To Kill For (29 page)

For men like Cole and Dunham power was their blood; it crawled around their bodies, filled their guts, their muscles. But it was a force that fed on itself – the more power they had, the more they wanted, the more they needed to keep down the others who wanted it. But, when it came down to it, it was all front; they died like anyone else. They had only as much power as people believed they had, and when, in moments like these, the mask slipped, the power slipped too. Cole's nephew had betrayed him, he'd been stupid, had been set up like a mug and almost wiped out. His mask was falling off. Now, staring out the window, he looked old, like Dunham.

When we went through the village, we drove more slowly until I could work out where we were. After a few minutes, I saw the high long brick wall with its iron spikes like teeth. I told the driver to stop. We were still a few hundred yards from the security gate.

Cole turned to me.

‘What do we do?' he said. ‘Can we rush the place?'

‘No. His men'll be looking for us. There's a security gate up ahead. Even if we get past that, there's a hundred yards of clear ground before we get to the house. We'd be out in the open for too long.'

Gibson said, ‘How do we get in?'

‘We don't. I do.'

I expected Cole to put up a fight about that. He'd wanted Paget for himself and I was taking that away from him. But he didn't argue. He didn't seem to care. He said, ‘Tell me what to do.'

‘Over the far side the wall is close to trees. I'll get over that way. You hit the front gate with everything. They'll send men to reinforce it and I'll slip in the back. I'll need a car to take me there, round the back way.'

‘Why the car?' Gibson said. ‘We don't want to split our forces.'

‘The wall's too high for me to climb. I'll need to stand on the top of the car and jump over. When I'm over, the car can come back to you. Then you attack.' Cole stared ahead. ‘You hear me?'

‘When the car comes back, we attack.'

‘Right. When I hear you, I'll head for the house.'

I got out of Cole's car and into the rear one. I told the driver what to do and he turned around and followed the wall for a few minutes. When I could see trees overhanging the top of the wall, I told him to get as close to the wall as he could. He parked and I got out and climbed onto the roof. I was still short of the top of the wall, and those spikes were going to make it difficult to get over. I got the two men out of the car and onto the roof. I told them to boost me up higher. They muttered and sweated and cursed my weight, but they got me up high enough so that I could reach the branches of the oaks overhanging the wall. There was a squeak, then, from behind us and we turned to see a teenager on a bike, paper bag over his shoulder. He slowed and gaped up at us. One of the men underneath me said, ‘We're pruning the trees.'

The kid cycled away from us fast. I reached up and took hold of the thickest oak limb. It was damp and slippery with some kind of slime. I couldn't get a hold. I tried a thinner branch. It bent under my weight but it was strong enough. I moved along, hand over hand, lifting my legs over the metal spikes. I dropped down and tried to do a parachute landing that I hadn't done in over thirty years. I hit the firm ground hard and it knocked the wind out of me. I rolled over onto my back and lay there, knowing I was too old for this stuff, knowing that I was on a fool's errand, knowing I was dumb, wondering why the fuck I was bothering.

I heard the car start up and drive off. After that it was quiet. Above me, the bare branches rattled in a slight wind and looked like cracks in the sky. Crows, silent, sat and watched me, waiting to feed on my guts.

The sky slid slowly along like a slick of oil on filthy water, like the wasted hours of a wasted life, like Browne's hopeless hope, like the smile in Brenda's face when she remembered something she'd seen, like my chances to help her, like the world, a mass of people caught in that oil, like me, crawling somewhere, anywhere.

Fuck.

My head was clear for once, like the icy air that stung my eyes; clear, now that I wanted it to be dull and far off; clear, now that I wanted to murder and hide the deed in murk. My bastard head, clear, setting it all before me, crisp and cold: my failures; my debts unpaid. Yes, it was all clear.

Then I heard a far-off crash. Cole had rammed the gate. There was another crash. The world had slid on.

I got up and moved forward through the trees, stopping short of the open grass. From where I stood, I could see the back of the house. There was fifty yards of open ground. There was a swimming pool there that I hadn't known about, tables and chairs around it. Beyond that, French windows that opened onto a patio.

There was another crash at the front gate. Lights came on in the house and the front door opened. Two men ran from the house, weapons at the ready. There were shouts from somewhere. The crackle of automatic fire carried on the thin cold air.

I pulled my Makarov. I looked around once more. There was nobody my side of the house. I moved, running straight for the patio.

The French windows were locked. I moved along the wall, trying other windows as I went. It was the kitchen door that let me in. Someone had left the key in the lock on the inside.

I used the butt of my gun to break the glass, my jacket muffling the sound. I opened the door slowly and stepped in, crunching glass. I closed the door and stood a moment, listening. I heard nothing except clatter of gunfire that sounded far off now. I moved through the kitchen and into the gloomy, curtained dining room. Light came from somewhere beyond the open doorway. I neared the light and stopped again. I'd heard something. The stairway was to my right. A creak had sounded there. I stayed in the dim doorway.

A ghost passed me and I caught a smell of creamy flowers, like the kind of smell Brenda's face lotions had. It was Dunham's wife. She wore a thin white nightdress that flowed around her like mist. She stopped a couple of feet from me, as if she'd sensed something. I held my breath. She turned slowly. For a moment, she saw me and did nothing, didn't even breathe, and I thought she was going to turn away and walk off into the night, disappear like that mist surrounding her. And then her eyes widened and her neck muscles tightened and I knew she was going to scream her head off. I flung out my hand and grabbed her by the throat and pulled her into the dining room. She thrust her hands up to mine, trying to claw them off. Her nails dug in deep, and she scraped, and all the while she was doing this I was lifting her off the ground and her feet were kicking my legs, scrambling for a hold. I pulled her close to me.

‘I'm going to put you down. If you scream, I'll hurt you.'

She nodded as much as she could, her eyes wide in terror, her mouth trying to work, trying to say something. I let her down and loosened my hand but kept it on her neck. With my other hand, I pocketed the gun and took a handful of her nightdress and turned it tight and pulled her towards me. She staggered and threw her hands around my arm to hold herself steady.

She held on like that for a few seconds, letting her breathing become regular, letting her heartbeat slow. Her face was white, her lips pale. She shivered and squeezed my arm again, trying, I thought, to stop herself fainting. We were in a kind of dance, locked together by our arms, and by powerful and murderous men.

After a while, the colour came back to her face. It came with a vengeance. Her lips flamed, her cheeks burned red, her eyes flashed fire. She had guts, this one.

I couldn't hear the gunfire any more. If Dunham's men had got the upper hand, I didn't have much time.

I still had a hold of the woman's nightdress. She trembled, but she stood straight and looked me directly in the eyes.

‘Who are you?'

‘It doesn't matter.'

‘Yes. It does. It matters a lot. This is my home.'

‘My name wouldn't mean anything to you.'

‘I see. One of them. You want my husband, I suppose.'

‘No.'

‘I could scream.'

I tightened my hand around her slim neck. ‘No, you couldn't.'

My middle finger touched my thumb. Her eyes went big. I loosened my grip as her hands started to pull at my arm. She staggered back a step, rubbed her throat.

‘I suppose you enjoyed that.'

‘No.'

I took my hand away. The noise of gunfire picked up again.

‘What do you want? What's all that noise out there?'

‘That noise is Bobby Cole.'

She caught her breath.

‘That's shooting? What's he doing? What does he want with us? My husband's not here.'

‘He doesn't want your husband. He wants the same as me: a man.'

‘I don't understand.'

‘Yes, you do. Where is he?'

‘The police—'

‘They won't save you. Now I can tear the place apart, or you can tell me where he is.'

‘My daughter's here.'

‘I know. You don't want her caught up in the crossfire, do you?'

She shook her head.

‘Where is he?'

‘Please, just go.'

‘Where is he?'

‘Why do you think anyone's here?'

‘Eddie told me.'

That stopped her. I let go of her nightdress. If she noticed, she didn't do anything about it. She could have run. Instead, she said, ‘That's a lie. Eddie wouldn't tell you anything.'

‘I came here before.'

‘I remember. So?'

‘Today I saw something in Eddie; I saw pain. I only ever saw that once before; here, with you.'

‘Me?'

‘I saw the way you ignored him, the way you were cold to him. You wanted to hurt him. And he was hurt.'

‘So?'

‘You knew who Eddie and your husband were dealing with, what kind of man, what monster. And you hated them for it. But your husband is a ruthless man and I don't think you'd expect anything else from him. But Eddie… your anger was targeted at Eddie. And it hurt him, as you knew it would.'

‘You don't know that.'

Her hand went back to her throat. I don't think she knew she'd done it.

‘I know it,' I said. ‘I know it like I know my own face. It fits. It makes sense in a mad way. I would never have thought it until today. But now I know. He's in love with you.'

Her lips were closed tightly. Her eyes blazed. She breathed heavily. Her heart must've been racing. Her hand stroked her throat. I could see her vein pulsing there.

‘You're guessing,' she said. ‘You don't know anything about me.'

‘There's something else. They brought me here.'

‘You're talking in riddles.'

‘There was no reason for them to do that. When they got me here, they didn't tell me anything new. If they'd wanted to give me a message, they could've done it any time. So I had to think why they would bring me here.'

‘And now you have the answer.'

‘It was misdirection. They brought me right to where they were hiding the man I was after and made me think they were after him too. For a while it worked. This was the last place I thought he was stashed. It was twisted thinking, a joke. Your husband doesn't think like that. He's a club, a hammer.'

‘And Eddie…?'

‘He's a blade.'

‘Even if that was the case—'

‘It was the case. It is.'

‘You're so sure.'

‘Yes.'

‘And now you want me to point him out to you. You're going to kill him, aren't you? You want me to condemn a man to his death.'

‘He's already dead. The question is, do you take me to him or do you wait until Cole arrives with his army and rips the place apart, you with it, your daughter maybe. Is he worth it?'

I wasn't touching her now. She looked up into my face, her eyes wide, her chest heaving. Her hand left her throat, glided down, stroked her nightdress.

‘Why do you want him? Why do you want to kill him?'

‘I knew a woman once, a bit older than you, and a girl, a bit older than your daughter. That's why.'

She looked into my eyes for a long time. The sounds outside didn't matter. Finally, she nodded and her arm lifted and her hand pointed towards the side of the house.

‘There's an extension. He's in there.'

‘Describe the room.'

‘It's about twenty foot by fifteen. There's a single bed along the connecting wall and a table and chairs around the place. There's a bathroom at one end. Two windows are in the far wall. The door has a lock. I don't have a key.'

‘Right. Now go and get your daughter and lock yourselves up somewhere. Don't come out.'

She went, but at the bottom of the stairs she stopped and turned.

‘It should have been my husband,' she said. ‘Or Eddie. Not you.'

I watched her go, then went and found the extension. The door was shut. There was no light coming through the cracks around the edges. It was a heavy door, probably locked. I knew he'd be in there, listening, armed, waiting. If I tried to open the door, I'd alert him. I took a step forward and put my ear to the wood. I couldn't hear a thing except the distant rattle of the gunfight and my own heart pounding in my throat. But I knew he was there. I knew it.

The door was solid and if I went for the windows, I'd be an easy target. That didn't matter so much, just as long as I got to him. I didn't have time to work at this slowly, Dunham would have men on the way and who knew when the law would turn up.

I pulled the Makarov from my pocket, moved away from the door and took a breath and aimed. The gun bucked in my hand. The shots were explosions in the small space. The lock tore apart. I threw myself at the door. It crashed open, smashed into furniture. I fell and half-rolled and got back to my feet and brought the gun up and aimed into the darkness. And froze. A face was there, small and white, something glinting below it. Above it, something else hovered; a mask, long and thin, a scar of a mouth, razor-blade eyes.