The Becket Approval by Falconer Duncan (best big ereader .TXT) 📗

was futile. One of them pushed down on her chest as an oxygen mask was applied to her face. A defibrillator arrived as Gunnymede stepped back. Seconds later someone cried ‘release!’ and the pads were fired.

Gunnymede knew when the light had left a person’s soul. He’d seen it often enough.

Bethan stood in the doorway. She’d seen everything since Gunnymede pushed open the door - his pain when he saw her hanging, his despair when she was laid on the floor.

It was dark by the time Bethan left the hospital in search of Gunnymede. He was sitting on a low wall away from the main entrance.

She sat a few metres from him.

‘Thanks for getting me here,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry.’ She felt awkward.

‘We were engaged but the truth is we were never going to get married. I knew we weren’t. She believed we were. I was playing a game of survival. She was the only one to stick by me.’

He got to his feet. ‘Aunt Grace,’ he said.

She was confused by the comment.

‘You asked me who brought me up. It was my aunt Grace.’

He walked away.

 

 

Chapter 16

Gunnymede wore a black jacket, white shirt, black tie, his hair combed neatly, face cleanly shaven. He was part of a small, solemn group of people surrounding an open grave as a priest spoke into it. A shiny wooden coffin lay in the bottom of the hole. Gunnymede hardly took his eyes off it, his thoughts filled with images of a pretty, happy Megan. Laughing. Caressing. Night swims. Sunday runs. A pub lunch by the river. Lying side by side on green grass looking for images in the clouds. The picture he wanted to erase and couldn’t was her hanging by her neck.

A hand squeezed his arm. He snapped out of his trance to find he was the only one at the grave. Everyone else was walking away. It was Megan’s father, Jack. ‘Come on, lad,’ he said softly as if not to disturb the spirits.

Gunnymede pulled himself away and walked alongside Jack on a narrow path that meandered through the grounds.

Jack sighed and shook his head. ‘What I don’t understand is how she was compos mentis enough to get out of that secure area, get a pair of keys, lock herself inside that room, do all she needed to do to rig the cable and do what she did. She showed no signs of being aware of anything and then she does that. I feel for you too, Devon. There was no-one who could’ve taken your place in her heart. I remember the time you two first met. You were in Hereford on some course or other.’

‘Free-fall.’

‘That was it. Your first HALO you accidentally pulled on leaving the C130 and spent an hour coming down.’

‘Not quite accurate. Someone thought it would be amusing to set my auto height finder to twenty-five thousand feet.’

‘A welcome to Hereford. There was a camp bash on one night. Someone’s leaving party.’

‘You came with Megan,’ Gunnymede reminded him.

‘That’s right. She’d been to the camp a few times with me for the odd bash. She asked me who you were. Someone nearby said, he’s a spy.’ Jack grinned at the memory.

‘Jack ... I don’t know if Megan and I would’ve ever made it to where you think we were headed.’

‘I know marriage didn’t suit you. Megan always believed you would both end up together. She wouldn’t have given up easily on you. She was patient. She would’ve waited. I also know you loved her. You can’t deny that, right?’

Gunnymede struggled to answer. ‘Of course I did.’

‘What I don’t understand is why you don’t want to do something about it,’ Jack said, his voice growing dark.

Gunnymede was confused. ‘About what?.’

‘Are you just going to keep ignoring it?’

‘Ignoring what?’

‘She was raped! And the bastard who raped her is still walking this earth!’

‘She was found all alone, Jack. No witnesses. No evidence.’

‘Says who?’

‘The police.’

‘Bollocks. He’s out there somewhere and that’s a fact. Phase one is having the will to do something about it. Phase two is finding out who he is and where he is. Phase three is delivering justice. Jesus Christ, you do it all the time on the job!’

‘What you’re talking about is not what we do.’

‘It’s exactly what we bloody well do,’ Jack said in a raised voice, stopping to face Gunnymede. ‘It’s what we were designed to do! We do it for our government, our Queen, the people. But they don’t do it for us, do they. Not when we need them to. We can do it for ourselves though, can’t we? Of course we can. We can do it for our bloody selves.’

‘If the police knew who it was, they’d be in jail,’ Gunnymede said. ‘You know that.’

‘No, I don’t know that. And you were born yesterday if that’s what you believe.’ Jack stared into Gunnymede’s eyes. ‘Do you feel any guilt?’ he asked.

‘About what?’

‘Of course you don’t. Why should you? Because the guilt’s all mine. She’s dead because of me, Devon. Because of me.’

Jack was highly stressed and walked away.

As Gunnymede watched him go his phone vibrated in his pocket. He fished it out to look at the screen. Aristotle.

‘Mr Jervis wants to see you?’

‘Jervis? I thought you worked for Harlow.’

‘Be at Legoland reception for 1700.’

Aristotle disconnected. Gunnymede checked his watch.

He looked back towards Megan’s grave. The sadness wouldn’t go away.

Bethan sat at her desk reading a file from 2004. A former IRA commander mysteriously died in New York City after he left a Fenian pub, shot through the back of the head as he entered his house. She was more than halfway through the unsolved cases and a theme was starting to show signs.

She