by Alison Bond
‘Say that again?’
‘The woman in the back of the car, she was Natasha Lubin. Goran Lubin’s wife. Aleksandr’s mother.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Samantha.
‘Everything bad that has happened. It’s him,’ he said. ‘It’s Lubin, it has to be. None of this is your fault. It was never about you; it was about me.’ His head slumped under the weight of yet more guilt. ‘The grave I found, it was at a Russian church; it was his mother’s grave. I tried to tell you straight away, but I couldn’t get hold of you. I called, I came round here a dozen times, I called Leanne in Krakow. Eventually I just broke in. Nobody knew where you were and I was worried. Thank God I did. I hate to think of you trapped down there while I was knocking on the front door.’
Samantha stood haunted by Lubin’s words as they flooded back to her. Killed in a car crash. Seeing another man. I was ten years old.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Liam. ‘I know you were close.’
She shuddered at the memory of his kisses. Lubin held Liam responsible for the death of his mother. When he talked about family and reputation he had been mocking her. He had framed her, destroyed her and all because she shared blood with his enemy.
‘And now I’m out of prison,’ said Liam. ‘We have to assume that he’s going to come after me.’
She jumped up from her chair as if she’d been slapped. ‘We have to get out of here,’ she said, pulling him to his feet urgently. ‘Are you feeling okay? How’s your head? You think you can walk? I’ll drive.’
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
‘I called him. Lubin. He’s on his way here.’
They reached the house in Kentish Town in a few minutes and Liam led Samantha quickly up the path to the front door, opening it wide and pushing her inside. A dull pain thudded at the back of his head, but despite everything he felt good. He had saved her. And if anyone deserved to be saved it was Samantha. They would phone the police and he would tell them too. She was safe at last, his little baby sister. He had taken care of her just as he had promised his mother he would do.
They walked into the dark kitchen. Liam flicked on the light and Samantha screamed.
Aleksandr Lubin was sitting at the kitchen table and he was pointing the barrel of a dull silver handgun directly at them.
37
Lubin waved the gun at them to indicate that they should move out of the kitchen doorway and into the room, and though it was the very last thing that either of them wanted to do they had no choice.
‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Come in.’
Silently the siblings talked.
What now?
I don’t know.
His menacing smile was wide with triumph as he pointed the barrel of the gun into the corner where he wanted them to stand, the alcove furthest away from the door. ‘I think we need to chat, Samantha. Don’t you? I think it is time for us to break up. How nice of you to bring your brother to me as a parting gift.’
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. This was for real.
Meanwhile Liam puffed out his chest and tried not to look like he felt inside. Inside he had crumbled to the floor. His bladder threatened to let go. His palms itched with sweat.
Of course he knew about the Kentish Town house, of course. He knew everything about Liam Sharp. He could have had him killed in prison with a single instruction, but he had waited. Because this way he got to see the look on his face.
‘You wanted me,’ said Liam. ‘You have me. This has nothing to do with her.’ Two bright red spots bloomed on his cheeks and a nervous blotch on his throat started to spread. He wasn’t fooling anyone. His bravado was wafer thin. Knowing that he was responsible for Samantha’s life falling apart was more than he thought he could bear, but now this, nothing between her and a man with a gun except six feet of air. And all because of him. There was a part of him that wanted to pull the trigger himself and make it stop.
‘It has everything to do with Samantha,’ said Lubin. ‘You destroyed my family and I have enjoyed destroying yours. Tell me, how did it feel to watch your precious sister dragged through the mud?’
She could tell how scared her brother was. He was scared enough for both of them and so she tried to look at the situation objectively, as just another crisis that she needed to solve. Liam had been stupid – mindlessly, tragically stupid – but it was an accident and he had paid his debt to society, a long debt, the harshest sentence that the judge could pass. She had to keep everybody calm while she figured out how to get them out of there. When there’s a gun in the room calm is paramount.
She appealed to Lubin’s ego, stalling for time.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘Everything that happened to me, it has been you? How?’
He was proud to tell, as she guessed he would be. ‘I’ve been waiting a long time to ruin you,’ he said. ‘Three hundred thousand, a few phone calls to the newspapers and to the father of your biggest clients. It was too easy.’
‘But that wasn’t enough?’
‘Once I met you I saw that there was more than one way to screw you.’ He laughed, and it chilled her, but she desperately tried to keep the dread from showing in her face while he addressed Liam. ‘I’ve been screwing her, you know. She’s a crazy fuck, your sister, you should really be proud of that.’
There was a drawer full of knives on the other side of the kitchen; there were heavy pans hanging from a rack there too, but they were out of reach. She knew everything in here – she had chosen it herself. There was a cast-iron griddle across the hob. She could do some damage with that.
Think, Sam, think.
Lubin was enjoying himself. ‘You really thought that I would want your precious player, your Gabe,’ he said, ‘and then that I would want you? You are so self-important. It was a gift to me. I couldn’t have achieved any of this without your unbelievable arrogance.’
She nodded, wanting him to keep talking, needing him to, so that the frantic mind behind her outward calm could seize upon a way out for her and Liam.
‘Right from the start you pretended that you didn’t know who I was. And then you told me it was Liam so that I would come running back to London, so that you could keep me away from the transfer window,’ she said. ‘How did you get to my house so fast?’
‘Helicopter,’ he said.
‘Of course.’
‘But then your stupid brother tried to be a hero, didn’t you?’ He turned to Liam. ‘It makes me sick to think of you near my mother’s grave. This is English justice: she lies for ever asleep while you walk free?’
‘And now what?’ she asked.
‘Samantha, I would have thought the gun made that perfectly obvious.’
Liam started to panic. ‘You want to kill me, then hurry up and kill me,’ he whimpered. ‘But, please, let Sammy go. She wasn’t there that night; she hasn’t done anything wrong.’
‘You call her Sammy,’ said Aleksandr. ‘That’s sweet. You love her very much, don’t you? Of course you do, she is family.’
‘We take care of each other,’ said Liam, a sob catching in his vulnerable throat.
Samantha tore her eyes away from her brother. One of them had to stay in control. It was the only hope they had of both escaping with their lives. ‘What happened to your mother was an accident,’ she said. ‘Are you planning to kill us both? In cold blood?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m going to do, yes.’
She glanced at the back door.
‘Locked,’ he said. ‘You think I am stupid?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you are stupid at all. You suffered an enormous loss. I know how that feels – I do. We both do.’
He started to laugh. ‘You think that will work? Appealing to my softer side? Your sister is a funny girl, hey?’
‘You’ll never get away with this,’ she said.
‘I am a Lubin. I can get away with anything. Money washes everything clean, a name, a reputation, even a murder.’<
br />
If this was really the end for them, then she didn’t want to be weak, not for one moment. She would die as she had lived, bravely and without fear. The blood thumping ferociously through her body was laced with raw adrenalin. But she wasn’t scared. Perhaps she should be but she wasn’t. This was the biggest challenge of her life and she hadn’t backed away from a challenge yet.
‘You really wanted to clear your name, didn’t you, Samantha?’ Lubin was giddy with the power he had over them both, he was relishing every moment of the excruciating tension. The wait to see what he would do next. ‘The look on your face when I told you I would help,’ he said. ‘It was a special moment for me. But when they find you dead that is the reputation the world will remember, not Samantha Sharp: Superagent, but only that you were disgraced.’
‘So?’ she said.
Aleksandr looked surprised.
Good. Anything was better than his confident menace.
‘Why on earth would I care?’ she said. ‘I’ll be dead. I’d rather be a dead disgrace than a cold-blooded killer.’
Liam looked at her with alarm and willed her to be cautious. What good could come from antagonizing him?
She saw the wrinkle between Lubin’s eyes constrict. She was getting under his skin. He was very young. And he was deeply troubled. One mistake and she could jump on it, make something of it. If he was distracted enough, agitated enough, perhaps they would have a chance.
Liam was getting more upset with every passing minute. ‘Please don’t hurt her,’ he said. ‘She’s my kid sister, man. You know?’
‘NO! I don’t know! I never had a sister,’ snarled Lubin. ‘My mother was killed before she could have another child.’
‘Even a bastard half-sister would have been better than nothing, huh?’ said Samantha. ‘Do you think she was going to leave your father? Do you think they were in love, her and that guy, or just fucking?’
‘Shut up,’ he said.
And silently Liam agreed with him.
‘My mother was not like you,’ said Aleksandr. ‘She was not a hard woman with a heart of iron. She was perfect.’
‘The lovers died side by side,’ she said. ‘How romantic.’
‘Shut up!’ He slapped her across the face with his free hand and she stared at him defiantly, her eyes blazing.
The doorbell rang.
Two sets of eyes darted to the front door. There was a barrage of heavy rapping followed by a shout. But Samantha kept her eyes on the gun.
He let it fall a crucial inch, distracted for the briefest of moments.
In a flash she whirled to the hob and grabbed the griddle. She heaved it with all the strength she could muster, crying out with the effort, and swung it into his shocked face. She couldn’t take a chance by hitting him with anything less than full force.
The blow might kill him.
They would be killers together then. Her and Liam both.
He fell to the floor with a grunt and the gun skittered out of his grasp. She kicked it into the corner of the room.
‘Open up!’ said the voice at the front door. The sound of somebody trying to break it down.
Blood poured from a deep gash on Aleksandr’s forehead, but still he scrambled towards the gun.
‘Shit, Sammy, what have you done?’ said Liam, frozen with shock.
‘Help!’ she screamed. ‘We’re in here. Please help!’
Aleksandr groaned and his hand reached out for her ankle. ‘Bitch!’
She ground down his fingers with her stiletto heel, while Liam picked up the gun, pointing it at Lubin, trying not to let his hand tremble and betray his horror.
‘Don’t move,’ he said. ‘I’ll shoot you, I swear to God I will, don’t you dare move.’
The front door gave way and swung into the wall with an almighty crash, footsteps pounded towards them and Samantha watched in amazement as Jackson Ramsay appeared in the kitchen brandishing a cricket bat.
Jackson looked at the scene, bewildered: the girl, the guy, the gun.
Lubin seized the chance to make a run for it.
Liam’s finger hesitated over the trigger.
‘Jackson!’ screamed Samantha. And he swung his cricket bat low, taking Lubin’s feet from under him, then fell on top of him, answering a blow to his jaw by smashing the side of his hand into Lubin’s nose. Lubin howled in pain. There was a lot of blood. Jackson dragged Lubin to his knees and jammed his fist into his stomach so that Lubin bent double. Then Jackson’s left hook sent him sprawling backwards, landing on his hip with a painful thud. Clearly he had been bested.
Samantha’s breathing was shallow and raw, her heart racing. She glanced at her brother and saw that he too was standing aghast, the forgotten gun hanging loosely by his side.
Jackson kicked Lubin so that he rolled onto his stomach and placed a foot squarely on his back, pinning his scrawny frame to the floor with ease. Lubin had surrendered or passed out – she really was unable to tell.
She couldn’t believe that he was there. It was truly him. Saving her. Looking into his eyes she knew that he was the person she wanted to see because in his arms she would be safe.
‘He was going to kill us both,’ she said. ‘What are you doing here? How did you know?’
‘Leanne called me,’ said Jackson. ‘That girl was going mad with worry. Who’s this guy?’ He nodded his head towards Liam, who was fumbling in his pocket for his mobile phone, hastily wiping at the tears that had bled onto his cheeks.
‘He’s my brother,’ she said. ‘Jackson, this is Liam. I should have told you about him a long time ago. I just … it …’ She sank into a chair and put her head in her hands, shaking with the fear she had not allowed to show.
‘It’s okay, Sam,’ said Jackson. ‘Everything will be okay. It’s over.’
38
Gabe Muswell went out and got drunk in the morning so that he could watch the England game that afternoon with a solid beer buzz.
He needed it.
After all, if things had gone the way that they should have he might have been over there in Wembley Stadium right now warming up to play, instead of stuck here on his own in a hotel room, in a city he had grown to hate, working out the last few weeks of a contract with a team that hated him back. And, instead of the constant support of a good woman he’d never appreciated, he had a wife who was going to take one hell of a lot of convincing if their marriage was to survive everything that had happened.
Christine was out.
She went out a lot lately. Ever since the tabloids decided to exploit every mistake he had made. It was like she couldn’t bear to look at him.
He would start trying to rescue his marriage tomorrow.
Today he just wanted to sink into a Zywiec-flavoured hole of self-pity and watch the luckiest kid in the world make his England debut.
Jammy little bugger.
Samantha looked down at the emerald pitch and felt the sharp tang of excitement she always did before an international game. Club-level football so often went to form; the internationals were left to provide the surprises. Her recent ordeal hadn’t put her off surprises at all.
Aleksandr Lubin was using enormous chunks of his father’s fortune to try to clear his name. She suspected that he might end up doing some time in prison. There was a rumour that Goran Lubin was about to cut him off. Then who would he be? Perhaps they had more in common than she had thought. They were both far less if they tried to stand alone.
The family-and-friends box at Wembley Stadium was crammed with people and optimism. She saw Liam, she saw Leanne, somewhere nearby would be Jackson, and so for the first time she didn’t feel alone up here. She had family and friends of her own.
‘Samantha?’
Toby Welstead was lingering by her side looking nervous. His son Monty would shortly be sitting on the substitutes’ bench next to Joe, willing to get up and play his heart out if his country called on him to do so. In fact, Joe had told her that over the last couple of days he’d become fr
iendly with Monty during training.
‘Hey, Mr Welstead, how are you?’ she said, shaking his hand. ‘Congratulations.’
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Do you think it’s odd that I’m more nervous than he is?’
‘It’s always the fathers,’ she said.
Joe’s father was out there somewhere. He had refused to watch the game from the box, saying that he’d rather be with the real fans, but Samantha suspected he was scared of running into Richard Tavistock whose calls Joe had insisted went ignored. Whatever promises Simon had made to Richard were not his to make. Joe was happy with Samantha, and so he would stay.
There were parents like Simon and then there were parents like Toby Welstead. She knew which one she would strive to be. Lately the idea of having children had taken root and for once she hadn’t weeded it out.
‘I’m glad to bump into you,’ said Toby. ‘I was thinking maybe I could call you. We need some advice. Some of the endorsements the lads are coming across, well, they don’t seem right. And now Richard’s talking about a move next season …’
‘Away from Chelsea?’ she said. ‘Already?’ A good money-maker for Richard and for Legends, but they’d really only just arrived. They were young; they should settle somewhere and learn for a few years.
‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘I just didn’t know, because of what happened with you and the boys. You never struck me as the type to hold a grudge, but …’
‘I’m not,’ she said. She’d had enough of grudges to last her a lifetime. ‘I don’t hold grudges, Mr Welstead,’ she said.
‘It’s Toby,’ he said. ‘Jackson Ramsay said you might be going back to Legends. Now all the messy business has been cleaned up.’
‘She turned me down!’ Jackson appeared by their side and wrapped his arm round her shoulders. ‘I offered her job back, with incentives, but she turned me down. Got a taste of freedom, right, Sam? She’s the competition now.’
‘There’s room for everyone,’ she said.
‘Then stop trying to take over the world.’
‘Why?’ she said. ‘When it’s there for the taking?’ The thing about the ladder of success was that there was always somebody above you, always, so she could climb all the way to the stars if she wanted to. And she did.
