There were pounding footsteps behind me. One gunman. Possibly two.
Plop - Fragments of brick were flying from the wall into my eyes, blinding me. Skidding and backing to the wall. Staggering, weaving sideways, almost falling. Crashing into the brickwork. Making it around another corner, and racing to the end just as the plop came again. I felt a sudden stabbing pain in my left arm. Caught a glimpse of a splash of dark liquid on my hand.
I don’t know how long I was running for, or how many roads I ducked into. But always the footsteps were behind me. Always he followed. And always there was the plop, sometimes two plops in succession.
Suddenly I saw an arched opening in the wall to my right, and leapt into the space. It was an entrance way into a building. Ahead was a closed door, to the left a brick wall. So I hurled myself to the right, into some inviting darkness. Then I was falling, falling a long way down, tumbling and crashing, head and arms and legs smashing against concrete or stone. Until I was in a heap at the bottom. Head twisted sideways, legs and arms at all angles. It was pitch dark. I could feel water soaking into my trousers from the puddle where I was sprawled. There was pain in my back and arms.
Up above I caught the dim view of the yellow cone of a torch beam, slicing the blackness. I stayed motionless for a few moments then, carefully, eased my hand around to my back to pull the Glock out from my waistband, flick off the safety catch and rack the action backwards and forwards. Blood had covered my left hand, seeping from the wound to my arm. Sweat was running into my eyes, making it hard to strain upwards into the black void. The cone of blackness was muzzy and blurred, a hazy vision of hell.
The torch beam hit the wall above my head. Span jerkily to and fro for second. Flickered. And then the flashlight’s circular blaze was down, down, finally boring directly in my eyes, blinding me. For a moment I thought I saw the figure up above: a dark silhouette, raising his pistol once more.
I lifted my gun, gripped it two-handed.
And fired.
The explosion burst and crashed, filling the narrow stairwell like cannon fire. I went on shooting, again and again, firing at random, shifting marginally each time, aiming blind. I went on until as I squeezed the trigger all I heard was a click. My ears were buzzing, my head pounding from the deafening explosions in the confined space. For a moment I lay there, scared that the terrible blinding pain in my ears meant ruptured eardrums. All around me were the clouds of cordite, the overpowering stench of gunpowder.
And up above, the yawning maw of blackness was just the same. Until the cone of light dropped. There was the clumping, sliding, thumping sound of something soft and heavy falling. Finally the clatter-click-snap of a metal object bouncing and rattling down the stairs to land on the step just above me. There in front of my eyes was what looked like a slim stylish Beretta, its long black cylindrical silencer almost kissing my nose. The harsh stench of burnt cordite was everywhere, choking me. Ignoring the agony in my back and legs I managed to stand. I tucked the gun back into my waistband, then felt gingerly along with my right hand along the wall’s hard brickwork. I pulled myself up the steps, one at a time. At the top the gunman’s body was no more than impressions: mop of dark curly hair, a black leather jacket, hand flung outwards, the fingers curled skywards, like an upturned crab. A growing pool of liquid was seeping from under the mass of clothes and limbs. Avoiding stepping in the blood, I managed to get to the top, where the streetlight beckoned me on through the dim archway into the night. I peered out. No one was around.
For seconds there was silence. Then I heard distant voices. A shout of laughter away to the left. The rumble of a passing car. The crash of a bottle being thrown against tarmac. The splinter as it smashed.
I waited a beat, then looked around before walking back the way I’d come.
Pulling up my jacket collar so as to hide my face from any CCTV cameras in the main road, I made it to the car in time to hear the sirens in the distance – obviously people had heard the gunshots and reported them. No one saw me. I made it back to the Carlton Hotel, where luckily no one was manning the reception desk, and I got up to the first floor without anyone seeing me. I soaked and scrubbed my hands and wrists in the shower, using a brush until the skin was tingling and raw, then rammed all the clothes and the shoes I’d been wearing into a bin bag. Dressing as quickly as I could I, listened for the sirens of police cars but, so far, there was nothing. Blood kept splashing onto the back of my hand from the flesh wound in my forearm, but that was a detail that could wait.
I took the stairs down to the underground car park and drove, well within the speed limit, towards the south of the city. A few miles out of town I saw an overflowing skip outside a house, and parked nearby, got out of the car and thrust the bin bag full of my clothes and shoes into it, pulling a couple of bricks out of the builder’s rubble it at the same time. Then got back into the car and drove on.
Soon I found the bridge over the River Ouse that I remembered, parking in some shadows nearby. I’d already put the gun, along with my salvaged pair of bricks, into another black bag and tied the top with string. Walking to the middle of the bridge, to where the river looked deepest, I looked around to make sure I wasn’t being watched, then lifted and dropped the black plastic bag, relieved to see it sink below the surface of the water.
When I got back into the car I made straight back towards the M1 to the north, towards York and my meeting with Lucy.
* * * *
This was it. I’d tried to kid myself before but it was too late for that.
Sean Boyd’s contract killers had failed twice. By good fortune I’d managed to escape the first and the second attempts on my life, but next time I wasn’t likely to be so lucky.
Hero or Villain? had been delivered to Truecrime, and now, counting the time for the designers and printers, I reckoned it could be in the shops in six weeks or so, at most three months. During that time anything could happen, and chances were that it would. Even after it was published I might still be a marked man forever. Did I have any right to involve Lucy in this kind of danger? If she was going to be seeing much of me, she would be as much at risk as I was.
As I pulled into the big car park beside the York Castle Museum and found a space, I wondered at the kaleidoscope of changing emotions that had engulfed me in the past couple of weeks. Falling for Lucy was obviously the most momentous, but facing the awful possibility that she might be child-killer Megan Foster was far, far worse. It would take time to forget the whole sorry mess. Maybe meeting her again would rekindle my feelings for her. I walked along Tower Street, then Clifford Street and then into Coppergate, going to a cafe near the Jorvik Centre, where I sat down and waited for her to arrive.
When you’re in love, do you remember there’s always that odd moment just before the person you’re in love with appears, when you can’t quite remember their face? It’s just a hazy, dream-like memory, and every time you see them anew it’s like a wonderland of discovery. That’s what it was like that day, to see her arrive: to see the way her hair fell, the set of her mouth, the surprising toothiness of her smile, the hesitancy in her eyes before the smile arrived. Then she was coming towards me. A long black coat over a red top and short black skirt. Fashionable knee-high black leather boots, creamy fur lining oozing around the edge beside her black woollen tights below her knee. I stood up and took her in my arms as she arrived.
How could I ever have doubted her?
Then she was chattering away, telling me about the shop, the customers, the American tourists who spent so much money, the new friends she’d made. I hardly took it in, just marvelled at her eyes and her mouth and her lovely voice, and wondered how I could ever have doubted that she wasn’t the marvellous beautiful, kind woman that I knew her to be, who could never harm a fly.
Another thing I didn’t know about her was that she smoked. She lit the cigarette, then looked around, wondering if it was allowed. “Oh, I forgot, it’s a public place, isn’t it?” she said, stubbing it
out in a saucer.
“I didn’t know you smoked.” I said.
“I’ve been trying to give it up for years, but last month I decided I was going to give up giving up...”
She chattered on, telling me about the shop, the interesting craftspeople who supplied them and the friendly customers she’d met.
“So what have you been doing, Jack?” She touched my arm, just gently, small dainty fingers clutching my sleeve, her mouth curving as she spoke, while I longed to kiss her.
Half an hour later we’d already eaten and were planning what to do for the rest of the day and evening. I told her about the attempt on my life, leaving out the fact that I’d managed to kill the gunman. Some things it was better that no one should know about.
“I see,” Lucy nodded. “So that explains why you said you wanted to come up here, instead of me going back to Canterbury.”
“When the book’s published the heat should die down. At least I hope it does.”
“But you knew Sean Boyd was a dangerous crime boss. Why ever did you get yourself into such a mess?”
“If I’d known what was going to happen, I wouldn’t have taken it on. But it’s too late now.”
“Is it? Are you sure, Jack? Surely you can get out of it somehow?” She’d blushed a dark red colour suffusing her cheeks. She was looking down at the table. “I’ve only just found you. I can’t bear the thought of losing you now.”
I leaned forward and touched her face, “I love you, you know that, don’t you?”
“And I–” The opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth symphony, her mobile phone’s ring, interrupted her words.
“Bugger,” she swore. “I bet it’s Kirsty – I left her in charge of the shop and she’s hopeless! Can’t make a decision to save her life. I’d better answer the bloody thing, then I’ll switch it off.”
I nodded, watching her as she leaned back in her chair and gave a cheery ‘Hi’. But after the first second, when I saw her face change, I knew something was wrong. She didn’t speak much, just listened, the line of her mouth hardening all the time.
Finally, she said “Thanks, yeah, see you.” And pressed the cut-off button. She lifted her gaze towards me and I saw the expression in her eyes.
“That was Susan Elkins. A man called Peter Thomson, who answers your description, has been asking questions about me.”
Oh Christ, I’d never thought of it. Why hadn’t I realised that Susan Elkins might break her word and tell her about my visit? She’d promised not to contact Lucy and I’d believed her.
“And don’t lie to me.”
“Let me explain.”
“No!” Lucy was standing, gathering up her handbag and gloves. “Don’t bother! You could have come to me, and asked me! Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know,” panic was mounting inside, I was terrified of losing her. “I was afraid–”
“Of what? Afraid that I was a reformed killer? I would have thought that would make me your ideal girlfriend! You could have written a kiss-and-tell exposé of my life.”
“I was afraid because I didn’t know who you were.”
“I fucking told you who I was! I could have given you my birth certificate, and family photographs since I was a baby if you’d only bloody well asked! You bastard, Jack! – You didn’t even think enough of me to come and speak to me face-to-face – you had to sneak around behind my back–”
“It wasn’t like that–”
“Wasn’t it? What was it like then? Tell me, Jack, because I’d really like to know.”
I didn’t answer, just sat there, watching her, willing her to sit down again.
“Don’t go,” I begged, fear of losing her welling up inside me as I stood up too. “Please Lucy, I was wrong, I was stupid, I admit it, but please sit down, let me tell you what–”
“I’ve had it all my life,” she muttered through gritted teeth. “The school playground taunts, the accusatory stares, the silence in a group of people whenever I go into a room. If you didn’t think enough of me to come and talk to me about it, then that’s it. I was an idiot to think you were a man. You’re a gutless louse.”
I made a grab for her hand.
“Don’t go. Lucy we’ve got to talk about this...”
“There’s nothing to talk about. Don’t contact me again.” She pulled away, voice trembling, on the verge of tears. “Just one thing, Jack.”
“What?”
“I hope Sean Boyd kills you next time.”
And then she was gone.
All that was left on the table was the box of matches that she’d used to light her cigarette. I picked it up without thinking and put it in my pocket, in a daze.
* * * *
I shouldn’t really have driven back straight away, but after Lucy left me I had vague ideas of getting to the first motorway service station, checking in to a Travelodge and trying to sleep for a few hours, because after the long drive up there I was absolutely exhausted.
But I was so miserable and desperate that I knew sleep wouldn’t come. I rested for half an hour at the service station and had two cups of coffee in the restaurant, feeling for a few moments that maybe it would have been better if Sean Boyd’s hit man had finished me off the night before last. Lucy was right: I’d always thought of myself as having courage, but in this one important thing, my relationship with the woman I thought that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, I had behaved despicably.
Then I got back into the car, put the seat back and tried to rest some more. However, I was wired and desperate and weary – too weary to sleep. My thoughts just kept spinning round and round in circles.
I was a writer who prided myself on facing up to dangerous situations, yet I didn’t even have the nerve to confront my girlfriend over something vitally important. There were plenty of words for it: nerve, guts, courage, bottle. I could face an armed killer, but I couldn’t tell the woman I loved what was on my mind.
Maybe that meant I didn’t really love her?
And Sean Boyd was going to kill me if he could. Lucy didn’t care – in fact she wanted me dead.
Of course, in view of the contract I knew that was out on my life, in hindsight it was a ridiculous mistake to drive back to my house in Canterbury, but right then I hardly cared about my own safety, was just lost in misery. Everything had gone wrong, and nothing in my life made sense. I just wanted to limp back home, to try and hide and make some sense of all the mistakes I’d made in the past few days. And most of all I wanted to see my house again, collect my post, return to some kind of normality. My mobile rang and it was Ann Yates. Although I’d never confided in her before, I did so now, telling her everything. She listened, interrupting only now and again. She strongly advised me not to go back to Canterbury, but to go straight down to Llantrissant Manor and into hiding, but I was adamant that I wanted to nip back home quickly to collect some papers and see my house again.
After Sean Boyd’s recent attempt on my life, he was hardly likely to try again so soon, was he?
I drove right through the night, must have pulled into another service station and dozed for a few hours, though even now I can’t remember doing it. So when I reached the outskirts of Canterbury it was 6am. The sun was high in the cerulean cloudless sky, one of those rare winter days that feel like summer. My own road through the woods. My house. I’d go inside, and perhaps I would, at last, be able to sleep properly if I drank myself into oblivion first.
Luckily, when I saw the big black Saab parked at the end of the road, my sixth sense of preservation kicked in.
Something was wrong.
Chapter 10
DANSON’S QUARRY
I made a turn and drove back and returned a second time. I passed the Saab, moving slowly, keenly aware that I might be driving into danger.
When I caught sight of my house, that was when I knew I was in trouble. I caught movement behind the downstairs net curtains.
I wasn’t imagining it. There was someone in my front roo
m.
And before I knew what was happening I heard a shout from inside the house. Then I saw two men running down my front drive towards my car.
One of them was Sean Boyd.
Boyd himself had clearly decided that this time he was determined there were not going to be any mistakes. He was handling my killing personally.
Stepping on the gas.
I roared down the steep road, clipping the Saab’s front wing as I passed, then tore ahead onto the main road, as I heard the other car’s engine start.
From the corner of my eye I saw the black car catch me up effortlessly. I accelerated along the road, dialling 999 on my hands-free. In the nearside wing mirror I could see a rifle pointing out from the side window of the other car. I heard the sharp crack of gunfire.
I shouted to the police operator what was happening, and gave them my position, assuring her that there was a firearm and it had already been discharged. Then I felt a crashing and a jerk, as the Saab smashed into the back of my car, shunting me forwards. Another gunshot. I felt a rush of air above my head as the rear windscreen blew out.
For a few moments I gunned the accelerator, rocking backwards and forwards, desperately trying to break free from the other car, but it felt like the tow ball must have jammed under the Saab’s front bumper. I rammed the gear lever down to second gear, jerked up the clutch and stamped on the gas, until with a jangling, tearing noise, I broke free. Another gunshot. There was a sharp sting in my ear lobe and blood spattered onto my chest.
I was accelerating fast, gaining ground. And when I saw the narrow side turning I didn’t hesitate. Screeching almost to a standstill, I made the turn at the last possible moment.
The black car followed. In my wing mirror I saw smoke streaming into the sky as they braked for the turn. And in the rear-view mirror I could see Sean Boyd in the passenger seat. His face was flushed and murderous. His hands were pressing shells into the breech of a pump-action shotgun: it was the kind of weapon that could, literally, tear your head apart, or else virtually rip it off your shoulders.
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