If I Should Die

by Hilary Norman

  The room was cool and comfortable, the bed linen smooth and dry and soothing. He had slept a little, and now he was alert. Unlike the young police officer in a chair near the door. His guard. Sleeping peacefully, his fair head slumped down over his chest, snoring gently, his throat constricted by the tightness of his uniform collar.

  Schwartz knew that there was not much time left. He was not going to die from the Gila’s bite. By morning he would be strong enough for them to transfer him to a prison hospital, perhaps even to a regular jail cell. And then it would be too late.

  Mother had come to him in a dream while he had slept.

  There is a dragon here, in this house, she had told him.

  He was awake now, very clear in his mind, very lucid. No fever to delude him, no doctor or policeman to terrorize him. He knew that Mother was watching over him, and that she was right. There was a dragon, on the next floor, almost directly above his head, and Schwartz knew that it was his destiny to kill it.

  You must be silent and swift, Siegfried, Mother had whispered in his ear. You must make yourself invisible. And you’ll need your sword.

  They had all relaxed their vigil now. In their presence, he had been quiet and unresponsive and obedient ever since the tape recorder had been switched off and the lieutenant and the pudgy-faced older detective had left. They thought he was still sick and exhausted, and they had what they wanted from him for the moment, and he knew they had all been working, all through the day, probably all through this night, piecing together information he had given them, contacting the patients in need of explantation. They were finished with him, for now.

  And his guard was sleeping soundly.

  Lally, too, was asleep. Dr Ash had offered her a sleeping pill, but she had told him she didn’t need it, though the truth was that she didn’t want that kind of drugged oblivion. She had escaped death, and now, more than anything, she wanted to re-establish control over her life. She wanted to allow time to idle by, to feel everything, be it pleasure or pain or sheer normality. But her talk with Chris had drained her, and in the end, fatigue had overtaken all other thoughts, all other emotions, and sleep had won.

  He stood at the foot of the bed, gazing down at her. There was a night light fitted behind the top of the curtains, just enough to illuminate the patient for the staff, but not bright enough to disturb her.

  She looked more peaceful in sleep than she had during their meeting the previous night, but otherwise much the same. Female, with a sweetly shaped face and softly rounded arms, long brown hair spread out fanlike over the white pillow. She looked human. But he knew better.

  A dragon takes on many forms. Mother had told him. Man and metal. She had the metal inside her, in her heart.

  He had his sword. He had found it in the deserted galley kitchen on his floor, together with an orderly’s green coat. His magic cloak. Invisible and armed. Siegfried, the dragon slayer.

  She stirred a little, and he stood motionless, hardly breathing, but then she grew still again, lips slightly parted. She looked so innocent, almost child-like. A lesser man might be fooled.

  He moved silently around the bed until he stood directly over her. He felt a new, great strength flow through him.

  And he raised his sword.

  Lally opened her eyes, saw the knife, saw his face, and screamed, but it came too late, and the long blade flashed down and sliced into her arm as she tried to thrust herself away.

  “Help me!” She screamed again, shrilly, piercingly.

  The door crashed open, flooding the room with light.

  “Lally, get clear!”

  Schwartz raised the blood-soaked knife a second time, and Lally rolled away off the bed and crashed down onto the floor, searing the wound in her chest, knocking the air out of her lungs.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  Chris hurled himself at Schwartz, eyes wild, bellowing with rage, grasping at the madman’s arm, grabbing for the knife. The blade cut through the bandages on his bitten hand, drew fresh blood as they grappled for control, and Chris almost fell, but still they wrestled, and Chris was hitting Schwartz, great, maddened punches into his belly, and Lally, trying to crawl away, could hear the killer’s groans, could almost hear the breath being squeezed out of him, yet still the knife was in his right hand, and she saw the light from the corridor flashing on the bloody blade as Schwartz thrust up again towards Chris’s stomach –

  She heard the shot before she saw Joe in the doorway. The sound was deafening, final.

  Schwartz stumbled back, stretched out both his hands. The knife tumbled, soundlessly, to the carpet and bounced, twice, sprinkling blood into the air, and Schwartz, too, fell, heavily onto his back against the wall. And Lally heard the sound in his throat, half gasp, half cry, saw the shock on his face and the bloodied mess on his side where the bullet had exploded into him.

  Joe reached him first, his gun still raised, and kicked the knife away, and Lally, on the floor a few feet away, knew there were other people in the room, running, calling out directions, but she hardly noticed them, hardly felt the pain in her own arm where he had stabbed her, or in her chest where she had struck herself when she’d fallen. She was watching Schwartz, seeing the staring of his eyes and the trickle of blood at the side of his mouth.

  The last two things Siegfried saw were the dragon’s blood on his sword hand, and Joe Duval’s face, peering down into his own.

  Slowly, painfully, he lifted his hand to his lips and licked it, tasting salt, tasting triumph, and for a moment he closed his eyes. And then, opening them again, he stared up at Joe, and his expression grew perplexed.

  “But you’re not Hagen,” he murmured, dying. “I thought it would be Hagen.”

  Lally tried to stand but, dizzy and trembling, she sank back down onto her knees, and Chris, tearing his eyes from Schwartz, rushed to help her, put his arms around her and held her tight.

  And Morrissey bent and checked the dead man’s pulse.

  Epilogue

  Life went on with the strange, flat normality of anticlimax. Chris returned to Stockbridge a day late, while Lally stayed on at the clinic for another few days. With Schwartz dead and the case against him proven beyond doubt, Joe’s career seemed salvageable, after all. Isaiah Jackson’s anger hung between the two men like a constant, silent reproach, but Jess and Sal were back home with Joe again, and Lally was safe, and if Joe had claimed to have any real regrets about his handling of the case, he knew he’d have been a damned liar.

  Of the thirty-two lethal pacemakers, Schwartz’s Midnight Specials, seventeen had been implanted in patients. For Jack Long, Marie Ferguson, Sam McKinley and Alice Douglas, help had come too late. And for one more victim, a fifty-five-year-old bus driver in Philadelphia, dead at the wheel of his vehicle just a few hours after the killer’s confession, taking with him one young passenger and injuring three more. The remaining twelve devices had been explanted without incident.

  Lally’s pacemaker, when taken apart by the bomb techs, proved to have been one of Schwartz’s dummies, its battery small and inadequate, but minus plastique. Deadly enough, potentially, in its way.

  It would be a while before Lally felt truly normal again. Lucas Ash and John Morrissey had both suggested a short course of counselling to prevent her from bottling up her fears and memories of the nightmare, and Joe, from long experience of dealing with victims, agreed with them. But Lally knew that just going home, getting back to teaching ballet and baking cakes and croissants for Hugo’s would be the best therapy for her. And spending time with Chris and Katy.

  Especially Chris.

  Lally knew now, without question, how she felt about him, but she knew, too, that their closeness had been brought about by their respective traumas, and that as long as he remained married, there could be no certainty about a future with him. Andrea Webber was a very sick woman, and they were all going to have to be very careful and gentle with Katy if she was not to be torn apart.

  In Stockbridge, waiting for L
ally to come home, Chris Webber couldn’t see too far into the future either, but he knew that he loved Lally Duval more than he’d ever loved any woman, and that Katy cared for her, too. He knew, also, that it was only a matter of time before he and Andrea divorced, and he was a little consoled by the knowledge that this had been an inevitability long before he got to know Lally.

  He was painting another picture of her. His hand was still bandaged and painful, but he had the mobility he required in his fingers, and he wanted – he needed – to get the image onto canvas while it was still so vivid, so entrancing, in his mind. Lally, with her hair blowing in the breeze, her shoulders and arms bare, her long slender legs showing through the thin fabric of her skirt. Lally, with the joy of seeing him so transparent in her face. The way she’d looked in the moonlight in the harbour at Key West.

  He was working more slowly than he liked, but it was coming, it was taking shape. If it was ready in time, he would take it to Logan Airport when Joe brought her home from Chicago.

  ››› If you’ve enjoyed this book and would like to discover more great vintage crime and thriller titles, as well as the most exciting crime and thriller authors writing today, visit: ›››

  The Murder Room

  Where Criminal Minds Meet

  themurderroom.com

  By Hilary Norman

  (titles that appear in bold are published by The Murder Room)

  Sam Becket Mysteries

  Mind Games (1999)

  Last Run (2007)

  Shimmer (2009)

  Caged (2010)

  Hell (2011)

  Eclipse (2012)

  Standalone Novels

  In Love and Friendship (1986)

  Chateau Ella (1988)

  Shattered Stars (1991)

  Fascination (1992)

  Spellbound (1993)

  Laura (1994)

  If I Should Die (1995) (originally published under the pen name Alexandra Henry)

  The Key to Susanna (1996)

  Susanna (1996)

  The Pact (1997)

  Too Close (1998)

  Blind Fear (2000)

  Deadly Games (2001)

  Twisted Minds (2002)

  No Escape (2003)

  Guilt (2004)

  Compulsion (2005)

  Ralph’s Children (2008)

  For Walter Neumann,

  whom I never had a chance to know

  My special thanks are due to Graham Rust, for his vast knowledge of pacing, and his generosity in sharing it with me; to Dr. Romeo J. Vecht, who also gave me so much valuable time; and to Sgt. Marjorie O’Dea of the Detective Division, Chicago Police Department, for her good humour, patience and expertise.

  Grateful thanks also to Dr. Herman Ash, David W. Balfour, Howard Barmad, Carolyn Caughey, Sara Fisher, John Hawkins, Herta Norman, Dave Risley of London Zoo, the excellent and helpful staff of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Chicago, Helen and Neal Rose, Dr. Jonathan Tarlow and Sharon Tarlow, Michael Thomas, and Rae White.

  Hilary Norman

  Hilary Norman was born and educated in London. After working as an actress she had careers in the fashion and broadcasting industries. She travelled extensively throughout Europe and lived for a time in the United States before writing her first international bestseller, In Love and Friendship, which has been translated into a dozen languages. Her subsequent novels have been equally successful. She lives in North London, where she has spent most of her life, with her husband and their beloved RSPCA rescue dog.

  An Orion ebook

  Copyright © Hilary Norman 1995

  The right of Hilary Norman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This ebook first published in Great Britain in 2013

  by Orion

  The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

  Orion House

  5 Upper St Martin’s Lane

  London WC2H 9EA

  An Hachette UK company

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 47190 761 6

  All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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