“Shh, it’s all right. It’s me, Jason. You’re safe. You’re going to the hospital.”
Amy relaxed and Jason looked up to see the paramedic staring at him as if she’d seen a ghost.
“Yes, I am Jason Carr, the one you’ve seen on the news,” he said impatiently. “Can we arrest me later and deal with Amy now, yeah?”
The woman started back to life, nervously asking Jason to move aside. He reluctantly let go, but took up Amy’s hand. Over her head, he saw the other paramedic bundling up Owain as a second ambulance came round the corner.
“I’m his girlfriend,” Cerys said, and they let her join Owain in the back of the ambulance. Jason felt a flash of jealousy. Even without the weight of being an escaped felon, he would never be allowed in Amy’s ambulance. He was her, what? Her employee? Her assistant? Her friend? It would never be enough for them.
As two new paramedics arrived, the original woman stepped aside and they took over. Jason was politely elbowed aside and he stood awkwardly, watching them immobilise Amy’s neck, spine and legs and inject her full of painkillers.
Bryn came up beside him, looking worn thin and tired as a corpse. “Son...”
“I know,” Jason said. He had to go and explain himself to the police. He was likely for prison again, at least until they could sort out this mess, but right now, he only had thoughts for Amy and her thin, pale body beneath the bright red blankets. “You will keep me updated? If she...”
“I’ll tell you everything. We’ve no need for cuffs, have we?”
Jason shook his head and let Bryn guide him away, with one solid hand in the centre of his back. They circled the ambulances and were greeted by a horde of emergency personnel. Another three fire engines tackling the blaze, a sea of police cars and a couple of other ambulances treating the walking wounded.
Jason caught sight of Roger Ebbings in the middle of the crowd, looking shell-shocked and directionless. And standing next to him was Sebastian Rawlings.
Suddenly, he was consumed with anger. Jason marched away from Bryn and right up to them, incandescent with rage. “Don’t believe a word that man says.”
Roger Ebbings was startled at his appearance and suddenly four police officers tried to manhandle Jason to the ground. But Jason would not be silenced, would not let that bastard weasel his way into police favour.
“You ask Mickey! Ask Stuart!” he yelled, just before his shoulders were forced to the ground. “They’ll tell you he’s their boss. They took their orders from him!”
“The boy has gone mad—”
“Zook! They call him Zook!”
Roger looked at Sebastian strangely. “You were called Zook, weren’t you?”
Sebastian shrugged. “So the boy’s heard my old nickname. So what?”
“Zook! He stitched us up!” Stuart’s voice rang across the yard, from where he was being cuffed against a police car.
“Zook! He ordered that Damage kid killed!” Mickey, now, clamouring to be heard.
“He’d do anything to shift the blame,” Sebastian protested.
“Zook! He murdered Richy Rich by Barry Island!”
“Porter! The copper!”
“It was Zook. I was there!”
The voices were a discordant choir of accusation from every corner, Irish and Welsh. And Roger was looking at Sebastian with new eyes.
“I think you’d better come with me, Bas.”
From the ground, Jason saw Sebastian’s world fall apart. He was suddenly smaller, meaner, his shoulders dropped and his singed suit that of a sad clown. He was nothing like DI Rawlings or Zook the gangland mastermind. He was pathetic, broken.
Sebastian ran.
He dived past the coppers and up over the bonnet of a police car. He shoved past the firefighters, through the puddles from the hoses, and leapt onto the pyre of his ambition.
The flames seized him and threw him high, a burning effigy, and then he vanished into the smoke. The firefighters could not pass the wall of flames and the master manipulator of Cardiff’s gangs was lost to the fire.
The officers had let go of Jason to give chase and were now regarding him uneasily, unsure whether to arrest him or applaud him. Jason got slowly to his feet, coated in freezing mud. He looked straight at Roger Ebbings, who was floundering in the face of such immense betrayal—and sacrifice.
“You have to take me down the station so we can sort this all out,” Jason said, calmly. “The court needs to be satisfied that I haven’t done nothing wrong. I can prove it all but we need to do this properly, yeah?”
Roger nodded and Jason breathed a sigh of relief. He would prove them all innocent, even without Sebastian’s body to bear the blame.
Chapter Fifty: The Waiting Room
When Amy woke up, she was alone.
In this room, it was quiet. Beyond the door she could hear the noise made by a hundred people in an enclosed space, but she felt floaty and unconcerned. It was nice.
Then someone shone a light in her eye. “Amy, can you hear me?”
“Go away.”
The nurse chuckled. “Good of you to join us.”
Beyond a curtain next to her she could hear the quiet, taut voices of people under pressure working very quickly.
“Blood pressure ninety over sixty and holding.”
“Chuck us that blood, will you?”
“Where is that surgeon?”
An officious-looking bloke with a black curling moustache and dressed in baggy blue scrubs passed by the end of her bed and into the curtained-off area. “What have we got?”
“Gunshot wound to the abdomen. Transfer to Bristol?”
“Nah, the boss can handle it. Stable?”
“On-call anaesthetist is calling her boss in, but reckons they can do it.”
“I’ll list him for theatre.”
The man emerged from behind the curtain and wandered past her bed, before exiting.
Her wits slowed by good drugs, Amy’s brain caught up with the fact that it was Owain in the cubicle next to her. “That’s my friend in there,” she said quietly to the nurse.
The woman glanced at the curtain. “I know, love. He’s in good hands.”
A man in green scrubs appeared and flicked through a series of X-rays on a nearby monitor, before coming to her bedside. “How are you doing, Amy?”
“The painkillers are good.”
He smiled. “So I hear. Your spine is clear, so we can get you off that board and out of the collar. Your leg wasn’t so lucky, but you don’t need surgery—just a really big cast.” He gestured to her arms. “Your burns are superficial, though they will itch like hell. We’d like to keep you in overnight because you had a pretty big drop, but other than that, you’re right as rain.”
“My friend got shot and my assistant’s not here.” That felt as far away from right as she could imagine.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” the doctor said, but he sounded like he said it twenty times a day and Amy knew he didn’t have enough sorry for that. “Can I call your assistant?”
“I think he’s in prison again,” she said. The doctor looked at her strangely, but then the nurse whispered to him quickly. Amy could only imagine what she was saying—don’t you watch the news?
The doctor’s smile was carefully blank. “We’ll look into that. I’ll get someone to plaster up that leg for you.”
The nurse stripped off her collar and slid the board out from under her with an assistant. The motion jostled her leg, and Amy decided she didn’t like these painkillers after all. They put the bed up and she felt more than a little sick. When had she last eaten? Had Jason cooked last night? What time was it anyway? So many questions—no answers.
She felt she should be panicking, but whatever they’d given her wouldn’t let her heart rac
e, her breath quicken. Her brain was crawling with anxiety but her body just fancied a snooze. She felt completely disconnected.
“Anything else I can get you, love?”
“Cup of tea?” she asked hopefully.
The nurse smiled. “That one I can do.”
It wouldn’t be anything like as good as Jason’s, but it would do until she could have him back with her, where he belonged.
* * *
Bryn had a bureaucracy headache.
The room was rammed with five lawyers and ten more cops and officials, most of them arguing, and there was not enough tea in the world for him to deal with this shit. He’d just got the call through that Owain was going to surgery and he was now stuck in the detectives’ office with the higher-ups from South Wales Police, the CPS, the National Crime Agency and Swansea Prison. All arguing about Jason Carr.
Jason, for his sins, was sitting in a cell downstairs with a cup of tea and pestering one of the uniforms to call A&E every five minutes to see if they’d let him speak to Amy. It was the least Bryn could do after the hell they’d been through.
The hell that was ongoing.
“The fact remains that he has been remanded in custody pending trial for murder.”
“Not to mention the escape.”
“He didn’t escape,” Bryn said for the ninth time. “He was broken out by a programme designed by Damage Jones. Probably in the hope that one of our own would shoot the boy through the head. The same programme that was then used to frame Owain Jenkins.”
“That is speculation,” snapped the chief constable. “All we have is the word of a hacker with a vested interest.”
“Determined to blacken the name of Sebastian Rawlings,” the NCA bod said, his shrill voice piercing through Bryn’s aching head.
“The bastard was corrupt!” The shout was out of his mouth before he’d really thought it through.
Roger Ebbings looked at him sympathetically. “Bryn, you’re tired—”
“And when I’ve slept, he’ll still be corrupt. And the day after that too. I’ve known the man for ten years. I know it’s fucking hard to swallow, but he threw himself into a burning building rather than face your questions. Doesn’t that tell you something?”
The assembled officers and lawyers looked deeply uncomfortable.
The man from the Crime Agency was turning into a tomato, fit to burst on the barbecue. “This isn’t about Rawlings. It’s about Jason Carr.”
“You need to lean on Mickey Doyle,” Bryn said. “He was present at Dai Jones’s death, you mark my words. Bargain with him and—”
“Bargain? With that cretin?” The NCA man was threatening to set the police dogs yowling with his indignant pitch. “We’ve been building a case on him for years—”
“No, you’ve been protecting him for years. Open your eyes, man! Bas has played all of you for fools!”
That discomfiture pervaded the air again, that uneasy feeling that they had all been betrayed, looked like idiots. It would play out in the press that way and they were all looking to cover their backs. Bryn wouldn’t let that happen.
“So,” the chief constable said finally, “what can we do about Carr?”
* * *
The ambulance men were very kind in helping her to the front door.
Broken glass littered the pavement in front of the house. Thankfully, no press had gathered because they hadn’t realised anyone would be at home, and Amy was grateful she’d had the foresight to put her own voice print into the locking programme. It had seemed a silly redundancy at the time—she was never planning to leave the house—but apparently she could, if she had sufficient diazepam to quell the pounding of her heart.
When the lift spat her out, she was dreading finding what the intruders had done to her house. She carefully manoeuvred herself with the crutches into the main area of the living room and looked around.
And there was Jason.
He was duct-taping a large rectangle of cardboard across the shattered window, coughing as he went. “Why won’t you stick?”
“It’s the rain.”
He turned and his face was alight with joy. He ran across the room and gathered her up, pressing her close to him and lifting her off the floor.
“Ow! Ow! Burns!”
Then the warmth was gone and she was sitting on the sofa, looking up at him through a haze of stinging skin and throbbing leg. “What...what are you doing here?”
“Bryn argued me out on bail. Temporary, like, until the CPS decide what they’re about. But I’m here.”
Amy reached for him like a child and he sat beside her, sliding his arm across her shoulder and letting her rest against him. “Have you heard from Cerys?”
“He’s still in surgery. Bryn said he’d call us when he knew something.”
Her happiness was tempered by the news, but nothing could completely dampen her spirits at being home and being with Jason.
After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Jason shifted. “I’m sorry.”
“What for?” she said, dragging her eyes open.
“Setting you on fire.”
Amy twisted away from him, staring him down. “You started the fire?”
Jason winced. His skin was slightly reddened, as if he had a bad suntan. “Wasn’t meant to go down like that.”
“No shit.”
This time, at least, Amy heard the lift before someone burst into their living room. She held her breath—would it be Bryn, bearing bad news? Then she remembered that he didn’t have an access code anymore.
Lizzie was wild-eyed, hair dishevelled and wearing yesterday’s clothes. She just stared at Amy for a minute, mouth slightly open and her eyes glistening.
Jason stood abruptly. “I’ll put the kettle on.”
When they were alone, Lizzie finally spoke. “Calling would’ve killed you?”
Amy started to protest, but Lizzie crossed the room and enveloped her in her arms, drawing her close. Amy didn’t yelp this time, just held on, remembering what it was like to have a sister.
Then she caught a whiff of Jason’s scent, still lingering on Lizzie’s clothes from their bike ride across town. Something twisted unpleasantly in her stomach, but this wasn’t her old friend anxiety.
“I told you he was trouble,” Lizzie said, but she sounded relieved, not angry.
“He’s worth it,” she said immediately, unthinkingly.
As Lizzie pulled away, Amy finally named the feeling deep in her gut. Jealousy.
“Tea’s up,” Jason said, presenting the teapot and the sugar bowl like a well-trained butler.
But a strange look flickered in Lizzie’s eyes, something awkward and uncomfortable, and Amy’s eyes were drawn to the way she toyed with the collar of her blouse. “I can’t stay long.”
“Just for tea,” Amy said, her words ahead of her mind, as she realised that yes, she did want her sister to stay, despite the uneasiness in the air.
Jason poured the tea and Lizzie sat in his armchair, Jason between them as he retook his place on the sofa. Amy spooned six or seven sugars into her mug, keeping her eyes fixed on the spoon as she stirred.
“You’d better explain yourself,” Lizzie said sharply, and Amy looked up.
Jason scowled. “It wasn’t my fault.”
“You drove my sister into danger. You’d better have a damn good reason.”
And just like that Amy saw only Lizzie’s concern for her, the shadows falling from her mind and the tension in her stomach easing. It was a trick of the light, a mirage. Just one more neurosis to add to the list.
“Just let me tell it, all right?”
Jason told his story and Amy watched him, spellbound. The words washed over her like good wine and better drugs, but she caught his glances, his lo
oks in her direction, and she felt the world starting to spin as it should once more.
Chapter Fifty-One: A Funny Sort of Justice
Cerys had moved in with Owain.
It wasn’t that Jason begrudged Cerys her happiness, or that he wanted Owain to be at home without someone to tend him, but she was his baby sister and he was obliged to put up some token resistance.
It spoke volumes that Owain had undergone major surgery, recovered in hospital and been discharged to Cerys’s tender embraces before Cardiff Crown Court had made a decision about what to do with Jason.
A whole bunch of independent techies, lawyers and coppers had come in to review the evidence, both Bryn’s and Amy’s, as South Wales Police had their good name dragged through the mud by the media. And dozens of criminals were appealing their sentences, citing Sebastian Rawlings as the man who put them away, and so clearly it was a miscarriage of justice.
Thinking about Sebastian Rawlings turned his knuckles white, the urge to punch something overwhelming. How could he have been so duped by him? But then they all had fallen to his charms—and Bryn had known him years.
In darker moments, Jason was glad he was dead and ashes. The man had a silver tongue and he didn’t fancy facing a jury with Sebastian telling his sweet lies in the witness box.
As he waited to hear his fate, Jason worked on putting the flat to rights and dusting Amy’s grandmother’s house. He’d also rung up the bloke who’d lent him the mac, thanking him for providing that simple shelter and for not blabbing his story to the press like so many others.
As much as possible, Jason had tried to avoid the media coverage of his arrest, court appearance and “escape.” The pictures of those dead guards haunted his dreams, the aching sense that he was responsible for their deaths refusing to fade. If he hadn’t been in that van, if he hadn’t made so many enemies, they would still be alive. It took a lot of willpower to remind himself that Zook and his minions should carry the blame—and them alone.
To distract himself, he spent a lot of time cleaning and organising and clearing out. Which at least meant he could avoid Amy.
Code Runner (Amy Lane Mysteries Book 2) Page 29