The Lethal Target (10 page)

‘Yes.’ Jake nodded. ‘That’s what we have to do.’ He turned and set off back the way they’d come. ‘I’ll talk to Alec MacClain. He’ll set things in motion.’

The walk back to the guest house was at a much faster pace than the walk out, Jake made sure of that, determined to show the urgency he felt about getting the search for ‘Helen Cooper’ under way. He could tell, however, that Manvers didn’t seem impressed. The Immigration officer remained silent all the way back.

Susan Webb was standing outside in the parking area as they returned, and Manvers broke away from Jake and went to her. They put their heads together and engaged in a whispered conversation, and then the two of them went off again but in a different direction. Jake felt a bolt of fear. Had Webb found something out? Had she discovered where Lauren was hiding?

As Jake entered the guest house, he ran into Alec and Jeannie MacClain. The worried-looking couple had obviously been waiting for him.

‘Can I have a word with you, Mr Wells?’ asked Alec MacClain.

‘Of course,’ said Jake.

‘Outside would be best,’ Alec MacClain added. ‘Less chance of being overheard.’

Jake followed them through the guest house, and out the back door into the rear garden. It was obvious that both were under stress. Jeannie MacClain, in particular, looked very strained. Alec followed them past the raised beds with vegetables to the compost bins, a good distance from the house. Alec turned to Jake, his expression grim.

‘What are you up to with our children?’ he demanded.

‘Both Rona and Robbie have come back in strange moods,’ said Jeannie. ‘Robbie’s angry and Rona . . . Well, Rona’s suddenly very nervous and secretive.’

Jake hesitated. This was no time for lying, Alec and Jeannie would see through him easily. And the MacClains were already involved.

‘It’s about the hidden books,’ said Jake. ‘The Order of Malichea.’

Alec and Jeannie exchanged concerned looks.

‘I know that your brother, Dougie, was a Watcher,’ Jake continued. ‘And that Rona and Robbie are too.’

‘But that’s over now,’ said Jeannie. ‘The Russians have got the book. Robbie told us.’

‘It’s not over,’ said Jake, shaking his head. ‘We plan to get the book back off the Russians.’

Jeannie frowned.

‘Why have Immigration turned up?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ admitted Jake. ‘It’s all a bit too much of a coincidence, if you ask me . . .’

He was cut off by a scream, followed by a girl’s voice from inside the house calling: ‘Help! Help!’

‘That’s Rona!’ said Alec MacClain, and he rushed towards the guest house, closely followed by Jeannie and Jake.

Robbie appeared from the side of the house, a look of concern on his face.

‘What’s happened?’ he demanded.

But no one stopped to talk; Alec, Jeannie and Jake were running, into the house, then up the stairs to the first floor.

Rona stood at the end of the short corridor. There was blood on her dress. At her feet lay the body of a man.

‘I thought he’d just fainted,’ said Rona. ‘Then I turned him over . . .’

Alec and Jake had gone to the body. It was John Gordon, and his throat had been cut. Blood had gushed out and had soaked his clothes.

‘Jeannie, get the ambulance and the police,’ said Alec.

As he spoke, Jeannie was already halfway down the stairs, running to the phone at the reception desk.

First Dougie MacClain, now John Gordon, thought Jake.

‘What’s that in his hand?’ asked Robbie.

They looked. A torn-off piece of material was clenched in Gordon’s closed left fist. Robbie shot a suspicious look at Jake.

‘That looks the same as your jacket,’ he said.

Jake shook his head.

‘There are loads of jackets made of the same material,’ he said.

‘Not here,’ said Robbie. And suddenly he had snatched the key ring from his father’s belt and was moving swiftly towards Jake’s and Lauren’s room.

‘Hey!’ called Jake.

‘Robbie!’ called Alec.

But Robbie had already unlocked the door of the room and rushed in. Jake hurried after him.

‘Now look!’ he protested. ‘You can’t just come in here and . . .’

Robbie had thrown open the wardrobe door and was rummaging through the clothes hanging up. With a cry of triumph he pulled a jacket from its hanger.

‘There!’ he yelled, brandishing it.

Jake looked at the jacket, stunned. There was a tear in the material, near the pocket.

And it’ll match the one in Gordon’s hand, thought Jake with a deep sick feeling. I’m being framed!

‘Look, Dad!’ said Robbie, holding the jacket towards his father, pointing at the place where the material had been torn from it.

‘I didn’t do it,’ insisted Jake, turning to Alec MacClain. ‘This is a set-up.’

‘Oh yes?’ demanded Robbie. His face showed a mixture of anger and triumph. Turning to his father, he said, ‘I bet it was him who killed Dougie. Him and his girlfriend!’

‘No!’ protested Jake.

There was the sound of a woman giving an angry shout from downstairs, and then the pounding of feet up the stairs. They hurried out of the room to see Pam Gordon arriving at the top of the stairs. She stopped when she saw the dead body of her husband, and then moved purposefully towards him. Alec MacClain tried to step in her way, but she pushed him roughly aside. She knelt by the body, her face changing from pain to despair, and then deep deep anger, all in a few seconds.

‘He did it!’ shouted Robbie, pointing at Jake.

Pam Gordon turned and looked up at Jake, and the hatred and anger in her eyes seared into him. If she could, she’d kill me right now, thought Jake.

‘I didn’t,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t me!’

‘We all ought to go downstairs and wait for the police,’ said Alec MacClain.

‘I’m staying here with him,’ said Pam Gordon.

Her tone was flat and obstinate. There was no way she was going to be moved from John Gordon’s body. Alec MacClain nodded, then he shepherded Jake, Rona and Robbie downstairs.

Chapter 15

Jake sat in the bar area, his mind in a whirl. Who had killed John Gordon? Someone who’d been able to get into his and Lauren’s room and tear a piece off his jacket to plant in Gordon’s hand. One of the MacClain family? They had the key to his room. No, Jake told himself dismissively. Not the MacClains. The Russians? But there had been no sign of any of the Russians around the guest house. But then a good assassin wouldn’t be spotted. They’d creep in, do the kill, then creep out again. And they’d have the tools to open a simple lock.

What about Muir? Could it have been the American? He hadn’t been seen since he left that morning for a ramble over the countryside; but that didn’t mean he hadn’t doubled back, killed Gordon, and then slipped away again, unseen.

He looked up as Alec MacClain came into the room.

‘I didn’t do it,’ he said. ‘Someone’s trying to frame me. I don’t know why, but they are.’

‘The police are on their way,’ said Alec.

Jake nodded. They’d arrest him on suspicion, he was sure of that. After all, the only piece of evidence pointed to him being the killer. His main concern was Lauren. He needed to get a message to her, tell her what had happened. But he couldn’t leave the guest house, not until the police had been.

Rona would tell her, he was sure. But what about Robbie? Robbie was dead sure that it had been Jake who’d killed Gordon; and now he was starting to think that meant Jake had also killed Dougie. Which meant he’d think that Lauren was also involved. Would Robbie give Lauren away to the police? Or to Manvers and Webb?

He had to find a way to stop Robbie doing that, otherwise everything would be lost.

He looked at Alec MacClain, and then blurted out.

‘Someone’s trying to frame me. Me and Helen. Mostly they’re after Helen.’

‘The people from Immigration think she’s an illegal immigrant,’ said Alec.

‘She’s not,’ said Jake. ‘But she is . . .’ He hesitated. ‘At risk,’ he finished.

‘From what?’ asked Alec.

‘From someone who wants to get rid of her,’ said Jake.

‘Why?’

‘Because of the books,’ said Jake. ‘The Malichea books.’

Alec frowned.

‘Where is she?’ he asked.

‘Rona took her somewhere safe,’ said Jake. ‘But I’m worried that if Robbie says anything about where she is, she could end up like John Gordon. And your brother.’

Alec’s expression hardened.

‘Who’s behind all this?’ he asked. ‘Dougie, and now Gordon?’

Jake sighed and shook his head.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘All I’m asking is, can you stop Robbie giving Helen away to the authorities?’

‘Why should I do that?’ asked Alec.

‘Because she knows more about the Order of Malichea and the hidden books than almost anyone else.’

‘More than the Watchers like Dougie, and Robbie and Rona? More than the Russians?’

‘Much more,’ said Jake. ‘That’s why they’re trying to get rid of her.’

He didn’t know if it was actually true that Lauren knew more than the Russians, but she certainly knew more than everyone he knew. And he had to do something to try to keep her safe.

Alec studied Jake for a while, then he nodded.

‘I’ll have a word with Robbie,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ said Jake.

There was the sound of rushing feet, and then Manvers and Webb burst into the room. They were both out of breath.

‘What’s going on?’ Manvers demanded. ‘We were across the headland when we heard the sound of a siren. There’s an ambulance and a police car and they look like they’re coming here!’

‘There’s been an accident,’ said Alec.

‘A murder,’ Jake corrected him.

They could hear the sirens getting nearer now.

Manvers threw a shocked look at Jake.

‘Did you say murder?’ he demanded.

‘Yes,’ said Jake. Suddenly a thought hit him. Were Manvers and Webb
really
from Immigration? Dougie MacClain had been battered to death, but Gordon’s killing had been entirely different: his throat cut.

He was just about to say this thought aloud, when Jeannie MacClain came into the room.

‘The police are here,’ she said.

The ambulance crew had taken John Gordon’s body away, and now the local police constable was questioning Jake. It was a very brief interview.

‘I’m going to have to take you in for questioning,’ the constable told Jake finally. ‘That piece of cloth, you understand.’

Jake nodded, resigned.

‘I didn’t do it,’ he said.

The constable nodded.

‘I hear what you say, but I have to follow procedure.’ He produced a pair of handcuffs. Jake looked at them, shocked.

‘Are they really necessary?’ he demanded.

‘We’re a small force on Mull,’ said the constable. ‘So it’s just me taking you in. How would it look if you suddenly overpowered me on the journey and escaped?’

‘But I’m innocent!’ persisted Jake.

The constable nodded.

‘I appreciate that, sir,’ he said. ‘But I have my job to do.’

Jake was about to raise more fervent objections, but he realised they would be of no use. The evidence was there, pointing to him as the suspect. The constable had to take him in.

‘OK,’ he said, and he held out his wrists for the cuffs.

All four MacClains, Pam Gordon, and Manvers and Webb, watched in silence as Jake was taken out of the guest house in handcuffs and put into the back of the small police van. The constable slammed and locked the rear doors shut. Jake sat down on the hard wooden bench that ran along the back of the van. The only windows in the back were two small wired-glass ones in the doors, and a tiny one between the rear of the van and the driver’s compartment, also made of thick wired glass. So, no chance of escaping on the journey, thought Jake.

The van started up, and moved off.

I’m leaving Lauren behind, alone and on the run, thought Jake, feeling sick to his stomach. He hoped that Rona would tell her what had happened.

I’ll come back for you, Lauren, he vowed
.
We’ve been in worse situations than this and survived them.

But, handcuffed as he was, heading away from the south of the island, he could feel that his words had a hollow ring to them. On an island, there really was nowhere to run.

Chapter 16

Once they reached the police station, Jake was put in a cell.

‘Just until someone from CID arrives from the mainland,’ the constable informed him, removing the handcuffs. He gave a rueful smile. ‘Luckily for us, we don’t need a regular detective presence on Mull. There’s not that much crime.’

The door clanged shut, and Jake settled down to wait.