‘Try and keep your head down. Come on . . .’
Lila ran away from the house, Anju with her. Quint reached the front door, cursing, firing blindly. Just my luck to be hit by a stray bullet, thought Lila, after everything we’ve been through to get this far.
They dodged and weaved, making as hard a target as possible for the half-blinded assassin. Between themselves and the flaming car, not to mention the still-burning sugar on Quint’s face, he couldn’t find them. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t trying.
‘Lila!’
Lila turned at the voice. Pearl was crouched behind an old stone wall, her car parked behind that. Lila and Anju ran over and crouched down next to her.
‘Was that you?’ asked Lila, pointing towards the burning car.
‘I didn’t know what to do. When I drove up I saw a car outside that I didn’t recognise so what with everything that’s been going on recently, I parked up here and walked down. When I got to the house I looked in the window and saw him holding a gun on you both.’ She shook her head. ‘You were right about him, Lila. I should have listened to you earlier.’
‘Never mind. So it was you?.’
Pearl’s expression looked pained. ‘I didn’t know what to do. If I called the police they might take ages and he might hear them and keep you both locked in there. So I torched his car.’
‘Why?’ asked Anju.
‘To get him out of the house so you could lock it behind yourselves. Then we could call the police and get them to come and take him. I didn’t expect you two to come running out first.’
‘Lila had a plan of her own.’
‘And it was pure luck that it worked. And pure luck you did what you did, too.’
‘I’ll call the police.’ Pearl began going through her pockets. Found her phone.
‘No signal down here,’ said Lila. ‘We’d have to get to the top of the bank for that.’
They all looked back towards the house. Quint was still standing in front of it, some of his vision returning, scanning the area, looking for them. The flaming car burning through the storm, throwing off heat where there should only be freezing rain.
‘Can we get away in your car?’ asked Anju.
Pearl looked at the road up the hill, back to the house. ‘It’s too risky. I’d have to drive it out of where it’s parked and that’ll take me near to him. He might hit us.’
‘Right,’ said Anju. ‘So what do we do, then? He’ll find us if we stay here. Should we run for it?’
‘There’s a shortcut up that path to the top of the road,’ said Lila. ‘But it’s on the other side to where he is. And if we get to the top of the hill we’ve still got miles to go to anywhere.’
But we can call the police then.’
‘If we can get up without him catching us.’
‘So what do we do?’ asked Pearl.
Lila looked at the house once more. Worked out where Quint was in relation to the buildings around him. Looked at the other two.
‘I think I’ve got an idea . . .’