Stop Me (18 page)

Somebody was rattling the door handle but the light was too intense. He heard slow metallic clunks to his left but he kept his screwed up eyes to Laura, feeling her body against his fingertips as he suddenly clung to her frame, petrified she might evaporate.

But as he stretched his eyelids apart again, details started to soak through the bleached backdrop and the first thing he noticed was how long her hair was. She hadn’t worn it that length since she was in school but her henna hair lay well past her shoulders down her back. He studied her intensely as her pale features acquired detail. Suddenly he felt a part of himself ignite, a whole network of feeling that he’d forgotten was there.

Her dirt-streaked tears blurred as his own eyes filled and he doubted he could move them from her to
find out who was grating at the entrance to the shelter. Her skin was paler, her features more gaunt, but she was Laura. Laura was alive. Laura was OK. His mind recoiled against these thoughts – a reflex that had honed itself over the months she had been locked here – but her presence, the weight of her, her freckled eyes narrowing to see him was irrefutable.

Her eyes darted from his and he followed their direction. He briefly took in the place where Laura had spent her imprisonment. They appeared to be crouching in the main living area, which was about ten foot square. To his right was another doorway to a small cubicle where a green porcelain toilet and small sink accounted for most of the space within. Around the concrete floor of the living room were scattered blankets, a food tray, clothes, magazines and newspapers and Leo was surprised to see a TV and cable box positioned on top of a small bookcase. The whitewashed walls were lined with shelves and their cluttered contents – from tubes of cosmetics to tins of food – precariously bowed the cheap Formica.

But he had no time to absorb everything as they heard locks being shot at the other side of the heavy, metallic, inner door that had separated them for so long.

Leo was on his feet, pulling Laura up with him. As he thought of her waiting, breathing, existing in this place while he had searched and given up hope, he felt
a concentration within him, a snap distillation of the rage that had been awaiting its release.

The door was released from its frame, and as the weight eventually gave it impetus, it slowly started to swing inwards. A cold draught blew into the shelter but neither of them shivered. Leo could smell the night before the door opened fully, revealing the solid blackness of space outside. Nobody entered but neither of them made a move. Leo’s eyes fully readjusted and he could discern the other door that had been opened into the small antechamber that led into the shelter. Somebody moved in the darkness outside but the shaded lamp above smudged their view beyond the doorframe. Whoever was out there could see them perfectly though and suddenly Leo felt their exposure.

But whatever awaited them outside was better than the prospect of being locked in again. Leo led Laura by the hand to the doorway to hide at its edge and peer round. Through a small copse he could see glimpses of the yellow lights in the house windows but there was no light source to illuminate the dark expanse in front of them. There was nobody in evidence but whoever had opened the door had to be nearby. They listened and a fox cried off somewhere nearby but there was no sounds of human movement.

Then a face materialised slowly from the black, the light spilling from the shelter highlighting their skin as their body composed itself beneath it. It was Maggie.
Weakly, she held up her hand to placate Leo as he moved into the doorway.

‘Come quickly,’ she rasped and Leo noticed a blob of thick, blackening blood on her eyebrow. She stared past him as Laura emerged behind him. It was the first time Laura had seen her captor and Maggie seemed terrified of revealing herself. ‘It’s all gone wrong. Leo, you have to help me.’

Leo felt Laura unlacing her fingers from his, breaking away from him and moving forward but he suddenly grabbed her wrist and yanked her back. ‘Wait, this is a trap!’

Maggie shook her head in Leo’s foreground but his eyes scanned the area behind her. Where was Joe? And what about the man who had struck him from behind? Silhouetted by the light from the shelter they were sitting targets.

‘No, no, no,’ Maggie whispered, her breath escaping her in a cloud before she staggered and fell to one knee in the long wet grass. She put her hand to her brow, staining her fingertips. Her eyes rolled and it looked like she was concussed. ‘I begged Joe not to kill Laura.’ A fat tear dropped onto the grass. ‘It was me that prevented him. Help me now, Leo.’

Laura yanked herself from Leo’s grip and stood over her. Maggie didn’t raise her head just stared at Laura’s jeans.

‘Forgive me, Laura. Understand. I kept you alive…’

Leo watched Laura’s shoulders quake and the tremor travel down her body as she balled her fingers into fists.

‘Laura, there’s no time…’ He walked to where she stood and put his hands on her rigid shoulders. ‘Come on.’ He tried to move her but it was as if she had been pegged into the grass.

‘Poison…’ Maggie had started to shiver, her bottom jaw vibrating around the word.

‘What are you talking about?’ Leo moved from behind Laura and knelt with Maggie as he tried to hear what she said.

‘We tried to poison Cleaves but he won’t die. He’s gone mad. He’s going to kill Joe. Please stop him.’

‘What are you talking about?’ He gripped her shoulders now and shook her until her she faced him.

‘He knows everything. He’s another liability. I put the poison in his brandy.’

‘What sort of poison?’

‘The poison we…Joe wanted us to use it a long time ago.’ Maggie looked briefly up at Laura and then her body collapsed forward and she was face down in the grass.

Leo was suddenly engulfed in darkness again, the lights from the house the only beacon. He circled his hand firmly around Laura’s wrist and led the way along the well-trodden path towards the main house. The only thing in his head was the sound of his own breathing and one thought: Joe Allan-Carlin could not die yet. Joe Allan-Carlin was going to suffer like Laura had. Cleaves – whoever he was – wasn’t going to end it easily for him.

Branches bit his face and eyes as they entered the thickest part of the copse but soon they were emerging into the lawn and pool area. Laura gulped air as they halted between the twin pillars of light being cast by the double-glazing.

‘Wait here. If I’m not back in a couple of minutes—’

Laura coughed and shook her head violently. It was pointless arguing and Leo was reluctant to ever let her out of his sight again. They walked slowly to the house and stepped through the window that was slid back. They were inside the coral-carpeted lounge where he had sat and watched the irrelevant news reports with Joe and Maggie over the years – the Vacation Killer, the release of Bookwalter, Bonsignore – and the only thing he could feel was revulsion for his own stupidity.

Silence. The familiar surroundings seemingly the most unlikely backdrop for what had been concealed here. The room was unoccupied. Leo looked round for a weapon but there was nothing that could be brandished. He pulled Laura to the door that led into the kitchen. The door swung inward revealing chunks of glass lying shattered on the tiles. Nobody was there either. Leo’s shoes ground against the shards as he headed for the magnetic knife rack on the wall over the cooker.

A muffled bump from upstairs only momentarily stopped him in his tracks. He turned to face Laura and the direction of the sound. Laura turned to the door into the hallway but there was no fear in her expression. He looked at her slender body clad in a stonewashed blue sweatshirt that he recalled Joe wearing on one of his visits. At the end of her jeans her white-socked feet stood in the glass and a trail of blood was already smeared behind her.

Leo nodded downwards but Laura didn’t follow his
gaze – merely nodded. Leo snatched a Chinese cleaver from the rack and led Laura limping over the tiles, through the swing door into the hall so they were standing at the bottom of the carpeted stairwell.

There was another thump and a voice he didn’t recognise grunted a curse. The front door was before them and Leo knew their best course of action would be to unlock it and run, but neither of them made a move towards it. Their gaze was trained on the stairwell and Leo’s knuckles whitened around the handle of the cleaver. He remembered how Coker had held his knife before he’d tried to kill him. It was like it had been slotted into that moment – his murderous intent lodging it there. This was how the blade felt, like it had no other purpose.

Leo tried to release Laura’s hand but her fingertips bit into his wrist and she followed him as he steadily climbed the stairs. As they rounded the corner of the first flight and ascended the second to the landing, there was another thump and then a splitting sound.

Leo peered down the illuminated landing and saw Cleaves against the door at the far end. He turned and looked at Leo but didn’t seem bothered by his presence or the blade Leo was carrying. Cleaves stretched his neck away from his body and the tendons straining there seemed to be barely holding his shaved head on his shoulders. His nostrils flared and he inhaled through them erratically. He slammed his huge body
against the door but the effort was too much for him and he slid to his knees as he rebounded from it. He ground his forehead into the wood and gritted his teeth against an internal spasm that tangled his gut. ‘What…the fuck…did you give me?’ Although his voice was resonant, it seemed he was having trouble putting the words together. He stood shakily before thrusting his shoulder back against the door again. Another crack but Leo wasn’t sure if it was the door or the bones in his shoulder.

Cleaves slid down the door again but this time he was on his knees and burying his face in the carpet as a convulsion squeezed a howl from somewhere deep within him. His grey suit jacket had flapped over his head and he looked like some headless animal in its death throes.

Leo felt Laura’s hand on his shoulder as he attempted to move forward and she tried to yank him back.

Cleaves was not yet beaten and got to his feet again. Leaning against the wall opposite the door, he aimed his boot at the handle but was suddenly overwhelmed by another paroxysm of pain in his gut. He braced himself against the spasm and tried to aim straight. The kick made the door rattle within the frame and it sounded as if metallic pieces of the lock mechanism were fragmenting as he repeatedly booted the handle. He grunted with each impact but as his impetus slowed he slammed his head back against the wall and opened
his mouth. Suddenly, his body seized up and his eyes closed against the pain. His whole weight collapsed against the door, his head taking the entire impact and grazing itself open on the splintered wood, before coming to rest on the carpet. And then he was still.

Whatever he’d been dosed with had acted rapidly even on his considerable build and it didn’t bear thinking about how Laura would have suffered if Joe had got his way. They both watched as Cleaves’ chest stopped heaving.

Now it was Leo’s shoulder on the door, Leo rattling the broken handle and trying to gain entry and he didn’t care if he had to shatter every bone to open it. In his mind all his adversaries cowered on the other side – Joe, Maggie, Bookwalter, Coker – and now he knew them Leo no longer doubted he was as capable of destroying their lives as they had been destroying his. The blade was part of his hand now, his intent fusing it there until its only purpose had been fulfilled.

Cleaves had done considerable damage to the door already and a renewed assault caused the top-right corner to crack and hinge inward. He butted himself against the lower part, his wrist and shoulder crushing against the wood and the flat of the blade. Soon the rest of the lock side split and he was able to kick in the bottom part until it was clear of the lock and the whole thing swung inward.

The first thing he saw was Joe’s face. The knife
handle was firm in Leo’s throbbing fingers and he heard Laura scream from somewhere behind him. Suddenly Joe rushed at him, grunted and then moved away again, his reddened features recoiling in shock as he stepped back and tripped over the desk behind him. Pens, ornaments, other things on the study table rattled to the floor.

Then they both looked down at the brass handle of the letter opener that Joe Allan-Carlin had stabbed into Leo’s chest. Joe slid slowly down the wall, his eyes screwing tight against what he’d done. He placed his hands over the back of his head in resignation as Leo collapsed and lay listening to Joe’s sobs. Then everything started to fade, and Leo could hear no more.