Journey to Death

by Leigh Russell

  With a gentle grunt he lifted her off the bed and began dragging her backwards. Twisting her head round she saw the tiny thread of moonlight between the curtains and realised he was pulling her towards the window. She pictured herself plummeting from the balcony two storeys down to the ground and writhed, desperate to escape his grasp. It was no use. He was too strong. After all they had been through, her parents were going to suffer the loss of their beloved daughter. It would destroy them. As she struggled, her captor swung her in a semicircle so he was dragging her away from the window and she felt a flicker of hope as he pulled her in the direction of the door. He was not planning to hurl her from the balcony, but she trembled to think what he might intend to do with her.

  Her bare feet slid across the floor, scuffling for leverage. He was behind her, holding her under her arms with her legs stretched out, pulling her along so fast that she could not even try to stand. She tried beating at him with her fists, but the angle was awkward and she was unable to hit him with any power. Most of her punches did not even make contact with him. She gave up wasting her energy on waving her arms around to no purpose. She tried throwing herself forwards, out of his grasp, but he was holding her too tightly. She thrashed about, twisting her body sideways. It slowed their progress but he clung on and continued remorselessly dragging her towards the door.

  All at once she felt herself lifted right up off the ground. He slung her across his shoulder, holding both of her wrists in one fist. With his other hand he opened the door then grabbed her mouth to stifle her screaming as he carried her out into the corridor. All she could do was kick him repeatedly, as hard as she could. He took no notice but hurried along the corridor.

  44

  OVER THE INTRUDER’S SHOULDER, Lucy felt herself tilt backwards as he reached forward to unlock the door of her father’s bedroom. She felt a violent jolt as the door was kicked open. They staggered in. The instant she slipped to the floor she was jerked onto her feet. Too shocked to react, she stared into the wild dark eyes of Baptiste. Still alive, he had returned to finish what he had begun. On the side of his head she noticed a livid wound where she had hit him. She heard her mother whimper. Her father’s gaze was fixed on her. She stared helplessly back at him. Beside her she could hear the old man’s chest wheezing. The door swung closed. Her father froze in the act of sitting up, as Lucy felt the hard round edge of a gun at her temple.

  Baptiste took a step forward, pushing Lucy ahead of him. ‘If you make a sound, I will kill her.’

  Lucy saw her parents’ bed shake as her mother began sobbing hysterically, recognising the low guttural drawl. Her nightmare had returned. Lucy’s eyes flicked to her mother.

  ‘Don’t, Mum,’ she whispered. ‘Please don’t. It doesn’t help.’

  Her father glanced down at his wife who was clutching at his arm, her nails digging into his flesh.

  ‘Do something, George, do something.’

  There was nothing he could do, with the barrel of a gun pressing against Lucy’s head. The pulsating tissue that formed her personality, her words, her thoughts and emotions, would be splattered on the carpet as a bullet pierced her skull and exploded inside her brain. Lucy wondered if he would shoot her between her eyes, just as he had shot Veronique.

  Her father could barely speak, his teeth were chattering so violently. ‘What are you doing in my room? What do you want? What are you doing with my daughter?’

  ‘You know why I am here.’

  Baptiste’s low voice was steady, only his pounding heart betrayed his excitement. Lucy struggled to control her trembling. She could not go to pieces, not until her father had talked this maniac out of his lunacy.

  ‘Look, Baptiste, I understand you felt you had a grudge against me and my family. You’ve terrified all of us nearly to death. You almost did kill my wife. Our lives will never be the same again.’ He sat forward, warming to his exhortation, his voice clear and strong as he fought for his daughter’s life. ‘You’ve given us nightmares enough to last us for the rest of our lives. Surely you’re satisfied? What more do you want? Put down the gun, Baptiste. You don’t need it. Put it down and let my daughter go. She’s just a girl. She doesn’t deserve to die, not here, not like this. Put the gun down, Baptiste. Put it down and go away and we’ll say no more about it.’

  ‘I waited many years for you to return. I knew you would come back for her.’ His voice rose in a shriek. ‘She was mine! Out of all the men on the islands, the dark angel chose me. But then you came to the island and stole her from me.’ His voice shook and he pressed the gun harder against the side of Lucy’s head.

  Her father could not contain himself any longer. ‘Don’t shoot her, Baptiste. Please, not my daughter. Not my daughter.’

  Fear of losing her overwhelmed him and he broke down, his shoulders heaving with sobs.

  ‘That is for you to decide,’ Baptiste replied in his guttural drawl. ‘You must choose if your daughter is to live or die.’

  Shocked into stillness, Lucy’s father stared at the old man. ‘What in heaven’s name are you talking about?’

  Lucy yelped as Baptiste dragged her sideways until she was standing in front of him. At the periphery of her vision she could see him leaning forward to glare at George from behind her. He moved his gun under her chin, pointing upwards.

  ‘If she moves, I will shoot her.’

  He tossed a second gun onto the bed and withdrew to hide behind Lucy again.

  ‘Your daughter will live – if you kill your wife, just as you killed mine.’

  ‘What are you talking about? I never killed anyone. You’ve got this all wrong. I didn’t kill your wife, you’ve got to believe me.’

  ‘You stole my wife and with her my honour. It was because of you that she had to die.’

  ‘You mean you killed her?’ Lucy’s father stared in disbelief. ‘You shot Veronique?’

  ‘Do not mention her name!’

  Her father looked down at his wife, lying flat on her back, eyes closed, sobbing quietly.

  ‘This is impossible,’ he protested. ‘Of course I’m not going to shoot my wife.’

  ‘Do it,’ Angela cried out suddenly. ‘He means what he says. He killed her and he blames you. Don’t you see? This is what he’s been planning all along. This is his revenge.’

  She reached up and laid her hand on her husband’s arm, her eyes streaming with tears as she implored him to shoot her. ‘You can’t reason with a madman, George. Just do it. He’ll kill Lucy if you don’t.’

  ‘I can’t,’ he answered, shaking his head. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘It is the only way to satisfy my honour,’ Baptiste insisted calmly. ‘You stole my wife. Her blood is on your hands, not mine. It was because of you that she had to die. Now you must kill your wife, as I killed mine. Veronique has been waiting for you for a long time, George. Now the time has come to show her you are no better than me. Blood for blood. It is the only way.’

  ‘I just can’t,’ Lucy’s father repeated, his voice rising in panic.

  ‘Don’t let him kill Lucy,’ her mother pleaded. ‘How will we ever live with the consequences if you do?’

  ‘Either way, you must live with the consequences,’ Baptiste crowed.

  Lucy watched her father gingerly pick up the gun. She suspected he had never handled one before. He studied the metal instrument lying in his hand. It looked quite old and terribly complicated. Perhaps he was holding the very gun that had shot a bullet into Veronique’s skull. If this was CSI, ballistics would be able to prove it one way or the other. Wild notions flashed through her mind of her mother in a bulletproof vest using a small bag of pig’s blood to fool Baptiste. But her parents were not actors putting on a show. This was real, and her father was about to shoot her mother.

  Her father’s hand shook. He dropped the gun and scrabbled to pick it up again. Then a slow smile spread across his face. Curiously composed, he turned to Baptiste, who was still hiding behind Lucy.

  ‘I can’t shoot my wife
,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll kill myself instead. I accept my guilt and am prepared to die for it. But first you have to let my daughter go.’

  Behind her back, it was difficult to tell if Baptiste was laughing or spluttering with rage.

  ‘Baptiste, did you hear me? I’m going to kill myself instead.’

  He raised his hand, pressing the gun against his temple as he fumbled for the trigger.

  ‘No, shoot me,’ her mother cried out. ‘Do what he wants. Shoot me.’

  ‘I’m going to shoot myself, Angela.’

  ‘Shoot me,’ her mother begged.

  ‘Unbelievable,’ Lucy burst out, aghast, as she listened to her parents compete to sacrifice their lives to placate a maniac. ‘This is unbelievable. The whole world’s gone mad. I can’t listen to any more of this—’

  ‘Shut up.’ Baptiste jabbed her beneath her chin with his gun.

  She fell silent, her eyes stretched wide in fear.

  ‘If you kill yourself, I will shoot your daughter,’ Baptiste said. ‘I could have killed her at any time. I kept her alive to persuade you to shoot your wife. The decision is yours, George. You stole my wife, now it is your turn to kill yours.’

  ‘This is insane,’ her father replied quietly.

  He too was calm as they settled into a surreal negotiation over who was to die.

  ‘You know what you must do to save her life.’

  ‘My wife is a gentle, kind and decent woman. She’s done nothing to deserve this. Let her go. Punish me instead.’

  ‘This is your punishment, George.’

  ‘So you’re killing my wife to punish me?’

  ‘I am not going to kill her, George. You are. Only then can you understand what it feels like to destroy the one person you love most in the world. That is your punishment. Then you can kill yourself, if that is what you want. What you do afterwards is of no consequence to me. Now, enough talking. It is time to finish it. There is only one way it can end.’

  ‘I’m not going to shoot my wife, and that’s final. It’s insane. I can’t do it. It’s over, Baptiste, your little charade is over. You’ve succeeded yet again in scaring us all half to death. You can leave us now and don’t come back. I don’t want any part of your sick games. Here, take your bloody gun and I hope it fucking kills you.’

  Lucy gasped as he flung the gun away from him in disgust. Her mother wailed as it skidded across the carpet.

  ‘I hope I’ve made myself clear.’

  ‘Say goodbye to your daughter, George.’

  ‘No!’ her father cried out.

  Lucy closed her eyes. She was not ready to die, but she had seen the anguish in her father’s face, and her mother was crying. If she was about to die anyway, for their sakes she would not weaken.

  ‘I love you!’ she called out, her voice steady and clear.

  With her eyes closed she could feel the barrel of the gun pushing against the soft flesh beneath her chin, forcing her head back.

  ‘You’ve made your choice, George. Now watch your daughter die.’

  Her mother’s voice was shrill with alarm. ‘Do something George, do something. Stop him.’

  Her father must have shut his eyes, unable to watch, because Baptiste began shouting at him to open his eyes. ‘See what you have done, George. Look deep into her eyes as the bullet hits, and remember her blood is on your hands.’

  ‘It’s OK, Dad,’ Lucy cried out in a choked voice. ‘It’s not your fault. He’s given you no choice.’

  ‘Yes, you had a choice!’ Baptiste cried out. ‘There is always a choice. You could have saved her life. Her blood is on your hands.’

  Her father’s next words showed he understood Baptiste was no longer talking about Lucy. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t know she was married. She never told me. I didn’t know.’

  ‘The time for regret is past. Honour must be satisfied. Open your eyes, George. Open your eyes and watch your daughter die.’

  45

  IT OCCURRED TO LUCY that Baptiste might not be intending to carry out his threats after all. He certainly appeared to be enjoying the melodrama of the situation, his language overly theatrical, his gestures exaggerated, but it was impossible to judge what such a deranged and erratic man might do. She twisted her head slightly and opened her eyes a slit so Baptiste would not see her looking round at him. All she could see was the grey stubble under one side of his chin, and beyond that the edge of the door.

  She had thought the door had closed behind them when they entered the room, but she could now see that it was in fact ajar. A wild hope struck her that if she screamed loudly enough someone might hear her and alert a member of staff who would summon the police. But her scream might startle Baptiste into firing. She pictured a security guard running in, too late. By then she would be dead, shot through the head at close range. As she watched, she thought the door opened a fraction. She kept her eyes glued to it. Was someone opening the door very gradually to avoid being noticed? It was probably the wind, but there was just a chance a security guard had overheard them and was out there, assessing the situation, waiting for a chance to intervene.

  In the meantime she could try to stall Baptiste, and make sure the situation was clear, in case someone else was outside, listening. She turned her head away, afraid Baptiste would notice her looking over his shoulder.

  ‘I know you’re going to shoot me,’ she cried out as loudly as she could. ‘But first you need to tell me why you’re doing it. I don’t understand.’

  ‘I refuse to watch any more of this,’ her father said, closing his eyes.

  It was torture, not daring to look at the door and see if it was indeed slowly opening. She pictured a security guard, preparing to fire a gun.

  ‘Open your eyes and watch,’ Baptiste repeated stubbornly.

  ‘I’m not looking.’

  A sudden crash, like gun fire. Lucy was propelled forward. Flinging her arms out to break her fall, she landed on the floor with a horrible jolt. For a moment she must have blacked out. When she came to, it felt as though a heavy weight was pressing down on her back. A hard sharp object was digging into her stomach. She could not seem to shift away from it. Her nose was squashed against the carpet, but she could not raise her head, nor could she move her legs. Either her spine had been broken when she fell, or else she had been shot in the back. Either way, she was paralysed. Her ears were filled with the sound of someone screaming. As she was wondering if she would be a paraplegic for life, she realised she was the one screaming. She could see her own fingers groping at the carpet, so at least she could still move her hands.

  Miraculously, the pressure bearing down on her lifted and she felt a sudden lightness. Then someone gripped her under her arms and began pulling. She yelped. A moment later, her father was dragging her out from underneath Baptiste, who had landed on top of her when they fell. Paralysis had not been the cause of her immobility. It was Baptiste. Crying with relief, she let her father lift her gently onto the bed to lie beside her mother. Propped up on pillows, Lucy looked around the room and was surprised to see Adrian standing over Baptiste.

  ‘How did he get here?’ she asked. No one answered.

  Baptiste lay sprawling in the floor. His nose was bleeding and his eyes were closed. Suddenly he sat up and pointed his gun at Adrian who backed away, his face tense with fear.

  ‘No!’ Lucy yelled.

  Baptiste took no notice of her. His face was bruised and bloody, his left arm hung limp and one of his ankles was swollen, probably broken. He was physically shattered, yet he held all the power in the room, concentrated in that one small black device in his hand. Painfully he straightened up, blood dripping from his bottom lip.

  ‘Now you all get it,’ he hissed. ‘Who will be first?’

  He waved the gun around, pausing when he pointed at Lucy, then her mother, and Adrian, before coming to rest on her father.

  ‘How about you?’

  No one moved. Out of the corner of her eye, Lucy noticed Adrian
staring pointedly past Baptiste. Then, with an unexpected yell, her friend flung his hands up in the air. Shouting at Baptiste, he began waving his arms above his head in an absurd parody of balletic movements. It seemed the pressure had proved too much for him.

  ‘How about this?’ he cried out, executing a bizarre gesture and pulling a fantastic grimace. ‘I’m a gargoyle!’

  Baptiste stared at him, bemused by the display.

  ‘You think this will save your skin?’ he asked. ‘This dancing of a desperate man?’ He spat blood on the carpet. ‘It is not even a good dance.’

  While they talked, Lucy glanced at the point Adrian had indicated with his eyes and looked away quickly. The gun her father had thrown off the bed was lying on the floor, their only hope of salvation an instrument of death. She caught her father’s eye. He nodded. He had seen it too. Adrian continued playing a dangerous game. His efforts to distract Baptiste would probably get him killed. But they were all likely to die at the hands of the madman anyway.’

  ‘Enough. Now I will kill you first,’ Baptiste said, still looking at Adrian.

  Lucy’s heart pounded as she watched her father edge silently across the floor towards the gun. Behind Baptiste’s back, he lunged forward and seized it. Pointing it straight at Baptiste’s head, he wrapped his other hand around the gun to keep it steady. Shutting his eyes, he squeezed the trigger. At once the room exploded with a noise that made Lucy’s ears ring painfully. Through a haze she watched Baptiste pitch forwards, shooting at Adrian as he fell. Her father flung the gun from his hand and sank back against the bed, rigid with shock, as Adrian screamed and slumped to the floor, his blood spurting onto the carpet.

  46

  MOMENTARILY STUNNED, LUCY STARED the scene of devastation in her parents’ hotel room. Her father was leaning back against the side of the bed. His eyes were closed and he looked very pale. Baptiste was lying on his side, staring straight ahead, an expression of astonishment on his face, as though surprised that his long awaited revenge had backfired. The pool of blood around his head had almost sunk into the carpet and he appeared to have stopped bleeding.