Dangerous Deception

by Anthea Fraser

  He switched off our own lights and leapt round the car, dragging me out into the wet darkness. My wrenched ankle buckled under me and I gave a cry, which Bryn ignored.

  “I was counting on him thinking I’d make for the motorway,” he said, his mouth close to my ear so I could hear above the noise of the elements. “Now, not only has he cut us off, but if Morgan and Carol come this way – or anyone else, for that matter – they’ll run straight into him. We’ll have to shift him somehow.”

  He pushed me ahead of him, and we started to run, heads bent, into the wind, cutting across a field so that, as we rounded the corner, we wouldn’t be spotted by the reception party awaiting us.

  “He’ll be out of the car, watching for us. I’ve a gun here, and if you make a run for it or try to warn him, I promise you I shall use it – on both of you.”

  I did not doubt him. Shivering in the cold after the humid car, I limped along beside him till he came to a halt, putting out an arm to stop me.

  “Down there, look! Two of them, dammit!”

  I peered down the slight incline to the road. Sure enough, behind the parked car two figures crouched tensely, one on either side. Bryn said, “Think you can hit one of them?”

  I stared at him in horror, numbly shaking my head.

  “Well, remember what I said about any warning. If I can creep up on them I’ll knock them out, but if they spot me, I’ll have to shoot them.”

  His words were so much a part of this horrific night that they came as no shock. It seemed, after all, quite logical. Stealthily, we circled the unsuspecting figures. Then Bryn gave my arm a last, warning squeeze and crept forward with the reversed gun in his hand.

  Praying, for their sakes, that they wouldn’t hear him, I moved silently after him. The first figure fell without a sound and he inched to the far side of the car out of my sight. The noise of the wind was in his favour. A moment later I heard him call softly, “Give me a hand to drag them clear. They’ll be out for quite a while, by the look of them.”

  I slithered down on to the hard surface, my eyes fixed on the prone body nearest to me. Without ceremony Bryn rolled it over with his shoe and I gave a startled exclamation. I was looking at the white face of Cindy Dacombe.

  “Well, what do you know, another blonde!” Bryn said. “The place is moving with them! Take her feet, and hurry.”

  I lifted the slim legs in their faded jeans while Bryn took her shoulders. On the verge he dropped her none too gently and we went back for Andrew, who was considerably more cumbersome to move. The red-brown hair was plastered down with rain, and there was an ugly dark stain spreading over his left temple.

  “He is all right, isn’t he?” I asked fearfully, staggering under his weight.

  “He’s all right.” Bryn’s voice was grim. We dumped him beside Cindy and, rubbing my sore arms, I looked in bewilderment from one unconscious face to the other. Their presence here was yet another puzzle.

  I jumped as the engine started up beside me. Bryn opened the door. “Get in – no point in going back for my car.”

  I scrambled in beside him and had barely slammed the door before he’d reversed expertly in the narrow road and started once more in the direction of Swansea.

  “You know them, then?” His voice was uneven and he was still breathing heavily.

  “Yes, they’re a honeymoon couple from the hotel.” I spoke absently, my mind elsewhere. Something he’d said earlier …

  “Bryn!” I spoke sharply.

  “Yes, cariad?”

  “You said – Morgan and Carol would have run into them.”

  “Well?”

  “What about Philip? He’ll be with them, won’t he?”

  “The old sixth sense, is it? Well now, it depends, see. If he tried to cause trouble, they might have had to dispose of him.”

  “Dispose of him?” I heard the raw horror in my voice.

  “That was the arrangement. You see, Clare, I’m coming to the conclusion it was all a put-up job, starting right back with that antiques theft. One hell of an act, with the sole aim of putting paid to my operations. And my God, I just about fell for it! That’s a bitter pill, Clare; I don’t like being taken for a ride.

  “Mind, I set little traps for him from the start, but he always skirted round them. So when I needed a US buyer and couldn’t go over there myself, I made that the final test. If Philip carried it off, I’d stop worrying. And I have to tell you he was fantastic, even talking the Yank into agreeing to my price. Couldn’t have done better myself, and that’s the truth. So, to some extent, I relaxed my guard.

  “But Beanstalk was the big one, and it was always going to be tricky. As it turned out, it was a bonus that Philip was expendable; if things went wrong, he could be jettisoned. Even if he talked, it would be his word against mine, and though I’m looked at askance in some quarters, I’m still a reasonably respected art dealer. Whereas his reputation, as you well know, has been publicly shot to hell.”

  I daren’t let myself believe it – not yet – and I shook my head decidedly. “You’re wrong; I’m quite certain you can trust him.”

  “You surprise me,” Bryn said drily. “You didn’t trust him yourself, did you, three months ago? In fact, you couldn’t wait to get rid of him.”

  Agonisingly, I knew this to be true, as Philip must also have known.

  To change a suddenly painful subject, I said with an effort, “Where are we going?”

  “To rendezvous with Morgan at the docks. Once the cargo’s safely stowed, you and I go straight back to London. As far as anyone knows, I’ve never left it.”

  “And you think you can force me to marry you against my will?”

  “Not against your will, cariad – you’ll be only too willing. Because if you decline, not only will you meet with an accident yourself, but so will your precious Philip – if he hasn’t already. If I were you, I’d forget him; he’s said he doesn’t want you. He’ll just assume you were ‘one of my girls’ after all.”

  I sat watching the black countryside rush past on either side of us. If Bryn was right, and the whole thing was a frame-up, surely they could have trusted me? Or had Philip simply handed me what he knew I was looking for – the ‘perfect excuse’ to finish with him?

  I remembered Matthew’s insistence that Philip needed me, and was sick with shame at my betrayal. As Bryn said, I’d been only too ready to believe the worst of Philip, and Matthew knew how much his ruse was costing him. No wonder he no longer wanted me.

  Beside me, Bryn spoke softly. The word was an obscenity. I turned questioningly to look at him.

  “I see now why they had to cut us off: the god-damned tank’s empty.”

  “Empty?” My mind still on Philip, I didn’t take in what he said.

  “No petrol,” said Bryn succinctly. “It’s showing empty now, God knows how much longer we can keep going. Part of the way’s downhill, which will help, but in this head wind I don’t think she’ll cruise fast enough.”

  “How much farther is it?”

  “Far enough – we won’t make it.”

  Confirming his words, the engine spluttered, choked and died. Bryn stopped, his hands still on the wheel. And through the roaring of wind and crashing of water, a new note reached us – the hysterical, monotonous braying of a police car.

  “There’s a night we are having, isn’t it?” Bryn said with a heavy accent. “Everybody out!”

  Wearily I stood once more on the narrow, wetly glinting road. The police cars were not yet in sight, but the sirens were growing louder. I was confused; who had sent for them? Had my desperation reached out to them telepathically?

  Such musings were cut short as Bryn seized my arm. “Up on the cliffs,” he directed. “We haven’t time to hide the car – it would need pushing, in any case. Just remember, my lovely, I have a gun.” And he gently nudged me with its obscene black muzzle.

  Mechanically I turned off the road and with automatic obedience, stumbled after him into the dripping bra
cken.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;’

  Pope: An Essay on Man

  IT WAS a nightmare journey. My wrenched ankle, by now sending acute shafts of pain up my leg, was causing me considerable discomfort, not helped by Bryn’s instruction that we run bent double, to avoid presenting a silhouette against the skyline.

  He was keeping firm hold on me, and my other hand, at his insistence, held tightly on to my hood lest the wind drag it off and my fair hair signal our whereabouts.

  The bracken through which we were ploughing was in places waist-high and drenched with rain. My jeans were soon soaked, cold and clammy against my legs, and the stitch which I’d had earlier returned to plague me.

  Choking, gasping for breath, with no free hand to brush the hair out of my eyes, I stumbled on in a cocoon of misery. I had no thought to spare for the police, conscious only of the need to keep going, of Bryn’s stooping figure ahead of me and his occasional oath as a frond of moisture-laden bracken snapped back in his face.

  Then it seemed the slope eased off a little, and as it levelled out, I saw we were on the cliffs. Immediately the wind lashed against us, forcing itself into eyes, nose and mouth and robbing us of what little breath we had.

  “Over here!” Bryn directed. “There are gorse bushes – they’ll provide some cover.” Without thought I stumbled after him, gasping and sobbing with pain. Below us on the road the braying grew louder and ceased suddenly with a scream of brakes. They’d found the car.

  Voices reached us, calling to one another above the wind. Then, suddenly, light flooded over the lower slopes as headlamps were angled to illuminate the hillside. We, however, were already beyond their reach.

  Down on the road, as on to a floodlit stage, half a dozen figures spilled out of the cars and started after us, torches flowering in the dark. Bryn pulled me sharply down, and we crouched, panting, in the undergrowth while the probing fingers of light raked the hillside.

  The rain was easing off at last and, as though assisting the search, clouds chased across the sky to reveal the pale disc of the moon.

  “There are caves all along here,” Bryn said in my ear. “If we can reach one, we’ll be safe. But remember, my little bride, I shan’t hesitate to shoot if I have to.”

  He half pushed, half dragged me nearer the cliff edge, but that final spurt proved a mistake. He’d miscalculated the speed of our pursuers, and already the first heads were appearing over the bracken. There was a shout as someone caught sight of us and then, incredibly, Philip’s voice:

  “By God, he has got her!”

  My sob was compounded equally of terror and relief that he was alive, but it was choked back as Bryn’s hand came roughly over my mouth. Then, seeing further concealment was pointless, he stood up, dragging me in front of him and shouting, “Don’t come any closer! I have a gun, and if you force me to use it, Clare goes over the cliff!”

  Philip, erupting out of the bracken, stopped dead. I could see him braced against the wind, presenting, to my petrified eyes, an irresistible target. Behind him more figures had appeared, but he held out an arm to keep them back. In the distance another police siren wailed.

  Philip cupped his hands round his mouth and shouted back: “Send Clare down, then we can talk.”

  Bryn laughed excitedly. “Nothing to talk about, boyo, and Clare stays with me.”

  “Don’t be a bloody fool!” Even through the wind I could hear the frustrated anger in Philip’s voice. “Rees and Carol are in custody and the police have the paintings.”

  “Nothing to lose, then, have I?”

  Below us on the road, the third police car screeched to a halt. There were more bangings of doors, more voices shouting.

  Philip had turned away and appeared to be consulting with the policemen. Barely twenty yards separated us, but with Bryn’s gun unwavering in his hand, it could have been twenty miles. I wondered hopelessly how this would end; if Philip came any closer – or, for that matter, any of the other men – I didn’t doubt that Bryn would fire. And, I remembered shudderingly, he had sworn to push me over the cliff. We were only a few feet from the edge, and a sonorous booming filled my ears. It didn’t take much imagination to picture the huge rocks close under the cliffs and the boiling sea crashing over them.

  Bryn was still using me as a shield. Leaning helplessly against him, I could feel the vibration of his heartbeats and his ragged breathing in my ear, and wondered detachedly how long my shaking legs would support me.

  Then I felt him stiffen and in the same movement spin round, pulling me with him, and I saw what had alerted him – a crouched figure closing in on us from our left. In the same instant Philip yelled, “Down, Clare!” and before his voice had died, I’d twisted free and was flat on the wet, prickly scrub, rolling frantically away from Bryn’s feet.

  In the same heart-stopping instant, Philip, avoiding the restraining hand of a policeman, hurled himself forward. Bryn fired, but he must have missed because Philip’s momentum still carried him onwards, and before he’d a chance of another shot Philip was on to him.

  My view of the struggle was temporarily, maddeningly, blocked as the man who had caused the diversion hauled me to my feet and shoved me unceremoniously behind a gorse bush. From its cover I continued to gaze, horrified, at the grappling bodies swaying crazily together on the cliff edge, outlined against the paler darkness of the sky.

  A voice somewhere ahead of me shouted irritably, “What the devil are you waiting for? Close in, before he can draw!”

  But even as figures started obediently forward, Bryn, with a strength born of desperation, wrenched himself free and his fist caught Philip’s jaw with the impact of a sledgehammer. Off balance, Philip reeled backwards, and instantly, in the fitful light, came the gleam of Bryn’s gun.

  My eyes strained agonisingly to see how Philip fared. I was hoping the blow had knocked him out and would keep him clear of trouble, but that hope was short-lived. He moved painfully and started to push himself up again. I heard someone shout, “Stay down, man!” but he took no notice.

  Instinctively, I was on my feet, my throbbing ankle forgotten. I was to Bryn’s left now, and slightly behind him, and could see the iron discipline which, though his breathing tore through his body like sobs, kept the gun he held as still as a rock. Every ounce of his concentration was on Philip who, now on hands and knees, paused before the final effort of pushing himself to his feet.

  I looked wildly round, but there was no one near me, the man who’d helped me having rejoined his colleagues. I was the only one temporarily out of Bryn’s sights. Thankfully there was no time for fear – that had all been spent. Almost coolly, my eyes measured the distance between my bush and Bryn. Fifteen feet at most.

  Moving as fluidly as the clouds across the heavens, I slipped out of my cover, my eyes riveted on the figure against the skyline. If he caught any hint of movement, he’d turn and fire. His nerves were stretched to breaking point, but still he watched Philip, waiting for him to stand and present a better target.

  As I paused fractionally, I could hear Philip’s grunt of exertion, almost feel the flex of his muscles as he came upright. And in that instant I hurled myself forward, low down to avoid the gaping muzzle, and more by the grace of God than any expert manoeuvring on my part, my outflung arms caught Bryn round the knees.

  I heard his staccato oath and simultaneously there was a skull-splitting roar, a searing smell of cordite, and the rib-cracking weight of his heavy body falling across mine.

  Time had ceased to exist. When Bryn fell on top of me, the force of his body expelling my breath, I lost consciousness for the first time in my life. The three days of strain, with very little sleep to separate them, had finally caught up with me and I slid helplessly into darkness, convinced that the bullet had found its mark in Philip.

  Several times over the next hour or so, I swam up briefly to the surface of awareness before drifting away again. During those t
imes, there was a dream-like fluidity about everything around me. As though in another dimension was the smell of petrol and leather and wet clothes, a sensation of moving smoothly and without effort on my part, of voices, sharp with command but quite unintelligble.

  Then, eternities later, the motion ceased, cold night wind rushed at me, and I was carried from the warm cocoon of the police car into the familiar hallway of the Carreg Coed hotel. And, in the confusing way of dreams, Matthew was there, his face white with strain, his voice cracking as he cried, “Clare! My God, she’s not hurt?”

  I obligingly passed out again, and the next thing I remember is being propped up on the sofa in the lounge, wrapped in blankets, while Mrs Davies, wearing an old blue dressing-gown and with her hair in a net, spoon-fed me hot soup. Matthew, who must be real after all, sat next to her, holding my hand.

  My instinctive movement brought a twinge from my swollen foot, and I saw it had been expertly bandaged. Its throbbing had underlain all my troubled dreams.

  The soup finished amid murmurs of encouragement, Mrs Davies quietly left the room and I felt a flutter of panic; return to full consciousness could no longer be delayed, and I’d been clinging to unreality as an amulet against what I dreaded to hear. For in all the comings and goings, the driftings and dreamings, there had been no sight nor sound of Philip.

  It was no use, though; I had to know.

  “Philip?” It was the first word I’d spoken, and it came out blurred and indistinct, but Matthew caught it.

  “He’s all right, Clare. He’s giving a statement in another room.”

  The tide of relief sapped all my energy and it was minutes before I could speak again. Then, as memory began to return, I said urgently, “And the Dacombes?”

  “All right too. They’re being kept in hospital overnight because of their concussion, but they should be out in the morning.” He smiled. “There was talk of carting you off with them, but once it was established your ankle was only sprained, Philip talked them into bringing you back here.”

  The soup had revived me, and my curiosity returned.