The Reckoning on Cane Hill: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

say something quick and vicious and then hang up – but it was mostly letters. Taunting. Confessing. Explaining to Groves in graphic detail all the things that had been done to his son before he died.
    Groves didn’t believe any of them were genuine. It was just ghouls and cowards – people with something missing inside them. But still: they got under his skin. One year, someone had concluded a letter by writing: I’m coming to see you tonight. Be ready . That evening, Groves had turned off all the lights, left the front door ajar and waited in the lounge. He’d stayed awake the whole night, willing something to happen. Of course nothing had – and deep down, he’d known it wouldn’t. But he’d waited anyway. If he received the same message now, he was sure he would wait up again.
    He read this year’s card once more.
    I know who did it .
    The coffee was bitter and strong. He put the card back in the envelope and shut it away in a kitchen drawer. Later on, he’d store it upstairs with all the others, but out of sight would do for now, so Caroline didn’t see it when she came round later.Even though they were divorced, they always spent Jamie’s birthday together.
    He put the cup down, then began gathering his things, getting ready for work.
    The message stayed with him, though. Only one this year, perhaps, but it had brought a couple of fresh turns of the knife with it. Addressing it to Jamie himself was a new development. And instead of dangling his son’s murder in front of him, just out of reach, the message offered up the murderers instead. I know who did it , the sender was saying. But I’m not telling . It was as though they knew that some days the idea of finding the people responsible was all that got him out of bed and kept him going. It was a new angle from which to hit a downed man, and Groves realised that the blow had landed.
    Well played .
    He pulled on his suit jacket. Not for the first time, he imagined what he would do if he ever found himself face to face with his son’s killers. The scenario had played out in his head on countless occasions. Every atom in his body would want to hurt them as badly as they must have hurt Jamie, and then put a bullet in their heads. And yet he knew what would really happen.
    Rather than doing any of that, he would arrest them.
    Unlike his ex-wife, Groves had retained his religious faith in the aftermath of Jamie’s abduction and murder. If anything, in fact, it had deepened, albeit changed, perhaps in a similar way to a marriage that had survived an affair. He clung to it. He had to believe that God had a plan, and that however abhorrent his son’s death was, it somehow fitted into that. It was not his position to deliver the punishment that awaited the killers in the next world, only to apply the law in this one. And in some strange way, it felt as though doing anything else would be a betrayal of Jamie – of his little boy’s innocence and goodness. An act like that would sully his son’s memory as well as taint his own soul. After everything else they’d done, Groves was determined not to let these people do that as well.
    That was also why he was going to work today, in spite ofthe date. Once, he had been a husband, a father, a man of faith and a policeman; now, those last two were all he had left, and they were intertwined in him. He was a good man. He did the right thing. It was all he had now to define him.
    Happy birthday, Jamie , Groves thought as he left the cottage, locking the door behind him, the card forgotten for now.
    I wish I could give you a cuddle .
    I miss you so much .
    First call of the day.
    Carnegie Avenue ran along the edge of the Larkton estate. The buildings were all but indistinguishable grey-faced blocks of bobbled concrete, and the burned house stood out amongst its neighbours like a rotten tooth. The fire had gutted it so badly that the entire structure had half collapsed. First charred by the flames, then sodden by the fire