The man stood in front of Kim. She willed herself to stay slack. He touched her neck with two fingers, to take her heartbeat. The skin contact made her sick, but she kept control. She would fight for her life, whatever it took.
He prodded her cheek. She let her head loll gently to the side.
The man sat on one of the chairs, legs crossed and a revolver in his hand. He put the gun on the table, whistling softly. Kim’s heart sank a notch further. He’d have to be convinced no-one could hear them. Where were they?
Eve wiped away tears of frustration. She’d left a handful of frantic messages for Hayley. Who could tell when she would find a moment to listen to them, on a Saturday night?
Eve had considered calling the police, but what could she report? That a grown woman, whose secret lover was murdered five years ago, left her dog alone?
Wasn’t twenty-four hours the minimum wait before the force would even look at a disappearance?
It was up to Eve to save Kim, but she needed help. Why didn’t Ben pick up his bloody phone?
Eve grabbed a paper bag and breathed into it, to calm down. Hyperventilating never saved anyone. During her tenth deep breath, inspiration struck. She left yet another message for Hayley and snuck out into the dark.
Ben’s ankles were tied with duct tape over the socks. There would be no marks on the skin, Kim thought. She couldn’t see his hands, but suspected they were secured as well.
Their abductor took the coil of rope and tied Ben’s wrists in front of him. He wore surgical gloves on his hands. A sickening smile flitted over his face as he pressed the pistol in Ben’s right hand.
Kim prayed inwardly that Ben would stir and pull the trigger. The bullet would hit the man in the leg, or if they were lucky, in the stomach and lead to instant shock.
Ben stayed motionless as the man took the pistol away and put two bullets into an empty chamber.
He’d thought of everything.
The man propped up Kim’s left eyelid. She let her eye ball look up, so the pupil almost disappeared, in the desperate hope it would fool him into believing she was still unconscious.
He dropped her eyelid and turned around as Ben stirred, just in time to overlook Kim’s involuntary start as she remembered his face. She’d seen him with Donna a few times, when they were nothing more than friends. A nice bloke, but nothing more than a harmless flirt, Donna had said. She’d been wrong.
Ben moaned and stirred in the wheelchair.
The man kicked him again. Ben’s eyes fluttered open for an instant and closed again.
Kim struggled to keep her breath even and shallow. The longer it took for them to be officially awake, the better.
Their kidnapper had put two bullets in the chamber. If one of them missed, they had a slim chance to survive. She’d concentrate on that. It was better odds than Donna had.
The kidnapper lost patience. He slapped Ben. The smacking sound echoed in Kim’s ears.
Blood trickled down Ben’s lip and an angry red mark appeared on his left cheekbone.
“Sorry, old mate,” the man said. He wiped away the blood. “We don’t want any marks, do we?”
Ben’s eyeballs skittered back until he finally could focus them on their adversary. “Chris,” he murmured.
“Glad you’re back with us. I thought the sedative was a bit strong. Now what shall we do about the lady?” A trick of the light turned Chris’ open face into a menacing grimace.
Eve sneaked closer to the cabin. She had to cover twenty metres of open ground, littered with small twigs and other debris left after recent high winds.
Something crunched under her foot. It rang out as loud as a shot in her nervous ears. She stopped, motionless.
The windows of the cabin were shuttered, the first sign she was right.
Eve cowered on the ground and texted Hayley again, with the location. Please, she prayed silently, bring the cavalry.
Inch by inch she crawled along the grass verge, as deep in the shadow as she could, well out of sight from windows or door should they be opened.
Chris took a long, sharp needle out a bag under the table. He held it up to the lamp and chuckled.
“We’ll see if that brings her back to the land of the living,” he said in a conversational tone to Ben. “What do you think, where should we stick it? Under the finger nail? Humans have lots of tender nerves there.”
Kim moaned. And again, a little louder. She let her left hand stretch out and slacken.
Chris put the needle on the table.
He squatted in front of her.
She slitted her eyes, in an obvious effort to open them.
An obscenely tender look came into his face. He stroked her cheek, his finger following her jawline down to the jugular.
She could hardly breathe.
“Look at the competition, Ben,” Chris said. “Isn’t she gorgeous?”
“What do you want from us?” Ben spat out the words.
Chris raised his hand to strike him but stopped himself mid-air. “You see, it’s all your fault.”
“What is?”
Kim gave Ben an encouraging nod. The longer Chris talked, the longer they had to perform a miracle.
“You see, I thought it was you,” Chris said.
“Chris, mate, I swear, if I ever did anything to hurt you, I’m sorry.”
“I’m not your mate. I never was. I’m nothing but the hired help, and you’re the lord of the manor.”
“At least let the lady go.”
“The lady? That’s what you call the slut?” Chris’ fingers curled into claws for one tiny moment. The gesture and the insane hatred in his eyes scared Kim more than the revolver and the needle.
“I’ve never met her, so I couldn’t say,” Ben said.
Chris jerked the wheelchair closer to Kim and ripped the sticky tape off her mouth. “In this case, let me introduce you. Donna’s worthless shit of a husband, meet the woman you made her sleep with.”
He turned back to Ben. “You see, she loved me. She told me so. Over and over again. She loved me, and one day we’d figure out how to be together forever.”
“You both could have left,” Ben said.
“No, we couldn’t, could we? You’d tied down all the money, her money, and that’s how you trapped her.” Chris’ voice shook with anger, but his hand was perfectly still. “And then one afternoon she got off the bed in this cabin, dressed herself and told me she’d changed her mind. It was over.” He sobbed. “You took her away from me.”
“No. I didn’t,” Ben said. “She was leaving me, remember?”
“You did alright. You repulsed her so much, she couldn’t bear to be with a man any longer. Otherwise she’d have stayed with me instead of falling into bed with this one.”
Chris hit Kim with the back of his hand. Her head whipped back.
“No marks.” Ben stared at Kim with an anguish that, given the danger they were in, struck her as almost comical. He should focus on surviving, not on sparing her a little pain. “You said it yourself, Chris, no marks.”
“On her they don’t matter. Stop interrupting me.”
They fell silent. Kim thought she’d picked up a sound from outside, but it would be the wind.
“I told Donna she made a mistake,” Chris said. “But she laughed and said, we had a great time, but all good things end. She was right.”
“But you stuck around.” Ben flexed his wrists, anxious not to let Chris notice. The rope held fast.
“I waited for her to change her mind, and she finally did. She moved into the attic, as far from you as possible.”
“What happened?”
“I asked her again to go away with me, and she called me stupid. I knew you had a business date the following week. All I had to do was let myself into the house, drop a crushed sleeping-pill in John’s tea-pot and return half an hour before you were supposed to be home.”
Ben winced. He could imagine the rest.
“We would have been happy together
,” Chris said. “You two ruined Donna’s life. You ruined everything.”
“But you didn’t kill me then,” Ben said.
“Why should I? You have no idea how much I enjoyed watching you there, being imprisoned by your own stupidity. I made sure John kept you on a tight leash, and you danced. Every time I made him pull a string, you danced. But then you had to find another woman, didn’t you? You were going to be happy. And then she told me why Donna left me.”
“What are you going to do?” Ben’s voice was calm enough to give Kim a little comfort.
“I’ll make you pay for what you did to us. When they find you both, you’ll have shot your wife’s lover through the heart.” Chris made a circle with his finger on Kim’s chest. “And then you shot yourself, with a gun you asked me to buy for protection. You have no idea how surprised I’ll be.”
He smiled. “Don’t worry about your old man. I’ll be there to look after John, if the shock doesn’t finish him off.”
Eve overheard the last sentences, her ear pressed against the side of the door. In her left hand she held the can with the self-defence spray.
Cold sweat trickled down her armpits. If she didn’t act now, Ben and Kim would be dead. She slid the key into the keyhole and, in slow motion, tried the handle. The door was unlocked.
Eve slipped out of her shoes and socks and placed the baseball in a sock, holding it in her left hand. In her right, she held the self-defence spray. Praying fervently under her breath to no-one in particular, she kicked the door open.
Chris swivelled around. Ben stretched out his taped ankles to trip him up or at least slow him down.
Eve let out a blood-curdling scream and hit Chris with the full spray-load directly in his eyes. He screwed them shut and clawed at his blood-red face as she swung the sock with the baseball at his temple.
Chris fell to his knees.
Ben kicked out and hit Chris on the head as Eve darted past them and grabbed the revolver.
“I’ll kill you.” Chris snarled at Eve. “You won’t get away from me.”
He struggled to get up.
Eve shrank back, the revolver aimed at his chest.
“Police. Drop the gun,” someone yelled.
Eve’s hand opened. The revolver clanged as it hit the floor. Someone pushed her aside, and two burly police officers stepped between her and Chris. In the background she thought she spotted Hayley.
One of the officers said, “Chris Ripley, you’re under arrest.”
Eve sank down and put her head between her knees. One of the officers picked up the weapon. The last thing she saw before a police woman led her outside, was Ben, still tied up but with a blissful expression on his face.
The police woman offered Eve a blanket, but she declined. “I’ll be fine in a minute,” she said and pointed towards the chestnut tree. “If you’re lucky, you’ll find evidence on the video camera.”
She waited for what stretched into an eternity, until Kim and Ben emerged side by side, orange blankets around their shoulders. Kim’s face already turned blue and purple, but she’d live.
An ambulance siren wailed.
“I’ll take you home now,” a police woman said.
“What about my statement?” Eve asked as the ambulance pulled up.
“That can wait until tomorrow. A few hours won’t hurt.”
Eve looked at her hand, surprised to see it tremble now. Belated reaction, she thought, but now she no longer needed a steady hand. “My baseball.”
“Pardon?”
“It must be in the cabin. It’s signed and belonged to my mother.”
“I’ll take care of her, if that’s okay,” Eve heard Hayley say. Miraculously, she held Eve’s baseball in her hand.
“Eve,” Kim called out as a police officer helped her into the ambulance. “My dog.” She handed her keyring to a police man who delivered it to Eve, while another officer sealed off the cabin.
Eve stumbled towards the ambulance. Kim threw her the keys to her apartment. “I’m sorry I lied to you,” Eve said. Kim gave her a small nod before the ambulance doors closed.
Hayley put an arm around Eve’s shoulder. She also insisted on driving Eve to pick up Laika and packing together a few things for the dog.
“I understand you’re exhausted and shaken,” she said, “but I want to hear every single thing. I almost had a heart attack when I read your messages. Going after the bastard alone.”
“I was a tad scared,” Eve said, stroking Laika’s soft fur. Her former panic had given way to a strange sense of serenity.
“But not enough to need a change of pants.”
“Between you and me? It was close. Very close.”
Chapter 28
A cold, hard nose pressed against Eve’s cheek. She stared into a pair of huge blue eyes, in a furry face.
“Down,” she said. Laika wagged her tail. The dog obviously had the good taste to prefer Eve’s 400-ply organic cotton sheets and duvet to the rough woollen throw Eve bolstered the basket with.
She dragged herself into the bathroom. No word yet from Ben or Kim. She decided to take a quick shower. She was due at the police station for her statement soon and intended to dazzle them with her coherence and her natural beauty, in case she ran into someone she knew.
A thick layer of mascara and a hint of blush made her appear human again.
Doorknocker and bell were agitated simultaneously. Laika barked. Eve jumped.
The post woman stood outside, eyes bulging with excitement. In her hand she held another of the ubiquitous promotion letters.
“Have you heard?” she asked.
“Sorry?” Eve feigned ignorance. If her involvement in last night’s shenanigans was still a secret, she might get away with it. She had no interest in becoming as notorious as Ben, thank you very much.
“They’ve got him.” The postwoman leant in to Eve’s face. “The man who offed the Dryden woman.”
Eve let her jaw drop. “You must feel so much safer now in your beds.”
The postwoman crossed her ample chest. “You can say that again. It’s been preying on our minds all these years, with the beast out there.”
“Good.” Eve lessened the gap. “My mail?”
The woman handed her the letter she could easily have shoved through the letterbox and went off, no doubt in search of another listener.
Eve took Laika along to the police station. The poor dog had been deserted enough, and the doctor insisted on keeping Kim at the hospital overnight.
The interrogation was endless. She thought it would all be straight forward. After all they had Ben’s statement, the footage from Eve’s camera, and her own description of events. She’d even brought baseball and defensive spray along, to corroborate her words.
Instead, the police officer insisted on hearing the whole story, from her first meeting with Ben, and later Chris, and Kim, up to the moment she hit Chris with a particularly well-aimed ball.
Reciting it all made Eve squirm. She sounded like a meddlesome, lovestruck teenager.
After an eternity of talking and repeating herself for the sake of clarity and a recording that was constantly paused when someone knocked on the door, Eve was free to go.
She and Laika hurried away from the police station.
A finger tapped her on the shoulder.
Eve stifled a scream. “Hayley, you scared the living daylights out of me.”
“They needed my statement too, and when I heard your voice in the room next door I thought I’d wait.”
“What did they want to hear from you?” Eve asked.
“I’ve kept it brief and professional. If anybody spills about your private life, it should be you.”
“Thank you.”
Laika stayed another night before Eve took him home. She and Kim had a few things to talk about, and if Kim visited her at Ivy Cottage, the gossip was bound to become part of the local lore.
The skin around Kim’s mouth and nose was puckered where the chloroform
had burnt it, but her bruise had changed colour already. She buried her face in her dog’s fur.
Eve stood in silence, unsure what to say.
Kim surprised her with a hug. “Thank you,” she said.
“I never intended to lie to you,” Eve said. “I just didn’t know what else to do.”
“I might have done the same, for someone I care about.” Kim smiled, a painful little smile that tugged at Eve’s heartstrings.
“It’s still not justice, is it? I’ve always wondered about that expression. You can’t get justice for a murder victim.”
“But you can get closure. Which we have, thanks to you. We’re all free again.” Kim paused. “He seems like a good guy. Ben, I mean.”
Colour rushed into Eve’s cheeks.
“It’s okay. If I don’t see him, because it might be awkward for him, tell him one thing. Donna picked fights with him because she used to care so much about him, in the beginning. It’s much easier to say good-bye if it doesn’t mean anything.”
“I’ll tell him. And, Kim?”
“Yes?”
“I hope we’re still friends.”
“In that case, next Friday at eight, at Andrea’s wine bar? I’ll pay.”
“I’ll be there.”
Eve sang on her way back. If she listened closely, her voice sounded slightly less off-pitch than it used to. Or happiness caused a mild form of delusion.
Outside the “Green Dragon” stood a short queue, and all the parking spaces along the roadside were taken.
Eve dropped off her car and walked to the pub. Inside, she struggled to squeeze through the mixed crowd. Grace and Dom were hard pressed to keep up with customer demand. The Pink Panthers for once had no interest apart from their drinks in the young man. They all focussed on another person of interest. Next to Letty, whose eyes sparkled with delight, sat John in his wheelchair. A half-empty pint stood on the table. He winked at Eve and raised his left thumb towards the ceiling.
Let Sleeping Murder Lie: A cozy mystery Page 21
