Blood Ties

by Jane A. Adams

  There were no lights on at the back of the cottage. From what he could remember, there was a low hedge and a bit of fence right at the end of the garden. It was from that point that he’d spotted the path and the stile the day he’d been there. That would be the easiest access point, the downside being that it was also on a direct line from the kitchen window. If Gavin looked at the wrong moment then he could be seen.

  Alec struggled on, the reasonable, logical side of his brain telling him to turn back, slip back into the copse, pretend he’d been there all the time. But Alec wasn’t really listening to the logical side of his brain. His focus was on Naomi, just on Naomi. Was she all right, was she scared? What was happening to her? And that focus kept him struggling on through the mud and stopped him thinking about what Blezzard would be saying when they realized he was gone, or about the threat to Naomi from a man they knew had already killed twice.

  ‘Naomi!’ Susan gripped her hand tightly.

  The door opened and Gavin stood on the threshold. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Doing?’

  ‘The light. You switched on the bloody light.’

  ‘It’s my fault,’ Naomi told him quickly. ‘I told her to.’

  ‘I don’t care which of you bloody did it.’

  Naomi heard a crash and the sound of glass breaking. Susan cried out, then Gavin grabbed Naomi by the hair. ‘Move,’ he said. ‘Seems I can’t trust the two of you together.’

  Susan was screaming in panic as Gavin dragged Naomi, still grasping her hair, through into the hall. She guessed from Susan’s reaction that he still had the knife, was waving it at the other woman. She staggered as he pulled her far too fast, heard a door open and then he pushed her, cracking her head as she fell into the small space. Naomi landed heavily on something hard and unforgiving and the door slammed shut.

  Naomi reached out, feeling the wooden door, the close walls, the sloping ceiling, and realized the hard thing she had fallen on so painfully was a vacuum cleaner. He’d thrown her into the cupboard under the stairs. She heard Susan shout out and then scream and scream again and Naomi’s whole body chilled. Oh God, what if Gavin had killed her?

  She heard footsteps in the hall as he walked back towards the kitchen. She tensed, expecting a fresh assault, but he just kicked the door and walked on by. She released her held breath and listened intently, hearing sounds from the kitchen that she couldn’t quite define. A chink of crockery, scrape of a chair, others that were vague but which further shredded already too-frayed nerves.

  She felt around, finding the vacuum cleaner hose, a leg of what felt like an ironing board, and shelves stacked with what she assumed from the shape were bottles of cleaning fluid and polish and the odd duster. Her scalp was sore from where he’d dragged her by the hair, her back and buttocks now bruised from where she’d landed badly. Naomi realized she’d gone beyond the point of being afraid now. It was likely that Susan was dead and she’d be next. Naomi’s fingers explored the range of cleaners and sprays on the shelf beside her and she made up her mind. When Gavin opened that door again, he wasn’t going to have anything his own way.

  In the kitchen Gavin stared out into the dark. Once he thought he saw a movement. Twice he thought he heard a sound he could attribute to neither wind nor wild things. He glanced now at the blood on his sleeve. He’d sorted that bitch, made her pay, and he’d made up his mind. He’d wait until morning and then he’d leave and head back north, back to where he’d been working and where he had friends. As for that other one, she could stay where he’d put her. If someone came and found her, good for her, but Gavin really didn’t care. He thought about killing her, but that was still a thought he hadn’t fully crystallized. The blind woman was something he’d not considered in any of his plans; she hadn’t figured in his consciousness until she’d forced herself in, and so long as she was out of sight, Gavin was quite happy to put her out of mind. For now, anyway.

  Outside of the cottage Alec had heard the scream and his heart had frozen mid beat, but then he knew instinctively that it was not Naomi. He should have hated himself for feeling such relief as flowed through his veins alongside that realization, but all he could feel was profound joy. He was here now and he’d find a way to get inside and he’d find his wife and they would both go home.

  A second scream.

  Alec shut his mind, focussed on the task of climbing a downpipe that was never intended to take his weight and finding purchase for his feet, still mired with mud, against the brick wall.

  That, and praying that no one would have been efficient enough to re-latch the window he had unfastened that day he had been at Eddy’s, as he realized belatedly that he was carrying nothing with him that would slide in and release it from the outside.

  ‘When did he leave?’ Blezzard was incandescent.

  No one knew. Blezzard snatched up the night sight and scanned the fields and the house, saw nothing. If Alec had gone that way then one of the hedges or the line of trees must be blocking him from view. There, he caught a brief glimpse. ‘Oh shit!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look.’ Blezzard handed the night sight over, pointed towards the cottage. Alec was halfway up the wall, presumably hanging on to something Blezzard could not see.

  ‘He’s inside.’

  Blezzard swore again, much more extravagantly this time. Gave orders for everyone to move forward. Silently, on foot, calling for backup, just in case.

  ‘Ambulance?’ someone asked.

  ‘Yes, but make sure they know to hang back. I swear, if Gavin Symonds doesn’t kill him, I’ll do for him myself.’

  Alec stood on the landing and listened, expecting any second that Gavin would come charging up the stairs. He’d been quiet, but not silent enough, he was sure of that. And he was unarmed. Really didn’t think this through, did you? he chided himself.

  He tried to recall anything that might be useful in the upstairs rooms.

  From the hall he could hear a small sound, like a latch or a sneck of a door opening. He had been heard. He was certain now. Gavin had come in that same way, he knew it was possible.

  He needed a weapon. He needed something now.

  Downstairs, Naomi heard something bump on the floor above her, the enclosed space below stairs amplifying sound. Her hands closed tight around the spray cans she had found. She’d tested both to make sure the sprays worked and the cupboard now smelt strongly of lavender and disinfectant. She was having trouble breathing as it caught in her lungs.

  She waited. Another small sound, less of a bump this time, more of . . . she wasn’t sure. Was there someone up there?

  Gavin obviously thought so. She heard the kitchen door open and the metallic sound of whatever he’d used to barricade the door being moved away. This door opened outwards; he seemed to be getting the hand of barricades.

  Naomi took a too-deep breath, tried not to cough. The cupboard door was flung wide and she reached both hands out in what she prayed was the direction of Gavin’s face. Pressed both buttons on the spray cans and kept them pressed down hard.

  Gavin shouted, shocked at first and then pained. He fell back and Naomi followed, beating him with the cans, yelling and screaming her anger and frustration. Gavin’s flailing hand knocked one of the cans from her grasp so she grabbed at what she hoped was his face, her fingers tangled in his hair.

  Now it was pure revenge. Scalp still sore and her body bruised, to say nothing of payback for the fear he had caused her, Naomi wound her fingers tighter and attacked with everything she had. Teeth and feet and nails and still half-full can. She didn’t know if Gavin had the knife and, frankly, she no longer cared. If she was going to die, then she was going down fighting.

  Footsteps on the stairs, running. Shouts from outside, the sound of the front door crashing open. Naomi had Gavin by the hair now and the force of her attack had forced him to the ground. Alec caught her wrist as she was about to smash Gavin’s head to the tiled floor for a second time.
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  She screamed with frustration as he dragged her away and then turned and buried her face against him, fists pounding as Alec held her tight.

  The hall was filled with people, shouting and exclaiming, and one in particular angry with the man who held her so tightly.

  Naomi turned on Blezzard, tearing herself away from Alec and attacking with the full fury she had directed towards Gavin only moments before. ‘Don’t you dare shout at my husband! Don’t you dare to tell him he was wrong! Don’t you dare!’

  And then Alec was holding her again and he was apologizing. Apologizing! For her? For himself? And she was crying and shaking like she’d never be able to stop ever again.

  ‘Susan’s going to be all right,’ Alec told her as they sat in a police car waiting to be taken back to the station. A paramedic had checked her over and agreed she was fit enough to answer questions and make a statement.

  Susan had been taken on to hospital.

  ‘They think she’ll make it.’

  ‘My fault,’ Naomi said. ‘I asked her to switch the light on. I thought if you were out there, you might be able to see.’

  ‘Not your fault. None of it is your fault.’

  ‘What happens now?’

  ‘We get a right royal bollocking, I expect. Or, at least, I do. Then we go home . . . and I resign.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Darling, do you really think I’ll get away with this? Not on top of everything else. I think I’ll go before I’m pushed.’

  EPILOGUE

  They drove north the next morning after saying goodbye to a bemused Bethan and Jim. Kevin had also come to see them off, and Alec gave him the little box containing what was left of the Kirkwood treasure, and also Eddy’s maps. He kept one coin back, a memento.

  ‘You’ll go on looking?’ Alec asked.

  ‘Oh, sure. Susan told me about what Eddy left for me in the will. I don’t fancy uni or anything, though. Do you think he’d mind?’

  ‘No, and anyway, I think Eddy forfeited the right to tell anyone what to do in the end.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess so. I loved him though. You know, like he was an uncle or something.’

  ‘A mentor.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Susan was going to be all right. Maybe Gavin got careless or she managed to dodge out of the way, she couldn’t remember clearly what had happened, but both stab wounds, though serious, had missed vital organs. Neither Naomi nor Alec had really felt any desire to go and see her, and Naomi doubted Susan was ready to see them either.

  ‘So, what now?’ she asked again as they drove north once more.

  ‘I told you, it’s time to change everything.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  Blezzard had been beyond angry, his fury so great that he’d handed over to another officer when Alec was interviewed. Alec was right, Naomi thought, his career would never survive a scandal like this. He had potentially endangered himself, her, and anyone else who had got dragged in, unprepared.

  November was over, and she realized with a slight shock that it was now the third of December. It would be Christmas soon.

  ‘We need a bigger tree,’ she said.

  ‘A bigger what?’

  ‘Christmas tree. Alec, I want to go overboard this year. Deck-the-halls sort of overboard.’

  ‘Isn’t that one of those mixed whatsits? Metaphors.’

  ‘Probably. Let’s have everyone over. Your mum and dad, mine, Harry and Patrick and all our friends and have a party. One absolutely major party.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ he said.

  ‘What will happen to Gavin now? He’s not fit to stand trial, you know.’

  ‘Aerosol poisoning?’ He tried to laugh, didn’t quite manage it. ‘Part of me thinks you’re right. He needs treatment not punishment. Part of me just wants to see him hang.’

  ‘Good job that’s not an option then.’

  ‘Isn’t it, though. Look, there’s a lay-by just coming up. There’s something I have to do.’

  ‘OK.’

  Alec stopped the car and took out his mobile, started to text. Naomi waited until he pressed send before asking, ‘You’re texting Mac?’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I just knew. What are you telling him?’

  ‘That I’m sorry, that I understand. That it looks like I’m out of a job and does he want to come to the party we’re having, to celebrate?’

  Naomi smiled, reached out and took his hand. ‘Let’s go home, Mr Friedman,’ she said.