Lynch (4 page)

He opened the door.

‘Am I early?’ Jesse said.

Scott looked at his watch. ‘No, come in, come in.’

Jesse entered and kissed Katherine on the cheek. ‘Nice to see you again, Mrs Lynch.’

‘I’ve told you before, call me Katherine.’

‘Ann,’ Scott said, ‘this is Jesse. From work. Ann’s a friend; she’s come up from
London
. I’m sorry, Jesse, I completely lost track of the time.’

‘It’s not too late,’ Ann said, shaking Jesse’s hand.

‘We can do it some other time?’ Jesse suggested.

Katherine took Jesse’s arm. ‘There’s half a beef Wellington that’ll never get eaten tonight,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you stay here for dinner instead?’

Jesse looked at Scott, who flashed a terrified look at Katherine.

‘Sure,’ Scott said. ‘If you don’t mind?’

Jesse beamed. ‘I love beef Wellington.’

They settled at the kitchen table again and Scott laid an extra place for his date. Having dinner with a new man, your dead boyfriend’s mother, and the Interpol detective who helped you out when you had a bomb strapped to your chest, was going to make for an interesting evening.

‘How do you know Scott, Ann?’ Jesse asked as he helped himself to a slab of meat.

Clark
smiled. ‘We met through a mutual friend. I guess you could say our friendship just went off like a bomb.’

Katherine choked and smiled and hid her grin behind her hand.

‘And what do you do?’ Jesse asked.

‘I work in law,’ was all
Clark
said.

‘Solicitors are wily,’ Jesse laughed.

To steer the conversation away from uncomfortable subjects, Scott said, ‘How long have you been at the stables now, Whisper?’

‘Whisper?’
Clark
laughed. ‘Or don’t I want to know?’

Jesse laughed along with her. ‘They call me the Horse Whisperer because they’re jealous of my skills.’

They talked about his time at the Silverwood Centre, about his move to Harrogate from
York
, about his likes and dislikes, and Scott felt at times that it was a four-person date.

After dinner, Scott got a couple of beers from the fridge and he and Jesse went out onto the porch. The sun was going down and the grasshoppers were chirping their songs before nightfall.

‘Sorry about that,’ Scott said.

‘Why?’ Jesse asked. ‘It’s been the most interesting first date I’ve ever had. Your mum is amazing.’

Scott smiled. Part of the ruse of their Witness Protection identity was that they were mother and son. More often than not, the lie felt real.

‘I’m still sorry,’ Scott said. ‘Maybe next time we can actually go out for a meal.’

‘I like how you say that,’ Jesse said.

‘What?’

‘”Next time.”’

And Scott smiled again.

When he had finished his beer, Jesse said, ‘I’d better get off before I have any more of these and end up sleeping on your sofa.’

There was an awkward moment when they weren’t sure how to part. Scott was convinced Jesse had been moving in for a kiss when he pulled him into a brief hug instead.

Hearing his car drive away,
Clark
came and joined Scott on the porch. It was dark and the evening had that cool reminiscence of spring. ‘He’s very nice,’ she said.

Scott shrugged. ‘He is.’ He glanced back at the house. ‘I just don’t want to upset Katherine.’

Clark
folded her arms together. ‘You know better than I do that she wants to see you happy. It isn’t her that’s holding you back.’

Scott flattened his lips. ‘No, you’re right.’

Chapter 5

Brian Ludlow and his family had done everything they had set out to do in the last three weeks and he was disappointed that, in two days time, he would be back in the office in dreary
London
, sifting through arduous reams of mindless paperwork and dreaming of their holiday in
Spain
.

They had been to the markets of Las Ramblas and bought bottles of Veterano brandy and driven through the
Andalucían
Mountains
to witness the magnificent views from the top of Ronda. They had played golf in Valderrama. They had gazed upon the paintings of Diego Valazquez in the Prado Gallery in
Madrid
. They had danced the flamenco, walked through Gaudi’s Parc Guell, spent too long in the sun with not enough protection, did the parks and fairs and water-worlds and their last stop had been the Guggenheim before returning to Puerto de Balbao for their ferry home.

Brian scratched at the sunburnt and peeling skin on his nose and said, in his limited Spanish, ‘
Dos café, por favor.
’

Will said, ‘I want Coke,’ and Sally agreed with her younger brother.

‘You can share one,’ Brian said, ‘or you’ll be peeing all night.’ To the woman behind the snack bar in the
Bilbao
Port
, he said, ‘
Una cola, y dos
…uh…straws?’ He made a motion with his hand to signify what he meant.

In almost perfect English, the young woman said, ‘Two coffees, one cola and two straws. Eleven Euros, please.’

Brian paid, took their drinks, and followed his wife and kids to the seating area.

‘Are you sure we’ll get a meal onboard tonight?’
Sharon
asked him.

‘It was on the booking form,’ he said. ‘William Ludlow, stop hitting your sister immediately.’

At five years old, Will had discovered the gratifying effects of hitting his older sister, waiting for her to hit him back, and then come crying to Mummy that Sally had started it. But Brian and Sharon were wise to it.

The PA system broadcasted the imminent boarding of the
Cap Finistère
ferry to
Portsmouth
and advised passengers to return to their vehicles for embarkation.

‘I need a pee,’ Will announced.

‘You can go on the ferry,’ Brian said. ‘Come on, let’s get back to the car.’

‘But,’ Will insisted, ‘I need to go
now
.’ He was dancing on his toes.

Sharon
said she’d wait outside the toilet for him and they’d join Brian and Sally at the car in a minute. ‘You’ll be okay in there on your own?’ she asked Will.

‘I’m not four any more,’ Will said, and he burst in through the toilet door. He came out again within thirty seconds, hardly enough time to do anything, and it took
Sharon
a second to realise that the man who had come out of the toilet behind him had a tight grip on her son’s shoulder.

‘Madam,’ the tall Spanish man said. He nodded politely to her and revealed a gun in his hand, tucked loosely inside his coat. ‘You must listen,’ he said. ‘I am requesting a favour.’

Miguel Fernandez picked the young boy up in his arm, kept his gun hidden but ready to use, and told the woman to walk—slowly—to her car.

‘You can have what you want,’ she whispered, panic making the pitch of her voice rise. ‘Just give me back my son.’

‘Turn around and walk,’ Fernandez said. ‘I’ll be right beside you. Don’t look at anyone, don’t speak to anyone. Understand?’

She nodded meekly and complied. He could see the tears standing in her eyes and he wanted to taste them. The boy in the crook of his arm was petrified and kept saying, ‘Mummy? Mummy? Mummy?’

Fernandez told him to hush and the woman said, ‘It’s okay, baby. I’m right here.’

She led Fernandez out of the terminal to the loading dock and they weaved through the cars and the people as though nothing was out of the ordinary. Fernandez already knew which car was hers; he had been watching them since they arrived at the port. If she led him to a stranger’s car, in an attempt at seeking help, he would shoot the kid immediately. And then he’d shoot the woman.

As it turned out, she was smarter than he had given her credit for, and she walked the length of the cars to her own. Her skinny reed of a husband was in the driver’s seat and the young girl was sitting in a booster seat in the back when the man spied them in his rear view mirror. Seeing Fernandez holding his son, the man got out of the car, a smile of confusion on his face.

‘Honey, what—?’ he began.

Fernandez cut him off. ‘With one hand, I hold your son. With the other’—he indicated the hand inside his own coat—‘I hold his life. I do not want any bravery,
sí
?’ He kept the car between himself and the father; English men were weak and pitiable, but oftentimes acted heroically when compliance was better suited.

‘What do you want?’ the man said. He looked between Fernandez and his wife. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Open the boot of your car,’ Fernandez told the woman.

‘No way,’ the man said. ‘She’s not going in there.’

‘Correct,’ Fernandez said. ‘Open it.’

In quiet tears, the woman kept her eyes on her son as she moved and opened the boot. ‘Don’t hurt him,’ she said.

‘
Sharon
, this is ridiculous,’ the man protested.

‘Shut up, Brian,’ the woman told him. ‘What choice do we have?’

Fernandez smiled. He liked a spirited woman who knew her place.

When she had opened the boot of the car and took a step back, Fernandez placed the child inside and withdrew his gun, pointing it almost casually at him. He said, ‘I will get in the boot with him. Once you are parked on the ferry and the ferry is in motion—not before—you will open the boot and your son will still be alive. Sir,’ he said, ‘get into your seat now.’

The man hesitated and his wife said, ‘Do it, Brian.’

Fernandez said to her, ‘You will close the boot once I am inside, okay?’ She nodded. ‘Do you have the capacity to understand the death of your child?’

She closed her eyes, tears running the length of her cheeks, and opened them again. It was, in Fernandez’s mind, an acceptance of fate.

He climbed inside the boot and lay down, hugging the child closely to him, the gun pressed against the boy’s side. ‘If anyone else should open the boot, if you tell an official or the police, I will kill the child. Remember, when the ferry is moving, you will let us out—only you. Do we have an understanding?’

She nodded again, and closed the lid of the boot, trapping a killer inside with her son.

‘Stop crying, Sally,’
Sharon
said. She had gotten into the front passenger seat, closed the door, wiped her eyes, buckled her seatbelt and stared straight ahead.

Brian looked at her.

‘Just drive, Brian,’ she said. ‘Get on the ferry. We’ll stay in the car until it’s moving, then we’ll let him out.’

‘You can’t be serious,’ Brian whispered.

In a voice void of emotion,
Sharon
said, ‘He has a gun pointed at our son. I have never been more serious in my life.’

‘I won’t do it.’

‘Then I’ll drive.’

Brian sighed. ‘Fine. But if any harm comes to my son—’

‘Are you going to blame me for this?’
Sharon
asked, staring him in the eyes for an honest answer.

Brian closed his eyes, started the ignition, and didn’t answer her. ‘Stop crying, Sally,’ he said instead.

They boarded the ferry without incident and took up their place in the car hold. The official who had waved them in told them they needed to make their way immediately to the upper deck.

‘We’d like to sit here for a little while, if you don’t mind,’ Brian said. ‘My daughter’s seasick already.’ He attempted a weak laugh.

‘
No puedo
,’ the official said. ‘There is no waiting in the cars.’

‘Jesus,’ Brian breathed. ‘Now what?’

‘I’ll sneak back down once we’re moving,’
Sharon
told him.

‘No, I’ll do it.’

‘The man said I had to do it. I’ll be fine. Come on, Sally, honey, let’s go.’

As soon as they were upstairs, Brian spotted a sign that read ‘Security Desk’ and he took his wife’s arm. ‘Let’s tell someone before this gets out of hand.’

‘No,’
Sharon
said, standing her ground. ‘I’m not endangering the life of our child any more than is necessary. Let’s get our cabin and as soon as we’re moving, I’ll go down and let them out. Once we have Will back, we can tell anyone and everyone about the lunatic with a gun onboard. He’ll have nowhere to hide.’

Fifteen minutes later, when the ferry was beginning its slow move away from the dockside,
Sharon
told them to lock the door behind her. She kissed her husband and hugged her daughter and promised she’d be back in a few minutes. She came out of the cabin, closed the door, and sobbed once before composing herself as best she could and making her way along the corridor to the stairs.

At the entrance to the car park—a graveyard of empty vehicles, she thought—she had to wait an eternity for one of the officials to make final checks and leave. When the coast was clear, she stepped out between two forty-foot lorries and looked around, allowing her sense of bearings to override her fear.

She walked purposefully to their car and, double-checking she was still unobserved, pushed the key into the lock rather than activating the central locking mechanism. She said, ‘It’s me. I’m letting you out now. I’m on my own.’ She opened the boot and sobbed again when she saw her son was still alive.

The man kept the gun pointed at Will as he climbed out and held onto the boy. ‘Your cabin,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

Walking through the busy ferry was risky, but Fernandez knew he could trust the woman as long as he kept a tight grip on the child. She was bright enough to know how to act in the face of adversity.

She stopped at a cabin door, took a deep breath, and knocked. Instantly the door was opened and Fernandez pushed his way inside, still carrying the boy.

The woman closed the door behind them and asked Fernandez, ‘Now what?’

Fernandez smiled. He made sure the gun was visible and said, ‘Now we have twenty-four hours to get to know each other.’ He sat on the edge of one of the twin beds, the boy on his knee, and said, ‘No one leaves this cabin until we dock in
England
. And when we do, we will do the Spaniard-in-the-boot trick again. Then I am gone and you can have your boring lives back.’

‘We’ve seen your face,’ the man said. ‘You won’t let us go alive, will you?’

‘I suppose that’s a risk you will just have to take,’ Fernandez said.

The man made a turn for the cabin door and Fernandez was quickly on his feet, dropping the boy to the floor and stepping over him. Before Brian had a chance to open the door, Fernandez thrust his full force into him, he smacked his head against the wood and his legs buckled. Fernandez grabbed his shirt, spun him around, and struck the butt of his gun on his temple. He dropped to the ground and Fernandez kicked him in the face.