by Tom Bale
She sprinted down the slope, terrified of what she might find – and only now was she struck by the fact that no one had come from the house to investigate. Did this mean Nerys wasn’t here? That Evie wasn’t here?
To Ruth, Evie’s crying had a worn-down, defeated tone that was truly heartbreaking. To Laird, her misery was nothing but an irritation.
Then his phone rang. Sensing an opportunity, Ruth immediately let her shoulders slump. She leaned back, giving him the impression that she was fearful, retreating.
He glanced at her, then at the display. By now he must have concluded that the crash meant bad news. He would want to take the call.
She listened to it ring a second time, then a third. Rather than look at him directly, she faced outwards, gazing at the house, waiting for the telltale movement in her peripheral vision.
On the fourth ring, Laird gave in and answered it. He set the gun down and snatched the phone. Ruth was lightning fast, her right hand whipping out to grab the gun, bringing it up to aim at him even as she darted out of his range.
With a snarl of rage Laird turned towards her. He dropped the phone and almost dropped Evie, too. As he stood up he tipped the table over and sent a couple of chairs crashing towards Ruth. She stumbled and nearly fell but managed to stay on her feet.
Laird edged towards the doorway, glanced that way and then looked down at the baby, making sure she was covering his chest. Evie had been momentarily silenced by this latest shock; now she began to cry again.
‘Stay there,’ Ruth ordered. But Laird was smiling, seeming relaxed.
‘You won’t shoot me.’
As if to test that proposition, he backed out of the summer house and stepped on to the lawn. Ruth had no choice but to follow, kicking the fallen chairs out of the way without taking her eyes off Laird.
‘A head shot’s easy from this distance. Evie will be bruised from the fall, but that’s a lot better than what you have planned for her.’
He shrugged. ‘I could put her down and you still wouldn’t shoot.’
‘Really?’
‘I meant too much to you, Ruth. I still do.’
She shook her head. ‘I hate you.’
‘No. You hate yourself, and you deflect those feelings on to me. It’s how you cope, knowing you gave your son away just to save your precious career.’
Ruth couldn’t understand why he was goading her. ‘Put the baby down.’
‘No.’
A standoff, in the murky winter dusk.
Evie was crying herself to exhaustion. Taking her in both hands, Laird held her out at chest height, ensuring that his entire upper body was shielded. Ruth could shoot at his legs, but there was no way of knowing how he would react to such an injury. It was too risky, given that he could kill Evie with a single blow.
Even now, even though she had a gun in her hand, he had outwitted her.
The sound of Alice calling his name permeated through the blackness, but it was the pain that brought him back. Harry felt like he’d been dragged into an alley by half a dozen bouncers and given a good kicking. But why?
Alice was struggling to open his door. Finally it yielded with a sound like fingernails on a blackboard. Now Harry realised where he was, but the why still eluded him for a second.
‘What happened?’
‘You bloody nearly killed yourself, you idiot.’ Then she took his cheeks in both hands and kissed him. ‘You beautiful idiot.’
He released the seatbelt and eased himself out, gingerly, every muscle screaming.
‘I knew we couldn’t take them on directly. Not when they have knives, guns …’
Without warning he bent double and was violently sick. Alice stayed close, her hand on his back. He could sense how nervously she was looking around.
‘Where is everyone?’ she murmured. What she meant was: Where is Evie?
The question galvanised Harry, who ignored his reeling head and moved with her to examine the wrecked Mercedes. There was a lot of blood and broken glass, and after a quick look he knew two things: the men inside were either unconscious or dead, and Harry had no desire to find out which it was.
The front door was inaccessible, so they followed a path around the side of the house. The back door was open, but as they reached it Alice put a hand up for silence. Harry still had tinnitus from the crash, but gradually he heard what she was hearing.
It was a baby crying.
Their baby crying.
Eighty
Ruth kept the gun trained on Laird as he moved another couple of paces across the lawn.
‘I want you to put Evie down, very slowly.’
He shook his head. ‘Not gonna happen, Ruth. And I warn you, when my guys see you with that gun, you’ll be dead in an instant.’
‘Shouldn’t they be here by now? Don’t you think that crash we heard means that something’s gone wrong?’
‘You’d like to think so.’
When he glanced to his left it seemed like a classic ploy to distract her. But then Ruth sensed movement, looked quickly and found Harry French, battered and exhausted, hurrying towards them. He was accompanied by an equally weary-looking woman that Ruth assumed must be his wife.
Alice French saw Laird first – or, rather, she saw her daughter in Laird’s arms – and only then did she register that Ruth was facing them. With a gun.
She screamed, tried to run towards Ruth but Harry grabbed her, then had to withstand her frenzied attempts to break free.
Ruth couldn’t afford to lose her focus on Laird. She gestured with the gun.
‘Give up, Nathan. You’re outnumbered.’
He shook his head. Ruth was determined not to be intimidated by this brazen show of confidence. She steadied her aim, all too aware of how terrifying this must be for Harry and Alice; willing them to understand the position she was in.
Alice had run past the house and stopped at the sight of a man and a woman on the lawn. The man was holding Evie at arm’s length, and the woman – Ruth? – was pointing a gun at Evie.
At Evie.
It was a sight that transformed Alice into a wild animal. She wanted to fall upon this woman, gun or no gun, and tear her to pieces.
But Harry restrained her and wouldn’t let go, and for a second or two she lost her senses and despised him for that. It even flashed through her mind that maybe this woman, Ruth, was Harry’s lover; that they were in this together, plotting against her.
‘Give her to me! Put the gun down!’
Laird ignored her. Ruth shook her head. It was left to Harry to explain.
‘Alice, stay calm. He’s the danger. Not Ruth.’
But even now, when he was trying so hard to make her see, wasn’t there an undercurrent of doubt in his voice?
Oh God: Harry didn’t genuinely trust Ruth. He’d merely pretended that he did – and Alice, foolishly, had gone along with it.
Well, not any more. Not with her daughter’s life at stake.
‘I’m calling the police,’ she told them.
I should just shoot him, Ruth was thinking. Evie’s not my daughter; not my problem.
And I’m entitled to retribution, aren’t I, after what I’ve been through?
If it was true that Nathan had done the right thing by Benjamin, why the hell hadn’t he told her years ago? He could have had a quiet word with Greg, or even – God forbid – have consulted her on the decision to let his half-sister adopt. Instead he’d done everything in his power to torment her.
Laird, like the rest of them, heard Alice’s declaration of intent. He didn’t seem unduly concerned by it. Ruth was aware of Harry muttering something to his wife, but she couldn’t make out the words. Her finger was tightening on the trigger, carefully, smoothly. It had been years since she’d used a firearm, and she was no doubt severely out of practice.
Laird stepped towards her. A single step: not threatening, but purposeful.
‘You don’t want this baby to die, Ruth.’
‘So put her dow
n.’
‘Oh, I will. Are you ready?’
‘Nathan …’
Teeth clenched in a snarl, he drew Evie back towards him and lowered her to waist level. Only now did they realise what he was about to do.
‘Okay, Ruth. She’s in your hands.’
And he threw the baby into the air.
Alice was dialling, focused on the phone, when she heard the man speak. His voice was crueller than his appearance suggested. The words were meant only for Ruth, but Alice’s attention was caught by the words ‘baby’ and ‘die’.
By the time he spoke again she was running towards them, her phone bouncing on the grass, Harry half a second behind her, but Alice was already too late.
They were both too late.
Laird threw the baby as high as he could. Evie’s survival was immaterial: all he cared about was getting away.
Only Ruth was close enough to save her. The impulse to do so, it turned out, was far stronger than any desire for revenge. She threw the gun aside and held out both arms in a cradling motion, almost dancing on her toes as she adjusted her position, making frantic calculations with regard to speed and distance and the angle of descent, all in the space of a few heartbeats.
And when those calculations were complete, when Evie had thudded into her hands and been swiftly gathered in, Ruth toppling backwards with the effort of lessening the impact, landing heavily but nonetheless feeling elated that she had caught the baby safely … when this was done, and the danger had passed, she looked round for Laird and he was nowhere to be seen.
Ruth might not have spotted where he went, but Harry did. At that point he was behind Alice, who ran to Ruth and scooped Evie out of her grasp before realising that Harry wasn’t with her.
He was counting on those few seconds to put some distance between them, so that she wouldn’t be able to stop him, or make him see reason.
Laird had headed past the summer house and plunged into the undergrowth on the slopes beyond the garden. It was only when Harry reached the edge of the lawn that he discovered how steeply the land fell away, and how dark it was in the trees.
He heard Alice screaming at him to come back but it was impossible to reconsider now. Knowing that she and Evie were no longer in danger, he was seized by a determination not to let Laird escape. He could just about see his target crashing through the trees, perhaps thirty or forty feet away. Laird was well-dressed, and probably wearing thin-soled shoes, whereas Harry wore trainers: on slippery leaves and mud that gave him a slight advantage.
Harry descended with no regard for his own safety, leaping from one patch of ground to another. As well as the darkness to contend with, there were obstacles everywhere: tree roots and low-hanging branches, puddles that concealed deep furrows; the sudden glassy smoothness of the rock that formed the walls of this gorge.
The rational part of his mind knew this wasn’t a good idea – he should have stayed with Alice and Evie. But Harry was spurred by a white-hot rage, and it would not be tempered by caution or common sense. This man had used Harry’s eight-week-old baby as a human shield. He wasn’t going to get away with that.
Harry had narrowed the gap to about twenty feet when it occurred to him that he was unarmed. If Laird saw there was only one man chasing him, he might decide to stop and fight, especially as the ground had begun to level out a little.
Well, if he did, so be it.
Fortunately Laird seemed too intent on escape to spare any time in looking back. He put on a burst of speed, then disappeared so suddenly that Harry thought he must be going crazy. It was like some kind of visual effect: here, not here.
His legs went on running while his brain tried to make sense of it. Laird had been moving far too fast to duck or hide.
The answer came when Harry struck the same patch of mud and weeds, soaked by the earlier rain, and realised that he couldn’t stop now if he wanted. He tried taking longer strides, but that only increased his speed.
And then he saw why Laird had vanished. This stretch of slightly flatter ground had effectively formed a ledge, about halfway down the side of the gorge. Even from twenty feet back it was impossible to tell that it ended in a sheer drop. Moving with too much momentum to stop, Laird had simply run over the edge. Now Harry was about to do the same.
Eighty-One
He had two steps left on solid ground. Harry used the first to change direction, jumping to his right, towards a sturdy-looking tree that grew at the edge of the drop.
His second, final step took him side on, so that even as his weight propelled him into space, his upper body was able to twist round, facing the slope. Then, as he fell, he threw his arms above his head and scrabbled through the muck and leaves, desperately searching for the very things that moments ago he had been trying to avoid.
Tree roots.
His body slammed against the lip of the overhanging ledge, driving all the air from his lungs. His eyes were tightly shut – because he had no wish to witness his own death – and his legs were dangling in the air, helpless to resist the call of gravity. His fingers snagged something thin and sinuous, a cord or a tendon of a main root. It snapped off but he dragged his fingers more deeply into the earth and this time felt the tangle of thicker roots. The weight of his body tore some from the earth, throwing soil into his face as they stretched tight … and tighter still …
But held.
Gripping them with both hands, he pressed his feet against the rock face, searching out any small crevice. Once he had a foot lodged against solid rock he was able to push himself up a few inches, then lift one knee back on to the grass. Still clinging to the roots, he hauled himself to safety.
Harry lay for a few seconds, shocked and exhausted, almost incredulous that he had survived. A noise from below caused him to stir. He rose to his knees, wiped his face and spat sweet, mineral-rich crumbs of soil from his mouth.
Another groan. Harry leaned over and peered into the darkness. Laird was crumpled against a tree, about sixty feet below him. He’d fallen over a limestone cliff that actually represented only a short section of the gorge. To left and right Harry could see that the slope continued on much the same gradient as before. Laird had been spectacularly unlucky in his choice of route.
Harry made his way along the ridge until he reached a place where he could safely climb down. He kept a cautious eye on Laird as he approached the body. The only movement he saw was one foot, twitching weakly. At close range it became clear that the man was dying. His head was bent at an awkward angle, and there was a massive wound at the back of his skull, pouring blood into the earth.
And yet there was a small reaction as Harry knelt down. Perhaps sensing his presence, Laird managed to open his eyes a fraction. He registered Harry’s gaze and looked vaguely disgusted, as if he’d never thought his end would come so soon, so dismally. Harry felt it would be hypocritical to offer any sort of comfort, so he said nothing.
With difficulty, Laird’s mouth formed a word: ‘R … Ruth.’
‘What about her?’
Laird exhaled, a long juddering breath that had to fight its way out. Somehow, after that, he whispered, ‘Sold him.’
‘What?’
‘Tell her … I sold him.’
His lips twisted into a bitter smile, and he died.
Eighty-Two
Harry heaved himself back up the slope, often having to grab hold of branches to stay on his feet. He forced his aching legs to hurry, knowing how anxious Alice would be; and aware, too, that the danger hadn’t necessarily passed.
He spotted Ruth first, a ghostly shadow in a mass of grey and black, creeping through the trees with the gun in her hand. He called out to her in a tentative voice, half afraid that she would turn and shoot; even more afraid that she would somehow guess what he’d just learned. When she saw him, Harry waved and pointed up towards the house. They converged on the edge of the lawn, and by then there was only time to explain that Laird was dead, before Harry was reunited with his wife and dau
ghter.
For the next couple of minutes Ruth hung back at a respectful distance. Finally she coughed to attract Harry’s attention. He looked at her, reluctantly, the secret like a lead weight in his guts.
‘Alice is insistent on calling the police,’ she said. ‘Do you go along with that?’
‘I think we have to.’
Ruth nodded. ‘In that case, I can’t hang around. You can tell them you tried to keep me here, but I threatened you.’
He was silent for a moment, lost in thought. Snapped out of it, and said, ‘So we are allowed to mention you, then?’
A shrug. ‘I’d love it if you didn’t, but there’s no way I want either of you getting into trouble for this.’
She updated them on what she’d done here, and where the various casualties could be found. She stressed that they should make no mention of firearms until the police were in attendance.
‘Otherwise it’ll be hours before they even enter the premises, and meanwhile you’ll be freezing to death out here.’
Alice had already told her what had happened to Foster and Bridge. Ruth offered to sit in the Range Rover and leave her DNA in the driving seat, so they could claim she was responsible for the collision – otherwise Harry would be open to charges of disproportionate force.
‘Juries are going to cut you a lot of slack, but you could do without all the crap that goes with a prosecution.’
Harry thanked her, but said he would take his chances. ‘If we start lying we’ll just get in more trouble.’
Alice agreed. ‘We’re not going to lie.’
‘Okay,’ Ruth said. ‘Can I recommend you say that in the confusion you hit their car by accident? Apart from that, you and Alice haven’t committed any crimes. You’re the victims here.’
