Blood Whispers (22 page)

The silvery-grey taxi cruised silently through the dark, along the winding shore roads on its way back to Rhu. The car radio was playing modern country ballads: ‘Next up, Patty Griffin singing “Ohio”,’ said the presenter, Ricky Ross, in a low, gravelly voice.

Keira’s eyelids were weighed down by the music and gentle hum of road noise.

As she drifted off, her mind filled with a disconnected jumble of thoughts – the lyrics of the song taking on a different significance in her semi-conscious state. Patty sang dolefully about meeting on the other side.
I’m not ready for the other side
, thought Keira as she drifted off to sleep and her head dropped forward with a jolt.

If – as Abazi had predicted – the CIA’s hired help was on his way, Keira would make sure she was ready for the son-of-a-bitch this time. She had missed her chance in the apartment with his gun in her hand: next time, she wouldn’t hesitate. It was time to stop running from the past and turn to face it: it was time to change the game.

Suddenly a gruff voice interrupted her thoughts: someone asking a question.

She opened her eyes.

‘That’s us, darlin’. D’you want dropped here? Will this do?’

Keira looked around to get her bearings. The taxi had come to a stop on the corner of Manse Brae and Gareloch Road, just past the turn-off for her road, but it was only a short walk back along the side of the loch.

‘This is fine.’

‘Have you far to go?’

‘No, it’s just back there.’

‘Aye, well watch out for the Highland Defenders. They’re out in force this year. It’s no wonder everyone in Scotland looks so peely-wally: they’ve had all their blood sucked out o’ them by those wee bastards.’

Keira forced a smile and handed over some cash.

Once outside the cab, she filled her lungs with fresh air and took a moment to enjoy the reviving effects of the cool breeze on her clammy skin.

Two young guys leant against the wall of the Rhu Inn, just twenty metres along the road, puffing on cigarettes and mumbling to each other behind wisps of grey smoke.

As Keira approached, they stopped talking.

‘Any chance I could borrow a cigarette?’ she asked.

One of them reached into the pocket of his jeans and offered her over a soft pack of Marlboro.

‘How long d’you want to borrow it for?’

‘The rest of my life.’

The guy squinted at her.

‘You’re right, I don’t mean borrow, I mean buy. She reached inside her pocket.

‘Yer awright, darlin’,’ said the guy. ‘Help yourself, you look like you need it.’

‘Thanks.’ She took a cigarette and handed him back the pack.

‘Have you got a light?’

The guy pulled out a one-fifty throwaway and flicked the spark-wheel. ‘Want me to smoke it for you as well?’ he asked, earning a grin from his pal.

Keira didn’t know why, but she leant over and kissed him briefly on the lips. ‘Thanks.’

She turned and set off along the road.

‘What do I get if I give you the whole packet?’ he shouted after her.

Keira ignored him and continued on past the post office, till eventually she disappeared into the darkness.

Across Church Road, at the far end of an open triangle of grass, just beyond a row of cherry trees, sat Rhu and Shandon Parish Church, its illuminated spire rising above the treetops into the night sky. The communal area of grass to the side of it had a drystone wall separating it from the church graveyard and sat adjacent to a sharp bend on the main road.

She made her way to the edge of the wall and leant against it.

At no point during her stay in hospital, or even the days spent in the safe house, had it crossed her mind to smoke, but tonight the old craving had returned. It was a sign that she was feeling better. The cigarette had burned halfway down, the point where she would normally flick it away, but tonight she decided to finish it.

Across the road a car drew up and parked alongside two grey stone pillars that marked the entrance of the drive leading up to the yacht club.

She watched from the shadows as a female got out and made her way round to the back of the car. The woman was small in stature, her hair cut in a neat bob. From where Keira was standing it was difficult to make out her features, but something in her manner, the way she stood – erect and stiff – was familiar. And the car, a black Land Rover Evoque, reminded her of the one that had followed her down to Scaur.

After fumbling around in the back, the woman slammed the tailgate closed then stood staring down the single-track road, towards the safe house. The narrow stretch of road ran parallel with the yacht club’s drive and was bordered on the near side by a tall hedge, and on its far side by the banks of Gare Loch.

Keira wet the tips of her fingers and pinched the end of the cigarette to kill its orange glow.

She eased back further into the shadows and watched as the woman glanced in her direction before moving to stand beside a clump of overgrown berberis and wild spindly trees that separated the thin stretch of road from the shore. The woman then vanished momentarily, her silhouette swallowed up by the melange of leaves and branches, only to reappear moments later as a dark shadow passing behind the overgrown vegetation. Keira’s eyes strained against the darkness, but there was no mistaking where the figure was headed.

Keira made her way across the deserted main road and crouched down behind the Land Rover. From there she had a clear view along the entire length of the lane.

From seventy metres or so, to the left, there came a rustling in the bushes and the woman’s silhouetted figure emerged, on the blind side of the house, where she stood for the next few minutes staring up at the darkened windows, turning occasionally to look back along the lane, but keeping her focus mostly on the house.

Keira winced as a sharp, cramping spasm from one of her wounds suddenly caught hold of her. Although she’d reduced her medication significantly, she still relied on it to keep her blood pressure stable and to take away the edge. It had been over seven hours since she’d last taken anything to dull the pain.

A car roared past, its headlamps momentarily blinding as they illuminated the lane like twin searchlights, before it disappeared round the sharp bend on the main road.

When she looked again, the woman was gone.

Keira quickly covered the ground between the back of the car and the bushes and was about to follow the woman’s route through the narrow gap leading to the shore when she noticed a light come on in the upstairs window of the house . . . her bedroom.

It was unlikely that her mother had forgotten to set it before she’d left, so whoever this person was had somehow entered without triggering the alarm.

Keeping a watchful eye on the window, Keira made her way along the road and was soon standing outside the front gate.

A shadow passed in front of the bedroom window, then the light went out again.

Instinctively she ducked to the ground and shuffled her way to the end of the garden wall nearest to the shore.

A moment later the front door creaked open and the figure emerged into the darkness.

Keira scrambled over the rough, compacted soil and around the corner of the garden wall, where she crawled into a small gap between the barbed, arching branches of an overgrown berberis and the craggy drystone wall.

Footsteps sounded along the garden path followed by the rusty squeak of the gate as it swung open and closed.

She could hear the woman’s shoes scuff along the surface of the road and come to a stop less than a metre from where she was hiding.

Close enough to reach out and touch.

Keira pressed herself hard against the drystone wall, careful not to make a sound. The woman was wearing a pair of flat shoes with bare legs and a skirt that fell just below the knee. Both arms hung casually by her side. In her left hand she carried something that was partially obscured by the folds in the fabric of her skirt: a metallic object that occasionally caught the light. In her right she held a phone.

As she shifted her weight the fabric fell away to reveal the outline of a handgun. She was muttering to herself in a foreign language.

Keira started to feel light-headed; suddenly she couldn’t breathe. Her hands fumbled around on the dry earth by her legs, blindly searching for a rock or stone – something to use as a weapon. But there was nothing except the needle-like thorns of the berberis. One punctured her skin and made her draw her hand back sharply.

The woman punched a number into her phone then held it to her ear. ‘Something is wrong,’ she said, speaking quietly. ‘She’s not here . . . the bodyguard, the mother, no one. The house is empty. I will wait only one half-hour, then I go.’

Keira heard the leaves in the trees rustling overhead and the bushes around her jostling against each other as a small gust of wind blew in across the loch. The push of air carried with it the hint of an odour: a whiff of scent.

She recognized it straight away.

A sudden surge of adrenaline made her feel sick to the stomach.

The stale body odour and clawing, musky aroma was unmistakable.

The Watcher was able to pass himself off as a woman.

Not aftershave, but perfume on a male’s skin.

That was why it smelled so wrong. That’s why he was able to ‘disappear’ so easily.

Engjell E Zeze turned too late to avoid the first blow.

Keira’s fist caught him hard on the side of the face and tipped him momentarily off balance. A second blow glanced off the back of his head, with little effect, followed by a third, and a fourth. Engjell stepped back and lifted his arm to block another fist swinging toward him, then raised the gun and squeezed the trigger.

Keira instinctively kicked out, her foot catching E Zeze on the wrist just in time to send the bullet whistling off into the night sky. She grabbed for the gun, but E Zeze was too quick for her and snatched it out of reach.

As E Zeze spun back to face her, Keira lunged forward, cracking her forehead against the side of E Zeze’s face with a sickening thud. Engjell E Zeze staggered backwards and dropped to his knees, momentarily dazed, but still with a firm grip on the handle of the gun. He cursed under his breath as he drew a hand across his mouth and felt warm blood stream from his nose. Quickly regaining his feet, Engjell stood staring up and down the empty stretch of road, but his attacker was nowhere to be seen.

Keira slammed the front door behind her, raced through the hall and into the lounge. The box of throwing knives was sitting on the table where she had left them.

Behind her she heard a loud splintering crack, followed by another, then the sound of E Zeze kicking furiously at the front door.

She quickly flicked the catch then flipped the lid of the box open.

Keira stared around her in disbelief before looking back at the box. It was empty.

There was a loud crashing sound as the door gave way and E Zeze was inside.

The window casing to her left exploded, sending fragments of wood and glass flying through the air.

Keira ducked through into the kitchen, heading for the back door.

Another bullet smacked into the wall above her and another into the door just as she reached for the handle.

Engjell quickly followed Keira out into the back garden, but when he got there, the lawyer had vanished. He could feel a cry of frustration clawing at his throat, but stayed silent; his eyes filled with rage as he scanned the darkness for any signs of movement.

Then, in the gloom on the other side of the wall, beyond the bushes, he spotted a figure running along the shore, heading toward Rhu marina.

Engjell adopted the Weaver stance, drew the .38 to eye-level and started shooting.

The pebble-covered shore made progress difficult. Bullet after bullet fizzed past her. One hit the ground to her right and ricocheted with a fading whine out into the loch. Another bullet whizzed overhead, followed by a third that threw a small puff of smoke into the air where it struck the stones close to her feet.

Keira’s lungs were on fire. She had already covered four hundred metres or so and wanted to get off the beach on to the road, but each time she tried E Zeze would open fire, forcing her closer to the water’s edge.

Two hundred metres or so in front of her the large boulders of the marina’s breakwater loomed out of the darkness.

Breathing heavily, she soon reached the foot of the boulders and started to scramble over their awkward, slippery surfaces. When she was halfway up she glanced over her shoulder, but there was no sign of E Zeze now.

The gap between the summit of the boulders and the edge of the marina’s boatyard was less than a metre. But just as she stepped across her foot slipped from under her and she toppled over, landing heavily on her elbow and grazing her leg in a large strip from her knee down to her ankle. There was something wet running down the back of her neck. When she touched her fingers to the back of her skull she felt a warm, sticky patch of blood in a tangle of hair where her head had struck the boulder.

Keira crawled up the rough-stone slope into the boatyard and clambered to her feet.

Over to the west, on the far shore, the lights of Rosneath twinkled through the darkness, their reflection dancing and shimmering on the black surface of the loch. The village of Rhu stretched out along the eastern shore, its street lamps casting a dim, orange hue over the bay in front of her.

There was a movement in the shadows near a cluster of trees close to the marina after which a bright orange muzzle flash burst from the gloom and was followed almost immediately by a dull popping sound. The hull of a boat sitting on stilts behind her made a loud crack as the bullet slammed into it, ripping a hole the size of a tennis ball into the fibreglass. Keira turned quickly and headed for the metal bridge leading down on to the pontoons.

E Zeze was much closer than she’d thought.

Keira crossed the bridge and stopped. The shadow cast by the security lamps made it difficult to see the rocks below the pontoon. She paused for a moment, peering down into the darkness, then lowered herself over the edge.