Still total silence from below. Too quiet, even for the middle of the night. The kind of silence that hangs heavy, like a dumbstruck witness in the immediate aftermath of something bad, really bad. Another light was on in the downstairs hallway, its glow reaching around the twist in the winding staircase.
He was trying to compute what could have happened. Had she gone downstairs for some reason, maybe to get a drink of water or visit the ground floor bathroom, and fallen and hurt herself? Was the tinkle of breaking glass the smashing of something like a glass or a lamp? He was about to call her name again, but instinct made him stay quiet. There were other ways to interpret the sounds he’d heard. Ways that were beginning to paint a worse picture in his mind.
He rushed down the first few steps as far as the twist in the staircase, to meet the glow of light that shone up from the hallway below.
The hallway wasn’t empty. A shape lay on the floor. The shape of a large body. A woman’s body.
Lottie’s body.
She was wearing a fluffy pink towel bathrobe hastily pulled on over a long satin nightdress and tied around her middle with a cord belt. She was lying on her back with her arms outflung to her sides and her face turned away from him. She wasn’t moving. Blood showed shocking red on the pink of her bathrobe and the creamy material of her nightdress. A lot of blood. It glistened on the brown skin of her legs where the nightdress had ridden up to her knees as she fell. It was soaking into the carpet under her, steadily spreading outwards in a dark stain.
But Ben wasn’t looking at the blood. He was staring in bewildered horror at the curved, glinting length of steel blade that was protruding from her sternum, right below the ribs, sticking straight up in the air like a flag that had been planted on her.
Not a knife blade. A sword, long and wicked and stuck deep through her body to pin her to the floorboards.
Ben leaped down the last few steps to the hall, calling her name again, hearing his voice in his ears as though it were someone else’s, knowing that nothing could save her from this terrible injury, his mind whirling to comprehend what he was seeing, and why.
At the end of the hall the front door was hanging ajar a few inches, and beyond that the screen door was wide open and letting in the night air and insects. The inner door had a window consisting of four little dappled opaque square panels. Lottie hadn’t dropped a glass, or knocked over a lamp, or anything else. The window panel nearest the lock was smashed and lying in fragments on the entrance mat, as if someone had punched it through to pass their arm inside and unfasten the lock and security chain from inside and let themselves into the hall.
Which, Ben realised, was exactly what had happened. Lottie, a floor closer to the hall than Ben up in the attic, must have heard the sound of breaking glass. She must have got out of bed to investigate, wrapping the gown around herself as she trod downstairs, clicking on the hall light from the switch at the foot of the staircase. That must have been when she came upon the intruder, or intruders. Hence, the first scream Ben had heard.
And that must also have been when the intruder, or intruders, had attacked her with the sword, knocked her to the floor, stood over her and stabbed her brutally through the body. Hence, the terrible wail of agony that had followed soon after the first scream.
Everything had happened in the space of a few moments. And it had ended only moments ago. Which had to mean that whoever had done this couldn’t be far away.
Even as he stood there thinking it, Ben heard a revving car engine from outside in the street. Someone in a hurry. Someone in the process of fleeing from the scene.
Choices. He needed to stay with Lottie and do whatever he could to help her. At the same time, if he didn’t act instantly to go after her assailant, right now, that chance would be gone.
In a perfect world, you wouldn’t have to choose. Back when he was heading up his SAS troop, he’d have been able to deploy one guy to stay with her and more to go after the enemy. But he was on his own now, and this wasn’t a perfect world. It was a world in which armed attackers burst into the homes of innocent and defenceless people and hurt them. And you had to do something about that.
Ben made his choice. He jumped over Lottie’s body and raced for the half-open front door. Burst outside, leaped down the steps and onto the path.
Chapter 12
There were no lights on in any of the neighbouring homes, but the street was full of the hard white glare that blazed from the headlamps of a black car in the middle of the road, double-parked beside his Tahoe with the driver’s door facing Lottie’s entrance gate. It was too dark to see what kind of car it was. Some kind of long, wide, old-style American saloon. Its engine note was the deep, rumbling clatter of a V8. A big, powerful, thirsty engine, harking back to the distant days when gasoline was as cheap as water. The tang of exhaust fumes cut through the sweetness of the night air. The unseen driver was impatiently gunning the throttle, as though urgently waiting before he could take off.
As Ben ran down the path towards the gate, he realised why. The running figure of the person the driver was waiting for had just cleared Lottie’s entrance gate and was sprinting towards the waiting car. The driver’s accomplice. Lottie’s attacker. A classic two-man team, perp and getaway driver. Ben heard the clap of the guy’s running footsteps on the sidewalk, echoed by his own as he gave chase. He saw the dark figure flit across the white glare of the headlights, crossing the front of the car to make it to the passenger side.
Ben ran faster. He reached the gate and vaulted over it and raced towards the car. The escaping figure wrenched open the passenger door, and for a brief moment the car’s interior was lit by the flare of its courtesy light, and as he ran Ben caught a glimpse of its two occupants. Both male, both white, both around the same age, older than their twenties and younger than their forties. The driver had long reddish hair tied back, the passenger had short reddish hair and wore a dark jacket over a white T-shirt.
That was all Ben was able to take in before the door closed and the car’s interior went dark again. By then, the driver was already slamming the transmission into drive and booting the gas. The V8 roared and smoke poured from the rear wheels as the tyres spun and screeched on the road.
Ben reached the edge of the sidewalk and ran out in front of the car, dazzled by its headlights which were suddenly veering right towards him and forcing him to dance back out of its path. The car roared by him, almost running over his toes. Because he’d gone to bed wearing his jeans, the Tahoe key was still in his pocket.
More choices. And it still wasn’t a perfect world. By the time he’d run to the Tahoe, got it fired up and into drive and away, the attackers would be gone. Chasing after the escaping car on foot seemed crazy, but he couldn’t afford a moment’s hesitation.
He sprinted after the car for all he was worth. It was still accelerating, the driver’s foot right down on the floor. Giving it so much gas that the power delivery of the big V8, designed for pure brute muscle back in the days long before US automotive engineers conceived of anything as sanitised and wimpy as traction control, was losing its grip on the road and fishtailing all over the place and spinning the tyres so hard that Ben could taste the molecules of burning rubber mixed up with its exhaust smoke. In seconds, it would get away from him. But for a few precious instants he could still catch it.
What he thought he could do once he caught it, he had no idea. He just knew he had to try.
He ran faster than he’d ever run before. Legs pumping, heart pounding. If he ran any harder he risked tripping over his own feet. But it was working. He was catching up, thanks to the driver’s own haste. Ben was within just a few strides of the back of the car’s swaying, screeching, gyrating rear end when he saw it had some kind of raised wing perched a few inches above its tail-lights, like a racing car. Something to hang on to, if he could make it. He didn’t hesitate. He hurled himself at the rear wing.
Pain lanced through him as his body slammed against the back of the car, bu
t it would have been a lot worse if they hadn’t both been travelling in the same direction. His fingers latched on to the horizontal blade of the wing and held on with an iron grip. He was being dragged now, the toes of his boots scraping the road, clinging on for all he was worth with his chest pressed hard against the rear panel of its boot lid. Chrome lettering wide-spaced across the rear bodywork that spelled out the word M-U-S-T-A-N-G digging into his flesh through his shirt. Burning red tail-lights either side of him. Hot exhaust from its twin pipes searing his legs like dragon’s breath.
He held on. The car gained more speed. They were already a long way down the street. On the outside it felt like eighty miles an hour. In reality the car was probably just hitting forty. But soon it would be fifty, then sixty.
If he could somehow drag himself up onto the big, wide boot lid, maybe he could kick through the back window and scramble inside. It wasn’t much of a plan, but he was angry and upset and didn’t have time to think. All he knew right now was that he couldn’t let these two men get away.
But Ben also knew that all tactical plans had a way of going to hell the moment bullets start to fly. That was what was about to happen to his, as Lottie’s attacker suddenly leaned out from the passenger window. They must have spotted Ben in the rear-view mirror, or sensed from the car’s handling that someone was clinging wildly to the back. The guy hung out as far as possible, clutching tightly on to the roof sill with one hand while pointing something back at Ben with the other. Something small and black that glinted in the peripheral glare of the headlights. The guy’s aim wavered, swaying this way and that with the gyrating motion of the car. Not great conditions for target shooting. But Ben was just a few feet away. A sitting duck. He tried to shrink away behind the bodywork but there wasn’t anywhere to take cover.
Two gunshots snapped out, muted by the roar of the engine and the rush of wind in Ben’s ears. But no less deadly for it. One round punched through the metal of the rear wing a couple of inches from his hand. The other passed over his right shoulder with just a hair’s breadth to spare.
Yet more choices. He had only two, and little time to decide between them.
Hold on, get shot.
Let go, take your chances with the road.
He let go.
Chapter 13
The car was gaining more speed every instant, its wheels no longer spinning and the back end under control. It was accelerating down the street under full power.
Parachute training couldn’t teach you how to land on a fast-moving road surface. Jumping from a moving vehicle was more like parachuting onto a whirling belt sander. Ben knew that it was going to hurt. And it did.
The impact knocked the air from his lungs. All at once he was slithering and sliding down the road on his back. Like coming off a motorcycle, without the benefit of helmet, leathers or gloves. He tried to keep his head and hands raised off the ground and his arms and legs spread-eagled to minimise the chance of rolling. That would do the worst damage, his own momentum breaking bones and flailing him to pieces against the road surface.
He slid for maybe twenty feet, but it felt like a mile before he came to a stop, dazed and bleeding in the middle of the road. The taillights of the car were a long way off now, shrinking to angry red pinpoints in the darkness. He craned his neck to watch as it rounded a corner at the top of the street; then it was out of sight and the roar of its engine was dying away to nothing.
Ben sprang to his feet. His elbows were torn up pretty badly and his back would be a mess of abrasions. It was still better than getting shot. Either way he had no time to take inventory of his injuries. The pain could wait. He shelved it to the rear of his mind and started sprinting back towards the guesthouse. Some lights were coming on in neighbouring upstairs windows as residents, alerted by the commotion and the sound of gunshots, rushed from their cosy beds to see what was going on. Ben ignored them and ran on. The car had dragged him halfway up the street and it was half a minute before he reached the guesthouse. It was definitely too late to give chase in the Tahoe. That chance had been and gone.
Now all that mattered was Lottie.
She hadn’t moved. The dark stain around her had spread almost wall to wall. Ben knelt beside her. The pressure of his knees on the carpet squeezed blood up out of its saturated pile like wringing out a sponge. It was everywhere. He felt its warm wetness soaking through the denim of his torn, abraded jeans.
Ben felt for her pulse and detected only a weak flutter. At his touch she lolled her head to try to focus on him. Her eyes were glassing over. Her mouth opened and she tried to speak, but all that came out was a low rasping moan and a bubble of blood that swelled and then burst, flecking her lips. Now he could see the terrible slash that the sword had cut across her face and neck before her attacker had knocked her over and thrust the long curved blade right through her body to pin her to the floorboards.
Ben stared at the weapon. If he’d been interested in semantics right now he’d have called it a sabre and not a sword. The kind of implement issued to cavalry troops right up until the early decades of the twentieth century, when military minds finally began to realise that mounted charges were little match for heavy machine gunnery. This sabre was older still. The length of blade that wasn’t buried deep inside Lottie’s body was speckled with over a century’s worth of black rust. Its handle was wrapped with sharkskin and bound with gold wire, and encased within a fancy brass basket hilt designed to protect the hand during combat. The brass was tarnished and dulled with age, and bore all the nicks and scars of a weapon that had seen use in anger, a very long time ago. Basically, an antique. Probably worth money.
The question was, what kind of murderer would break into a house to attack someone with a valuable antique sword, when common implements like kitchen knives and hammers could be obtained easily and cheaply and were just as lethal? It made even less sense for the killer to leave the weapon behind.
Lottie began to cough and retch blood. More of it welled from the gaping wound where the blade was stuck through her. Her robe and nightdress were black with it. Out of desperation Ben reached up and grasped the hilt, then on second thoughts took his hand away. Pulling out the blade, whether a knife’s or anything else’s, could kill a stab victim just as fast as pushing it in. Blood vessels that were constricted or blocked off by the pressure of the blade could suddenly start gushing so fast that their life would ebb away in moments. But he had to do something. He looked around him and spotted the little stand across the hallway where the landline phone rested on its base unit.
‘I’m going to get help, Lottie. Hold on.’
He started to get to his feet to reach for the phone. Before he could stand up, Lottie raised a bloody hand off the floor and, with what must have cost her last reserves of energy, gripped his sleeve.
At first he thought she was attempting to struggle upright. But she was too far gone for that. These were her last moments, and she knew it as well as he did. He realised she was trying to pull him down closer, so that she could whisper something in his ear before she died.
Ben put his hand on hers and leaned down and said, ‘What is it, Lottie?’
‘I … I always …’ It took a monumental effort for her to speak. She coughed, and the act of coughing made her abdominal muscles clench around the sabre blade, and she let out a terrible shuddering gasp of pain and closed her eyes. For an instant she seemed to fade away and he thought she was gone. Then her eyes reopened, bloodshot and full of agony and focused on his own with all the urgency of a person frantically holding on to consciousness, slipping away and fighting it every inch and losing.
She whispered, ‘I knowed it was comin’, Ben. I knowed it.’
Ben understood that she was talking about the secret she’d alluded to earlier that evening. Whatever it was, she’d held on to it for most of her life out of fear. Now that death was so close, she seemed to want to let it out like making a confession.
‘What did you know? Lottie, talk to me
. What did you know?’
She was sinking fast. Her breath was coming in fluttering gasps. Her eyes were glazed. The grasp of her bloody fingers on his shirt sleeve tightened in a last moment of panic before the darkness swallowed her, then became slack. Barely audibly, she murmured, ‘They was … they was bound to get me in the end. Like they done … to … Peggy Iron Bar.’
Ben laid his hand on hers and squeezed it. ‘Who did it, Lottie? If you know who hurt you, you have to tell me. I’ll find them. I swear. Who did it?’
But Lottie had given all she had to give. A last sigh hissed from her lips and her eyes closed, her body relaxed and Ben held her as he felt the life leave her.
He remained kneeling on the blood-soaked carpet next to her for some time, still clasping her hand in his, his head bowed with sadness for this woman he’d only just met and knew so little about. Wishing he could remove the sabre pinning her to the floor and let her lie there with a little dignity, if it wouldn’t have been messing with a murder scene.
And wondering, who in God’s name was Peggy Iron Bar?
Chapter 14
Ben was so lost in that moment that he barely registered the sound of the approaching siren until the police cruiser screeched to a halt outside the guesthouse and the open doorway behind him was lit up with flashing blue. It was no big surprise that one of the local residents must have called the cops. If they hadn’t, he’d have had to call them himself.
He laid Lottie’s limp hand down to rest on her chest and stood up. He glanced down at himself and saw that he was a mess. The parts of his clothing that weren’t torn and tattered from sliding down the road were covered in bloodstains. Anyone who saw him would think he’d been attacked by something wild. It was how he felt, too. The abrasions on his back were hurting. But he had more important things to deal with.
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