by Kate Johnson
‘Yes?’ I was trying hard to concentrate on breathing. It wasn’t easy. I shifted my eyes to the glorious wreck of the house up on the hill. Keep breathing. Survive. Someone has to.
‘You wanna know what I’m going to do after I’ve killed you?’ She looked excited. Her face was still pretty, but rather older than it should have been, and the light in her eyes was just pure insanity. ‘I’m going to get on a plane, find your boyfriend and tie him to a bed and fuck his brains out. And then I’m going to blow his brains out. ’Cos he’s been pissing me off as well.’
I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood.
‘Any last words?’ Alexa asked, the barrel of her gun gaping at me. I saw my death approaching.
Fuck it.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘When you’re back in the slammer getting raped by a three-hundred pound woman who smells like a French toilet and calls you her bitch, remember that I was the one who got to shag Luke. Not you. He’d shoot himself in the head before he’d ever –’
She pulled the trigger.
I sucked in my last breath.
And then I let it out, because the gun clicked and did nothing else.
‘Fuck.’ Alexa sighed, and transferred the gun to her other hand to empty the cartridge and get another one from her belt.
And then something extraordinary happened.
‘Hey,’ someone called from higher up the hill, and her head snapped round, and at first I thought it was the smoke in my eyes or the pain in my ankle or the delirium of knowing I was going to die, but I thought I saw Jack up there.
‘Duck,’ he yelled, and threw something at her. Something burning. She yelped and danced away, and I gritted my teeth and rolled to my left, and felt something hard under me.
My gun.
Oh, frabjous day.
I could have said something smart about changing my last words, or hearing hers, or saying hello to the people she’d murdered, but instead I just lifted my little SIG, aimed, and pulled the trigger.
The first shot hit her leg. Told you I’m a bad aim. But it felled her, and I hauled myself incredibly painfully to my knees and aimed a shot at her heart. Bad target. Not sure she had one.
The third bullet hit her between the eyes. I knew she had a brain.
She fell back and I edged closer, checking the mad psychotic creature for signs of life. But people only survive being shot between the eyes in superhero movies. Alexa’s eyes stared up at me, blank with death but somehow … surprised.
‘Bitch,’ I said, and slapped her face.
Something came tumbling down the hill, and I realised as it got closer that it was Jack. He fell against me, and I threw my arms around him, desperately relieved. Jack didn’t deserve to die. He’d saved my life. I was the weak, stupid traitor here.
‘I thought you were dead,’ I said.
‘Not quite.’
‘I couldn’t get to you. How did you get out?’
‘Back door,’ he said, and I groaned. ‘You okay?’
‘Uh, mostly. You?’
‘Not so much.’
I realised he was breathing very shallowly and that there was something wet pressing against my shirt. I held Jack away, laid him down on the grass, and looked him over. His clothes were torn and burnt and underneath I could see charred and bleeding bits of skin. I started to feel slightly nauseous.
This was not good.
Ambulance, I thought, he needs an ambulance. My phone was in my bag in the room. The room which couldn’t have escaped the fire.
‘Your phone,’ I said, and he shook his head.
‘Lost it,’ he said. Attempted a smile. ‘No signal anyway.’
No. There hadn’t been. Despair swamped me.
‘Sophie.’ He suddenly gripped my wrist, and I was utterly terrified that this was it. When he breathed in I heard a rattling sound. But then he said, ‘Do you love him?’
‘What? Who?’
‘Your boyfriend. Your Luke. You love him?’
Pain stabbed at me. ‘Of course I do,’ I said, and tried to pretend that it was the smoke that was making my eyes water.
‘Don’t … fuck it up.’
I half-choked on a laugh. ‘Bit late for that.’
‘’m sorry.’
‘No. No, it wasn’t your fault.’
He nodded. Scraped in another breath. ‘It was,’ he said, and his fingers slipped around mine. ‘I always … wanted you.’ His lips stretched in a painful smile. ‘I didn’t think you’d ever …’
I gulped in smoky air. I didn’t think I’d ever, either.
‘Sophie?’
‘Yes?’
His hand came up to touch my hair, my awful smoky ashy hair. ‘You’re a mess.’
Another half-laugh. ‘You, too. You know,’ I looked around into the deep dark night, ‘someone’s going to see this fire and pretty soon a fire engine and ambulance and everyone, they’re all going to arrive and they’re going to laugh so hard at the state we’re in.’
Jack shook his head.
‘Or not. Maybe not. They’ll take you off to hospital, ’cos I think you need some treatment.’
He shook his head.
‘Now, that’s just delusional, Jack. I mean, you’re going to be okay, but …’
He was still shaking his head. He looked up at me, and he smiled, and that smile absolutely terrified me. It was so calm and serene. He was no longer shaking.
He reached down and pulled up his t-shirt, peeling it away from his stomach, and I gagged as I suddenly realised what that second explosion in the kitchen had been. Jack’s gun. The heat had exploded it, and the consequences weren’t pretty. A few hours ago I’d had first-hand knowledge of the smooth, firm flesh of his stomach, and now in its place was a bloody mess of gut and bone and horrible little ribbons of skin.
‘Oh God.’ I sucked in some smoky air. ‘Jack, hold on, there’ll be someone, I’ll, I’ll go and get help or something, you’re going to be all right …’
But Jack put his hand against my face and shook his head. His eyes were glistening. ‘Don’t be so damn stupid, Sophie,’ he said, and his voice broke through the fake little smile he gave me. ‘I’m dying.’
Chapter Nineteen
At somewhere around ten or eleven in the morning, Luke stopped checking his phone for messages. He’d made it to JFK, and the horror of the flight from Connecticut was beginning to fade.
The panic, the sheer mind-numbing panic that he was doing the wrong thing, that he was abandoning her, that Alexa would find her and kill her and –
He’d tried to dull the fear with alcohol, but the cabin crew had taken against him, decided he was a drunk, and refused to serve him anything but coffee. So now he was in that dreadful twilight between drunk and hungover, and there were still hours to go before his flight back to London.
If he checked the news on his phone one more time, the battery would die again.
He sat in a coffee shop, watching the news on the TV screen on the wall, desperately trying to convince himself he was doing the right thing.
As it turned out, both Jack and I were right. Someone had seen the fire and called the emergency services, and it wasn’t long before fire engines and ambulances and police cars screamed up to the farmhouse. But it was long enough. Jack died in my arms in the early hours of the morning, and by the time anyone found us, it was just me left alive, gulping and sobbing snottily, still holding Jack’s body, both of us covered in a thick black film of dirt and sweat and ash and blood. A few feet away, Alexa’s corpse cooled gently in the cold morning air.
Out of the policemen and firemen and paramedics and men in suits walking around with police radios and mobile phones and openly holstered guns, came a man in a grey suit. I thought I recognised him, and when he scowled at me I knew who it was.
‘Fires, gunshots, corpses. I hear the news and somehow I know it’s going to have Sophie Green in the middle of it.’
‘Harrington,’ I guessed. He scowled harder.
‘Put
that dead body down.’
I looked down at Jack’s face. I’d closed his eyes but there was no way I could convince myself he was asleep. He lolled in my arms, still and cold.
‘Ma’am?’ said a more gentle voice, and I looked round to see a man standing next to a gurney. It held a body bag.
‘Be gentle with him,’ I said, but it came out as a sob.
Harrington scowled at me some more. He dragged me roughly to my feet and I let out a cry as Jack’s body flopped ungracefully on the ground.
‘He’s already dead, it won’t hurt him,’ Harrington said, and I’d have punched him if someone else hadn’t already got hold of my hands and held them firm. I felt the cold metal of a handcuff slip around one wrist and saw a woman in a plain dark suit snapping the other cuff to herself.
‘Sunita Sakib,’ she introduced herself as I wavered on my useless ankle. ‘It’s all right. It’s all over now.’
‘Oho,’ said Harrington. ‘For you, Green, it’s just beginning.’
‘Sir,’ Sunita said, ‘shouldn’t we take her to a hospital?’
‘She’ll live,’ Harrington said. ‘Four fresh bodies, Green. Big trouble.’
But I wasn’t very afraid. I was shaking and trembling, but that was because it was cold and my body was in shock.
When Harrington had parked the car outside a motel and heckled me into a room, still chained to the female agent, he pushed me down on the bed and barked, ‘Sit,’ like I was a dog.
Prize bitch. Ha.
‘Well then,’ he said, and I reached for my pocket. ‘Oh, no, you bloody don’t.’ He whipped out a pistol. A revolver. How quaint.
‘Could you get it for me?’ I asked Sunita. ‘This pocket here.’
‘Erm, I think this is a no-smoking room,’ she began.
Given that about eighty percent of me was covered in ashes, I thought that was kind of funny.
‘It’s not cigarettes. It’s a recording,’ I said, and she produced the little machine from my thigh pocket. ‘Alexa Martin. She confessed to everything.’
You know, doing this job – whatever job it is I do now – has taught me a few things. Like, if I was going to shoot someone, I wouldn’t confess a bloody thing to them. I wouldn’t say anything at all. I’d just shoot them. And I wouldn’t get anyone else to do my dirty work, lazy though I am. They just get in the way.
We listened to the recording, which wasn’t very clear and had got slightly corrupted by the smoke, but it had recorded enough to make Harrington go purple. I’d been afraid that my fall down the hill might have damaged it, but it played out okay.
It put Harrington in a foul mood, which I quite enjoyed. He looked like he wanted to do me violence, but the presence of Sunita was keeping him in check.
After about the third replaying of the tape, though, I was starting to get bored. The adrenaline rush of surviving was wearing off and I was starting to get to the ‘Oh God, I nearly died’ bit. I think I was very nearly at the ‘Oh God, Jack died’ bit, when the door slammed open and Harrington jumped to his feet, hand on his gun.
‘I thought I said no one –’ he started, and then stopped as he realised who it was.
Harvey raised his eyebrows. ‘Thanks for telling me my number one suspect is dead,’ he said. ‘But then you know, you’re not too good with the information at all. Sophie,’ he looked at me. ‘You don’t look too good.’
I stared at him for a bit, trying to get the strength to stand up, and then I did it, and rushed over and threw my arms around him. But unfortunately by then my wrists were cuffed to each other, so I nearly strangled him before I got it right.
‘Hey, Sophie,’ Harvey said, patting my back, ‘I’m going to need those lungs back.’
‘Sorry.’ I disentangled myself, and as I was lifting my arm back over his shoulder Harvey grabbed it and stared at the outside of my wrist.
‘You got caught in the fire, huh?’
I looked at my arm. There was an ugly reddish patch there, bubbled and blistered and peeling away. You know, I thought something hurt, but I just couldn’t figure out what. Harvey looked over the revolting bandage on my other arm, my bare foot where I’d taken my shoe off because it hurt so much, my greasy black skin and sore, blinky eyes.
‘And you didn’t get medical treatment for her because …?’
‘More important things to do,’ Harrington said in clipped tones. ‘Mr Harvard, I will be happy to fully liaise with you in the morning, but –’
‘You know what?’ Harvey gave a big fake smile. ‘It already is morning. And Sophie,’ he still had hold of my arm, which was just as well because I was having trouble staying upright, ‘is the number-one witness in my case. A federal case. And she’s been shot, and burnt, and she can’t stand upright. Frankly, she’s got so many holes in her she’s starting to look like a pincushion. And you don’t think she needs medical treatment?’
‘She’s not –’
‘You didn’t even know Alexa Martin was out,’ Harvey said, and I’m afraid I laughed. Harrington shut up. Harvey smiled. ‘I’ll bring her back later,’ he added, and put his arm around my shoulders. ‘Come on, Sophie.’ To Harrington he added, ‘And I want that recording.’
‘I’ll have a copy made –’ Harrington began, and Harvey bared his teeth.
‘You’re on my turf now, buddy. I get the original and you can have the copy.’
‘Sakib,’ Harrington said. ‘Go with them. She’s still to be cuffed to you.’
‘Sir.’ She nodded, and linked my wrist to hers again, giving me an apologetic smile.
Harvey led me out to his car and didn’t even laugh too much at my hopping. ‘Where are we going?’ I croaked.
‘Hospital. I still owe you one.’
‘Really?’
‘Well, not really. But what’s a favour between friends, huh?’
Sometimes, I really, really love Harvey.
Luke woke from a disturbed sleep to find that, improbably, his entire body hurt even more than it had before. He strongly suspected the kid behind him had been kicking his seat.
‘I hate cattle class,’ he grumbled.
‘Sir?’
He glanced up. The cabin crew on this flight were less suspicious than on the last one, and kept offering him alcohol. This one had a tray of miniature bottles of wine.
‘Are you people trying to keep me drunk?’ he groused.
‘Sir? There are non-alcoholic drinks if you’d prefer.’
He accepted one and tried to wake himself up. Only a few hours until they landed, and then he could go back to the hatred of his boss, the inappropriate admiration of his secretary, the disdain of his grandmother and the aching, terrifying fear of his own paranoia.
Beside him, a guy in a suit was watching cartoons. Luke found a set of headphones in the seat pocket, plugged them in and flicked through the channels. Cartoon. Cartoon. Ancient episode of Friends. Really dodgy-looking romantic comedy. News.
News.
‘… leaving the vice-president in charge. Now, we’ve been reporting all week about the events unfolding in a small town in Maine, but the story seems to have come to an epic conclusion just this morning,’ said an overly made-up American anchorwoman. Luke was about to turn off, until he saw pictures of Sophie and Jack flash up on the screen. His heart stuttered.
‘That’s right, Sara. Reports reached us this morning of a showdown in the town of East Penobscot worthy of a movie,’ said the alarmingly white-toothed anchorman. ‘Take a look at this.’
The picture changed to that of a reporter in a bright red suit, standing a few hundred yards from a burned-out building, crawling with emergency services. The air around her was thick with smoke.
‘Thank you, Scott. Yes, here I am in East Penobscot, and you can see that the events unfolding here have been pretty dramatic. Following a double case of grand theft auto last night, comes a case of arson and several murders. As yet the police have refused to comment, but more than one body has been removed from the site.’
Luke stopped breathing.
‘The CIA are involved in this case, which we can confirm is linked to the murder of Judge Shepherd in Connecticut a few weeks ago. Now the main suspect in that case, Jack de Valera, has been seen in the company of a British woman, Sophie Green, who is suspected of murdering a British Intelligence officer.’
Again, Sophie and Jack’s pictures appeared, flashing up in the corner of the screen. ‘It’s believed the two of them teamed up on this crime spree, which has seen multiple murders and at least one instance of armed robbery.’
‘And have the suspects been caught, Karen?’ asked Sara.
‘Are they amongst the dead?’ asked Scott.
Luke leaned forward so far his nose touched the screen.
‘It’s impossible to say at this stage, Scott. The police haven’t released any information about the identity of the bodies, but it is known that only one person was found here alive, and has been taken into custody. Right at this moment we don’t know if it’s Mr de Valera or Ms Green.’
‘So one of them is alive, and one is dead?’ said Sara.
‘That’s right, Sara,’ said Karen, and beamed at the camera.
‘All right, thanks for that, Karen, and now let’s move on to our next story,’ said Scott. ‘Have you ever wondered how that groundhog always knows when it’s spring? Well, here to explain some more to us …’
‘No,’ Luke yelled, and every single head on the plane turned to face him. Grabbing the nearest member of staff, he gibbered, ‘How current is this? The news? When’s the next update?’
She said something he couldn’t hear. Ripping off his headphones, he demanded, ‘Again?’
‘I’m afraid it won’t be until after we land, sir. That’s a pre-recorded programme. But it is as current as we can make it. We receive it just before we take off so the news is as fresh as possible.’
She beamed at him.
‘No, you don’t understand. I need to know more.’
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to wait, sir,’ she said, her smile slipping.