by CJ Carver
‘She’s lying.’ Finch came into view. Her face was pinched.
‘I’ve got the papers upstairs,’ Jenny said. ‘I’ll show them to you.’
Robin was frowning. ‘But Irene says Aleksandr –’
‘Do you really think Elizabeth was going to tell Irene she was pregnant by another man?’
Doubt rose in his eyes. ‘I guess not. Finch, I think we’d better check before –’
‘For Chrissakes, she’s lying.’ Finch raised her pistol at Jenny. Her eyes were as black and dead as a shark’s.
Jenny felt her knees weaken. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Please.’
Robin stepped forward. Towards his sister.
‘Wait,’ he said.
Without taking her gaze from Jenny, Finch swung the pistol and shot her brother in the chest.
Robin looked down, where there was a growing dark blotch.
He said, ‘Sis?’
Slowly, he collapsed to his knees. The shotgun dangled at his side.
‘None of us are meant to survive,’ Finch told Jenny. ‘I didn’t tell him before, because I knew he’d kick up a fuss.’
‘But I’m not related,’ Jenny bleated, sticking to her lie.
‘It doesn’t matter any more.’ Finch suddenly looked exhausted. ‘Because once you’re dead, and Aimee’s dead, I’ll be dead too. We’ll all see one another on the other side and it will be –’
A sudden movement caught both women by surprise. Robin was bringing up the shotgun, Finch swinging her pistol round but she was too slow – Robin pulled the trigger.
BLAM!
Finch doubled over as though she’d been punched in the stomach. Her pistol clattered to the ground.
For two beats, two seconds, nobody moved.
Finch collapsed to the floor.
‘No,’ Robin bleated. He began to crawl to his sister. His face was white, his eyes glassy with horror. ‘I didn’t mean to . . . Finch, please. I just wanted to stop you. I don’t want to die. Finch, I didn’t mean to hurt you . . .’
He started to weep.
The sound of his sobs galvanised Jenny. She dived and grabbed Finch’s pistol. Pulled the shotgun from Robin’s hands. Yanked his pistol from his waistband.
‘Help me,’ he begged. ‘Please.’
Jenny ran outside.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
Lucy heard a shotgun’s dull boom. She’d managed to scrape part of the gaffer tape away from her mouth and was gasping, panting in the small space she’d made.
Another boom.
Her face was grazed and bleeding and she scraped frantically at the tape until finally, her mouth was free.
‘HELP!’ she yelled. ‘I’M IN THE VAN!’
Her wrists and ankles were bruised and bloody, her face half-raw, but she kept screaming and jerking against the plastic ties.
Distantly, she heard sirens and wondered if she’d imagined them. They grew louder. Police and ambulance. She yanked at the ties some more but was forced to stop when she was nearly overcome by a wave of nausea that threatened to black her out.
Cool it for a moment. You want to be conscious when they get here, not comatose.
The siren volumes increased. She heard a car arrive with a squirt of gravel, then another.
Soaked in sweat, her wrists and ankles in searing agony, Lucy screamed for help.
A uniformed police officer flung back the van’s doors. Looked in at her, shocked.
Lucy yelled, ‘Police!’ Followed by her collar number. ‘Free me!’
He grabbed a knife from one of the boxes and slashed through the ties. She scrambled outside.
Snapshot images. A patrol car parked next to an ambulance. Dan Forrester lying motionless on the ground, his wife with bloody hands pressing on what Lucy assumed was a wound. A uniformed cop running to meet the ambulance. Another heading inside the house. A woman sprawled on the ground near the front door. A smear of blood trailed from beneath her body into the house. She’d obviously dragged herself outside.
The cop inside the house appeared briefly, yelling, ‘Another down inside! And don’t let the dog out! It’s fucking huge!’
She ran to the woman and saw it was Finch. Still alive. She pelted inside the house to find Robin slumped on the kitchen floor. No heartbeat, no pulse. Dead. She could hear the cop upstairs, checking the rooms.
Back to Finch. The cousin lay face down, breathing heavily. Slowly, she brought up her knee and pushed herself forward a few inches.
‘No,’ Lucy gasped. ‘Keep still. The ambulance is here.’
But Finch ignored her and, using her elbow, inched forward.
Lucy saw two medics bend over Dan and begin inserting drips. They worked fast, and in less than a minute he was loaded into the back of the ambulance. Jenny hovered anxiously, eyes flickering all around.
One of the medics ran to Finch. Gently turned her over. ‘No,’ she mumbled. ‘Don’t stop me.’
‘You’re not going anywhere, love,’ he told her.
Lucy was about to head for the ambulance to ask Jenny where Aimee was, when Jenny exploded into a run. Raced to where the medic knelt next to Finch.
‘Don’t touch her!’ she shouted.
‘What?’ The medic looked up, startled.
‘She shot my husband! She was going to kill me! Don’t help her!’
‘I’m sorry,’ the medic said, ‘but I can’t do that.’
Lucy never knew how Finch did it, but somehow she found the energy – through enormous will perhaps, like an Olympian digging deep for the finishing line – and she reared up with a knife in her hand, a wicked hunting knife with a curved blade and a blood gutter – and she drew back her arm to plunge it in Jenny’s belly.
Lucy didn’t know where her response came from. She had no clear thought. She simply opened her mouth and screamed, ‘ROBIN!’
Hearing her brother’s name surprised Finch. It was barely a second but her brief hesitation gave Lucy the opportunity to launch her foot at Finch’s arm. Kick the hand holding the knife. But Finch didn’t let go.
‘Drop it!’
Lucy was grunting as she kicked, sounds of anger and fear. She had to disarm Finch. She lashed out again and this time the woman’s hand dropped to the ground. Lucy immediately stamped on Finch’s fingers. Heard something snap. Finch’s grip loosened. Lucy kicked the knife away from her. Kicked it further away.
‘Fuck,’ said the medic.
‘Too right,’ said Lucy.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
THREE DAYS LATER
‘Will this happen to us again?’ Aimee asked. Lucy flicked a glance across to see that the little girl had turned in her seat and was studying Lucy with a serious expression.
‘Er . . .’ Lucy tried to think what Dan would say. He seemed to tell the truth to Aimee when he could, or something as close to it as possible, but to Lucy she could have been stepping through a minefield for all the experience she had with kids, and how to talk to them about really serious stuff.
‘I suppose so,’ Lucy said carefully. ‘But it’s pretty unlikely.’
Aimee fell silent, seeming to absorb this.
They were on their way to the hospital. Dan had been operated on twice now, and was finally in a recovery ward and able to receive visitors. After Finch had been restrained and Dan raced to St Mary’s Hospital in Newport, Jenny and Lucy went to find Aimee. As instructed, the girl had run around the back of the village to the Taylors’ who were enjoying a leisurely weekend, and were washing up after hosting a lengthy Sunday lunch for the family.
The Taylors had rung the police and kept Aimee with them until Jenny and Lucy arrived. Jenny was going to rush in to Aimee but Lucy stopped her, gesturing at her hands, her clothes. She was covered in blood.
‘You are too,’ Jenny pointed out.
Lucy simply pulled her cuffs over her wrists and while Jenny cleaned up, went and spoke to Aimee. Told her that although her Dad was on his way to hospital, her mum was OK, and that the dog was
OK too. For a moment it looked as though Aimee didn’t know how to react, whether to panic or not, cry or scream, and Lucy quietly repeated what she’d heard Dan say at the service station what felt like years ago.
I’m here with you now. Everything’s going to be OK.
When Jenny came out of the bathroom it was to find Lucy standing in the Taylors’ hallway with Aimee’s arms around her, the little girl looking up at Lucy and asking what she could take to Daddy to help him get better.
Now, as Lucy turned into the hospital driveway, she wasn’t sure what to say to Aimee. She supposed they’d have to tell Aimee her true lineage in order to avoid the potential shock of it later. Much better to tell her when she was too young to understand the implications so it became part of who she was until she was old enough to ask questions and come to terms with it in her own time, her own way.
‘They were very bad people,’ Aimee said eventually. Very quiet, reflective.
‘Yes, they were,’ Lucy agreed.
‘And the one that shot Daddy, she’s in prison now.’
‘Yes, she is.’
Finch was in a secure mental institution where she was being evaluated before her trial. Apparently the psychiatrist Lucy spoke to said it was doubtful she would ever be released into the general population. She and Robin had killed over a dozen people – men, women and children – and Finch was apparently obsessed with killing Jenny and Aimee. That’s all she ever talked about, and nobody was certain if she’d always been like that or whether the killings had snapped something inside her mind. They weren’t sure what label to give her but with words like psychopathic, schizophrenic and psychotic being bandied about, she was unlikedly to go to prison; she would probably be incarcerated somewhere like Broadmoor, where Robert Torto – the ‘son of God’ killer – once resided along with Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper. An appropriate residence for her, Lucy thought.
As they walked inside the hospital, Aimee took Lucy’s hand. It felt tiny and warm, very soft. Lucy felt a surge of protectiveness and pride that the girl trusted her enough not only to hold hands, but to ask for her to look after her while her parents were at the hospital. Aimee’s grandparents had been a bit taken aback they hadn’t been at the top of their granddaughter’s list, but Lucy suspected Aimee’s preference was because she’d driven her to safety when her mother had been under attack at the cottage, and then handed her to her Dad. She’d proved herself to the girl. That was all.
‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ Aimee asked.
‘Er . . . maybe.’
Lucy thought about the past few days, how she’d had to endure endless debriefs by not only the local police but the Security Services as well. She’d met a moon-faced, muscular man called Ozzie, who’d grilled her politely but ruthlessly over every detail of the previous twenty-four hours.
‘You say Dan Forrester asked you to follow Nicholas Blain. You didn’t think to call it in?’
‘Dan was informing the police,’ she replied. ‘I was concentrating on driving.’
‘How did you know he’d called the police?’
He’d drilled down every action she’d taken until she wanted to scream I’m not the guilty one here! but somehow she managed to keep her cool, probably thanks to Ozzie’s boss sitting in the corner like some kind of benign Buddha, oozing calm. Afterwards, Bernard – no surname given – came to her and said, ‘Don’t take it personally. Ozzie has a job to do and sometimes he’s a bit overzealous. Well done on some excellent work.’ He’d shaken her hand and she’d looked at it later, a little amazed she’d been congratulated by the head of MI5.
Blain had been debriefed in the same building and they’d shared several coffees in the corridor in between interviews. He looked like she felt: exhausted.
‘I’d ask you out,’ he told her at one point, ‘but –’
‘I’ll only say no.’
He gave her an appraising look. ‘Eyes only for your DI?’
She looked down the corridor. She didn’t want to give anything away.
‘It’s OK,’ he said on a yawn. ‘I’m a big boy. I’ll survive.’
For some reason, this small exchange lifted something between them and when he asked her to join him for a sandwich at a local deli, she agreed. He told her about his family and she told him about hers. He confessed he’d been married once but it hadn’t worked out. His ex-wife had hated service life.
‘My ex,’ Lucy admitted, ‘wanted to change me.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘How?’
‘He wanted me to be boring.’
Blain put his head on one side, encouraging her to add, ‘He wanted me not to laugh when I wanted, or rant at the TV when I wanted. He wanted me to wear floral dresses, be pretty, be “nice”. ’
‘Sounds like Isabelle,’ he said sadly. ‘She wanted a humdrum nine-to-five man with a briefcase and a suit and instead she got . . . well, me.’
It was as though Blain had switched from being a potential suitor to a sort of brother and when he began gently teasing her about Mac, he did it in such a way that she didn’t take offence but laughed.
After more debriefs in the afternoon, they left the building together. It was chucking it down and they shared an umbrella across the car park – he’d promised a lift to her car – and they were buckling up, laughing over something Ozzie had said when she thought she spotted Mac inside a Vauxhall driving past, but it couldn’t have been him because he was up in Stockton.
When she walked into the beat office the next day, she received a round of applause, which made her blush. Mac, on the other hand, seemed to take her success in his stride. ‘Leave you alone for two minutes, and you solve an international conspiracy.’ He rolled his eyes but she could tell he was pleased. ‘Drinks for everyone later. On me.’
Not everyone got along with Lucy, or she them, but at that declaration even the most reticent person came and congratulated her. Amazing what a free drink could do for your popularity.
She was in the pub and halfway through her pint when her mobile rang.
‘Nick,’ she said. ‘Hi.’
‘Hi. Look, I’ve just picked up a job in Berwick and I’m on the A1 and I’m starving. Fancy a curry?’
She checked her watch. She was aware that Mac was watching her, but she ignored him.
‘Give me an hour. I’m celebrating with the team.’ She gave Nick directions to her local curry house, which was cheap and cheerful, with Formica tables and fluorescent strip lighting, but the food was great.
‘Not the most romantic of restaurants,’ Mac remarked when she hung up.
‘No,’ she agreed. She was damned if she was going to explain that Nick was, to her surprise and delight, turning into rather a good friend.
He looked as though he was going to say something else but changed his mind. ‘See you in the morning.’
It took all her self-control to be casual, as though they’d never slept together, never cared. ‘See you.’
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
Five weeks later, Dan went to see Milena. Despite the .38 slug of lead that had travelled in and out diagonally through his body, he didn’t feel too bad. This, he supposed, was probably because he was out of hospital, the sun was shining, and he was on his way to London. He loved London. The bustle and energy of the place, people on the move, people on buses and trains, aeroplanes overhead and flying into Heathrow.
Hospital had been a trial. Time passed at a snail’s pace and he’d hated pretty much every minute, except when Jenny and Aimee visited, but eventually all the tubes were removed and he began to heal.
Lucy also came and saw him. She told him Finch had been transferred to Rampton Hospital, a high-security psychiatric facility for women near Retford in the Nottinghamshire countryside. If Finch escaped, she’d have a journey of two hundred miles to undertake before she got to his family.
‘She’d better not get out,’ Dan said.
‘No chance,’ she assured him. ‘The place is like a prison. I’
ve seen it.’
‘Good.’
Dan parked in a narrow street in the heart of Streatham. The south London suburb had suffered over the years, its high street being dubbed the ‘worst street in Britain’ during long decades of retail decline. Funding from central government had been promised but much of it didn’t appear to have had any effect.
He didn’t park on Milena’s street, but on the street behind. It wasn’t a long walk, maybe five minutes, but when he arrived on her doorstep he was sweating. The bullet might have missed everything vital when it tore through him, but it didn’t stop him feeling infernally ill.
‘Dan.’ The front door was open and Milena stood there in Ugg boots and a baggy sweater. ‘You look terrible.’
Whereas she looked as beautiful as he remembered. Her hair hung loosely around her shoulders in honey-coloured waves and her eyes were clear, her skin unblemished. Her nose appeared to have re-set perfectly. No sign that she’d been beaten up by Yesikov’s thugs.
‘Thanks.’ He gave her a weak smile.
‘Come inside. Sit down. I will make us tea.’
The tea came thick and strong and with the usual Russian spoonful of jam.
‘Delicious,’ he said.
Her flat was small, and although it sported cracks running up the walls and had areas of peeling plaster, Milena had put up posters to hide the worst of it. She’d furnished it with items he guessed she’d picked up from the markets – mismatched but colourful lamps, battered but rustic-looking oak furniture and bright Indian throws – turning it into a homely and welcoming space.
‘Nice,’ he remarked.
Milena pointed at a small console table. ‘See this? It was painted blue and below that, a hideous red. I stripped it down, made it beautiful again. I bought it for ten pounds, I can sell it for thirty-five. A good profit, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘This is the business I am going into,’ she told him. ‘Buying things people think are junk and making them into something desirable.’
‘A good business,’ he said.
She asked him about Jenny, and he asked her about her situation. She’d been debriefed at length by Six and was still in touch with Emily, helping identify people of interest as well as looking at a variety of unprocessed information and substantiating what she could. She was apparently going to get her residence card soon and when it ran out in five years, apply for a permanent residence card.