Cold Heart Page 25

  Luke howled with excruciating pain and almost fainted. He spat out blood and vomited up nothing but air before sobbing out profusely. Estelle sat upright again and rolled his flaccid body over onto his back so he was now facing upright and looking right at her. Estelle climbed on top of his broken body and shoved the tip of her flick knife hard up against his Adam’s apple.

  “It was you who murdered my sister and threw her into the river to die like she was nothing, fucking nothing, you piece of shit.”

  Luke chuckled through his pain.

  “I was only doing what I was told, bitch. And you’re a fine one to talk about cold blood blooded murder, you fucking heartless whore.”

  Estelle tensed her wrist, she was just about to shove the blade right into Luke’s throat, straight between his Adam’s apple, when suddenly a fully armed police swat team, at least eight members in total, rushed into the back garden of the house from the side entrance, while more emerged through the conservatory.

  Last but not the least to hobble his way into the back-garden standoff was Detective Jonas, still limping and covered in blood, but still nowhere near worse for wear than Estelle. As soon as Jonas saw her straddling Luke, pressing a knife right up against his throat, both of them still very much alive, a furious rage of vengeance burned within him and he wanted her shot dead that very instance for what she’d done to him. Smashing him over the head with a tire iron, tying him up, stabbing him, burning him multiple times with fucking cigarettes, then leaving him to drown in that river. If he wasn’t in the presence of so many other police officers, then he would have shot her point blank in the back of her head himself.

  “Just shoot her!” Jonas screamed. “She’s armed and dangerous. Just shoot her now. That’s a fucking order.”

  The swat team leader gave Jonas a hard-dirty stare. He was a strict, firm man and would always follow the letter of the law to a T. He didn’t take his orders from rogue police detectives either. Out in the field he was the Boss.

  “You’re not in charge here, Jonas. So, take a fucking seat and shut the fuck up.”

  The rest of the swat team quickly maneuvered themselves and surrounded Estelle in a semi-circle, but kept at least ten yards away from her at all times. Every single one of the male and female swat team members were pointing their guns directly at her.

  “Put the knife down, miss.” The swat team leader cried. “Put the knife down and place your hands up in the air.”

  Estelle made a slow, exhausted stare around at the new team of armed men and women surrounding her with their weapons. Then Luke came out of his daze and gazed up at her. He let out a hideous, graveled chuckle before speaking out in a low enough tone of voice so only she could hear.

  “You know there were three of us in that van when we threw Gayle into the river that night, right?”

  Estelle hesitated. She turned her head slowly back around to face Luke.

  “You know who two of us were, already?” Luke continued smirking up at her. “Me… that fucking dimwit detective over there driving…”

  Estelle took a quick glance over towards Detective Jonas. He looked just like how she felt: an absolute fucking painful pile of shit. How the hell was he even still alive? How the hell did he even get out of that damn car in the river?

  “Do you know who the third person was, Estelle? The one who helped me throw your junkie little sister over the bridge...Do you?”

  Estelle turned her attention back to Luke again, but remained absolutely silent. Instead, she just let her cold hard stare bore a hole straight through him. She took a small gulp and dug her knife a little deeper into his throat, the tip of the blade bursting his skin and drawing trickles of blood.

  “Miss? Put the fucking knife down. Right now! This is your final warning!” cried the swat team leader as his laser trained eyes caught the new trickle of blood seeping down Luke’s neck.

  “Just fucking shoot, her!” Jonas raged again. “Shoot her fucking now!”

  The swat team leader turned with an agitated stare to one of his nearby officers and pointed at Jonas.

  “Get him the fuck out of my sight. Right now.”

  The nearby police woman waved her gun at Jonas and beckoned him to come with her back around to the front of the house and away from the standoff.

  Luke grinned even harder as he continued to whisper up at Estelle, still taunting her with his words and sinister grin.

  “Go on, you fucking whore. Have a guess, eh? Do you see the fucker around here anywhere? No. Because the cowardly drug dealing scumbag fuck, is long gone—and you let him go, you stupid fucking cunt.”

  In her mind, as Luke’s words sank in, Estelle saw a dreamy flash image of David talking to her back in the rundown Springburn pub as they drank a beer together the previous day. Suddenly another flash thought engulfed her: this time, one of David as he glanced at the picture of Clark and his family. The picture Estelle had found hidden in her sister’s apartment and showed him in the back of the taxi. He’d pretended that he didn’t have a clue who the people were in the picture. Not one clue. Her next thought was almost like a daydream projection. She saw a smiling and relieved David, sitting on a train to god knows where, right beside his wife and children as they left Glasgow for good.

  It had occurred to her that David might be involved. The feeling always sat a little uneasy at the back of her mind. But he’d always been such a good, faithful friend to her growing up. Always. And then the way he’d tried his best to look out for Gayle all through foster care and even after she went off the rails in her twenties. It was almost like he’d become her big and protective older brother, so to speak, ever since her real life, big older sister had abandoned her.

  But how could she suspect him?

  Even when he went behind her back and told Luke that she was coming for him at the stadium the day before… But then again, perhaps Luke was just playing more of his silly little mind games in his final moments, trying to get one up on her before he departed this world. And he would depart this world soon enough.

  Estelle didn’t care or give a rat’s arse about anything else in that moment now apart from ending Luke’s life. Nothing and no one in the whole wide world could stop her from doing what she had to do. What she came there for—even if it meant dying herself and not seeing and holding her own smiling little daughter Clara again. Not if it meant letting this fucker live. But the more she thought about it, the more she couldn’t believe this was how she really felt.

  To her, killing Luke, there and then, before ultimately dying herself meant more to her in that moment than that of the life of her own damn daughter.

  Was that how she really, truly felt?

  If so, then she knew she was an absolute disgrace. She wasn’t fit to be a mother. Especially if she couldn’t put that child before everything else in her life. She couldn’t believe she was actually thinking those thoughts. Perhaps, it was just her raging emotions of revenge for her own little sister. Or perhaps this was just the true Estelle. Right there and then. Right at that very moment. Perhaps that’s who she truly was.

  In the back of her mind, she felt that her daughter would be so much better off without her anyway, if she died this day while taking that sick, twisted fucker out with her. She had never been there for her daughter anyhow. Always away on some mission or training exercise, putting her life at risk every single moment of every single day.

  John, on his own, would do a much better job of raising Clara than Estelle could ever possibly dream or hope to achieve, she’d convinced herself of that. That was why she’d really chosen him to be her husband, after all, wasn’t it? And to be the father of her child and any other future children for that matter.

  Fair enough the sexual chemistry wasn’t great. There was no real physical attraction there—well, maybe there was on John’s part, but certainly not on hers. But she knew, deep down inside, she knew that he was a good caring, faithful honest man. The best man for the job at the end of the day. Hell, she�
�d studied and surveyed him long enough before making her romantic approach. When push came to shove, he would always be there for her daughter. And would always put her first. Always put her life before hers. Estelle truly felt that she didn’t deserve either of them because she was an emotionless, cold, heartless robot. With no feelings or empathy for anyone. Not even herself.

  “That’s right.” Luke continued, sneering up at her. “Your so-called childhood best friend. That treacherous little fucker helped me drug the stupid bitch then throw her sorry arse off that bridge without even the slightest bit of hesitation or remorse.”

  Luke unleashed another sinister grin.

  “Money talks, aye?”

  He chuckled even harder.

  “…And you let him fucking go.”

  Luke spat up into Estelle’s face. She didn’t even wipe it off. She just continued to stare at him, cold, calm, and emotionless, but inside she was a boiling rage of hate, anger, and vengeance as she saw another flash of David and Luke throwing her drug-induced sister over the side of the Albert Bridge and into the River Clyde. Detective Jonas in the driver’s seat, ready to drive the hell away.

  Whether the image was truth or not, it set off a burning, raging inferno inside her that passed the point of no return. It could no longer be put out.

  Estelle lowered herself closer towards Luke’s face until she was only centimeters away. To the surrounding swat team of police officers, the soft gentle motion and gesture appeared as if she were just cuddling into him through exhaustion and tiredness. But in truth, she was only hiding both her knife and his throat out of view from everyone else.

  Estelle took a breath and whispered gently into Luke’s ear.

  “Goodbye, Luke. You piece of fucking shit.”

  Estelle slid the knife slow and deep into Luke’s throat like she was piercing through melted butter, right up to the hilt of the blade. Luke coughed and choked up even more blood as Estelle calmly held his head completely still.

  “She’s killing him!” One of the officers cried. “She’s fucking killing him.”

  The sound of a single gunshot echoed throughout the surrounding houses and gardens. Estelle gasped and wheezed as an agonizing pain stung through her ribs, sending a wave of earth-shattering pain shuddering through her entire body.

  She released the grip of her knife as a rushing darkness began to engulf her. Almost in slow motion, Estelle fell to her side before slumping down onto the short, soft, warm grass in an unconscious heap right beside the dead Luke.

  Chapter 23

  Tables, chairs, plates, and cutlery lay broken, overturned, and scattered all over the entire canteen floor inside the Juvenile prison.

  A chaotic riot was in the midst of breaking out and the fifteen-year-old delinquent Estelle appeared to be right at the very heart of it all, leading dozens of other young, raging offenders to riot and overthrow the half a dozen guards on duty that day.

  Most of the guards, male and female, were swiftly punched and kicked to an inch of their lives, before their keys and batons were taken from them by the out-of-control youths making their final, escaping charge through the prison layout complex.

  As the dozens of rioting teens smashed and barged their way out of the main prison doors and into the main front yard of the prison, they came to an abrupt halt as a huge team of police, armed to the teeth with their own batons, riot shields, and tear gas met them head on.

  The teens hesitated and anxiously stood their ground. Briefly sucking in the air around them as they contemplated their chances of making it past this new army of adult police officers, fully equipped with batons and riot shields at the ready.

  After a short but tense standoff, where neither side appeared to be backing down, young Estelle became the first of the rioting teens to unleash a ferocious war cry before sullenly leading the charge against the men and women standing in her way of freedom.

  And charge she did. Full steam ahead. Waving a hard and sturdy baton that she’d stolen from one of the beaten prison officers back inside the canteen. She was the first but not the last to plough herself, fist and baton first, straight into the wave of riot police.

  ***

  Later that evening, a bloodied, bruised, and battered young Estelle, with wrists firmly handcuffed behind her back, was led by two-armed guards into a dimly lit interrogation room somewhere in the bowels of the juvenile prison. The first guard unlocked her cuffs before forcing her to sit down upon a screwed down steel chair sitting against a larger steel desk. The guard then cuffed her left wrist to another steel bar underneath the desk. Without further words the two guards turned around and left the room.

  A few minutes later the door swung open again and another prison officer, looking slightly more laid-back, quietly entered the room. The guard had a presence about him though and an aura of authority that needed no words or actions on his part. He was one of those people who looked tough as nails without actually doing anything.

  Estelle gradually recognized the man as the one with the small black bird tattoo on his wrist. The one who had always watched her curiously from afar while smoking his cigarettes as she went about her day to day prison routines during her past incarcerated year there.

  The mysterious guard glanced at Estelle for a very long time without even uttering a single damn word. Estelle stared right back at him though, not blinking once or looking away first and breaking eye contact. It was almost like they had entered a mental battle of will. While Estelle continued to bore her stare straight into his, she noticed too, from the corner of her eye that he was carrying some kind of thick grey file in his left hand.

  Finally, the man broke his eye contact and sat himself down opposite the young Estelle. He looked to be in his mid-thirties. Physically fit. Clean shaven. With an average build and height. What stood out most of all for Estelle though was the unflinching glint in his eyes. A look that showed no fear or uncertainty. Just like the look in hers, or so she believed. She knew the man didn’t have to look away first and had only chosen to do so to make Estelle feel somewhat good and pleased with herself. He had bigger fish to fry than play silly staring games with arrogant tough little teenage girls. But she appreciated the gesture nonetheless.

  “Hello, Estelle.” The man said, finally speaking.

  Estelle continued to stare at the strange man without making any kind of response.

  The man pulled out a cigarette from his jacket pocket. He offered one to Estelle. She hesitated at first before casually taking one out from the packet. The urge of getting some much-needed nicotine back into her veins was too great to resist. She popped the fag into her mouth. The man took one too before pulling out a lighter and lighting them up. He lit Estelle’s first then his.

  “You know… I’ve been watching you very closely these past few months.”

  Estelle remained curiously silent. She took a long hard draw from her cigarette, her first in months, and continued to stare at the strange but intriguing man.

  “I work here on behalf of some very important people, you know? Very important people indeed, who make very big decisions regarding the security and welfare of this country. I guess you could say that I help them out from time to time in their recruitment process.”

  The man hesitated as he took a long hard draw from his own cigarette.

  “…And I’ve put your name forward for a trial internship.” The man finally finished with a sly grin. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  Estelle chuckled as she flicked some ash down onto the table.

  “Is this some kind of fucking joke?” she finally retorted with an exaggerated snigger.

  “It’s no joke, Estelle. No fucking joke at all,” replied the man, completely dead pan and emotionless.

  “Why the fuck me?”

  “Let’s just say that you have certain… attributes… that my employers look for when training up new young employees.”

  “Oh yeah. Like what?” Estelle replied with a cocky smirk.

 
“Like a cold, heartless, ruthless streak… And you’re also pretty handy with knives and sharp objects which helps too.”

  Estelle chuckled to herself and gently shook her head.

  “Estelle. My employers are going to train you for the next few years of your life to become one of the best soldiers and fighting machines in the world. But you’re going to have to make a lot of sacrifices along the way in order to get there.”

  Estelle still hadn’t taken another draw from her cigarette. She seemed almost intrigued now by this strange man and lost in the moment. Her interest in this bizarre, off-the-record conversation, peaking.

  “What kind of sacrifices?”

  “Your old life for a start—completely gone. You’ll start again. From scratch. New name. New identity. New everything.”

  Estelle laughed hard and snorted again. She didn’t believe a word this guy had uttered. He sounded like some loony who’d just wandered in from the mental headcase ward. Who had the power anyway to do such a thing outside of a fiction novel? Estelle pondered to herself. It sounded almost fantasy-like to her, or perhaps she was just letting her naivety and lack of experience with the big bad world outside shine through. For the time being though, she would certainly humor this crazy man’s eccentric words.

  “New everything you say, aye? Well I’m certainly no changing my first name, that’s for bloody damn sure. I really like it.”

  The man picked up the file that he’d brought in with him and slowly handed it over to Estelle. She didn’t take it at first. Instead, she just eyed it up and down with another curious stare. The man finally dropped the file down in front of her.

  “Have a read of this and we’ll resume this delightful little conversation of ours again in the morning.”

  The man stood abruptly. Ready to leave. Estelle held the filter tip of her cigarette between her lips as she grabbed a hold of the file with her free hand. She made a lethargic effort to flick through it.

  “This is like some top-secret spy fantasy shite, aye? Are you really fucking serious about this nonsense aye?”