Dead Line

by Chris Ewan

  Xavier.

  ‘Stay back or I kill him.’

  Trent stumbled forwards, head canted to one side, offering up his ear as if it might help him to hear better.

  ‘I said, stay back!’

  Xavier pressed the muzzle harder against Jérôme’s skull. Jérôme grimaced and tried to snatch his head away but Xavier held him fast.

  ‘Throw your weapon down.’

  Trent shook his head. He raised the shotgun to his shoulder. Lifted the barrel beneath his chin.

  ‘You won’t shoot,’ Xavier said. He sounded confident. Contemptuous. ‘You need him alive.’

  ‘Please,’ Jérôme muttered.

  Xavier yanked on Jérôme’s hair and he sucked back a rasping breath.

  Trent sighted along the shotgun. His torch was on, the beam centred just south of Xavier’s eye, lighting up his mask. He asked himself if he should blind him with the glare, if it might distract him enough, but Xavier was right, he didn’t want him to kill Jérôme. Aiming the shotgun was a bluff. A clumsy one. If he had had the Beretta in his hand, maybe he could have risked taking the shot. But the blast radius from the shotgun would be too wide. It would spread out from the muzzle just like the light was coning outwards from his torch. If he hit Xavier, he’d hit Jérôme, too.

  ‘Kill him and you die,’ Trent said. He coughed up dirt and grit and spat it onto the ground. ‘Like your friend just now. Like your men in the house out there.’

  Xavier eased his masked face out from behind Jérôme’s head. His lips were pressed flat, mouth pursed. His eye was darting and flickering. He was thinking hard.

  ‘You don’t want him dead,’ he said again, and his voice sounded like something that belonged inside the cave. It was dark and cold and terrifying. It had a way of penetrating deep inside of you, of setting off a quiver in the base of your spine.

  ‘He dies, you die,’ Trent replied.

  The guy wet his lip. He slunk back behind Jérôme. Back inside his hood.

  He was taller than Jérôme so he was bent back a little, stooped at the knees. But it also looked as though something was weighing him down. Trent adjusted his torch beam and saw the strap over his shoulder. It was black and cushioned.

  The holdall of ransom money. He was wearing it like a backpack.

  ‘Reverse out of here,’ Xavier said.

  Trent didn’t respond. He just stared. He could feel the loathing thrashing around inside him, tugging at his lip, hitching up his mouth into a crazed grin.

  He couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t tempted to shoot. He felt sure that Jérôme was responsible for whatever bad things had happened to Aimée. And Xavier deserved to die for the suffering he’d caused Viktor, for the death of Girard’s partner and Girard himself, hell, for the terror and distress he’d inflicted on all his victims and their families. Maybe it was easier this way. Kill them both. Leave them down here in the cave, where they might not be found for a long time. Know that he’d avenged Aimée, at least.

  But no, he needed to find her. Needed to know for certain if she was alive or dead. If there was any way he might save her or lay her to rest. And he wanted to hear Jérôme’s confession. Wanted to force him to beg for his life.

  ‘Walk backwards.’ Xavier was raging now. He was wired. ‘I can let him go once we’re out from here.’

  Once they were out of the cave, the scenario would be exactly the same. Xavier couldn’t release Jérôme without making himself vulnerable. Trent couldn’t lower the shotgun without inviting Xavier to shoot him.

  But perhaps the guy would make a mistake. Maybe Trent would have his opportunity.

  He tucked the shotgun beneath his chin and edged backwards from the cavern. One foot behind the other, the darkness crowding over his shoulders. After a few steps, he beckoned with his shotgun for the two men to start moving. Xavier nudged Jérôme in the hollow of his knee and he folded backwards at the hip, feet scuffling the ground, his bound hands raised up in front of his face with the gun pressed hard against his temple. Trent led them in a slow, cautious procession out from the lighted cavern and into the blackened channel.

  Trent centred the torch on Jérôme’s eyes and he flinched and squinted, deep furrows appearing across his brow and the bridge of his nose. Trent moved the torch beam right a fraction until Xavier’s dark pupil twinkled from behind his mask and beneath his hood.

  ‘Lower it,’ he barked, his voice bounding up the passage.

  ‘I need to see you. To watch you.’

  ‘Blind me and I shoot.’

  ‘I have to see the gun.’

  ‘Lower it.’

  Trent relented. He dropped the beam a degree or two. He could still see the pistol and Xavier’s glimmering eye. The spittle on his lips. The cable-knit woollen garment that concealed his face.

  He edged his way backwards, knees creaking, muscles and tendons pulled tight. The crunching of loose stone beneath his boots told him that he was approaching the spot where the dead guy was slumped. He kicked out until he felt a leg, then stepped over him, being careful not to stumble. He straightened while he could, stretched out his spine, then stooped and kept reversing. Saw Jérôme’s grimace as he trod, heavy-limbed, over the corpse. Saw that Xavier never lost focus. Never loosened his grip on Jérôme’s hair or the pistol. Never took his eye off Trent.

  The channel closed in around Trent’s sides. It squeezed and compressed him. He scraped his elbows.

  He backed up some more, keeping to his rhythm, his steady pace, making certain Xavier was always in view, until he was finally out from the fissure, back in the cold embrace of the cave entrance, and then outside into the wooded clearing and the light.

  ‘Keep going,’ Xavier said. His breath was short. He swayed out from behind Jérôme until both eyes were visible. Shook his head so that his hood fell down, the evening sun beating onto his masked skull. Trent could see the top of the holdall behind his back and the straps on his shoulders. He knew how heavy the bag was. Guessed it must be hurting.

  ‘They’re all dead,’ Trent told him, and gestured towards the complex of buildings with his chin. ‘There’s nobody that can help you now.’ The torch was still on, even though he didn’t need it in the warm dusky light. He could see minor swellings and abrasions on Jérôme’s face. Could see his swollen, gummy eyes, blinking and watering. Could see Xavier easing the weight on his back. He was taller and wider than Jérôme. Bigger than Trent. A brute of a man.

  ‘Go to the van,’ Xavier said.

  For the first time, Trent sensed an opening. Xavier was aiming to get away with the ransom money. He was intending to take Jérôme with him. Probably he’d make him drive. But both men would need to get inside the van. Both men would need to sit in the cab while the engine was started and the van was reversed and turned.

  Trent would have his chance.

  ‘OK.’ He nodded. ‘We’ll all go to the van.’

  He stepped backwards through the greenery. Back along the path. Onto the patio. Round the timber outbuilding. Always with Xavier in his sights. Always with his finger clenched on the trigger, arms locked and deadened and numb. He longed to flex them. But he couldn’t waver. Couldn’t betray any weakness.

  ‘Over there,’ Xavier said, eyeing a space on Trent’s right.

  They wheeled around each other. Slowly. Warily. One step at a time.

  Jérôme stumbled, legs shaking, but Xavier held him up.

  ‘Now you stay there,’ he said. ‘Don’t move.’

  Trent shook his head. ‘Not a chance.’

  Xavier released Jérôme’s hair and coiled his arm around his neck. He started to squeeze. To choke him.

  Jérôme flailed. He gagged. Xavier ground the pistol into his temple until he stilled, eyes wide, lips peeled back over his gums.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ Xavier said again.

  He loosened his arm very slightly and began to drag Jérôme backwards across the yard, towards the blue van. Jérôme was sucking air through his teeth, cheeks
bulging. His head was tipped back, chin raised, throat pulsing and contracting.

  Trent did as he was told. He wanted to move with them. He wanted it more than he could possibly say. His leg twitched with the need for it but he remained still. He watched the gap increase between them. Fifteen feet. Twenty. If the gap grew much more he’d become a tempting target for Xavier. Not a difficult shot with a handgun. But they weren’t far from the van now. Another five, ten paces, and they’d be alongside it.

  Trent felt the moment slipping away from him. He’d watched Jérôme taken from him once before. Now he was destined to watch a second time round.

  There wouldn’t be a third. There was no way Xavier could permit it. There’d be evidence all over the hideout. Clues and information to be followed. Xavier’s only sensible move was to kill Jérôme as soon as it was safe for him to put a bullet in his brain, then flee as fast and as far as he could. The holdall on his back contained three million reasons why Trent would never see him again.

  But there was one reason why none of that might matter.

  The Alsatian in the garden next door had started barking. He was yammering and howling and straining at his leash.

  Xavier didn’t glance towards him.

  But he should have done.

  The dog was barking at a car. The car belonged to Viktor. Viktor had gunned the Golf’s engine and pulled out from the side of the road and was swooping and bouncing into the yard in a cloud of dust and dirt and swirling leaves.

  The engine note altered. He’d shifted up a gear. Accelerated harder. The engine squealed. It roared. The tyres spat gravel and the vehicle shimmied, thrashing like a fish’s tail. Viktor sawed at the steering wheel. He set course for Xavier and Jérôme. Stamped down on the gas.

  Xavier reacted too slowly. He hadn’t wanted to turn away from Trent. And when he finally did it was too late. He shoved Jérôme aside, looking to push off from him and jump out of the way.

  It worked for Jérôme.

  It didn’t for Xavier.

  Viktor yanked the wheel hard right and clattered into the back of Xavier’s knees. Xavier jerked forwards from the waist, head and arms flung out, the holdall swinging wildly to one side. But his legs were pinned and he seemed to zip backwards, like he’d been sucked into a piece of industrial machinery.

  The Golf reared up at the front and thumped back down. Viktor braked hard. The wheels locked. They slid. The rear wheels took hold of Xavier’s body and clamped him to the ground, dragging him flat against the gravel, compressing his chest, his hooded top wrung tight around his neck. Then the rear wheels jacked up, crunched down, and the Golf came to a skidding halt.

  Trent jogged across. He extended the shotgun at the end of his reach and sighted down the long barrel. Xavier’s ski mask was torn. It was ripped apart in a diagonal slash from his crushed temple to his ragged throat. His face was frozen and contorted. It was bloodied and smashed. Trent didn’t recognise the dead man. Had never seen his face before.

  He backed away. Jérôme was slumped to his knees, head bowed. Trent seized his bound arms. He lifted him to his feet. He held him there when his knees buckled, then wrapped an arm around his sweat-drenched back and carried him, like a wounded soldier, across to the Golf.

  He opened the back door, pushed his duffel bag into the footwell and shoved Jérôme inside. He went over to Xavier’s corpse and rolled him over and freed the holdall of cash from his shattered arms. He clambered into the Golf with the holdall, sitting alongside Jérôme and behind Viktor. Rested a hand on Viktor’s shoulder. Squeezed.

  ‘Drive,’ he said, into his ear.

  ‘Who did I hit?’ Viktor was shaking. Trent could feel the tremors through his hand.

  ‘Xavier.’

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘Very. Now drive.’

  Viktor looked behind him, eyes widening with alarm as he saw Trent’s face. ‘What about your fiancée?’

  Trent shook his head and lowered his gaze.

  ‘But the police?’

  ‘Forget about the police.’ He clenched Viktor’s shoulder tighter. ‘Trust me. Just get us away from here.’

  Viktor snatched at the wheel and turned them in a slow, aimless circle, the car bucking and surging with each nervous twitch of his leg. He joined the road. Accelerated away.

  Trent reclined in his seat. He tipped his head back and blinked the moisture from his eyes and stared at the grey felt lining on the roof.

  Beside him, Jérôme stirred. He reached stiffly across and tapped Trent’s arm with a bound hand.

  Trent swallowed. He fixed his jaw and looked down at Jérôme, feeling the sticky tug of the blood that was smeared across his face.

  ‘Thank you,’ Jérôme said, with a meek smile. He offered a dirtied palm to shake. ‘Thank you, my friend.’

  Trent stared at the guy’s cushioned skin. At the mud and the cuts and the grazing. At the whorls of dried soil on his fingertips and the filth under his nails. At the bloat around the ties at his wrists.

  He exhaled in a weary gust and shook his head, just barely, then turned and gazed out the window at the flat speeding fields and the orange dipping sun.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Viktor hesitated at the first major junction they came to after passing through Le Thor. Trent gave him instructions to head to Cassis, then looked at Jérôme, not quite meeting his eyes, and said that he would be reunited with his family at his coastal villa.

  Jérôme absorbed the information. He nodded once, then managed a slight, bashful smile and held his bound hands out to Trent.

  Trent stared at the looped plastic ties and the way they were digging into his flesh. He considered the guy’s short, stubby fingers, the cracked skin of his knuckles and the faint grey hairs that were looped along the backs of his hands. Hands that had harmed Aimée. Caused her pain. Maybe death.

  He exhaled in a grunt and shook the visions from his mind, then ducked forwards and rooted around in the duffel bag until he found a pair of snub-nosed pliers and an old towel. The pliers were equipped with wire trimmers. He snipped the plastic ties, then watched as Jérôme rubbed his wrists.

  ‘Who are you?’ Jérôme asked.

  Trent wiped his face with the towel. ‘We’ll come to that.’

  ‘I owe you my life.’ His voice was dry and straining. ‘Both of you.’

  Trent couldn’t listen to more. He stretched forwards between the front seats and grabbed one of the bottles of water he’d picked up from the garage. He handed it to Jérôme.

  The guy smiled his appreciation and raised the bottle to his chalky lips. He drank greedily, noisily, water streaming down his grizzled chin from the corners of his mouth.

  ‘Take it easy,’ Trent told him. ‘Rest up. We’ll talk some more when we get to your villa.’

  Jérôme lowered the bottle. ‘Will Alain be there?’

  Trent caught sight of Viktor’s fitful eyes in the rear-view mirror. He held them, then turned and gazed out his window again, contemplating the streaming ribbon of grubby white paint at the edge of the road.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll make sure the two of you are reunited.’

  * * *

  It was late dusk and a low moon was up by the time Trent directed Viktor to pull over across from the wall that surrounded Jérôme’s villa. The street was empty. It was still and silent in the mournful half-light.

  Trent motioned for Jérôme to get out of the car. He tossed the hold-all and the duffel onto the pavement, climbed out behind them and approached Viktor’s open window. He ducked his head.

  They looked at each other for a long moment until Trent reached across and squeezed Viktor’s arm.

  ‘Go home to your parents,’ Trent told him. ‘Make your peace with them and let them know this is over for you now. Move on with your life.’

  ‘But the police?’

  Trent shook his head. ‘You were never there, Viktor.’

  ‘What if someone saw my car?’

 
Trent thought about it. ‘Dump it somewhere. Toss the keys away. Do it tonight.’

  ‘I’m sorry for your fiancée.’

  ‘Me too, Viktor.’

  ‘But I’m not sorry for killing Xavier,’ he said, and looked like he was willing himself to believe it. ‘I’m glad that it was me. I won’t deny it if people ask.’

  ‘But it wasn’t you, Viktor.’ Trent shook his head again. ‘I should know. I was there.’

  Viktor held his gaze, searching for something more in Trent’s expression that he couldn’t seem to find. Trent bent low and gathered the holdall in one hand and the duffel in the other.

  ‘Go,’ he said. ‘Get out of here.’

  Viktor smiled fleetingly, a hard-to-fathom smile that seemed to communicate everything and nothing at all. Then he slipped the Golf into gear and trundled away down the street.

  Trent crossed the twilit road, a bag in each hand, and joined Jérôme by the gate, the blurred tangle of shrubs and trees massed on the other side of the wall like fairytale monsters lying in wait. The surveillance camera was pointed down at them. Trent motioned with his chin towards the security keypad to Jérôme’s left.

  ‘The others won’t be here for a while,’ he said. ‘But we should go inside where it’s safe.’

  Jérôme punched in the code. The gate buzzed and began to swing open, revealing the sloping, tarred driveway, the manicured gardens and the darkened villa.

  ‘I don’t have my keys,’ Jérôme said. ‘They took them from me.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Trent replied. ‘I already thought of that.’

  He led Jérôme round the side of the villa, past the garage where Aimée’s car was hidden, beyond the placid swimming pool and the cliffs and the churning, blue-black ocean, shining darkly in the pale moonlight like liquid metal. He approached the glass patio door, his milky reflection gliding towards him like a ghost. Dropped the weighty holdall to the ground and stooped towards a potted palm. He tilted the terracotta plant pot and felt around for the key he’d stashed underneath. Returning to the villa hadn’t been part of his original plan but hiding the key where he could find it had struck Trent as a sensible precaution. He straightened and unlocked the door. Pushed it open. Stepped aside.