Page 35 of The Likeness

  We swung round a kink in the lane, grabbing at the hedge for balance, and skidded to a stop at a crossroads. In the moonlight the little lanes stretched out in every direction, bare and equivocal, giving away nothing; piles of stones huddled in the fields like spellbound watchers.

  “Where’s he gone?” Rafe’s voice was a cracking whisper; he whirled around, casting about like a hunting dog. “Where’s the bastard gone?”

  “He can’t have got out of sight this fast,” Daniel murmured. “He’s nearby. He’s gone to ground.”

  “Shit!” Rafe hissed. “Shit, that little fuck, that vile little—God, I’ll kill him—”

  The moon was slipping away again; the guys were barely shadows on either side of me, and fading fast. “Torch?” I whispered, stretching to get my mouth close by Daniel’s ear, and saw the quick shake of his head against the sky.

  Whoever this man was, he knew the hillsides like he knew his own hands. He could hide here all night if he wanted to, slip from cover to cover the way centuries of his rebel ancestors had done before him, nothing but narrow eyes watching among the leaves and then gone.

  But he was cracking. That rock through the window straight at us, when he had to know we would come after him: his control was slipping, eroding to dust under Sam’s questioning and the constant hard rub of his own rage. He could hide forever if he wanted to, but that right there was the catch: he didn’t want to, not really.

  Every detective, in all the world, knows that this is our best weapon: your heart’s desire. Now that thumbscrews and red-hot pincers are off the menu, there’s no way we can force anyone to confess to murder, lead us to the body, give up a loved one or rat out a crime lord, but still people do it all the time. They do it because there’s something they want more than safety: a clear conscience, a chance to brag, an end to the tension, a fresh start, you name it and we’ll find it. If we can just figure out what you want—secretly, hidden so deep you may never have glimpsed it yourself—and dangle it in front of you, you’ll give us anything we ask for in exchange.

  This guy was fed up to the back teeth of hiding on his own territory, skulking about with spray paint and rocks like a bratty teenager looking for attention. What he really wanted was a chance to kick some ass.

  “Oh my God, he’s hiding,” I said, light and clear and amused into the wide waiting night, in my best snobby city-girl accent. Both of the guys grabbed me at the same time, but I grabbed them back and pinched, hard. “How pathetic is that? Such a big tough guy at a distance, but the second we get up close and personal, he’s under some hedge shaking like a scared little bunny.”

  Daniel’s hand loosened on my arm and I heard him exhale, a tiny ghost of a laugh—he was barely even panting. “And why not?” he said. “He may not have the guts to stand and fight, but at least he has enough intelligence to know when he’s out of his depth.”

  I squeezed whatever bit of Rafe was nearest—if anything could flush this guy out of cover, it would be that lazy English sneer—and heard his fast, savage catch of breath as the penny dropped. “I doubt there’s any intelligence involved,” he drawled. “Too much sheep in the bloodline. He’s probably forgotten all about us and wandered off to rejoin the flock.”

  A rustle, too faint and too quickly cut off to pinpoint; then nothing.

  “Here, kitty,” I crooned. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty . . .” and let it trail off into a giggle.

  “In my great-grandfather’s day,” Daniel said coolly, “we knew how to deal with peasants who got above themselves. A touch of the horsewhip, and they learned their place.”

  “Where your great-grandfather went wrong was letting them spawn at will,” Rafe told him. “You’re supposed to keep their breeding under control, the way you would with any other farm animal.”

  That rustle again, louder; then a tiny, distinct click, like one pebble hitting another, very close by.

  “We had uses for them,” Daniel said. His voice had a vague, abstracted note, the same note it got when he was concentrating on a book and someone asked him a question.

  “Well, yes,” Rafe said, “but look what you ended up with. Reverse evolution. The shallow end of the gene pool. Hordes of drooling, half-witted, neck-less, inbred—”

  Something exploded out of the hedge, only a few yards away, shot past me so close that I felt the wind on my arms, and crashed into Rafe like a cannon-ball. He went down with a grunt and a hideous thud that shook the ground. For a split second I heard scuffling noises, wild rasping breath, the nasty smack of a fist hitting home; then I dived in.

  We went over in a tangled heap, hard earth under my shoulder, Rafe gasping for air, someone’s hair in my mouth and an arm twisting like steel cable out of my grip. The guy smelled like wet leaves and he was strong and he fought dirty, fingers groping for my eyes, feet jackknifing up and scrabbling to dig into my stomach. I hit out, heard a burst of breath and felt his hand fall away from my face. Then something slammed into us from the side, hard as a freight train: Daniel.

  The weight of him sent all four of us rolling into bushes, branches clawing at my neck, breath hot on my cheek and somewhere the fast merciless rhythm of blows connecting with something soft, over and over. It was a vicious, nasty, messy fight, arms and legs everywhere, bony things jabbing, horrible muffled sounds like feral dogs worrying at a kill. It was three to one and we were every bit as furious as he was, but the dark gave this guy one advantage. We had no way of knowing who we were aiming at; he didn’t have to care, any blow that hit home was a good one. And he was using it, slippery and corkscrewing, tumbling the heap of us over and over on the ground, no way to get our bearings, I was dizzy and breathless and hitting frantically into thin air. A body thumped onto me and I lashed backwards with my elbow, heard a bark of pain that could have come from Rafe.

  Then those fingers went for my eyes again. I felt out, found a roughstubbled jaw, got an arm free and punched with my whole body behind it. Something smashed into my ribs, hard, but it didn’t hurt; nothing hurt, this guy could have ripped me wide open and I would never have felt it, all I wanted was to hit him and keep on hitting. A small cool voice far at the back of my head warned, You could kill him, the three of you could kill him like this, but I didn’t care. My chest was a great burst of blinding white and I saw the final reckless arch of Lexie’s throat, I saw the sweet glow of the sitting room defiled with that jagged spray of glass, I saw Rob’s face cold and shuttered and I could have kept on punching forever, I wanted this guy’s blood filling my mouth, I wanted to feel his face explode into pulp and splinters under my fist and just keep going.

  He twisted like a cat and my knuckles hit dirt and rock, I couldn’t find him. I grabbed in the dark, caught someone’s shirt and heard it rip as he shouldered me away. There was a desperate, heaving scramble, pebbles flying; a dull sick thud like a boot hitting flesh, a furious animal snarl; then running footsteps, fast and irregular, fading.

  “Where—” Someone got a fistful of my hair; I beat the arm away and felt wildly for that face, that rough battered jawline, found cloth and hot skin and then nothing. “Get off—” A grunt of effort, a weight coming off my back; then, sudden and sharp as an explosion, silence.

  “Where—”

  The moon came out from behind the clouds and we stared at each other: wild-eyed, dirty, panting. For a second I barely recognized the others. Rafe scrambling to his feet with his teeth bared and blood shining dark under his nose, Daniel’s hair falling in his face and streaks of mud or blood like war paint across his cheeks: their eyes were black holes in the tricky white light and they looked like lethal strangers, ghost warriors from the last stand of some lost and savage tribe. “Where is he?” Rafe whispered, a low dangerous breath.

  Nothing moved; just a coy little breeze flirting through the hawthorn. Daniel and Rafe were crouched like fighters, hands half curled and ready, and I realized I was too. In that moment I think we could have attacked each other.

  Then the moon went in again. Something seemed to leach out of the air, some thrumming too high to hear. All of a sudden my musc
les felt like they were turning to water, draining away into the earth; if I hadn’t grabbed a handful of hedge I would have fallen over. There was a long ragged breath, like a sob, from one of the guys.

  Footsteps pounded up the lane behind us—we all jumped—and skidded to a stop a few feet away. “Daniel?” Justin whispered, breathless and nervous. “Lexie?”

  “We’re over here,” I said. I was shaking all over, violently as a seizure; my heart was clattering so high in my throat that for a second I thought I was going to throw up. Somewhere beside me, Rafe retched, doubled over coughing and then spat: “Dirt everywhere—”

  “Oh my God. Are you all right? What happened? Did you get him?”

  “We caught him,” Daniel said, on a deep hard gasp, “but none of us could see a thing, and he got away in the confusion. There’s no point in going after him; by now he’s halfway to Glenskehy.”

  “God. Did he hurt you? Lexie! Are your stitches—”

  Justin was on the verge of panicking. “I’m totally fine,” I said, good and loud to make sure the mike could hear me. My ribs were starting to hurt like hell, but I couldn’t risk anyone wanting to look. “Just my hands are killing me. I got a few punches in.”

  “I think one of them hit me, you little cow,” Rafe said. His voice had a giddy, light-headed note. “I hope your hand swells up and turns blue.”

  “I’ll hit you again if you’re not careful,” I told him. I felt along my ribs: my hand was trembling so hard I couldn’t be sure, but I didn’t think anything was broken. “Justin, you should’ve heard Daniel. He was brilliant.”

  “Oh, Jesus, yes,” said Rafe, starting to laugh. “A touch of the horsewhip? Where the hell did that come from?”

  “Horsewhip?” Justin asked wildly. “What horsewhip? Who had a horsewhip?”

  Rafe and I were both laughing too hard to answer. “Oh, God,” I managed. “ ‘In my great-grandfather’s day . . .’ ”

  “ ‘When the peasants knew their place . . .’ ”

  “What peasants? What are you talking about?”

  “It all made perfect sense at the time,” said Daniel. “Where’s Abby?”

  “She stayed at the gate, in case he came back and—Oh God, you don’t think he did, do you?”

  “I doubt it very much,” Daniel said. There was the edge of a laugh ready to burst through his voice, too. Adrenaline: we were all crackling with it. “I think he’s had enough for one night. Is everyone all right?”

  “No thanks to Little Miss Spitfire,” said Rafe, trying to pull my hair and getting me in the ear instead.

  “I’m fine,” I said, batting Rafe’s hand away. Justin, in the background, was still murmuring, “Oh my God, oh my God . . .”

  “Good,” Daniel said. “Then let’s go home.”

  * * *

  There was no sign of Abby at the back gate; nothing but the hawthorn trees shivering and the lazy, haunted creak of the gate in that small cool breeze. Justin was starting to hyperventilate when Daniel called into the darkness, “Abby, it’s us,” and she materialized out of the shadows, a white oval and a swish of skirt and a streak of bronze. She was holding the poker, in both hands.

  “Did you get him?” she whispered, a low fierce hiss. “Did you get him?”

  “My God, I’m surrounded by warrior women,” Rafe said. “Remind me never to piss you two off.” His voice sounded muffled, as if he was holding his nose.

  “Joan of Arc and Boadicea,” Daniel said, smiling; I felt his hand rest on my shoulder for a second and saw the other one stretch out to Abby’s hair. “Fighting to defend their home. We got him; only temporarily, but I think we made our point clear.”

  “I wanted to bring him back and have him stuffed and mounted over the fireplace,” I said, trying to dust muck off my jeans with my wrists, “but he got away.”

  “The little fucker,” said Abby. She blew out a long, hard breath and lowered the poker. “I was actually hoping he’d come back.”

  “Let’s get inside,” said Justin, glancing over his shoulder.

  “What did he throw, anyway?” Rafe wanted to know. “I didn’t even look.”

  “A rock,” said Abby. “And there’s something taped to it.”

  * * *

  “Oh, sweet Jesus in heaven,” Justin said, horrified, the second we got into the kitchen. “Look at the state of you three.”

  “Wow,” said Abby, eyebrows going up. “I’m impressed. I’d love to see the one that got away.”

  We looked just about as bad as I’d expected: shaking and skittery-eyed, covered in dirt and scrapes, great dramatic smears of blood in weird places. Daniel was leaning heavily on one leg and his shirt was ripped half off, a sleeve hanging loose. One knee was torn out of Rafe’s trousers, I could see glossy red through the hole, and he was going to have a beauty of a shiner in the morning.

  “Those cuts,” said Justin. “They’ll have to be disinfected; God only knows what you’d pick up from those lanes. The dirt of them, cows and sheep and all manner of—”

  “In a minute,” Daniel said, pushing his hair out of his eyes. He came up holding a twig, gave it a bemused look and laid it carefully on the kitchen counter. “Before we start on anything else, I think we need to see what’s on that rock.”

  It was a folded piece of paper, the lined kind, torn out of a kid’s school notebook. “Wait,” Daniel said—Rafe and I had both moved forwards. He found two pens on the table, picked his way delicately through the broken glass to the rock, and used the pens to pull the paper free.

  “Now,” Justin said briskly, bustling in with a bowl of water in one hand and a cloth in the other, “let’s see the damage. Ladies first. Lexie, you said your hands?”

  “Hang on,” I said. Daniel had carried the piece of paper over to the table and was unfolding it carefully, still using the butts of the pens.

  “Oh,” Justin said. “Oh.”

  We moved in around Daniel, shoulder to shoulder. His face was bleeding—either a fist or the rim of his glasses had split his cheekbone open—but he didn’t seem to have noticed.

  The note was printed in furious block capitals, so hard that in places the pen had dug right through the paper. WE WILL BURN YOU OUT.

  There was a second of absolute silence.

  “Oh my God,” Rafe said. He collapsed backwards onto the sofa and burst out laughing. “Brilliant. Actual torch-bearing villagers. How cool is that?”

  Justin clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “Foolishness,” he said. All his composure had come back now that he was in the house, with the four of us safely around him and something useful to do. “Lexie, your hands.”

  I held them out to him. They were a mess, covered with dirt and blood, knuckles split open and half my nails broken down to the quick—so much for my pretty silver manicure. Justin drew in his breath with a little hiss. “Good heavens, what did you do to the poor man? Not that he didn’t deserve it. Come here, where I can see.” He steered me into Abby’s armchair, under the pole lamp, and knelt on the floor beside me. The bowl gave off a cloud of steam and disinfectant, a warm reassuring smell.

  “Do we call the cops?” Abby asked Daniel.

  “God, no,” said Rafe, dabbing at his nose and checking his fingers for blood. “Are you mad? They’ll just give us the same old spiel: ‘Thanks for reporting it, there’s not a chance in hell we’ll ever catch the perpetrator, get a dog, bye.’ This time they might even arrest us—one look and you can tell we’ve been in a fight. You think Laurel and Hardy will care who started it? Justin, can I have that cloth for a second?”

  “In a minute.” Justin was pressing the damp cloth against my knuckles, so gently I could barely feel it. “Does that sting?” I shook my head.

  “I’ll bleed on the sofa,” Rafe threatened.

  “You will not. Tip your head back and wait.”

  “Actually,” Daniel said, still frowning thoughtfully at the note, “I think calling the police might not be a bad idea, at this point.”

  Rafe sat up fast, forgetting all about his nose. “Daniel. Are you serious? They’re petrified of those apes down in the village. They’d do anything to get on Glenskehy’s good side, and arresting us for as
sault would definitely do that.”

  “Well, I wasn’t thinking of the local police,” Daniel said. “Hardly. I meant Mackey or O’Neill—I’m not sure which would be better. What do you think?” he asked Abby.

  “Daniel,” Justin said. His hand had stopped moving on mine and that high, panicky note was seeping back into his voice. “Don’t. I don’t want—They’ve been leaving us alone, since Lexie got back—”

  Daniel gave Justin a long, inquisitive look over his glasses. “They have, yes,” he said. “But I seriously doubt that means they’ve dropped the investigation. I’m sure they’re putting a considerable amount of energy into looking for a suspect, I think they would be very interested to hear about this one, and I think we have an obligation to tell them, whether it’s convenient for us or not.”