There was nothing for it but to wait and hope to God for an opportunity.
While I waited, I eased the phone into my jeans pocket. There was no point calling Samuel. He couldn’t do anything from so far away.
Zane seemed to take forever to ascend the stairs. I couldn’t tell if he was drawing it out, enjoying my fear, or if he really wasn’t sure that I’d made it up to the first floor and thought I might come tearing out of the living room and head for the front door whilst his back was turned.
“Where are you hiding, you little bitch?”
I flinched. With more grace and silence than I would have thought possible, Zane had made it to the top of the stairs. He was just outside the door. I pressed my back to the tiled surface, in the hope that the wall might swallow me.
The light in the room intensified as Zane pushed the bathroom door open. I squeezed my eyes shut, clenching my hands into fists. I wanted desperately to look, to see what he was doing, but I knew if I moved so much as an inch he would see me.
“Come on, Lizzie. Come on out so that I can shoot you.”
He laughed. My stomach clenched, my mouth flooding with saliva as nausea rolled up my throat.
He took a step away from the bathroom. Then another one. My eyes popped open, widened. Surely not? Painstakingly carefully I peeled myself away from the cold slipperiness of the tiles. My feet, encased in worn trainers, inched forward, taking me away from the safety of the wall. Hardly daring to breathe, I slipped out of the bath and crept to the doorway. Zane’s back was just disappearing into the first bedroom. His broad shoulders drawn forward, arms locked straight out in front of him, fingers curled around his gun.
I deliberated. I was a big enough target. He could easily swing round and fire off a round, knowing he’d hit me somewhere. The shot might not kill me, but then Zane would like that. I’d be nicely incapacitated and he could take his time.
If I was going to get out, I had to really move. There wouldn’t be time to pause at the front door, to fiddle with the latch. And the back was locked. But I had an idea for that. A very bad idea. I took one deep breath. Then another. Now. Now, Lizzie, now.
Zane took one more step forward, crouching down to check under the bed, and I rocketed out of the bathroom. By the time he’d heard me I was at the top of the stairs. As he straightened up and turned, I was freefalling down, concentrating my feet on nothing more than keeping moving. I didn’t hear the two steps that took him back to the top of the stairs, but I did register the explosion behind me as he fired off a wildly aimed shot. The bullet slammed into the front door, passing through the space where my shoulder had been just a split second before.
I was already gone, flying through the living room.
“Lizzie!” Zane’s bull-like roar followed me the way his bullet never could. Footsteps thundered after, crashing down the hallway.
Too late, Zane.
My eyes were fixed on the back door. The locked back door. The locked glass back door.
I was moving so fast there wasn’t time to think about it. I’d made my decision as I’d been waiting in the bathroom. I hadn’t stopped to contemplate how it was going to feel; how much it was going to hurt.
As I hit the glass I closed my eyes.
It was like running into a solid brick wall. My pumping arms, my forehead and my knees collided with an immovable barrier. The force of impact sent shock waves of pain ricocheting around my body. I was going nowhere. Then the strangest thing happened. The imaginary bricks disintegrated, fragmenting into a million pieces. The glass had shattered and I was moving again. Cold air tickled my skin as shards of glass rained down.
Was I bleeding? I couldn’t tell. I just kept on running.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Samuel?”
I was shaking so hard it was difficult to keep the phone pressed to my ear, so I didn’t hear his response.
“Samuel I need you!”
My nose was running. I wiped at it, but the back of my hand was wet, slicking a mixture of sweat and blood across my upper lip and cheek.
Laughter to my left made me start. Staring towards the noise, I hunched my shoulders and shrank further into the protective cover of the bushes. The wet leaves tickled the back of my neck, sending droplets sliding down between my shoulder blades. The laughter grew louder, turning into a giggled conversation that reached a peak just in front of me before bleeding away into the night.
I was in a park. I wasn’t sure which one, I hadn’t paused to look at the sign, I’d just sighed with relief after successfully vaulting the low gate, locked now that it was the middle of the night. I wasn’t the only one ignoring the opening hours. It looked like people used the park as a thoroughfare, most of them on their way back from pubs and clubs. I’d jogged past a couple of homeless people stretched out on benches as well.
As soon as I reached the very depths of the wooded area I’d thrown myself off the path, and my trembling hands – shaking with a mixture of fright and cold – had dialled the only number they could; the only number I wanted.
But I was finding it hard to hold a conversation. Why wasn’t he saying anything?
“Samuel?” My voice was creeping up in both volume and pitch.
“Lizzie, calm down!”
Samuel’s yell exploded out of the earpiece. I realised with shock that he had been talking, I just hadn’t heard him. I shut my eyes and tried to quell the panic, the shaking. My legs were quivering, the muscles of my calves close to giving out. I crouched down, putting one hand against the leaf-covered ground to steady me.
“Okay,” I breathed. “Okay.”
“Are you safe?”
“Yes.”
I heard Samuel exhale with relief. The sound warmed a very small part of me.
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know.” I looked around myself. “I’m in a park.”
“Which one?”
“Pass.” I spurted a laugh, though there was nothing remotely funny about the situation.
I hadn’t run far, maybe fifteen minutes maximum. I doubted I was more than a mile from Samuel’s little bolthole, though I didn’t know the area. But I’d been too panicked to watch where my feet were going. Too busy watching behind me for Zane and his shock of hair that glowed even in the darkness. I’d lost him after hurtling through an allotment, the maze of fences and sheds providing me with cover, and tiny gaps that I could squeeze through but he couldn’t.
“Lizzie, you need to find me a road. I’m in the area, but I can’t drive past the house. It’s not safe.”
I nodded grimly into the phone, forgetting that Samuel couldn’t see me. I didn’t want to move from my hiding place, curled up in the bushes. But Samuel would never find me in here. Cautiously, I slunk forward, my legs tight and burning. I emerged onto the path just in front of a pair of girls weaving their way along, arm in arm, high heels clicking against the pebbles inlaid into the compacted dirt. They both started, then one of them lifted her finger to point at me.
“Oh my God, it’s a… it’s a…”
I turned and ran away from them before the word ‘Celt’ could form in the girl’s mouth and she started screaming for the GE. Emerging from the shrouded cover of the trees lining the edge of the park was trickier. The streetlights seemed blinding after the cosseting darkness of the park, and cars prowled up and down along a nameless street. I slipped out of the gate warily, hunting for pedestrians and brake lights. No sign of Zane, though that meant little. Although he was huge, he had the ability to become invisible when he needed to – just like me.
Directly across from me was a T-junction. I headed over, knowing there would likely be street signs where the two roads intersected. I had to kick away at some trailing ivy, but I found what I was looking for. Aware that the longer I loitered on the street, the more chance I had of bumping into people I didn’t want to see – Zane, the GE, Alexander, the police – I trotted back over to the relative safety of the park before I called Samuel.
He answe
red immediately.
“I’m opposite Hemmingway and Richmond Avenue,” I whispered into the receiver.
“Right, okay. I’m just around the corner. Give me a minute. I’m driving a Punto.”
In an effort to quell the frantic pounding of my heart as it rattled around in my ribcage, I started to count as I waited. Exactly thirty seconds later, an old-style Punto glided into view. It drew to a halt on the corner of Richmond Avenue. My phone vibrated in my hand.
“I’m here,” Samuel said, confirming what I already knew.
The tight knot in my stomach didn’t disappear until I’d flung the passenger door open and found myself face-to-face with Samuel. Then it melted, thawed away by a sudden rush of warmth.
“Get in,” he ordered, glancing nervously around him.
I smiled at him as I slid inside, giddy with relief and adrenaline, but Samuel didn’t so much as look at me. His hands were both clenched into tight fists, one wrapped around the steering wheel, the other clutching the gearstick so hard I thought the moulded plastic might shatter. His jaw was clamped shut, a muscle twitching in his cheek, right at the heart of his tattoo. I’d never seen him as tense as this, and as soon as I had the door closed – before I’d even had a chance to search for my seat belt – he took off, tyres screeching.
His obvious discomfort and anxiety couldn’t pop my bubble of happiness, however. He’d come for me. Again. He’d saved me. Again. He was here with me. Again. As we drove in silence through strange streets, I was content just to stare at him and be thankful.
Eventually Samuel felt the heat of my stare. Either that, or as we drove further from Islington, on towards nowhere, he became more relaxed and dared to look somewhere other than the road in front and behind.
He turned, glanced at me, then back through the windscreen, flicking on the indicator and making a sharp right turn. Back on the straight, he looked at me again, this time with a mouth twitching in amusement.
“What?” he asked. Then he frowned at me, staring, his gaze raking over my face, my arms, flicking his eyes to the road only when he absolutely had to. “Lizzie, you’re hurt!”
“Am I?” I was startled. I hadn’t been aware of any pain, just the stiffness and cramps from my all-out sprint away from Zane.
“You’re covered in blood!” Samuel insisted.
Shocked, I reached up to touch my face. It was wet. When I pulled my hand away, my fingers were smeared red.
“I ran through the glass in the back door,” I told him tonelessly.
Odd, I’d almost forgotten about that. Running from Zane. Hiding out in the park, getting into Samuel’s car had pushed it from my mind. Now that I was thinking about it, I was aware of a burning sensation all over my skin. How many cuts did I have? I didn’t want to think about it.
“Jesus, Lizzie,” Samuel was still staring at me, his expression shocked, concerned.
I grimaced and flushed. How bad did I look?
“We need to get you sorted,” he said, turning back to the road at last. “Some of those might need stitches.”
“Okay,” I bit my lip, looked away from him, out of the windscreen where the tarmac was disappearing under his wheels. “Samuel, where are we going?”
I heard him sigh; out of the corner of my eye, saw him reach up and rub at his jaw, at the fledgling beard that grew there.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “We need somewhere to lay low for a bit, to work out what the hell we’re going to do.”
I nodded, though in truth all I cared about was that he’d started his sentence with ‘we’. I was curious, though…
“Samuel, what happened? How did Zane find me, how did he know about the house? What’s happening at Bancroft Road? Does… does Alexander know…?” I let my question tail off, knowing Samuel would realise it covered several things.
Did Alexander know I’d been hiding out there?
Did he know it was Samuel’s house?
Did he know that Samuel had been helping me?
Did he know that Samuel had met secretly with Davis?
Did he know that his brother was thinking of murdering him?
I was pretty sure the answer would be no to the final one, but the rest, the rest – I had no idea.
Samuel sighed again.
“Alex knows… something,” he said, dealing with the most important question first. “He didn’t want me to leave tonight. That’s why I couldn’t beat Zane to the house; I had to be sure I wasn’t being followed.”
Samuel looked at me apologetically and I tried to mould my face into a smile, though it was more of a grimace.
“And Zane?”
“I don’t know how the hell he knew. I was there when he told Alex about the place, said one of his scouts had seen you. It was bull, but I couldn’t call him on it. Not in front of my brother. If he saw you, though, he saw me.”
I scowled in the darkness. That didn’t make any sense.
“Why wouldn’t Zane have told on you? Surely he’d love an excuse to drop you in it?”
Samuel shrugged and nodded at the same time.
“I don’t know. He’s slippery as an eel. Maybe he’s biding his time, waiting for the right moment. Whatever he’s doing, it might be a good idea if I stay the hell away from Bancroft Road for a while.”
“But… won’t that make Alexander suspicious?”
“It will, but if Zane’s got enough rope to hang me with, I can’t just go back there and wait for him to spring a noose around my neck.”
Though I could see the consternation in Samuel’s eyes, his words were a comfort to me. If he couldn’t go back to Alexander’s, maybe he’d stay with me. It was only in his company that I actually felt safe.
We stopped at a red light, and Samuel used the opportunity to rifle through his jeans pocket for his phone. I watched him curiously as he typed in a number. He held it up to his ear, steering and changing gears one-handed as the light changed back to green.
“Rhys?”
My eyes widened. He was calling Davis?
“How are you?” He listened for a moment, then, “Look, I’ve been considering your offer. I think…” he paused, twitched his eyes towards me for the space of a heartbeat, “I think I might be able to make it work. Can we meet up, talk about it?”
He listened intently. So did I, but I could only make out a tinny murmur, no words.
“How about right now?” Another pause. “No, no I’ll come to you.”
His face grim, Samuel hung up the phone and tossed it onto the dashboard. At the next junction he did a U-turn, taking us back into the heart of the city.
Rhys Davis’s London base was in Wandsworth, across the river. We drove beyond the residential streets into an industrial area that seemed to be mostly warehouses and garages. At the end of a long, winding street littered with potholes, we came to a large brick structure that looked as if it had once been a factory. At first glance, it could almost have been disused, but in the darkness the technology gave it away: winking CCTV cameras perched on every corner, a sleek electronic entry system installed beside a flaking garage door. Samuel coasted the Punto to a stop so that the driver’s window was level with the console. He rolled the window down a few inches and reached out one arm to push the largest button.
“Yes?” A robotic voice answered immediately.
“I’m here to see Rhys,” Samuel said, dropping his voice to a whisper that barely seemed to fill the car never mind reach the speaker on the intercom. He seemed edgy again, his head jerking side to side as he searched the deserted forecourt and peered at the street behind us.
“And you are?”
“It’s Samuel.”
The garage door opened noiselessly – another clue that this building wasn’t what it seemed – and Samuel eased the car forward. I looked around, intrigued. We were in a large underground car park, maybe the size of a swimming pool. There were a variety of vehicles parked in neatly ordered rows: vans, clunkers, and a shiny sports car gleaming under harsh f
luorescents.
As soon as the garage door glided shut, someone moved out of the shadows towards us. Samuel indicated that I should get out, then threw his door open and stood to greet the man. It was Danny, the skinny one who’d come with Rhys to Samuel’s Islington house. He didn’t bother to look at me, but shook Samuel’s hand.
“Mr Davis is dealing with a situation just now. He says you can wait, if you want?” Danny spoke with a musical lilt that was not the Welsh accent I’d expected, but something much more northern.
Samuel nodded grimly. “We’ll wait.” He glanced at me. “Have you got a medical room?”
For the first time, Danny gave me a fleeting look, his eyes flitting across my face.
“Aye, I’ll show you where it is.” He turned on his heel and began to march away. After shooting me a reassuring smile, Samuel followed suit and I hurried in his wake.
We walked up a staircase. The sterile look of the steel and white-washed walls was ruined by the graffiti proclaiming Celtic rights and threatening the English government. The Welsh dragon featured prominently in the designs, along with the swirls of a Celtic knot that matched the circle on my cheek. At the top of the stairs Danny pushed through a heavy door and led us into a corridor that looked like something out of an office block or a school. Halfway down he stopped and gestured to a doorway on his right.
“You should find everything you need in here,” he said. “I’ll send someone over to take you to Rhys when you’re done. If he’s finished with his… little problem.”
He gave us a smile completely devoid of warmth and disappeared. Samuel guided me into the room, almost a carbon copy of the mini-hospital in the basement at Bancroft Road. Rhys’s men didn’t want to put their trust in the government hospitals either, it seemed. A wise move, given that, on admittance, every patient was automatically swabbed and checked against the DNA database.
“Sit up on the bed,” Samuel instructed, moving over to a wall of cupboards and raking through their contents.
“Take your jacket off, too.”
I did as he asked, shivering slightly in the chill of the room. Now that we were underneath the bright lights, I could see the myriad cuts and slices all over my hands and forearms. Blood oozed from a cut in the knee of my jeans, too. I shuddered to think how many holes I’d ripped in my face.
Bombmaker Page 22
