had cleared away the mess at the Cleaver place. Once they were done with it, that hell hole had probably never been so clean. They had hauled the bodies out on to one of the pickups, then they had buried Bill and Jeb way out in the woods, far away, working long into the night despite all their cuts and bruises to make sure the bastards would never be found. After that, they’d pushed the pickup into a flooded quarry and watched it sink out of sight.

The dogs?

Aysha hadn’t liked to do it, but Connor had said someone would pick them up, so they had taken them halfway up country and then set them loose. They had no collars, nothing to identify them as Cleaver dogs, and that was good. The alternative would be to keep them locked inside the house to starve, or leave the doors open and risk the dogs tracking to Bill and Jeb’s grave, unearthing their remains and eating what was left of the bastards. They made an anonymous phone call days later to the RSPCA concerning the maltreatment of pigs on the farm, and left it at that.

When they got back to Connor’s flat in the early morning, they took turns to wash the blood away in the shower, and drank brandy to steady their shattered nerves. Connor settled Aysha in the spare room for the night, and fell into his bed, but his mind was full of nightmares, he couldn’t rest. He got up early next morning, showered again – he still felt dirty from all that he’d done – and made coffee. It was then that the doorbell rang. He answered the intercom.

‘Police, sir. Can we come up?’ said a male voice.

Shit!

‘Yeah. Come up.’

Aysha came out from the bedroom, her eyes full of guilt and fright, pulling on a robe one of Connor’s girlfriends had left there. They stared at one another as there came the sound of heavy boots on the stairs outside. Had someone spotted them loading the bodies? Or dumping the truck?

‘Oh Christ,’ said Aysha, looking sick.

‘Say nothing,’ he told her, feeling pretty sick himself.