Who Dares Wins
Page 27
“Your brother’s men left the gate open when they piled out of here,” Dorring said.
“Huh!” Kevin grunted, feeling stupid and chuckling gently. “Obviously.”
“Hold your hands up,” Dorring barked at him.
Dorring removed one hand from the pistol and thrust it into the back pocket of his jeans. He took out a cable tie. It was already set in a loop. He hooked it over the outstretched wrists and then pulled the end, tightening it around the wrists like a lasso and trapping the hands together.
“What now?” Kevin asked as Dorring stood away from him and put the gun into the waist of his jeans.
Without saying a word, Dorring dragged Bruce Appleby’s corpse to the side, so that his legs weren’t blocking the door, and then he closed it. Kevin watched him as he walked past and stood gazing out of the window.
The fires blazed in the rain-filled night, the smoke rising up and joining the storm clouds. Abigail had done well riding the fuel truck around the island and setting fire to the fields. The ones close by were Dorring’s work. He’d shot a hole in the tank of the car, then collected the leaking petrol in a jimmy can he’d stolen from the petrol station.
“You shouldn’t have sent that message,” Dorring said, the flames reflecting on his pupils.
Kevin said nothing. He merely lay on the floor watching him.
Dorring came away from the window. He stood over Kevin and lurched down. Grabbed him by the throat. With his other hand, he took something from the back of his jeans. Kevin thought it would be the gun. But when Dorring revealed the hand, he realized it was something else.
Dorring held the SAS dagger up to his eyes.
“Your turn,” he said, and he lurched forward and sliced open Kevin’s T-shirt.
Sitting on Kevin’s arms and chest so that he faced his feet, Dorring cut something into the stomach of Kevin Yates. He practically cut it all the way through to the internal organs and the killer writhed in agony underneath him, screaming out and making sounds he’d never made before and would never make again.
It wasn’t Who Dares Wins that Dorring etched into his flesh, running the new mark through the original scarring. No. It was Jane Saunders, R.I.P.
Kevin died of shock before Dorring had finished the ‘U’ on Saunders. But that didn’t stop him completing the work.
When it was done, he stood up from the body and gazed down at it. Kevin’s eyes were wide open, bulging from the bone white skin of his face. The mark on his stomach was so covered in blood that Dorring couldn’t tell what it was. Added to this was the fact that his vision was hazy at best. He was wobbling and felt weak. Like he would collapse and pass out any minute. The blood had congealed on his stomach but still oozed from the wounds. It must have been the blood loss that made him see her in the window’s reflection.
Looking back from the glass was Jane.
The knife dropped from Dorring’s hand and hit the floor. He began walking towards her. She reached her hand out and he lifted his own. It was heavy and it took all his effort to raise his fingers to hers.
“Alex!”
He turned around and saw the face of Abigail Pritchard. He turned sharply back to the window, but Jane was gone. Only the flaming fields remained.
Abigail ran to him and grabbed Dorring as he stumbled, helping him to a chair at the edge of the room. Setting him down, she kneeled in front of him and took his bloodied hands. He could barely keep his head up.
“You should see the island,” she said. “The whole place is going crazy. All of Appleby’s men are trying to put the fires out. They were so concerned with them, they completely missed me as I drove past them on my way here. I found a working phone downstairs. I called someone. They’ll be here soon.”
Dorring smiled weakly at her, his head bobbing about. She glanced down at his wounded stomach and recoiled a little.
“They’ll be someone who can help you,” she said softly. “Just hold on, Alex.”
She squeezed his hands and gazed up into his eyes with such a sweet expression that he didn’t see Abigail Pritchard kneeling there. He saw Jane. Stooping forward, he pressed his lips into hers.
Abigail closed her eyes and let it happen.
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