Stitched

by Taylor, Peter

  ‘Yes, I’m going to live with you. I’ll try to be a doctor again. Maybe I won’t succeed but I’ll try. If not, I’ll find something. Don’t you worry about it.’

  ‘We’ll all be happy,’ Ann said, beaming at him.

  She looked so innocent right at that moment, he wished time could stand still, that the world outside would never encroach, that his daughter would always be as happy. Nearly losing her and Liz had made him realize where he truly belonged. His time with Gloria seemed a bad dream now. He wondered how he could ever have imagined a future with her. Loneliness out there in his country house must have driven him mad. Thank God, she’d walked out. It would never have worked between them; he could see that now. In the middle of his reverie the phone rang in the bedroom. He looked at Liz.

  ‘That’ll be Eddie reporting in,’ he told her as he rose and walked to the door. ‘Apart from the landlady, he’s the only one who knows where we’re living.’

  ‘You’ve probably heard?’ Eddie’s familiar voice said when Alex picked up in the bedroom.

  ‘Yes, the matter’s apparently been dealt with!’

  ‘Our friend rang to confirm it. But they don’t know where the other one, the female, is. Our man said to stay where you are another week or two to be on the safe side.’

  ‘But there wasn’t any threat from that direction, not to me.’

  ‘Best to be on the safe side. The so-called professionals apparently slipped up but won’t do that twice. They reckon they’ll need another two weeks maximum.’

  Alex was disappointed. He’d thought it was all behind him and they could go home. Still, like Eddie said, best to be safe.

  ‘Suppose another two weeks won’t hurt. Thanks, pal, for all the trouble you’ve gone to.’

  ‘Chin up, old son,’ Eddie answered. ‘It’ll soon be over.’

  He returned to the kitchen with the news. Liz took it well and, when they told Ann they weren’t going back yet, the prospect of more time off school didn’t faze her unduly.

  Later, when they were alone, Liz broached the subject again. ‘What kind of woman would pursue it further? It was her brother, not she, who wasn’t going to leave us to lead our lives in peace.’

  ‘You saw her,’ Alex said. ‘How did she strike you?’

  ‘She kept in the background. I only had brief glimpses. Not enough to know much about her.’

  ‘It’s enough to know that she was with her brother all the way,’ Alex stated bitterly. ‘I don’t really think she’ll be a threat but why take a chance on going back?’

  ‘Two weeks maximum?’

  ‘What Eddie was told.’

  ‘Let’s make the best of it, then.’

  Alex forced a grin. Sometimes Liz’s optimism was infectious. Perhaps it would be enough to chase away his demons.

  Chapter Thirty

  She could go anywhere. Money wouldn’t be a problem. She was attractive, could maybe find a man she wanted to be with. They could travel the world, live hedonistic lives, reach old age together, ease their way to that final sunset. But she knew that that was the dream for another day. Reality was that wherever she went, whatever she did, her brother would always be there calling out to her and she would always want to answer his unspoken plea to avenge him. Their parents had abandoned them but she wouldn’t abandon her brother, not even in death, because blood-ties counted. You took care of your own or you weren’t human. Her parents had been inhuman but she wouldn’t be. She’d complete the last task her brother would desire from her, then, maybe, if she survived, pursue those other dreams.

  ‘More coffee, miss?’ The air stewardess’s cheerful voice interrupted her musing.

  Bella held out her cup. When it was full she put it on the tray, studied the people on the plane. Most of them, she knew from their accents, were County Durham folk returning to the north from the big smoke.

  When she’d left Spain a week before she’d used a false passport to fly to London. From the capital she could have gone anywhere in the world, lain low for a while, but she was impatient to do what she had to. She was pleased to be heading home, the way a wounded animal, hurt and alone, seeks the familiar.

  As she glanced across the aisle she noticed two teenagers, a boy and girl. They were making wild hand-gestures and she thought it must be some stupid game they were playing to pass the time. They looked too old for that kind of frivolity to her. At their age she’d have been far too mature. She’d had to grow up quickly and put aside childish things. Dismissing them from her thoughts, she returned to her current concerns.

  The pilot announced they were about to land, instructed the passengers to put on their seatbelts. The plane commenced its descent and Bella looked out of the window. Below, she could see runway lights, beyond them the lights of the Teesside conurbation. Those lights seemed to her pinpricks of optimism in the vast, mysterious darkness of a universe where chaos reigned and anything could happen. Where was Charles now in that inscrutable infinity?

  The plane landed smoothly but disembarking procedures were tedious, more so in the light of tightened security owing to recent terrorist activities, but her passport was good and she had no trouble going through customs. She carried her one suitcase out of the building and climbed in the first taxi she saw.

  ‘Where to?’ the driver asked.

  ‘The Bluebell Hotel in Middlesbrough. Acklam to be more precise. And don’t take the long route because I know the area and the town too well to be deceived.’

  She saw the man’s eyebrows rise as he studied her in the mirror, knew he was thinking he’d picked up a right one this trip. She held his gaze and he didn’t come back at her.

  Before he was even into second gear he blasted on his horn and braked hard. Bella shot forward and had to reach out to check her momentum. She heard the driver cursing, the target of his abuse the two teenagers who’d been sitting across the aisle on the plane. They were strolling blithely along in front of the taxi like nature-lovers on a country stroll, unaware he had almost hit them.

  ‘You OK, love?’ the driver enquired. ‘Those two must be deaf, daft or blind. Stepped right in front of me, they did. My own bleeding ticker went twice round the clock.’

  ‘I’m OK,’ she said and settled back into the seat. Good start, she told herself. Welcome home.

  Somewhere on the road to the town she had a moment of revelation, a gift from the gods. The driver had been partly correct when he was sarcastic about the two teenagers. He’d got two out of three; they weren’t daft or blind; they were deaf. All that hand gesticulating on the plane had been sign language, not a stupid game. She should have seen that, then she might have recalled before this that Alex Macdonald’s daughter was deaf, that she was able to sign, also read lips. Poor Charles, in his last effort to communicate with her, had pointed to his ear. She figured he must have been trying to convey, as best he could, how they’d managed to find him.

  The fatal day in the garden played back in her memory like a punishment. Charles had taken a call on his mobile. He’d turned to her and said everything was taken care of, that in a few days they’d be away to Vigo in Portugal. He said nobody else, not even those who’d been closest to him, knew their destination, because he’d fixed the flights and kept every detail to himself. They’d hire a villa in a quiet place. It would be as if they’d vanished off the face of the earth.

  At the time they’d been facing the house. She’d suddenly looked up to see the Macdonald brat watching them from the bedroom where she and her mother were confined. The girl had drawn back and she could remember a brief presentiment, dismissed in the same instant because she didn’t think the brat could possibly have known what they were discussing. She’d mentioned it to Charles though, but he hadn’t worried. It was a bitter irony, one that sickened her, that she, who had looked out for her brother all her life, had neglected to get rid of the brat. Charles would still be alive if she had. Blaming herself, she brooded on her negligence for the rest of the journey.

  When
she’d paid the taxi driver she checked in to the Bluebell Hotel, bought a bottle of wine from the bar, went straight up to her room, undressed and got into bed. She settled back on the pillows and drank the wine. She had so much to think about. Macdonald had obviously co-opted Hussein to do his dirty work for him, thinking that would get him and his family off the hook. He must be gloating now but the fool had better think again. Nobody could hurt her brother and get away with it. Not while she was still breathing.

  She’d had one target in mind when the plane landed but now she had two. Both Hussein and the doctor would have to be eliminated. Which one would she deal with first? The question revolved in her mind until the long journey and the effects of the wine eventually caught up with her she fell into a deep sleep.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  In the deserted cemetery a light wind flirted with the floral tributes for the dead. The same wind, like a playful ghost, lifted Hussein’s coat tail as he strode down the pathway between the gravestones. He kept his head down, never once glanced towards the church where Bella waited in the shadows.

  Ironies flooded into Bella’s mind. Here she was, an atheist, sheltering in the shadows of the church while she waited to kill a man of another country’s faith, who was here to visit a Christian grave. It reinforced her own sense of the world as a crazy, mixed-up place where rules were for the weak.

  In the furthest corner of the cemetery Hussein kneeled down in front of a tall gravestone. Bella permitted herself a small smile, congratulating herself on her powers of recall. Everything was happening just as she remembered Hussein’s daughter describing it to her when she’d cultivated the naïve young runaway for her brother. Hussein didn’t have a clue that anyone knew about his lone, secret visits to this place every Thursday afternoon of his life. By chance his daughter had seen him enter the churchyard and discovered his secret but, fearing his wrath, had not told him she knew. Your sins will find you out. Only if, like Hussein, you care about them enough to hide them, was Bella’s thinking.

  After making sure they were alone Bella stepped out of the shadows. Without respect for the dead she walked over the graves, heading in a straight line for Hussein, who was facing away from her and oblivious to her presence even when she stood a yard behind him.

  ‘It’s a dirty, sordid, little secret you have there,’ she said, conscious of the triumph ringing in her voice.

  Surprised at the vitriolic intrusion in a place he would never have expected it, Hussein stumbled to his feet and turned. He stared at her, mystified. She knew he was wondering who this mad woman was. What was she talking about? Surely she must have mistaken him for someone else. Caught off balance, he looked like a little boy lost and she relished his discomfiture. It was the least he deserved and she played on it.

  ‘Your sins will find you out. That’s what the Christians say. This is a good place for your sins to find you out, isn’t it?’

  Still he didn’t say anything, just stared. She could see enough concern in his face to know he understood what, in his case, her words implied. At the same time he wasn’t sure it was any more than the ramblings of a crazy woman who’d coincidentally hit a home truth.

  ‘Your daughter knew what a creep and hypocrite you were,’ she stated, drawing him in piece by piece.

  As though struck by an invisible force, he took a step backwards. His eyes narrowed.

  ‘What do you know of my daughter?’

  Bella curled her fingers round the gun in her coat pocket. It gave her confidence.

  ‘Your daughter found out you took a white mistress even before your wife died, knew that when your whore died you visited her grave here every week, like a thief in the night. She thought she must have meant more to you than her own mother.’

  Hussein’s eyes bulged and his fists bunched. ‘Who are you?’ he rasped. ‘How did you know my daughter and how dare you speak of such things to me?’

  She ignored his questions and continued: ‘She told me how you tried to force her into an arranged marriage while all the time you had sullied the sanctity of marriage, carrying on behind your dear wife’s back. She knew what an old hypocrite you were. You drove your daughter away, Hussein, drove her to her death.’

  Overcome with anger, he took a step towards her, his fist raised. She was ready for it and stepped back, pulling the gun from her pocket. When he saw the weapon, he halted and held up his hand like a shield.

  ‘Thought you’d have guessed,’ she said, ‘or are you just being slow on the uptake like you were with your daughter.’

  She watched as understanding penetrated to the core of his being, first intermingled with disbelief, then with growing certainty until it was set in stone. In shock, he stepped further back until his legs were pressed against the gravestone.

  ‘You’re his sister,’ he said, his voice an angry whisper.

  ‘And you’re his murderer,’ she came back at him venomously.

  He managed to straighten up, conquer his emotions. ‘I loved my daughter in spite of what you say, and your brother deserved everything he got. You were no better and your turn is coming, so do what you have to do while you still can.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I intend to. But I want to know where Macdonald is hiding. I’ve been to his home and he isn’t there, so where is he?’

  ‘Go to hell!’

  ‘Not until I’ve sent all your family there. If you don’t cooperate, they’re dead.’ She showed him her mobile in her free hand. ‘I’ve people I can call on. They’re watching your sons right now and one call is all it will take.’

  Hussein hesitated, then hung his head and said, ‘I don’t know where he is. He contacts me through an old army pal named Eddie. That’s all I know, so get on with it and leave my family alone.’

  She thought about what he’d told her. She knew about Eddie, figured it made sense and it was all she was going to get out of Hussein who probably didn’t give a damn about the doc so didn’t need to lie. The bit about killing his family had been all bluff anyway, and she didn’t want to linger too long here, risk being disturbed.

  She looked up at the sky and whispered. ‘This is for you, brother.’ Then she pulled the trigger three times in quick succession.

  Hussein clutched his stomach, tottered backwards, spun round, sprawled over the gravestone, his arms embracing the cold stone.

  ‘Go and join your whore,’ Bella said as she turned and hurried away. Half her duty to her brother had been completed.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  She’d already watched Macdonald’s house for two days before deciding Alex wasn’t around. That was when she’d decided to take out Hussein, try to find out what he knew of the doc’s whereabouts. After killing Hussein she returned to the house, hid the car in the same barn her brother had used when he’d escaped. She still had the keys Alex had given her so she let herself in.

  Eddie, according to what Hussein had told her before he died, seemed to be the key to finding Macdonald. She searched for the doctor’s telephone or address book, figuring it would contain Eddie’s address. But it proved hard to find. After a fruitless search downstairs, she tried the upstairs bedrooms without success. She was sitting on a bed thinking where to look next when she heard a car approaching. Her hopes rose. Could this be Alex coming home to make everything easier for her?

  Gun in hand, hidden behind the bedroom curtains, she watched the taxi draw up outside. Her hopes were dashed when only the driver, not Alex, got out and walked towards the house. Those hopes revived when she recognized the dark, swarthy individual approaching. She’d seen photographs of him in army uniform with the doc and was sure it was Eddie. But what was he doing here?

  The door opened and footsteps entered the house. Fortunately, Eddie didn’t come upstairs. She crept on to the landing, listened, trying to decide how she was going to tackle him. Then, deciding diplomacy might help her glean more than an outright threat would, she put her gun back in her pocket and took off her blond wig. Assuming an air of confidence,
she started down.

  She found him sitting in the living room. When she entered he looked up, startled. She feigned equal surprise, reeling back, away from him.

  ‘Who are you?’ she said, deliberately widening her eyes. ‘What are you doing in this house?’

  He stood up, held up both hands in a conciliatory gesture. ‘There’s no need to be afraid. I’m Alex Macdonald’s friend. I might ask you the same questions, of course.’

  ‘You must be Eddie,’ she sighed, momentarily closed her eyes, pretending relief. ‘For a moment I thought I’d stumbled upon a burglar.’

  She watched him scrutinize her as he waited for her to identify herself. Eventually, his gaze drifted to her red hair. A gleam of understanding came into his eyes.

  ‘Gloria,’ he announced. ‘You must be Gloria. That red hair—’

  ‘Can’t get away with anything with this red hair, can I?’ she said, shuffling her feet like a coy schoolgirl.

  She could see from his sudden reserve, a hint of coldness even, that he knew the manner of her running away from his friend, was wondering now what possible reason she could have for returning to the house.

  She fluttered her eyes coquettishly, hoping to distract him from those thoughts, make him think she was empty-headed and harmless.

  ‘You’ll think I’m awful,’ she cried, ‘leaving Alex the way I did. I was in such shock.’

  From the set of his chin it was obvious that that tactic wasn’t working.

  ‘It all worked out,’ he told her. ‘He’s back with his wife and daughter.’

  ‘Oh! You think. . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You think I’m here to try to get back with him?’

  ‘Aren’t you?’

  She pretended to be hurt. ‘I’m far too ashamed of running away when he needed me most to even hope. I’m pleased it’s worked out for him. I really am.’

  She noticed him visibly relax, was sure she’d fooled him. But the remnants of suspicion were in the tone of his next question.