Her father stood up and lurched around the edge of the table, before launching himself towards the drawers. He held on to the work top and swayed. ‘Now my head hurts.’
‘I know, Dad. Concentrate. A knife, scissors, anything sharp in the drawer.’
The room had stopped spinning, but the feeling of nausea was almost overwhelming.
Agonizingly slowly it seemed to Alex, her father inched open the drawer. ‘Here,’ he said, brandishing a pair of scissors, ‘cutting things.’
‘Well done, Dad. Cutting things.’ She laughed, though there were tears on her cheeks. ‘Now cut the tie round your ankles then come to me.’
He looked down at his feet. ‘Tie?’
‘Around your ankles. At the bottom of your feet.’
‘Feet?’ That bewildered look.
Alex wanted to scream at him. The dizziness was getting worse. ‘Come on, Dad, concentrate. Your feet, Dad, your feet.’
He smiled. ‘I can’t reach my feet.’ He stopped smiling. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’
‘Cut the ties, Dad. Sit on the seat, bend down and use the scissors.’
At last her father did as she asked.
‘Now come here and cut my hands free.’
He went over to Alex and used the scissors to saw through the duct tape binding her hands to the steering wheel. She wanted to scream at him to hurry, hurry, but she knew if she did her dad would probably stop or cry. She had to keep calm. At last her hands were free.
‘Snippety snap,’ he said, before vomiting on the floor.
‘Snippety snap, Dad,’ she said wearily, taking the scissors out of his hands and freeing her ankles, the sour smell of vomit wafting around her.
She stood up and immediately the cabin began to spin again. She put the scissors on the table. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t order her thoughts.
‘Alex. Should we leave?’ Her father stood in front of her.
‘Yes, Dad, we should.’
They put their arms around each other and stumbled towards the sliding door. Locked. Alex lifted her foot and smashed the wood as hard as she could. The door flew open.
They fell out of the boat together.
36
Alex and her father gulped down the fresh air to the sound of a slow handclap.
Mickey. Holding a gun in his hand this time. No way they could rush him as he was bound to fire off one shot at least, and he was so close he wouldn’t miss. Alex couldn’t take that chance.
She sank to her knees. The fresh air was helping to clear her head, but no new ideas were coming to her. She wanted to curl up on the ground and sleep.
‘Well done,’ Mickey said with a smile. ‘Managed to escape. I admire that. Daddy’s still got it then? A parent’s instinct?’
‘He’s still got it.’ She tried to ignore the headache, the vertigo, the nausea. ‘Is that the problem? Your parents didn’t care about you?’
‘Psychologist are we now?’ he sneered.
‘No. I wondered why, that was all.’
‘Oh, you don’t need to try and analyse me. I’m an ordinary boy from an ordinary family. I turned bad, that’s my story. So you worked out what it’s all about yet?’ He leered at her. ‘I told you, I owed a favour. And there was cash involved. Tut, tut, what are we going to do with you both now?’
‘I’ll go back,’ her father said on his knees. ‘Onboard the boat. Stay there. But you have to let her go.’
‘Really? That is good news, sort of.’
‘Dad, don’t—’
‘Be quiet, Alex,’ her father glared at her. ‘I have to do something right in this life of mine. I must do it.’
‘But—’
‘Alex, please. Let me do this one thing for you, for my family.’ He looked at Mickey. ‘But you will have to let her go.’
‘Of course I will,’ smiled Mickey. ‘How could I not after that lovely little speech? Let’s jump back onto the boat and we’ll let the little girl run, shall we?’ He grinned at Alex.
She knew, as he did, there was no way she was going to run. She had to help her father. Besides, where would she run to? And she was so weak, her legs were like jelly.
‘Come on, old man.’ Mickey gestured to her father. ‘Let’s move.’
Her father smiled bravely at Alex, then turned.
‘No, Dad.’ She put out her hand to stop him.
‘Alex. It’s all right. Please.’
She looked into his face. So familiar, yet so unknown.
Mickey stood behind him. Her father stumbled. Mickey put out his free hand to steady him, the gun pointing up in the air. In that split second her father whirled round and jabbed Mickey in the stomach. Once. Twice. Three times.
Her father stepped back, panting. There was blood over the front of his shirt and on his hands. There was blood on Mickey too. What had he done?
Mickey looked down at the blood spreading across his stomach with astonishment.
He staggered, before dropping the gun and sinking to his knees.
‘You left the cutting things on the table. I picked them up. Did I do the right thing?’
She looked at Mickey, at the scissors sticking out of him.
‘Yes,’ said Alex. ‘You did absolutely the right thing.’
Around her, the sky was getting lighter and the dawn chorus was beginning. Alex and her father sat on the damp ground, arms around each other.
37
Alex reached out her hand. Her father was asleep, or unconscious. She needed to stretch her back, her arms, her legs. Her head was still throbbing, her clothes sopping wet from the dew. The sun was casting an orange light in the sky, and she could hear the gentle slap of the water against the river bank and the tuneful call of birds. She wished she knew what they were.
How long had she been out of it? Not too long, she judged.
She crawled over to Mickey and felt inside his pocket for her phone, trying to ignore his dead eyes and the odd early morning insect that was beginning to investigate the body. Then she sat back on her heels, thinking for a moment before making herself curl her hand around the handles of the scissors.
She shook her father awake.
He sat up and looked around. ‘Where are we? What am I doing here? Why are my clothes wet?’ He started to cry.
Alex put her arms back around him. ‘Sssh, Dad, it’s okay. We’re safe now.’
He pushed her away, his face, creased from sleep, contorted with fear. ‘Who are you? I don’t know you.’ He was shivering. ‘I don’t know you at all.’
‘I’m Alex.’
‘Alex, I don’t know an Alex. Where’s Sarah? I want my Sarah.’
Alex grabbed his hand, and didn’t let it go when he tried to pull it away. ‘Dad, it’s all right.’
‘Who’s he?’ His shaking finger pointed at Mickey on the ground, his eyes staring up at the sky, blood congealed on his abdomen, the stainless steel handles of the scissors glinting in the light.
‘Nobody. He’s nobody.’ She stood, trying to ignore the aching in her body, and held her hand out to her father. ‘We have to get up and start walking, Dad.’
‘Don’t call me Dad. I’m not your dad.’ He folded his arms and looked away from her.
An unbearable feeling of loss swept over Alex. For a few short hours she’d had her father back, now he had retreated into the lace-like holes in his mind.
‘Alex, Alex, are you okay?’ She heard shouts from not far away.
She looked up and blinked slowly. Was she really seeing …?
Sasha and Lin were running towards them, panting, their faces red with exertion. They came to a stop.
‘Are you okay? Alex? Dad? Oh my God, there’s blood on your clothes.’ Sasha began to dab at her shirt.
Alex looked down at herself and saw the dried blood. Mickey’s? Or Heath’s? Heath, how could she have forgotten him? ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, gently removing Sasha’s hand. ‘It’s not mine or Dad’s. It’s probably Heath’s.’
�
�The journalist?’ Lin wanted to know.
‘Yes. He’s back there, in the Abbey. He’s hurt.’ She started to run.
‘Wait,’ called Sasha, ‘I’m coming with you.’
‘No,’ said Lin, her hand on Sasha’s shoulder. ‘You stay with your dad. I’ll go.’ She handed Sasha her phone. ‘Call the air ambulance. Now. Do it.’
When they got to the ruin, Alex looked around for a large rock so she could smash the padlock. She hit it once, twice. It didn’t budge. How hard could it be? It always worked in the movies.
‘Here.’ Lin pushed her out of the way. ‘Let me.’
Lin attacked the padlock as though she had done it many times before. It gave way, and Alex rushed into the ruin.
Heath was in the corner where she had left him. He hadn’t moved. His skin was cold and waxy, and his breathing laboured, but she could feel the small flutter of a pulse on his neck and there was no more fresh blood. ‘Thank God. Thank God. Stay with me, Heath. Don’t let me down now.’ Tears tracked down her cheeks.
‘Alex. Alex.’
She became aware of Lin behind her, speaking to her.
‘We’d better get him out of here. It’s too cold and damp. Can you help me lift him?’
Alex nodded. ‘Yes.’
Lin began to talk. ‘Heath, Heath. Wake up. We need to move you, but you have to help.’
Heath groaned and opened his eyes. He began to shiver. ‘Alex,’ he whispered.
‘Sssh, keep your strength,’ said Alex. ‘We must get you out of here. The air ambulance is on its way.’
‘Alex—’
‘Not another word.’
Somehow they managed to get Heath out of the ruins and into the open air. They laid him gently on the ground. The sun was fully risen now, and was beginning to warm the earth. Overhead, a skein of geese flew across the sky.
‘I’ll go and get a blanket from the boat,’ said Lin.
Sasha came over to her, leading their father by the hand. Coaxing him along, like a mother to a child. Sasha put her free arm around Alex, and Alex laid her head on her sister’s shoulder.
‘How is he?’ asked Sasha, looking at Heath.
‘I don’t know.’
Heath had lost consciousness again and, if anything, his skin was even more grey as if the life was draining out of him.
‘Who is he?’ Sasha pointed a shaking finger at the boat where Mickey’s body lay.
Alex sighed. ‘He was Mickey Grainger. He worked for Harper’s Holidays, but it was a cover so he could get to Derek Daley and Roger Fleet.’
Sasha’s mouth dropped open. ‘He killed them?’
‘Yep. And Jen Tamsett. And Willem Major’s family.’
‘And now he’s dead.’
‘Yes. Now he’s dead.’
‘So, Dad is safe?’
‘I hope so, Sash, I really hope so.’ She didn’t want to voice her fear to Sasha that, though Mickey was the killer and the brains behind the methods of killing, there was someone else involved. Mickey had said he was the hired hand, so who had hired him?
‘Did you—?’
‘I stabbed him,’ said Alex. ‘And I would do it again.’
‘It’s easy when you’re threatened,’ said Sasha.
Alex watched Lin as she came back from a boat which was moored behind Firefly Sister.
‘Here. This’ll help.’ Lin covered Heath with a blanket. ‘And you, Alex? How are you?’
‘Fine.’ She gazed at Lin. ‘Fine. Where did you get the boat from? Too early to hire one.’
‘The boat?’ She glanced back over her shoulder. ‘Oh, that. It belongs to a friend. An old friend. He lets me use it when he’s abroad. He works abroad. And in return I keep an eye on it.’
‘You never told me.’
‘It never came up. Here, I brought some tea for you. Hot and sweet.’ She undid the top of a thermos, poured out the liquid and handed it to Alex. ‘And one for your dad.’
‘Sit down, Dad,’ said Sasha gently.
‘I want to go home,’ he said.
‘We will. Soon,’ said Alex, pushing away the thought that Lin had over-explained about the boat. ‘We have to wait for the police. They’ll be here any moment. And they’ll take us back.’
Her father sat down. Sasha sat next to him, her arm still around him.
‘I probably won’t hang around,’ said Lin. ‘You know.’ She glanced around. Was she nervous?
Why did Lin want to disappear so quickly?
You are my enemy, she thought suddenly.
It was the smell that had alerted her. Being beside Lin in the Abbey, helping carry Heath, she’d caught a whiff of something acrid and sharp. It had tugged at her memory.
It came to her now, the thought slamming into her chest. The intruder. They had smelled of something acrid and sharp, and she didn’t think it was Chanel. It was the smell of paint cleaner. Turps? White spirit? Something an artist would use.
‘How did you find us, Lin?’ Alex nursed her tea. She moved away from Sasha and her father, kept her voice low.
‘Sasha phoned me in the early hours. Your mum was worried about you because she hadn’t heard anything. Sasha insisted on calling me, and thank Christ she did.’
‘But steering a boat at night when you’re not supposed to even be on the Broads, you must be quite experienced. Were you asleep when Sasha called?’
‘Luckily I wasn’t. I was finishing off a painting.’
A beat. ‘Who are you, Lin?’
‘What on earth do you mean?’ Lin watched her with a guarded smile.
Alex tried to think what to say. She wanted to get it right, but her head was muddy with fatigue. ‘It seems to me,’ she began, ‘that you’re altogether too calm and collected. You came here to rescue us as if you’re quite used to that sort of thing. And you broke into my house. Why?’
‘Too calm and collected?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Not inside, Alex. I’m trying to be brave for you and your dad and for Sasha. That poor girl was scared shitless that something might have happened to you. So if I’m not giving off the right signals, then I’m very sorry.’
It sounded so plausible, but Alex was convinced Lin had been her intruder.
‘But you did break into my house.’
‘What on earth do you mean?’ But her smile wasn’t quite so certain now.
‘Drop the pretence, Lin. Tell me who you really are. What are you doing, befriending me and my family? Are you a journalist who wants a scoop? Is it Sasha you’re really after?’
‘Sasha? No. No.’
‘Then what?’
Lin pushed her hands into her pockets and blew out air through pursed lips. ‘Ah, fuck. I told him you wouldn’t fall for it.’
‘Who? For what?’
‘Malone.’
‘Malone?’ She couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. What was this? ‘Who are you really? And don’t give me any more bullshit.’
‘It really doesn’t matter who I am.’
Alex searched Lin’s closed face. ‘Tell me about Malone, then.’
‘He asked me to keep an eye on you.’
‘An eye on me.’ She closed her eyes. So weary, oh so weary.
‘Malone saw pictures on the BBC online news. It was of all the people standing on the staithe waiting for the boat with the bodies to be brought back to shore. Do you remember?’
‘Of course I do,’ she snapped. ‘Dillingham Broad. It wasn’t that long ago.’
‘He saw a member of his wife’s family in that picture.’
‘Gillian’s family?’
‘Correct. Her family are—’
‘Gangsters, terrorists.’ If Alex had felt weary before, she now felt dead on her feet.
‘Yes. One of them was watching you, and Malone was worried you could get hurt.’
‘And Malone could see all this from an image on an online story, could he?’ Could she believe her?
‘Yes.’
‘So, he sent you to babysit.’
‘In a m
anner of speaking.’
‘But you were in Sole Bay way before that.’
‘Malone wanted to keep you safe. He knew someone from his ex-wife’s family would try to get to you, to put pressure on you, so asked me to get to know you. Be a bit of protection for you.’
‘I did sometimes feel that someone was following me,’ said Alex, slowly.
‘That’ll be it.’
‘But why did you break into my house?’
Lin blushed. ‘Ah. You won’t like it.’
‘Go on.’
‘Malone asked me to make sure that there was nothing in your house that could lead anybody to him. Any papers, notes, anything you’d printed out about him. Maybe phone numbers you had.’
Alex was so angry she could hardly speak. ‘He wanted to eradicate any sign of a relationship with me.’
‘I wouldn’t say that.’
‘Then what would you say?’
‘I would say he wanted to protect you. And if I could break into your house, then his enemies could too, again, and find stuff about him that could lead them to him.’
Did she believe Lin? Perhaps she had no option.
‘How did you know it was me?’ Lin asked.
‘You smelt of turps or something similar. And just now too.’
‘Ah.’ She winced. ‘Mistake. Getting too comfortable with you, that was the trouble.’
‘It was all a lie, wasn’t it? Your friendship with me? I already know you don’t have a brother in Craighill. You made that up to get close to me.’
‘Maybe.’ For the first time, Lin couldn’t meet her eyes.
Who was this woman?
‘Malone doesn’t trust me on my own.’
‘He cares about you.’ Lin looked out over the water. ‘You’re lucky.’ There was a wistful note to her voice.
‘And what happened to whoever was supposed to be watching me?’ She knew she sounded sarcastic, but she couldn’t help it.
‘Let’s just say he won’t be bothering you again. Ever.’
‘Right.’
‘Look, I must go. Before—’
‘The police arrive?’
Lin gave a small smile. ‘Something like that.’
‘If you speak to Malone …’ she hesitated.
‘Yes?’
‘Tell him …’ Tell him what? Was there anything left to say? ‘Nothing. Tell him nothing.’
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