by Kate Johnson
Of course. The needle had been meant for me, but Amber—or Lucy, whoever—had got Laurence by mistake. In total darkness it’s easy to blindly get the wrong person. So they’d tried to get me with the same needle, but there was nothing in the syringe. Or if there was, none of it went in because the needle broke.
“How did you know I was here?” I asked.
“Amber. She was teasing Marc about coming here because he liked you.” Flattering, but not the time. “She talked him into letting her come. I didn’t know why, but I just talked to Lucy and she said she was worried Amber was going to do something stupid and I knew…”
Get this girl a badge and sign her up. We need her.
My heart was starting to pump faster now. I forced myself to stand up, holding the wall for help.
“Okay, Clara, what time is it?”
She sniffed and peered at her watch. My eyesight didn’t seem up to looking at mine.
“About eight,” she said.
Oh fuck. I’d been here for hours.
“Right. Okay. Have you seen Marc or Amber or Lucy since you got here?”
She shook her head. “I think they left. They kept talking about this place in New York…”
I stared. “They’ve gone to New York?”
“I don’t know.” Another sniff. “Maybe. Sophie, why do they want to kill you?”
Because they know who I am, I thought. They saw the bruise and the graze and they know from Maretti and Doyle what happened. They knew I’d be here, because I was everywhere Marc went. Dammit! Why couldn’t I have been more subtle?
“Okay.” I pressed my knuckles into my eyes to try and clear my vision, which still wasn’t twenty-twenty. I felt like I’d got a really bad vodka hangover, the worst kind where you’re still drunk as well as in pain. “Okay. Do you have a car?”
She nodded.
“Give me the keys.”
She looked uncertain. “Why? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to go after Marc and Amber and Lucy.”
“But—they’ll kill you!”
Not if I kill them first, I thought grimly.
“I’ll be okay,” I said, and started looking around for my bag. Christ, my head hurt. She must have hit me damn hard with that spanner.
I located my bag on the edge of the dock, slowly letting its contents slip into the water. I picked it up carefully and checked through. Makeup, check. Wallet, check. Nokia phone…car keys…
Shit.
“Do you have a phone?” I asked Clara, and she nodded and dug in her back pocket for a little Motorola. “Is it prepaid?”
“Contract.”
Excellent.
“I’m going to need to borrow this too,” I said. She looked reluctant, so I dug in my bag and fished out my wallet. I showed her my military ID, and her eyes widened.
“Special agent?”
I nodded, my head thudding gently with every movement. “I’m not seventeen at all.”
“How old are you?”
“Don't be rude.” I tried to think. I needed to find out if the terrible three were on their way to New York or not. And then I needed to follow them. God, if only Luke was here to drive me—
“Oh, Christ,” I said, remembering, and nearly slid down the wall again.
“What?”
“Luke. He’s—” Tears formed behind my eyes, but I made them stop, made myself think and act.
“I need you to go to the house and find a phone and call emergency services. My—” I couldn’t say it, “—partner is—he’s hurt.” The words just wouldn’t come. “In a boat down river. You need to find him. Luke, remember, from the bowling alley?”
“I remember. Is—is it bad?” Clara asked, and looked like a frightened rabbit.
“It couldn’t be any worse.”
I found her car, a rickety Nova, flung at a haphazard angle on the gravel outside the house, looking so at odds that the valet parkers were starting to look uncomfortable.
“Hey,” one of them said, spying me. “You can’t leave that here—”
“That’s okay,” I yanked the door open. “I’m just leaving. Tell Great Aunt Tilda she’s a cow.”
I drove off rather slowly, foot to the floor, begging the car for more power. If I was right, Great Aunt Tilda’s family pile was only about twenty miles from Heathrow. As I drove I called Karen and got her to find out if Marc and the girls had taken a flight to America. They had, two hours ago.
I didn’t mention Luke. I couldn’t, yet.
She booked me on the next flight, and I left the Nova, shuddering and panting, in the car park while I stumbled down to the terminal and checked myself in.
The security personnel took one look at me and conducted a full body search, but apart from a lot of bandages they found nothing at all. I flopped down by the gate and took some more of my pills—thank fuck they hadn’t fallen out of the bag—and waited to board.
I slept through most of the flight, rather frightening the young businessman next to me who took one look at my clothes and messed-up makeup and wild bruises, and obviously assumed I was a junkie whore. When we arrived, I bought a whole load of currency with the company credit card and got the SuperShuttle to take me to the Hotel Philadelphia. It was well after midnight, local time, but I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.
I fell down on one of the seats in reception and hauled out Clara’s phone. It searched frantically for signal and found none. Not triband, then.
Bugger.
I hauled ass over to a payphone, ignoring the open stares of the night staff, and dialled my own house number, remembering that Docherty had been about to tell me something, and hoping with every fibre in my being that he’d called my house and left the message there. I hadn’t really been in a position to check yesterday.
“You have two new messages. Message one: Soph, it’s me. Look, I can’t find you anywhere so I’m guessing you must have come home. We really need to talk about this. I—I don’t know what to say, except that it’s stupid. Please will you call me. I’m coming over when I get home.”
Tears filled my eyes and spilled down my cheeks as Luke’s warm voice filled my ear. He was gone. He’d tried to save me and now he was gone, and all I had was one hurt, confused phone message.
I was in such an advanced state of misery I almost didn’t hear the next message.
“Sophie? I’ve been trying your damn mobile all day but I can’t get through. Focking Yank networks.”
I stood up straighter. Docherty was in America?
“I came over to check out Xander’s apartment and one of the neighbours said some kids had been coming round here a lot. A boy and three girls. I think they might be your school posse. Anyway there’s a possibility they might be coming back over. I’ll try the airlines and see what they have to say. Anyway call me if you can, I’ve got a temporary number…”
I didn’t need to check the airlines. I already knew where they were.
I slammed the receiver down, collected my quarters, then stared feeding them back in again.
“Docherty? Thank God I got you. I’m in New York. The kids are here.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m waiting for them at Xander’s apartment.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
The subway, I’m told, is not place for a nice girl after midnight. But tonight I was not a nice girl. Tonight I was bleeding and shaking and numb with every kind of pain, and if anyone came anywhere near me they vanished when they saw my face. So I looked like a hooker junkie. So what.
Walking through the meatpacking district after dark was educational, but I wasn’t in the mood to learn. As I approached Xander’s apartment, a shadow detached itself from the darkness and held something out to me. It glinted. A gun.
“Glad you could make it,” Docherty said, smiling in the darkness.
“Wouldn’t be a party without me.”
“You look like hell.”
“Been there and back. It’s fucking freez
ing out here.”
“You want my coat?”
I shook my head. “I want to go inside. I’d rather wait for them.”
“The door’s been padlocked…”
I gave him a look of contempt and checked out the gun. It was one of his matching Heckler Koch .45s.
It made very short work of the padlock.
No one seemed to bat an eyelid at the sound of a gunshot. The pair of transvestite hookers on the corner made loud dirty jokes about bangs and I ignored them, kicking the door open, shooting off the inner lock, and stalking inside.
“You really do look like hell,” Docherty said helpfully as I looked around the place.
“Thanks.”
“Want to tell me why?”
I closed my eyes and an image of Luke sliding down the concrete wall made me catch my breath.
“No.”
Docherty came up behind me and laid his hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Not by a long shot.
“I’m fine.”
“Why are you here?”
I took a deep breath and turned to face him. I told him about Clara, and about my attacker, and how I was pretty sure it’d been Amber.
“And Luke didn’t come with you?”
My insides twisted. “No,” I said, trying not to let him see my face in the darkness. “We, uh, we broke up.”
“Again?” Docherty sounded faintly despairing, and at that I smiled.
“Yeah. Again.”
“Won’t last,” he said sadly.
Wanna bet?
But we were prevented from any further discussions by the sound of voices outside. I ducked down behind the sofa and Docherty slipped behind the curtain pulled between bedroom and studio.
“Shit,” that was Marc’s voice, “the lock’s been broken…”
“Probably just vandals,” came Amber’s voice. “Can we get inside? I’m freezing. Unless you want to warm me up out here…”
She sounded drunk. Or stoned. Or both. I wondered if the heroin had been a one-time deal or if she was used to it. I wondered if Marc was. I wondered when the hell they’d open the sodding door.
It felt like hours, during which the most revolting smoochy noises and little girlie moans came from the other side of the door, but eventually it opened, and Amber and Marc fell in, her hand slamming the light switch as she went.
I fired my gun, a split second after Docherty fired his. Neither missed, but unfortunately both had been aimed at Marc.
“Shit,” I hissed, as Amber froze in horror. I swung my gun at her, but I’m a dreadful shot, and if it hadn’t been for Docherty smacking a bullet into her thigh, she’d have got away.
She crumbled to the floor, falling bit by bit, clumsy and messy and clutching at her thigh, her mascara stark and black against her white face.
“Where’s Lucy?” I demanded, and she looked up at me in shock. “Where. Is. Lucy?”
“I don’t know,” Amber said, clearly terrified. “She—she went off on her own. She said she wanted to see the Brooklyn Bridge…”
“Shit, she’s going to jump,” Docherty said, and I knew he was right.
“Go,” I said. “I can handle this.”
“Sure?”
I looked at Marc, sprawled facedown, bleeding from the leg and shoulder, and Amber, sitting rocking on the floor, holding her leg and crying, and knew they were only kids.
And felt really old.
“Sure. Go. You know what she looks like?”
He nodded. “I’ll call you on this number.”
And then he was gone, and it was me and the murder twins alone together.
“Mind the blood on the floor,” I said. “Probably won’t bother Marc, seeing as it’s his father’s, but you don’t want to mix blood, do you, Amber? You can get all kinds of nasty things.”
She was shaking, looking up at me with mascara stained eyes.
“Are you going to kill me?”
“You killed Luke,” I snapped, “so it’s all you deserve.”
Amber cowered.
Yes, I’d known it was her. The balaclava had been a nice touch, but she’d forgotten to take off her amber eyeshadow and mountains of mascara. Bizarrely, I remembered a school play where a couple of girls had painted over their orangey stage makeup with their own foundation because they were too vain to walk around looking like Oompa Loompas, and consequently looked like ghosts under the stage lights. Teenage vanity.
“But I’m trying to be professional,” I continued, my voice as steady as I could make it, which was to say not very. “So I’m going to get a confession out of you. And then I’m going to kill you.”
I still had the gun aimed at her. If the cartridge was full, and knowing Docherty it would be, then I had eleven more shots. Plenty to keep me going.
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” she said. “I don’t know my own strength…”
“Right,” I said, “the rugby training. Thought you’d have gone for someone a bit beefier than Marc. Although it explains how you managed to haul Doyle and Maretti’s bodies around. Did you kill them because they knew?”
A pause, then she nodded tearfully.
I needed to start at the top. I probably didn’t have too much time before Marc bled to death. “Who killed Shapiro? Who killed Marc’s father?”
Amber took a few very pretty heaving breaths. “He did,” she said.
“Who?”
“Marc. He didn’t mean to.”
“How can you not mean to slit someone’s throat? Or shoot him?”
“He came over here to see his dad. He was buying this hideous portrait from some gay kid who lives here. Lived here,” she amended. “But he was hardly ever here. He was always out at bars and stuff. And Marc’s dad kept coming over to see him. I think he fancied him, the kid.”
Jeez. No wonder Xander wanted to get his money and get out.
“When did Marc kill his father?”
Amber sniffed. Her mascara was making trails down her face. “I don’t know. A week—two weeks ago? He’d just brought the portrait home and he and Marc had this big fight and Marc stabbed him in the neck with the knife from room service dinner. He didn’t mean to.”
Yeah, ‘cos I so often accidentally stab my family in the throat over dinner.
“At the hotel?”
“We hid him there for a couple days.” Already inflecting Americanisms. “I went out and got a really big suitcase and wheeled him out and we tried to think of somewhere to put him.”
“And this sofa was your best choice?”
“Marc was still mad at the painter guy. He said we should bring his dad over here.”
I nodded. Twisted, but in a scary way it made sense.
“So what about the bullet?”
“That was so people would think it was the painter.”
“His name is Xander,” I snapped.
“Yeah, you were friends with him. Doyle said so.”
“When did you meet him?”
She laughed suddenly. “God, it was so stupid. They found out about Mr. Shapiro, so they came here to move him, and they knew it was us… That’s why they came to England.”
“And why you killed them?”
She nodded. “They thought you and that Xander guy were in on it too.” Her face lit up with a sort of sly innocence. “We saved you guys from them.”
“No, you didn’t. You knew about them hitting me with the car.”
“Okay, all right.” Amber pouted. “So we figured that out.”
“Did you do it? Kill them?”
She hesitated. “Marc and Lucy helped.”
No wonder Lucy wanted to top herself.
“Who put Maretti outside my door?”
“That was Lucy. But it was my idea,” she said proudly. Stupidly.
“Well done. But I’m not so easily scared, Amber, it’s not the first time I’ve come home to a corpse.”
She looked exasperated. “Look, who are you?”
“I’m doing
the questions,” I snapped.
“You’re not a sixth-former.”
“No, I’m not,” I agreed.
“You or your boyfriend. Did you have to follow us everywhere?” she whined, petulantly, and I decided I really didn’t like Amber. Sometimes I respected criminals a bit. The first time I even quite liked the girl.
But I still shot her.
I ran through my head any other business I had with her. Oh yeah.
“Laurence,” I said.
Amber shifted her leg, which was bleeding copiously all over her skirt. “I thought he was you,” she admitted.
“There’s not much difference.”
“It was dark, okay, I had a bloody scarf over my head. A person is a person.”
Well, yes. In some respects. “Why did you try to kill me?”
“Because you knew.”
Not really. But I wasn’t going to tell her that.
“You were always there. You were up to something, always asking all those questions. And driving that car, God, what are you, a farmer?”
I narrowed my eyes at her for that, and she looked away. Her eyes fell on Marc’s body.
“Did you have to kill him?” she asked, sounding more like her age.
“Check his pulse.”
I followed her movement with the gun, my arms aching horribly. She held his wrist with a bloody hand, and then she looked up at me in amazement. “He’s still alive!”
“Oh, well, never mind. Be careful about mixing blood,” I told her again. “Or do you already know about that?”
She looked away. “It’s dangerous.”
“Do you always use clean needles?”
“Yes,” she said defiantly, and I breathed an internal sigh of relief. “Usually.”
My finger nearly squeezed the trigger. “Usually? Was my needle clean?”
“It was supposed to be killing you, I didn’t—”
“Do you realise you could have given me anything?” I yelled. “I could have hepatitis or fucking AIDS and it’s all your fault.” I felt like one of those Victorian rape victims who is punished for what happened to her.
And just like that, I understood Tess of the d’Urbervilles.
“I’m sorry,” Amber was sobbing. “I’m so sorry. This is all a horrible mistake. It’s all horrible…”
