by Ann Michaels
Chapter 25
The night of Monday 21th November, 1988
Dana Roberts is Sally Brown
Born to Rule
We’d been wrong about one thing: Kristina Ruslen had seen us as we passed the room where she had been lying in the sun bed. And now, here she was, with her claws around Janie’s neck and pointing a gun at her head. Beryl had screamed, as Kristina Ruslen came upon us, but now, she was staring at her former employer, as though at the Devil himself.
‘Well, well, well. You have been clever, Mrs Powter. I really underestimated you’, Kristina Ruslen pronounced mockingly.
‘You’re evil, you are’, Beryl whispered, barely getting her words out.
‘You don’t understand, Mrs Powter, I will repent and I shall receive absolution’, Kristina Ruslen responded firmly.
‘What about love thy neighbour, and treating others as you would wish to be treated’, I heard myself say. Even though I wasn’t religious, these two ideas helped to guide my adult life.
‘I have God on my side’, Kristina Ruslen replied irritably, as though this should be perfectly obvious.
Nobody responded, as her level of delusion was made obvious.
I looked at Janie, so small, helpless and young, next to Kristina Ruslen; at her soft, red hair and her green eyes, wide with fear. I couldn’t let her die. But what could I do. I needed a plan…….And where the hell was Harry? I noticed Kristina Ruslen get a tighter grip on Janie, but I didn’t notice Liam come through the doorway, until he was standing towering over his employer, with a face sparking with threat and anger.
‘Put the gun away’, Liam snarled.
‘I don’t think so laddie’, came the condescending reply.
Then in a blur of movement, Janie hooked her foot around Kristina Ruslen’s ankle, causing Kristina Ruslen to stumble, and then……..there was silence and a strange whirring crash as we all fell like a bunch of grapes and hit the wall of the corridor, opposite the stairs. I could feel the cold metal of the gun under my back and the bony body of, Kristina Ruslen, half under me. Beryl lifted herself off my crushed legs and was scrabbling about looking for the gun, but Janie looked dazed, like a broken rag doll.
The Yacht seemed to have turned and it was pitching and rolling, as I tried to flip over and get hold of the gun. But, oh no! that silly looking captain with the giant epaulettes had half fallen down the stairs to join the fray and I felt his elbow connect with my jaw and my teeth shudder. Momentarily I was pleased with myself, though, as I reflexively spat blood into his stunned, clownish face.
Liam dove in, and almost effortlessly, pushed his sister to safety and grabbed the gun. I breathed a sigh of relief, too soon, as Kristina Ruslen performed some type of acrobatic manoeuvre and made a grab for the gun.
My head swivelled to the right, as two men came barrelling toward us, decked out in police riot gear. One took aim at Kristina Ruslen and I heard the roar of a gunshot, which whirred past Liam’s head and entered the wood work, as Kristina Ruslen effortlessly danced away.
As the yacht heaved and rolled I felt time stand still. My brain seemed to move in slow motion, my body felt drained of life. My mind a virtual blank. Then, I watched as a door opened and a willowy, strawberry blonde seemed to float toward us, as though joining an act of a play.
‘Liz’, I cried out, ‘what are you doing here?’ But she did not answer me, she merely made her way toward Liam and Janie and gathered them into her arms and closed her eyes. So that suspicion that had hung, half formed at the back of my mind, was confirmed: Janie, Liam and Liz, were siblings, and also, Philip Ruslen’s biological children.
‘You made your son what he was’ Mrs Ruslen, Liz hissed, as she turned her head, opened her jewel green eyes, her face drained of her usual calm beauty.
‘How so, my dear’, replied Kristina Ruslen, tranquilly, as she stood dressed in a white tracksuit as white as her hair.
‘You filled his mind with great stories of his family’s past and of the wrongs done to them. You did not tell him that his real father’s family, who you always painted as great nobles, who hailed from Vladivostok, had deep roots in crime. You let him think that his grandmother, your mother-in-law, had been ruined, that she was an innocent. You warped his notions of parental love. You made your criminal husband, an object of your competition, adoration, jealousy and anger. You passed this legacy along to your child. You sowed the seeds of his narcissism……And, you used, Philip Ruslen, our father, for your own ends.’
Kristina Ruslen seemed to think about these words for a moment, and then, efficiently thrust the gun which she was again holding, into the air and shot Janie. I saw Janie spring backwards, gasp thunderously, and a rosette of blood bloom on the side of her apricot uniform. I felt myself mesmerised by the horror and the beauty of it.
Kristina Ruslen sprang away and fled down the corridor. Spurred into action again, the two police officers in riot gear, vaulted forward to follow her, and I followed. We were right behind her as she threw a door open and came out on the yacht’s deck, bathed in darkness, lit dimly by a row of yellow lights. She was climbing now over the barrier, poised to throw herself into the black, deep ocean. My mind seemed to be running clear, and very fast, as the thought came to me that Kristina Ruslen, must not die on her own terms. I launched myself at her and dragged her away from the sea, crashing her under me on the deck. In seconds, one of the police in riot gear had wrestled the gun away from her. I lay still and tried to calm my racing heart, as handcuffs were snapped around her talon like hands. Then she got up, for a moment almost defiantly, before her face transformed itself into a mask of bitterness.
We walked back, marching the prisoner in front, to see Janie holding her side, wincing with pain and supported by her brother and sister on each arm. Bravely, Janie faced the puff haired Kristina Ruslen and said. ‘By shooting me you have perhaps murdered your grandchild. A child which could have brought our two families together, but now, that can never be….whatever the outcome.’
She plunged forward then, looking deathly pale, as Liam, with gentle strength, picked her up and looking like he might crack apart at any moment, strode away from us along the long corridor.
I looked about, as Beryl and Liz followed Liam, and I breathed a sigh of relief, to know that Janie would be in good hands. And then, I wondered for the first time: who was driving the yacht?
I ran up the stairs, pushed open the heavy, timber door and entered the yacht’s control centre, where I saw Harry, his eyes red and painful looking, at the helm, holding a metal steering wheel.
‘Where are we going’, I blurted out.
‘Back to land’, he said, as he examined a small screen, which showed the words, Etak Navigator, displayed on the bottom.
‘What?’ I asked, rudely, as my mind was still reeling.
‘It’s a global positioning system’, Harry answered, pointing at the screen apparatus.
‘OK, alright. Janie’s been shot and Kristina Ruslens in handcuffs ’, I said, sounding almost robotic and yet confused.
‘But the back-up is here, aren’t they?’
‘Yep, but they were not really of much use at first. No, sorry, that isn’t fair. It was a confusing and difficult situation after you turned the boat around’.
‘Boat? Oh, you mean this beauty’, he muttered in surprise, as he gazed around the cabin like a love struck teenager.
‘Anyway, how come you suddenly know how to pilot a yacht’, I asked, feeling my eyes narrow, as I stared at this new, ‘born to rule’, Harry, whose cheeks flushed the same shade of pink as my exercise ball at home.
He breathed out loudly. ‘Well, the truth is that my uncle Bruno is a rich business man who owns a big house at Hunter’s Hill. We spent a lot of time on his yacht…my family that is….and he taught me a lot. He’s rich, but he is a generous, good-hearted bloke. One of the best. ’
‘Not much of a working class man, are you?’ I teased.
Harry just snorted
and looked ahead into the dark, where the lights of the marina appeared to be coming toward us.