by CA Sole
I swear I heard Mandy’s flesh hiss as the red hot pan was pushed firmly against her shoulder, right on her tattoo. She screamed, whirled around and fired wildly. A deafening noise, a metallic clang and a clatter as the pan hit the floor. Juliet fell against the counter and crumpled into a heap on the floor. Mandy was up and swinging the gun down to Juliet who lay still. Was she hit? I panicked, No Jules, not you too!
The chair was still attached to my right hand. I leapt forward and crashed it down on the crazy woman. My left hand found the gun. When you pull the trigger on a revolver, the same action rotates the cylinder to expose the next live round to the hammer. If you grip the cylinder so it cannot rotate, then the gun cannot be fired. The weapon was between us, the barrel forcing its way into my belly. I held that cylinder fast; to relax meant the end of me. Mandy fought like a tiger beneath me. She bit into my left arm. I felt nothing. I could not free my hand from the chair back, so I kept it rammed against her face, holding her down, a wood bar squishing her flesh and distorting her cheek. Juliet was deathly still on the floor. If you’ve killed Jules, I swear I’ll turn this gun around to you.
There was another crash in the background. Suddenly there were armed police in the room, shouting at her to drop the gun, but she could not because I had my hand over hers and was not going to let go. Two automatic weapons were a foot from her head and still she fought.
‘Let go of your gun!’ the shout repeated, and again, ‘Let go of your gun!’
‘The gun’s between us,’ I puffed in explanation. ‘She’s got the trigger and I’ve got the cylinder.’
Mandy with me on top of her and the two officers pointing guns at her head and shouting at her formed a tight little group. I couldn’t see Juliet, but one officer ordered, ‘Stay back!’
Juliet ignored him. She came into my sight; unsteady on her feet. She had the pan in her hand again. She shoved it at the woman’s face, stopping a finger’s width away.
The officers’ threats had no effect on Mandy, but the heat from the pan at her cheek, the blistering pain that was so close wilted her. She suddenly saw the futility of it all and stopped fighting me.
‘Get up slowly,’ one of the armed police tapped me on the back. ‘Keep a grip on that gun.’
I struggled, as the chair was still attached to my right hand, but Juliet gripped my arm to help. I was on my knees, my left hand still over the revolver’s cylinder.
‘Let go of the weapon,’ the officer said calmly.
I thought he meant that I was to release the gun, and did so, turning away. I don’t think Mandy intended to pull the trigger, it was just that she still had pressure on it and it went off when my hand was no longer around the cylinder.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I fell. My legs were out of control, quivering. My whole lower body was shaking. I felt nothing, yet was thinking clearly, puzzled. Why couldn’t I move?
‘Ambulance, man down,’ an officer shouted.
Only then did I realise that I had been shot. It was supposed to hurt, where was the pain? I felt nothing at all. Hands freed me from the chair. Concern was written in Juliet’s eyes as she tried to put me in a comfortable position. The trembling gradually subsided. My breathing was becoming rapid, shallow, strained.
The police had wrested Mandy over onto her front and cuffed her. The strength had washed out of her, and her bulk spread out like a seal on the beach. Her face was down on the floor, her cheeks flushed. A trickle of dribble escaped her twisted lips and formed a little puddle on the tiles.
The paramedics must have been close, because one was there almost immediately. He gently cut my shirt away and found the entry wound. Another medic appeared. A needle was stuck in my arm, an oxygen mask clamped to my face. I needed to talk to Juliet, pulled the mask off with my free hand. ‘Are you all right Jules?’ I paused for breath, panting, ‘That was clever,’ Why couldn’t I breath? Part of me was calm and rational, another part lacked understanding.
‘Just dazed, my head hit the counter top.’ She looked close to tears.
The paramedic put the mask back. ‘Leave it,’ he ordered.
It was getting cold. Breath was coming in shallow, brief pants. Somehow though, some thoughts were clear. I pulled the mask down again. ‘Jules, ... ask her to tell you ... about finding Sandra’s first ... first husband.’ My mind began to drift. Juliet’s face was close to mine for a moment, her eyes begging me to be strong, then it was replaced by a paramedic again. Vague recollections: lifted on a stretcher; an ambulance siren; unknown faces around me; fluid bags swinging as the vehicle lurched about. I didn’t understand, felt no fear, just wanted to sleep. Far away, someone said, ‘He’s going!’ Sleep at last. Woke again, more confused visions: the hospital ceiling passing above me; rushing through A&E; many strong arms lifting me easily onto a theatre table; bright lights; things going on in the background; impersonal, unknown eyes alert, darting about over masks. Then a calm voice from an upside down head telling me to count down from ten. Did I even start?
Mandy’s bullet had entered my left side just behind my upper arm when I turned away from her. It went through my left lung across my chest behind the heart and stopped in my right lung. I was incredibly lucky that it had been a light weapon. Neither my aorta nor my spine were damaged. Had that bullet been a larger or more powerful round or been a millimetre either side of its passage, I would have been either paralysed or would have bled to death. They told me that the shock wave from the round must have given my spinal cord a hefty thump, which is why my legs had given way.
My left lung collapsed as the bullet hole allowed air in to destroy the adhesion with the chest wall. I bled over three litres of blood from both lungs giving me a haemothorax in one and a haemo-pneumothorax in the other. The paramedics had been fantastic. Replacing the blood that was leaking into my abdomen and distending my belly, they pumped my heart to keep fluid circulating and forced oxygen in so my right lung could function as long as there was some real blood in the system.
Juliet was there when I came out of surgery. She was holding my hand. ‘Hello,’ she said tentatively, her face a picture of concern. I saw her and then passed out again. When I came round, she was still there and, through a haze of morphine, I tried to concentrate on what she had to say.
I started to speak, but was still intubated, the tube tied in place. I put my hand up to it, but she stopped me. ‘I’ll do the talking. News: before they took Mandy away, and in front of Jim Carter, I asked your question. She said they’d worked at the same place when Sandra met Alan Parsons. Mandy saw him park “a bloody great Bentley” and attended to him, and felt he was coming on to her. She said she wasn’t stupid, she saw the bigger opportunity and went to fetch Sandra, gave her a quick word and left her to it. She said they’d already talked about how they were going to make money from men, so that was their first step. Here’s the good bit, though; she said they worked at Porpoise Self Storage near Guildford. Carter’s men went straight there, but I haven’t heard from him.’
Then suddenly, ‘Don’t you ever do that to me again!’
‘Huh?’ All I could do was raise my eyebrows.
‘You died in the ambulance, you went into hypovolaemic shock and had a cardiac arrest, but those fantastic men kept you going until you reached the hospital. Don’t give me frights like that again! Ever.’
‘Nh, nh.’
Jim Carter and his men tracked the ransom hoard to Porpoise Self Storage as we hoped. It was all there bar a few hundred pounds, which was an enormous relief. I had blithely convinced myself that, failing to get the ransom back, I could eventually get the money together to return to Mario Montano. Deep down though, I realised that it was going to be very difficult to do it in an acceptable time frame. To have the money back had lifted a heavy burden. I wouldn’t have to sell the farm and, not least, Mario would see that his trust in me was justified. The police held onto the ransom until forensics had finished with it and the court had authorised its release.
S
everal days later, I was off the ventilator and out of intensive care and becoming increasingly impatient with my physically weak state. When I say weak, I mean I hardly had the strength to stand and had to be supported when in X-ray. It was taking forever for my body to build up its blood supply again. Juliet visited me every day. This time her hazel eyes were serious. ‘Alastair, I can’t go on with this, with us like this.’ She saw the instant pain in my face and clutched my hand in both of hers. ‘When you so nearly died, I was frantic, I couldn’t bear to lose you. If you never came back you would die unhappy, never knowing what I really felt deep inside of me but had repressed. I couldn’t read my own mind after the shock you gave me. So, if you’re still willing, can we go back to where we were before all this?’
I couldn’t answer for fear my voice would break. Moisture blurred my vision. Tears trickled down her cheeks and into the corners of her mouth which was set in the broadest smile I’d ever seen.
A nurse came in and did a couple of things while we just stared silently at each other.
I cleared my throat, ‘I have a confession to make,’ I admitted as the nurse left the room. I could hear the nervousness in my own words, my voice unsteady. The lift in her cheeks dropped, the smile in her eyes changed to worry, and her teeth held her bottom lip firm. ‘When I first told Carter that you’d been kidnapped, my actual words were that Wiggins had kidnapped my fiancée!’
Juliet stared at me. Oh God! I had overstepped the mark, ruined our relationship again by putting it on a completely different footing, one that wasn’t wanted. ‘What on earth made you say that?’ she asked. ‘Especially then.’
My mouth was dry, I stammered, ‘It ..., it just came out in the stress of the moment. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be presumptuous, but I couldn’t retract it. In case it comes up in conversation with others, I thought you ought to know. Save embarrassment. Sorry.’
‘Came out in the stress of the moment? Presumptuous? Damn right. You might have asked me first!’
I couldn’t look her in the eye. Her reaction was far worse than I’d expected. You think you know people, and Juliet and I were so close. We were back together, perhaps not as strong as before, yet now, through a stupid slip of the tongue, I’d offended her and maybe destroyed another part of what we had; for the second time. I took as deep a breath as I was able and decided that I really had to pull my socks up in the relationships department.
‘Well, if that surfaced out of your subconscious, then should I consider it as a heartfelt proposal?’
I looked up. She was trying very hard not to laugh out loud. ‘Got you! You deserved that, you silly man. Have you just ‘subconsciously’ proposed to me? If so, it has to be one of the weirdest ways of doing it.’
‘Er, yes,’ I blurted out, embarrassed.
‘Well, er, YES to you too,’ she laughed, tilting her head from side to side, emphasising every syllable. God, it was good to see her happy, but the moment overwhelmed me. I hadn’t actually intended to propose. But why not? She assumed from my bungling approach that I wanted to marry her, and I couldn’t go back on the words now. So why not? Why not indeed? I loved her, had done for ages. I knew that, but we were so comfortable in our distant relationship, and marriage might ruin some key part of that, it might not suit us. I also realised though, that it was unfair not to give her a secure future. Someday she might drift away looking for just that, and that would kill me. I was conscious of her watching me patiently, but the smile was fading. It was too difficult for me to reach over, so I beckoned her closer instead.
Her head was buried in my neck. Her familiar scent overwhelmed me; not her perfume - her. My shoulders, my arms, my hands were useless in utter contentment. They were clamped around her, but immobile. I could not summon movement; I did not want to move from this euphoric state. It was over; all our troubles had blown away on a wind of togetherness.
‘I need to think,’ she said, talking quickly, ‘I’ll have to go home and close my business, sell the cottage, find someone else to look after the horses. Maybe I should bring the business down here? I love it up there on the edge of the moor though, it’ll be sad to leave.’
‘There’s Giles to consider as well. He’s going to need looking after for a while.’
Neither of us knew what to say with that sobering thought. Then she broke the silence, ‘I almost forgot, here’s a memento to hang on the wall.’ She delved in the shopping bag she had brought with her and produced a frying pan. ‘Mandy’s pan,’ she laughed. There was a ragged bullet hole through the bottom.
EPILOGUE
I called Mario as soon as I could after coming off the ventilator. He was appalled that I had been shot and spent a long time commiserating with me. Over the money, he was delighted of course, and readily told me where to transfer the sum once it could be banked. ‘When are you coming back to work, Alastair?’ he joked, ‘My company is going to the dogs without you around. Everyone is doing their own thing, and Felipe spends more time chasing the girls than flying.’
‘Ha, ha,’ I remarked sarcastically, ‘Your team have their hearts in the right place, Mario. They’re not going to behave like that and as for Felipe, what do you expect? He’s young, he’s got cojones!’
The old man laughed. ‘Of course, I joking. Felipe is working well, he’s coming along great and as long as he doesn’t have bambinos before he’s married, I don’t care. When are you coming over again?’ he repeated. ‘But only when you are well, of course.’
‘Mario, I’ve been injured. It’s going to take about six weeks before I’ll be able to pass a flying medical again. I’ll have to let you know later.’
‘You take your time, my friend. Sort out your life and your health, there is nothing more important than your health.’
‘Mario, I hope you don’t mind, I’d like to bring Juliet with me? To see Chile and where I take my holidays!’
‘Perfect, my friend, excellent! I look forward to meeting your brave lady, and I will lock up Felipe!’
It was a little over seven weeks later that Juliet and I left for Santiago. I had passed my aviation medical and had full lung function, a factor the doctor focussed on, as I would be spending time at high altitude. Our flight arrived at Comodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport before ten in the morning. Felipe, who was on time off from the southern operation, met us and took us to the hotel to freshen up before going to the office. Felipe told us that Mario was very keen to meet the lady at the centre of the struggle that he had help to win.
Mario was a short, stocky, roly-poly sort of man with a cheerful disposition. Life was fun for him and was there to be enjoyed. If you couldn’t enjoy life, then you should go away and die quietly, ridding the world of another useless specimen was his oft-used announcement. Of course, he had the money to enjoy himself and not have any worries he couldn’t laugh away. His callous words belied his great generosity though, for he gave significantly to worthy Chilean causes.
Felipe knocked on his uncle’s office door. Mario himself opened it, a broad grin on his face and his eyes locked on Juliet. He stood there grinning with pleasure and held his arms out. ‘Enter, come in, come in,’ he called in his lightly accented English. He put one arm round Juliet’s shoulder and led her into the office. Apart from a quick smile of greeting, I was ignored.
‘You’re on show,’ I whispered in her ear, before she was whisked out of reach.
Felipe moved round to stand next to his uncle and they both stood looking at Juliet with undisguised admiration. Eventually Mario glanced briefly at me and, his hands flapping up and down in emphasis, exclaimed, ‘Magnificent! My dear you are wonderful. Alastair, now I know why you spend so much money to rescue this lady. My congratulations, wonderful, wonderful.’
‘You’re embarrassing me,’ said Juliet, ‘If it wasn’t for your generosity, I don’t know if I’d be here. We don’t know how to thank you for your support. Whatever we do will be inadequate.’
‘It was nothing,’ Mario dismissed the ma
tter. ‘Now, unfortunately today I am very busy or I would personally be your host in our beautiful city. But later, Felipe will collect you and you will come to dinner at my house and Alastair can start his work here in the office tomorrow, we have much to discuss. Today you must relax, and tomorrow my wife and daughter will organise your life to great satisfaction. We will discuss tonight.’
That set the tone for Juliet’s time in Chile. She came south with me and saw what I was doing there. The only other woman in the camp was a surveyor for the electricity company. She spoke passable English and took Juliet out with her during the day. Juliet loved the mountains and the forests and over the rest of my contract period she moaned every time I went back there while she was left at home. At the end of that trip, we took some extra time and went south to Tierra del Fuego and then back up to see the enchanting city of Valparaiso before we went home.
The day after our arrival, as Mario had promised, his womenfolk swept Juliet away to see the city and entertain her. I worked with Mario and Felipe until mid afternoon when the old man left us alone. We had finished work and had the meeting room to ourselves. We both gazed silently out of the expansive windows at the view over the Rio Mapocho and the Parque de los Reyes that runs alongside it. Felipe fetched a couple of beers from the fridge and we stood in silence for a while, letting the business drain away.
‘I want to discuss something with you Felipe. Actually, it’s my turn to confess something. I kept your secret, I’m sure you’ll keep mine?’
‘Alastair! How can you even ask that? Of course. What is it?’
‘Even Juliet does not know all of this story or what I really intended to do, so please ... not even to her.’
‘Of course, Alastair, of course.’
‘When you confided in me, down there at the camp, I told you that I could not support you in killing that man. I realised that you had few options though, and you probably did the world a favour. I said that I supported the concept of “an eye for an eye” and thought that you had gone beyond that, remember?’