The Hard Way Part 44

"Take a deep breath," he said.

He slowed the car well before the small flat bridge. Turned in wide and deliberate. Left it in second gear. Small vehicle, low speed. Un-threatening. He hoped.

The driveway was long and it looped through two curves. Around unseen softness in the dirt, maybe. The beaten earth was muddy and less even than it had looked from a distance. The tiny car rocked and bounced. The farmhouse's gable wall was blank. No windows. The smoke from the chimney was thicker now and straighter. Less wind. Reacher opened his window and heard nothing at all except the noise of his engine and the slow rolling crunch of his tires on gravel and small stones.

"Where is everybody?" Pauling said. "Still out hoeing?"

"You can't hoe for seven hours straight," Reacher said. "You'd break your back."

The driveway split thirty yards in front of the house. A fork in the road. West, the formal approach to the front door. East, a shabbier track toward the spot where the Land Rover had been parked, and the barns beyond. Reacher went east. The Land Rover wasn't there anymore. All the barn doors were closed. The whole place was quiet. Nothing was moving.

Reacher braked gently and backed up. Took the wider path west. There was a gravel circle with a stunted ash tree planted at its centre. Around the tree was a circular wooden bench way too big for the thin trunk. Either the tree was a replacement or the carpenter had been thinking a hundred years ahead. Reacher drove around the circle clockwise, the British way. Stopped ten feet from the front door. It was closed. Nothing was moving anywhere, except the column of slow smoke rising from the chimney.

"What now?" Pauling asked.

"We knock," Reacher said. "We move slow and we keep our hands visible."

"You think they're watching us?"

"Someone is. For sure. I can feel it."

He killed the motor and sat for a moment. Then he opened his door. Unwound his huge frame slow and easy and stood still next to the car with his hands held away from his sides. Pauling did the same thing six feet away. Then they walked together to the front door. It was a large slab of ancient oak, as black as coal. There were iron bands and hinges, newly painted over pits of old rust and corrosion. There was a twisted ring hinged in the mouth of a lion and positioned to strike down on a nail head as big as an apple. Reacher used it, twice, putting heavy thumps into the oak slab. It resonated like a ba.s.s drum.

It brought no response.

"h.e.l.lo?" Reacher called.

No response.

He called, "Taylor? Graham Taylor?"

No response.

"Taylor? Are you there?"

No answer.

He tried the knocker again, twice more.

Still no response.

No sound at all.

Except for the shuffle of a tiny foot, thirty feet away. The backward sc.r.a.pe of a thin sole on a stone. Reacher turned fast and glanced to his left. Saw a small bare knee pull back around the far corner of the house. Back into hiding.

"I saw you," Reacher called.

No reply.

"Come on out now," he called. "It's OK."

No response.

"Look at our car," Reacher called. "Cutest thing you ever saw."

Nothing happened.

"It's red," Reacher called. "Like a fire engine."

No response.

"There's a lady here with me,' Reacher called. "She's cute, too."

He stood still next to Pauling and a long moment later he saw a small dark head peer out from around the corner. A small face, pale skin, big green eyes. A serious mouth. A little girl, about eight years old.

"h.e.l.lo," Pauling called. "What's your name?"

"Melody Jackson," Jade Lane said.

CHAPTER 66

THE KID WAS instantly recognizable from the imperfect Xerox Readier had seen on the desk in the Dakota bedroom. She was about a year older than she had been in the picture but she had the same long dark hair, slightly wavy, as fine as silk, and the same green eyes, and the same porcelain skin. It had been a striking photograph, but the reality was way better. Jade Lane was a truly beautiful child.

"My name is Lauren," Pauling said. "This man is called Reacher."

Jade nodded her head. Grave and serious. She said nothing. Didn't come closer. She was wearing a summer dress, sleeveless, green seersucker stripes. Maybe from Bloomingdale's on Lexington Avenue. Maybe one of her favourite garments. Maybe part of her hasty and unwise packing. She had white socks on, and thin summer sandals. They were dusty.

Pauling said, "We're here to talk to the grown-ups. Do you know where they are?"

Thirty feet away Jade nodded her head again. Said nothing.

Pauling asked, "Where are they?"

A voice thirty feet away in the other direction said, "One of them is right here, lady," and Kate Lane stepped out from around the other corner of the house. She was pretty much unchanged from her photograph, too. Dark hair, green eyes, high cheekbones, a bud of a mouth. Extremely, impossibly beautiful. Maybe a little more tired than she had been in the photographer's studio. Maybe a little more stressed. But definitively the same woman. Outside of what the portrait had shown she was maybe five feet nine inches tall, not much more than a hundred and fifteen pounds, slim and willowy. Exactly what an ex-model should look like, Reacher figured. She was wearing a man's flannel shirt, big and clearly borrowed. She looked great in it. But then, she would have looked great in a garbage bag with holes torn for her arms and legs and head.

"I'm Susan Jackson," she said.

Reacher shook his head. "You're not, but I'm very glad to meet you anyway. And Jade, too. You'll never know how glad I am."

"I'm Susan Jackson," she said again. "That's Melody."

"We don't have time for that, Kate. And your accent isn't real convincing anyway."

"Who are you?"

"My name is Reacher."

"What do you want?"

"Where's Taylor?"

"Who?"

Reacher glanced back at Jade and then took a step toward Kate. "Can we talk? Maybe a little ways down the track?"

"Why?"

"For privacy."

"What happened?"

"I don't want to upset your daughter."

"She knows what's going on."

"OK," Reacher said. "We're here to warn you."

"About what?"

"Edward Lane is an hour behind us. Maybe less."

"Edward is here?" Kate said. For the first time, real fear in her face. "Edward is here in England? Already?"

Reacher nodded. "Heading this way."

"Who are you?"

"He paid me to find Taylor."

"So why warn us?"

"Because I just figured out it wasn't for real."

Kate said nothing.

"Where's Taylor?" Reacher asked again.

"He's out," Kate said. "With Tony."

"Anthony Jackson? The brother-in-law?"

Kate nodded. "This is his farm."

"Where did they go?"

"To Norwich. For a part for the backhoe. They said we need to dredge some ditches."

"When did they leave?"

"About two hours ago."

Reacher nodded again. Norwich. The big city. Thirty miles there, thirty miles back. About a two-hour trip. He glanced south at the road. Nothing moving on it.

"Let's all go inside," he said.

"I don't even know who you are."

"You do," Reacher said. "Right now I'm your best friend."

Kate stared at Pauling for a moment and seemed rea.s.sured by the presence of another woman. She blinked once and opened the front door. Led them all in. The farmhouse itself was dark and cold inside. It had low beamed ceilings and irregular stone floors. Thick walls and flowered wallpaper and small leaded windows. The kitchen was the hub of the home. That was clear. It was a large rectangular room. There were bright copper pans hanging from hooks and sofas and armchairs and a fireplace big enough to live in and a huge old-fashioned range. There was a ma.s.sive oak dining table with twelve chairs around it and a separate pine desk with a phone and stacks of papers and envelopes and jars of pens and pencils and postage stamps and rubber bands. All the furniture was old and worn and comfortable and smelled of dogs, even though there were no dogs in the house. They had belonged to the previous owners, maybe. Maybe the furniture had been included in the sale. Maybe there had been bankruptcy problems.

Reacher said, "I think you should get out, Kate. Right now. You and Jade. Until we see what happens."

"How?" Kate asked. "The truck isn't here." "Take our car."

"I've never driven here before. I've never even been here before."

Pauling said, "I'll drive you."

"Where to?"

"Anywhere you want to go. Until we see what happens."

"Is he really here already?"

Pauling nodded. "He left London at least an hour ago."

"Does he know?"

"That it was all a sham? Not yet."

"OK," Kate said. "Take us somewhere. Anywhere. Now. Please."

She stood up and grabbed Jade's hand. No purse, no coat. She was ready to go, right there and then. No pause, no hesitation. Just panic. Reacher tossed Pauling the Mini's keys and followed them all outside again. Jade climbed through to the tiny car's rear bench and Kate got in next to Pauling. Pauling adjusted the seat and the mirror and clipped her belt and started the engine.

"Wait," Reacher said.

On the road a mile to the west he could see a dark green shape moving fast behind a stand of trees. Green paint. Glinting in the watery sun. Clean and polished and shiny, not filthy like the farm truck.

A mile away. Ninety seconds. No time.