28

Four cars, sirens wailing, blue lights smearing the dark sky, streaked through the Surrey countryside. Cox, at the wheel of Greg Wilson’s beaten-up Renault, had to drive hard to keep up. As she drove – the little car lurching dangerously on the bends, protesting as she forced it up to speed on the straights – she strained to hear the brittle, refined voice of Mrs Helen Tufnell-Mathers coming over the hands-free.

‘I said,’ the woman repeated fretfully, ‘that I shall go and check on the girls now.’

Tufnell-Mathers was Abigail Thomas’s housemistress at St Katherine’s. She’d been unnerved by Cox’s call but so far she was keeping her head – the woman had guts, Cox had to give her that.

‘Be careful,’ Cox warned, rocketing past a ‘Stop’ sign. ‘Don’t take any risks. Check the doors and windows are soundly locked, but don’t go outside unless you really have to.’

‘Are you on your way?’

‘We are. Just a few minutes away.’

It was a half-truth: sure, they’d be there soon, with a few carloads of suburban bobbies, but Cox didn’t know how much good they’d do. A SCO19 firearms team was what they needed to take down Trevayne, and they’d take a while to scramble out of London.

‘Please stay on the line, inspector,’ said Mrs Tufnell-Mathers. ‘I’m heading up there now.’

‘I will, Mrs Tufnell-Mathers. I’m not going anywhere.’

Wilson, holding on tight in the passenger seat, muttered that according to the satnav they were approaching the school grounds now.

‘Please, call me Helen,’ the woman said. ‘It’s no time to stand on ceremony.’

Cox smiled. She was starting to like the well-spoken housemistress.

‘Okay, Helen. I agree – I’m Kerry.’

‘I’m coming up to the girls’ wing now. It’s blustery outside; can’t hear you too well, Kerry.’

‘I’m still here.’ The car’s sweeping headlights picked out a gold-lettered wooden sign on a high stone wall: St Katherine’s School for Girls. She braked hard, took a sharp right into the school’s driveway.

‘There’s no sign of anything amiss, here,’ Tufnell-Mathers reported. Some of the tension had gone out of her voice. ‘I had a quick peep inside, and the girls are all sound asleep, by the look of it. The doors all seem secure. And the windows – oh, but …’

She broke off. Cox braked hard, the car skidding sideways in the deep gravel.

‘Helen?’

Faint noises – a thump, a clatter; a grunt; a high winter wind, battering on the windowpanes.

Cox looked at Wilson.

‘It’s happening,’ she said, her voice loaded with dread. ‘He’s here.’

Just up ahead, the Esher coppers were piling out of their cars. Cox jumped out into the wet, buffeting storm, lifting her injured arm – God, it ached from the drive – to shield her eyes from the lateral driving rain.

She raced up the driveway. The other officers had parked in the shadow of the school, a towering three-storey structure of off-white stone. Tall windows – a modern addition – were spaced across the front of the building. Cox looked up; all across the school, lights were coming on.

The officers were milling, disorganized, talking over one another. She was, she saw quickly, the most senior officer there; time to take charge.

‘He’s already here,’ she said, loud as she could. ‘Repeat, the suspect is on the premises.’ Turned to face them, blinking in the rain. Wiped her hair from her face. ‘I’m DI Cox, from Scotland Yard. Do as I say, and –’

And what? And everything will be fine? A dozen officers, hands on their batons, stared back at her – anxious, jumpy, pumped-up, clueless.

‘Well, just do as I say,’ she finished.

She dispersed the officers in teams of three, told them to fan out through the school grounds, to cover as much ground as they could – to keep the risks low, to do it by the book – for Christ’s sake, to be careful. Robert Trevayne was dangerous. She had the cracked ribs to prove it.

Tense with worry, she watched them move off into the darkness, hi-viz patches glinting in the light from the windows.

There was a scream, from somewhere in the upper storeys, towards the west side of the main building. Cox spun, quickly taking in the possibilities. A narrow, cobbled passageway led into the darkness down that side of the school; an archway in the centre of the building led through, she guessed, into a central courtyard, from which all areas could be accessed.

She squinted through the rain at the cobbled path. Could you, she wondered urgently, get a car down there?

‘Hey! You. Sergeant.’ She called back one of the officers, a black-bearded man she’d seen at the wheel of one of the patrol cars. He jogged back keenly.

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Move your car across here, quickly.’ She half-turned, gestured to the opening of the pathway behind her …

An engine roared madly. She saw rain on grey metal. At speed, striking sparks from the school wall with its offside wing, a Merc – Trevayne’s Merc – came hurtling up the path – heading straight for her.

She dived, fell, her cheek scraping into the ankle-deep gravel. She felt the noise of the car, felt it right through her body, like the noise of shell-fire, as it veered, barely in control, across the driveway, scraping through the gravel barely a yard from her outsplayed feet.

Looked up; saw the Merc fishtail crazily as it spun toward the exit, smashing the wing-mirror from one of the parked patrol cars.

Someone was screaming, a woman. Cox rolled over – felt blood wet and warm on her face, her ear. A woman was running towards her, from the pathway. She was stumbling, limping; there was a dark flash of blood across her brow.

‘Helen!’ Cox screamed, over the chaos of the Merc’s receding engine roar, officers yelling and running, girls screaming as doors banged and upstairs windows were flung open.

The woman stopped, bewildered, lost in the rain and noise. Wrung her hands helplessly. Cox, scrambling to her feet, screamed again: ‘Helen!’

This time, Tufnell-Mathers heard. She turned her head towards Cox; her expression was empty, bereft – a face of grief.

‘He’s got her,’ she yelled. Choked on a sob, looked around wild-eyed, looked back at Cox. The blood mingled with the rain and streamed down her face. ‘He’s got her.’

If she failed, if she lost Trevayne or pushed him the wrong way, or if Wilson’s knackered car gave out now, Abigail Thomas would die. It’s that simple this time, DI Cox. The Renault howled as she hammered the gas pedal, roaring out of the drive and on to the main road in a clattering shower of gravel.

She’d no radio, no way of contacting the rest of the officers; they were behind her, she knew, somewhere – but she had a visual on the grey Merc and she wasn’t going to wait about for them to catch up.

A glimpse was all she’d had: a brake light flaring red a hundred yards down the road as the Merc screeched round a tight left-hand bend.

Now the car was just two dots of light in the distance. Way off. Getting away.

Cox winced, narrowing her eyes, as her rear-view mirror flared with light; one of the patrol cars, siren screaming, hurtled past her, fast and reckless in pursuit. It’d be the black-bearded sergeant; after Cox, he’d been in the best position to respond.

She wished him luck. The patrol car was already way in front of her and gaining visibly on the distant Merc.

But she wasn’t about to take any chances. She kept on at top speed, the needle quivering at seventy, seventy-five – kept on pushing the Renault to its limit.

Up ahead, she saw the twin lights of the Merc vanish abruptly – a bend in the road, Cox guessed. The patrol car, following, close now, within fifty feet, went the same way. Then Cox heard a gunshot, a scream of rubber on asphalt, another shot. What the hell … ?

There was a loud, sharp scraping noise, a heavy thump. Someone going off the road. Cox said a quick prayer; hauled the car through the turn at speed, injured ribs shrieking at the effort.

It was the patrol car – out of action, overturned by the roadside. Must’ve veered up the left-hand verge, overbalanced as it slewed along the kerb; the wall of a concrete culvert had torn away the driver’s door. Smoke rose from the crumpled bonnet.

Cox quickly saw why it’d crashed – braked hard, spun the wheel desperately. Another car, unmarked, was parked at an angle across the road. Behind it, she saw lights, uniforms, guns, set, purposeful faces …

A SCO19 roadblock. She swore fiercely, wrestling to bring the skidding car under control. Great work, guys …

What was that, to the left? A break in the kerb, an opening in the steep verge – the armed response guys must’ve figured it was too narrow for a car. Trevayne had obviously disagreed; he must have come this way – or else he’d vanished into thin bloody air.

One of the SCO19 officers had stepped out from behind the roadblock, was gesturing at her self-importantly. Cox ignored him. She gunned the engine, bringing the car out of its spin – plunged forwards, down through the opening.

It was narrow, unpaved, barely more than a bridleway, heading steeply downwards through a deep stand of pine-trees. No one in their right mind would bring a car down here. Maybe a desperate killer; maybe a desperate copper.

The Renault bucked over potholes, rocks, ditches. Her arm and ribs ached from gripping the wheel. The windscreen wipers whined back and forth.

Red brakelights flared up ahead.

She had an edge here; not much of one, but something. Off-road, Trevayne had lost his main advantage: the Merc’s vastly superior road-speed. On a main road, he could have put his foot down and lost the Renault for good in five seconds flat – he’d already outrun her once. Here, with Trevayne struggling along the muddy, broken-up track, lights glaring full-beam to pick out the way through the pines, they were pretty much on a level footing.

They were also, she realized uneasily, heading away from any place where someone – anyone – might pass by; into empty countryside – into darkness.

If and when the cars stopped, it’d just be the three of them: her, Trevayne and poor, terrified little Abigail Thomas.

She drove on. Just focus on those brake lights. Just focus on getting it right.

Up ahead, she saw, the Merc seemed to be faltering, slowing, lurching lopsidedly across the track. Hope clutched at her, hope wound tightly up with a primal, physical fear. A puncture, a broken axle?

Or a trap?

She kept up her speed, closing the gap; the Merc was still moving, still ploughing forward in spite of its difficulties. Cox wondered how she was going to bring the bastard to a halt; there was nowhere near enough room to overtake, and she doubted the Renault had the power to run the bigger car off the road – and how could she, anyway, with Abigail Thomas in there with him?

Trevayne braked, hard, sudden, brake lights bright and terrifyingly close. The Merc skidded sharply through ninety degrees, jolted to a halt, jammed across the track.

Another roadblock. No turning away from this one.

She had a half-second’s sight of Trevayne’s face framed in the driver’s window, grimacing in the white blaze of Cox’s oncoming headlights. Cox took her hands off the wheel, covered her face with her forearms.

The Renault bounced over a hump in the path, crunched, off-side first and halfway airborne, into the Merc’s driver’s door.

Shudder of impact. Scream of crumpling metal. Hiss, bang of the little car’s airbag. A dizzying lurch, a hard thump.

Blackness.

Cox awoke. Gagged, spat blood. Her right wrist, cramped between her hip and the car door, was twisted, unnatural – the pain of it cut through the fog of her concussion.

‘Jesus. Jesus Christ.’

She lifted her head – her neck screamed at her, her vision swam in and out of focus. Fumbled with her left hand to unfasten her seatbelt; reached over, elbowing painfully past the inflated airbag, to unlatch the door.

Freezing cold night air, spatters of sleety rain. She gasped, drew a deep breath. There was light, faint light – how, where? She clambered from the car, clinging to the wet metalwork of the roof, the bonnet – saw that the little Renault still had battery-power, that the headlamps, crushed against the ruptured flank of the Merc, were still gleaming faintly.

She looked up – saw the face of Robert Trevayne, looking straight at her from four feet away.

Cox gasped, stumbled backwards, lost her footing on the mud-slicked path – hit the ground hard, her lower back thudding into an outcropping stone.

Trevayne hadn’t moved.

The dim, low-angled light of the headlamps drew out the dark hollows of his face. His nose and mouth were black with blood. As Cox’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, she made out a ragged seam, a slash in the skin, running from Trevayne’s right eyebrow to the back of his head.

She swallowed. Bile and blood in her throat. Over Trevayne’s right ear, the seam split wider, opened out … She saw an edge of off-white bone. A dark mess of blood and brain.

The metal frame of the driver’s window, she noticed, was drenched with viscous gore.

She let her gaze track downwards. The impact of the Renault had split apart the aluminium of the Merc’s door; a sharp-edged horizontal rip had opened in the pit of a deep v-shaped dent.

Thick vertical stripes of blackness cut across the grey on the lower half of the door, beneath the rip. Cox, her belly roiling, squinted through the flickering half-light – then looked sharply away, gulping down vomit.

She’d seen something glistening between the halves of split metal; a bulge, ribbed, glossy with blood. A section of intestine. A good eight inches of Robert Trevayne’s gut.

Cox fought her way on to her hands and knees. Scrabbled for purchase; the path was slippery underfoot, gritty and cold between her fingers.

Take nothing for granted. Finish this. Do this right.

On her feet now, uncertain, swaying. A smear of light in the darkness behind her made her turn, narrow her eyes: a car, a patrol car, lumbering down the track. It was maybe half a mile away. Too far off to make a difference now.

She turned back to the Merc, to Trevayne.

Found herself staring down the barrel of a gun.

She took a step backwards. Thick hawthorn, dense and spiny, pressed up against her legs and back. Downhill, the Merc, its nose deep in the hedge, blocked the way; up the slope, in the wet, the dark, she hadn’t a hope in hell.

Trevayne was looking at her. There was a defiant gleam in the one eye she could see. The barrel of the gun was propped on the car door. What he must’ve been going through, she couldn’t imagine – just to grip the gun’s butt must be causing him agonies.

And for what? What would it achieve? What did he want?

She faced down Trevayne, faced down the black eye of the gun barrel. It was all she could do. The only option she had left.

Trevayne cocked the gun.

Cox shook her head – felt helpless, knew it could do no good, knew there was no use in asking Robert Trevayne for mercy – but shook her head, blinking in the rain, and mouthed, ‘No. No.’

Trevayne just smiled. The muscles of his jaw tensed. The trembling gun barrel lifted, tilted upwards – and, once it was pressed to the bloodied, sweat-beaded skin of his own forehead, Robert Trevayne pulled the trigger.

Cox hurled herself forward. It was too late to save Trevayne – it’d always been too late to save Trevayne. But that’s not why you’re here, Cox. She threw herself hip-first on to the bonnet of the Renault, skidded across to the near side, stumbled, staggered, found her balance – grabbed for the catch of the Merc’s boot, flipped up the tailgate –

A child, a young child, skinny and pale, cold and folded in a foetal curl.

The memory of poor Tomasz Lerna hit her like a physical impact. She bit her lip; reached out a shaking hand.

Abigail Thomas looked up at her. Her dark eyes were wide, her face white and wet with tears.

Took her a second to find her voice.

‘Are you rescuing me?’

Cox smiled, felt a hard lump in her throat. Wiped her lank, drenched hair out of her eyes. Christ, what she must look like to the poor kid.

‘Yes, darling,’ she said. ‘I’m rescuing you.’

She bent down. Gathered the child up in her arms.