Fast forward an hour, maybe two. My feet were in this spot, this exact spot. Alexander was on my left, talking to a white-blond man whose name I didn’t yet know. He paused in his conversation to address me.
“Take off your clothes.”
I gaped at him, gobsmacked.
“But—”
His lips twitched, eyes gleamed. Beside him, Zane made an amused face that I only saw out of the corner of my eye, because I couldn’t look at him.
“Take. Off. Your. Clothes.” Still quiet, still softly spoken. But the message was very clear: Alexander wasn’t used to repeating himself, and if I made him do it again I’d be very sorry.
I didn’t want to. I really didn’t want to. But I’d just learned my first lesson at Bancroft Road. You didn’t say no to Alexander. Slowly, tremulously, burning with humiliation, I took off my clothes.
The memories were vivid, and they sent a confusing surge of gratitude and hate oozing through my veins like acid. Alexander deserved to die. I was in absolutely no doubt about that. But he had saved my life. Whatever his reasons, he’d done it.
He deserved to die. But not by my hands.
Just by my handiwork.
A compromise. Samuel would not be happy. But then, he hadn’t wanted to pull the trigger either. That’s why I was standing there, drowning in a sea of doubt.
“Dammit!” I hissed, far too low to reach Alexander’s slumbering ears.
There wasn’t time to debate it any longer. Two clocks were tick-tick-ticking at the back of my head. I backed away, unwilling to take my eyes off him in case he opened his. Even when I was far enough away that I could no longer make out the back of his head, the powerful arms, I didn’t turn until I felt the pressure of the doorknob digging into my back.
On the other side of the door, I slumped against the wall, breathing hard like I’d been running. Already I was having second thoughts, but it was too late. There wasn’t time go back in there, to stand in front of him and do it properly this time. No, the bombs would do their job. They would. Alexander would be dead, and my conscience would be clear. Clearer. Clear enough to live with myself.
Aware that I was running behind after my hesitation, I ran down the stairs, making more noise than was smart. I had to hope that Samuel had taken care of the doorman. At the base of the stairs I found no sign of him, so I took reassurance from that. I turned, heading for the storeroom at the back, my mind firmly on device number three, when a hand clamped down on my shoulder.
This time I didn’t panic, because at the same time a familiar Welsh accent breathed “Lizzie!” in my ear.
“What is it?”
Samuel pushed me back into the shadow of the grand banister. His body was radiating tension, his grip on my arm almost painful.
“Zane wasn’t in his flat,” he whispered. “I can’t find him.”
I stared into the darkness of his face, just making out two shining eyes.
“What do we do?”
“Carry on. He must have gone out. Davis will have to take care of him later. Have you done the device in here?” He jerked with his head towards the storeroom.
“No.”
I saw Samuel check his watch, make a face. I grimaced. How long had I been upstairs?
“Give it to me,” he urged. “You sort the one in the basement. I don’t want to still be here when the floors start falling on our head.”
He gave a strained chuckle, but my face couldn’t so much as smile in response.
“Here,” I shoved the gun in the bag and thrust both at him. “I’ll just take the device down.”
I made to slide out from where he had me pinned against the wooden panelling of the hall, but he held me firm a second longer, dropped his head to land a rough kiss on my temple. Then he disappeared into the darkness and I felt my way down the final set of stairs, my hands full of C4.
We hadn’t planned a specific room in the basement to leave the final device. It didn’t really matter – the fabric of the building would be so destabilised by the other three explosions that a rumble just about anywhere down here would send the place crashing down like a house of cards. Aware of time, then, I darted into the first open door that I saw. It was a storage and records room. The same room, in fact, where Zane had had me memorise the list of names before he’d sent me to meet Riley and collect schoolgirls’ debts for Alexander. I wondered if the girls I’d met would see sense, now. If they’d give up their naughty little habits when they no longer had the handsome Zane persuading them, with his muscles and his smile and his white powder. Probably not, I realised. They’d just drift over to Rhys Davis and buy from Danny instead.
I dropped the C4 down onto the table that sat in the centre of the room and started preparing the electronics. Enough moonlight filtered through a high-up window for me to see what I was doing. Enough to cast shadows across the room, some that moved and some that didn’t. Enough to warn me, if I’d been paying attention.
I wasn’t. I was focused on the task in hand. On everything working like clockwork. I didn’t see the shadow shift into position, didn’t hear the low hiss of quiet breathing, hidden beneath my own. Didn’t feel the hate-filled stare burning into the back of my neck.
I didn’t realise anything was wrong until I heard the laugh.
It was low, and deep, and filled with pleasure.
“Oh, I was so hoping I’d get to be the one to kill you.”
I froze, my fingers hovering above the putty, ready to flick the final switch.
“You shouldn’t have come back here, Lizzie. I thought you were smarter than that.”
“Zane,” I greeted him tonelessly.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, stepping forward until the length of his body pinned me in place against the table. It was hot, except for the ice cold of something that wasn’t flesh, jabbing at my ribcage. “Come to steal?”
“No,” I licked my lips, swallowed.
Silence fell between us.
Say something, Lizzie. Keep him talking. If he’s talking he’s not shooting you. But my mind was blank.
“Turn around,” he hissed.
I did as I was told – with some difficulty, as he didn’t move back to give me space.
He was tall, and I had to tilt my head at an awkward angle to look up at him. The light filtering through bounced off his hair, making it glow like an angel’s halo.
“I have no idea why Alexander decided to keep you,” he murmured, “but thank Christ I don’t have to put up with you any longer. He’ll be annoyed – he wanted to choke the life out of you himself – but since I’ve got you here…”
I tried not to listen, tried to block his words out, knowing that fear would probably incapacitate me if I gave in to the idea that I was going to die.
“Zane, you could just let me go?” I whimpered.
He laughed; I knew he would. I’d meant him to. It was enough distraction for me to slip my hands behind me, grab the device. Flip the switch.
I hoped my body would conceal the light from the bomb long enough to blow the smarmy shit to smithereens. If I could just keep myself alive long enough.
“No. No, no, no. Don’t think so, Lizzie. Not when it would give me so much pleasure to take your head off.” His accent grew stronger in his excitement. It was harsh, jarring. I grimaced, more at the sound of it than the words he was spitting at me.
I wondered, while I stood there waiting for him to shoot me, whether I’d have been able to pull the trigger this time. If I would have been able to send a bullet flying through the air into Zane’s brain.
A pointless thought, as the gun was safe upstairs in the bag with Samuel. But I smiled to myself as I realised yes, I would. I had no reason to feel anything but loathing for Zane.
He still hadn’t done it – still hadn’t shot me, though.
Was he really worried about what Alexander would say if he stole this moment from him? Or was he just revelling in the satisfaction? In the dark it was hard to read the answ
er in his face.
How much longer did the bomb have? Two minutes? Three?
Longer than I did, I was sure.
I was focused on Zane’s face: his eyes, his smile. I was focused on the feel of the gun, pushing hard enough into my side to bruise. So for the second time I didn’t hear the stealthy footsteps; see the shadow moving slowly across the room; feel the slight tremor of feet inching their way across aged floorboards.
Not until the last second did I realise that Zane and I were not alone. Not until I saw the gun, racing into my vision from the right, just above my eye level. Pressing lightly against Zane’s temple, like the kiss of a lover.
I didn’t see the finger squeeze. Didn’t hear the pop of a silenced gunshot. But I felt it. The shockwave that Zane’s head couldn’t withstand; the heat of something wet that coated my face in a fine spray; the gun dropping from my side; the hand trying to grab onto me with the last seconds of life.
I watched as Zane fell to the ground, Samuel’s bullet in his brain.
Then, madness. The world rushed back into motion. Samuel was at my side, urging me out of my temporary trance.
“Lizzie, move!”
With one rough hand he seized my hoodie, yanked it, forced my feet to work. Out of the room, up the stairs, out of the door. Fresh air slapped me awake, but my legs couldn’t catch up with Samuel’s pace as he dragged me along behind him. I stumbled in his wake, nearly fell flat on my face.
A man in a car parked across the road watched us burst out of the door and down the steps with curious eyes. Was he Alexander’s? Davis’s? The police? It was impossible to tell. Whoever he was, he let us pass.
We hit the street and Samuel instantly started striding away, pulling me along with him. He didn’t look back, not once, just kept staring forward, eyes intent, focused.
The world was rent apart before we made it to the corner. I had my back to it, but the explosion still lifted me off my feet, throwing me forward into Samuel, who did his best to catch me before the hard concrete took my teeth. The noise came a split second after. It was immense, dizzying. I heard it ringing in my ears long after silence returned. Next came heat, and with it the acrid, burning, choking taste of smoke.
We’d done it.
I wanted to stop. To witness my handiwork: Rhys’s ‘spectacle’. I wanted to see a gaping hole where Alexander’s empire had been, but Samuel was tugging on me desperately.
“Lizzie, come on. We have to move. This place will be crawling with police and GE in a minute. We can’t be caught here.”
I didn’t even get to look.
Samuel all but carried me round the corner, hauling me down the road until he slung me against the side of a car, letting me slump there whilst he yanked open the driver’s side door. Was this the vehicle Danny had provided? Over the tops of the houses in front of me I saw the orange sky, the spirals of smoke. I didn’t hunt for souls flying heavenward. I knew there wouldn’t be any.
My ears were ringing from the blast, my pulse pounding, but beneath this I thought I caught the sound of feet thumping against pavement. As I stared dead ahead, eyes on the corner, the bleary dark of the street changed. I was so disorientated from the adrenaline rush and the impact of the bomb that it took me a few seconds to realise the strangely shifting shadows in front of me were silhouettes. Running silhouettes. Two of them, maybe three.
Who was it? Survivors?
No, no one could have walked away from that.
Still, someone was coming for us. I turned to warn Samuel, but he was already facing me, one hand reaching out to grab at my hand.
“Get in.” He manhandled me into the car, shoving me until I was over the gear lever, in the passenger seat, and he could slip in beside me. I glimpsed the key waiting in the ignition before Samuel grabbed it and twisted hard. The car coughed and stuttered before the engine caught.
“Yes!” I heard him hiss.
In the rear-view mirror I caught a quick glance of whoever it was, drawing closer, but a moment later we were moving; lights and streets and houses flashing by me. Away from the scene. Away from Bancroft Road. Away from Alexander.
We’d done it. Still shocked, I couldn’t take it in.
Surely I was still back there, trapped in the basement with Zane? Surely any second now I was going to feel the agony of metal ripping through muscle and bone? This could not be real. Samuel had asked me before how it felt to be free and I’d had no answer for him, because I hadn’t really been free. It’d been a temporary reprieve; something that, I knew from my time with Mark, could be ripped away in one swift, terrifying moment. But now Alexander was gone. Dead. Blown into a million tiny pieces. So was I free?
And how did it feel?
I couldn’t tell. I felt… numb. Stunned. Too much, too fast. Too deliciously close to something like happiness to trust it.
Beside me, Samuel didn’t speak. Minutes and miles passed as he hunkered over the wheel, eyes fixed dead ahead or gazing behind in the rearview mirror. He pushed the car hard, ignoring the noisy protests as it chugged and whined, rollicking over the uneven road surface, smashing into deep potholes.
Watching the world go by so quickly was making me sick, so I took to watching him, trying to convince myself that this was actually happening. That we had survived –succeeded.
Almost. Because we were still in London. Still in England. Still marked.
But we were close – so very, very close.
The further away we got from Stepney, the nearer we got to the port Davis had told Samuel about, the more relaxed he became. He leaned back, eased off the gas, loosened his grip on the steering wheel. He became more aware of his surroundings, flicking on the heater, adjusting the seat so he wasn’t hunched up, much too close to the windscreen. He became aware of me.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
I dipped my head in an awkward nod. I wasn’t really, but I was getting there.
“Are you hurt?” He flipped the overhead light on for a moment, appraised me.
“No,” I shook my head.
“You’re bleeding,” his brow furrowed with concern.
I reached up and felt my skin. It was wet. Pulling my fingers away, I saw the vivid red; I remembered the horror of the moment.
“It’s not mine,” I whispered. “It’s Zane’s.”
Suddenly repulsed, I pulled my sleeve over my hand and scraped vigorously at my face, trying to get it all off.
“But you’re all right?” he repeated, looking me over again, eyebrows raised like he couldn’t believe it.
“I’m fine,” I promised, my voice stronger.
He grinned at me before dousing us back into darkness. The interior of the car stayed black for only a heartbeat before powerful white lights blazed into us from behind. I gasped, tensed, twisted round to watch a set of full beams bear down on us with frightening speed. I saw them come close, close, closer. Then, just as it seemed they’d climb right over the back of us, the brightness so intense it burned my eyeballs, whoever was driving the car whipped it to the left in a move that made the vehicle seem to careen dangerously to the side before it rocketed away.
“Arse,” Samuel commented, his gaze fixed on the rear view. But his voice was tense. Had he thought the same as me, that someone had found us? The GE coming to arrest us; someone out for retribution for Bancroft Road; a double-cross by Davis? All these fears had flooded my brain and even after the car was long gone I continued to stare back at the empty road for endless moments, waiting for those lights to return and truly engulf us this time. To bring us to account.
They didn’t.
After that we saw very little traffic. Samuel drove for what seemed an eternity. It was late, the clock on the dash said almost four in the morning, but sleep had never been further from my mind, despite the hot air wafting out at me through the vents. My eyes were wide pools, drinking in the unfamiliar roads as we raced down them. When he pulled up in an empty car park, instantly killing the headlights, I stared about me.
I had no idea where we were.
“Is this it?” I whispered. “Are we here?”
Samuel nodded.
“Come on,” he grabbed my hand, pulling me across the seats so that I got out his side. It was awkward: he stood less than a foot from the opening. I was about to ask him to move over a bit, when I realised he was shielding me. I stayed hidden behind his protective bulk, but stood up on my tiptoes, trying to see over his shoulder.
“You made it!” A Scots accent called to us out of the darkness. A second later Danny appeared out of thin air. “How was it?”
Samuel shrugged, his expression hard.
Danny smiled apologetically, as if he realised how it’d sounded.
“I have to tell you, Mr Davis is very pleased. Very pleased indeed. It’s already plastered all over the news. They’re calling it gang warfare. Which, I suppose, it is.” He smirked.
“Where’s the boat?” Samuel asked shortly.
Danny gave him a look which plainly said he didn’t appreciate Samuel’s tone, but he turned and gestured with his hand.
“It’s waiting for you. Direct route to Wales.”
He started to walk and Samuel followed, one hand wrapped firmly around mine.
It was a small tug, bobbing lightly on the surface of the Thames. There was no plank to climb, but the rim swayed just a foot or so from a warped wooden jetty. There was a small wheelhouse where I could see a pair of shadows moving.
“Jump on, Lizzie,” Samuel said.
I did as he asked, lumbering across the space. It was harder than it looked: the constant movement of the boat made it hard to find somewhere to plant my feet.
“Send me a postcard, won’t you?” Danny winked as Samuel joined me. “Let me know how you’re enjoying your new life in Wales.”
There was something off about his comment that I couldn’t place. Samuel didn’t react, though.
“It’ll be fine,” he grunted. “I know what I’m walking into. You’re staying here?”
“Mr Davis wants me to oversee the… er, takeover of some businesses. Make sure our expansion goes as planned. I’ll be seeing you soon, though, I’m sure.”
Bombmaker Page 27
