Hider/Seeker (24 page)

Alarm entered her face again, and she took another look over her shoulder to make sure the jeep was not in sight. She turned back and hugged her son tight.

‘This road leads to Castries,' continued Harry. ‘A law firm there is ready to help you wire the money.'

She made no response, either because she was too scared or because she had other ideas. Harry wasn't certain which and asked, ‘You want the rest of your life and Peter's life to be like this, looking over your shoulder all the time?'

‘How am I going to live without that money?'

‘Eddie said your father left you plenty.'

‘I made that up. Dad made no fortune in timber, he made a living knocking wooden window frames together in Brent.'

‘So he and your mother are still around?'

‘No; they're dead like I told you.'

‘I'm taking you straight to the police headquarters in Castries if you don't do as I say.'

‘All right, all right. I'll transfer the money,' she snapped. ‘I spoke to the bank yesterday. It's all still fairly liquid; there'd be no problem.'

Peter looked at his mother. ‘Does this mean we're going back to England?'

‘No, Peter, we can never do that,' she replied.

‘Great, because I like it here,' he said, holding his arms around her neck.

Harry glanced at her, and then back to the twisting road. ‘I'm curious to know why you chose Marigot Bay after everything I taught you.'

‘I planned for us to go to Buenos Aires, but Ernesto thought it wouldn't be safe there. He sold me the idea of a property he knew in Marigot Bay that was built like a fortress. Said it would be easy to protect.'

Harry realised he hadn't told her that Ernesto was dead. With the Guatemalan authorities issuing a warrant for his arrest, the less she knew about the whole wretched business the better. ‘I'm surprised that Ernesto of all people would make such a suggestion.'

‘It wouldn't have been for long. I kidded myself it might have been the last place you'd look since it went against all your damn rules.'

The Ferrari suddenly lost power; Harry changed down, thinking he was in the wrong gear. But it was not that; steam was billowing out of the bonnet and filling the vents as he pulled over.

‘Why have you stopped?' she asked.

‘She's blown the head gasket.'

‘What does that mean?' Panic was setting into her voice.

‘We get out,' said Harry, holding the Beretta in his hand as he opened the driver's door.

‘What about that Baptiste guy?'

Harry didn't reply and yanked them from the car.

She took her bag with her, but Harry told her to leave it behind.

‘Just take your passport and nothing else.'

She took the passport from her bag, and slipped it into the back pocket of her Bermudas, buttoning it up for good measure.

The road cut through a hillside of dense rainforest. Harry decided their best chance of escape was to climb down to the seashore, which he could make out in the distance. He hurried Angela Linehan and her son to the edge of the road and helped them through the razor wire fence.

It was a steep and treacherous descent. The soil was saturated by the overnight rainstorm, making it difficult to keep their footing as they dug their heels deep into the muddy slope to stop themselves from toppling over.

The further they went into the forest, the darker it became. Peter didn't understand they were running for their lives. For him it was just one big game. He tried to play Tarzan, swinging on a liana vine, but his mother slapped him hard and shouted at him to keep running.

All the time, Harry looked over his shoulder, knowing Baptiste would bring death if he caught up with them.

The mud under foot softened further and they began to sink with each step. Then the ground gave way, knocking them off their feet and hurtling them head first down the hillside. The previous night's downpour had turned the ground into a flow of mud, tossing aside dead branches like matchsticks.

They were carried twenty yards by the flow before landing together in a pile, covered head to toe in mud. They sat up, coughing and spitting out sludge, their bodies battered.

When Harry got to his feet he realised he no longer had the gun. He dropped to his knees and frantically trawled his hands through the mud for the Beretta. Angela Linehan and Peter joined in the search for the pistol, each concentrating on a different spot. There was no let-up in the mud flow while they looked for the Beretta. Again and again, they thrust their hands into the mire, but to no avail, pulling out fistfuls of clay. It was exhausting work. Their wet clothes had become heavy and were sticking to their bodies, making it difficult to move freely.

Harry yelled at Angela Linehan and Peter to stop and move to safer ground, fearing they would all be swept further down the hill. No one spoke as they took stock of their predicament. But there was no time to linger and Harry refocused on escaping again as they had wasted too much time searching for the gun. He scanned the area, trying to make out what was beyond the forest. He spotted a row of sawn tree trunks in a clearing, thick with moss.

‘Does this land belong to the forestry commission?' he asked.

‘No, it's part of The Debeaumont's estate,' she replied. ‘It's an old sugar cane plantation that's now a heritage site. They open it from time to time to show school kids and tourists how slaves lived hundreds of years ago. It was one of the first things we came to see when we arrived in St Lucia.'

‘Do you know the way out of here?'

‘You must be kidding, it's hundreds of acres. We came by boat.'

‘Okay,' he said, ‘we need to keep following the lower ground until we reach the beach.'

Harry kept them moving, not wanting to stop until they hit the coast where they would get help. Half-running, half-walking, their ankles buckling on uneven ground, they pounded on. It would have been easy to stop and hide. But Baptiste was armed and they wouldn't stand a chance if he found them
.
Dropping the Beretta was a real game changer, and Harry cursed himself for losing the gun so easily.

He pushed them harder, not allowing them a second to catch their breath, no matter how much their lungs were hurting in the dank forest. Their faces red, their clothes soaking with mud and sweat, they no longer felt the pain of the branches lashing them as they ran past.

But Angela Linehan couldn't take any more punishment and suddenly stopped, collapsing on all fours, wheezing and coughing. When she gained her breath, she told him she'd had enough. Her chest felt tight and her legs were dead. Peter stopped running too, and stood akimbo while he watched his mother protest again that she couldn't go on. But Harry ignored her, and pulled her onto her feet again despite her groaning.

Crack – a branch broken under foot. Birds hit the sky like buck shot.

All three of them froze, their eyes fixed on each other, their hearts pumping. Baptiste was close.

With no time to think, Harry drove them on; even harder than before, their feet barely touching the ground. Every strange sound spurring them to run faster, unaware that they were entering unconsecrated ground.

Deep under foot were the bones of thousands of slaves that had once toiled the scorching cane fields and steamy sugar houses of the Debeaumont family centuries ago.

It was Harry this time who'd stopped running, surprising Angela Linehan and the boy.

‘What's wrong?' she asked, halting to catch her breath again.

‘Can't you feel it?'

She shrugged her shoulders, she couldn't.

But he knew what he felt. He'd become light-headed and the sweat down his spine was as cold as ice. Someone had walked over his grave.

‘We shouldn't be here,' he said. ‘This feels like a really bad place. We need to get away, now.'

He turned on the spot, unsure where his next step should take them. A hundred yards off was a broken stone boundary wall. Before he had time to direct them to it, a shot rang out, burying a slug into the trunk just above his head. They dived to the ground. Harry raised his head slightly and saw thirty yards away, the rolling hulk of Baptiste brushing aside branches, his pistol buried inside his thick fist. He wasn't going to wait for Baptiste to reach them, and signalled to Angela Linehan and Peter to make a run for the broken stone wall. There had to be a path on the other side, which they could pick up. They bolted towards it; another shot zipped past their heads. Angela Linehan fell flat on her face, her head almost hitting an overturned rusty kettle, the size of a boulder, that was once used for boiling sugar syrup. A bullet hit the big iron cauldron, sounding like a bull's eye ping at a fairground shooting gallery. Another shot, another ping.

Harry hauled her to her feet; dodging bullets as they ran head down towards the direction of the boundary wall. His thinking had been correct. Beyond it was a lane leading to a row of stone ruins overgrown with long grass. They took refuge behind the crippled walls of the old sugar house.

Baptiste was getting closer because his shots were becoming more accurate; the last one almost clipping Harry's ear. They couldn't stay there and crawled on their stomachs past the rusting flywheels and gears through to a remaining stone lintel of the building.

On the count of three, they dashed again into the open space, down a narrow muddy path before taking shelter behind a large millstone leaning against stone ruins. Harry could see acres of green sugar cane fields stretching before him.

‘Why isn't anyone around?' he whispered.

‘I told you, this place is often closed,' replied Angela.

‘Which way now?'

‘I think the jetty is past the timber cabin,' she said, pointing to a dilapidated shack with a wooden veranda, the home of many a slave driver.

Baptiste moved quickly and cut off their only escape route to the beach. He stepped out in front of them, certain they'd no weapons. His gun was pointing at Harry as he walked towards him. No time for sitting tight, Harry charged at Angela Linehan and Peter, knocking them over the mill's crumbling wall and into the sugar cane field. They sprinted down the straight rows of sugar canes as though on a running track, keeping their heads down as Baptiste blasted wildly into the tall swishing leaves like a lunatic.

The gunfire stopped when they were out of range. But they didn't stop running until they reached the other end of the field where they collapsed into a heap, their chests heaving.

Baptiste hadn't followed them into the fields. He'd given up, and their nightmare was over. The sun felt good and reassuring as they caught their breath back, lying still on the scented earth.

When they'd rested long enough, they got to their feet again. They were still lost and needed to find a way out. Harry led them across a meadow towards a stone built chapel on a hill. There had to be people there to take them to safety. Even if Baptiste suddenly turned up, he wouldn't be stupid enough to shoot down a pastor or old ladies arranging flowers in a church. He imagined there would be a road by the chapel and cars.

But he realised his mistake within a hundred yards of reaching the church. It was nothing more than a ghostly landmark; a stone ruin, buffeted with bunch-tussock grasses. There was no roof or windows, just a tall gable cross standing proudly against the blue sky.

‘This must have been built for the slaves,' she said. ‘The tour guide told us they were given time off to pray on a Sunday; then they went straight back to the fields.' She wandered off to explore the ruin with Peter, leaving Harry to search for a path or road that led somewhere, anywhere, just as long as it was away from the mill and sugar house. There had to be more than one route out of the estate, other than the jetty. He was about to explore the other side of the church, when he heard a cacophony of falling masonry and screams from within the ruin.

Angela Linehan and her son had fallen through an old stone floor that had partly collapsed under their weight. Harry approached the jagged hole in the floor with care as he feared an entire cave in. He stared down into a dark crypt and could just make out the boy and his mother, writhing on the ground.

‘You okay?' he shouted.

‘My ankles really hurt,' she said, coughing. ‘The floor just gave way.'

Harry got onto his stomach and poked his head through the hole. A cloud of bats from the crypt shot over him as he peered down. He pulled back to allow the dust they stirred to settle before sticking his head through the hole again. His nostrils filled with the unmistakable smell of a rotting corpse.

The mother and boy were too dazed to have noticed it, he thought, but when they came to their senses they might panic. Harry lowered himself into the dark chamber of the crypt and felt the fall in temperature. He dropped the last three feet, careful not to land on top of them.

Peter was in the most pain but he could move his toes and had nothing broken as far as Harry could see. Angela Linehan raised one leg off the ground and flexed her ankle and then repeated the action with her other leg. She declared herself fit and stood up. It was then that the sickly smell of the decaying corpse hit her. ‘There's a dead body down here,' she cried.

Peter immediately scrambled to his feet, forgetting his pain in an instant.

‘We need to get out,' said Harry, putting his arms around both of them and ushering them towards the gaping hole above their head with clear blue sky.

She climbed up onto Harry's shoulders and hauled herself through the broken floor. Peter was passed up to her next.

‘How are you going to get up?' she shouted down to Harry.

He was thinking the same thing. All he needed was a box to stand on and he would be able to pull himself up. Groping in the dark for something he could use, he tripped, landing face first into a pile of sticky mush. He spat out whatever was in his mouth and cleared his eyes with his hand. It smelt of ammonia; he knew instantly it was guano. Turning onto his side, he discovered what had caused his fall – a dead man's body. There was just enough daylight to make out that the man was dressed in chinos and a short-sleeve aloha shirt. He couldn't see the man's head and sat up to get a better look when something moved under the floral shirt. Harry knew straight away what it was, but hoped that he was wrong. He stared open-eyed at the slow ripple stretching from the man's abdomen to his chest and then froze completely when a pointed head prodded through the unbuttoned neck of the shirt, its long black tongue sliding in and out of its small jaws. Straight away he identified it by its black body and yellow bands. Ernesto had taught him to recognise venomous serpents during his first trip to Central America and he knew how deadly coral snakes were. It was Ernesto's attempt of curing him of his phobia. But it only made it worse. Now Harry was facing three feet of snake looping onto the man's chest. Another two serpents with the same regimental markings joined it, criss-crossing over the stomach and moving down towards the man's groin, ever closer to Harry's ice cold head. His chest tightened and he felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the crypt. He was breathing faster, but the oxygen wasn't doing anything to his lungs. His heart pounded so hard in his chest, he thought he only had moments left before he'd pass out completely. A sense of suffocation was taking over, but he couldn't do anything about it, his limbs were dead.

The pain of the viper's venom in Spain, all those years ago, came flooding back to haunt Harry once more. Flashbacks of his father's tortured face, running to the hospital in the midday sun with him on his back. But Harry now needed to think of survival and forced himself to start the breathing exercise a shrink in Harley Street had once taught him. All those fees suddenly seemed worth it. He forced himself to breathe in and then out again slowly while watching the serpents inching closer. His heart was still racing and his face was still cold, but he no longer felt he was suffocating. Harry was thinking again. He wanted to roll away from the snakes but feared he might end up in their nest.

One of them had reached the canvas shoes of the dead man and that was when Harry spotted a gold ankle chain. He remembered Oscar wearing it when he picked him up at the airport. His friend was dead and his body had been dumped in his very own grounds. Baptiste must have done it. Who else? Oscar probably threatened to expose Baptiste after the big man discovered Harry's real identity. That would have been a big enough motive. This was where Baptiste disposed of his enemies. Somewhere in the dark corners of the crypt were probably the skulls of the boys he'd murdered.

Harry's eyes shifted nervously from the gold chain to the snake, its flat tail rattling in anger.

‘Harry, what's going on?' shouted Angela Linehan from above.