Down Cemetery Road (40 page)

From the ceiling now, a shower of dust, of grit and plaster, falling like a benediction; it settled on Zoë to give her an extra few years’ grey. Which was about how much she felt she’d just aged. Above them all something creaked ominously, as if the shot she’d fired above her head had weakened the structure, though that was surely too much damage for a single shot to cause, even from a gun as heavy as Gerard’s.

Sarah, who had slumped to the floor at that deafening
click
, scooped Dinah into her arms once more. The child was frightened, whimpering, and shook like a leaf on the bough.

‘Are you okay?’ Zoë asked.

She nodded, unable to speak yet.

Amos Crane, still on his feet, dropped the useless silver pistol and put both hands in his pockets. Sarah, cradling Dinah, looked up at him. Now that he wasn’t David Keller, for all he occupied the same body, there was a near palpable change to him; still far too close, she could almost feel his heat. As if whatever drove him ticked quietly in the cool air. The engine of his hatred. Hatred, certainly; it was impossible to kneel by his feet and not sense that. Whatever he was here for, it wasn’t just a job. But it was ridiculous to say
whatever
, for she knew full well what he was here for: he was here for their deaths. He was here to guide them to their exits.

‘Take your hands from your pockets. Very slowly.’

Michael said, ‘Shoot him.’

‘Now take two steps back.’

‘Give me the gun.
I’ll
shoot him.’

‘I said out of your pockets. And two steps back.’

‘
Give me the gun!
’

Amos Crane rocked on his heels. He might have been silently laughing.

Sarah pulled away from him, scrabbling a little in the dust, still with one arm wrapped round Dinah, though the child was fighting it now; didn’t want to be held any longer. Something knocked against her hand. Zoë’s little gun. Why didn’t you load it, Zoë, she wanted to say. What was the point? But Zoë was busy, and not answering questions.

‘Back.
Off
.’

And still Amos Crane rocked on his heels, and showed her wolfish teeth.

‘Kill him,’ Michael said.

Sarah said, ‘It didn’t fire.’

‘Always leave the chamber empty,’ Zoë said. She bit her lip. ‘Sarah? Will you just get out of here?’

‘But what about –?’

‘Sarah. Just go. Take Dinah, and go.’

‘I don’t know –’

‘
Go!
’

She went. She took Dinah and went. Didn’t pause at the door to look back: just opened it, and went.

Amos Crane said, ‘Always leave the chamber empty?’

Outside, it was impossible to believe there was such a place as inside; the sun had come out, leaves were painting the air green. There were bushes, clawing their way out of stony ground; there was a stained-glass window.

There was a blue 2CV, half parked in a ditch.

She wasn’t thinking, she was running on automatic. She opened the back door, still on automatic; put the grizzling child on the seat on automatic. Leaned forward and brushed the child’s hair with her lips . . . ‘Hush, Dinah. Everything’s going to be all right.’

‘Gnah!’

‘Sit still. It’s okay. We’re
both
going away.’

But as she shut the back door on Dinah, opened the front door for herself, she knew they weren’t going anywhere, because she didn’t have the keys.

Back inside. But she didn’t want to go back inside. Wasn’t taking Dinah back inside, and wasn’t leaving her out here alone . . . She could walk, she decided. Up to the main road. It wasn’t very far. Flag down a lift . . .

But she couldn’t flag down a lift. Look who the last lift turned out to be.

The thoughts rushed through her mind much faster than it would take to say them. Even as they did, she was seeing what she saw: over there, in the trees, a shadow, moving. Not in time with the other moving shadows. A shape, then, rather than a shadow: the shape of a man.

She shut the front door of the car. Moved round to the back.

It was a man; it was the man from the island. Like everybody else these days, he carried a gun.

Back on automatic – it was important to do these things on automatic – she turned as if she hadn’t seen him, and opened the car boot. It’ll be locked, she thought – but it wasn’t locked. It’ll be gone, she thought, raising the lid – but it wasn’t gone. I won’t be able to use it, she thought – but picked it up anyway.

Sarah turned smoothly, and pointed the shotgun at Howard.

He stopped, and pursed his lips . . . a pretty minor reaction, on the whole.

Behind her, Sarah heard a soft thump from the car. Dinah, falling off the seat, maybe . . . and knew, as surely as she’d ever known anything, that whatever was going to happen next, it couldn’t happen anywhere near Dinah. Better the child was left in the car on her own than be near what happened next.

So she turned and ran into the trees.

Follow follow follow
. . . She didn’t know what she’d do if he didn’t follow. She didn’t know what she was going to do if he did. But that was what happened: he did. Waited the beat of her heart in the clearing, then took off after her into the trees.

He was still carrying a gun, she knew, but he wasn’t firing it: that was good. And she was still holding the shotgun, though knew she wouldn’t be able to use it herself. She remembered those other woods, that little copse, where Michael had made her point it and shoot, and she’d blasted a hole through leaf and branch, none of it offering any more resistance than the human body would . . . No, she wasn’t about to shoot anyone.

– But if he killed her, what was to stop him killing Dinah, too?

The thought made her faster. She jumped a fallen log. The denim jacket she wore – Michael’s – snagged a branch, but she tugged it free. Behind her, she heard him fall, maybe on that same log, and for a moment his English swearing filled the Scottish air . . . She half stumbled, and nearly dropped the gun. This wouldn’t do. Wouldn’t work. Any moment now she’d fall, and blow her own brains out . . .

And burst out of the trees with that thought in her head, into a clearing of stubby grass, and rabbit shit, and picnic litter. With the shotgun in her hand, and Michael’s jacket, and maybe a minute to spare . . .

A minute was all it took. Then Howard was in the clearing with her.

‘Always leave the chamber empty?’ said Amos Crane. Slowly, he drew his hands from his pockets.

‘Don’t even
think
about it.’

‘Would that mean what I think it means?’

‘Don’t even think about it.’

‘Shoot him,’ said Michael.

‘Shut up.’

Amos Crane smiled. It was amazing where you found the edge. Here in a disused chapel miles from anywhere, with the man he’d come to kill and a woman he’d dreamed about. And women always hesitate; leave that whisker of a chance.

‘Are you comfortable with that?’ he asked.

Zoë tried not to answer . . .

‘. . . Comfortable with what?’

‘A head shot,’ said Crane. Without pointing, with just a nod of his head, he indicated the direction of the gun barrel: levelled straight between his eyes, in hands steady as most rocks. ‘Don’t get me wrong. Head shot’s what I’d go with.’

‘. . . So?’

‘Just
shoot
him for Christ’s sake!’

‘So most people aren’t as fast as me. You hit me, I’m dead, no question. But it’s kind of a small target, don’t you see? And if you miss, well . . .’

Zoë didn’t twitch a muscle.

‘. . . Well, if you miss, you’re dead. You and him both.’

‘Kill the fucker!’

‘On the other hand,’ blithely as if Michael had not spoken, ‘you go for the chest, say, and it might not kill me straight off. Oh sure, shot to the heart, pouf! I’m dead. But otherwise, well, there’s lots of complicated body parts in there, as I’m sure we both know, and you’d do me so much damage I’d probably die whatever. But maybe not immediately, you know what I’m getting at? And then we’re back to plan B. You’re dead. You and him both.’

‘Look, you dumb bitch –’

‘Shut up,’ Zoë said evenly.

The silver gun just lay there in the dust by Amos Crane’s feet. She had no idea on earth how long it would take to reach his hands.

‘Gut shot, well, same again. I’ve seen people live for hours with a bullet in the belly. Well, I’ll rephrase that. I’ve watched people
die
for hours with a bullet in the belly. That’s assuming lack of medical intervention, of course. But that won’t bother you one way or the other, will it? Because you’ll be dead. You and him both.’

‘Be my guest.’

‘And, well, anywhere else . . . You’re not planning on shooting to
wound
, are you?’

She shook her head.

‘Fine. If you were, I hardly need tell you . . .’

‘I’d be dead,’ said Zoë flatly.

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Me and him both.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Do you want to take those two steps back now? Because I’m not asking again.’

Amos Crane took half a step back, and half a step forward again. ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

‘Shoot him!’

‘I know you don’t, or you’d never have got in the car.’

‘
Shoot
him!’

‘I was on the train. I watched you walk past. You were carrying,’ he said dreamily, ‘a cup of coffee and two packets of sandwiches.’

‘I’m counting to three now,’ Zoë told him. ‘One.’

‘And you know the really funny thing?’

‘Two.’

‘I dreamed about you,’ said Amos Crane – a fact both absurd and utterly true, though he never knew whether it was the patent absurdity or simple truth of it that caused Zoë’s eyes to flicker when he spoke, a flicker long enough to allow him to drop . . . And Amos Crane did not drop like other men. There was no stooping, no bending of the back. One moment his feet were on the floor, and the next – the next, he might have had no feet at all, and it was certainly true, he knew, it was certainly true that whatever came of this, his knees would never be the same again, not after allowing his whole weight to come down on them on a dusty stone floor. In a disused chapel. In the middle of nowhere. Reaching for a gun. All of it so unnecessary, when he had his own gun, strapped under his right armpit, but it had been too thrilling, too edgy, to walk in here empty-handed, and see what the gods dealt out . . . a woman in a red top, who would certainly shoot but would probably miss. All of which Amos Crane was not precisely thinking at that moment; he was feeling, rather; just as he felt the floor hit his knees with a crack, felt the gun jump into his hand. He had never had trouble with guns, Amos Crane. Never met a one he didn’t like. This one would do just fine. This was the gun he would reach and point, and once he’d shot the woman, he’d take longer over the man, because this was the man who had killed his brother. Michael Downey was going to die slow . . .

But Zoë didn’t hesitate.

And Amos Crane ceased to be a problem.

He arrived at the grubby little clearing – limping – to find Sarah waiting for him: a shotgun in her hands like she was Annie Oakley. His own gun more or less dangled from his wrist. He had fallen, doing something pretty unpleasantly painful to his knee in the process, and now had the nagging feeling that nothing was going the way it ought to. That some kind of rewind needed putting into operation, so he’d be back at his desk in London, reading about this through others’ reports.

But he was pretty sure he’d heard a shot back there. Whichever way you looked at it, loose ends were being clipped.

Sarah said, ‘That’s far enough.’

Howard stopped, because he wasn’t a fool. He said, ‘It’s okay, you know. It’s all over. More or less.’

‘Drop the gun.’

‘I’m not going to hurt you. See?’ He tossed the gun into the trees. ‘You can put that down too, if you like.’

Sarah didn’t loosen her grip on the shotgun.

He said, ‘You want to see my card? I have ID.’

‘Not particularly.’

‘You just got involved in –’

‘I know what I got involved in. I got involved in bastards like you covering up toxic wargames. Chemical weapons? Out in the African desert? Am I ringing bells?’

‘None of that had anything to do with me.’

‘Oh, sure.’

‘I’m serious. Frankly, it pisses me off too. It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me.’

‘I don’t. But you know what really gets me? That you used a
child
, a four-year-old
child
as part of your cover-up. First you poison her father. Then you kidnap her as
bait
!’

‘Her father –’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Her father was no better than a war criminal. Did you know that?’

Sarah didn’t answer.

‘Same as your friend Downey. Shooting unarmed prisoners. Sound like the sort of thing he’d do? Think about the island, Sarah. What happened on the island. He’s a bloody maniac. You must see that.’

‘You used him as a guinea pig.’

‘He volunteered.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘I think you do.’

Oh, she could believe him. Howard saw that right enough. She would believe anything right then. Up to and especially that she was in a coma, and this the fevered dreaming of her damaged mind.

He started to feel better about life. Even his knee stopped throbbing. ‘Mrs Trafford,’ he said, ‘Sarah. Hear me. Nothing that happened to your friend in the past had anything to do with me. With
us
. No matter what he did, what happened to him was a crime. And as far as I’m aware, those responsible were punished. They crossed a line.’ He shrugged. ‘You can’t always prevent such things. You can only clear up afterwards.’

‘But nobody ever
knew
about it. Those boy soldiers were killed –’

‘That’s the point. Nobody ever knew about it. You think people are happier knowing the truth, Sarah? About everything? You think they
want
to know what goes on in the margins of their democracy? They don’t. That’s my job. That’s what clearing up means.’

‘But you used a
child
–’

‘Who is
all right
, Sarah. She’s
all right
. You think we’d have let anything happen to her?’