Denied to all but Ghosts (53 page)

The only person to pass comment on the
bizarre sight of four people running towards the manor was a
six-year-old boy messily eating a 99 ice cream cornet. He saw a
lean young man in the lead closely followed by a tall blonde man in
a flailing long woollen coat. There followed a big West Indian man
and a small dark haired woman who brought up the rear. When the boy
asked his parents what was happening he was told to shut up and eat
his ice cream before it melted.

The four runners stopped by the front door of
Yoxter Manor to catch their breath at Cavendish’s insistence.

“Stay here, Edward, no need for you to be
involved. Well, Josh?” asked an excited panting Cavendish.

“Well what?” gasped Houghton.

“You and Blanch ready to go in?” asked the
Untersucher as he withdrew his chrome-plated revolver. Houghton
stood motionless as he fought for his breath. “Where is your
firearm?” enquired Cavendish.

“In the car,” answered Houghton.

“And yours, Blanch?” demanded the
Untersucher. She shrugged her shoulders, sensing the German’s
displeasure.

“What bloody good are they doing there!”
exploded Cavendish. Houghton shook his head in resignation.

“We are here to talk to Victor, since when
was he supposed to have shot anyone?” shouted Houghton
defensively.

“We don’t know that!” fumed Cavendish.

“Well it seems to me that there is a hell of
lot you don’t know, Cavendish. I thought you were supposed to be
good!”

Houghton noted the anger that flared in the
Untersuchers cold eyes and for a second perceived a fleeting
apparition of being shot by an irate inquisitor. The same vision
passed through Cavendish’s mind but he quickly dismissed the image
despite its appeal.

“I think you’d better collect your weapon,
Chief Inspector. We have to assume that Brad Patterson is
armed.”

Blanch watched the exchange between the two
men with a wretched heart. She felt responsible for the collapse of
their carefully laid plans, if only she had prevented Beckett and
Emily from visiting the fortune-teller. If only she had not been
once again seduced by Emily’s charm.

“Come on, Blanch,” declared Houghton
irritably. “We’ll collect our weapons. For God’s sake, Cavendish,
wait until we get back before you decide to do anything
stupid!”

The Untersucher nodded and watched as
Houghton and Blanch jogged towards their parked car. He guessed it
would take a good five minutes for them to complete the round trip.
Edward Montgomery stared wide mouthed as Cavendish grinned over
excitedly and carefully opened the front door.

The hallway was deserted as Cavendish trod
gently upon the flag stone floor. He halted and tilted his head in
an effort to increase his aural awareness and was rewarded with the
unmistakably strident tones on the Montgomery matriarch.

He edged along the corridor towards the
source of the sound and realised it was coming from the same room
that he and his friend had previously visited. The door stood ajar
and without a moment’s hesitation, he walked into the lion’s
den.

Cavendish succeeded in creeping nonchalantly
five or more feet into the room without anyone noticing his
presence. To his right, at the far end of the white leather sofa,
stood Estelle and Ralph, their attention fixed ahead upon their
wilful daughter.

Jasmine stood to Cavendish's left by the TV
where he had conducted his interview. She had the blade of the open
scissors pressed against Emily’s throat and appeared to be coercing
Emily towards the doorway he had just entered.

Directly opposite him stood the short
arrogant figure he assumed to be Brad Patterson, who he had no
doubt been guilty of patricide as well as the murder of Paul
Slingsby. Brad stood confidently in front of the French windows
watching with amusement the torment of Emily Spelman.

The Untersucher experienced an unfamiliar
emotional kick in the gut as he caught sight of Thomas Beckett
lying immobile on the floor in his crumpled and bloodied new suit.
Such an emotion of pity was usually reserved solely for
himself.

Cavendish appraised Emily’s situation before
he spoke. Someone had hacked sadistically at her hair so that what
remained stood spiky and bleeding against her scalp. The top half
of her dress was gathered around her waist revealing a lacy blue
bra. He dismissed the image of Tina leaning nonchalantly against
the doorframe his kitchen.

Yet it was her face that most disturbed his
underdeveloped sensibilities for he recognised the familiar
expression of capitulation. The Good Doctor apparently had no fight
left in her.

Emily had closed her eyes to the world and
stood rigidly still, as if comatosed. Her life, like her dress, was
in tatters for the second time in less than a week. She felt
reconciled to her fate, for she could resist no more. She had
experienced despair and happiness, and this final taste of the
degenerate side of life was the final straw. She fatalistically
decided it was perhaps no more than she deserved. She would have
preferred to die with more dignity and her last reflections would
be upon how shit her life had been.

“What on earth are you doing to my Emily?”
declared Cavendish. The eyes of room snapped in his direction to
see the tall scar-faced man standing side on to Brad, his revolver
raised in a two handed shooting position, aimed directly at the
American, whose automatic was pointed casually at the floor.

“Move one fucking centimetre and I’ll blow
your fucking head clean off, which is what I should have done in
Plymouth.” There was no mistaking the ferocious intent in the
Untersucher’s voice.

Brad glanced nervously at Jasmine to receive
his instruction. The Montgomery girl snarled with feral fury at
Cavendish and pressed the scissors firmly against Emily’s rigid
neck, inducing a trickle of blood as she lightly cut the skin.

“Back off, Butch!” she demanded, “the slag is
ours!”

“To do what?” Cavendish suddenly sounded
relaxed, almost chatty, as he observed Jasmine with his peripheral
vision whilst keeping his attention firmly fixed on Brad.

“Brad wants her and I want to watch. We
should have had her in Wells after we killed her boyfriend. How
many men does the slut have for Christ sake!” exclaimed
Jasmine.

Estelle released a gasp of horror at the
sound of her own daughter’s confession. Brad grinned, emboldened by
Jasmine’s psychotic bravado.

“Brad wouldn’t know what to do with a lady
like Emily; she’s not a spoilt little rich girl like you,” uttered
Cavendish accusingly.

Brad again flicked his eyes nervously towards
Jasmine to see how she would react to the German’s goading. Jasmine
laughed with delight and pushed the scissor blade deeper into the
taut skin of Emily’s throat. Jasmine was desperately looking
forward to the moment when Brad had tired of the woman and she
could enjoy the blood pumping from her carotid, as it did from the
pigs, which her father had so perversely enjoyed making her witness
at the local abattoir when she was a young girl.

Cavendish had to concede he had no idea how
he was going to resolve the standoff he had created. He should have
simply shot Brad as he entered the room and dealt with the young
woman. He was still considering his options when a familiar figure
walked up to the French window having crossed the walled
garden.

The bald headed Hugo Victor rapidly appraised
the events unfolding in the room. He stood peering through the
glass to Brad’s left and Cavendish watched him exaggeratedly raise
his left hand as if he was about to perform a mime.

Victor extended three fingers and
mouthed.

“Three."

He twisted his hand, folded his ring finger,
leaving only two fingers visible, and mouthed again.

“Two." The countdown progressed until, at
what would have been zero, Hugo Victor hammered on the exterior of
the glass window with his clenched fist.

Instinct has a lot to answer for, some
ramifications are benevolent and some are not. Instinct proved the
undoing of Brad Patterson and the saviour of Marchel Cavendish,
plus some smart help from Hugo Victor.

At the alarming sound of the thump behind
him, Brad instinctively turned to face the noise, as did everyone
else in the room save for Emily, the unconscious Beckett and one
prepared Untersucher.

Even as the blow was being delivered,
Cavendish had commenced to swing his aim towards Jasmine. As the
blow struck the window, Jasmine snapped her head to her left, the
movement revealing enough of her body to present a target for
Cavendish to deliver a well-aimed shot. The Python belched its
bullet and before the sound had registered in the room, the bullet
tore through Jasmine’s right shoulder. Emily and Jasmine dropped to
the parquet like de-stringed marionettes.

Brad’s football training again served him
well as he recovered from his momentary distraction. As Jasmine was
falling to the floor he fired off one shot from the hip with his
automatic, the bullet impacted harmlessly high against the wall to
Cavendish’s left, coating him in a thin layer of plaster dust.

The Untersucher was returning his aim towards
Brad when a second round erupted from Brad’s automatic. This time
the round narrowly missed the German’s stomach by a matter of
inches, close enough to make the inquisitor flinch and delay his
shot on Brad. With the benefit bestowed by an automatic, Brad was
ready to fire a third round and now his aim at Cavendish would be
true.

Instinct played its part for the second time
that day, though not in a way foreseen by anyone in the room or
outside for that matter. It was the impulse of a father’s love for
his daughter. Ralph was not the most demonstrative of men; he left
that sort of thing to his wife who was so much more proficient at
it. Nevertheless, his often-inappropriate love for his little girl
was undeniable and as he watched his daughter fall his reaction was
unequivocal, it was to rush to his daughter’s aide.

Regrettably, for Ralph, his actions led him
directly into the path of Brad’s third round that was destined for
Cavendish. The round tore through Ralph’s right side, squeezing
through a gap between two ribs, cheating the slug of most of its
kinetic energy. However, the bullet retained sufficient impetus to
tumble through his chest cavity and shredded his aorta before its
lethal progress was arrested by a left rib.

Ralph was dead before he hit his wife’s
beloved parquet floor. So too was Brad, for a fraction of a second
later Cavendish’s second round tore off the back of the young
American's head and shattered the safety glass of the French window
behind him.

A stunning silence prevailed in the room as
the ears of those still conscious rang with the concussive
resonance of gunshots fired within the confined space. Houghton
stumbled into the room, quickly followed by Blanch and both froze
as they absorbed the carnage meted out at Yoxter Manor.

Cavendish was the first to recover and barked
his orders.

“Blanch, check on Emily please. Josh, take a
look at Thomas with me if you would be so kind.” Houghton noticed
how the volume of Cavendish’s voice dipped away at the end of his
order.

Cavendish squatted at Beckett’s side whilst
Houghton looked down at the slumped untidy heap that constituted
Thomas Beckett, his hidden face lying in a pool of his own
blood.

“Oh shit, Marchel. What the hell have you
done?” cried the quivering voice of Houghton.

Cavendish fumbled for his penknife in his
coat pocket and severed the plastic tie around Beckett’s wrists
before gently rolling him over onto his back. Both he and Houghton
were visibly shaken by the appearance of Beckett's battered face,
and Houghton finally appreciated that it was not a bullet that had
inflicted such blunt force trauma.

Cavendish lowered his face to Beckett’s
ear.

“Thomas, it’s Marchel. Can you hear me?”
Beckett lay as motionless as Brad Patterson. Cavendish placed his
ear above Beckett's mangled mouth and listened carefully. He
discerned a faint gasping sound. He probed Beckett’s pulped mouth
as delicately as he could with his fingers, avoiding the remnants
of his shattered teeth.

“Shit, Josh, he’s hardly able to breathe, his
tongue is swollen!” Panic coloured Cavendish's statement.

Blanch had meanwhile freed Emily’s bound
hands and helped her to her feet. She held a supporting arm around
Emily, whilst her right hand held up the flapping material of
Emily’s dress in a touching attempt to preserve her modesty.

It was only as Emily became aware of
Cavendish’s efforts that she regained a degree of reason. She
shrugged off the comforting hold of Blanch and crossed the short
distance to Beckett’s side, oblivious to her own wounds.

Cavendish pre-empted Emily's enquiry.

“He’s not dead yet, Emily. He will be if I
don’t do something fast.” He spoke bitterly towards his friend,
“don’t you go thinking you’re going to die on me, Thomas!”

Emily looked beseechingly at Cavendish.

“Do something, Marchel!” she implored.
Cavendish looked fiercely into Emily’s pleading eyes. Could he
perform the task that had coalesced in his mind?

“Do something useful and hold his arms steady
for me, just in case,” instructed Cavendish. He whispered the words
to Emily, who gazed at Cavendish with a bemused expression. He held
her stare until satisfied that he had her full attention and gave,
what for Cavendish, was a rather smart boyish smile.

“I’ve never done this before, Emily. However,
he will die if I don’t attempt it. Do I make myself clear?” Emily
wiped away the blood from her scalp wounds that refused to be
stymied and threatened to impair the vision of her right eye. She
nodded at Cavendish.

“Hold his arms, Emily,” repeated Cavendish.
Emily complied and looked disconsolately into the face of
Beckett.