The Family Man

by T. J. Lebbon

  ‘Go,’ Emma said. ‘I’ll text Dom whatever I find out.’

  ‘My phone’s—’

  ‘Get Andy to text it to me,’ Rose said. ‘And be quick. Every second we waste makes it more likely you’ll never see Daisy again.’

  Rose started running.

  ‘Please come back,’ Emma said to Dom, grabbing his arm. ‘Nothing’s more important than the three of us.’

  ‘Nothing’s more important than the two of you,’ he said. He kissed her, then followed Rose.

  Emma felt sick. A white-hot pain pounded in her head, one eye wasn’t working properly, blood ran sticky and warm across her scalp, face and neck. But the greatest pain was inside.

  Lip, with Daisy.

  If she could have run, she would have chased him down to the ends of the earth. But she could hardly walk.

  It took forever to edge around Sonja’s corpse and climb the three steps to the decked area. She let go of the handrail and staggered to the front door, grabbing the frame for support. She knew that there was danger inside, but she had no time for caution.

  Emma walked into the lodge.

  Mary was on the floor, clawing her way slowly towards the sofa. A kitchen knife protruded from just above her left shoulder blade. She left a trail of blood on the laminate floor.

  Andy was propped against the wall to Emma’s left. He’d obviously sat there and slid down, slumped almost to the floor. She didn’t think he could see her.

  ‘I can’t move,’ he said. ‘I’m weak. Feel sick. You need to take care of her.’

  Emma looked at Mary again. Take care? He meant kill her. But she wouldn’t do that. Not yet.

  She looked around and saw Andy’s discarded gun. She picked it up.

  ‘Empty,’ he said. ‘Rose gave me … spare mag. Shorts pocket.’

  Emma pushed from the wall and walked slowly, carefully, to Andy. She was worried that if she knelt she would not be able to stand again, but there was no other way. She held onto the low table beside him, taking her weight on her left arm, easing herself down.

  ‘Don’t get any ideas,’ she said as she reached into his pocket.

  Andy snorted blood. His laugh was like a series of small coughs, turning into a groan.

  ‘Is that a magazine in your pocket?’ Emma asked. She felt hysteria closing in, and wasn’t sure she could control it.

  ‘Don’t!’ Andy said, laughing again. ‘It hurts. Too. Much. She broke something inside me, I think.’

  ‘I know how you feel. Fucking bastard.’ Emma drew the mag from his pocket and held it and the gun up before him.

  ‘Hit that clip there.’

  She did so and the empty magazine slipped halfway out. She extracted it, pushed the new mag into the pistol’s handle.

  ‘Click it home.’

  She did. It lodged with a satisfying sound.

  ‘You’re ready,’ he said. And she was. For a moment she stared at him, gun in her hand, and she was pleased to see the doubt, then the fear in his eyes. But she wasn’t anything like him.

  Rose went to Mary and crouched beside her. She was feeling better all the time. The pain in her head pulsed, but she was taking action, protecting her family. Concentrating only on the present, not the possible, horrible future, Emma pressed the gun against Mary’s neck.

  ‘Where’s Lip going?’

  Mary halted her slow, pained crawl, relaxed onto her front, and laughed.

  Emma tapped the blade in her back with the barrel of the gun. Mary’s laugh turned into a long, low hiss.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  Emma showed Mary the gun.

  ‘You won’t shoot me. Soft white bitch. You have no idea—’

  Emma pressed the gun against the side of Mary’s left thigh and pulled the trigger.

  The blast was deafening. Her hearing dulled, and it was Mary’s scream that drew her back in.

  ‘Holy shit,’ Andy said from her right, but Emma did not look. Neither did she examine the damage she’d done to the woman’s leg. She didn’t want to see, and it did not matter.

  Mary was writhing, sweating, bleeding.

  ‘Where?’

  The wounded woman spat across the floor. ‘Fuck you. You won’t kill me. Not while I know.’

  ‘But I’ll hurt you.’

  ‘I like pain.’

  Emma leaned down and whispered, ‘I’ll give you real pain, Mary. I’ll do anything to protect my family. Will you?’

  She rolled Mary onto her side and pressed the pistol low against her belly. It was a hunch. But Mary froze, even her breath stalling.

  Emma knew that her hunch was right.

  ‘A church. An old church, ruined, couple of miles along the coast on a cliff overlooking the sea. Place called Wood Lane.’ Mary stared wide-eyed, filled with terror for someone other than herself. Emma did not believe she was acting.

  She eased back, stood up, and Mary pressed her hands against her stomach and curled into a protective ball. She might have been crying, but Emma didn’t care.

  ‘You need to get out of here,’ Andy said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘Phone.’ She held out her hand, and Andy dug his phone from his pocket.

  Emma found Rose’s latest text to him and replied with “Wood Lane, old church by the sea.” Then she looked at Andy. Even wounded and in pain, he didn’t look pathetic. He looked strong and capable, as he always had. She hated him more than she had hated anyone in her life before.

  She pointed the gun at him. He stopped breathing.

  ‘You’re lucky I’m not like you,’ she said. Then she threw his gun onto the sofa and left the lodge.

  Outside it was still incredibly hot. She knew she could not run. She could hardly walk, but she had to. She heard what might have been a siren in the distance.

  Deciding that moving downhill would be easier than up, she headed for the sea.

  Five minutes later, as she crossed the park’s picnic area and approached steps leading down to the beach, she heard a single gunshot.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The Beach

  She knew they had only moments. It might already be too late. For Daisy, and Holt, and for Emma and Andy too.

  Rose had to make every second count.

  Lip didn’t have much of a head start, and he was carrying Daisy. She’d be struggling, kicking, writhing in his grasp. If he doesn’t just kill her, she thought, but she couldn’t go there. She was the most innocent of them all, and it was the innocent who often suffered the most.

  She ran, and Dom ran with her. They cut through the trees, shoving through undergrowth, brambles tearing at their bare legs. She was heading directly for the entrance where she hoped the Scotts had parked their car.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ Rose said. She glanced back at Dom. He looked terrified but determined, and he reminded her of another man whose family had been in such peril. Chris Sheen had been capable and strong. Dom was not as fit as Chris has been, but the weight of guilt bore him forward and gave him strength. She only hoped she could predict the same positive outcome for him.

  But current events felt much more out of her control. She was floundering, reacting instead of leading things.

  They burst from the trees. Down the hillside she saw Lip arriving at a BMW. He flung open the door and threw the girl inside.

  ‘Daisy!’ Dom screamed.

  Lip glanced up and saw them, then dropped into the driving seat.

  Rose ran faster. Everything hurt. She fed on the pain.

  When she was close enough she crouched into a shooting stance and aimed.

  Dom knocked her from behind and sent her tumbling. ‘You’ll hit Daisy!’

  ‘I’m aiming for the tyres!’

  But it was too late. Lip wheel-span the car, rammed the gates, and screeched out onto the approach road.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Dom said.

  ‘I could have stopped him!’

  ‘He’s got h
er. He’s gone.’

  ‘Hopefully not too far.’ As Rose snatched her phone from her pocket it pinged. ‘A ruined church, Wood Lane. Just along the coast.’ She looked around, scanning the overgrown picnic and play area and the high hedge bordering the cliff top. ‘There.’

  ‘What?’ Dom asked.

  ‘A gate.’ As she jogged she googled the church at Wood Lane, waiting for a map to load. She only hoped she was going the right way, that the beach was accessible, and that they might be able to reach the church before Lip.

  There was so much left to chance.

  Dom stayed with her. She could hear him panting as he tried to keep up.

  As they reached the metal gate in the overgrown hedge, a partial map finally loaded onto her phone. She paused, checked it out, then showed it to Dom.

  ‘Along the coast from here. If we run, we might even beat him there.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Don’t know.’ The gate squealed open. The steps down to the beach were steep, overgrown, and crumbling in places. ‘Making this up as I go.’

  The gentle sound of the sea drew them down.

  He had left them behind. They couldn’t follow in the woman’s car because Lip had shot out its tyres. He had a good head start. It wasn’t far to drive.

  But he could not let himself relax. The police would be swarming across the whole area soon, and by the time they arrived he had to be finished and gone. No time to relish the moment, but still time to make the moment happen. He was still in control.

  The lanes were narrow and twisting, the hedges high and overgrown. He had to concentrate on his driving, fast enough to give himself as much time as possible, not too fast to cause an accident.

  Several minutes after leaving the holiday park the girl fixed her seatbelt, then reached over and scratched him across the face.

  She surprised him, because she’d been quiet and easy to handle until then. The move was sudden, her little fist punching at the cut across his cheek, nails snagging in the flap of skin and tugging, setting fire to the wound.

  Lip lashed out with his fist and felt it connect. The girl squealed.

  Between one blink and the next the car bounced into a pothole, the wheel jumped from his hand and they struck a stone wall beside the road. Metal crumpled and the car dropped, steam surging from the damaged radiator. He jerked forward and the wheel punched his chest, winding him for a moment. If he’d been going much faster he might have broken ribs.

  ‘Stupid girl!’ he gasped.

  She was curled on her seat, looking at the blood on her fisted hand, silent.

  Lip tried the stalled engine. It started, but the car only crawled forward with a grinding of broken metal. It was crippled, one wheel damaged beyond repair.

  He reached across and grabbed the girl by the arm. ‘With me. Now.’ He pulled and she followed, climbing over the front seats and scrambling from the driver’s door. He knew that he had to get off the road, and thirty metres along the lane he found a gate into a wide, sloping field. The sea was visible beyond, and if he kept going that way he would arrive at the church.

  He ran hard, clasping the girl tightly to his side. Sometimes she found her feet and ran with him, other times he dragged her along. She sobbed a little, and cried out when her feet slapped hard against the ground. But she wasn’t snivelling like most kids would. He respected that.

  Sonja was gone, fried alive. Mary was probably dead by now, too. He felt a pang at the thought, and it was a curious emotion. He could not identify it as regret or sadness. Not even shock at the loss of the pregnancy she had never found the courage to tell him about, even though he had known for a while. Maybe it was simply an awareness that time was moving on.

  He had become far too comfortable with the Scotts. Now, his future was the wide-open canvas of potential that he enjoyed so much. The next few minutes might be mapped out, but beyond that there was only mystery.

  He would disappear again, find his way somewhere quiet and safe. Lick his wounds. Decide what the next portion of his life might bring.

  He pushed through an overgrown kissing gate and headed across another field, the sea to his right at the bottom of a cliff, a gently rising slope to his left. Ahead he could see a busy copse of trees and wild hedgerow. Within, he could just make out the spire of the ruined church.

  Close. Excitement built. He could almost smell Holt, waiting for the final touch. Lip loved the delicious irony of Holt’s impending demise. Like sister, like brother.

  ‘Hurry,’ he said. The girl did not reply. Neither did she struggle against him, but he would not be lulled by that. She was a clever kid, and her parents had proved that they had fight in them. She’d scratch his eyes out as soon as look at him.

  ‘Hurry,’ he said again. ‘We’re almost there.’

  The steps down to the beach were treacherous, and Rose descended them headlong, letting momentum carry her. She heard Dom behind her, sensed his panic and terror, and listened for a stumble. If he fell, she’d go too.

  The steps had once been a pleasant descent to the beach for residents of the holiday park, but now they were overgrown and fallen into disrepair. Bushes snagged at her clothing, and several times the edges of concrete steps crumbled beneath her feet. They zigged and zagged down the cliff face, and a couple of minutes later they arrived at the beach. There was a timber gate, locked and bolted, but one kick sent it skittering across the pebbles.

  Rose turned left and started running. There were a few people on the beach, so she tucked her pistol into her belt, making sure it was secure. She knew that she and Dom presented a strange sight, but she couldn’t worry about that now. On her way down the steps she’d hoped for a sandy beach. Running on pebbles was hard. They made a noise, and faces turned their way.

  ‘Didn’t all these people hear?’ Dom asked from close behind her.

  ‘Probably didn’t recognise it as gunfire,’ she said. ‘Save your breath. Run.’

  Rose kept them close to the cliff. The tide was in, and closer to the sea there were a few families and lone dog walkers. The families splashed in the water or hung around base camp, spreads of beach chairs, towels, and wind breaks. Umbrellas were used as protection against the unrelenting sun. Most of the lone walkers were in their own world, staring out to sea, checking their footing, whistling if their dogs strayed too far. A few people glanced at Rose and Dom, but not for long.

  Rose tried to regulate her pace. It would be too easy to sprint and wear herself out. Breathing deeply and evenly, she tried to settle into a rhythm. But it was difficult, leaping larger stones, dodging around rocks, slipping as pebbles slid against each other. She looked ahead along the long beach, scanning the clifftops for any signs of the church. There were none.

  The cliff varied in height, protruding into a small headland maybe two miles along the coast. If the church was built there, it might be too far. Two miles running on a pebble beach would be at least twenty minutes, probably more. She’d never been fast, though she had built up an impressive endurance. Now, she craved speed.

  ‘Where is it?’ Dom called. He sounded further behind her, but Rose did not slow. She couldn’t. Every second might count.

  ‘Keep looking,’ was all she said. She tried to check the small map she’d brought up on her phone but she had no reception. That was fine. She did not like relying too much on technology, because it could always fail.

  It’s all about this, Holt had told her once, tapping her head none too gently. Not this. He’d snatched at her phone and thrown it into a field. It had taken her ten minutes to find it, Holt sitting on a rock by that dusty Italian road, smiling and smoking.

  ‘I’m coming for you,’ she said, voice lost amidst the crack and snap of stones beneath their feet. The sea shushed to her right, mindless, careless. She’d spent long hours staring at the sea with Holt. He liked its timelessness.

  The beach widened as they ran, cliff growing taller and retreating slightly inland. It was not sheer, and in several places
steep paths and steps climbed towards its top. It reflected heat at them. Rose was sweating, a familiar feeling when she exercised, shedding weakness. She blinked it from her eyes, along with blood. Her hip ached, and her right arm. New wounds burned.

  The gun was heavy in her belt.

  She glanced back and saw that Dom was falling behind. He looked exhausted, desperate, but he waved her on. He knows, she thought. He understands this is about every minute, every second. His little girl has been taken by a monster, and he knows I’m the best chance he has of ever seeing her again.

  She tried not to imagine what might happen if they were too late. To Holt. To Daisy. Lip would act quickly, but she also knew that he would be cruel. It would be his final message to her.

  An inlet opened on their left, a meagre stream winding down across the beach to the sea. Nestled in the craggy- walled inlet were a few buildings – a beach cafe, lifeguard station, and a couple of shops selling beachwear and touristy stuff. A few families sat outside the cafe, watching Rose and Dom run. Maybe some of them speculated. But none of them would ever know the truth. They’d sleep easy tonight.

  Echoes of her own family, her children, skipped around her like whirling sand dervishes. Each time she looked they were gone. But not really.

  Past the inlet, she climbed a rocky beach defence and dropped down the other side, relieved when she found hard-packed sand beyond. Her pace increased. She looked back to see Dom just mounting the rocky mound. He slipped and stumbled, scraping his bare legs on the rocks

  She waved him on and shouted encouragement. He did not reply.

  Rose checked out the clifftop, trying to assess how far they’d come. Perhaps a mile so far, maybe a little more, but there was still no sign of the church. She checked her phone again, still no reception.

  Running on the hard sand was much easier, and she settled into more of a rhythm, speeding up and leaving Dom further behind.

  Almost five minutes later, approaching the headland that marked the end of this part of the beach, she saw a smooth-lined structure within a mass of trees atop the cliff. It was a building of some sort. It might have been a spire.