The Devil Among Us by Ramsay Sinclair (easy books to read txt) 📗

some forgiveness, Cooper. One day, you’ll know why I did all of this. Working for these people, it’s a hard life. It wears you down. I started off like you, willing and eager to do what’s right for the good people in our world. But over time they grate away at you, gnawing us down to the bone and you suddenly realise. We haven’t changed a thing. No matter how many criminals we stop or how many arrests we make, they’ll always be more. It’s a rot that grows eternally.”

DCI Reid threw the emptied can to the ground with a loud clatter.

“So you gave in and became part of that rot too.” I shook my head at the weak-willed man. “Being a police officer is about resisting the change and managing to remain undiseased in a world full of rot. That’s what we stand for. It’s not about changing the world single-handedly. It’s about sticking together, as a team.” My heartbeat sped up intensely as I preached. It was a moment of realisation for me too.

I’d come here alone and disregarded our entire team. The team whose help I desperately needed for support. To rely on. To trust in. Whilst we were so occupied with trying to keep them out of harm’s way with this case, we’d forgotten that was our job. We signed a pact when we joined CID, to do what was necessary for our investigations. No matter how dangerous or how risky they ended up being.

“Thirty seconds,” DCI Reid ignored me and stayed glued to his ticking watch.

“Come with me, Alec.” I reached out my sticky hand one last time. “I’ll make sure they treat you right in prison,” I softened, desperate to relieve some of his burdens. I couldn’t stand by and do nothing to help this man who was crying out for some sort of help. I was torn into two halves. Part of me believed he deserved this, the other knew nobody deserved this sort of ending.

His stern eyes were unwavering, and they bored into my soul. “Ten seconds.”

“You can’t do this. Please don’t do this,” I begged and outstretched my hand for him to take. A guiding hand that promised to get him out of here. To save him from himself.

He pulled out his cigarette lighter as if he was switched to autopilot mode. This is exactly what he’d planned in his own mind. This was the reason he brought here me. So that he wasn’t alone, so that someone knew his truth. A man who had succumbed to the darkness because of the woman he loved. It was a tragic tale.

“You always were my favourite, Cooper,” he admitted and gave a familiar nod. I’d come to understand it was his way of showing a lifetime of bottled up emotions after the injustice of his childhood. He’d morphed into a socially reputable man as a DCI because he didn’t have that sort of respect growing up a factory worker’s son.

“You don’t have to do this,” I promised. “There’s a better way. A way in which Iona gets to live a life with you. Even in prison. She’d want that, rather than this. This will kill her.”

“Then make sure she knows how much I loved her. Because I did. I really did.” Alec Reid began the last countdown. “Get out of here, Cooper. Cherish the moments with Abbey in memory of me. Of the love that I stood for.”

I froze to the spot, uncertain that he was truly going to go through with this. But his lighter was positioned in his shaking grasp and he seemed convinced there wasn’t another choice. I saw him gaze distractedly at the wedding ring on his second to last finger.

“3.”

“2.”

“1.”

28

I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, having no chance to look back or witness DCI Reid commit his own death sentence. I jumped the last inch out of the building, landing on solid bricks and scuffing my elbows and face alike. From behind, a huge explosion of glass and fire billowed out, and I used my arms to protect my face whilst staying low to the ground. A few specks of shrapnel pieces charred my cheeks from their heat.

It was like I’d floated up and left my physical form behind, watching twenty things happen all at once. Spluttering in shock, a pair of arms gripped themselves around my waist to haul me to a place of safety. A fierce haze of fuzziness distracted my vision and concentration from those around me. Random people were trying to help me stand up and retrieve the aching sensations in my legs. They prodded me in vain, for I truly didn’t care about my own health and wellbeing.

“Get him out!” my voice startled a few of the already concerned onlookers but it proved difficult to get the policemen to listen to me. DCI Reid filled my head whilst dizziness simultaneously filled me from the core upwards.

They say you know when someone is dead, that you can feel it in your bones. Still, there was a fresh glimmer of hope which pulled the wool over my eyes. A coping mechanism, perhaps? I thought there may have been a possibility that DCI Reid survived the blast he had created.

When the final shards of the building had destroyed themselves and the concrete lay flat, that’s when everyone kicked themselves into action. Regardless of any injuries I’d sustained during the tussle, I tried to run back inside too. People’s hands grabbed at my arms to pull me away and they blurred and twisted in my mind, turning into a real-life adaptation of that famous painting of the screaming creature on the pathway.

“He’s in there.” My breath was short and wheezy, making me cough various times over.

Inside my pounding head, there was nothing to indicate my humanity remained. If someone had told me I’d been transformed into living plastic overnight, it would be believable. My insides felt vastly empty, like a great, big