by Chris Ewan
She worried about leaving Miller to defend himself against Wade and it was hard not to turn back. She kept running because of Emily, most of all. She couldn’t bear to think of what she was going through.
Miller’s instructions had been simple. If Renner and Wade made it inside the chalet, her job was to search for the van. They had to have driven up the mountain in it and logic suggested they wouldn’t have had time to find anywhere else to contain Hanson and Becca, Pete and Emily, whether they were dead or alive.
So now all Kate had to do was find the van and confront whatever was waiting for her there.
She ran for ten minutes, building her pace, lengthening her stride, fighting to control the fear and tension that were gripping hold of her. She was beginning to suspect Miller had been wrong and that they hadn’t driven up here in the van at all. Or maybe she’d missed it in the dark. Part of her was already preparing to run back up the hill, trying to plot a safe approach to the chalet, when she saw it beached on a short grassy shelf in front of a tumbledown chalet. The windows were wet with condensation. The interior was unlit.
Kate slowed, resting her hands on her waist as she caught her breath. She approached the front passenger window, smeared a circle with her palm and peered inside. But she couldn’t make out anything other than the blur of the dash and the seats.
She backed off and moved carefully around to the rear, the gun held out in front of her. She was just reaching for the latch on the doors when one of them flew open and Becca stumbled out, coughing and spluttering.
*
Miller and Timo had made multiple trips between the barn and the chalet while they were gathering equipment. On one of the trips they’d worked together to carry the old oil drum on to the porch, where Miller had used the chainsaw to cut the top off. The drum was almost empty but the insides were lined with a thick, gloopy residue of settled oil. Miller had siphoned some fuel from Timo’s truck and added it to the mix, and now he was wondering if he should have added a little more.
He’d rolled the drum across from where it had been stashed behind the kitchen door, positioning it directly beneath Wade. Wade was spinning above it, flailing his arms, kicking his feet. His chin was tucked into his chest to stop his head from tangling with the jagged metal edge the chainsaw had left behind.
Miller held the pistol in one fist, the axe in the other, and he watched Wade struggle for a few seconds, making sure he had the drum in the perfect spot. Then he crossed to the fire and tapped the blade of the axe into a charred log.
Sparks and cinders showered down as he lifted the axe and very carefully, very deliberately, carried the log towards Wade, who finally caught up to what was happening and became oddly still. His eyes flitted between the shimmering log and the oil drum. He opened his mouth to speak.
‘Was this how it was with Clive?’ Miller asked him. ‘How about Patrick or Darren? How about my wife?’
Miller swept the log closer, a haze of vibrant ash spiralling down. It would be so easy to drop it in the drum. So simple to end things that way. There was a synchronicity to it. The closing of a circle. Perhaps even a way for him to move on.
*
Kate worked with Becca to help free Emily first, then she tackled Pete’s restraints while Becca carried the girl outside and hugged and consoled her in the mountain dark. Emily seemed beyond scared. She was rocking in Becca’s arms, not saying a word.
That changed a little once Pete was free. He shook some feeling into his arms, groaning pitifully, then clambered down from the van and cradled Emily, whispering in her ear. Emily began to cry. Her chest shuddered, her face buried in her father’s shoulder, her little hands balled into fists.
Hanson was last out and Kate guided him carefully towards a mound of soaked grass, where he sat holding his head, squinting and blinking, testing the movement of his jaw.
Kate watched over him a moment, wondering what to do next. She wanted to return to the chalet. She had to know if Miller was OK.
Then she heard a door slam. The van’s suspension compressed and the rear lights flashed red, staining the faces all around her.
She didn’t pause to think. She didn’t hesitate. She ran towards the front of the van as the engine fired and the headlamps switched to full beam, lighting her up.
She shielded her eyes with one hand and aimed the pistol blindly with the other. The engine revved. The van strained against the clutch. Kate lowered the pistol and fired a single round into the engine block, then raised her aim back up again.
Stalemate.
She took a step nearer, eyes streaming in the glare as she peered through the window and glimpsed Renner behind the wheel. He was breathing raggedly, his head lolling, his shattered teeth framing a ghoulish, desperate grimace.
*
Miller almost dropped the log. He could so easily picture the flames swirling up and engulfing Wade. He wanted it that way.
But something stopped him.
Maybe, when it came to it, he wasn’t able to be quite as bad as he needed to be.
Or maybe he was something even worse.
‘Let me down.’ Wade’s face was puce. It could have been from terror, but Miller thought it was more likely because of all the blood rushing to his head. ‘I’ll give you something on Lane. I have information you can use against him. That’s what you want, right? That’s what you really need?’
Miller paused, thinking it over, then he shrugged his shoulders and tossed the axe and the log away into the grate.
‘Good decision. Great. Now get me down first.’
Wade reached up to the noose around his ankles, waiting for Miller’s help. Miller raised a hand and saw the hope flare in his Wade’s wide-apart eyes, then extinguish just as quickly as he pushed him back down and jammed the muzzle of the pistol against the underside of his jaw.
‘I’d like you to do a little something for my wife. I’d like you to say “please”.’
*
Kate heard the gunshot on the wind. It was muted by distance but unmistakable all the same.
She whipped her head towards the chalet, lowering her gun hand by a fraction, and in almost the same instant she heard the sudden roar of the van’s engine, the spin of its tyres.
The van slithered forwards, surging towards her, and she dived to her right, banging her hip, jarring her elbow, letting go of the pistol. The van swooped by, the back doors flapping, the rear fishtailing, then straightening up and streaking away. By the time she’d scrabbled forwards and felt for the gun and turned to shoot, she was too late. The van had plunged down a dip and lurched round a curve and sped away.
Renner was gone.
Chapter Seventy-Five
Mid-morning the following day found Kate drained and disoriented. The sky was a brilliant, unblemished blue, the sun high and blazing down over the jagged mountain peaks and dirty glaciers of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau.
She squinted against the wet glimmer of the dewed meadow, sitting in the load bed of Timo’s crappy pickup truck with Miller on one side of her and Hanson on the other, his eyes closed and his face tilted towards the sun. Becca was across from her, leaning back with her arms outstretched, her legs tangled with Kate’s own. Pete and Emily were huddled together in the front cab, talking in hushed tones.
Away across the meadow, Kate watched Nico and Mia running in crazed circles, edging ever closer to the forbidden temptations of the wrecked SUV and the splintered remains of the barn. On the porch of the chalet, Timo was holding Melanie’s face in his hands, kissing her forehead, looking into her eyes.
The dank smell of drying clothes, of sweat and mud, was all around Kate, but it clung to Miller most of all. He’d walked into the woods with Timo a little over an hour ago to dig a hole big enough for Wade’s corpse. He hadn’t spoken of it since, though there was a weary gloom about him every time he looked down at his earth-stained hands.
Kate had found him dragging Wade’s body through the soaked grass towards the trees the previous nig
ht. He hadn’t heard her approach, and when she’d called out his name and he’d turned to her, letting go of Wade’s wrists, the broken expression on his worn face had stopped her from coming any closer. Even in the dark, with the terrible bruising to his eye, she could see that he was crying. All the hurt and emotion of the past four years seemed to be leaching out of him, reducing him, leaving him spent and stooped.
She’d had to tell him that Renner had got away. She’d had to watch him sag just a little more.
Thinking of it now, she reached down and lifted his bandaged hand, running her thumb over the crusted mud, seeing the soil and dirt jammed beneath his fingernails. She kissed his knuckles and rested her cheek on his fist.
Tiredness pressed down on her, slackening her muscles, slowing her thoughts. She was hungry and thirsty. She craved a clean hotel room, a hot shower, food and drink, and an opportunity to pretend, at least for a little while, that life could be normal again.
‘What happens now?’ she asked.
‘Hard to say.’ Even Miller’s voice sounded beaten down. ‘The only thing I know for sure is this isn’t over. Men like Wade are disposable to Connor Lane. They’re replaceable.’ He nodded across the meadow, towards the chalet. ‘And Renner knows about Melanie. I can’t allow that.’
‘Do I testify against Russell?’
‘Maybe. If you still want to. If we can keep you safe. But Connor is separate to all that. For me, anyway. For you, too, now, I think.’
Kate brushed his knuckles with her lips again.
‘You’re talking about killing him.’
‘I’m talking about protecting my daughter. About protecting you.’
‘Honey,’ Becca told her, ‘it’s really not such a terrible idea.’
‘It’s a terrific idea,’ Hanson said.
‘But what if there was another way?’ Kate asked them. ‘What if we found something to hurt Connor with? Something he couldn’t ignore.’
Miller frowned. ‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know yet. Not for sure. But I have an inkling, I think, and I’ll tell you about it, so long as you do something for me first.’
His swollen eye was puckered, the flesh bruised and grazed. His good eye was reddened and yellowed with stress and fatigue. It searched her face.
‘This is no time for games, Kate.’
‘It’s not a game.’
She reached across him, slipping her hand into his trouser pocket.
‘Get a room,’ Becca muttered.
Kate flashed her a tired smile as she plucked free Miller’s wallet. She parted it carefully and slipped out the folded drawing that was tucked inside, holding the square of paper between her finger and thumb in front of his face.
‘I want you to go over and talk to Melanie about this drawing. I want you to ask her what it means.’
He shook his head and pushed the drawing away, glancing towards Melanie for a sad moment, then down at his hands.
‘It’s a bad idea.’
‘Yeah, well, maybe all you have left to you now is bad ideas.’
He didn’t even smile.
‘She doesn’t want to talk with me. She’s mad with me about what happened here. She hates that they have to pack up and take the kids away, that I can’t tell her when she can come back – if she even can.’
‘She’s your daughter. She loves you. And maybe she is angry with you. Maybe she has every right to be. But you need this. So go and ask her about it. Do it now before it’s too late.’
‘She’s right,’ Becca told him, quietly.
‘Totally,’ Hanson chipped in. ‘I think I speak for all of us when I say that we’re fed up of seeing you torturing yourself about it.’
‘Go.’ Kate shoved him forwards. ‘Timo’s coming now. You don’t have long. And if you won’t ask her, I will. Believe me.’
He gave her a dubious look, but she prodded him until he got to his feet, then opened his hand and pressed the drawing into his palm.
‘This is a mistake.’
‘The mistake would be not doing this. Trust me. Go.’
He looked round once more, delaying, and this time they all shouted at him, barracking him until he climbed down off the truck and crossed the meadow, offering Timo a cursory wave as he passed him by.
‘That was a nice thing you just did,’ Becca told Kate, smiling in lazy approval.
‘Yeah.’ Hanson nudged her with his elbow. ‘And since we’re all about closure just now, it so happens I have something to tell you.’
Kate glanced at him briefly, but her attention swung back to Miller, who was tramping on past Nico and Mia, opening out the drawing in his hands. Melanie was watching him approach from the chalet porch, her arms folded tightly across her chest. She was wearing a long cardigan over a patterned summer dress with wellington boots on bare legs.
‘There could be better times,’ Hanson was saying. ‘I know that. But Kate? It’s about your brother.’
She stilled and turned. Hanson was smiling shyly, his bleary eyes not focussed quite right on her face.
‘I found him for you.’
Kate didn’t move. She couldn’t, somehow. Her throat closed up. She felt a stinging in her eyes.
‘Take it easy, OK? It was no big deal once I figured a couple of things out. Benefits of being able to hack into any system I like.’ Hanson shrugged uncomfortably. ‘He lives in Bristol, Kate. He works as a lawyer, just like you. I had a photo of him on my laptop and I would have shown it to you if Renner hadn’t driven off with it.’ He pointed to his eyes. ‘Once I can see properly again, and we can get to a computer, I can find it for you. I can help you contact him, if you like.’
Kate knew she should thank him. She knew she should tell him all that it meant to her. But she could barely breathe, let alone speak. A photo of her brother. The chance to get in touch with him, at last. How could she possibly put what it meant to her into words? How could she begin to believe it was true?
She could feel the tears on her cheeks, the shakes in her hands. She didn’t move for several moments more, trapped in her strange emotional paralysis, until she broke free and launched herself at him, crushing him in her arms.
‘Easy.’ He was squirming, blushing. ‘Easy, OK? Miller’s coming back now. I don’t want him to get the wrong idea.’
Kate laughed through her tears, but she didn’t let go. She couldn’t just yet. And so, holding him tight, she smiled at Timo as he climbed into the cab and turned the engine over, the load bed shaking, and she blinked at Miller coming towards them across the field, Melanie watching after him, the drawing held limply in her hands.
Kate waited until Miller had clambered into the back of the truck, standing there, looking down at them all.
‘Well?’ She sniffed, wiping at her eyes. She felt light-headed, addled with disbelief and hope. ‘What’s the verdict? Were you coming home, or going away?’
Miller shrugged his big shoulders and showed them his dirtied palms.
‘She has no idea. She says she can’t remember drawing it. She was only eight years old, so what did I expect?’
‘That’s too bad,’ Becca told him.
He said nothing as he stepped between their legs, smiling feebly at Kate, touching the crown of her head, then crouching behind the cab and banging a fist on the window glass, signalling for Timo to drive. Timo slipped the clutch into gear and revved the engine but he didn’t pull off right away. He’d seen something Miller hadn’t. Melanie was sprinting across the meadow towards them.
She ran with the drawing flapping in her hand, stumbling in her rubber boots, her hair tumbling behind her, Nico and Mia scampering in her wake.
‘Wait,’ she called. ‘Wait.’
Kate saw Miller turn. She saw him rise to his feet and stand there tensed and uncertain.
He stepped stiffly towards the back of the load bed, lowering his hand to lift Melanie up. She leapt from the ground and hugged him, her boots in the air, her face mashed into his neck.
‘Coming home,’ she told him. ‘Of course you were coming home, Dad. I love you. All I ever wanted was for you to come home to me and Mum.’
Part VIII
Lake Windermere, England
Chapter Seventy-Six
One Week Later
Lloyd stepped away from her car in front of the wrought-iron gates at the entrance to the Lane estate. It was late in the evening, a chill in the air. She turned up the collar of her jacket and leaned a finger on the intercom.
‘Yes?’
‘Mr Lane? It’s your pen pal . . . DS Lloyd. You sent me a photograph of a mutual acquaintance of ours a little while ago. I think it’s time we talked.’
There was no response. She raised her face to the camera fitted above the gates and stared directly into the lens.
‘There’s something I need to tell you, Mr Lane. Mike, too. I saw him drive in just now. Better you both hear it from me tonight than from an arresting officer in the morning.’
Nothing further was said but the gate mechanism buzzed and the latch released and the gates started to swing open. Lloyd lingered, still staring into the security camera, then finally broke away and returned to her car, tilting her rear-view mirror to take a look at herself, weighing again the significance of what she was about to do.
It wasn’t that any one thing in particular was different about her; it was simply that everything was. She could see it most of all in her eyes – in the restless unease beneath the surface. All the old certainties and absolutes of her life had been stripped away to be replaced with self-doubt and loathing and the burning need to secure some measure of justice, no matter the risks involved.
She shoved the mirror away and slipped the car into gear. The magnificence of the house didn’t surprise her when she reached it but its stately elegance did. She’d pictured crass extensions and ugly add-ons, but she’d been wrong about that, as with so many things recently, and it made her worry again about what she was doing here.
