Shooting in the Dark

by Baker, John

‘Right.’ Geordie closed the door. Locked it.

  He went back to the chair.

  He wished Janet was there with him. That they were locked in the house together. He got to his feet suddenly, pulled out of the chair by the thought that it was Janet who had identified Jenkins.

  He was pulling on his leather jacket. He got his sheepskin-lined boots out of the cupboard under the stairs and hit the road. The policewoman in the car outside watched him go, shaking her head in disbelief. Geordie didn’t stop to explain. If this guy was on the street, he’d be looking to finish Angeles Falco, and Janet and his daughter Echo were with the blind woman...

  Geordie went around the back of the house and over the wall. He could see clearly in the moonlight. There were lights on in the bedroom and in what appeared to be a ground-floor kitchen. Thick drapes were closed around a patio door. He strained to hear but there was only silence.

  He moved slowly from tree to tree, past the frozen swimming pool, intending to get close enough to the house to put his ear against the wall. It would be Echo’s feeding time soon and if she was in there, she’d broadcast it to the world.

  When he reached the ash tree he paused. In front of the patio door was a paved area and he didn’t want to take the chance of making audible footfalls. If Janet and Echo were being held in the house, the last thing he wanted was to warn their captor that he was here.

  He felt rather than heard a movement behind him. As he turned he was pinned to the tree by powerful arms and a gloved hand smothered any sound that might have come from his lips. With his face up against the dark bark of the tree he could see the movement of a small insect draped in the red and black colours of anarchy. Sam’s voice in his ear whispered, ‘Don’t suppose you thought to bring coffee.’

  ‘Nearly shit myself,’ Geordie whispered when Sam released him. He followed Sam back up the garden, away from the house. Looked like Sam was going to sit on the stone bench next to the swimming pool. Maybe break through the ice and have a moonlight swim. He stopped at the pool and tested the ice with one foot. It looked solid but Geordie felt his hair rise from his scalp when Sam stepped off the side of the pool and moved on to the crystallized surface. It creaked and groaned but held his weight.

  He left the ice and went down on all-fours at the side of the bench, disappearing under a bush. Geordie went after him and found himself in a small clearing with enough room for the two of them to sit cross-legged like a couple of Buddhas. Sam had found a plank of wood somewhere and put it on the earth to insulate them from the ground-frost.

  ‘Nice,’ Geordie said. ‘This your den?’

  He began to scramble out again but Sam stopped him. ‘Wait.’

  ‘No,’ Geordie said. ‘Janet and Echo’re in there with the guy who killed Ralph.’

  ‘And you’re gonna bring ’em out?’

  ‘You bet.’

  ‘Listen, Geordie. If we try to break in, he’s gonna hear us. It’s not possible to get in quick enough to save them. We’re better off waiting until he makes his move.’ Geordie shook his head. ‘I don’t know if I can do that, Sam. What about we get a ladder and go in through the bedroom window?’

  ‘We have to wait,’ Sam said. ‘The guy’s interested in Angeles. He’ll be bringing her out here. When he does that you can go around him and get Janet and Echo out the front door.’

  Geordie thought about it. He didn’t know the exact numbers but he reckoned if they counted how many times Sam had been right and how many times Geordie had been right, Sam’d come out tops. The guy seemed to have an instinct for these situations. Geordie just wanted to go in there, all guns blazing. Except he didn’t have a gun. Sam was different. He was sure. He could sit on a plank and wait, all night if necessary. The guy better come out soon, though; the two of them would be ice-statues by the morning.

  ‘What’s with walking on the ice?’ he asked. ‘You gonna take up skating?’

  ‘An informed hunch,’ Sam said. ‘The swimming pool is one of the reasons we’re here. The main reason that Rod Jenkins is here.’

  ‘Save it,’ Geordie said. ‘I just want my family back.’ The moon walked the night sky and Geordie watched.

  There was a moment when the orb seemed to become blood and he reared up involuntarily in the bushes. Sam pulled him down again and he felt the older man’s arm around his shoulders. He watched their breath turn to ice as it mingled together, listened to the call of an owl and the tiny far-off shriek of something caught in a beak.

  ‘If anything happens to them,’ he said, ‘I’ll never get over it.’

  Sam pulled him closer. There had been tight spots in the past, and they’d managed to come through. But back then it had been Sam and Geordie who were facing danger and the danger was an acceptable risk because that was their job. It was what they did for a living. Janet and Echo didn’t deserve to be held like this. They were innocents. They shouldn’t have been here at all, in this house with Angeles.

  Geordie wondered if he should go to the house and explain to the guy. Tell him to let Janet and Echo go, take him instead. Take anyone else in the whole world, but don’t hurt Echo, for the love of God don’t do anything to Janet and Echo.

  It became a chant for him. He felt himself swaying as he silently intoned the words, Jan-et, Ech-o, Jan-et, Ech-o. Geordie had once been to a Sufi dhikr, years back, when he was on the street. Someone invited him and he went along because they said there’d be food. After every prayer the Sufis did a mime of washing their hands and faces. He remembered them sitting around in a circle, the men with hats, the women with scarves covering their heads, together chanting the name of God: All-ah, All-ah, All-ah... They said it brought Him closer.

  Sam touched his arm and the chanting in his head stopped, became one with the silence of the frozen night. He followed Sam’s eyes and peered through the gloom at the house. The curtains that had covered the glass of the patio door had been drawn back. Inside the house was the tall blond man, Rod Jenkins. He was kneeling at the feet of Angeles. Geordie shifted his position slightly to get a better look, but Sam told him to be still.

  Geordie could see that Angeles had her arms tied behind her back and that Jenkins was untying a rope from around her ankles. The blind woman was frail and unsure of her balance. Even from this distance it was clear that her lips were trembling.

  Jenkins removed the rope from her ankles and tied it around her neck. He led her to the patio door and there was a crack as he unlocked it and slid it open. As the house became accessible Geordie wanted to rush over there and find his wife and daughter. Sam’s grip of him hardened. ‘Sit it out, kid,’ he said softly. ‘He’ll come to us. The longer we can keep shtoom, the better our chances’ll be.’

  The man led Angeles across the garden. As they approached the swimming pool it was clear that Angeles was murmuring softly to herself. Geordie couldn’t make out if she was uttering some kind of prayer or if the sounds coming from her throat were incoherent ramblings. She stumbled and almost fell, but Jenkins tugged at the rope around her neck and pulled her upright.

  The guy’s eyes were staring. He wasn’t observing what was going on around him. He could see Angeles and he could see where he was leading her, his intentions for her. But he was blind to the possibilities of anything interfering with his plans.

  He had the rope in his right hand, Angeles tethered to the end of it; and he carried a heavy crowbar in the same hand. In the crook of his left arm was a small bundle. Geordie wished he had some kind of weapon, but it was too late now. If he was to get past the guy, he’d have to be able to dodge the crowbar. One good crack with that would split a skull like a coconut; it’d fertilize the winter soil with cerebral spinal fluid.

  Geordie’s eyes kept being drawn back to the open patio door. Were Janet and Echo in there? Maybe he’d been wrong and they’d gone somewhere else instead. Janet had a couple of friends on the other side of town, Margaret and Trudy, and she’d been talking recently about taking Echo to see them.

  Then he h
eard Echo’s cry. It wasn’t a cry of distress, just the noise she made when she wanted attention. The problem with the cry was that it didn’t come from the house at all. The sound hadn’t travelled from the patio door; it was much closer than that. Echo was wrapped in the bundle of clothes under the guy’s arm. She was a joint hostage with Angeles, and the two of them together were being taken to the frozen swimming pool. Above them the stars were pressing down out of the night sky.

  ‘Shhhhh,’ Sam said, maintaining his grip of Geordie. ‘Wait.’

  Where was Janet, then? Geordie looked back at the house but there was no movement or sound to suggest that she was there. If Janet was conscious, she’d be screaming at the top of her voice. If she was tied to a bed or a wardrobe she’d find the strength to drag the thing after her. Janet wouldn’t let anyone take Echo away from her.

  In the back of his mind was a dark pebble that suggested Janet was lying dead in the house. He knew that if he gave that thought any credence, the pebble would metamorphose into a rock large enough to crush him. That’s not happened, he told himself. She might be in the house or she might be somewhere else, but wherever she was she was safe. Still safe, waiting for him to come for her.

  The blond guy led Angeles to the edge of the ice-covered swimming pool. He stood behind her while the tremor of her lips unfurled into her face and spread along her limbs until she was shaking from head to foot. Geordie felt Sam easing himself into a springing position beside him. He moved slowly, careful not to disturb the undergrowth or draw attention to himself in any way. The guy adjusted his hold of Echo and she made an appreciative sound that almost ripped Geordie’s heart out.

  The three of them were ten metres away, but the ground between them was shrubbed and uneven. It would not be an easy task to get to them before the guy could shove Angeles or Echo on to the ice.

  Rod Jenkins said something that Geordie didn’t catch and it seemed that Angeles didn’t hear him either. He repeated it: ‘Take a step forward.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘It’s you or the kid.’

  ‘No, stop,’ Angeles said. She put a foot forward and then withdrew it. She took control of her body, the shaking stopped and she stepped forward on to the ice.

  ‘Further,’ Jenkins said.

  Angeles took another step and the ice groaned under her weight. The scream that came from her lips was like a bandsaw.

  Jenkins swung the crowbar and it caught her on the shoulder. She tottered for a moment then went down, face-forward on the ice. Jenkins dropped Echo and the child rolled into the grass verge, only really complaining when she had come to a stop.

  The tall blond man was berserk now. He strode around the swimming pool hacking away at the ice with the crowbar. He was shouting at Angeles, telling her how it would be when the black water sucked her under. His voice was competing with the cries of Angeles and the baby and the fracturing of the ice as his crowbar chopped away at it.

  ‘Go,’ Sam said, and he and Geordie reared up in the bushes and leapt out into the open. Geordie went straight for Echo, retrieved her and held her close to him. He turned to watch as Sam hurled himself at Rod Jenkins. The blond turned in time to see him and he raised the crowbar over his head. But Sam’s velocity carried him forward with the momentum of an express train. His foot connected with Jenkins’ chest and the guy was hurled backwards on to the ice. The crowbar spun away from his grip and was lost in the night.

  ‘OK,’ Sam said to Angeles. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll get you out of there.’ He went on to the ice and stepped gingerly towards her. He reached out to her and she plunged towards his hand as though she could actually see it.

  Although the impact of Sam’s boot and his fall to the ice had stunned Jenkins, he still wasn’t out of the equation. He pulled himself to his feet and searched in the undergrowth for the crowbar. When he couldn’t find it he turned back to the swimming pool and ran towards it. He jumped high in the air like Geordie used to do when he was a lad in Sunderland, pulling up his legs and wrapping his arms around them, ready to bomb the water. As he landed the already weakened ice cracked apart like a shattered windscreen that has been punched through.

  Jenkins disappeared immediately. He didn’t make a sound, the dark water sucked him below the surface and he was gone. Geordie looked towards the patio door and took a few steps in the direction of the house. But his attention was drawn back towards the swimming pool.

  The combined weight of Sam and Angeles at the other end of the pool capsized the now broken ice. The free end of the plate of ice rose up in a jagged silhouette and both Sam and Angeles called out as they toppled into the black water.

  Geordie was torn between running to the house to find Janet and staying to see if Sam and the blind woman could be saved. His mind was working at a hundred miles an hour and getting nowhere.

  He put Echo down on the frozen grass and told her to wait. He raced back to the pool and ran around to the spot where Angeles and Sam had disappeared. There was no sign of them for a moment and then suddenly the surface was broken by the appearance of Angeles’ head. She reached out and Geordie grabbed her and began dragging her out of the water. Sam’s head appeared behind her and Geordie could see that he was pushing her as Geordie was pulling. The water was so cold that Geordie lost all feeling in his fingers after only a few seconds’ contact.

  He hauled her up and out of the water and she lay coughing and spluttering on the side of the pool. Geordie turned back to Sam and was barely in time to see the older man’s head disappearing below the surface again. Sam’s eyes were dead. Geordie watched his boss going down, but there was no returning glance from Sam. He was not going to come up again.

  Geordie stopped thinking. He took the rope that was around Angeles’ neck and tied it around his wrist. The other end he tied around the wrist of the blind woman. ‘I’m going after Sam,’ he said. ‘When you feel me tug, pull us up.’

  And he jumped in.

  Jesus Christ. The water was like a vice. He was completely blind down there. It was like being immersed in pitch. He could not see his own hands and was rapidly losing all feeling in them. His lungs were bursting and the surface of his body was like a fire.

  He crawled along the bottom and found an object. Something heavy. He made out clothing, the leg of a pair of trousers, a shoe. He tugged on the rope and felt his body being pulled back to the surface. He hung on to Sam’s leg.

  ‘There’s a ladder,’ Angeles said. ‘Over here, in the corner.’ She dragged on the rope and Geordie let himself be led. He listened to the sound of police sirens in the distance.

  Together they pulled Sam’s inert body out of the water. His face and lips were livid. A fine froth lay around his mouth and nostrils. Geordie went to work on him like he’d learned in the classes. He opened Sam’s mouth and looked inside for obstructions. He gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, alternating external heart compressions with the heel of his hand. After a few moments Sam coughed and spat water from his mouth.

  The police arrived but Geordie carried on working until a pair of paramedics took over. He watched while Sam and Angeles were both loaded on to stretchers and taken away. Then he found Echo and took her into the house. A policeman had just finished untying Janet and taken the gag from her mouth. She was sitting on the floor rubbing her wrists, a piece of her skirt had been cut away but she didn’t look as though she was injured.

  She reached out her arms for Echo, and Geordie handed his daughter over. He crouched down beside them and put his arms around them and he would have cried if he could have stayed conscious for long enough. As it was all he could remember later was that everything, the whole world, slewed over to the left and his mind went racing down a helter-skelter of incomprehension. He didn’t mind, though; he knew at the end of it he’d still have his family.

  57

  Sam was blind. Images tumbled over in his mind like the garments in a washing machine. Voices belonging to forgotten and forbidden memories played at the edge o
f consciousness. He could hear his daughter, Bronte, and his first wife, Donna, strangely freed from the hit-and-run that had taken their lives so many years before. Gus, his old partner, not talking but laughing, like he’d just heard the joke of the century.

  There was the clinking of glasses and bottles as all the booze he’d ever poured down his throat was lined up on a mahogany bar for another round.

  In the far distance the princely voices of childhood friends came and went, and all the women were there, barefoot, silently watching.

  There was nothing substantial. All was ethereal. Pieces of moonlight.

  She was there when he opened his eyes, sitting quietly by the bed. He didn’t speak or move but she knew he’d come back. She lifted her head and smiled and reached for his hand, came to sit on the edge of the bed.

  ‘How’re you doing?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘We’ve been worried about you.’ She reached for his face and traced the bruises there with the tips of her fingers. He didn’t want her to stop; it felt good, like she was getting to know him all over again.

  ‘I didn’t want to drown in someone else’s wine,’ he said. It just came out of him, and he liked the sound of it, kind of poetic, fitting for the darkened ward and the way they were close to each other.

  She smiled self-consciously. ‘Are you looking at me?’ she asked.

  ‘What d’you think?’

  ‘It makes me feel good.’

  ‘Touché.’

  He didn’t speak for some time, drifted away into unconsciousness. When he opened his eyes she was still there. A real nice surprise.

  ‘Thought you’d’ve gone,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll watch you through the night.’

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