David Trevellyan 03 -More Harm Than Good (44 page)

       
I could see tears in her
eyes, but before I could reach the shackle she gave a last almighty heave and tore
it free from the masonry.

       
“Jones called me,” I
said. “He told me there’d be a trade, for you. Are you OK?”

       
“So far,” she said,
raising her blood-soaked hand. “Don’t worry about this. There was a method.
Look closely - the wall was damaged when that nearest hole got smashed in it.
You can see little cracks running across. They reached the place where my right
wrist was attached, so I figured it would be the easier one to get free.”

       
“That’s smart. Do the
cracks reach your left one?”

       
“No, sadly, they don’t,”
she said, wrapping her fingers around the enormous spike that was still
attached to the dangling shackle. “So it’s time for phase two. Dig for victory.
I’ll soon get this other one loose.”

       
“It’ll take ages,” I
said. “See how deep that thing went in?
Here.
Let me
help.”

       
“Not a chance. You need
to take cover, somewhere, and
..
.”

       
Her next words were
interrupted by the sound of a huge, dog-rough diesel engine spluttering into
life. It was coming from the crane. We spun round together, to look, but I still
couldn’t spot anyone in the cab.

       
“What’s he doing?”
Melissa said, glancing nervously at the gaping holes to her right.

       
“Nothing,” I said. “He’s
just trying to scare you. The wrecking ball isn’t even attached. He didn’t have
time. And if he pokes his head out to take a shot, it’ll be the last mistake he
ever makes.”

       
As we watched, the
crane’s jib started to move. It was turning anti-clockwise, away from the
asylum building, and kept going until it was sticking out sideways at ninety
degrees, the cable swinging harmlessly in impotent circles below it.

       
“Don’t worry,” I said.
“
Leckie’s
just putting on a show.
He
wants to rattle you.”

       
“What do you mean?” she
said. “
Leckie’s
...”

 
      
Then the crane itself began to move, drowning out the rest of
her words. The track nearer us was locked, but the one on the opposite side
must have been engaged because the entire vehicle was slowly rotating. It kept
turning, practically on the spot, tearing up the ground beneath it, until it
was facing directly towards us. All of a sudden the lack of a wrecking ball
didn’t seem like such an obstacle.

       
The Beretta was in my
hand, but I had no shot into the cab. Moving closer wouldn’t help, unless I
could make it all the way to the crane’s bodywork, climb up on it, and fire
through the broken window. But that wasn’t a viable option, either. I’d be too
exposed for too long to stand a realistic chance. The only way to stop whoever
was at the controls would be to gain some height. Not too much, or the cab’s
metal roof would protect him. The first floor window would probably give the
right angle. But getting there quickly enough was the problem. I could climb
back in through any of the ground floor windows, but as far as I knew, the only
staircase was at the far end of the wing. I’d have to run all the way back
there, go up one floor, and run all the way to the front again. I could move
fast, when the occasion called for it. But it would still take too long. The
crane would be able to reach the building in half the time. That would leave a
square hole in the stonework, rather than another round one. But the
distinction would be purely academic as far as Melissa was concerned.

       
“You pull,” I said,
leaning closer to her ear and taking hold of the spike that was still hanging
from her right wrist. “I’ll work on the mortar. Together we’ve got a much
better chance.”

       
Melissa started to
strain against the shackle, and within a couple of seconds blood was beginning
to seep from a fresh wound on her left wrist. I had nothing to show for my
efforts. I was trying to dig away at the point where the iron stem disappeared
into the masonry, but was making no impact at all.

       
“Time for brute force
and ignorance, again,” I said, letting go of the metal and casting around the
immediate area for a suitably sized piece of brick or stone. “I need something
to hit that thing with.”

       
I spotted an ideal
brickbat about twenty-five feet away, and as I moved across to grab it the
sound of the crane’s engine grew suddenly louder. The driver must have been
revving it hard. I turned to look, and it gradually returned to idling speed,
like a petulant beast that demanded attention. I stood perfectly still and
watched for half a minute, and the note didn’t change. Then I took a step
towards Melissa. The noise instantly increased, and the crane began to move.
Slowly at first.
Almost imperceptibly.
But my eyes weren’t playing tricks. Its speed was increasing. It was heading
directly at Melissa. And the shackle was still holding firm.

       
The crane’s speed peaked
at maybe four miles an hour. The kind of pace that would drive you insane if
you were caught behind it on a public road. But to me, at that moment, it felt
like a meteor couldn’t travel faster. Or be harder to knock off course. I
couldn’t shoot the driver. I couldn’t get to a place where I even had a chance
of shooting him. And even if I could be sure of killing him - if the rock in my
hand was magically transformed into a grenade, for example - there was no
guarantee that would stop the crane’s relentless, grinding, forward progress.

       
Melissa was thrashing
wildly from side to side now, pulling with all her strength. Blood was pouring
from her wrist and I caught a glimpse of shiny white bone gleaming through a
wide gash in her skin. The crane had already halved the distance between its
starting position and her. She had twenty seconds left before it would crush
her against the stone, no more, and the way she was acting showed she knew it.
She put her right foot on the wall at waist height, then her left, so that all
her weight was on her wrist. Then she started slamming herself backwards,
bending at the waist and pushing with her legs like a naughty toddler trying to
escape a parent’s iron grip. It must have been absolute agony. And it was all
in vain, because despite everything she tried the shackle refused to yield.

       
I knew there was a risk
of her being hit by a ricochet or a fragment of flying stone like the informant
had been, but we were both running out of options. So I raised the Beretta and
aimed for point where the shackle was anchored to the wall. I fired. And
missed. She was in a blind panic now, gyrating like an ancient berserker, and
I’d pulled the shot for fear of hitting her directly. Which gave me an idea. It
was a desperate one. Something that might make her
hate
me for the rest of her life. But with ten seconds left to save her, I didn’t
think I had a choice.

       
I took a step to my
right, to change the angle. Then I fired again. And this time I hit my target.

       
Melissa’s
left wrist.

Chapter Forty-One

The bullet severed Melissa’s hand and she fell back, hitting the
ground hard before I could get close enough to catch her. The best I could
manage was to grab her under the arms and drag her sideways, a second before
the crane slammed into the wall. Dark arterial blood was pumping from the mess
of ragged, torn skin and splintered bone of her now shortened left arm. Her
face was pale, almost green, and her eyes were glazed and unfocussed. I pulled
off my belt and looped it round her bicep. The crane’s engine had stalled in
the impact, but I could hear blocks of dislodged stone still raining down on
its bodywork. I pulled the makeshift tourniquet tight, and kept on increasing
the pressure until the flow of blood from her wound had slowed to a dribble.
Melissa groaned, just once. Then I heard two other sounds. Footsteps, close
behind me. And
a shotgun cartridge being crunched into place
.

       
“
Leckie
?”
I said, slowly raising my hands.

       
“Is she all right? Don’t
let go of her. We’ve got no time. We need to...” he was saying when I dived
away to my right, rolling over and reaching for the little .22 to replace the
Beretta which I’d dropped when I was stopping Melissa’s bleeding.

       
A gun fired behind me.
But it wasn’t the deep
boom
of a shotgun. It was the lighter
snick
of an automatic pistol. I spun round, still on my knees, and saw
Leckie
lying face down on the ground.
About
fifteen feet away.
He had a single bullet hole in his smart blue
overcoat, located neatly between his shoulder blades. Another man was standing
behind him, twenty feet further back. It was Tim Jones. He was breathing
heavily. His face was bruised and battered. And his Sig Sauer was in his right
hand.

       
“So much for Stan
Leckie
,” he said, striding forwards and putting two more
bullets into the back of his head. “May he rest in pieces.
”

       
“I guess you weren’t as
far from London as you thought,” I said.

       
“I guess not. And you’re
welcome, by the way. I’m happy to help you. Specially after you came back to
Melissa’s to help me, yesterday.”

       
“Let’s just call it
square,” I said, standing up, tucking the .22 into the back of my waistband and
retrieving my Beretta. “Now, where’s your car?”

       
“Over there,” he said,
nodding towards the hole in the perimeter wall. “Why?”

       
“Melissa’s hurt. We need
to get her to hospital.”

       
“Where is she? What
happened? Is it serious?”

       
I guessed it was natural
he’d ask. If he’d arrived after the crash, he wouldn’t have seen the crisis
develop. Or how it was resolved. And the crane would have obstructed his view
of Melissa from the spot where he’d stood to shoot
Leckie
.

       
“She lost a hand,” I
said, leading the way to where she was lying. She’d rolled over into a fetal
position since I’d moved, and was hugging her injured arm to her chest. “And a
lot of blood. It looks like she’s going into shock.”

       
“
Leckie
did this?” he said. “The bastard.”

       
“No. She lost the hand
because I shot her.”

       
“You did? Why?”

       
“Because there was no
time, she was moving, and the shackle was too narrow to hit.”

       
“Wow. That’s hard-core.
But they’re very narrow, David, those shackles. You can’t blame yourself for
this, you know.”

       
Jones’s
patronising
tone reminded me of the conversation I’d had
with my control when he told me I was being seconded to MI5. That was the
morning after I’d
hospitalised
Jones himself, ironically.
How had my control described my actions? As doing more harm than good? I’d
dismissed his words, back then. But now, looking down at Melissa’s crumpled
body, I couldn’t be so sure he was wrong.

       
“I know,” I said,
consciously shaking off the doubt. “I don’t blame myself. It was the only way
to save her. Now, we better hurry. She needs treatment, fast.”

       
“I’m with you,” Jones
said. “What do you want me to do?”

       
“Drive us,” I said,
hoisting Melissa onto my shoulder. “My car’s too far away.”

       
“No problem,” he said.
“Come on. Follow me.”

       
I fell in step behind
him, trying to balance my urge to hurry with the need to not shake Melissa
around too roughly as we moved across the treacherous ground. Jones reached the
car comfortably before me, paused for a moment, then opened the front passenger
door and reclined the seat to its limit.

       
“You know, David, you’ve
been through a lot today,” he said. “You’ve saved two lives, already. Why not
let me take care of things from here? There’s no need for you waste your time in
another hospital. I know you hate them.”

       
I didn’t reply until
Melissa was in her seat with the belt fastened around her.

       
“That’s a generous
offer,” I said. “I do hate hospitals. But no thanks. I think her chances of pulling
through will be a little higher if I take her.”

       
“Why?” he said.

       
“Because otherwise, I
think it won’t be long before I get another distraught phone call telling me
that despite your best efforts, she bled out en route to the hospital. So
you’ll be staying here, and I’ll be taking her.”