Down Cemetery Road Part 40

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 gra.s.s, and rabbit s.h.i.t, 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.

Zoe 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 . . .'

Zoe didn't twitch a muscle.

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

'Kill the f.u.c.ker!'

'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 b.i.t.c.h '

'Shut up,' Zoe 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 a.s.suming 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 Zoe 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,' Zoe 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 Zoe'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 G.o.ds 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 Zoe 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.ds 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 p.i.s.ses 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 n.o.body ever knew about it. Those boy soldiers were killed '

'That's the point. n.o.body 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?'

'Anything almost did!'

'Right. On the island. But that was Downey's fault, Sarah. Not ours. Certainly we wanted to . . . make contact. Bring him back into the fold. We weren't to know he'd go haywire.'

'You blew a house up. Somebody tried to kill me!'

'Same agent. You want to hear me say I'm sorry? Well, I am. Believe me, I'm sorry. Especially about what he tried to do to you, but all we can say on that is, he paid the price. He went rogue, he paid the price. I don't honestly think we can be held responsible for his actions, Sarah. We really have to be reasonable about this.'

But she was shaking her head, as if she weren't convinced that they did.

'Look, Sarah, cards on the table. There are two ways we can go with this.' He spread his hands, palms up. 'The first is, you put the gun down, come with me, and we get your life back for you. Simple as that. Obviously you'll have to sign a few papers, official secrets, stuff like that, but that's pretty much all there is to it. You put this behind you, start off like it never happened. And we can work out your husband's difficulties. Sure, he's been neck deep in some serious sins, but nothing we can't straighten. Not with a little goodwill on all sides. Okay?'

'And what's the other way?'

He shuffled, humbly. 'I think we should stick with way one. You know my speciality, Sarah? What I'm good at? Fixing it so things never happened. We can do that here. Trust me.'

'And the other way?'

Howard showed how unhappy he felt, brooding on the other way. 'You must understand me, it really is very important Downey's story goes no further. And if you show yourself too, ah, intransigent on this point, well, everything gets blown out of proportion. That's all.'

'And the other way?'

'The other way, Sarah, is you don't put the gun down. You even use it.' He shook his head and smiled shyly, as if it were a secret they shared, that way two was never really going to be an option. 'You use it. Obviously, lots of things aren't going to matter to me at that point. I'll be spread a little thin to worry then about what comes next. But you ought to bear in mind the consequences.'

Sarah didn't say anything. He sighed deeply.