‘Great! It’ll give me more time to interview them.’
The five of them endured a fairly strained supper of thick homemade soup, courtesy of Darren who was apparently turning into a pretty mean cook. It was followed by a stew containing unidentified but tasty lumps of meat and oversized diced vegetables, with cheese being offered as pudding. But Mia was full and she didn’t want to prolong the strain of polite conversation any longer than necessary. The boys were not good at small talk.
Kai and Darren excused themselves and Ned went to move his duvet into Kai’s room and find some clean bedding for Mia. That left Lee, the smallest of the three lads. She got the distinct impression he had been nominated for ‘the interview’ — whether by straw-poll or at Ellie’s direction, she wasn’t sure.
Lee got to his feet. ‘Do you want some coffee?’
‘That would be great — here, let me help you clear up.’
They stacked the dishwasher together. She found it odd that such an isolated dwelling had such modern conveniences, but she was beginning to recognise that Ellie made sure the people who worked for her had all they needed to do their jobs effectively. Ned popped his head around the kitchen door.
‘You all right if I leave you in Lee’s care? Just need to check on the dogs and make a phone call.’
‘That’s fine, Ned. Lee’s making coffee.’
Kai and Darren had settled themselves in the lounge and as Mia quietly closed the kitchen door on them, she saw a Sky film menu on the large flat screen. She turned her full attention to Lee.
Although in his early twenties, he still had a trace of pubescent acne and the angles of youth that had yet to be filled and rounded by adult muscle and life. But as he moved efficiently around the small kitchen, he showed a quiet confidence that belied his age and was certainly not that of a hostage. She’d not ruled out Stockholm syndrome but she thought it unlikely. She tested the waters.
‘So Lee, what brought you, Darren and Kai to the wilds of Scotland?’
‘You know how we got here.’
‘Do I?’
‘Ellie says you do.’
‘Ellie knows I’m here?’
Lee smiled at her naivety.
‘So, why do the three of you stay here? Do you have a choice?’
‘Yes — now.’
‘So why stay?’
‘It’s okay here and, as E says, want to is so much better than got to. The money’s good — now we’re out of probation — and I’ve got a room and bed of my own. No more sofa surfing. And I like working with the dogs. It’s something I’m good at.’
‘You used to train them to fight?’
Lee’s face darkened. ‘That was before. I had no choice.’
‘People always have choices, Lee.’
‘Yeah, right.’ He slammed the dishwasher door shut and jabbed at the button to start it. ‘Like you’d know about my life.’
‘You’re right — that was patronizing of me. Tell me about your life, Lee.’
‘I was expelled from school at fourteen and left home at fifteen.’
‘How come?’
‘My dad used to beat on me and I used to beat on kids at school. I spent a year living on the streets and other people’s floors and I got into drugs — nothing too heavy, but enough to take the edge off. I needed money and the dogs let me earn it.’
‘Tell me about Dave.’
‘Dave?’ He looked genuinely confused.
‘Dave Robbins — we found his body in the dog-fighting pit.’
‘Oh, Robbo. Robbo was a fucking dickhead and a bully.’
‘Is that why he’s dead and you’re not?’
‘Yep.’ Lee came back to the table with two steaming mugs of whisky-less coffee.
‘Can you tell me what happened at the pit?’
‘I can, but only ’cause E says I can. And don’t expect me to repeat any of it to the pigs — ’cause I won’t; or tell you where she is — ’cause I don’t know.’
Mia nodded agreement.
‘We were picked up from Kai’s flat, early doors, by three men with guns. They’d jemmied the front door and found us asleep. They didn’t say a word, just stuck gaffa-tape across our gobs and tied our hands with plastic cables. Then they drove us to the dog-fighting pit — which had been made much deeper. Four of the biggest buggers I’ve ever seen were inside it, being held apart by long leashes that kept them in their corners.’
‘You must have been terrified.’
‘We were bricking it. The noise them dogs was making was bad, really bad. Then another Land Rover pulls up and E and Alex get out — not that I knew who they were at the time like. They’d got Robbo with them and he’s on one — effing and blinding — louder than the bleedin’ dogs he was. Alex back hands him and drags him over to the pit while E chucks in some meat to shut the dogs up while she talks to us.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She told us we’d been found guilty of “crimes against canines”. We didn’t know what she’s talking about, but Alex says “dog fighting”, to help us out like. Then she says we’ve got a choice. She tells us we can go and help set up some dog shelter in Scotland, or we can go in the pit with the dogs we’d trained. Not that I recognised any of those dogs — big fuckers they were — I’d remember dealing with any of them. Well, Robbo kicks off again — “I ain’t going to fucking Scotland,” he yells, “you can go fuck yourself.” He tells E, “No fucking woman’s going to tell me what I can and can’t fucking do with my fucking dogs.” So E just nods to Alex, who picks up Robbo and chucks him into the pit. Then he walks around the edge and lets go the leashes . . . It was fucking carnage, man . . . fucking carnage.’ Lee took a swig of his coffee.
‘You were made to watch?’
He nodded, eyes closed against the memory.
‘What happened then?’
‘Then E turns to us and says, “What’s it to be, boys? The pit or Scotland?”’
‘And you all chose Scotland.’
‘Yeah, we all chose Scotland.’
‘So Ellie got you here through fear.’
‘And Alex’s gun-toting buddies.’
‘What happened to the dogs?’
‘One of the men shot them. Pop. Pop. Pop.’ Lee held the index and middle fingers of his right hand like a gun and made a shooting action, recoiling his hand upwards after each pop. ‘They were beyond help.’ He wiped his forearm across his eyes. ‘But it’s been okay, really. E came to see us after a year, when Ned was on holiday. She told us we’d finished our probation and could go back to Leeds, but if we ever talked to anyone about what had happened or got back into dog fighting, Alex and his men would pit us.’
‘But none of you went back?’
‘No. E pays us ten quid an hour as well as some sort of lump sum pension, whatever that is. And it’s good here. We have a laugh, smoke a bit of weed, occasionally get hammered on our days off — it’s okay — better than Leeds anyway.’
‘What about your family, Lee? And friends?’
‘What about them? They won’t miss me and I don’t miss them. Ned’s been more of a dad to me than me own ever was and Darren and Kai are the best mates yer could wish for.’
‘And Ned really has no idea how you came to be here?’
He smiled. ‘E thinks it’s a bit of a joke, but none of us want to lose Ned so, as E says, what he don’t know can’t hurt him — or something like that.’
‘No regrets then?’
‘Course I got regrets!’ Lee’s face crumpled. ‘All those dogs injured and killed, all those people’s pets I robbed for bait. I once had to stuff a badly injured one down the trash chute because some fucker said the pigs were coming. Fucking hell, when I think about what I did it makes me sick.’
Ned opened the door. ‘What makes you sick, lad?’
‘People that get out of doing their share of the chores.’ Lee glanced at the lounge door.
‘Do you know Ellie’s last name?’ Mia kept her tone light.
Lee shook his head.
When Ned went into the lounge she whispered a final question.
‘Can you at least give me a description of Ellie?’
Lee smiled. ‘You won’t need it.’
He joined the others in front of the TV and Mia had no choice but to sit and watch an action adventure while worrying about what Lee had meant.
The following morning, after a quick tour of the kennels for Ned’s benefit, Lee handed her a piece of paper as she was leaving. ‘She’s expecting you,’ was all he said.
The words Mountain View and a postcode was all that was written on the paper.
The fog had lifted, but it still swirled around Mia’s brain as she tried to make sense of what was happening. Driving back, she felt like a reverse Moses. He had come down from the mountain with certainty, commandments written in stone. She was descending in a state of utter confusion where good and bad were now concepts lost in the recent past and everything was subjective, up for grabs, open to continual alteration from a myriad of perspectives.
What the hell was she going to tell Mark?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Human nature has always been a matter of black and grey.
Ellie and Adam’s smiles were indulgent. They were looking over the stable door at another recent arrival. She was a highly strung Arab mare that had been badly abused by its Middle Eastern long-distance rider. Having doped the mare to her eyeballs, she’d broken down on the final mile of a sixty-mile race and on their return home he’d thrashed the living daylights out of her.
Needless to say, when the team had collected the mare from the multimillion pound property in Ascot, they had delivered a thrashing of their own. Ellie had been particularly pleased with that rescue-revenge operation. It was the first time the core unit had all been used on the same job. They’d broken through the most sophisticated of technical security measures before finding the rider alone in his sumptuous bed. When staff found him the next morning, he was lying unconscious in a pool of congealed blood, with a black turkey feather plastered to his forehead like a brand. He’d been airlifted to a private hospital in London but had refused to speak to the police about either the assault or the theft of one of his horses. The man wanted no publicity that could lead to an FEI investigation. The Federation Equestrian Internationale were already looking into the alleged widespread doping of long-distance horses by Middle Eastern countries, and he didn’t want to give them any further ammunition.
Fortunately, one of his English grooms decided it was worth his job to give his bastard of a boss such publicity, and he’d sold the story to the papers. His boss was a minor royal and the story became headline news. Ellie had revelled in the naming and shaming that followed.
It had been a good day. The shower’s hot water pummelled Ellie’s tired body and she allowed herself the luxury of imagining the pressurized drops were the tips of Alex’s strong fingers. But it was not ecstasy that made her heart judder to a halt. As soapy fingers ran back over the lump under her left armpit, it was sheer terror that made it start pounding again.
‘I’m sorry, Miss Grant. You were right. The lump is malignant and the cancer has already spread beyond what is operable.’ The consultant’s voice remained neutral.
Just another day at the office for you, Ellie thought.
Her own voice emerged tight, strangled. ‘How long?’
‘If we can get you on the Herceptin, about six months. If not—’
‘I’ve got money. I can pay. How soon can I get this Herceptin?’
‘I’ll put a call into the BUPA hospital now. If you can get yourself down to Cardiff they’ll probably be able to see you this afternoon. I’m so sorry, Miss Grant, but with this type of breast cancer there’s a genetic inevitability about it that’s as cruel as it gets.’ The doctor rose from her chair and held out a well-manicured hand.
There was finality to that handshake that drained the last bit of hope from Ellie. What’s for you won’t go by you. Her mother’s favourite adage had immediately taken on a far darker interpretation. This is it. Payback. Universal justice, like her own, had been operating under the radar, sneaking in under a cover of euphoria, planting its time bomb and setting the detonator. By the time she’d found the lump the cancer had reached stage four, with her bones, liver and brain already infected. Confirmation of its presence had seemed to ignite the pain and she’d known then that the upcoming ricin experiment was likely to be her last active operation.
Two days after the badger baiters died, Gill found Ellie collapsed in the hay barn. Mick had carried her into the house and called the paramedics. Poor Mick. Of all of them he was the most overtly distraught by her prognosis. He’d got drunk for the first time in his life and Alex and Craig had put him to bed. By the time she’d returned from a short hospital stay he seemed back on track, but a dark cloud hung over him and its tension made some of the more sensitive animals skittish. Alex’s face also wore a continual scowl and Gill and Jo showed their concern through boxed sets and homemade cookies.
While she’d been able to purchase the services of a full-time palliative nurse and whatever drugs were available to return fire on her cancer, Ellie could not buy the positive attitude that everyone claimed would make a real difference. She’d arrived too late at the battle for surgery, and while chemo and radiation might assist in local skirmishes, like shrinking the tumours on her liver to relieve the pain the distended organ was causing, the cure was as hard to bear as the cause.
In order to try and combat the increasing pain, she’d been willing to try all the non-evasive therapies recommended by her nurse. While she could still walk, Ellie had found herself hugging the odd tree, trying to absorb the life energy that such a huge creation of nature must have. Guided imagery was another recommended way of dealing with the pain — finding a soothing, mental haven. Invariably this resulted in thoughts of Alex making love to her, but instead of being able to relax, more than once she’d found herself rudely ejected from her own daydream by the look of horror on his face as he gazed down on her wasting and diseased body. She’d even let Gill try crystal-healing and reiki on her, but what had worked so well on some animals left her unchanged — still rotting away from the inside. It’s not fucking fair! had become a constant internal mantra.
Ellie worked hard, trying desperately to organise her legacy, but she’d often become too exhausted to continue even talking and then she just plugged in her iPod. Lyrics that had never held much meaning before were now so poignant she found herself endlessly crying and choosing funeral pieces. She’d never believed in God. When you’d seen as much misery and needless cruelty as she had it was easy to believe in evil, but not God.
So, her funeral would be humanist, and she’d settled on two songs from the Lord of the Rings soundtrack. She liked the idea that these songs were eulogies for epic heroes who had died fighting for the greater good.
But time and again her own daily battles were being lost, and she was now confined to bed. Her death bed. Dramatic, but true. She had resigned herself to just managing the pain with opioids while she put all her remaining focus on the main job in hand — making a decision about Doctor Mia Langley.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The heart hath its reasons, which reason knows nothing of.
Alex watched as Mia got out of the mud-splattered BMW with a slow, feline purpose he found immediately exciting. She remained by the car, looking around with unguarded interest. Her small frame reminded him of Ellie, but where Ellie’s assets were constantly camouflaged under baggy t-shirts or thick sweaters, this woman’s breasts pushed blatantly against the white cotton of her tailored shirt.
He ground his roll-up into the concrete of the main yard and, shoving his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, he walked towards Mia with Hamish jogging jauntily by his side. While the dog felt safe in the knowledge that no one would harm him, Alex was wondering if he’d end up working for this woman or killing her.
‘You must be Mia. We
’ve been expecting you, lassie.’ His gaze flicked down to the rounded, shadowed ravine at the top of her shirt.
‘Lassie?’ Mia’s eyes dropped to Hamish before rising to challenge him. ‘Are you expecting me to come to heel too?’
He smiled. ‘Nice to meet you too, Doctor Langley.’
Their eyes matched in both colour and intensity and Mia was surprised by the random thought that popped into her head — she wouldn’t mind coming to this man’s heel. She could actually feel her well-groomed edges beginning to soften in the heat of his physicality. Get a fucking grip!
‘I’m sorry, Alex. It is Alex, isn’t it?’
‘Aye, I’m Ellie’s right-hand man.’
‘I know.’
She fought to ignore the physical conversation going on between them, but the hardness of his eyes clashed with his upturned lips and she felt her stomach tighten. Seriously, get a fucking grip — this man’s a killer for Christ’s sake!
Alex was feeling the same heat. He turned ninety degrees away from her, leant against the car and concentrated on rolling another cigarette. Professional women hated smokers.
‘You know as much about me as Ellie wants you to know, Doctor Langley.’
Mia watched mesmerized as Alex’s tongue slowly licked the cigarette paper before putting the roll-up in his mouth. As he bent his head to light it, she found herself wondering what that tongue would feel like against her skin.
‘Mia, please. So where is the infamous Ellie?’ She tried her most flirtatious smile. ‘Busy planning her next masterstroke?’
‘No, lass. She’s in her bedroom . . . busy dying.’ Alex enjoyed the genuine shock that flooded Mia Langley’s spectacularly pretty face.
‘Dying?’
‘Stage four breast cancer.’ He took a deep pull on the tiny cigarette and watched Mia process this information.
He found himself absorbing her, pulling her in like drawing down on a particularly strong joint. As the surprise of the new information wore off, he saw her features relax and wondered what it would be like to hold that whole body through such tension and release.
She Will Rescue You Page 11
