The Hunter Inside by David McGowan Read Free Book Online Page A

to show me that they mean business.’ The words came out all at once
and his shoulders slumped outwards and backwards as he inhaled deeply, his face
reddening.
    ‘If this is true then I
suppose you’ll be able to produce these items of mail?’
    ‘No,’ he whispered.
    ‘No? Then where are they
Mr. Wayans?’ He was mocking him now, sensing his vulnerability.
    ‘I threw them away.’ Okay,
here we go , Wayans thought to himself. What comes next?
    ‘Right, let me get this straight in my
mind.’ He paused. ‘Okay, someone hand delivers you a ton of mail to tell
you that they’re going to kill you. Then you, in all your wisdom, throw this
mail away and don’t tell anyone. Is that right, Mr. Wayans? Jeez, that’s some
survival sense you got there.’
    ‘I figured if I came to you
you’d only tell me it was somebody playing a prank on me. And that’s what I
half thought myself, until today. Or you’d think I was mad.’
    ‘ Me? Think you were mad?
Why would I possibly think that, Mr. Wayans?’ He loathed the relish with which
O’Neill exerted this pressure on him. He imagined he’d extracted a few
confessions from innocent men in the past – he was ruthless.
    ‘So, why did you kill him
Paul?’ The question shocked Wayans. He felt for a moment that he’d fall off the
chair he was sitting on. It was obviously the next step of questioning. He’d
seen it in all the best movies, but it still shocked him nonetheless. He didn’t
know what to say, so he didn’t say anything at all. This didn’t deter the big
Special Agent, who simply moved on to his next question.
    ‘Okay, so where have you
been for the last seven days?’ This was the question he dreaded the most. He
hadn’t left the house in seven days. It was getting near his and Marcie’s
wedding anniversary, and the depression that he felt meant that he hadn’t faced
the outside world for a whole week. Things were going from bad to worse in the
life of Paul Wayans, and he wished he could change it now. Rewind the hands of
time and try it all over again. Would it turn out the same?
    ‘I’ve been at home, alone.’
    ‘For seven days? Why would
you stay at home, alone, for seven days? Who was the last person to see you?’
    ‘Erm… It was Todd Mayhew,
last Wednesday afternoon outside the Shop2Drop.’
    ‘Well, that’s no good to
me, Mr. Wayans. You see, if your account of your whereabouts can’t be backed up
by an alibi, then we have a problem. Let me tell you something, Paul. I’ve been
in this business for a real long time and it’s always pretty clear when someone
has something to hide. Kapeesh? How long ago did your wife die? Five years
wasn’t it?’
    His methods were designed
to unsettle Wayans. ‘Yes.’
    ‘So, your wife is killed;
you’re a broken man. You quit your job, move your home and become a loner. But
that doesn’t help, because now you have all this extra time on your hands. And
what does a man do with time on his hands? I’ll tell you what he does, Paul, he
thinks. He does nothing but think, and that’s when it all starts getting
garbled. I’ve seen it. When it gets garbled you get angry. Angry that the lamp
she bought – the lamp you never liked – is still there but she isn’t. You begin
to think ‘Damn that lamp’ , and now you’re getting really angry. I really
am surprised just how small that step into killing is to make. You know what I
mean, don’t you Paul? I mean, why not hey?’ O’Neill went on
relentlessly, ‘I mean, if someone can turn your world upside down, then why
can’t you do it to them? Makes sense doesn’t it?’
    ‘I never killed anybody.’
He looked up at the man who towered over him, tears in his eyes, and pinched
himself under the table. Maybe if he pinched hard enough he’d wake up and none
of this would ever have happened. But he wasn’t waking up. He was already
awake.
    O’Neill’s gaze was
impassive, and he stared at Wayans, never once blinking in all the time Paul
looked at