by Tom Savage
Apparently not. As the breaking story ended and the tennis footage returned, the woman shook her head, crossed herself, switched off the sound of the TV, and began pouring fresh pints for the two older men. Even so, Nora thought as she gulped down her tea, it was best not to stick around here.
Craig clearly agreed. He was already out of his seat, reaching for his coat. She stood and did the same.
“I need you to fetch the car,” he said. “The brown Focus. It’s parked in the street, a few doors past my building.” He pulled a key ring from his pocket and handed it to her. “This key is for the Focus, the other is for my car, but that’s in a garage and they might be watching it. And we’d best not chance taxis or buses or the Underground; the drivers will all have my snap by now. I’ll wait here till you pull round.”
“Right,” Nora said. She shouldered her bag and headed for the door while Craig paid the hostess. The news report had shaken her, and not merely for the obvious reasons. It had reminded her of the television in the dining room at the French guesthouse yesterday morning, with the security camera photo of her in the cemetery in Pinède. It also reminded her of the scene earlier this evening, at Vivian’s house, watching the newscast about Maurice Dolin with her friends. Minutes later, her friends had been shot at point-blank range while she was upstairs, mere yards away from the assassin. Three times in two days, now, bad news had arrived by television, as if it were some modern, electronic version of the running messengers in those Greek plays she’d studied in drama school. My lords, the king is dead, and Thebes is fallen…
Outside the pub, the rain was coming down harder than before, and she couldn’t control the trembling in her hands. She’d have to drive the car back here in a near-blinding downpour. She was under the awning, tying a scarf over her hair and fumbling with her umbrella, when it occurred to her that she’d never driven in England before. The steering wheel was on the right, and she’d have to stay on the left side of the street. Everything would be backward. Dear God…
Bracing herself, she set off toward the main road. She rounded the corner onto Queensway and walked toward Craig’s building, peering through the rain at the spot where the crowds had been. The ambulance was gone, but two police cars were still there, double-parked, blue lights flashing. The officers and detectives would be in Craig’s flat upstairs, gathering evidence at what was now a crime scene. Only three or four curious onlookers remained in a cluster near the doorway, huddled under umbrellas, watching the comings and goings of the officials. She was walking past them, directly in front of the building, when she saw one face she recognized. He stood apart from the others, no more than eight feet away from her, and he wasn’t looking into the lobby like everyone else. He was glancing up and down the street as though he was waiting for someone, and Nora had no doubt whom that someone was.
Andy Gilbert, all six and a half feet and two hundred fifty pounds of him, was waiting for Craig Elder to come home so he could finish the job he’d been sent here to do.
Nora turned her face away from him, looking out into the street, grateful that she’d stopped long enough to cover her head with the scarf. She moved more quickly as she escaped down the sidewalk, searching for the brown Ford Focus. Get to the car, she told herself; get to the car and drive away before he notices me. There’s the Focus, just ahead in the row of vehicles parked at the curb. Get to the car and—
She aimed the key ring and clicked it, then opened the door and got inside. She pulled off the scarf and dropped it in her bag. The steering column was at the other end of the dashboard, of course, so she clambered across into the driver’s seat. As she turned the key in the ignition, she looked out through the rainy windshield to see Andy Gilbert looking in her direction, and she saw his eyes widen in recognition as he spotted her.
Then he was running toward her.
Chapter 38
Key. Ignition. Lights. Windshield wipers. The car was an automatic, thank God, but she reached down with her right hand for the gearshift. The big man was pounding this way, his huge arms working like pistons. Left hand, she commanded herself. Her left hand fumbled awkwardly down to the lever and she pushed it from P to D and slammed her right foot—right, not left!—down on the accelerator. The car lunged forward, directly into the back end of the SUV parked in front of her. A dull crunch. Reverse, reverse, push backward for reverse…
Another quick glance at Andy Gilbert through the row of parked cars ahead. He was three cars away now, closing in, his right hand touching his ear, his lips moving. He was speaking into a headset. Reverse—the car jerked back, away from the dented fender of the SUV, and smashed into the front bumper of the car behind her. She was thrown forward, grasping the steering wheel to avoid colliding with it. She twisted the wheel to the right and hit the accelerator again, and the Focus shot out of the space into the street. A blaring horn, the sudden shriek of brakes on wet asphalt just behind her, and the blinding glare of headlights from the bright red car she’d just cut off. More honking. She saw in the rearview mirror that a line of cars had come to a sudden stop, thanks to her. Ignoring the horns and the angry shouts, she straightened the front end of the car and pressed the accelerator again.
He’d seen what she was doing, so he was clearly planning on heading her off. He pivoted on the sidewalk and shot out between two parked cars just ahead of her, directly into her path, raising his arms in front of him.
“Stop!” he bellowed.
Her headlights caught the look on his face, the widening of his eyes and the opening of his mouth as he realized that she was not going to obey him. She pressed down harder on the pedal, shutting her eyes and bracing for the inevitable impact. He must have tried to leap out of the way, because the thump, when it came, was on the left side of the car, not the center. Against her will, her eyes opened, and she saw. Andy Gilbert fell forward across the left side of the hood, then bounced and flew off to the side, the back of his head smashing into a window of the parked car behind him, shattering it. The Focus slid past and headed for the intersection. A red light.
Nora stomped her left foot down on the brake and skidded to a stop on the wet road just as a young woman with an umbrella stepped out in front of her. Turn signal, turn signal…there. Turn left, she instructed herself, into the left lane, not the right lane. The blinker blinked, the wipers swept rhythmically back and forth across the windshield, and the red car she’d nearly sideswiped came to a stop behind her. The driver, a middle-aged man, was leaning his head out his window, shouting and gesticulating at her, pointing back the way they’d come. He’d seen the collision, and he was berating her for leaving the scene of an accident.
She peered into the rearview mirror, straining to see through the rain. A large, dark figure was crumpled in the street beside the parked car some thirty yards behind her, and other pedestrians were arriving there. A gaggle of umbrellas closed in on the spot, and she heard more shouting. It had seemed so artificial to her, so choreographed, the impact and the body bouncing gracefully back into the other car, smashing the breakaway window like a stuntman in a Bruce Willis movie. It couldn’t have been real, could it? She couldn’t possibly have just killed a man.
The man in the red car was opening his door, preparing to get out and give her a piece of his mind. He’d make a citizen’s arrest, no doubt, and she would be taken to a precinct station and charged with vehicular manslaughter, held without bail, her passport confiscated, and tomorrow afternoon Jeff would die. Her husband was alone and afraid and probably injured in some remote place, and she was his only hope of survival. No, she thought. No! This clown in the red car will not detain me. If I killed Andy Gilbert, so be it. I must find my husband. That’s what matters. That’s all that matters. The man was out of the car now, moving toward her driver’s door, an angry scowl on his face, and now he would—
Nora didn’t even think; she merely acted. She spun the wheel to the left and mashed her boot down on the accelerator. The Focus slued sideways, the tires sliding in the r
ain as she made the turn before the light had changed. The whine of the engine and the screech of the tires filled her ears, but they weren’t as deafening to her as the pounding in her chest. She struggled to draw breath. Go, go, go, go. Her mind repeated the word over and over as the car shot forward and flew off down the quiet side street.
And there was Craig, caught in the headlights, standing on the sidewalk in front of the pub, staring as she bore down on him. She shuddered to a stop beside him, stalling the engine in the process. She managed to slide the gearshift into neutral before throwing herself over into the passenger seat, sobbing, feeling blindly for the seatbelt. By the time she’d strapped herself in, he was in the driver’s seat and maneuvering the car forward toward the next intersection.
“What is it?” he asked, glancing over at her. “What’s wrong?”
It took her a few moments of hyperventilated gasping before she could draw enough breath to speak. “I—I think I killed him.”
“What?” he cried. “Who?”
Another gasp, another hiccup. She fought for control, but panic was setting in. “Gil—Gilbert. Andy Gilbert. I hit him with—with the car.”
Now it was Craig’s turn to gasp, and he muttered a word she’d once berated Dana for using. Then he said, “Where was Andy Gilbert when you first saw him?”
“In front of your building,” she said, breathing more deeply now. “He was waiting there for you. He must have killed Bill and Viv, and your friend Wendy. He saw me when I got in the car, and he—he ran right out in front of me. I knocked him down, and the man in the car behind me started to—”
As if on cue, a loud honking began behind them. Nora turned in her seat and peered through the rain at two bright headlights. Her eyes adjusted to the glare, and she saw a red car, just like…
“Oh God, that’s him!” she cried. “That’s the man who was behind me! He’s following us!”
Craig glanced briefly in the rearview mirror. Very briefly.
“Hang on,” he said, and they sped through an intersection just as the lights changed. A late pedestrian, a tall young man, cried out and leaped for the curb as they flew past him. The squeal of tires behind them told her that the red car had been caught by the light, and the civic-minded busybody—unlike Craig—was obeying the traffic laws.
Craig turned the car into another wide street, then another. She had no idea where they were; they might be heading north now, but she wasn’t sure. No, there was Hyde Park again. East—they were traveling east. She fell back against the seat and shut her eyes, content to let him steer them out of this, and concentrated on breathing evenly once more. Bright lights in the rain: Piccadilly? Oxford? One of the circuses flew by, then more side streets. She knew the East End of London even less than the western sections they’d just fled. She had vague memories of docks and Whitechapel and long lines of seedy rowhouses and very little else.
“Where are we going?” she finally ventured.
Craig didn’t remove his gaze from the rainy road ahead. “Somewhere safe,” he said and left it at that.
She nodded, saying nothing, and leaned back again. The night was catching up with her: the shocks, the heartbreak, the near-constant running. And now she’d killed a man—a murderer, perhaps, but nevertheless, another human being. The enormity of it pressed in on her, shutting down her senses. Despite her best efforts to remain alert, she drifted away, out of the rain and the death and the horror into soothing oblivion.
Chapter 39
She woke in darkness, and her first instinct was to panic. She sat up in the car seat, blinking around, aware that they were stopped and the driver’s seat beside her was empty. She was alone in the car. Beyond the windshield and side windows, she could see nothing: It was pitch black, everywhere.
A thrill of terror rose up in her, only to be quelled a moment later. She heard a rhythmic scraping sound from behind the car, and she felt a slight vibration. She twisted around in the seat to see a small light bobbing up and down just behind the rear window, and she could just make out the dim glow of Craig’s face. He was holding a penlight in his mouth while he did something with his hands.
Nora yanked off her seatbelt and got out of the car, nearly colliding with the side of another vehicle parked beside it, a low-slung sports car. She blinked in the gloom, taking in the dark shapes of other cars in a line beyond the one in front of her. They were parked in a garage, the sort she’d seen on plenty of London side streets: long, low buildings that accommodated anywhere from three to ten cars in a row, each with its own door. Perhaps they were in a mews or a gated, private street. Wherever they were, it was very quiet. She couldn’t hear a sound of traffic or people, any life at all, beyond the walls and doors that surrounded them.
Craig took the penlight out of his mouth. “Sorry if I woke you,” he said, rising from his kneeling position behind the car. He switched the light off, plunging them into total darkness.
Nora blinked. “Where are we?”
“Just a stop,” he said, joining her at the side of the car. “A necessary pit stop. This Nissan”—he gestured at the sports car—“belongs to someone I know. I’m borrowing her number plates for a bit. She’s in Australia at the moment; she won’t miss them. But that man back there probably wrote down our number, so…”
Nora’s eyes were adjusting to the dark, and now she saw the flat metal objects in his hands. He’d switched the Focus’s license plates for the ones from the Nissan.
“She,” Nora said. “Let me guess: You mentioned two girlfriends, and this is the other one, right?”
He went over and crouched down, grasping the handle to raise the garage door behind the Focus. “Aye, Sandra. She’s a flight attendant, and she’s off in Sydney today. I sometimes use this parking space next to hers when I’m, um, visiting her. I wish we could stay here—her place is just nearby—but her flatmate is home, far as I know, and she’s probably heard the news by now. It wouldn’t do. We’d best get out of town.”
He slid the door up and headed for the car. Nora waited while he backed out onto the lane and then followed him outside, pulling down the door before rejoining him in the car. She brushed the raindrops from her hair and face as they drove out of the lane onto a tree-lined city street.
The clock on the dash read 11:03. She’d only slept for a few minutes, and now she realized how weary she was. Her anxiety, her constant need to find Jeff as the hours ticked down, had totally worn her out, and she hadn’t eaten since—when? She couldn’t remember. Oh yes, breakfast at the Byron Hotel. Coffee and a cookie at Jeff’s place. Then she’d had those gin martinis at Vivian’s and thrown up everything in her stomach. A glass of brandy and half a cup of tea at the pub; the shortbread had gone untouched with the jarring news on the television and their quick getaway. She was tired and hungry, and she’d killed a man, and she was sick with worry. Three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. Sixteen hours…
As though reading her thoughts, Craig said, “We can’t do anything for Mr. Baron at the moment, and we won’t be able to do anything, period, if we don’t eat something and sleep for a while. I know a place, an inn off the motorway not far from London. It’s what you Americans would call a ‘no-tell motel,’ and thanks for not asking how I’m acquainted with it. But they take cash and ask no questions, and there’s a lay-by just down the way. We’ll get food there and take it to the room. Then you can sleep and I can make some calls.”
“Calls?”
“A colleague of Mr. Howard’s, someone he trusts. Trusted. God, I can’t believe what’s happened; I can’t seem to get my mind around it. I can’t believe Mr. Howard is— Well, anyway, I placed a call while you were dozing, and they might have some answers for me by the time we get where we’re going. They’re handling things at the house in St. John’s Wood.”
Nora was about to ask what that meant, what exactly was being handled, but another wave of weariness washed over her. Her head fell back against the seat, and she drifted off again, the steady hum of the tires
on the wet road lulling her back into somnolence.
The sound of the car door closing woke her this time, and she sat up and blinked around. The clock on the dash now read 12:11. The rain had let up, at least momentarily. They were stopped in a large parking lot, and Craig was disappearing inside a brightly lit building ahead of her. She looked around the lot until she found the big sign near the motorway behind her: ROAD CHEF.
While she waited, she found the compact in her bag and studied her face, expecting what Jeff always called the cat’s breakfast. Instead, she marveled again at the fact that the bizarre events of the past few days didn’t seem to be taking a particular toll on her looks. The woman in the compact mirror appeared to be as she always was: composed, sedate, almost serene. Tired, definitely, but not haggard. The actress was still onstage, apparently, concealing her inner torment beneath a placid exterior. She smiled grimly to herself, thinking, Once a trouper, always a trouper.
Craig came back with two bags and placed them on the backseat before getting in and driving back out onto the motorway. The scent of fresh coffee filled the car, making her mouth water in anticipation. Minutes later, they left the road again, this time into the lot of a long, shabby-looking, one-story block of a building with pink walls and green doors. The sign by the road had the name OASIS, spelled out in pink letters beside a green palm tree. A dozen rooms but only two cars in the lot—three, now that the Focus had arrived. Craig had chosen well; they were guaranteed privacy here.
She waited outside while Craig went into the glass-fronted office at one end. The old man at the desk was asleep, she noticed, but he stirred himself and handed over a key for cash without even looking up at his guest. Then he went back to sleep.