by T. J. Lebbon
He wondered where Andy was.
Dom saw the fleeting movement and had time to think, Bird? Bat? Moth? before the rock struck the windscreen. It was big and had been thrown hard. The windscreen smashed. The rock fell through, bounced from the steering wheel and struck his left arm.
Dom’s foot slipped from the clutch. The car jerked forward and stalled.
The windscreen had cracked in thousands of staggered lines, safety glass mostly holding in place but now obscured.
‘Punch it out!’ Emma said. ‘Go, Dom! You need to go, you haven’t seen him!’
Dom pressed the clutch and started the car again, and the second rock smashed through the weakened glass and struck his face.
Everything went away, consumed in the blaze of shock and pain. Perhaps he groaned, or maybe he shouted. His face felt wet and hot. The agony was centred around his nose, a blinding fire radiating outwards behind his cheekbones, circling his eye sockets, pulsing in his teeth and jaw.
Unable to see, hear or sense what was happening, Dom slammed his foot on the gas and shifted his left foot from the clutch.
The car surged forward.
Emma lunged between the seats and grabbed the wheel.
‘Keep your foot on the gas!’ she said, close to Dom’s left ear. He was groaning, his face glimmering with blood and speckled with knots of glass from the shattered windscreen. He leaned his head against her arm and it felt wet.
She stretched further, both hands clasping the wheel. She leaned to the left, struggling to turn before they ploughed into an overgrown area and stalled again. Emma knew this car park from a few previous visits, thought that the entrance lane was to the left, but she couldn’t be sure.
The engine roared, labouring high and fast. Wheels span, gravel spat behind them.
Something pale appeared from the right, standing, and Lip hefted another rock.
Emma jigged the car to the right. She didn’t have time to consider what she was doing. If she had, she might have wondered why he’d made himself such an easy target.
The car struck the heavy concrete post buried beneath creeping plants. It was a glancing blow, and she fell to the left with both hands on the wheel, tugging it down and back onto the gravelled surface. The post scraped across the car’s right side.
Daisy was screaming in the back seat, desperate for it to all end. It was her cries more than anything else that terrified Emma. She’d never heard her daughter like that before, and every single parental instinct prickled.
Something hit the left rear window. It smashed. Emma felt stinging impacts across her left thigh and hip, but she ignored it, heaving herself upright again and concentrating on steering.
Dom grunted and rested his hands on the wheel, both of them over hers. Together, they aimed the car at the lane leading back towards the main road.
‘Daisy?’ Emma shouted.
‘Mum! Mummy!’
‘Daisy, are you okay?’
‘I … yeah. I think Andy shot the car.’
‘But you’re okay?’
‘Yes, Mum. Just go. Please, the man’s gone, but just go.’
‘Dom, second gear,’ Emma said, and Dom did so, slowly, deliberately. ‘When we reach the road—’
Andy appeared in the headlights. Keep going, Emma thought, and she was about to say it when Dom pressed the clutch and released pressure on the gas. The car slowed, drifted, and while it was still moving Andy opened the front door and dropped into the seat.
‘Go,’ he said. He glanced at Dom, then at Emma stretched between the front seats, still steering for her husband. He reached for the wheel. ‘I’ve got it.’
‘I’ve got it!’ Emma shouted, and she wanted to smash Andy in the face. But she needed both hands.
‘Mum?’ Daisy said from behind her. ‘I’m fine, really, it’s just a sting, but … I think Andy shot me.’
‘Just keep going,’ she said to her husband, and she caught sight of his face in the rear-view mirror, ghostly in the dashboard lighting, glimmering with blood. She hardly recognised him, but at that moment she hated him and loved him more than she ever had before. He’d been such a fool, but now he was doing his best to put things right.
She risked a quick glance back. Daisy was holding her hand up, turning it this way and that. ‘Bleeding?’ Emma asked.
‘No, it’s just like a big bruise.’
Emma checked her daughter’s hand quickly and saw that the skin was not broken. She wanted to kiss her fingers. Special Mummy medicine, she used to say.
‘Turn left here,’ Andy said as they approached the junction out onto the main road. Emma had moments to think about it. Left would take them back into town, and with a smashed windscreen and a driver covered with blood, hiding would be impossible.
Partly because of that, but mostly to act contrary to Andy’s instruction, she tugged the wheel around and to the right. ‘Let me take over now, babe,’ she said, and Dom gratefully eased back on the gas and knocked the car out of gear. They drifted to a halt.
‘Emma, we need to—’
‘Why are you even still with us?’ she shouted at Andy. ‘You’re not part of this family!’
‘I’m trying to help.’
‘Look at him, see where your help’s got us!’ She dropped back into the rear seat and went to check Daisy.
‘Dom, tell her.’
‘Just shut the fuck up,’ Emma said. Daisy laughed, and she felt a rush of love for her daughter. Even under these circumstances, Daisy could find humour in a swear word.
Emma reached for the door.
‘Mum!’ Daisy said.
‘I’ve got to drive. Your dad’s bleeding and he can’t see that well.’
‘Is he okay?’
Emma didn’t know. Maybe it was just a cut and bruised face, or a broken nose. Or perhaps the impact had cracked his skull. He hadn’t said much. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. Now was not the time to lie to Daisy, or anyone. There had been too many lies.
She jumped from the car. The road was quiet. Night had fallen, a soft summer night when shreds of sunlight lingered in sparse clouds high in the sky, and the landscape was silvered by moonlight. It was still warm and humid.
Dom’s car was a mess. The front wing was dented and torn, and all along the driver’s side the metal was deeply scraped. The shattered windscreen was even more obvious, and she knew they wouldn’t be able to drive it for long.
Her car was back at Mandy’s house. She realised with a sick, sinking feeling that they couldn’t return there, and neither could they go home. We’re being hunted, she thought, and though a horrible idea, it was probably quite accurate.
Dom might need a doctor’s help. Daisy was running on pure adrenalin, but inside she’d be petrified. Andy was still with them. Andy, who had caused all of this.
She helped Dom from the car. He stood upright, leaning against the back door.
‘Hurry,’ Andy said from inside. While she didn’t reply, she did feel his urgency.
‘I’m okay,’ Dom said. He didn’t look okay. His nose was still pouring blood, it coated his face and T-shirt. But she knew it might appear worse than it was.
‘Sure?’
‘Yeah. For now. Just drive, we’ll go somewhere safe.’
‘Where’s safe, Dom? Where can I go where Daisy won’t be in danger from some fucking madman?’
‘Andy. He knows.’
‘Andy!’ She snorted.
‘Em … just drive.’ Dom sat in the back. Emma closed the door behind him, seeing Daisy snuggle up next to her dad and hand him a wad of tissues from her pocket.
She sat in the driver’s seat and started driving.
‘So talk,’ she said.
Dom listened to Andy telling his wife what had happened. Daisy sat beside him, trying to hug him better, as he had cuddled her all those times she’d been sick. He could tell that she was listening intently, but she said nothing. He knew that she was scared, but she was also taking everything in. Often quiet, she was als
o sharp as a knife.
His face throbbed. His nose hurt every time he breathed, and his eyes watered. Blood was sticky and thick across his lower face, and fresh blood flowed. But though the pain pulsed like the worst hangover, he waved away any concern. The time to tend his injuries was not now.
They all had to raise their voices. Andy had smashed out the rest of the shattered windscreen, and even with Emma driving slowly the breeze was loud, whistling around the metal doorposts and making them squint.
Andy told Emma about his family the Scotts, and Philip Beck, the man known as Lip. He relayed what had happened at Windy Miller’s, taking only a few sentences to do so. He did not hold back on the awful details.
‘And now they want revenge,’ Emma said. ‘Because of your squabblings with your scumbag family, my family is in danger.’
‘They only want me,’ Andy said.
‘No,’ Dom said. His voice felt weak, but it was still loud enough to silence the others. Daisy sat back a little, wanting to look at him as he spoke.
‘What did she say?’ Emma asked.
‘That she’s called in help to hunt us all down and …’ He closed his eyes and reached for Daisy’s hand.
‘And kill us?’ Daisy asked. Dom had never heard her saying anything so serious, so unbelievable and out of the norm. He hated hearing those words in her voice. It made the pain in his face feel like nothing.
‘What help?’ Emma asked.
‘Sonja knows some nasty people,’ Andy said.
‘Your family aren’t nasty enough?’
‘Not like the ones she’ll call. It all changed when Lip hooked up with Mary.’
‘I don’t care about your family history or problems,’ Emma said. ‘I care about mine.’
‘I’ve called in help too,’ Andy said. ‘She’s already acknowledged that she’s coming.’ He held up his phone.
‘Jane Smith,’ Dom said. ‘So who is she? How can she help?’
Several sets of headlights approached from the opposite direction. Dom felt incredibly exposed with their windscreen gone. Emma slowed to a crawl, and the cars passed without slowing. They were following a curving road out into the countryside, and Emma took the next turning, dipping down a steep hill and then around to the left. It was the access to two fields, and she reversed the car behind a high hedge that shielded it from the road.
The engine fell quiet, darkness closed in. The sudden silence was shocking. Dom heard his own laboured breathing, and when he moved pain pulsed behind his eyes.
‘We need to change cars,’ Andy said.
‘We need to know more about Jane Smith,’ Emma said.
‘But Mum, the police?’ Daisy asked.
A loaded silence. I’m a murderer, Dom thought. Even though he had not harmed the woman and girl in the post office, or pushed Frank from the windmill’s balcony, he felt the awful weight of their demise like a pressure around his heart. The Dom of a couple of days ago now seemed like a naive figure, with a life the Dom of now would give almost anything to regain.
‘You know that’s not the way to go, right?’ Andy asked. He was talking directly to Emma.
‘Just tell us about Jane Smith,’ Emma said. ‘Then I’ll decide.’
Dom closed his eyes, and Daisy snuggled close to him again. It wasn’t for warmth. He tried to put his arm around her, but the movement made his head swim. He was the one needing comfort.
The darkness felt safe, and for the first time in a while he wanted to rest.
‘I only met her once,’ Andy said. ‘Three years ago. I’d left my family under strained circumstances.’
‘You mean they didn’t give you as much blood money as you thought you were due,’ Dom said.
‘Yeah. I was after a fresh start to set up legit. Wanted to go straight, and I’d already seen what Lip was doing to the family. Mary had gone that way already, and fast. She fell for him hard, and dropped into his ways almost without blinking. He’s strange. You can’t say charismatic, because there’s really not that much to him, no glint, no obvious personality. But he does have a presence. There’s a real power to him’.
‘I tried to find out who he really was, where he’d come from, but it was as if he hadn’t existed before the day he met Mary. So I left, but I knew they’d come looking. If not Frank or Mary, then Lip. Because I knew them all too well, knew too much. I didn’t for a minute believe he was the sort of guy to hang around for long, and he’s already surprised me on that. But I also knew that however long he did stay for, he’d want to feel safe. With me out there somewhere, he’d feel exposed.’
‘So he was the only one you were worried about?’ Emma asked.
‘Well … not really. I’ve already told Dom, the others screwed me out of money when I left. Money that was mine, that I’d earned.’
‘By robbing?’
‘We weren’t common thieves,’ he said. He paused, as if seeking a way to explain. Then he sighed heavily and continued. ‘Look, I can’t expect you to understand. But the moment Sonja knew I was going, she shut me out completely. Gave me a token amount, sent me on my way. So one of my main aims was ensuring I was provided for. I set up a system that would bleed funds to me from the family, hopefully without them knowing. Sonja controlled the finances, and she moved money around Europe and the US to exchange—’
‘Don’t need to know that,’ Dom said. He sounded bunged up, his nose filled with blood and pain. ‘Don’t care. Just tell us about her.’
‘Right. Yeah. Jane Smith. I’d heard about her, the do-over woman. Dig deep enough on the net and you find traces of her. She’s less than a shadow. But for the right people, she’ll help you start a new life. You know, background stuff, a new location, traceable history online, all that sort of stuff. She did that for me.’
‘That’s how you ended up in Abergavenny,’ Dom said. ‘A technical writer? Really?’
‘Why not?’
‘We don’t want new lives,’ Emma said. ‘We were happy with our old life.’
‘Were you?’
‘Fuck you, Andy!’
Andy remained silent. Dom breathed through his mouth, bloodied face pulsing with every breath.
‘So you’ve asked her for help,’ Dom said.
‘And she’s coming.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she helps good people. That’s what she told me. She said, “I was a good person once, and I like to help people who were like me”.’
‘What does she mean by that?’ Daisy asked.
‘No idea. I don’t know much about her, other than what she did for me, and what she told me the last time we communicated. She said that she knows computers, but knows guns more. When it was finished and she left, she told me how to contact her if I ever needed her.’
‘So how much will this cost?’ Dom asked.
‘I don’t know.’
Silence hung as heavy as the heat. There were no whispers, no breeze to blow it away.
‘It’s her or the police,’ Andy said at last.
‘Great,’ Emma said. No one said anything else. ‘Great. The law, or a mercenary.’ She started the car.
‘No, stay here,’ Andy said. ‘She’ll tell us where to meet her.’ He reached for the wheel.
Emma shoved his hand away and slipped into gear, moving off, hitting the road and heading away from town. ‘You can sit there waiting if you like,’ she said. ‘I’m getting my family somewhere safe.’
Dom caught his wife glancing at him in the rear-view mirror. In the darkness he saw what he hoped was a smile.
Chapter Nineteen
Cat
Lip had once killed a man with a cat.
He’d had to kill the cat first, which had been a disappointment, because this method of murder had struck him as beautifully creative, taking a life with a hissing, snarling life. But the little bastard had squirmed and thrashed, lashed with claws and teeth, opening his arm in a dozen places. He’d thought that holding it by the tail would be enough. But the animal was inc
redibly flexible, arching its back, twisting, an ever-changing knot of muscle and sharp edges. Two swings against a wall and it had fallen quiet. The old man hadn’t. His screams had increased, terror now tinged with grief. It had been his pet.
That had amused Lip. He’d even broken the ghost of a smile the nineteenth time he pummelled the dead creature into the old man’s face.
It had taken forty-seven more impacts before he was certain the old bastard was dead. He’d obviously fed the feline too much; it was fat and soft. If it had been skinnier, less insulated, harder, his suffering might not have persisted for so long.
Lip didn’t lose any sleep over it. To cause suffering was never his prime aim. It was a by-product of his fascination. A result of his interests. If a victim slipped away quickly, that did not concern him. Similarly, an intense and drawn-out death troubled him little.
It was the method that mattered.
A rock was not very imaginative, but it was all he’d been left with. Now, out in the darkness with the car vanished in the distance, making his way back towards the town, he was not at all disappointed. Sonja would be. She’d call soon, ask him what was happening and whether he had them. He’d have to tell her that they had escaped. But that only meant he would have to find them again, and again, and it was in the search that he often gained most satisfaction. It gave him time to think, and plan his next lesson. And if it went well, it also offered the opportunity to steer the search’s end. His mind was awash with possibilities. Taking time to find Andy and those others again would enable him to take the outcome, and their demise, more under his control than ever.
Under a bridge with fire, he thought. Flames casting shadows across the mossy brick arch. Screams echoing down into fast-flowing waters.
It was the art.
In a manhole, tied up and gagged, left to die over several days beneath a thousand unknowing feet. Hearing children’s laughter. Feeling the patient caress of rats’ whiskers on exposed, cold skin.
Every moment was an oil painting, each image a memory to cherish.
