by Jo Bannister
“I did not imagine I’d be spending my time and money and, yes, risking my neck trying to persuade someone to do me the final kindness when playing out the hand I’ve been dealt has become unbearable. Because that’s what we’re talking about, Nicky. A life so frightening that no one should be made to live it. Don’t have any illusions about what it is I’m facing. I’m not going to be just a charming old dodderer whose socks never match. I’m going to be a broken and tormented man who won’t know a moment’s peace short of death but who might have to wait ten or fifteen years for it.”
McKendrick’s voice was actually shaking. It was hard to avoid the conclusion that it was shaking with fear. He took a moment to steady it. “Look on the bright side. I might never get this illness. I might die of something else first, or I might live to be a hundred with my marbles perfectly intact. And that’s something that would give me enormous satisfaction.
“But if I don’t kill myself while I’m fully in command of my wits—if I wait until the symptoms start—I won’t do it at all. Because by then I won’t think it needs doing. I’ll think everybody else is being thoroughly unreasonable if not downright cruel but I’m the same as I’ve always been. I need to have this all organized long before that. I need to set up some kind of chain of events—when Beth notices I’m starting to lose it, she tells my solicitor, and my solicitor posts a sealed letter he’s never read and you get your instructions—while I can still work it all out. I can’t leave it until it matters. Do you understand that?”
Horn nodded slowly. “I understand it. I just can’t do what you want me to.”
“You can,” retorted McKendrick, no shadow of doubt in his voice, “and you will. It’s the price of what I’ve done for you. What I’m still doing. If you live through today, it’ll be down to me. So do what you’re told, do your time, go away somewhere and get on with your life. I’ll make sure there’s money to help with that—help you go somewhere Hanratty can’t follow.
“It’s the best deal you’re going to get, Nicky. You ought to grab it with both hands.”
Incredibly, Horn seemed to be thinking about it. His voice wasn’t much more than a whisper. “I don’t think there is anywhere Hanratty can’t follow. I know there’s nowhere Patrick can’t follow.”
It wasn’t that McKendrick very much cared about Nicky Horn’s ghosts. It was more that he knew he needed to deal with them before Horn would be much use to him. “Tell me what happened. The truth, this time. I don’t care what the truth is, I just want to hear it.”
Horn sighed. It was a long time ago. And McKendrick was right, it really didn’t matter anymore. Except that if he was going to die because of it, there wouldn’t be another chance. If he wanted someone to bear witness for him, it had to be Robert McKendrick. “Patrick was leading. We shouldn’t even have been climbing in those conditions, but we were. Three-quarters of the way up Anarchy Ridge, with the wind throwing bucketloads of snow in our faces, suddenly he wasn’t there anymore and the rope went tight.
“What I told Beth, about what he’d said—what we both said—the night before: that’s how it started. Now we were like strangers. I was angry with him, he was upset with me. When he went off the ridge, I didn’t know if he’d fallen or jumped, if he wanted me to die there with him or not. I held on to him, swore to him I wouldn’t let go. But after three hours I was exhausted, and I couldn’t get him back, and I was shit-scared of falling with him. That’s when he cut the rope. He fell, yelling my name.” There were tears on Horn’s face that McKendrick thought he was entirely unaware of.
“And that’s the truth?”
Horn nodded. His eyes were hollow, whether with fear or remembrance McKendrick couldn’t judge. “No point lying now.”
“There never was much point. You lied rather than tell his family that Patrick was in love with you, and you rejected him, and you’ll always be afraid that’s why he died. But if you’d told them the truth, it’s hard to see how things could have worked out any worse.”
“They didn’t take it as well as I’d hoped,” admitted Horn.
“Maybe not.” McKendrick’s scrutiny seemed to flay Horn’s soul. “Or maybe you wanted them to hate you. Them, and everyone else. You thought you deserved it. You thought it was your fault Patrick was dead. You said you cut his rope because you couldn’t bring yourself to say you broke his heart.”
Horn’s voice seemed to come from a long way off. “Yes.”
“But Nicky—what if he just fell? What if it was just an accident? It was blowing a gale up there, there was snow everywhere, you couldn’t tell where the rocks ended and the ice began. What if Patrick just made a mistake? You were climbing an untried pitch in an Alaskan blizzard, for God’s sake! I don’t know much about climbing, but I know this much: everyone falls sometimes. The rock crumbles, the ice breaks away. And neither of you had your whole mind on the job. I don’t think Patrick was trying to punish you. I think he was just unlucky.”
“You weren’t there,” whispered Nicky Horn. “I’d give anything—anything—to believe that. But I don’t. I can’t. Five hours earlier he said he loved me, and I called him a freak. They were almost the last words we said to one another.”
“You were taken by surprise.”
“I didn’t have to humiliate him! I didn’t have to rip everything from him—our friendship, his dignity, everything. He thought he’d lost the lot. He thought I despised him. And I didn’t! That was the first lie—the worst lie. I didn’t feel the way he felt, but if it had been two other guys we’d been talking about I wouldn’t have reacted like that. I don’t know why I said what I did. If we’d had one more day I could have told him—apologized, told him everything would be all right. We’d have finished the climb and gone home friends.
“Why did I do that?” By now the tears were falling openly, streaking Horn’s face. He made no effort to dash them away. McKendrick thought that he genuinely wanted an answer. That it had taken him four years to even ask the question, and now he needed an answer. “Why would I tear him apart like that?”
“Because,” said McKendrick with an uncharacteristic gentleness, “you’re only human. You make mistakes too. It was just bad timing all round. If it had happened back in England, he’d have gone out to drown his sorrows, and after the hangover had worn off he’d have been working out what he needed to do to get his life back on track. It happens all the time: people we love turn out not to love us. You get over it.
“But it didn’t happen in England. It happened on a mountain ridge in the middle of one of the world’s great wildernesses, with a gale howling in his ears. And mountains do things to people, don’t they? Beth’s talked about it. You can see so far, you feel so small.… The sea’s like that too. It sucks you in. People say they sail in order to leave their problems behind, but I don’t think that’s what it is. When you’re out there like a flyspeck on the map, surrounded by nothing but the elements, your values change. Everything’s either very, very close or very far away. It’s hard to keep a sense of perspective.
“Yes, you handled it badly. But so did Patrick. He shouldn’t have cornered you with this when there was nowhere for you to retreat. He should have known it could only end with at least one of you being hurt.”
“We were days from civilization,” Horn remembered. He was talking now almost as if he were asleep, a heartaching monotone. “I thought he couldn’t face the long hike back. When you’re climbing, your mind’s full to bursting and you put the personal stuff on the back burner. But walking back, hour after hour, after he’d reached out to me and I’d bitten his hand off at the wrist … I thought he couldn’t face it. I thought he’d decided stepping off into the whiteout was a better option.”
Against the habit of a lifetime, McKendrick found himself feeling what this young man had felt. Empathy. It’s a terrible idea in business, to feel for the people you’ve just shafted. “Nicky, you’re never going to know exactly what was going through Patrick’s head. But you know he was a goo
d man, and a good friend. You know he’d looked after you every other time you’d climbed together, as you’d looked after him. Even if he was hurt, even if he was upset, why would he suddenly turn into someone else? If he’d fallen twelve hours earlier, you wouldn’t even have asked yourself if there was something more to it.”
“I thought—I think—I thought I’d killed him. Was responsible for his death. As surely as if I had cut the rope.” But if Horn couldn’t decide on the tense, that meant he was no longer sure. He’d felt so guilty about Patrick Hanratty’s death that he’d lied, and gone on lying even after he realized it could cost him his life. Now this tall man, this stranger, this cold man whose heart was a battlefield, was telling him he’d been mistaken. It was just an accident. Perhaps it was just an accident all along.
But if that was so … Horn shook his head. He couldn’t begin to come to terms with what that meant. That he’d spent four years running, and was probably going to die, for nothing. It was almost better to go on believing what he’d always believed, that at least there was a kind of justice to it.
Watching the turmoil in the younger man’s face, suddenly it occurred to McKendrick that they’d been talking about this for too long. That too long had passed since he’d checked the monitors or Horn had listened at the kitchen door. He turned abruptly and strode back into the hall.
Another of the screens had gone blank. It didn’t matter. McKendrick could see where Hanratty’s man was. He was standing in the courtyard, in full view of one of the three remaining cameras, waiting patiently for someone to notice him, and he was holding Beth McKendrick in front of him like a shield.
CHAPTER 13
HORN COULDN’T SEE the monitors from where he sat in the kitchen. And McKendrick didn’t cry out or even gasp. Instead he locked down, willing his body to be still, freeing up all his energies, all his considerable mental acumen, to tackle this new challenge. To weigh up what it meant and work out how to deal with it.
But a stillness that absolute creates a kind of shock wave. It traveled out from the hall, and when it reached the kitchen Horn straightened up and listened, and after a moment he hauled himself to his feet and walked quietly through the sitting room. He couldn’t have guessed what was meant by the almost concrete silence, but he knew it wasn’t natural and he doubted it was good.
When he reached the hall, he could see what McKendrick could see. Immediately he knew exactly what it meant. Though his tone was tissue-thin, he managed to keep it steady. He was pleased about that. “So now you open the door.”
McKendrick didn’t answer. Perhaps he didn’t hear. All his attention was focused on the monitor. “What the hell did she go outside for?”
“She didn’t,” said Horn. “He did what I said he’d do—he found a way inside.”
McKendrick looked round at Horn as if he’d forgotten he was there. “Then why is he out there again and not in here?”
It was pretty obvious to Horn, but then his emotions weren’t involved, or not in the same way. “Because we can’t rush him down a camera cable. He can update us on the new situation without the risk that one or both of us will come over all heroic and take him on.”
McKendrick looked the younger man up and down, taking in the old bruises and the new ones.
Horn felt himself flush under the scrutiny. “Yeah, well,” he growled, “he doesn’t know about that, does he? As far as he’s aware, I’m pretty well back to fighting fitness. And you’re in good shape for a middle-aged guy, and you’re her father. Any animal will fight for its cub. He doesn’t want to fight. He just wants to get the job done. Now he has.”
McKendrick’s face had drained to the color of old grate-ash. Behind that, though, the intellectual arrogance that had made him a rich man was wrestling with the shock. Deep in the marrow of his bones was a part of him that couldn’t believe, that wouldn’t believe, that he’d been outmaneuvered. “He thinks now he can have you without a fight. That I’ll open the shutters and you’ll walk meekly outside.”
“Yes.” Horn couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“A straight trade. You for Beth.”
“Yes.”
“Will he honor it? When he has you, will he leave?”
The truth couldn’t do him much good now. Whatever the ultimate outcome, McKendrick had no choice about what he did next. Horn said what the man needed to hear. “He might. If he can get me without a struggle, he might decide to quit while he’s ahead. You’ll call the police as soon as you can get to a phone that works, but he’ll be miles away by then, with all middle England to vanish into.”
McKendrick’s eyes were coming back into focus. “Won’t he be worried that I’ll give the police his description?”
“He’s a pro. He’ll change how he looks. You could see him again, a week from now, crossing Waterloo Bridge with an umbrella under his arm, and you’d never recognize him. He knows that.”
“That’s not what you said before.”
A moment’s hesitation as Horn back-pedaled. “No.” He gave a tiny grin. “I thought I had a better chance if your best interests were the same as my best interests.”
“And now you don’t?”
“I think my chances are all used up. But you may still have one, if you play your cards right. Dead right, first time.”
McKendrick wanted to be absolutely sure that he understood what Horn was telling him. “You’re saying I should hand you over and hope for the best.”
“I don’t think there’s anything else you can do.”
There was a pause while McKendrick almost seemed to wonder, to resist coming to the same conclusion. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t find an alternative because there wasn’t one. “I can’t let him hurt Beth. Not if there’s any hope she can come safe through this.”
“I’ll…” Horn was going to say he’d get his things. One word into the sentence he realized there was no point. He wouldn’t be doing any more carpentry. “Open the door. Shut it and lock it again as soon as I’m outside. If he can’t see an easy way to get at you, I think he’ll let Beth go. If he can’t silence all the witnesses, he’s better not killing any of them.”
“Just you.”
There was a world of tiredness, of acceptance, in Horn’s pale smile. “I’ve stayed ahead of the game for four years. That’s four years more than Patrick got. I think maybe it’s enough.”
Incredibly, McKendrick found a lump in his throat. “There has to be another way. How can I…?”
Horn knew the answer to that. “Because you have to. You can find someone else to do … what you wanted me for. You can’t find yourself another daughter.”
“We could make a fight of it…”
“If we do that, we’ll all die. He’s not just the man with the gun, he’s the one who knows what he’s doing. How this works, how it pans out. Every time. And he has no conscience. That’s more than an edge—it’s a whole bloody sword. Even in a crisis, most people hesitate before they’ll hurt someone else. He won’t. He’ll kill you like swatting a fly if you give him the ghost of a chance. So don’t. Keep the castle locked down until you know he’s gone. Don’t even open the door to let Beth in. She’s safe as long as you’re safe.” Probably, Horn added privately. He moved toward the door.
McKendrick put out a hand that stopped short of actually touching him. As if he were already out of reach. Then his fingers went to the console but again hesitated, as if he couldn’t bring himself to touch it either.
“You have to open the door,” Horn said again. It almost sounded as if he was pleading. As if dying was no longer the worst thing that he faced. “You have to let me go. Or he’ll hurt her.”
Eyes haunted by guilt, McKendrick tore his gaze away from the young man’s face and sought his daughter’s on the monitor. The man was still standing behind her, showing little of himself besides his hands gripping her shoulders—firmly rather than tightly, no hint of panic or desperation, still comfortably in control.
Finally McKendr
ick steeled himself to do what needed doing. Circumstances had left him no choice. He glanced again at Horn. “I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault,” mumbled Horn, “not your problem. Do it.”
“I can’t let him hurt her.”
“I know. Open the door.”
With one long finger already on the button, still he hesitated. “Although…”
Horn waited, but nothing followed. Bizarrely, he found himself growing impatient. “Although what?”
McKendrick was regarding the monitor with one of those intelligent, speculative looks that Horn imagined was the last thing seen by any number of CEOs before they went on gardening leave. “Although,” McKendrick repeated slowly, “actually he isn’t hurting her, is he?”
“Yet,” said Horn, underlining heavily. “He isn’t hurting her yet.”
“Quite.” But other thoughts were marshaling behind his eyes. “I wonder why not.”
“What?”
“Okay,” said McKendrick quickly, “I could have put that better. But think about it. He knows we’re watching these monitors—it’s what they’re for. He knows we know he’s got Beth. Now, he might wait a minute while we wail and gnash our teeth a bit, but after that he’s going to want to focus my attention. So why isn’t he hurting her? Making her yell, and bleed? Why is he standing there as if he’s got all the time in the world and doesn’t mind how long I think about what to do next?”
“Because he has,” suggested Hood grimly, “and he doesn’t?”
