The Hunt and the Kill

by Holly Watt

  Zac pulled a face. ‘Doubt it.’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘You think Bailey offered him something else, don’t you?’

  ‘Well, it would have been easy, wouldn’t it?’ Casey said bleakly. ‘And maybe Bailey finally worked it out. All he really needed to offer was love.’

  At last, the traffic unfurled. They reached the turn-off for Bailey’s house, and the hire car roared up the track, gunning around the switchbacks, racing through the rolling fynbos.

  ‘Oh, god,’ Casey cried. Far ahead, she could see a small figure wandering down the drive towards them. ‘That’s Delphine. What the hell has she done?’

  Delphine looked almost dreamy. She seemed to be meandering along the track, gazing out at the ocean as she walked. She looked across as the car screeched to a halt, eyes hazy. ‘Hello, Casey,’ she said abstractedly. ‘Hello, Zac.’

  ‘Delphine!’ Casey leapt from the car. ‘What happened?’

  Apart from her vague expression, Delphine looked normal, her clothes spotless.

  ‘I’m very sorry … ’ Delphine’s eyes reached Casey’s face. ‘About Ed. I’m very sorry he got involved … ’

  ‘Ed,’ Casey shuddered. ‘Delphine, what have you … ’

  ‘Elias Bailey killed my husband,’ Delphine said simply. ‘I had to do it.’

  ‘Do what, Delphine? What did you do?’

  ‘I didn’t want it to be like this, Casey … I wanted you to run the story. To finish him like that, all neatly. But you weren’t going to do it.’ Her eyes hardened. ‘None of you had the guts.’

  ‘What did Bailey do to Finlay, Delphine?’

  ‘Elias Bailey killed Finlay.’ It was almost a chant. ‘He killed Finlay. He killed my beautiful husband.’

  ‘How do you know? Finlay died in a car accident, Delphine. How can you be certain that Bailey had anything to do with it?’

  Delphine was scraping her shoe against the rough gravel of the drive. Back and forth, she scored the gravel. Back and forth, back and forth.

  ‘Delphine,’ said Zac. ‘Please tell us.’

  ‘I didn’t know at first,’ Delphine said. ‘Finlay went off to work one morning, just like he always did. It was a normal day, the sun shining. The boys and I were playing in the garden. Just a normal, ordinary day. And then I looked up and the police were there. In their uniforms, with their worried faces. They took me into the kitchen, and said there had been an accident. They said I needed to come right now. I could see the boys through the window, still playing. In the sandpit, building castles. I went out to them and I kissed them goodbye, and I said that everything was going to be OK. And then I left them. They were so young. The boys stayed with one of the officers but I could feel their eyes on me as I ran out the gate. They didn’t quite believe me, but they trusted me all the same.

  ‘The police rushed me to the hospital as fast as they could. I remember staring out of the car window at all these people going about their lives. People popping to the shops, picking up their kids, grabbing a coffee. I touched the window and it felt as if there was this thick, cold layer between me and the world, and there always would be now.’

  Behind Delphine, Casey could see Bailey’s house, perched on the hillside. From here, it looked normal.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘And then I was at the hospital,’ Delphine swallowed. ‘They took me to his bed, and there were all these tubes and needles and everything. But he was lying still. So still. As if he was dead already. And the doctor looked up as I walked into the room, and I could see … Later, they said there was no hope. They were so kind, the doctors, the nurses. As kind as anyone could be. But they showed me all these scans and graphs, and you could see there was nothing to be done. His brain was … His brain was gone. He was gone.’

  ‘You don’t come back,’ Zac said gently. ‘Not from something like that.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Delphine was nodding. It was too big a movement, knocking her off balance. ‘When they said there was no hope at all, when they said it was time to switch off the machines, I decided to donate his organs. I signed everything over because I wanted one good thing to come out of it all … Because it was the right thing to do. And Finlay always did the right thing. He always did the good thing.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Casey again. ‘It must have been awful to have lost him like that. But how does that connect to Bailey? Why does it have anything to do with him?

  Delphine’s eyes focused on her. ‘Finlay had done a medical trial, you know? Not long before he died. He had done a medical trial, right here in Cape Town.’

  ‘How … ’ Casey struggled with the change of topic.

  ‘Finlay took part in a medical trial, because he fit the criteria, and he thought it was important to help out when you could.’

  ‘I don’t—’

  ‘It was an Adsero trial,’ said Delphine flatly.

  ‘But—’ For a split second, Casey was back in the office at the top of Bailey’s house. Clozapine and schizophrenia in Slovakia. Rheumatoid arthritis in Belgium. And a heart drug in Cape Town, just under four years ago.

  ‘Adsero took down every detail about Finlay for that trial,’ Delphine recited. ‘Not just his blood type, but every single fact about his life. They did DNA tests, blood tests, scans of his heart. They even knew that he liked to go jogging.’ She stopped, looking up at the sky. ‘Adsero knew he had the perfect heart.’

  ‘But that doesn’t mean … ’

  ‘Of course, I never thought about it at the time,’ said Delphine. ‘But afterwards, you get a letter. It’s what they do, you know? The medical authorities write you a letter, to make you feel better about donating the organs of your … So my letter arrived. And it was sweet. A 27-year-old man received one of your husband’s kidneys, thank you. A 42-year-old woman received his corneas, thank you. A 55-year-old man received your husband’s heart, thank you.’

  ‘But … ’

  ‘And the donor recipients sometimes send letters too. You saved my life, I can never thank you enough. Heart-warming stuff.’

  ‘You couldn’t know it was Bailey though. That’s not enough information.’

  ‘And then one day I read an article,’ Delphine spat. ‘An article in my own bloody newspaper. That man talking about the miracle of his own fucking transplant. A transplant that happened right here in Cape Town, at the exact time, right down the corridor, from where my husband died. My husband’s heart went to a 55-year-old man, just the same age as Bailey. A 55-year-old man who never wrote to his donor’s family, oh no.’

  ‘You still can’t—’

  ‘Bailey knew,’ said Delphine. ‘He knew he was getting to the top of the list, and that if someone died with the right blood type, he would get the heart. But Bailey had been waiting for years. I spoke to Loelia about it. Bailey knew he was going to die on the list, waiting for that heart.’

  ‘You still don’t know—’

  ‘I know.’ Delphine’s eyes were crazed. ‘I just couldn’t prove it. Like you could never prove he killed Ed. So I looked into it. I did all the reporting. I went up to the crash site. His car smashed into one of the canyons, but it didn’t make sense that he crashed where he did. The police thought that another car must have been involved, but they could never track it down. And someone called the police, too. Without leaving their name or number. They thought it must have been the other driver, out of a sense of guilt. But it meant that the ambulance got to him fast. Fast enough that his organs … ’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Then I spoke to Adsero about that trial, asking if I could write about the next one for the Argus. And I got some cheerful PR girl on the phone saying it was funny I asked, but that trial was the only trial Adsero had ever done in Cape Town. They usually did them in Europe, and so, sorry about that, I couldn’t write about the next one. And it went on and on. I know what he did, Casey. I know it.’

  ‘You don’t … ’

  ‘I knew you wouldn’t be
lieve me if I came to you. You’d think it was the mad ramblings of some over-the-hill hack. Some has-been. I knew that you and Miranda, you needed to work it out for yourselves.’

  ‘Delphine—’

  ‘I wanted you to destroy him, Casey,’ Delphine snarled. ‘You and Miranda, I needed you to do it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I have children.’ A wild gesture. ‘I couldn’t spend my life in jail … So I … But then you said you couldn’t do the story. Wouldn’t do the story. And I … ’

  The sentences dissolved to chaos.

  ‘What did you do to Bailey?’ Zac’s voice was icy. ‘Where is he?’

  Delphine turned, looking back up towards the huge house.

  ‘He’s up there.’ She pointed, and smiled sweetly at Zac.

  ‘Come on.’ Zac grabbed Casey’s arm. ‘Get in the car.’

  Casey let Zac shove her into the passenger seat, and then the car was roaring up the drive again, leaving Delphine by the side of the road, her eyes staring at nothing.

  73

  The gates were open and the guardhouse was empty. There was no sign of any bodyguards.

  The front door was ajar, which looked ominous: a broken tooth in a gleaming facade.

  Zac drove slowly into the courtyard, coming to a stop beside the smirking cupid. Delphine’s black Range Rover sat silently in one corner, and Casey imagined the big gates opening with a purr, the housekeeper coming to the door. Yes, of course, he’s expecting you.

  ‘Why didn’t she take the car?’ whispered Zac.

  ‘Maybe she’s not running away.’ Casey shook her head. ‘Maybe she knows she’s going to be caught. Come on.’

  She climbed out of the car and hurried towards the polished white steps. As she pushed at the door, it swung open silently. The house was still, empty, an echo in the air. Casey moved forward, her feet quiet on the marble floor.

  ‘Elias Bailey?’ she called. ‘It’s Casey Benedict.’

  Silence. She took a couple more steps. Now she could see straight through the house, out to the shimmering blue of the swimming pool. The bullet holes would already have been fixed, she knew. There would be nothing to show for that terrifying day.

  Zac was behind her, staring up at a hammered gold chandelier and a gallery that ran around the triple height lobby.

  ‘What a place,’ he murmured.

  ‘Elias?’ Casey called again. ‘Is everything all right?’

  She edged across the hall to look out at the swimming pool, past the large white sofas and the never-used fireplace, piled high with pointless silver pine cones. The house was still, the only movement from the tiny motes of dust that caught the sunlight as it poured in through the huge windows.

  Now Casey could see the staircase that led up to Bailey’s office from the gallery. She shuddered at the thought of that room, with the grey files, the stolid wooden desk. She knew that invisible hands would have repaired the French doors, too, replacing the green lamp and mopping up the blood. Wiping away the terror, as if it had never been, swirling it all down the sluice. If only it were that easy. If only …

  A tiny noise behind them, and Casey swung back towards the double doors that led to the kitchen. Mabel stood there, eyes wide. As Casey walked towards her, the housekeeper shrank away, almost cowering. She was shaking, Casey saw, bright smears of blood on her crisp white dress.

  ‘Mabel!’ Casey came closer, hands wide. ‘We won’t hurt you. Please don’t be scared. Do you remember me? I came here with Garrick, Mr Bailey’s son … ’

  The housekeeper shook her head, making a gesture as if to push Casey away.

  ‘We want to help you,’ Zac tried. ‘We—’

  But the housekeeper was ducking through another door that looked as if it led to a pantry.

  ‘Do you know what happened, Mabel?’ Casey pleaded, but the housekeeper had disappeared, the door closing with a bang.

  Casey turned away. ‘Come on.’

  Wide corridors led towards the wings of the house. Casey forced herself down the one on the left. She nudged the first set of double doors, flinching as they swung open. But it was only a sitting room, the huge windows opening towards the pool. The room was immaculate – with large sofas, beautiful art, white curtains drifting in the breeze – and empty.

  The next set of double doors along the corridor was closed. Casey took a deep breath and pushed down on the door handle.

  Bluebeard’s wife, climbing.

  But this room was deserted too. Only a dining table that might sit a couple of dozen invisible guests.

  Another deep breath, and into the next room. This was empty also, and she had the impression of pushing through the stagnant air of an abandoned fairy-tale palace.

  ‘Mr Bailey,’ Casey called out again. ‘I am very concerned for your safety.’

  Silence.

  ‘Is there anyone here?’ Zac appeared behind her. ‘There’s nobody in the other wing.’

  ‘Let’s try upstairs.’

  They crept across the hall, towards the spiral staircase. Casey looked up at the stairs that led to the office. She imagined the bodyguards, alerted by Garrick, racing back across Cape Town, back towards this echoing home.

  ‘Up there?’ Zac followed her eyes.

  ‘Maybe.’ Casey raised her voice again, pulling out her phone as she spoke. ‘Mr Bailey, I am calling the police. I am concerned about your safety … ’

  There was a movement in the corner of her eye, so she was turning when the air exploded. Gunfire: blasting the room apart. Casey dived behind one of the white sofas as the room seemed to convulse. Bullet holes appeared in the wall above her head, sending chips of marble flying across the huge space, smashing into the gold chandelier so that it jumped and jangled, and spun around and around. Casey jammed her hands over her ears, folding herself into the smallest possible shape as the sofa thudded and jerked as bullets hit it, the stuffing erupting into the air.

  The gunshots stopped, the sudden silence almost as shocking. Casey’s ears rang and hurt. She lay completely still.

  Time ticked past. Slowly, Casey uncurled herself and tried to look around. She was in a small space between the sofa and the wall. She rolled on to her stomach, waiting for the next eruption.

  Nothing.

  Zac, she thought. Where is Zac?

  Very carefully, she inched forward, trying to look around the corner of the sofa. Fighting every instinct that screamed: stay still, stay hidden. She could hear muffled movements from the gallery above, and imagined Bailey pacing around, peering over, waiting for any motion down in the hall.

  ‘Zac.’ The quietest whisper. Nothing moved in the lobby or in the gallery above. She tried again. ‘Zac.’

  The smallest groan.

  Casey edged forward again, and now she could see him, lying on the cold marble floor. There was blood, she could see with a jag of horror, a pool of crimson trickling from his blue shirt. He was lying still, and she couldn’t tell whether he was dead or dying or pretending to be dead.

  ‘I’m here, Zac,’ she whispered.

  He didn’t move. Nothing to indicate that he could hear her at all.

  She had to get to him, couldn’t leave him out there alone, his life ebbing away. She reached for her phone, patting her pockets, and realised it was gone. She had been holding it as the world exploded, she remembered. It was somewhere out in the room.

  From above, there was silence.

  She had to try.

  Casey slid forward. Any minute, she would be out beyond the safety of the sofa, any minute she would …

  The gun roared, and Casey jerked back behind the sofa.

  She lay on the marble floor, tears hot in her eyes. Enough. She pushed herself up on her elbows with a burn of rage.

  ‘What do you want, Bailey?’ Casey shouted. ‘This is over. You must be able to see that. You’re not going to get away with this, not any more. Let me help Zac.’

  ‘Shut up,’ he shouted. ‘Shut up, you stupid fucking idiot!’
>
  Casey lay on the floor. ‘Why? Why am I such an idiot, Mr Bailey?’

  ‘Why couldn’t you just leave things alone?’ As Bailey spoke, Casey could hear a breathlessness in his voice. A creeping exhaustion.

  ‘Mr Bailey,’ Casey tried to sound soothing, ‘I want to talk to you. I want to help you, if I possibly can.’

  ‘Help me? You sent Delphine Black up here.’ Bailey’s laugh ended in a choke. ‘You sent that bloody woman up here to kill me.’

  ‘I didn’t know … What did she do to you?’

  ‘She shot me, didn’t she? The bloody bitch shot me.’ The words turned into a groan.

  ‘If you promise not to shoot me, I will come up there. I’ll see if I can help.’

  There was a long silence.

  Casey tensed, feeling her body healthy and intact for maybe the last time, and then she took a breath and stood up.

  There was no movement from above, no blast from the gun. Zac lay ten feet away from her, stretched out on the floor. As Casey looked at him, his eyes opened for a second, gleaming at her. He was breathing, shallow, fast gasps. Alive for now, Casey thought. But he doesn’t have long. Hurry.

  She grabbed her phone from the floor, automatically switching it to record, and moved towards the staircase, its elegant lines sweeping up towards the first floor.

  Casey forced herself up the stairs, with slow, unwilling steps, waiting for the roar of the gun.

  But Bailey was slumped halfway along the landing. He was barely able to turn his head, propped up against the wall, blood oozing from his chest. She could see streaks of scarlet on the carpet. He must have scrabbled his way along the corridor. The gun lay a few inches from his hand.

  Casey took three long strides along the passageway, and kicked the gun away. She fell to her knees beside Bailey. ‘What happened? Where does it hurt?’

  He looked up at her with oddly calm eyes. ‘There’s no point,’ he said. ‘You can’t do anything now.’

  ‘I might be able to—’