She didn’t hear him land. Oh God. She didn’t hear him land.
She started moving, pushing across towards the ravine to her left, stumbling in her haste, desperate. The slope was getting steeper as she got closer to the ravine. She lost her footing, started crabbing sideways, grabbing on to tree roots and branches. She took another tentative step, clutching at a sapling, the dirt crumbling around it, the roots lifting and sending her sliding down the slope, snatching at ferns and roots until her shoe lodged against a rock a couple of metres below.
She stood there, gasping, looked down. After a second or two, she tried another couple of steps, crab-like to her left, but it was no good—the slope was too steep, she could go no further. She leaned into the face of the slope, a tree root in each hand, her right foot balancing on a rock, her left scraping uselessly at the slope.
She looked down again, following the length of the slope until it disappeared into the thick foliage below. Her leg began to shake. Across to her left, through the forest, she could see the ravine—a cleft in the rock, maybe ten metres wide, falling away vertically.
Clancy could be at the base of the precipice. She didn’t know how far down—it was a drop beyond seeing. There were no jutting ledges, no shelves, just a sheer, relentless cliff. She tried to slow her breathing, straining her ears, listening for a cry, a groan. Nothing. A parrot squawked overhead. Silence again.
Could anyone survive such a fall? And what if Clancy had been shot? He may even have been dead before he landed. Tears fogged her vision.
What if he isn’t dead, though? He could be lying at the bottom of the ravine, injured, bleeding. Until he could be found, the possibility remained, however remote. She could yell out, find out where he was. Then what? She’d need paramedics, a helicopter maybe. And it would give her position away to Brose.
She heard movement, looked up and saw a pebble bouncing down from above and to her left, watched it clatter down the ravine. It had come from the rocky ledge where the struggle had taken place, from where Clancy had fallen.
She couldn’t move, numb with fear.
Brose was alive.
She forced herself to go through her choices. She couldn’t get across to the ravine, couldn’t get to Clancy if he was lying on a shelf somewhere halfway down. She could go down the slope and search at the bottom. She could go across to the right, where the slope was gentler, and then up to try to deal with Brose. If she was lucky, he’d be injured, might even have lost his gun. Or she could hide. Or simply try to find her way back to the shed in the clearing, praying that the police had turned up. She thought of Rowan, lying in the long grass, wondered again if he was alive or dead, and for a moment let fear and grief overwhelm her.
She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Whichever option she took, she couldn’t remain where she was, stuck on this steep slope, barely able to move, a sitting duck if Brose were to find her. She started easing her way back to her right, where the slope was less severe, stopping along the way behind a tree to check above, towards the ledge from where the pebble had come. Nothing moved, not that she could see, but Brose might have retreated to the forest and be making his way towards her now through the trees.
She considered her options again, finally admitting to herself that there was little point going down to the bottom of the ravine—she would surely be searching for Clancy’s body. She was shaking against the rough bark of the tree, tears flowing down her face. She brushed them away with filthy hands, tried to focus on the other two options.
Brose was either seriously injured and no longer a threat or already coming after her. She tried to estimate the time that had passed since they left the gate at the top of the driveway. Brose had said then that the police were at least an hour away, assuming Rowan had alerted them when she contacted him from the service station in Dunberry. Perhaps thirty or forty minutes had passed since then. So if Rowan had called them, they were around half an hour away.
If she made for the clearing she would have to assume Brose was in pursuit or lying in wait for her. She’d have to stay well clear of him, head across at this level on the slope before cutting upwards to the trail she and Clancy had hacked.
The irony was that her best chance at survival might be meeting up with Brose at some point over half an hour from now, when the police should be within earshot—Brose firing his weapon would bring them to her rescue.
The alternative was to find a big tree on the flatter ground, hide until she heard a helicopter or a search party. She could make a dash for higher ground if it was a chopper, start waving her arms around like mad. But what if Brose saw her? If he was conscious when she approached, she was more than likely dead.
Maybe she should just hide and wait for help to come to her? She took a moment, visualising herself huddled inside a hollow tree. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and she shuddered.
She looked up at the ledge. There was no sound or movement. She stood up in a half-crouch, started out, towards the clearing but following a wide loop, stepping slowly, her feet light and careful on the forest floor.
It was just not an option, hiding in a hole, waiting for Ambrose Macpherson to reach around with his blade and slit her throat.
She kept moving, trying to estimate time, knowing that each minute she survived could bring her closer to rescue. It felt like she’d been going for at least thirty minutes when she heard a noise. She snuck behind a giant myrtle, stood there listening, her back pressed against the damp of its trunk. There it was again, the sound of bushes being swept aside and springing back, faint, distant. She had been careful—treading lightly, using a walking stick to steady herself, stooping low under the branches, picking a path around the ferns—but this was the noise of someone taking no care at all.
The noise continued. She held her breath.
Could it be a search party? No yelling, no shouted names, noise enough only for one. Her skin prickled. He was here, somewhere above her on the trail.
Heart thudding, she willed herself to push away from the tree, turn and crouch at its base, peering around the trunk. Nothing but a tangled mess of vines and ferns and leaves, winking in the columns of light. Then she saw it—amid the crowded shadows, the dense green—a flash of red.
She swung her head back behind the tree, shivered, her fingernails digging into the mossy bark. If he found her…She caught her breath, the knife flashed in her head, the silvery length of its blade. She forced herself to look out from behind the tree again. He was closer now, swishing branches aside, the pistol in his hand.
She had kept her course across the mountain slope and slightly downwards to be conservative, trying to put distance between her and Brose, but she’d grown more and more anxious the longer she stayed away from the trail, fearing she’d get lost in the never-ending bush, and had eventually begun veering uphill again.
He was about twenty metres away, higher up the slope but behind her, further back towards the rocky outcrop. She had come dangerously close. She could hear the crunch of leaves now, moving closer. If Brose stuck to the trail, he would pass by only a few metres from her. She hauled herself upright, her back against the tree. Brose was still moving towards her on the trail. Then her ears pricked: a voice, a long way away, faint, very faint. It was a shout, someone calling.
The crunch of the leaves and the swish of the branches above her stopped. He had heard the shout too. Silence. She and Brose were both there, only metres away from each other now, deep in the forest, listening. She could hear him, the sound of his breathing, and kept her own breath shallow, quiet. The seconds passed, then the same voice again, calling out, but fainter this time—she could barely hear it. A search party, it had to be, but oh God, they’re moving away. She closed her eyes, willed the thought of Brose’s knife out of her mind, threw her head back and yelled, ‘Over here! I’m over here! Help!’
She heard his footsteps and the swoosh of bushes, faster this time, getting closer. She shuffled to her left as he approached, keeping the tree between them, holding her breath now, willing him past, shuffling right again as she heard him go by. Craning her head to the left, she saw his red shirt, bald head, moving down the rough trail about five metres away. She was behind him now. He was sweeping the ferns aside with his gun in his left hand, his right hand cradling his stomach, stopping to lean on a tree then taking a few more steps. He was ten metres away now. Her eyes widened as she noticed the large dark patch on the back of his shirt. Blood?
He stopped, listened, his back still towards her, then began turning. She pulled her head behind the tree. All she could hear was his raspy breathing. She had not heard any reply from the search party. They hadn’t heard her, they’d moved on, and she’d given away her position to Brose. She held her breath. She heard his steps coming back towards her along the trail. She was on her own and he was coming for her.
Slowly, silently, she swapped her walking stick around, heavy end down. She heard him stop, his breath laboured. She tightened her grip on the walking stick, now a club. He took a few more steps, haltingly, as if he might be staggering. She waited, willing him to turn away, to keep moving, so she would be behind him again. But he stopped, maybe two or three metres away. A gurgling sound. He spat. It was weak, lacking force, more like a dribble. Injured. He had to be injured.
She closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath and leapt out from the shelter of the myrtle, lunging through the undergrowth towards him. He was leaning on a young tree, looked up, shock on his face as she came charging at him. She was swinging the club, throwing her whole weight into it, as he was raising his gun hand up and towards her. She smashed the club hard into his forearm with a sickening crunch, the momentum sending her toppling to her knees as she heard the shot, saw the gun fly from his grasp. The bullet cracked against the trunk of a tree close by.
She scrambled to get back on her feet. Brose had already pulled his knife from its holster, the deathly curve of the blade glinting in the light as he struggled to his knees.
‘I’ll skin you alive, you bitch,’ he growled.
She launched towards him, roaring, springing out of a half-crouch, collecting him in the midriff with the club and sending him to the ground with a thud. He lay there, not moving. She took a step back into the scrub, panting with the effort. The gun lay in the shadows on the forest floor. She snatched it up, pointed it at him.
He was lying on his back, looking straight up at the canopy, groaning. His red shirt was torn and his white T-shirt had ridden up, exposing a crescent of belly. Dark hair, soft pink skin and a small, black hole, surrounded by dark, dried blood. Fresh crimson blood was oozing out of the hole by the teaspoonful, covering the brown leaves on the ground.
Clementine yelled again as loud as she could, ‘Help. Over here! Help!’ Surely they had heard the gunshot. She kept her eyes on Brose. His face was white, beads of sweat across his lip.
‘You shot Clancy,’ she murmured. ‘You killed him.’
His eyes rolled towards her, glazed and staring. He mouthed the word no. She shouted to the searchers again, thought she heard the faintest of answering cries. She crept forward a few small steps, her hand quivering as she kept the gun trained on him, her nose filled with the metallic scent of his blood.
‘Shot myself,’ he wheezed through blue lips.
Blood was forming a pool beneath him. She tried to make sense of what he’d just said. Clancy hadn’t been shot? For a moment she rejoiced, thinking he was still alive. But she’d seen him go over the cliff. How could he survive that? She yelled out again to the searchers. Was that a response? She could not be sure.
Brose’s breath was coming in faint puffs, and he groaned again.
‘Looks like you’re going to die here, arsehole,’ she said.
He managed a half-grin and a slight nod. It shocked her, that he could acknowledge his own death like that. Perhaps men like Brose anticipated their own violent death, embraced it.
In the distance, a long way off, she heard a shout. She yelled again and heard another shout, a little closer, in return. The sound sent a rush of adrenaline through her.
She should at least try to keep Brose alive, staunch the blood flow, she thought. But the thought of taking one step closer filled her with terror. She could no more approach Ambrose Macpherson than pet a funnel-web.
‘I can stop the bleeding,’ she said. ‘I can help you, if you tell me what the hell’s going on, why you went after Clancy.’
‘Doesn’t end here,’ he croaked.
‘What are you talking about?’
His lips moved again and she just caught the words: ‘They won’t stop…until debt’s…paid.’
‘Who won’t stop? What debt?’ She didn’t understand any of it. ‘You killed Clancy, you fucking bastard.’ She felt the rage welling up, threatening to overwhelm her.
The slightest shake of his head. ‘Saw him move.’ He gasped another breath. ‘After he fell.’
She let out a whimper. Could she believe him?
The voices of the searchers were closer—she could now hear them moving through the undergrowth—and she yelled out again. There was a swift shout in reply.
Brose swallowed, his breath a rapid, shallow panting, his face white and his eyes sinking even as she watched. ‘Holt,’ he said, his voice barely a whisper. ‘Let Holt die…he deserves it.’ He groaned softly, eyes closing.
‘Holt? Gerard Holt? Is the debt his? Brose, you have to tell me.’ She crouched down, closer. ‘Brose. Ambrose. What debt?’
No answer. No breath. His head lolled to one side, cushioned by the moist mulch of the forest floor.
She sat, her back against the tree, staring at his lifeless form. She had done this before, of course—seen a person die. At least in this case she did not cause Ambrose Macpherson’s death. She was ashamed to draw the distinction. Her chin dropped to her chest and she breathed in the sweet smell of the leaves and the rotting wood and the damp earth, waiting to be found.