by LJ Ross
Then, that quiet voice rose up again inside her; the voice that spoke only one word:
Survive.
CHAPTER 40
The land broke away just as Ryan was heaving Davies from the water.
They both fell suddenly, headlong into the freezing water that wanted to sweep them both away.
Ryan clung to her arm, keeping an iron grip, while Phillips heaved against the power of the water with all the strength that he had.
But it was not enough, and the force drove him to the floor, the unexpected action dragging him along the riverbank and crashing into the water himself, where he was immediately caught in the fast-flowing current.
Fear like a vice around his heart, Ryan thrust out towards the other side of the river, feeling the rope tighten around his waist and knowing that, somewhere at the end of it, Frank was still attached. Ryan grabbed tightly onto one of the exposed roots beside the northern bank and held on for grim life, the muscles in his arm screaming while his other arm still held fast onto Davies. Swallowing mouthfuls of water, he looked at her and then at the root he was holding.
She nodded her understanding.
Striking out against the current, she swam against it while Ryan kept a hold of one arm, supporting her against the current using his own strength, until she could take hold of the root as well. When he was sure she had a tight enough grip, he let go of her arm and then nodded again.
She leaned on the root and used it to boost her body up the side of the bank, choking on water as it rushed into her mouth and nostrils, her tired, cold feet slipping against the mud as it ran down the sides of the bank and into the water. When her body was trembling and unable to go any higher, Ryan cried out and thrust upward, pushing his free hand into the small of her back to give her the final boost she needed to clamber out.
Ryan clung to the root with both hands, fighting the pull of the rope to hold his position while he blinked water from his eyes and tried to spot Frank at the other end.
Desolation swamped him, when he couldn’t immediately see his friend—the best friend he’d ever had—and grief was raw.
He sobbed, tears running as fast as the river water, and then he felt a tug on the line that was nothing to do with the river.
Frank was alive.
* * *
By the time Ryan and Phillips managed to haul themselves from the water, shaking and exhausted, they found Davies collapsed and unconscious by the riverbank, apparently having tried to flee once again.
“Ungrateful madam,” Phillips wheezed, and then proceeded to cough a lungful of water from his body.
Ryan did the same, every muscle in his body trembling.
When they had recovered themselves sufficiently to check that Davies was still alive, they realised almost everything of use had been washed away by the current, or damaged, including their phones and radios.
Ryan looked around to try to get his bearings, and remembered what Dalgliesh had told him about the positioning of the rivers. The small, laminated map was inside his weatherproof jacket, and he brought it out now, holding it up to the sky this way and that, to try to read it.
But it was no use.
Left only with his sense of direction, Ryan knew what he needed to do.
“We need to get somewhere with more shelter,” he said. “I’ll start a fire for you there, and I’ll go off to find help. It can’t be far, and reinforcements shouldn’t be far behind, either.”
Phillips wanted to protest, but he knew they couldn’t go together; somebody needed to stay with Davies.
He nodded, and together they lifted her, panting up the hill towards higher ground, where they could see the outline of a house in the distance.
Ryan sent up a prayer to a god he didn’t believe in, and put a hand on Phillips’ shoulder.
“Stay here and try to keep moving,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.”
* * *
Ryan forced his legs to move, and he managed to work up to a jog, running as fast as he could to warm his muscles and get back to his friend as quickly as he could. Up ahead, the outline of an old-fashioned pele tower came into view. They were common in the border regions, the small, fortified tower houses having been built mostly during the fourteenth and early seventeenth centuries to resist attack from reiving families on both sides of the border. Nowadays, people liked to rent them as holiday cottages, or renovate them as family homes, but he hadn’t expected to find one inside the Controlled Area.
As he drew closer, he saw that this one was quite small, but there was a light burning in the window, which told him somebody must be home.
Reaching the top of the hill, he saw there was a van in the driveway with a large logo depicting an image of a laughing, cartoon cow wearing sunglasses.
Smiling at that, Ryan hurried over to bang loudly on the front door.
When there was no answer, he tried again, and then moved to peer inside one of the narrow windows, but they’d been designed to repeal attackers, and they were too high for him to reach.
Ryan walked around to the back of the house and found that its owner had left the back door open. He couldn’t picture any nearby villages where one might conceivably pop out to buy a pint of milk, but perhaps they had rural neighbours and had gone to visit them instead.
He turned the handle and stepped inside.
CHAPTER 41
As soon as Ryan stepped over the threshold, he sensed something was wrong.
There was a scent to the air that he recognised; the unique scent of death that every murder detective came to know and was thereafter never able to forget.
He looked around for a weapon and saw a block of knives, so he pulled out the largest and held it, commando-style, beside his thigh. Ryan moved carefully through the rooms, never forgetting his training, until he reached what was obviously the main living area.
He saw the shoes, first.
At least twenty pairs of women’s shoes had been proudly arranged on the wall, to resemble the stuffed animal heads you sometimes found in old manor houses. He didn’t think there would be too much trouble identifying their original owners, since each bore a small plaque with their name and the date the shoes had been taken, as well as a tiny set of engraved coordinates.
Their place of execution.
Ryan felt bile rise in his stomach, and he started to back away and out of the room when he spotted that a large antique rug had been pulled back to reveal a trapdoor, which lay open. Stepping closer, he saw a pitch-dark place with foul air, and knew that this was where Layla Bruce had come into contact with black mould.
Raising his head, Ryan looked at all the shoes on the wall until he found the most recent pair, which had no plaque, yet.
He turned to find a telephone and put an emergency call through, his eyes scanning the surfaces and corners, when he heard a key turning in the front door lock.
There was no time to run before it swung open.
* * *
The two men faced each other across the room, assessing the threat in the nanosecond it took for Ryan to understand that the man held a hunting rifle, whilst he was unarmed except for the carving knife—the army pistol having been washed away in the river.
No words were said.
As the killer raised his rifle, Ryan lifted the knife and hurled it across the room. The man dodged it easily and pulled the trigger.
The air left Ryan’s body in a long rush as he realised the man was out of ammunition, and he was still alive.
There was no time to celebrate—he saw the man reach for a fresh handful of cartridges from an open box nearby, and Ryan moved like lightning. He threw himself behind the sofa in time for the first shot to fire, and heard the explosion of cushions around his head. He kept moving, hurling odds and ends in the man’s direction as he raced for the back door, hearing another bullet go past his ear before he burst back outside and beneath the cloak of darkness.
Ryan raced away from the house, legs pumping to cover the ground qu
ickly and warn Phillips. Then, he remembered Frank’s situation—he was a sitting duck, on the floor with an injured woman. Breathing hard, his lungs dragging air into his body, Ryan changed direction and moved in a wide semi-circle to the east.
He thought the darkness would act as a shield, but he’d forgotten Layla Bruce.
This killer liked darkness.
* * *
Ryan knew that there would be no chance of outrunning a bullet, especially on the wide, open plains, so there was only one other place he could go that would protect him from the night vision goggles, and put a greater distance between him and his pursuer.
Back in the river.
He zig-zagged as far as he dared, feet sliding against the sodden earth, and was about to jump back into the water when his eye caught on something in his field of vision that seemed to rise up from the ground and jut out against the deep navy sky.
It was an enormous rock, half a mile north-west of where he stood, and far enough away to keep Phillips and Davies safe.
Ryan made a split-second decision, and cut back across the moor, throwing himself to the floor when he heard the pop of another bullet being fired. A second later, he was up again, running haphazardly, deliberately changing direction for what seemed like eternity, until he reached what was known locally as the Drake Stone.
He remembered seeing it marked on the map, and knew that it was hard to traverse. But, if he could make it to the top, he knew the angle would be too extreme for his assailant to have a clear shot.
Another bullet popped into the night and flew through the rain to graze the stone by his left shoulder, and Ryan moved quickly around to the other side, hands tracing the wet rockface to find a foothold.
When he did, he heaved himself upward, never more aware that the man he’d seen was lean and fit, and knew the terrain better than he did.
The odds were stacked against him.
Ryan thought of Anna, and of Frank; of Denise and Sam; of Jack and Mel. He thought of his mother and father, and of the sister he’d loved, before she was taken from the world. With every hard step, he thought of them, and of the meaning they brought to his life.
He was not ready to leave them.
* * *
Ryan heard another bullet graze the stone not far from his feet, and fought back the fear that wanted to overpower his body and mind. He gritted his teeth and reached for another foot hold, but the toe of his boot slipped against the rain-slicked stone, and he faltered, his body hanging by his fingertips.
He was near the top now; he knew it, because the man’s bullet had been too low, the angle too acute for him to make the shot.
His biceps screamed as he pulled himself up and swung a long leg out to rest it on a high ledge. He knew the man wouldn’t be far now, and he heard the sound of running footsteps approaching at speed.
With one last, monumental effort, he dragged himself onto the very top and prepared to wait there, shivering in the darkness.
* * *
“You have to come down eventually.”
Ryan knew the man had been circling for a while, like a shark around a lone bather in the sea. He couldn’t go down; and the man couldn’t come up.
If either of them did, he would die.
They remained in stalemate, the man continuing to circle, while Ryan stayed low in the middle of the flat platform at the very top of the enormous stone. In prehistoric times, Anna had once told him, the druids had used it as a meeting place. In the years following that, it had become known for its supernatural healing powers, and Ryan surprised himself by placing both hands against the rock.
If he had ever needed a stroke of magic, now was the time.
“You’d never have found me, if not by chance,” the man was saying now. “I’ve been living quietly for years, travelling around in my little van, administering relief to those who need it most. You wouldn’t understand that.”
“I understand you just fine,” Ryan replied. “You’re not the first person I’ve met with a hyper-inflated sense of his own importance. That’s usually before they hear the clang of the prison door slamming shut behind them.”
The man laughed.
“You haven’t got the first idea of who you’re dealing with,” he said, angrily. “I’m not like everyone else.”
“What? Because you got yourself a suit made up, you reckon you’re a Dark Lord, or something?”
“Shut up. SHUT UP!”
Ryan heard the control in the man’s voice beginning to slip away, and wondered if he’d make another stab at trying to clamber up the wall.
He’d almost welcome the fight.
The storm seemed never to end, and he was chilled to the bone, shivering hard as he tried to keep rubbing his arms and legs.
Where were the reinforcements?
But, without a radio, or any other means of contact, how would they know where to look for him?
Ryan kept rubbing his arms and legs to create friction, and hoped it would be enough to last another hour, or however long it would take.
CHAPTER 42
She could hear him, somewhere up ahead.
Beyond the trees, there was a rocky outcrop where one enormous stone rose above them all and looked out across the hills. She could see it, silhouetted against the first light of dawn, and she could hear the man who’d taken refuge at the very top.
Her eyes darted between the stone and the man who continued to circle around it, and knew this was her chance to try to get away, when his attention was focused on somebody else.
The man at the top had looked strong as he raced towards the stone.
He could cope.
But she didn’t move, and found herself edging softly forward, using both hands to drag her injured leg along with her. She paused every few seconds, listening, waiting to see if he’d turn around, but he never did.
He was completely distracted.
She felt hate rise up like a tidal wave and her eyes burned with the force of it. She knew that, if she didn’t do it, if she didn’t face him, she’d be running for the rest of her life.
As she reached the edge of the rocky outcrop, she moved silently, her broken, exhausted body somehow finding the strength to do this one last thing.
One step.
Then another.
Ryan first spotted her at the edge of the trees but knew there was no way to warn her to stay away, or to run for her freedom. She appeared to be injured and, as she stepped closer and closer into the weak light of dawn, he saw she was covered in blood against which he could see the shining whites of her eyes.
Ryan kept the man talking, kept him focused on him as a target—goading him, taunting him as much as he could.
And then, the rain suddenly stopped.
* * *
He heard a slight movement and spun around.
He saw an avenging demon covered in blood and soil, mud and scraps of wool. At that precise moment, there came an enormous flash of lightning which blinded him in the night vision goggles he still wore, so he didn’t see the heavy rock come crashing down against his skull.
Ryan heard a sickening crunch on the ground below. He took a quick look over the edge and hurried back down the side of the rock, shimmying the last of the distance—but by the time he reached the ground, it was too late.
The woman was kneeling on the floor, bringing the blunt edge of a jagged rock down again and again, though the man was already dead.
“How. Dare. You. Do. This. To. Me!”
Ryan rushed across to catch her hands in his own, taking the weight of the rock and throwing it to one side, where it rolled away.
She was sobbing uncontrollably, her hands covered in his blood and other things, and Ryan took a discreet look at what was left of her captor.
Not much.
“You’re safe now,” he murmured. “Shh, now. You’re safe. I’m with the police. I won’t hurt you. You’re safe.”
He repeated the words until she slumped against his body, and Ryan
continued to say soothing words as he lifted her up into his arms and carried her back towards the river, where help awaited them.
EPILOGUE
Two weeks later
The soup kitchen was bustling that day, the colder weather having driven more people from the streets and into the little centre where everybody who entered was called a ‘friend’ and was, more importantly, treated like one. Anna had been volunteering with homeless charities once a week since her student days and, although life could be busy sometimes, she liked to try to keep to her commitment.
As a regular face in the kitchen, Anna had lots of friends there, but it was her surprise visitor that seemed to be causing more of a stir.
“Ooh, pet—can we have a slice of that for afters?”
A woman called Doreen, who’d been coming to the kitchen for a year or more, wriggled her eyebrows at the tall, dark stranger who was chopping carrots through the kitchen hatch while he sang along to something on the radio.
“Get away with you, Doreen!” Anna chuckled. “Now, what’ll it be? Chicken or vegetable?”
She chatted with everybody who shuffled along the line, until she recognised one she hadn’t seen in a couple of weeks.
“David! I was hoping I’d see you today,” she said, and began to ladle some chicken soup into a bowl while she chatted. “You know I said I’d have a word with the maintenance team, at the university in Durham? Well, they’ve got an opening for a maintenance man at Hatfield College. It comes with a little flat, on-site—and the hours seem pretty good. The pay isn’t enormous, but it’s respectable.”
She handed the soldier his bowl, but he struggled to take it all in.
“There’s a job, with a flat?”
She nodded.
“They take a small percentage from your salary to pay for household bills, a bit like they do with the students, but otherwise it would be all yours. It would mean moving to Durham…”
