Dead Man's Gift 03 - Today (4 page)

‘That’s good,’ said Frank. ‘Stop there. Now look in front of you, shut your eyes and count to ten.’

The kid drew a shaky breath; his knees were wobbling. ‘Why can’t I just go home? I want to see my mummy and daddy.’

‘We’re going to go home right after this.’ Frank raised the pistol so the end of the suppressor was three feet from the back of the kid’s head. He felt vaguely sick having to do this, and he had a feeling it was going to haunt his dreams for a long time to come, but knew he had no choice. He was going to have to make it look like Celia had shot the kid and then turned the gun on herself. ‘Shut those eyes for me, okay? And let’s start counting together.’ His finger tightened on the trigger. ‘One …’

Scope had come in the unlocked back door to the cottage, the gun in his hand, using the sound of the voices in the hallway to cover his approach. He’d heard the two shots when he was halfway across the kitchen floor, followed by the muffled conversation between a man and a child, who he guessed were Frank Bale and Max.

It was only when he got to the door that led into the hallway that he heard Bale tell Max to shut his eyes and they’d start counting together.

Scope’s view might have been blocked by the staircase, but he could guess what was about to happen. The problem was that Bale sounded as if he was a good fifteen feet away, and the .22 Scope was holding was going to be inaccurate over distance, especially if he had no time to focus in on the target.

But he was going to have to do something. He had no choice.

‘One,’ said Bale.

Which was when Scope came out from behind the door, holding the revolver two-handed, finger poised on the trigger, yelling out to disorientate Bale. He had a split second to take in the scene: the body of the woman on the floor; Max standing halfway down the narrow hallway in his school uniform, eyes squeezed tightly shut as he waited for what he must have known was his death; and behind him, the hulking figure of Bale holding out the pistol, ready to fire, his face already registering the shock as he caught sight of Scope.

Bale swung the gun round as Scope broke cover from behind the staircase, but Scope was already firing. He emptied out all three rounds, at least one of which struck Bale in the upper body. As Bale stumbled and banged into the wall, he got off a round that flew past Scope’s head. At the same time Max, who’d been standing stock-still, finally reacted, diving to the floor as Scope jumped over him and charged Bale, throwing the .22 at his head.

The gun hit Bale full in the face, making him cry out in pain, but he still had the presence of mind to point his pistol at Scope, who had to dive the last few feet, his arm managing to knock the gun aside so that the bullet flew wildly.

The momentum of Scope’s attack sent both men crashing to the floor. Bale gasped, winded by the fall, but desperation drove him on, and as Scope grabbed the wrist of his gun hand, trying to make him let go, Bale made a last ditch to throw him off. Scope hung on, but Bale managed to force his gun arm from the floor, the end of the suppressor swinging perilously close to Scope’s face. The gun went off, and Scope actually felt the heat from the bullet as it passed by, which was when he made a sudden push on Bale’s gun arm with everything he had. Bale was already pulling the trigger a second time as Scope drove his arm down hard so that the end of the suppressor was actually touching the folds of flesh beneath Bale’s chin.

The bullet ripped through Bale’s head, exiting his skull in a cloud of blood and bone. His body immediately went slack and Scope sat back up, exhaling with relief.

Which was when he heard Max cry out from behind him.

Grabbing Bale’s gun from the dead man’s hand, he swung round and saw the woman he’d thought was dead grabbing Max in a chokehold and pressing a knife against his gut. Her face was a mask of sheer venom as she stared down Scope.

‘Drop the gun and throw it over here,’ she hissed, crouching down beside Max, using him as cover. ‘Otherwise I kill him. Right here. Right now.’

Scope could hear the excitement in her voice. She actually wanted to kill Max. She’d almost certainly kill them both if he let her have the gun. She also looked unhurt, which meant she had to be wearing a bulletproof vest to have withstood the earlier gunshot.

‘I said, Fucking drop it. Do you want me to start cutting him? Because I will. I’ll tear him into little fucking pieces.’

Scope aimed the gun just above the arm that held Max in the chokehold, so it was pointed directly at the woman’s right eye. His arm was steady even though the tension was tearing at his insides. ‘If you let Max go, I’ll let you walk out of here. If you hurt him, I’ll kill you. I know you’re wearing a vest, but I’m a good shot, and I can take you in the head. You want to die like Frank here?’

A flash of doubt crossed her face but disappeared just as quickly. ‘I’m going to give you one last chance. Drop the fucking gun, or I gut the kid right now.’ She crouched down even further behind him, so she was almost out of sight. ‘Right fucking now!’

He sighed. A head shot was almost impossible. ‘Okay, I’m going to do as you say. Don’t do anything stupid.’

‘No fucking tricks.’

He lowered the gun three inches and pulled the trigger, shooting her in the forearm. She screamed in pain and teetered backwards, letting go of Max, who dived out of the way as Scope took aim a second time, and shot her in the face.

For a long second she stared at him in shock, still crouched on her haunches, the blood pouring down over her mouth and onto her chin, before finally she fell slowly onto her side and lay there unmoving.

Scope got to his feet and helped Max up. His nephew was weeping silently and Scope held him close. ‘It’s all right now,’ he whispered. ‘It’s all over.’ He led Max out onto the doorstep and asked him to wait a moment, then went back inside. Crouching down, he placed the pistol in Frank Bale’s hand, before picking up the .22 revolver and putting it beside the woman’s body. When the police arrived, it would look like the two of them had shot at each other, and that Frank had come out on top, killing her, before turning the gun on himself. It wasn’t exactly foolproof but it was going to have to do.

When he was done, he went back outside and put an arm round Max, who looked up at him with a mixture of shock and relief. He even managed a small smile. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

It had been five years since Scope had set eyes on his nephew, so it was no surprise that Max didn’t remember him. In a way the lack of recognition hurt, but Scope knew it was a lot easier this way. ‘I’m just a man who likes to help people. I’m going to take you back to your mum now, but could you do me a little favour?’

‘What’s that?’

‘Don’t tell the police about me.’

‘Why not?’

‘They might not understand that I had to shoot those people.’

‘Why not? They were very bad. They deserved it.’

‘That they did, but sometimes the police don’t see it like that.’

‘Okay,’ said Max. ‘I won’t say anything.’ He looked up at Scope with wide, innocent eyes that had seen far too much this past twenty-four hours. ‘Can I go home now?’

Scope smiled and gave his shoulder a squeeze. ‘Sure you can.’

The man shook his head silently, the anger building inside him as he stared at the TV screen. All that planning and they’d failed. It would all have been so perfect as well. Everyone would have blamed the Asian gambling syndicates for the explosion at such a high-profile hearing into football match fixing, when the real target had been sitting only five feet away from Tim Horton the whole time.

Garth Crossman, the charismatic government minister with the common touch, tipped for the top in the Conservative Party, should have been dead by now. Instead, his handsome features were filling the TV screen as he gave an account of the dramatic events inside the hearing that morning. He was still dressed in the suit he’d been wearing earlier and his well-coiffed head of silver hair looked perfect. His voice was deep and steady as he spoke, proving once again to his growing army of supporters that he was exactly the kind of man you looked up to in a crisis. The irony was that this attack was going to leave him far stronger.

Frank Bale’s boss knew a lot about Garth Crossman, and much of it was unpleasant. If his supporters had any idea what Garth Crossman was really like, they’d desert him in droves. But they didn’t, and they were unlikely to either. He was far too clever for that. The problem was it also meant he’d realize very quickly that he’d been the target this morning, not the sports agent, and it wouldn’t take long to work out who’d been behind it.

Frank’s boss took a sip of the whisky in his hand and sighed. There was going to be trouble ahead. Too much was riding on this whole thing.

It was best he prepared for it.

They met inside the tiny car park of a deserted nature reserve a couple of miles north of Henley-on-Thames.

As soon as Diane saw Scope pull up next to her, she was out of her car in an instant. With a cry of relief, Max ran into her arms. Scope watched them hold each other, feeling a strange mixture of joy and melancholy. He remembered holding his daughter like that a long time ago. Not wanting to encroach, he stayed in the car and turned away from the scene. His engine was still running and he was just about to pull away, when there was a tap on the window.

Diane stared down at him, her eyes alight with relief and gratitude. She was clutching Max to her side and his face was buried in her coat.

He let down the window and smiled up at her.

‘Thank you, Scope,’ she said, her voice still a little unsteady. ‘I don’t know what else to say.’

‘You don’t have to say anything. That goes for when you talk to the police too. I’d appreciate it if my name didn’t get mentioned.’

‘It won’t. I promise.’ She leaned down so her face was close to his. Her skin was puffy and red, and the stress of the last twenty-four hours was etched deeply into it. ‘And are we safe now?’ she whispered.

He nodded. ‘You won’t be bothered by those people again. It’s over. You go back and look after your son. He needs you now.’

She stared at him for a couple of seconds, and it was difficult to read what she was thinking, but he had a feeling that, amidst the genuine gratitude, a part of her was scared of him and what he was capable of. He was sure that she’d never want to see him again either, because he would always be a reminder of the most terrible experience of her life. Fair enough. He understood that.

Finally she turned away and walked with Max back to her car.

Scope watched them both get in, then reversed out of the spot and away from their permanently changed lives. He didn’t want to go back home, so instead he wound his way through the back roads that dotted this part of the Chiltern Hills until he finally found himself on the M40, heading north. He had no idea where he was going or what he was going to do when he got there. He just felt a need to get away.

He was almost at the Lake District when he heard confirmation on the radio that Tim Horton was the sole fatality in the select committee hearing explosion. It had now been confirmed that it had been caused by a bomb, and the media were finally beginning to report that Tim might have been the man in possession of it. Because he’d been running for the door at the time of the explosion, the force of the blast had been directed against the main wall and away from those inside the room. The result was that the only other reported casualty was a nearby security guard, who was currently in hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

In the end, Tim had shown a bravery that Scope wouldn’t have expected of him. He’d sacrificed his life for his son, but he’d done it in a way that had avoided taking many innocent lives. That took real guts, and it made Scope proud of him. It also made him glad that he’d helped save Max, even though he’d had to kill three people in the process. It was possible that the police would find out about his involvement and come after him, although there was nothing he could do about that now. And anyway, that was the risk you took when you involved yourself in other people’s battles, and Scope had never been able to resist a cry for help.

He thought for a few moments about whether he regretted sticking his life and his liberty on the line like that. But a few moments was all it took. As he looked out of the car window to where the sun was beginning to set in a fiery gold blaze above the rolling hills to the west, he knew he’d done the right thing, and it pleased him.

Some of the more eagle-eyed of you may notice that I’ve taken a couple of minor liberties with both the layout of the House of Commons and the Royal Middlesex Hospital. These were done deliberately to help with the smooth running of the story which, in the end, is always the most important thing!

All the very best.

I’ve been worried that I’m not who they say I am for a while now.

It started a week or so back after I fell down the cellar steps en route to getting a bottle of red wine and smacked my head on the stone floor. They kept me in the local hospital overnight as I was showing the symptoms for mild concussion, and ever since they let me out, things haven’t felt quite right.