Free Heathen/Nemesis by Shaun Hutson

taken in the first place?’ Donna asked challengingly.
     
    ‘Do you recognise the other three, the younger ones?’
     
    Donna shook her head.
     
    There were so many questions. She sifted through the pictures again, checking through both sets, looking for even the minutest difference, but there was none. The shots of Ward and the five men were identical in every way.
     
    ‘Perhaps they were the ones that killed him,’ Donna said finally.
     
    Julie shook her head.
     
    ‘For Christ’s sake, Donna,’ she snapped. ‘The police said it wasn’t murder.’
     
    ‘I know what they said,’ she responded angrily.
     
    Julie studied her sister’s features for long moments then broke the silence again.
     
    ‘Did he have any enemies that you knew of?’
     
    ‘He’d been threatened before while he was working on other books. Not threatened with murder but, well, warned off, I suppose you could say.’ She glanced down at the pictures. ‘He wrote a novel to do with loan sharks a couple of years ago, how some of the big Security Companies were in business with them. The security men would act as strong-arm men for the loan sharks. Chris was told he’d be beaten up if he published the book.’ She smiled thinly. ‘Nothing ever came of it, thank God.’ Donna swallowed hard. ‘When he wrote about the porn industry he lived in digs in Soho for a week; he worked in a peep show to get information. He used a false name, of course. When the owner of the club found out he was getting information, he thought he was an undercover policeman. Chris said they wrecked his room one day while he was out. They left a dead dog in the bed with a note stuck to it saying he’d be next.’
     
    ‘There must be easier ways of earning a living,’ Julie said.
     
    ‘He used to call it the Method school of writing,’ Donna said, smiling at the recollection. ‘You know how actors like Robert De Niro research their parts, live them? Chris was the same with the characters he wrote about. He never knew when to stop pushing.’ She looked at the photos again. ‘Perhaps this time he pushed the wrong people.’
     
    ‘If you think there could have been a link between Chris’s death and the men in these photos, you should tell the police,’ Julie urged.
     
    Donna shook her head.
     
    ‘What difference would it make? They’ve already decided it wasn’t murder.’
     
    ‘And what if they’re wrong?’
     
    ‘You’re the one who keeps telling me they’re sure.’
     
    ‘That was until I found out about Chris’s research,’ Julie said. ‘These pictures could be evidence, Donna.’
     
    ‘No. The police said the crash was an accident. They have no reason to think otherwise, Mackenzie told me that.’
     
    ‘And what do you think?’
     
    ‘I don’t know what to think. I just want to know who these men are and why Chris and she had photos of them.’
     
    ‘Then tell the police, let them find out.’
     
    ‘What am I going to tell them, Julie? “My husband and his mistress had identical pictures of five unidentified men. Could you track them down for me, please?” Something like that?’
     
    ‘So what’s the answer? How do you find out who they are?’
     
    ‘I have to find out what he was working on. Find out if these five men,’ she tapped the picture, ‘were anything to do with his new book. I have to find out who they were, but I’m going to need some help.’
     
    ‘You know I’ll help you,’ Julie said.
     
    Donna smiled.
     
    ‘I know. But there’s someone I have to speak to first.’
     

Twenty-Two
     
    The banging on the door woke him up.
     
    At first he thought he was dreaming, next that the racket was coming from the television, but then Mercuriadis realized that the incessant thumping was on his own door.
     
    As he hauled himself to his feet he glanced across at the clock on top of the TV set and groaned when he saw it was well past two in the morning. He had, he reasoned, fallen asleep in front of