Ariadne's Thread

by Marie Treanor

  As if that startled him, his gaze actually flickered toward her. Which was when Jim decided to be a hero and threw himself at the shotgun. John Maxwell wrenched it free, but by then Malky was joining in, fists flailing. The three men wrestled and rolled and punched. Through it all, Johnny kept hold of the gun.

  Ice closed around Addie’s heart and squeezed, paralyzing her. The fatal shot was inevitable now… Dragging her attention from the writhing, struggling bodies, she stared at Shug’s handgun. She had no idea how it worked. But if she picked it up and yelled at them to stop—would they? She had to do something. If only she wasn’t the one who ended up shooting someone by accident.

  She took a step toward the gun—just as Shug, with a mighty roar of agony and effort, threw himself past her and landed on top of it.

  Oh, bloody, bloody hell! Now the psycho will have two guns!

  Panting furiously, Shug stretched out on his stomach and pushed his gun into the nearest flesh, which happened to be Malky’s denim clad backside.

  Malky went suddenly very still. “That you Shug?” he shouted.

  “Aye!”

  “Well get that out of my arse!” With a grunt and a heave, he rolled everyone over, and Johnny, still clutching the shotgun over his head, was made aware of Shug pointing the pistol straight at him.

  “That’s right,” Shug encouraged, “let it go.”

  Reluctantly, Johnny let it go.

  Jim held on to it now. There was an untangling of limbs, a process which granted Addie a tantalizing glimpse of John Maxwell’s powerful thighs. For some reason, it made her even more miserable. When it was complete, Jim stood behind him with the shotgun, breaking it as if he’d been handling firearms all his life. Malky got to his feet, shaking his head like a large, shaggy dog, while Johnny sat up cautiously. Fortunately, perhaps, they’d all been too concerned with getting and keeping their hands on the gun to have done each other much real damage.

  Shug regarded his captive with dislike. “Malky, thump him.”

  “What the hell for?” Addie said furiously. “Two guns and three men not enough for you to hold him with?”

  “Addie, why don’t you just shut the fuck up?”

  Addie barely heard him because John Maxwell’s eyes were on her now, sneering, his lip curled with sheer contempt.

  “Addie?” he repeated. “What’s that short for? Adder?”

  Addie dragged her gaze free. With the help of Big Malky, Shug was attempting to stand. “Come on,” she said urgently. “Let’s get out of here. Shut him in…”

  Shug stared at her. “What, like you shut the lassie in the office? That really worked!”

  “Gave you fifteen minutes, didn’t it?” Addie demanded.

  “Aye, well, in this state, how far do you think I’m going to get in fifteen minutes? Even supposing this bastard sits still that long. Jim says the car’s buggered again anyway.”

  “Well, you should have stolen one that worked,” Addie snapped. “In fact, there are several decent cars parked out there—nick one of them!”

  Jim and Malky brightened perceptibly. Even Shug looked undecided.

  “Save walking all the way down that drive again,” Addie coaxed. “Get us to Loch Foy in no time—and there’s a hotel there…”

  John Maxwell sneered. “And everyone within a ten mile radius will recognize it, whatever car you take.”

  “Will you shut up?” said Addie furiously. Didn’t the eejit understand the alternatives?

  “Sound advice, by the way,” Shug agreed, waving the gun meaningfully at his captive. “Mind you, he’s right. He’ll have to take us back into the house instead. We’ll spend the night there, and he can get us better transport in the morning.”

  “Shug, that’s the crappiest idea of all the crap ideas you’ve ever had! You cannot take an entire family and Christ knows how many house guests hostage!”

  “That what you think, Addie,” sneered Shug.

  “That’s what I know, Shug.”

  “Who brought the bloody woman?” Shug wondered. “All right, pal, on your feet and start walking. You’re going home with some new friends.”

  Johnny stood slowly, his gaze flitting from Addie to Shug and Malky then back to Shug. Apart from the tension in his shoulders, he looked no more fazed than if he’d discovered a gatecrasher at his party.

  His lips parted. “No.”

  Shug blinked rapidly. “What?”

  “I said, no. There is no way I’m letting you in the house to threaten my family again.”

  Just for an instant, the flat certainty of his voice seemed to throw the others. But Shug recovered quickly. “That right, pal? You seem to be forgetting, I’m the one with the gun.”

  Johnny’s gaze didn’t waver. “So shoot me.”

  “You think I won’t?” Shug sneered. “I don’t need to kill you, you know. I can shoot you in the arm—blow your hands off. Or your kneecaps. Or your—sporran!” Shug grinned viciously.

  “I know, I know, and you’d enjoy doing it—I get that bit. I’m sure I’ll scream horribly and beg for mercy. But I still won’t let my family be subjected to you wankers and your strident trollop.”

  This time, nobody told Malky. He thumped him.

  Chapter Five

  Liz Conway looked appalled. “They stole his concerto? But that was to be his big comeback piece!”

  “It still can be,” Tammy said impatiently. The woman annoyed her. Neither the robbery nor the concerto were any of her business. They were all in the sitting room now—Tammy, her mother and uncle and great-grandmother, with Gavin and Liz. Together with the ceilidh band, the last of the first-footers had departed—or at least, they thought they had. But no one was remotely sleepy, apart from Uncle Herbert, of course, who was snoring it off in the fireside arm chair. “It’s probably recorded somewhere, and anyway, he carries it all in his head if he can be bothered to remember it.”

  “If he can be bothered…!” Liz exclaimed.

  Tammy laughed. Beside her, Gavin smiled and urged her to sit on the sofa, his arm still around her shoulder.

  Gavin explained, “He moves on to the next thing, whatever’s in his head at the time, loses interest in what’s gone before. It’s why the public never got to hear his compositions before. But as Tammy says, his concerto isn’t irrecoverable. It’s Christopher Maxwell’s manuscripts that are the real loss.”

  “Surely the insurance will more than cover their value?” Liz asked.

  “What insurance would that be?” Tammy enquired. Liz blinked at her. Stupid cow probably thought Johnny was wealthy and eccentric, instead of penniless and insane.

  Liz stared at her. “Nothing in this house is insured? Not even that magnificent piano?”

  “Not even the house itself. What you see is what you get here. All you get.”

  At that, Helen, Tammy’s mother, paused in her interminable flitting around the room. “Get—the house?” she repeated with a rare trace of alarm. “Who’s getting the house? I couldn’t live anywhere else now, you know. Marcus wouldn’t like it.”

  “Of course you won’t have to live anywhere else,” Tammy soothed. “Frankly, there’s nowhere else for us to go.”

  Gran snorted. “Well, if you’d try to get a bit more out of your faithless husband when you divorce him, maybe that wouldn’t be true. At least for you.”

  “I wouldn’t take a thing from that bastard,” Tammy muttered. “He’s a cheating, conniving ratfink.”

  Liz regarded her with pity. “Darling, that’s all the more reason to take him for every penny.”

  “And you’ve got me now,” Gavin said softly, squeezing her shoulder. It was good to hear and she’d have given it more attention had not the front door slammed as he spoke. Relief flooded her. Johnny was back. The whole night was about to be relegated to just another family nightmare to be forgotten as quickly as possible.

  “I had a silver penny once,” Helen said vaguely. Uncle Herbert woke with a snort and patted her hand.


  “’Course you did, my dear.” He closed his eyes again.

  The sitting room door opened and Tammy’s worst nightmare came rushing back. The Psycho-Weasel limped in, white faced and clearly pissed off, his arm around the shoulder of Jimmy the Lamb. Both of them wielded guns. Worse, the Lamb’s was her father’s shotgun. And worse than anything was that behind them came a big bruiser of a man carrying Johnny’s lifeless body over his massive shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

  For an instant the shock paralyzed her. The silence in the room seemed to throb. And then, without conscious volition, she hurled herself out of the sofa, throwing off Gavin’s restraining arm to launch herself at the one she knew instantly had killed her brother.

  “Bastard!” she roared. “You killed him! You killed him!”

  Her flailing fists never even touched the Weasel. Suddenly that girl was in her way, the one with red silk top, only now it was a black, shapeless wooly sweater. Tammy’s wrists were caught and held in a vise-like grip, and the girl was saying grimly, “Shut up, you fool, he’s not dead.”

  Tammy shut her mouth, swallowing with the effort. The girl’s face swam before her eyes. She looked furious, though with whom wasn’t clear.

  “He’s not dead,” she repeated. “Malky thumped him, but he’ll wake up with nothing worse than a bruised jaw. Sit down. And don’t wind him up.”

  “Don’t wind who up?” Helen asked. “Is Johnny asleep?”

  “Aye, hen, he’s asleep,” Malky grunted, shoving past to the sofa. “Shunt,” he added laconically to Gavin who sprang out of the way so that Malky could dump his load on the faded cushions.

  “What’s going on?” Gavin blustered. Tammy didn’t altogether blame him. “Who are you people?”

  “They’re our robbers,” Tammy said, dragging her gaze away from Johnny and back to the girl. “Come back for more?”

  “Well, since there’s obviously a bond between us now, we’ve come to stay the night.” Pushing past Tammy, she actually knelt by the sofa and ran her fingers over Johnny’s jaw. Even more curiously, in spite of her brash, careless manner, her hand shook. Uncle Herbert was staring at her, repeating “Robbers? Robbers?” in a bewildered sort of a way.

  “Gone soft, Addie?” the Psycho-Weasel sneered. Jim had deposited him in a specially placed chair by the door, from which he could see all the room’s occupants. His foot was on the limp leather poufe from which the stuffing spewed whenever it was moved. “Don’t see you weeping and wailing over my foot.”

  Tammy hoped it was agony, whatever he’d done to it.

  The other girl stood. “Just seeing if we can be done yet for murder as well. As for your foot, Shug, if it offends thee, cut it off. Sing out if you need a hand there.”

  “Addie, give it a rest,” Jim the Lamb said. “Don’t suppose any of you guys are doctors?”

  “The doctor’s on his way home,” Tammy said sullenly. “But he’s walking—you’ll catch him if you run.”

  She caught a fleeting smile in the other girl’s troubled eyes just as she moved away, and Tammy found herself wondering just how she’d got caught up with this bunch of criminal losers. Jim had to be the connection.

  Unexpectedly, Helen said, “I used to be a nurse…” and all eyes swung round to her. A tiny wisp of a creature, Tammy’s mother was sitting beside her son, gently stroking his “sleeping” brow. Flustered under the sudden attention, she paused, looking alarmed.

  “Not for thirty years,” Uncle Herbert protested.

  “If it’s the best we’ve got,” said the Psycho-Weasel, “she’d better look at it. Here, Missus, and just remember I don’t like pain.” He toted the gun significantly.

  As Helen stood, Tammy reached to stop her.

  “Don’t interfere,” ordered Jim.

  God, this was impossible! Helpless, she watched Helen go and kneel by the injured burglar who held the gun pointed at her head. She didn’t appear to notice.

  Fortunately, his shoe was already off—Tammy couldn’t imagine the psycho letting her cut it off him with a knife. Her back blocked Tammy’s view of the process, but she said, “Tsk, tsk,” quite audibly as she examined him.

  “It’s broken,” she added, more matter-of-factly than she’d said anything for years.

  “It’s not broken,” the Weasel said.

  “There, there, don’t be a baby,” Helen soothed. “I’ll wrap it up more comfortably for you till you can get to the hospital.”

  At this, the room held its collective breath. The other burglars’ eyes showed a tendency to boggle—all apart from the girl, who laughed.

  Only Helen seemed blissfully unaware of the crisis. “Tammy, get the bandages from the first aid box—and some paracetemol.”

  There was a definite pause. Then the Weasel said, “Go with her, Addie.”

  The other girl looked as if she might protest, though in the end, she just looked at Tammy and jerked her head. Obediently, Tammy went out, the girl called Addie following. Tammy gazed longingly at the front door as they crossed the hall. It was so tempting just to run…And yet she was pretty sure Addie was faster than she was, and stronger. And a hell of a lot rougher. Besides, even if she was prepared to risk Addie’s wrath, there was still a psycho with a gun in the sitting room with her mother and the rest of her family.

  So it was in utter silence that the two women went into the kitchen, collected the first aid box and returned to the sitting room. Everyone still stood or sat exactly as before: Uncle Herbert by the fire, eyes darting madly, Liz and Gavin standing side by side at the window, white faced and silent.

  Wordlessly, Addie took the box from Tammy and laid it beside Helen, who still knelt on the floor by Shug’s injured foot. Receiving it, Helen cast Addie one of her sweet, kind smiles, and the girl looked so startled that this time it was Tammy who laughed.

  “Get the whisky, dear,” Helen said, setting about Shug’s foot with the bandage. “Not recommended with paracetemol, I know, but if it’s just a swallow, it won’t hurt you.”

  Tammy didn’t offer to help, but the girl found the cut glass whisky decanter without difficulty. She slopped two fingers of the amber liquid into a glass and brought it to Helen, who was by then disgorging two paracetemol tablets. While Shug obediently took his medicine, Addie went back to the decanter, poured another glass and took that to Johnny, apparently still unconscious on the sofa.

  Tammy felt a stab of guilt that she wasn’t paying her brother more attention. The man holding the gun inches from her mother’s head did tend to focus her mind elsewhere. Moving now toward Johnny, she discovered she was too late.

  Addie sat beside his chest and said flatly, “All right, you can open your eyes now. Everyone knows you’re awake.”

  And to Tammy’s astonishment, her brother’s eyes did open, smoothly, gazing straight into Addie’s.

  “You,” he said without noticeable pleasure.

  “Me,” she agreed, proffering the whisky glass. “The strident trollop.”

  Johnny lifted his hand and took the glass. “I didn’t realize you were so forgiving.”

  “I could have poisoned it.”

  “I doubt it,” Johnny observed, taking a gulp of whisky and swallowing it. “Such levels of forethought among your happy band of criminal geniuses seem a trifle unlikely to me.”

  “I wouldn’t mock if I were you. We still have the contents of your safe, and your shotgun. And chunks of your chin are still sticking to Malky’s fist.”

  Johnny smiled. It wasn’t pleasant. “And yet you’re still here. Do you count that a victory, too?”

  For once, the girl didn’t answer, but Shug did. “Aye,” he said forcefully from across the room. Johnny pushed himself into a sitting position. Hastily, Addie stood and moved away from him.

  Johnny said, “Well it isn’t. There’s more to this house than meets the eye. You might find freezing your arse off out there is far preferable to spending the night in here. Actually, you might find a police cell preferable.”

 
“We know all about your second rate ghosts,” Addie said contemptuously, although Tammy noticed her gaze flickered around the room as she spoke. And the others clearly didn’t know what she was talking about.

  “You reckon?” Shug said smugly. “Me, I like it here. Comfy chair, good whisky. I wouldn’t mind a bowl of soup though, just to take the chill off my bones.”

  Addie cast her eyes to Heaven, clearly about to say something withering, though to whom was unclear, and in the end she lost the opportunity since Uncle Herbert suddenly burst out, “Who are you people? What do you want? I cannot have my sister inconvenienced anymore. You must leave now!”

  Everyone gawped at him with varying degrees of astonishment, respect and scorn. Even Uncle Herbert himself looked slightly surprised. But before anyone could respond, a new sound rent the air. An electronic version of “Jingle Bells”.

  Everyone felt automatically for their mobile phones, including the burglars, who eventually turned to glare at Addie. The girl said, “Oh, shite!” as she stared at her own screen.

  Furious, Shug said, “I told you to keep the bloody thing on vibrate only!”

  “I did! I must have moved the setting by accident… Hello, Mum? What’s wrong?”

  “Aw, for fuck’s sake!” said Shug.

  “She has to take it,” Jim apologized. “Kate’s there.”

  Johnny’s gaze flickered to Jim then to Addie.

  “Aye, happy New Year to you, too,” Addie said faintly. “I thought you weren’t going to call me this year when you knew I was out with Jim… Is Kate all right?”

  Seeing all attention on her, angry and otherwise, she turned away, trying to give herself the illusion of privacy—except there was nowhere to turn that wasn’t facing someone in the room.

  “Aye, okay put her on… Hi, honey, happy New Year… Thanks… Gran said you couldn’t sleep… Yes, but you have to go to bed and sleep now, otherwise you won’t enjoy your New Year dinner… I should be, Kate. The weather’s bad but I’ll do my best… I know, I wish I hadn’t come either. But I’ll be back soon. You do what Gran says now and go to bed… Yes, I’ll phone later in the morning and let you know. Put Gran back on… Night, honey.”