One Dead Witness (58 page)

‘
I’ll be back next Monday,’ were her parting words to Henry.
She needed a few days to recharge her batteries and she also wanted
to price up a new car, maybe a little sporty thing this time. She
had decided she would use the insurance money from the Mercedes and
take out whatever else was required in the form of a loan and treat
herself.

Having spent the day interviewing and feeling very sorry for
Ruth Lilton, murderess, Danny had arrived home - dropped off by a
police car - at ten that evening. Her guts told her to hit the sack
straight away.

But she was stale from the long, overnight flight, a little
clammy, and although totally whacked, she wanted to go to bed
accompanied by a pleasant perfumey smell, not body
odour.

She compromised and showered instead of having a bath. The
action of washing herself, letting her hands run up and down her
body, almost like a massage, was wonderful. She would have
preferred Henry’s hands, but that would never happen, she
knew.

She stepped out of the shower and dried herself. After
wrapping a huge fluffy bath towel around herself, tucking it under
her armpits, she made a turban for her head from a smaller
towel.

Suddenly the lights went out though the extractor fan
continued to hum.

She swore, opened the door and stepped out onto the landing to
find that light out too. She tried the switch. Nothing. Obviously a
fuse gone. She groaned, annoyed. Just when she needed it. She
flicked the switch again. Still nothing. Damn!

Angrily she tried the bathroom light switch, which was outside
the bathroom itself. The light came on immediately.

Danny frowned, puzzled, her brain still in neutral. She
fingered the switch thoughtfully until it dawned on her. Someone
had actually been up here and switched off the light. Someone was
physically here, in the house. An intruder.

Her eyes rose to the landing light. There was no light bulb in
the socket. A sudden, nauseous dread overcame her. Louis Trent, she
thought dizzily. He’s here, in my house. He’s been outside the
bathroom while I was in the shower and I didn’t hear him because of
the water.

She turned and made a dash for her bedroom, aiming to press
the panic alarm button next to her bed.

She lurched for the button as she veered into the darkened
bedroom, but her hand did not reach it. Another, stronger one
clamped down on hers and she was thrown across the bed with such
force that she rolled off the other side and crashed to the floor.
Next thing, she was being dragged by her hair back onto the
bed.

A bedside light was switched on.

The figure towered over her, a terrifying look on his
face.

He bent down and picked something up that was leaning against
the wardrobe. At first Danny thought it was a broom-handle. When it
was pointed at her face she saw it was a single-barrelled shotgun
that Jack Sands was holding.

He perched on the end of the bed. Danny sat near the headboard
with her legs drawn up. He had made her throw the towels away so
she was naked and starting to shiver. The shotgun rested across his
lap, his left hand holding the barrel, his right the stock, his
forefinger curled around the trigger.

They had been talking for well over two hours, going round and
round in circles.

To Danny he sounded demented and very dangerous.

‘
I just can’t give you up,’ he informed her for the hundredth
time. ‘You’re part of my life, part of me.’ He shook his head
sadly. His eyes had a faraway look. ‘I won’t give you up to anyone,
let alone that bastard Christie.’

‘
Henry Christie is my boss. He is not my lover, and never will
be.’

‘
Bollocks! I’ve seen you two together. I’ve seen him drop you
off at your house, groping you before you get out of the car. I’ve
seen it happen, Danny. He’s shagging you, isn’t he?’

‘
No - no one’s shagging me, as you so pleasantly put it, Jack.
I don’t have a lover and I don’t want one. Not you, not anybody.
And your imagination is running riot. Henry has never groped me,
either.’

‘
I don’t believe you.’

Danny shrugged. ‘Can I put my dressing-gown on? It’s cold
here.’

‘
No.’

‘
Fine.’

‘
He deserved that crack on the head. I wish he’d got brain
damage from it.’

‘
You did it?’

‘
I arranged it. Put a couple of toe-rags onto him who owed me
past favours.’

Danny took in the information. ‘So what’s it going to be,
Jack? We’ve been talking here for ages now, getting
nowhere.’

He cleared his throat. A tear rolled out of one eye. ‘I can’t
bear the thought of anyone else touching you. And if it can’t be
me, no one else will ever touch you because I’m going to kill you
now. Then I’ll kill myself. Ha! I know this is only a single
barrel, but you’ll have to trust me. This is a suicide pact. You’ll
die and then I promise I’ll reload and put the gun to my head. I’ll
only be seconds behind you. I’ve even written a suicide note.’ He
produced it from a pocket and flapped the envelope at her and
dropped it on the bed between them.

Then he took a shotgun cartridge from his pocket and placed it
upright on the dressing-table. ‘That’s for me. Yours is already in
the gun.’ He lifted the weapon and pointed it at her.

‘
You’re mad, Jack. A fucking raving loony.’

‘
No. Don’t think that of me. I’m obsessed, yeah. I’m in love,
but I’m not mad, Danny.’

‘
Well, let me tell you this,’ Danny said falteringly, fear
rising through her. ‘If there
is
an afterlife, I’ll be going to it with that
thought in my mind. Jack Sands is fucking mental. A pathetic,
spineless bastard who-’

‘
Shut it!’ he screamed. The gun shook in his hands. He hoisted
it to his shoulder and looked down the barrel at Danny. She stared
straight back, transfixed like a rabbit in a poacher’s
torchbeam.

‘
Go on,’ she snarled, ‘pull the fucking trigger and have done.
You’ve made my life a misery anyway. Go on, pull it, then kill
yourself, Jack. The world will be a far better place without you in
it.’

‘
I will! I will!’ he threatened, right on the edge. His finger
wrapped around the trigger. Danny could see him forcing himself to
pull it.

Her face wore a mask of contempt. She shifted slightly on the
bed, an inch nearer to the panic button. ‘It’s over, Jack. You and
me. It would never have worked in a million years. You can’t have
your cake and eat it. You’re married on one hand, having a
longstanding affair on the other. Something had to break sooner or
later and that something was me. You were never going to leave her,
so I had to end it, don’t you see?’ Then she added desperately,
‘What about your kids? Jack, they need you, they need a father.
Stop this now ... please. For everyone’s sake.’

‘
I’ve got enough love for everyone.’

‘
Oh, Jack, don’t be a fool. No one has that much love. Killing
me and killing yourself is not the way to see this through. Come
on,’ she said softly, ‘please see sense.’

There was a long silence. The gun was still pointed right at
Danny’s nose.

‘
You’re right,’ he said. He stood up and without a further word
he walked out of the bedroom, head held high, shotgun in his right
hand.

Danny leapt to her feet and slammed the door behind him,
locking it.

She heard his footsteps on the stairs.

Everything drained out of her. She slumped onto the bed,
holding her head.

Then she heard the bang of the shotgun being discharged
somewhere downstairs.

In deep shock she rolled onto the bed, curled up like a baby
in the womb, jammed a thumb into her mouth and rocked and
cried.

For more information about Nick Oldham and his books
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Also available by Nick Oldham as e-books in the ‘Henry
Christie’ series:

A Time for Justice

Nightmare City

The Last Big Job

Seizure

Hidden Witness

Facing Justice