There was an explosive boom that rocked Belle as she knelt there. She yelled out and her ears rang with the force of it. Half afraid to, she opened her eyes and looked around, craning wildly to see behind her, her hands dropping to her sides. All the chickens had scattered, shrieking.
Maybe that was it, she thought. Maybe I’m dead and I just don’t know it yet.
What she saw was shocking. Slipping and sliding amid the slime from the broken eggs, she staggered to her feet, trembling, shattered, and properly looked.
Ludo was on the ground – or what was left of him. Above his designer shirt with its sharp two-toned collar, above the gold glint of chains at his throat, there was just a red, seeping hole. There was only blood and grey gore in a long slick where Ludo’s head had been. And Jack was standing over him, holding the smoking twelve-bore that his mum kept for foxes.
As Belle stood there watching, starting to shake with reaction, Jack bent and snatched up the pistol from Ludo’s hand. Then he straightened, looking all around.
‘Any more of them?’ he asked her.
Belle shook her head. But Trix’s bark, cut off. She worked some spit into her mouth and said faintly: ‘He usually works in a pair. Nipper. Tall blond—’
Then she was grabbed from behind. She felt cold steel bite against her throat and she was held up, feet barely touching the ground. Nipper. He was right there. His grip threatened to choke her.
His voice said, right by her ear: ‘Drop those fucking guns or I’ll cut her.’
Jack stared at him.
‘I said, do it,’ roared Nipper. Belle flinched and felt the steel press harder into her neck. He’d do it. She knew he would. They’d come here to kill her, to finish the job Harlan started.
Jack dropped the twelve-bore onto the ground with a thud. At the same time he lifted the snub-nosed automatic and calmly shot Nipper in the head.
Nipper collapsed to the earth, dragging Belle with him.
She wriggled free, horrified, and looked down at the dead man. There was a deep red rose blooming on his temple, a trickle of blood snaking out of it. His eyes were wide open with shock and he was still breathing. Shuddering, Belle stepped away. Jack came over and without a moment’s hesitation made sure that Nipper was properly dead by firing another business-like shot into his right eye at point-blank range. Nipper flinched, once; then he stopped breathing.
‘Will there be more?’ he asked her, not looking at her; just coolly checking out their surroundings.
Belle coughed. She wondered if she was going to be sick. She tried to speak. She managed: ‘No. I don’t think so.’
Then she thought of Mum and Dad, and of Ludo standing there telling her how they’d died. The rage and grief pushed up and erupted in her chest. She strode forward and snatched the pistol out of Jack’s hand and fired three quick shots into Ludo’s corpse. Gasping, shaking, she then stood there staring down at the remains of the dead man. She felt Jack take the gun back off her. Dazedly she looked at him, feeling hot tears wet on her cheeks.
‘Back in the house,’ said Jack. It was an order, not a request.