The Pain Tourist by Paul Cleave

Author:Paul Cleave
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orenda Books Ltd
Published: 2022-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Kent follows Copy Joe’s muddy footprints from the lounge to the front door, careful not to step on them. The front door is open, and directly outside, a gazebo has been set up to keep rain off the porch and the immediate yard and path beyond. Any footprints potentially left in the garden or the lawn have been destroyed by the rain. Even in this weather people are watching her from footpaths and driveways. A twenty-something spectator has her umbrella torn from her grip by the wind and hurled into the lounge window of the house behind her; the impact is loud enough to be heard over the rain.

Kent turns into a guest bedroom and finds herself alone. Her head is spinning. She crosses the room and gets out of sight of the corridor then turns her back to the wall and drops to her haunches, her jacket snagging as she does so. She hadn’t noticed until now, but the walls are gritty, like the paint had sand poured through it before it was applied. She hangs her head and rides out the urge to throw up. Wilson was right. When Copy Joe killed Denise Laughton, he was hoping Crime Busters would do a show. He pulled photographs from other rooms in each of the houses and put them around his victims. He played the videos for each of them for the same reason. He kept the boyfriend alive so he could tell the story around campfires till his end of days. There are many questions spinning in her head, but whether or not Copy Joe is done is an easy one to answer.

‘This wasn’t your fault,’ Vega says, stepping into the room.

‘Wasn’t it?’

‘No. But I have some news. It’s not worst-case scenario, but it’s not good either.’

Kent isn’t sure she can handle worst case right now.

‘The officers we sent to check on Martin Thomas,’ she says, Thomas being the man who played Copy Joe in the re-enactment last night, ‘well, they just called in. They say his backdoor has been busted wide open, and there are footprints all through his house. We don’t know if Copy Joe has taken him or if he wasn’t home. His car is gone, but it could be he’s in the trunk. Either way, Simone Clarke wasn’t the only person this psychopath was after.’

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