‘How long before this stuff wears off?’ a man’s voice asked.
It echoed, as though under water. As he spoke, Eve was aware of somebody prodding her shoulders with the toe of their boot. Her eyes were tightly closed and she knew to keep still, not show any sign she was awake.
‘Looking at her, I’d say half an hour at least,’ a second voice replied gruffly.
‘Well, that’s fucking useless, isn’t it?’ the first voice said. Was it Damon Wade who spoke? It sounded like him. ‘We’re wasting precious time. I tell you, we need to find out what the bitch knows. Can’t you give her something to make her talk?’
‘No. It’s not like in the movies.’
She had been drifting in and out of consciousness for a while when she heard them come into the room. They had stood over her talking, although at first she was too groggy to focus on what they were saying. Someone pulled her up off the floor, her feet dragging on the ground, as other strong hands held her under her armpits. Somebody slapped her hard across the face several times, shouting ‘wake up’. Then they poured freezing cold water over her. Still she didn’t react. They must not know that she was conscious. Through the blindfold, she was aware of a bright light being shone at her face. Somebody grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head back and they ripped off the blindfold, peeling back each of her eyelids momentarily. For a second, she was totally dazzled. They let go of her hair and her head flopped forwards on her chest. She groaned incoherently as though she was still drugged. They hit her again and she tasted blood, but she let her body flop heavy in their arms, then they threw her back down again. Her head was spinning and she felt nauseous, the voices reverberating around and around, becoming increasingly distant.
For a moment, she was twelve again, high up in the arms of the old apple tree at the bottom of the garden. She loved the shape of it, the feel of its rough, knotted bark. The apples made the best purée and crumble and it was where she went whenever she wanted to be alone. She had seen Daz come home with the long-haired man in motorbike leathers, who called himself Dr Death, and his tall, scrawny friend. They had gone into the small sitting room at the front and started to argue almost immediately. She ran down the passageway and hid in her bedroom, but there was no lock on the door. Then she heard shouts, followed by footsteps outside in the hall. They mustn’t find her. She climbed out of her bedroom window and ran into the garden, shinning up the tree and hiding behind the curtain of soft, green foliage. It was almost dark and lights were on inside the house. She could see right through the small, open window into the kitchen. A moment later, the man with long hair came into the room, pushing Daz in front of him. Then another man, much older, dressed in a suit and tie, appeared in the room. She had never seen him before but he seemed to be in charge, pointing and gesticulating and making Daz sit down in a chair in front of him. Daz had his back to the window, so she couldn’t see his face, but the older one looked very angry. He was asking Daz something, but Daz kept shaking his head. Then the long-haired man started shouting at him and hitting him. Then the older man pointed something in his face. She strained to see and realized it was a gun. She felt sick, her heart beating so fast, the blood pumping deafeningly in her head, she could barely breathe. Daz was yelling something, then her mother rushed into the room and screamed, followed by two quick pops. It sounded like a firecracker. Daz fell forwards and Eve closed her eyes. Another scream. Another couple of pops. When she opened her eyes, all she could see were the two men in the kitchen. Where had her mother gone? ‘No witnesses,’ the older man shouted, his voice carrying through the open window. ‘You find the little boys. I want the girl,’ the long-haired man shouted. ‘I’ll deal with her.’ Eve clamped her hands over her mouth, holding them as tight as she could so no noise would escape.
Somebody kicked her hard in the buttocks and she was back in the room.
‘You gave her too much,’ Damon Wade was saying. ‘She’s not going to answer anything now.’
‘I tell you, it will wear off. Trust me.’
‘Well, I haven’t got all night and she’s no bloody good to us like this.’ It was Stuart Wade this time.
‘Whatever you intend to do, she’s got to be out of here by three a.m. at the very latest. Understood?’ It was Harry Michaels, his tone flat and measured as though he was talking about something routine.
The sound of his voice jolted her, but even in her woolly state, it made sense. Why wouldn’t he be there? He had been part of everything right from the beginning.
‘No problem,’ voice number two said. ‘It’s only ten. We’ve got bags of time. Once she’s properly awake, it won’t take long. We’ll try again in half an hour.’
‘Come on,’ Stuart Wade said, with a clap of his hands. ‘Let’s go. I want her wide awake. In the meantime, I need a drink. Where’s Damon gone?’
The footsteps receded, a heavy metal door clanged shut, followed by what sounded like a key being turned in the lock. Gradually, she became aware again of her surroundings and opened her eyes. She was lying on her side, her left cheek pressed against a cold, gritty floor. The darkness that surrounded her was absolute, not even a chink of light. The ache in her shoulder beneath her was excruciating, stabs of pain reaching up through the numbness. As she tried to move, she realized that her hands were tied together tightly behind her back and her ankles were also secured, the ties cutting deep into her flesh. There was no gag over her mouth. She must be somewhere where it didn’t matter if she made any noise. She tried to focus and think back to what had happened. For a moment, she was in the dark street outside her flat. Of the three male voices that she had heard, one definitely belonged to Damon Wade, with his clipped, private school voice. He was the person she had kicked and the thought gave some meagre satisfaction. Neither of the other voices were familiar; the deeper one had a London accent, the other, who sounded quite a bit older, had a similar northern accent to Wade. Lancashire or Yorkshire. She couldn’t tell the difference. She wondered if either of the men had been with Stuart Wade in Tim Michaels’ study ten years before, if one of them was the man who had pointed the gun at him. Did they intend to kill her too, once they had found out what she knew? Given what they had done to Mickey, it seemed likely.
Somebody had just mentioned that it was ten o’clock. She assumed they meant night, as Harry had said they must be gone by the early morning. So it was less than four hours after she had been abducted. The air in the room was damp and smelt strongly of leather and something waxy and chemical. It occurred to her that she might be in one of the tack rooms at Westerby. The one in Old Yard, which Harry had pointed out when he gave her the grand tour the week before, had a large metal door with rivets. She also remembered that the room had no window. Security was important, he had said. There would be no means of escape, except through the door. Even if she had a lock-pick or a blowtorch, it would do no good. She couldn’t do anything with her hands and feet tied up so tightly. But at least she had left some sort of a trail behind her. A woman in the street had definitely seen her being bundled into the car. Was it someone she knew? The voice had sounded familiar. Hopefully whoever it was had called the police. Even if she hadn’t, Dan was coming over around seven. He would have seen her car in the street, parked almost outside. When she didn’t answer either her phone or the doorbell, he would have rung Alison’s bell and Alison would have told him that Eve had gone out for a run. After everything that had happened to them both, surely it wouldn’t take him long to realize something was wrong and to call Fagan? But how would they know where to look for her? She must play for time. She closed her eyes again and felt herself drift away.
Dr Death was in the garden somewhere behind her, yelling something unintelligible to his friend. Even in the branches of the tree, she smelled petrol and heard the clatter of bins in the side passageway as he must have stumbled. ‘Get the fuck on with it,’ the other voice said. ‘We need to get out of here.’ Silence. More footsteps running. Then an explosion ripped through the air. For a moment, she was flying through a cloud of coloured lights. Then she hit the grass below very hard. Her ears were ringing and she couldn’t breathe. Distant voices, more shouting. Her heart was about to burst. ‘Her window’s open. Check the garden,’ Dr Death called out somewhere behind her. ‘Look, she’s there. Get her. I want her. She mustn’t get away.’ She shot back up the tree as fast as she could, more bangs rang out from the house. Something pierced her side, and her arm. The searing pain made her cry out, but she kept going, pulling herself higher and higher into the tree, then scrambling along the thick, gnarled branch and dropping down into a pile of long grass in the next-door garden. She picked herself up and ran.
Somebody was shaking her. ‘Eve? Are you awake?’ a man’s voice whispered right above her.
She didn’t move.
He shook her again. ‘Eve. Please wake up. It’s Harry. We haven’t got long.’
Through her eyelids, she was aware of a weak light shining on her face. Maybe he had a torch, or was using his phone.
‘Please, Eve, if you can hear this, you’ve got to trust me. We haven’t got much time.’
The use of the word ‘we’ and the softness of his tone reached out to her. Even if it were a trick, if he was trying to trap her into showing that she was conscious, she didn’t have much to lose. She couldn’t keep it up forever. They would soon be back. She opened her eyes a crack, trying to make out the dark shape behind the light. As far as she could tell, he was on his own. As her eyes gradually focussed, she saw he had a small knife in his hand. Her heart missed a beat.
‘Thank God you’re awake.’ He knelt down beside her and started to cut through the ties holding her feet together, then he did the same for the ones binding her wrists. He picked up the pieces of plastic and put them in his pocket. ‘Come on. You’ve got to get out of here.’ He lifted her up onto her feet, but her legs wouldn’t support her and he caught her.
‘I’ll carry you. I’ve got to get you out of here.’
‘I can walk,’ she mumbled, pulling away from him and flexing her feet and legs until the blood started to flow. She felt suddenly dizzy again and bent forwards.
‘Here, take my arm. Stop being stubborn and let’s go.’
‘You need to call the police,’ she said groggily.
‘I can’t. The office is locked. So is my flat, and the keys and my phone are in the study, with Stuart.’
Holding tightly onto him, she stumbled out of the room. The cold night air hit her with force and she took several deep breaths until gradually her head began to clear. The sky was cloudless and full of stars, with a bright, almost full moon, bathing the quadrangle and stables in an eerie, bluish light. A clock tower loomed above them. They were, as she had thought, in Old Yard.
‘This way,’ he said, guiding her towards the arch on the far side.
‘Where are they?’
‘Back in my study, enjoying some very expensive brandy. They won’t be coming out for a bit.’
‘They’ll know it was you who let me out.’
‘It doesn’t matter. They won’t hurt me. I’ve spent the last ten years gathering all sorts of information together. It’s my little insurance policy. If anything happens to me, a bomb will go off for them. Stuart and his boys will be finished.’
She hoped he was right, but Stuart Wade didn’t seem to be the rational, logical type, the sort of man you could blackmail, who would then happily leave you alone to enjoy the rest of your life without retribution.
‘Was it you who drugged me at the party, or was it one of them?’
‘It was me. I just wanted to stop you asking questions, to keep you out of their way. You just couldn’t leave it alone, could you? Even though it had nothing to do with Jane.’
Whatever else he had done, at least he hadn’t raped her, she reminded herself. The DNA sample had confirmed it. Her legs still wouldn’t work properly and she needed his help again as they crossed the cobbles. They went through the arch under the tower and, sticking to the deep shadows made by the moon, slowly made their way around the back of one of the new barns. Neither Harry’s shoes nor her trainers made any sound on the concrete, but a horse whinnied in the barn as though aware of their presence, setting off another as they passed. She hoped Stuart and his cohorts couldn’t hear. They were halfway along one of the outer sides of the indoor school when she was suddenly hit by another wave of nausea.
‘Wait,’ she said, heart beating fast. She bent over, palms on her thighs, gasping. She was going to be sick. She was never going to make it to the road at this rate. Maybe it would be better to hide. Everything was spinning. Harry’s hand was on her arm, steadying her. The sickness passed after a few moments and she slowly stood up and looked at him. ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me?’
‘They’re going to kill you.’
‘Why?’ It still didn’t make sense.
‘You know too much, or at least they think so. Stuart doesn’t like leaving loose ends. I have to say, I didn’t bargain on that. I thought they just meant to scare you. Whatever you think of me, I’m not a murderer.’ She picked up the urgency in his voice, surprised that after everything he had some sort of a conscience.
‘What about Mickey Fraser?’ she asked, as they started moving again, half walking, half jogging. It was the best she could do. ‘Were you involved in what happened to him?’
‘The PI, you mean? No. He came to Newbury and asked for me. I tried to make him go away, but he started shooting his mouth off about all sorts of wild stuff. He then confronted Stuart, which was a very stupid thing to do. He said he had proof of something. He said something about a dead journalist called Kevin, who used to work for the Racing Post and some notebooks. I had no idea who he was, but it certainly meant something to Stuart. It was like somebody had lit a fire under him. I still didn’t realize they intended to kill Mickey, then I read about his murder in the papers. I recognized his photo. He’d come to the yard only a few days before. Then you mentioned him and showed me his photo.’
‘Someone overheard Wade threatening to kill your father ten years ago. They saw one of Wade’s men pointing a gun at his face.’
‘You mean Jane? How the hell do you know that?’
She glanced up at him. Even in the half-light she could see the shock on his face, but there was no time to explain.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘They didn’t kill her, if that’s what you think. I never told them I saw her there at the window. I knew what they’d do to her. I went around to the cottage later, to talk to her, but she’d gone. I swear I didn’t kill her.’
‘So it was you who broke in?’
‘Yes. I couldn’t find the key. I was worried. I wanted to make sure she was OK.’
‘What about your father? Did they kill him?’
‘He took his own life. He discovered what I was mixed up in. It would have ruined him if anyone had found out. They’d never have believed he wasn’t involved. He did it to save me.’
‘How can you be so sure?
‘I found him, in his study. There were two notes, one for my mother, which I gave to the police, and one addressed to me, which I never showed anyone. I still have it. It’s the most godawful, shaming thing I’ve ever read. He was trying to protect me, put all the blame on himself. After that, Wade wouldn’t leave me alone. The BHA dropped the investigation, but he had me in his pocket.’
‘Why didn’t you call the police?’
‘I’m in too deep. I don’t fancy a spell in jail, so I’m going to disappear abroad for a while. I’ll call it a sabbatical. It’s all planned. I’ll leave things in Melissa’s capable hands.’
‘Wade’s not going to let you go.’
‘I told you, I know too much. Once I’m gone, once he realizes I’m not going to do any damage to him. He’ll soon forget about me. He’s got fingers in lots of pies. I’m not his only stooge.’
As he spoke, they heard somebody calling Harry’s name from the direction of the yard.
‘I told them I went to check on a horse that’s got colic,’ he whispered. ‘They can’t get into the tack room without the key, so you’ve still got a bit of time before they realize you’ve gone. If you go up that bank there, then over the top, you’ll see the house at the bottom. Melissa should be home by now. Call the police from there.’
‘What about you? You should come with me.’ She could barely see his face but he seemed surprisingly calm.
‘I can’t. He might do something stupid, like set fire to the stables. Let me handle this. As I said, when they find out you’re not there, they’re not going to hurt me. I know too much. I’ll go back now and try and hold them off. I’ll pretend I’ve lost the key.’
He was being stupid, but there was no time to argue. Also, even if his conscience had made him stop short of murder, he had been mixed up in it all for years. It was his lookout. She scrambled up the steep, muddy bank as best she could and crossed the soggy grass to one of the gallops. She climbed through the railings and followed the soft track for a good hundred metres, hoping to hide her footprints. Then she ducked under the railings on the other side, crouched down low and ran as fast as she was able along the ridge at the top. More shouts came from the direction of the yard. She hoped when they found out she had escaped they would assume she was making her way to one of the main roads, either at the back or the front of the estate. She cut off left, heading over the brow of the hill, as Harry had suggested. The farmhouse was just visible down below in the valley, half-hidden behind some trees. Lights sparkled at the windows and she could just make out Melissa’s car parked on the drive, in front. She heard more shouts in the distance. Then she heard the sound of gunshots. Two in quick succession, then a third. It sounded like a pistol. She kept going, slipping, almost falling, down the bank, then tripping and smashing her way through the bracken at the bottom and into the small copse. She was making a lot of noise. Anyone on top of the hill would know exactly where she was, but she didn’t care. Gasping for breath, she climbed over the fence that separated the wood from the garden and sprinted the final stretch up the drive to the front door.
She rang the bell and banged the knocker as hard as she could several times, but nobody came. A light was on in the kitchen window, at the side of the house. The curtains were only partly drawn. A sleepy-looking young girl sat on the sofa, in front of the television, the brindled whippet curled up on the cushion next to her. She must be the babysitter, Eve thought. She hadn’t seen her before. She hammered on the glass, but the girl didn’t appear to hear. Eve picked up a stone from the path and hurled it as hard as she could at the centre pane of the window. The glass smashed and the stone fell at the girl’s feet. She looked up.
‘Open the door. Now,’ Eve shouted.
Still staring at Eve, mouth open, the girl didn’t move.
‘Let me in. We need to call the police.’
The girl stood up, pulled off a set of ear-buds and said something Eve couldn’t hear.
‘Let me in,’ Eve shouted again. ‘Help me. I need to call the police.’
The voices were getting closer, somewhere high up on the ridge above, maybe on the road leading to the main gate. If they looked down, they would have a clear view of the house below, and possibly a clear shot at her too, although hopefully she was out of range. She was about to try and smash open the window with a garden chair when Melissa walked into the room. She still had her coat on and looked as though she had just returned from an evening out.
Eve hammered again on the window and Melissa looked around alarmed.
‘It’s me, Eve,’ Eve shouted. ‘Open the door.’
Melissa ran across the room and unlocked one of the French windows. Eve pushed past her into the kitchen.
‘Where’s the phone?’
‘My God, Eve. What are you doing here? Was that you making all that noise just now?’
‘Call the police.’
‘There’s blood all over your face. What on earth’s happened? Has someone attacked you?’
‘Harry’s in danger, and so am I. I think they just shot him.’
‘What? Who?’
‘Just call the police,’ she shouted.