The Catch (58 page)

****

Stemper knew he’d never retrieve the gun in time to fire it: the instant he bent down his assailant would crack his skull.

Plan A had failed, just as he’d feared it would. Time for Plan B.

He kicked the Glock away from him. It went skittering over the driveway and the young man watched it go, seemingly stunned by what he was seeing. Then he made a belated lunge for it, and that was Stemper’s cue to run.

Cate was quicker, and smarter, snatching at Stemper as he fled. But she couldn’t move freely, and it was easy enough to evade her as he dashed to the car.

He threw himself in and started the engine. The young man had picked up the gun and was standing about fifteen feet away, slightly behind and to the left of the Ford Focus.

Turning the car was impossible. Stemper put it into reverse and revved the engine. Heard a shout and realised the gun was coming up.

The man yelled at him: ‘Stop!’

Six rounds. Stemper had fired once into the bushes, once at his assailant, then three times at the ground, deliberately leaving only one shot.

He prayed that the young man would use it.

****

Dan thought he was capable of shooting. But now the moment had come, he wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to do. He wanted justice, which meant a trial. It meant keeping this man alive.

But not letting him escape.

The Ford Focus reversed about six feet in a single jerking movement. It brought the driver level with Dan. He was a bland-looking man in his fifties; the sort of face that would melt into a crowd.

Dan used both hands to steady his aim. He didn’t want Jerry to see how much he was shaking.

‘Get out of the car,’ he ordered.

Jerry turned away, his gaze calm but distant, as if he required a second to reflect on the instruction he’d been given.

He’ll see sense, Dan thought. He’ll surrender.

Then the man reversed again, wildly, the wheels screaming for traction as the Focus wobbled and swerved and raced backwards through the gates and down the lane.

For an instant Dan was frozen with indecision. Then he turned, lined up on the figure silhouetted at the wheel, and fired.

He thought the bullet hit the windscreen, but the car didn’t slow down or deviate from its path. Dan ran forward a few paces, aware that he had only a split second to get off another shot before the Focus was gone. He aimed, pulled the trigger, but there was only an empty click. He tried it again, realised he was out of ammunition.

The killer had got away.

But we’re alive
. That was his next thought.
We’re alive
.

He ran to Cate, who was struggling to stand. He helped her up and saw that her hands were bound with nylon rope, knotted too tightly to prise apart with his fingers.

As he groped in his pocket for his keys, Cate was spitting frantically. ‘Wipe it off, wipe it off!’

Dan tore his shirt open and used it to clean the blood from her mouth and chin. Her face was bruised and scratched, but she didn’t seem to be badly hurt. She leaned to see past him, while he dug a key into the knot to loosen it.

‘He’s gone, hasn’t he?’ she said.

‘Yes. It’s safe.’

‘But he might come back.’

‘I know. We have to get out of here.’

‘What’s happened to Robbie? I thought he’d ...’ The words petered out as she read the expression on Dan’s face. Her shoulders dropped. He caught her as her legs gave way, her body almost deflating before his eyes.

‘Oh no. No.’

‘I’m sorry, Cate. I really am. But we need to hold it together for a bit longer.’

****

The warning made her unreasonably cross. ‘You don’t have to tell me that.’

‘God, no. I’m sorry.’ The rope came free and Cate let out a groan of relief as she brought her hands in front of her and rubbed some life into them. Fighting back tears, she said, ‘I heard the phone call, when he was arranging to meet Robbie. It was a trap, wasn’t it?’

‘I’m afraid so. And now he’s got away, and we don’t know the first thing about him.’

‘He told me his name was Jerry ...’

Dan nodded. ‘I don’t think that’s true. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t the man I saw ...’ He faltered.

‘What?’

‘I’m sorry. Robbie
did
pocket the money on Tuesday night. I didn’t find out until Wednesday, after we’d seen you. I made him take it back, but someone was lying in wait. He tried to photograph us.’

‘So you knew there were people looking for you?’

Another nod, forlorn and apologetic. Cate realised this wasn’t the time for recriminations. With his help, she tried to take a few steps, her knee throbbing from where she’d been kicked. Dan led her into the darkness beyond the house and explained that Jerry, whoever he was, had been trying to kill all three of them, probably to frame them for a number of other deaths.

Cate confirmed it. ‘He killed the people he was working with. I saw one of the bodies at the house where they were holding me.’

‘So how come he wasn’t able to identify me?’

‘Because I swore that I didn’t know you.’

‘And Jerry believed you? He didn’t threaten to torture you or something?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Even she was surprised by her matter-of-fact tone. ‘He hurt me. But I didn’t tell him.’

****

They exchanged what other information they had while they hurried to the Corsa. Dan couldn’t dispel the fear that Jerry had merely gone off to regroup. What if he’d kept a spare gun in the car and was hiding in the lane?

‘You know we could be driving into an ambush,’ he said as he started the car.

‘I don’t care. We can’t stay here.’ Cate gasped. ‘Oh God. I have to tell Mum about Robbie ...’

‘The police might beat us to it, if the body’s been discovered by now.’ Dan sighed. ‘I wonder if we should call them right away, from here.’

Cate shook her head. ‘No. Let’s go. Take our chances.’

He steered the car past the barn. The echoes of last week’s dispute with Robbie didn’t immediately occur to him, but the thought must have been lurking at the back of his mind.

We’re doing it again. We’re running away
.

He leaned forward as they reached the driveway, craning to see into every shadow. Once they were through the gates he accelerated, and they raced down the lane to the main road without incident. It was only when they’d gone a mile or so towards the A283 that the reality of it struck him. He swore under his breath.

‘What’s the catch?’

Cate looked at him, confused. ‘Dan ...?’

The shock was so profound, he wasn’t sure if he could put it into words for her. ‘He’s got us. This is no different than if he’d killed us back there.’

Cate made a sceptical sound. ‘Well, it is. Because we’re still in one piece.’

‘No. In terms of his objectives. The set-up is the same. We’re going to take the blame for this.’

****

At first Cate thought he was just being dramatic. Her grief at the loss of her brother weighed heavily enough as it was, but as the car sped towards Brighton she reviewed what she knew as though it were a brief to be mastered in double quick time. She put together the case for the prosecution, and the case for the defence, and she saw that Dan was right.

It was a brilliant stitch-up.

The brains behind the extortion – the Blakes – were dead in one location. Robbie was dead in another. The paperwork that supported the plot was gone. Cate and Dan had nothing: no evidence of Jerry’s involvement, no clue as to his real identity.

‘Apart from what might be at the house in Surrey,’ she said. ‘There’ll be DNA to prove I was a prisoner.’

Dan groaned, slapping a hand against his forehead. ‘I fired the gun.’

‘What?’

‘Forensics. For his strategy to work, it helps if I’ve fired the same gun that was used in all these killings. And I did. I shot at him as he drove away, but I missed. There was only one bullet left in the gun. I bet he knew that. I bet he planned it that way.’

‘You think he allowed for the fact that you’d miss?’

‘Why not? A moving target, and I’d never picked up a gun in my life before. Of course I was going to miss.’

‘Where is the gun now?’

‘Shit. I put it down to untie you and left it on the drive.’

Cate sighed. ‘Maybe we should go back and get it?’

****

Dan saw the pensive look on her face. It was another grim reminder of last Tuesday with Robbie, running through their options without a thought for morality.

‘And do what?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know. But if we’ve got it with us, we can decide whether to ... hand it in. Or get rid of it.’

‘No. We’re not covering this up. We can’t.’

‘But you’ve just said it yourself, if there’s no evidence to trace the real killer, the police are bound to suspect us. Well, not us. You. Especially when they hear that you knocked down Hank O’Brien.’

‘I’m still going to tell them.’

‘Dan, please. Think about this. You don’t deserve to go to prison for crimes you didn’t commit.’

But what about the crimes I
did
commit?
He wanted to say it, but for some reason he couldn’t. He sneaked another glance and saw that Cate was shattered, utterly drained, and so was he. They were running out of energy, running out of options.

‘Shall I take you home?’

‘Please.’ Then she said: ‘No. He knows where I live.’

‘All right. My place.’

He thought Cate might protest, but she didn’t. They drove on in silence for a few minutes, enveloped in a misty darkness, the beams of approaching headlights spearing the sky. For Dan it was a relief to be out here, just one more anonymous vehicle, gliding through the night like a ship far out at sea: lonely, distant, safe.

But soon they would have to dock, back in the real world. And then it had to be faced: what he had done, who he really was.

****

Stemper felt relatively sanguine on the journey to Brighton. He’d had to depart from his original plan, but the essential elements were still in place.

He had recovered the paperwork before it was made public. He’d eliminated Jerry and the Blakes – the only people who could have supplied the authorities with substantial information about him – and he had left Cate and her friend in a position where they would inevitably come under suspicion for the murder of Robert Scott. To confuse the issue further, he had deposited Robbie’s bloodstained suit at the home of the Blakes.

Now only one loose end remained.

At Dan’s suggestion, Cate used his phone to send her mother a text, insisting she was all right and apologising for any fuss she’d caused. Then she switched the phone off before she or anyone else could call them. They were on the edge of the city, emerging from the Southwick tunnel and cresting the hill where the glittering sweep of lights first came into view.

Dan had continued to brood, and now he said, ‘Another reason for going to the police is that it’s safer.’

‘How’d you work that out?’

‘Because his key motive for trying again is to silence us once and for all. Right now he’s relying on the fact that we’ll keep quiet, because of our part in Hank’s death. If the police manage to connect us to any of this, we’ll look all the more guilty for not coming forward. And if they don’t, all Jerry needs to do is wait a decent interval, then finish the job when it suits him.’

‘Okay. I can see the logic there.’

‘Whereas, if we own up to it immediately, there’s nothing to be gained by killing us.’

She conceded the point, but said, ‘Are you really willing to go to prison? Because you will, Dan. Once you’re in the interview room, facing somebody like DC Avery, somebody determined to put you away ...’

‘Cate, I know—’

She raised a hand. ‘Even if I can get DS Thomsett to believe what I tell him about this man who abducted me, I still can’t prove that Jerry killed my brother. And you can’t prove that you
didn’t
kill him.’

‘No, you’re right. The accident with O’Brien will give them the perfect motive. And the gun has my prints on it.’

To Cate’s ears, he sounded grimly satisfied, but she was disconsolate. ‘It’s a slam dunk. You won’t be able to fight it.’

‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ He said nothing else for a while. They were climbing the last steep hill that separated Hove from Brighton, the slip road to Devil’s Dyke off to their left. The Corsa was struggling with the gradient, forcing Dan to ease up on his speed.

In a quiet voice, he said, ‘My parents used to say, if you do something wrong you should put your hand up to it and take your punishment. Last week I failed to do that, and what I’ve realised is that I can’t accept the way I behaved. I can’t live with myself. It’s as simple as that.’

****

They drew up outside the house. ‘Have you seen what we look like?’ Cate said as they got out of the car. Dan nodded.

Joan must have spotted them: she opened the front door, frowning when she recognised Cate. ‘Oh, I thought it was Hayley—’ Then she registered the state they were in, looking down to see Cate’s stockinged feet encrusted with blood. ‘Good Lord, what’s happened to you two?’

‘Not now, Joan.’ Dan sounded brusque rather than rude, but still regretted it at once. ‘Just let us get sorted out, and we’ll try to explain.’

‘Well, was it a fight or something? Were you in an accident?’

He shook his head sadly, took Cate’s hand and led her upstairs.

‘Are you really going to tell her about this?’ she asked.

‘I’ll have to. I’ve got to prepare her somehow.’

As they reached the landing, Louis’s door opened and he came out, jerking to a halt.