Death Warmed Up

by John Paxton Sheriff

  With the rasp metal makes when dragged across a coarse zip he pulled out the heavy service revolver that had been weighing down his fishing waistcoat and stepped back to face the world. He cocked the gun as he moved, swung it wildly, desperate to shoot somebody but torn between three targets.

  The couple of paces he’d taken backwards took him within Sian’s reach. She placed both hands on the arms of her chair, used them as fulcrums and executed a modified scissor kick. The precise attacking manoeuvre was a blur. Her instep snapped crisply against Reg’s wrist. The crack had the sickening sound of breaking bone. The pistol flew from Reg’s hand and demolished the ceiling light fitting. Crystal shattered. There was a fierce blue flash. Instantly, all light was extinguished and we were transformed into indistinct shadows lit by starlight twinkling through the suspended sun room’s windows.

  Sian’s foot was still in the air when I leaped fishing basket and coffee table and drove Reg bodily backwards onto the sofa. Groaning, clutching his wrist, he went down, narrowly avoiding a collision with Calum, who at that moment was using one hand to vault lightly over the sofa’s high back. The lean Scot landed on both feet and launched himself at Ebenholz. He took the muscular man around the thighs in a crunching rugby tackle and drove him backwards off his feet. Arms flailing, Ebenholz landed on his shoulders on the coffee table. The wooden legs splintered; the table collapsed, its top split. Without pause, Calum pulled back, sliding his hands down the dazed man’s legs. When he reached his ankles Calum took them in an iron grip and stood up. He stepped back, dragging Ebenholz off the table’s wreckage.

  Then, like a hammer thrower bringing the first slow movement to his sixteen-pound weight, Calum leaned back and began to pull Ebenholz around in a circle. The heavy body dragged a colourful Persian rug into a crumpled rag. The coffee table’s sharp splinters clung to Ebenholz’s clothing, his skin. Then the big man’s shoulders left the floor. Airborne, he was being whirled through a full 360 degrees. Calum leaned back, moved even faster. With a hammer-thrower’s balletic footwork he rotated to the edge of what might have been a throwing circle, but for Calum the edge of that circle was the two steps leading to the sun room – and there, a man sat.

  Ebenholz’s body hissed across the steps, waist high. Rickman had been watching the action while rooted to the spot, but now he was panicking, scrambling out of the way but far too late. Ebenholz’s shiny skull hit him above the left ear with the sound of a cleaver biting into beef. Eleanor gave a tiny shriek of horror. Rickman was knocked sideways; a man hit by a train would have been no worse off. He rolled down the two low steps, his weight dead.

  And suddenly, as Calum spun, a warm liquid sprayed through the starlit gloom. I felt it across my throat, heard Sian say a disgusted, ‘Ugh’, heard Eleanor retch; despite the gloom I saw a clear dark line being painted around the room’s walls. It was Ebenholz’s blood, the blood of a man as good as dead.

  Then Calum let go of Ebenholz’s ankles.

  The big man was limp, knocked unconscious by the clash of heads. As his ankles were released his shape seemed to collapse in upon itself. Like a heap of crumpled clothing of an impossible weight he smashed through the suspended sun room’s wide window, carrying away the glass and frame with the sound of a Savoy waiter dropping a tray of drinks on a marble floor. His violent exit was followed by a long moment of suspended silence in which nobody breathed. Then I heard a distant splash.

  ‘A long way down,’ Calum said, dusting his hands, ‘and that sounded like a direct hit on a swimming pool.’

  ‘Jack!’ Sian cried, ‘The Aussie’s gone; he’s taken Reg’s car keys.’

  ‘Oh, let him—’

  ‘No, he murdered Pru, he’s the one we want.’

  She was gone, rushing for the open door, trainers slapping the parquet along the hallway.

  ‘Calum, stay here. Watch Reg and anyone left alive,’ I said, and ran for the door.

  Sian almost caught Clontarf. As she reached it, the front door banged back against the wall. The Australian was already halfway up the steps when she ran out. I left the house in a rush, saw Sian make a desperate upward leap, fall flat on the steps’ hard concrete edges, hook a hand for his ankles – and miss.

  The slide back down was painful.

  I grabbed her around the warmth of her waist, hoisted her to her feet.

  ‘Let him go,’ I said softly, ‘they’re finished, done for—’

  ‘I want him.’

  Up above, a car’s engine burst into life.

  She wriggled out of my grasp and started up the steps.

  ‘Wait, I’ve got the keys—’

  ‘Then come on, move yourself.’

  There was the high whine of a tortured engine and repeated crashing as we climbed. When we reached the top, I saw the cause. The way I’d parked, Reg’s Micra was boxed in. Clontarf was in the driving seat and using the car as a battering ram, rocking back, then forward, smashing into my hired Punto. His teeth were bared in a fierce grin, his lean hands claws on the wheel. There was the stink of rubber, of hot oil, but he’d succeeded in driving the Punto backwards in juddering, jolting jerks on wheels locked by the handbrake.

  Clontarf glanced back and, seeing there was now room, ripped the lever into reverse. The two cars’ bumpers were locked. The Micra’s tore off with a screech of shearing metal. Clontarf took the car all the way back, slammed against the low stone wall then engaged first. Sian ran forward. Part of the wall had collapsed. She grabbed a stone block in both hands, used it to shatter the Micra’s driver’s window. Glass showered over Clontarf. Sian followed it with the heavy block of stone, slamming it down with all her strength. It smashed Clontarf’s left hand against the steering wheel. He snatched it away, roaring with anger. I saw the shine of blood as he took a swing at Sian’s face and let the clutch out with a jerk.

  The Micra’s sudden violent motion was too much for Sian. She was thrown off, staggered back against the wall close to the steps, then recovered and ran for the Punto. I was already wrenching open the driver’s door, my eyes on Clontarf, expecting him to head straight down Europa Road towards town. But to achieve that he would have to swing right to get around the Punto, then execute a sharp turn to the left – and there appeared to be something wrong with his steering.

  Sian threw herself breathlessly into the passenger seat, slammed the door. I started the engine, switched on the headlights – well, one headlight, the other was a scattering of broken glass on the concrete. In the glare I saw what was wrong with the Micra. Clontarf’s harsh treatment had crumpled the car’s left front wing back against the tyre, preventing the wheel from turning far in that direction. Clontarf was unaware. He swung the car right, away from the Punto and out into the road, then tried to turn left. There was the sound of tearing rubber. The car stayed straight, slowly headed for the opposite wall. Again he tried that left turn, then again – and gave up. I saw him slap the steering wheel in frustration. Then with a howl of tortured rubber he swung the Micra in a tight right turn and accelerated along the flat road that would lead through a succession of slopes and bends to the winding hill down to Europa Point.

  ‘Got him,’ I said, teeth clenched as I accelerated and took the one-eyed Punto up through the gears, my eyes on the two receding tail lights.

  ‘How? He gets to Europa ahead of us he can go all the way around the Rock anti-clockwise, and that Micra’s a newer, more modern car so he could be across the border—’

  ‘No. To go anti-clockwise he needs to have a working left-hand lock – which he hasn’t – and that’s if the road in that direction was open – which it isn’t.’

  ‘How d’you know?’

  ‘Heard it somewhere. Reg confirmed it on the phone when this long night was getting under way; road works, a barrier, or some such.’

  I was passing the old naval hospital on the brow of the final hill, the old Buena Vista barracks visible against the night sky to my right as I began the descent. Driving too fast. Clontarf’s tail lights w
ere gone, out of sight, but only because of the tight blind bends.

  I risked a sideways glance. Sian was hanging on to the grab handle. She had the window down. We could both hear the scream of Reg’s Micra, not too far ahead.

  ‘How are you feeling? You slid backwards down concrete steps on your squashy bits.’

  ‘A tame trick, compared to Ebenholz. He dived a hundred feet into someone’s swimming pool. Christ, did you see that, Jack? Calum threw him straight through Reg’s picture window.’

  ‘Mm, and prior to that I think he used the big man as a club to crack Rickman’s skull like a ripe coconut.’

  ‘So he’s dead, or a vegetable.’

  ‘Him and Ebenholz. Two down, one to go.’

  ‘And then there’s poor old Reg.’

  I swung round a bend with a squeal of rubber, dropped sickeningly down a steep slope and saw the sea ahead of us, the twinkling lights of cargo vessels. And the fierce glow of brake lights. A few hundred yards ahead, Clontarf had come across a red and white barrier blocking the road to his left and discovered his mistake.

  ‘Reg,’ I said tightly, ‘has turned out to be a twisting, lying, murdering bastard.’

  ‘Yes, granted, but he must have some bad points.’

  I chuckled, tension leaking away as I snatched another sideways glance and saw my Soldier Blue looking at me with wide, innocent blue eyes.

  ‘What he’s got,’ I said, ‘is a broken wrist—’

  ‘Jack, watch it, there’s a fork ahead, I think Clontarf will have taken the high road—’

  ‘And I’ll take the low,’ I said, nodding quickly and suiting action to words.

  ‘Yes,’ Sian said, ‘and what Clontarf can do when he spots that barrier is simply turn hard right and come back up this way.’

  ‘If he does,’ I said, ‘he’ll meet us, at speed, so brace yourself.’

  But he didn’t.

  The road ahead stayed empty. Then it twisted and turned through a residential area where lights glowing behind the occasional window marked the home of insomniacs or mothers with teething babies and then we were out in the open again and on the plateau of flat land lying between the tall white mosque and the lighthouse. A hundred yards away the Micra was drawing to a halt and, before it did, Clontarf was out and running.

  ‘Jack!’

  I nodded, banged my foot down and tore across that open space with gravel rattling like buckshot under the wheel arches. I slid to a stop alongside the Micra, used momentum to throw me out of the car and saw at once that Sian was even faster.

  ‘He’s heading for the rocks, down by the sea,’ she cried, running away from me in the moonlight. ‘Why?’

  ‘D’you want to go after him?’ I shouted, ‘or hold a conversation?’

  I heard her laugh breathlessly. Then I’d caught up with her, and together we raced across the rise where tourists gather to gaze at a map etched in bronze and across the sea to darkest Africa, then down again through the gap in the wall and the clamber down several flights of steep wooden steps that took us to the soft cool whisper of the sea, lapping glistening black rocks, and the sight of Clontarf less than fifty yards away to our right, and struggling.

  ‘Where the hell does he think he’s going?’

  ‘He’s an Aussie,’ I said, ‘a beach bum, a surfie. He’s at home in rough seas and tonight’s calm anyway. Once he saw that road block, I think he got the idea of diving in and swimming around to Camp Bay, or Little Bay.’

  ‘Damn, that’s spur of the moment but an excellent idea,’ Sian said as we started after him, ‘because I don’t fancy a race in open water and it’s a hell of a long way round if we’re forced to go by car.’

  ‘Yes, well… .’

  Already I was breathing hard and, like Clontarf, finding the rocky terrain rough going. Sian was lighter on her feet, but the black trainers weren’t the best footwear for slippery rock. And just as she slipped for the third time and said something unladylike and I dropped a foot into a hole and felt an ankle twist.

  Clontarf had remembered his Glock.

  I saw him dip his hand to his waistband. He turned to face us. I heard the crack of the shot. The muzzle flash winked brightly. It left a black spot in my vision. The bullet whined somewhere overhead. A second followed, much closer. I heard the crack as it hit rocks behind me, the whine of the ricochet, and the desire to stay alive saw me duck far too late, put too much weight on my ankle and drop a knee heavily on jagged rock.

  I gasped, rolled away from the pain and braced myself for the next shot then saw that Clontarf had been buying time. He’d turned away when his two fast shots had sent me diving for cover and was making his way across the rocks, angling towards the sea. His objective was now clear. Along the stretch of shore he had been traversing, the shallow waters rolled in and lapped and foamed at a minefield of black boulders with razor-sharp edges. If he’d tried to enter the sea there, he’d have been cut to ribbons. Looking ahead, he’d seen how the hard ground gradually flattened and sloped upwards towards the sea, where it finished in a ledge. No sharp rocks. A clear plunge into deep water.

  ‘Jack, this way!’

  Sian. Even before Clontarf had started shooting she’d realized that away from the rocky shore and closer to the high sea wall there was a rough track. She’d been making for it when the shots rang out and I was doing my best to be invisible. Now she’d reached it, and she was racing along in the lee of the wall, eating up the space between her and the Australian.

  Clontarf heard her shout. He looked back, saw her, snapped a desperate shot that chipped stone from the wall above her head. Then he turned and renewed his frantic scramble across the rocks.

  Limping, swearing, I hopped and jumped and scrambled until I reached the track in deep shadow along the wall. Then I started after Sian with the lolloping gait of a three-legged camel. Her blonde hair was a beacon, drawing me on. She was now level with Clontarf but, dammit, she would have to cut back across the rocks to reach him. He was closer to the ledge, but moving painfully slowly. I calculated that he’d get there just ahead of her. If he did, one long flat dive into calm seas would carry him to freedom.

  Sian saw the danger. She left the wall, the track, and began picking her way nimbly from rock to rock like a sure-footed goat. I grinned admiringly from the shadows, urged her on mentally as I ran, then saw that though I was closing and she was now but ten short feet away from Clontarf, she was going to lose the race.

  In desperation, I shouted.

  ‘Sian, you’ll lose him, throw something, brain the bugger.’

  Then Clontarf’s feet shot from under him and he fell flat on his back.

  Sian was on him like a big cat.

  Away from the track and halfway across the rocks, floundering, I could only watch in horror.

  Sian threw a leg across Clontarf in an attempt to straddle him then went for an arm lock that would flip him over onto his face. He bucked her off, spun from the prone and chopped at her neck with one hand while using the other to pivot and sweep his legs at her body. She blocked both tries, went for his throat with a half fist. His chin was tucked into his chest. He got a foot under him, a hand on the ground, and regained his feet. As her fingers clawed for his eyes he went in low under her arms and grabbed her around the waist. She tried a side fist at his temple, but his shoulder was against her belly, his head buried under her arm and hard against her breast. Sian wrapped her arms around his neck. She hugged his face hard against the softness of her body. He’d been gasping for air. Now he was suffocating. He twisted, jerked – then lifted her off her feet and stepped towards the edge of the rocky ledge.

  And again his foot slipped.

  He was thrown off balance. Sian’s weight pulled him down. He released her. She fell away from him with her shoulders over the very edge, twisted her head to stare down at the drop to the sea. When she looked up again I saw her blue eyes widen, her hands scrabbling either side of her for a hold.

  Clontarf laughed, and draw back
a foot to kick her into space.

  So I followed the advice I’d called out to Sian. With my final stride I scooped up a rock, smashed it across Clontarf’s skull, and as he went down I stepped across him, grabbed Sian’s hand and pulled her upright.

  ‘Olé,’ I said, raising her hand high. ‘If this was a bullfight, I’d present you with an ear.’

  ‘Oh, bollocks, Jack,’ she said breathlessly. ‘If he hadn’t been slipping and sliding …what was that, what was doing it?’

  ‘The old man and the sea saved our bacon,’ I said, gazing down at a mess of bones and flesh and silvery scales. ‘While Reg was waiting to swap diamonds for cash he really did do some fishing. The fish he gutted but left here because his basket was full were Clontarf’s undoing.’

  Twenty-nine

  Three o’clock in the morning. The coolness that always comes at that time; the sensation that time itself is standing still. A stillness in the air that could presage a storm, or a death, or a bright new dawn. And always the feeling weighing down those who are aching for sleep that everything is too heavy, too much trouble, requires too much effort; when every effort is needed just to keep leaden eyelids from drooping over eyes clogged with grit.

  Or perhaps that’s just the perception of what we’re supposed to experience at that unearthly hour, for Lord knows enough had happened that night to keep each one of us awake for a week.

  We were in the bungalow, high up the Rock. Sian was curled up, blonde hair wild and free, glowing with good health. Calum was stretched out, legs crossed at the ankles, the lenses of his paint-smeared John Lennons almost opaque in the pre-dawn light. Eleanor was in her favourite chair, white hair touched by the faint light from the window, looking as bright as a sparrow about to begin a chirpy dawn chorus. I was in another chair by the bookshelves, resting my ankle on a padded footstool, stifling a yawn.