Darker

  Also, she felt the urge to contact Richard to find out if he was all right become a burning need. She wouldn’t rest until she heard his voice.

  ‘All right,’ she said, breaking into Michael’s explanation. ‘I’ll stay here on one condition.’

  ‘Name it.’

  ‘I want to speak to Richard, in person, on the mobile.’

  He smiled. ‘No problem, Christine. Come back up to the house. You can call him from there.’

  Richard switched on the car radio at six o’clock for a time check. The clock in the car said six; his watch, glass still misted from the wetting in the pool, said six; but an insidious paranoia sneaked in. Were the clocks wrong? Had he kept track of the time? Would they make it to Darlington House before nine?

  And the voice in his head sang:

  … hurry up, hurry up, drive faster. In three hours your daughter might be dead … hurry up, hurry up …

  He managed to keep the speed down to eighty. The high-rise blocks of Birmingham, indistinct and ghostly in the heat haze, had swept by on his left a long time ago. Or so it seemed. But now whatever god was master of time and space played cruel tricks, stretching out the motorway ahead.

  He found himself half-believing that the same cruel god had run them on to an endless loop of motorway. They’d get no further. Michael would do whatever he needed to do to Amy. Failure or success for Michael would in either case result in Amy’s death. The only question was, would it be quick or slow?

  Christine groaned, then rolled on to her back on the bed. Michael looked through the window. Uncle Joey, that plump and stupid man with his lank fringe falling over his eyes, was playing a game with someone more nearly his intellectual equal. Michael watched as Amy cycled along the garden path between rows of pink roses, with Joey loping heavily after her holding the Rosemary Snow doll above his head as if it was flying like Superman.

  Michael looked at his watch. Six-thirty. Soon Rosemary Snow would be truly flying. Up to heaven, into the arms of her God.

  He shook his head. Rosemary Snow had been one peculiar kid. For a moment back there, a couple of weeks ago, as he’d driven her across country in the BMW, he really had believed she had the ability to control the Beast. In turn, he would have been able to control her by becoming her lover. He imagined her lying naked in his bed, her hair spread in a great wash across the pillow, the feel of that slight body in his arms. Perhaps she would have trembled as he held her more tightly. Perhaps crying out the first time they made love.

  Then he would have held her, kissing her forehead lightly as she fell asleep in his arms and he would have felt glorious. He would have felt the exultation of knowing that in his arms he held power.

  Absolute power to rule absolutely.

  He licked his lips, his heart beating faster. It was strange to feel this excitement again. After losing that relationship with the Beast on his arrival in Britain he’d experienced a peculiar emotional flatness. Nothing now made him feel outraged, or happy, or miserable, or guilty. Just kind of robotically calm.

  Once he was reunited with it through little Amy, now cycling round the paths below, perhaps he’d feel emotionally whole again.

  He turned back to look at the girl’s mother lying unconscious on the bed. The fight she had had with his research team had been extremely undignified. Michael had watched unemotionally until one of his team had been able to push the syringe into her forearm.

  He moved closer to the bed. Christine’s face, relaxed by the drug, looked far younger. Other men would find that face attractive with its dark eyebrows and pleasantly shaped nose. The lips were full and pink; the skin smooth.

  He stroked her forehead.

  Dr Halliwell had removed her clothes, just in case she did wake up and do something so desperately bizarre as to try and hang herself with her brassiere. Whatever happened, Christine would wake up to find the world startlingly different. Because her daughter would be shockingly different.

  She muttered as if struggling to escape from the folds of unconsciousness.

  Michael saw goosebumps cover her bare breast as if she dreamed of something chilling. The nipples contracted and darkened to a deep rust-brown.

  Absently Michael reached out and touched one, marvelling how hard the nipple had become. She really was quite pretty. There was nothing coarse about her face. If some of his security team happened to wander in here – the ex-mercenaries and Foreign Legion rejects – he had no doubt what they would do to this sleeping beauty.

  Michael heard Amy’s voice in the distance, calling her uncle.

  He looked back at Christine. Then he sat down on the bed beside her and placed one hand at one side of her head on the pillow, the other hand on the other side. Now on all fours above her, he lowered his face toward hers.

  Rosemary looked up suddenly. ‘Richard. Don’t miss it.’

  ‘I see it.’ His spirits lifted. ‘M1 North. Another twenty minutes and we’ll see the signs for Wakefield.’

  ‘How long then?’

  ‘Perhaps another fifty minutes. Depends how fast we can push this little beauty.’

  ‘Don’t push too hard, Richard.’

  He glanced into her dark, caring eyes. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘I’m going to reach Darlington House in one piece. I can’t promise Michael will be leaving in the same way, though.’

  She gave a grim smile. ‘Save some for me, won’t you?’

  As Richard joined the motorway that headed north Michael was bending over Christine, closely examining her sleeping face. Then, turning her head gently to one side, he lowered his face to hers and opened his mouth.

  Then slowly, deliberately, he closed his jaws around her ear. He increased the pressure until he heard a faint cracking as his teeth bit into the fleshy part of her ear.

  Beneath him she muttered something; but she was too deeply unconscious to stir beyond that sighing mutter and slight wrinkling of her forehead.

  He released his grip on her ear, satisfied nothing would wake her now. Not even if her daughter should scream in terror out there in the garden.

  He looked down at Christine. A red crescent marked her ear where he’d bitten deep. He searched inside himself, looking for some emotion elicited by biting the unconscious woman who lay naked beneath him. Nothing. Just the same uniform flatness of spirit.

  Maybe when the Beast wrenched free of him in that hotel bedroom it had taken part of him with it.

  He took a deep breath, feeling a faint tingling across his scalp. Never mind. It was returning. He could feel it rushing like a great dark shadow across the countryside. It sensed where he was now. It was homing in. Like a shark scenting the blood of an injured swimmer.

  Coming. Darker.

  Now.

  With static electricity crackling his clothes, he turned and left his sleeping beauty. There was work to be done. If the Beast came early he must be ready.

  Chapter 74

  Assassins

  The inexplicable certainty that a perfect stranger intends to harm you might not necessarily be paranoia.

  The understanding ran through Richard’s head the instant he saw the motorbike pull out of the service station. It followed them, never approaching closer than a hundred yards, always keeping a couple of cars between Volvo and bike, but Richard knew as sure as the sun blazed above Wakefield that they were being followed.

  He didn’t know if it was some vestigial survival instinct that had been activated by his close brush with the Beast, or whether it had sprung to life over the last few days, triggered by all the mayhem and shit he’d gone through. But there was no doubt, only certainty.

  That big Honda with the blue petrol tank followed wolfishly. Careful not to turn his head, he let his eyes flick back and forth to the rearview mirror. Two men on the bike. Passenger sitting up straight on the pillion, white helmet with goggles. Man driving the machine, black helmet with mirrored visor that concealed his face.

  Richard licked his dry lips; Rosemary automatically passe
d him the can. He drank, the cola warm and flat now.

  Darlington House was perhaps half a dozen miles away. He knew Wakefield relatively well, and he knew where the village of Spa Croft was. He guessed Darlington House would be pretty close to that.

  He left the road that ringed the city and headed out along a main road that sliced through the suburbs in the direction of Spa Croft.

  In the rearview mirror he saw the bike. Hanging back behind three cars now. Biding its time.

  With one hand he slipped off the sunglasses and wiped his wet forehead.

  Deliberately he kept his voice calm as he spoke.

  ‘Rosemary. Do you see where that insect’s hit the windscreen? There, directly in front of you.’

  Puzzled, she looked at the streak of pink on the glass: a bee’s wing gummed to the dried blood.

  ‘Yes … what about it?’

  ‘I want you to look at it. Keep looking. Don’t take your eyes off it for a second.’

  ‘What on earth for?’

  She sounded even more puzzled, but she did as she was told.

  ‘Trust me, Rosemary.’ He glanced in the rearview; the men on the bike still thought they’d not been noticed, and hung back in a deliberately nonchalant way.

  ‘Keep your eyes on that mark on the glass in front of you,’ he said softly. ‘Because I’m going to tell you something and I don’t want you to look at me nor look back. OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘We’re now being followed by two men on a motorbike.’

  ‘Michael’s sent them?’

  ‘I imagine so.’

  ‘You think they’ll try and stop us?’

  He shook his head slowly. ‘They’ll kill us at the next traffic lights.’

  He heard her gasp; sensed she desperately wanted to turn round. But she kept her eyes front.

  ‘I’ve heard of it before.’ He was surprised at how calm his voice was. ‘They’ll wait until the next traffic lights, when we’re forced to stop at a red light. They’ll ride alongside. The pillion rider will fire in through the window into my shoulder. When I look up at him, a reflex action, he’ll put the second bullet through my face.’

  ‘Oh God.’

  ‘It’s a classic hit man’s gambit. With me out of the way they’ll do the same to you, then ride away through the traffic before anyone else can react.’

  ‘Jesus, the next traffic lights?’

  He nodded.

  Ahead the road was long and straight, running downhill. A typical suburban road. Some cars parked at the kerb; people walking dogs on the pavements; houses lining the road.

  He looked back. The bike kept its distance.

  It must be five years since he’d travelled along this road.

  Sweet Jesus, where were the next set of traffic lights? He couldn’t remember.

  She never took her eyes off the blood streak. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue.’

  His mouth dried like paper. His stomach felt as if a fistful of moths wanted out; fluttering madly.

  ‘You could turn off into one of those side streets.’

  ‘But which ones lead anywhere? They’re housing estate roads. Probably leading to dead ends anyway. We’d be a sitting target.’

  ‘We could stop the car …’

  ‘And run for it?’

  ‘It might be worth a try.’

  ‘We couldn’t outrun a bike on foot. And there’s no chance of outrunning them in the car. That bike’ll go a hell of a lick if they open it up. And with this traffic …’ He shrugged.

  ‘What if you were to try … oh no. Oh my God, here it comes.’

  Richard turned the bend. There, slap in front, a set of traffic lights. They were at green.

  He couldn’t accelerate because of the sedate speed of the line of cars in front. He could only maintain the same pace and pray the lights didn’t turn to red.

  If it turns red, jump the light.

  Bad idea.

  Might not be able to do that if there are cars in front.

  If I managed anyway it’d alert the men on the bike we’d spotted them. They’d drive alongside, then at the right opportunity start slamming slugs through the side windows.

  And they won’t be sporting pop guns. Magnums? 9mm automatics? No doubt loaded with hollow-nosed slugs that pancake inside the body turning brains or internal organs to strawberry pulp.

  The light stayed green.

  He approached it at an agonizingly slow pace.

  If you approach a green light you know as sure as hell it’ll turn red. It always does.

  Any second now …

  Any second now … red would light up. He’d have to stop. The end. He’d be no use to Amy dead.

  He sensed Rosemary tense beside him, unblinking eyes on the green light.

  Then, before he knew what had happened, they were safely through.

  Both let out a huge breath of air.

  Hope rising, Richard glanced into the rearview mirror. Now, it must turn red and stop the bike.

  Come on, come on …

  Shit.

  No.

  The bike accelerated through the lights just as they changed, stopping the flow of traffic behind.

  ‘What now, Rosemary?’ he murmured. ‘For Godsakes, what now?’

  The sunglasses began to slip down his sweating nose.

  It could only be another mile or so before the next set of traffic lights. Maybe less.

  That one had to be red. Sod’s law. He wiped the sweat from his eyes.

  ‘Do we stand and fight?’ he asked her. He never expected an answer. He was thinking aloud, hoping by some miracle an idea would come sizzling through his head.

  He answered himself, ‘What with? Our fingernails and road atlas?’ The bitter laugh he intended came out as a grunt.

  ‘We can’t outrun them. We can’t fight them. Can we hide?’

  He shot her a look. She looked back, eyes glistening.

  Poor kid. He should have left her at that motorway station after all. He was driving her to her death.

  Any second now there’d be that next set of traffic lights. The bike drives alongside. He could almost hear the crash of the gun; see the side window shatter; feel the tremendous knock as the bullet smashed his shoulder.

  Then the bite of a lead slug hitting his face at eight hundred miles an hour.

  This is how it ends for Richard Young …

  Thirty-three years old. Wife. Two children. Promo video script writer.

  Christ, what have you done with your life, Richard …

  Will people even remember your name in twenty years …

  What made him most bitter was failing even to reach Amy. He imagined her playing with the doll, singing some made-up song, then looking up at him, that smile of delight when she saw her Dad was there to play.

  His eyes stung.

  He found himself imagining all the difficult periods of his life. School examinations. The endless revising. The exams seeming months away. Then suddenly you’re sitting in that great bleak hall, desks running in lines at either side. A big clock ticking away the minutes beside the notice board. The teacher handing out exam papers. In front of you is a pen, pencil, ruler and fresh packet of Polo mints. Here it is: crunch time.

  Instantly, another memory flashed into his head. That grim November day of his grandad Jack’s funeral. Richard had been thirteen years old. A wind had swept rain down on to the mourners as they left their cars and walked across to the chapel entrance to follow the coffin inside.

  Richard had hung back. So far he’d been able to avoid actually seeing the coffin. He’d seen the hearse, though, leading the cortège. A monstrous black thing that scared him so badly.

  Don’t let me see the coffin, don’t want to see where they put Grandad Jack.

  … he’s in there? What does he look like? What do dead people look like?

  He’d fought back the questions.

  Don’t think about it. Don’t imagine wha
t it’s like in that cold box …

  … don’t …

  Then they’d stopped at the chapel. Richard had prayed that the day of the funeral would never come. He’d willed time to slow.

  But the day had come.

  He’d loved his grandad Jack. The stories the old man would tell him as they walked to the park to fly the model plane.

  Then came the time Richard had to actually look at the coffin. He’d climbed out of the car at the chapel, his mother and father walking slightly ahead of him.

  He looked in any direction but the one where the coffin lay on its chrome trolley. He’d looked at a tractor ploughing a field half a mile away, he’d looked at cars on the road, he’d stopped to tie his shoelaces.

  They’d approached the chapel doors. He knew he’d vomit. And he knew that when he saw the coffin he’d pass out. He could barely breathe.

  The idea of seeing the wooden box that contained his dead grandfather was so terrifying he knew there’d be no life beyond that moment. Inside a part of him would die.

  ‘Dad,’ he’d said suddenly. ‘I’ve forgotten my coat. Give me the car keys. I’ll go back and get it.’

  His Dad had looked at him, irritated for a moment. Then he must have seen the look on his son’s face. He’d given a little smile. ‘Come on, Richard,’ he’d said gently, putting his arm round him. ‘Don’t worry, it’ll soon be over.’

  He’d seen the coffin then. A cold-water sensation ran through his stomach. It was unpleasant to see that wooden box, and to know that Grandad Jack was inside the polished woodwork. But it wasn’t as bad as he’d thought.

  The car went over a poorly surfaced hole in the road. The jolt brought him back. Ahead, a stream of cars. A road sign for temporary traffic lights. Behind, two men on a motorcycle, whose single goal was to take his life and that of the teenage girl at his side.

  And he’d been down Memory Lane, down fucking Memory Lane, recalling shit from his fucking past …

  No. That wasn’t it. His hands tightened on the steering wheel, heartbeat quickening.

  The coffin.

  His fingers tingled.

  The coffin!