by Tom Bale
‘All lovely and clean,’ he said, ‘so you can get dressed again.’
Her heart leapt. ‘Now?’
He sucked his teeth, and said, ‘Well, afterwards works better for me.’
Despite the levity, she thought he looked slightly apprehensive. She took that to mean he wasn’t nearly as comfortable with this set-up as he tried to make out. Perhaps she could use that to her advantage.
He sat down on the bed and looked her over. ‘Mum told me you saw Renshaw with something. A memory stick, probably.’
Spotting an opportunity, Alice said, ‘He must have hidden it somewhere close at hand. Why don’t I help you look for it?’
‘Ha. Nice try.’ He shook his head, his gaze crueller than before.
‘Why did you kill him before he gave it to you?’
The question hit a nerve. ‘I didn’t kill him. It was a mistake.’
‘Well, so is this, and I think you know that.’ Alice steeled herself and said, ‘My offer still stands, Michael. Bring Evie back, and I’ll submit to you. I won’t fight.’
He looked offended. ‘What do you mean, “submit”?’
She gave him a withering glance, but said nothing. He got up, planted his feet apart and stood before her.
‘I saw the way you eyed me up this morning, in the kitchen. Why are you scared to admit that you find me attractive?’
‘What?’ His arrogance was astounding. ‘How can you possibly imagine that I’d fancy anyone in a situation like this? You’d have to be … insane.’
‘But you do fancy me. I saw it in your eyes, and I’m never wrong. Besides, it’s a well-known fact that danger makes people horny—’
‘You’ve taken my daughter!’ she yelled at him. ‘Your fucking psycho of a mother is threatening to sell my daughter to a bunch of criminals, and you helped her.’ She took a couple of breaths, lowered her voice. ‘You can still do the right thing. Call her and persuade her to bring Evie back to me. If you don’t, and you try to lay a finger on me, I swear I’ll do everything I can to hurt you. Give me one chance and I’ll have your eyes, your balls, anywhere I can get.’
It must have been a convincing performance, because Michael took an involuntary step back. He studied her, at first disturbed by the outburst, then fascinated, and finally – to her horror – aroused.
He pulled the belt from his jeans. Stepped forward again.
‘I’ll take that chance.’
It took nearly ten minutes for Harry to jog down the lane and reach the end, where he realised that somewhere he had passed Beech House. Wiping rain from his face, he knocked on the door of a square stone bungalow and was given directions by a woman who peered at him as if he were potentially an axe murderer.
Beech House was about a hundred yards back. The gates were standing open and the driveway was empty. All the windows were shut. No sign of life. Harry wondered if the police had followed up on Ruth’s phone call: if so, presumably they’d found nothing untoward.
He crossed the drive, intending to knock on the front door, but at the last moment he veered away, making for the far corner of the house. Some instinct told him it was better not to announce his presence just yet.
The back garden was fenced off, with a gate blocking the path along the side of the property. Both fence and gate were a good six feet high. The gate, predictably, was locked.
Harry jumped up, grabbed the fence with both hands and scrabbled, feet slippery from the rain, and managed in an ungainly way to haul himself up. A pause to check there was no one watching, then he dropped down on the other side, just a few feet from the back door. The glass panels revealed an attractive farmhouse kitchen, complete with a large oak table. There was a set of overalls crumpled on the floor, and a mop leaning against the worktop.
Harry felt his heart rate increase. He tried the door but it was locked. And it was sturdy: not something he could force without tools.
Agonising over what he should do next, he wandered into the back garden and then stopped, abruptly, as he realised that a sound had come from deep within the house.
A scream.
A woman’s voice.
Sixty-Eight
First, he used his belt to lash her across the face. The pain was intense, but Alice was too shocked to react. The skin on her cheeks was numbed by the impact of the leather, but she felt a trickle of blood from her nose.
Michael looked almost as shocked as she did, as if he hadn’t quite believed he had it in him to act like this. But she’d goaded him into it, hadn’t she, and now he had called her bluff.
Alice was still reeling when he untied the cord from the radiator bracket, wrestled her face down on the carpet and tore the gown away from her. He tied her wrists again, behind her back, then lifted her under her arms and dragged her, naked, on to the bed. She let out a long, piercing scream – she knew the house was too remote for it to be of help, but thought it might at least unsettle him, bring him to his senses.
‘You don’t want to do this, Michael.’
‘Save it.’
‘Listen to me, please—’
‘I deserve this!’ he shouted. ‘All the shit I’ve been through today, this is my reward.’
He moved to the foot of the bed and took hold of her feet, stroking them gently for a second or two before gripping them firmly and forcing her legs apart.
From downstairs came a loud crash: the sound of shattering glass, followed by a heavy impact. Michael jerked upright, glaring at Alice as if she could explain it. She met his gaze, wanting to gloat that his plans had been disrupted, but in truth she was no less afraid.
That fear was just as evident in Michael. As he turned away she caught him murmuring a single word.
‘Fuck.’
Harry found a stone birdbath on a plinth in the middle of the lawn. It must have weighed about seventy pounds. Holding it in both hands, he staggered back to the house and somehow found the strength to hurl it through a set of timber-framed doors. None of the subtlety with which Laird’s men had gained entry to his own house the other night.
He ran into the house and immediately heard movement upstairs. A door slammed, a man’s voice snarled something Harry couldn’t make out.
He reached the bottom of the stairs as a man appeared on the landing – he was in his late thirties, tall, dark-haired – and stared at Harry in confusion.
‘Who are you? Get the fuck out of my house.’
He descended a couple of stairs, then stopped. Harry climbed up one step, mirroring the other man’s aggressive posture.
‘I’m looking for my wife—’
‘I told you to get the fuck out of here,’ the other man shouted over him. ‘I’ll call the police!’
‘Alice French,’ Harry growled. ‘Where is she?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ He dug in his pocket, showed Harry a mobile phone. The ploy might have worked, if not for a tiny wavering doubt in the man’s eyes.
‘I heard a scream,’ Harry said, then he shouted: ‘Alice? Are you here?’
The response was a muffled cry: ‘Harry!’
Michael saw how the husband reacted to Alice’s voice and tried to gauge what sort of an opponent Harry would make. In terms of their age and build, there wasn’t a lot in it. Michael had a tactical advantage, standing above his adversary, but that was squandered when Harry was first to move, springing up the stairs with frightening agility. In a panic, Michael hurled the phone at him. It struck Harry squarely in the chest. He grunted but didn’t slow down.
Michael turned and bolted along the landing. He wasn’t a natural fighter, and guessed Harry probably wasn’t either. What he needed was a weapon to tilt the playing field in his favour.
As he passed the spare bedroom there was a thump against the door, and Alice cried out her husband’s name. Michael skidded to a halt, torn between finding scissors that he hoped might be in the bathroom cabinet, and preventing Harry from releasing Alice: two against one, he could do without.
Harry
had seen his opportunity and made for the bedroom, forcing Michael to abandon his quest and run back along the landing. He took Harry by surprise, thudding into him before he could turn the key. Harry stumbled into a bookcase, trying to shove Michael away, and the two men fell to the floor in a tangle of limbs, punching and clawing, knees and feet working to gain traction on the carpet.
All Michael could think about was a weapon. He managed to land a few blows to Harry’s face and then break free, throwing himself forward, towards the stairs. He crawled a couple of feet before Harry landed on him, the impact forcing the air from his lungs. Harry grabbed at his hair, his neck. In a fury, Michael opened his mouth and clamped down on Harry’s fingers, catching two of them between his teeth and biting hard enough to draw blood.
Harry gave a cry of pain. In response Alice started shrieking, kicking and battering at the door. Michael spat blood from his mouth as he rolled and kicked his way along the landing. Reaching the top of the stairs, he was able to drag himself forward, but Harry wouldn’t let go, clutching at his shirt, now on top of him again, ignoring every kick, every blow, trying to wrestle him into submission.
With one last great effort, Michael got up on his knees and lurched forward, Harry now clinging to him like some hideous parasite. He must have realised what was going to happen – but the same could have been said for Michael.
For just a fraction of a second both men were stationary, perfectly balanced on the lip of the stairs, and then in an ungainly tangle they slithered and bumped and rolled down the stairs, taking out some of the spindles in the process and landing in a heap at the bottom.
Harry knew you could die from a fall down the stairs. He also understood that this man wanted him dead.
As he fell he could still hear Alice calling his name, and he clung to the sense of joy and relief that she was alive. It helped slightly to lessen the pain from practically every muscle, every limb, and the intense throbbing from the bite wound on his fingers.
The blood on his hand hampered his ability to grab hold of anything that could slow his descent. Maybe that was the reason Harry came off worse, or maybe it was just bad luck. But on the third step from the bottom his body slid almost sideways, his head struck the newel post and he blacked out.
At first Michael didn’t realise what had happened. He was lying with half his body beneath Harry. He too was dazed and in pain: raw agony in the case of his right ankle. But that was forgotten when he wriggled an inch or two and saw that Harry remained motionless.
Michael eased his body free and managed to right himself. His head spun as he climbed to his feet; another bolt of white-hot pain when he set his right foot down. Barely able to put any pressure on that leg, he hobbled towards the kitchen, glancing back when he heard Harry let out a weak groan.
Still alive, then. But in no state to offer resistance.
A new sound penetrated Michael’s consciousness as he reached the kitchen, but it wasn’t one he could comprehend right now. The survival instinct took precedence, and Harry fucking French was the one major threat to that survival.
The kitchen offered units and a table to help bear his weight. He reached the cutlery drawer, picked up a knife with a wide serrated blade and staggered back as fast as his busted ankle would allow.
In his mind it all slotted easily into place: kill this intruder, stash the body in the garage for Nerys to deal with later. Then some thoroughly-deserved R&R with Alice.
All perfectly straightforward. Just forget the sound that didn’t fit in. Forget the fact that when he returned to the hall, Harry was on his hands and knees, coughing and retching. Another second or two and the fucker would be back in the fight.
For a moment Harry didn’t know where he was or why he hurt so badly. All he knew was that something terrible had happened – was happening – and that he needed to be alert and capable of defending himself.
Easier said than done. A wave of nausea assaulted him as he tried to get up. The temptation to collapse back to the floor was overwhelming; how wonderful if he could just close his eyes and lie still …
Then he heard harsh breathing; glanced up and saw the man who’d attacked him, limping badly but coming in fast, a knife in his hand.
Harry couldn’t move far but he managed to straighten up, raising an arm to protect his face and leaning back to avoid the path of the blade. Still the knife caught him on the forearm and he felt it go deep. Having lunged while off-balance, his attacker stumbled and Harry saw his chance. His other hand whipped out and caught the man’s wrist, squeezing and twisting until the knife fell from his grasp. Then he drove his right fist into the man’s groin, dimly aware of blood pulsing from the slash wound on his arm.
He was on his feet, raining several more blows and forcing his opponent to retreat. The man’s ankle gave way and he fell, Harry going with him, sitting on his chest and pinning him to the floor. The knife was only a few inches away and he scooped it up. Someone knocked on the front door but Harry didn’t pause, raising the knife in his right hand. This was kill or be killed, and that was what he had to do—
More thumping on the front door. A woman’s voice called out: ‘Nerys? Michael?’ The letterbox clattered open, tiny hands reaching inside, and a child shouted: ‘Nanny! It’s us!’
Harry froze, the knife poised over the man’s chest, blood dripping from his elbow. This man was Michael, he realised. And outside was Michael’s wife, his daughter.
He looked down at the stricken face and knew he couldn’t go through with it. No matter how ferocious his rage. No matter what Michael had done to Alice or Evie.
He couldn’t take a man’s life when his family were just a few yards away.
Michael didn’t move as Harry lifted himself up and crossed the hall. He was aware that he’d had a lucky escape, but didn’t fully understand what had happened. The intensity of the fight had caused a kind of static in his brain: only now were his senses returning to normal.
He could hear the girls calling for their grandmother. Harry reached the door, the knife in his hand. Michael felt a jolt of alarm until he saw Harry pause, then hide the knife on top of the coat rack. He opened the door and stepped back, turning away as if concerned that the sight of him was going to be a shock.
And it was. Robyn gaped at Harry for a second, then spotted Michael on the floor. By then Betty had bowled inside, failing to register that the door had been opened by a stranger. She skidded to a halt when she took in the state of her dad, and the blood splashed everywhere. Upstairs, Alice was shouting and kicking the door.
‘Betty!’ Robyn had gone white, tottering on the step with Junior in her arms.
Harry retreated from her, palms up. It might have been a calming gesture, if not for the blood streaming down his arm.
‘Daddy?’ Standing beside her mother, Chloe was equally pale. The shock caused her to let go of the tureen in her hands. It crashed to the ground in an explosion of porcelain and a cascade of vegetable soup. As Michael struggled to his knees and reached out for Betty’s hand, her pretty five-year-old face crumpled with sorrow and she threw herself into his embrace. He held her tight, as any father would, but he knew that this was the moment he had lost them all.
Sixty-Nine
Nerys felt aggrieved with the whole world, her mood so bleak that even the pleasure of driving her son’s new Range Rover did little to alleviate it.
Why was it that no matter how clever or devious you were, no matter how well prepared, things only ever went about ninety per cent right? She’d been around long enough to know this, of course, but that didn’t make it any easier to bear. Because here and now, that ten per cent bad luck had the potential to ruin everything.
Whenever the traffic allowed, she pushed the Range Rover up to sixty or seventy on the A40, as fast as she dared without attracting attention. In a dim corner of her mind lurked the possibility that another motorist would carelessly turn across her path and take Nerys’s fate out of her hands. But she wasn’t by nature a negati
ve woman, so she kept such thoughts at bay and took extra care to anticipate the actions of other drivers.
She passed beneath the last echoes of the rain storm and the sky began to clear, the clouds separating as if clawed apart by invisible hands. West of Gloucester the landscape changed, became greener, wilder; most of all, steeper. Cresting one summit, a glimpse of gorgeous peachy light made her sigh. It was going to be one of those drab, miserable days that ended with a glorious sunset – turning nice when it was too late to enjoy it – and that just about summed up Nerys’s luck at the moment. Even the weather was taking the piss.
She was at Symonds Yat by three fifteen. The holiday home had been in her ex-husband’s family for years, so she had a few memories of summer weekends she’d spent there when Michael was a child. A couple of those memories were happy ones, but most were not.
To reach the property she had to negotiate a number of narrow roads on the southern bank of the river, and inevitably she became snarled up in traffic, backed up behind some stupid out-of-season caravan. The lack of motion disturbed Evie, who until then had been sound asleep in little Mikey’s car seat. Nerys sang lullabies to her, and soon she was sleeping again.
The final approach took her up a steep winding road for nearly a mile, close to the Symonds Yat rock. The house sat on an acre of land, most of it covered in trees, but the front garden had been cleared to allow magnificent views of the meandering river valley.
Nerys pulled up at the gates and at first couldn’t find the manual release. They were supposed to operate electrically, but Michael hadn’t got the keyfob on him. Another bad omen, if you wanted to be swayed by such things. Nerys told herself she wouldn’t.
Finally the gate was open. After driving through, she decided to close it behind her. She wanted her visitors coming in as slowly as possible, giving her time to assess what kind of a threat they posed.
