seventy-one

I remembered a rush of energy, the sudden force of the blow, the flash of pain—white, vicious, and blinding—and not much else.

Coming to, my eyes refused to focus. I’d no idea how long I’d been out cold. Sick and sweaty, enveloped in pitch black, my first impulse was to scream. I’ve never been good in confined spaces, and here I was caged in a cramped room that felt no bigger than a cupboard. My bag containing the gun and my phone was no longer within reach. My head ached and a tentative exploration with my fingers told me what I already knew. On impact, the new hairpin had dug into my head and my swollen scalp oozed blood.

I had to get out. I had to raise the alarm. The only reason Stacey hadn’t killed me was because there were more important people on her hit list. I didn’t doubt that she’d return to clear up later.

I staggered to my feet. My arm extended, I felt around my cell. It took seconds to identify a door, toilet and sink, and a cupboard on the wall. There was no window and the light switch didn’t work. Squinting against a shudder of pain, I tore open the cupboard and, fingers bumping up against packets and bottles, found absolutely nothing that could aid my escape.

I edged my way back to the door, grabbed hold of the knob, and wrenched. It wouldn’t budge. I beat the wood with my fist, shouted and yelled; my voice was sucked into the thick, cloying wall of silence. Darkness clung to my nose and mouth as readily as the plastic bag used to suffocate Judge Michael Hawkes. Frustration rippled through me.

I tried the doorknob again, wishing I had Stannard’s lock-pick. My hands flew to my head in despair. I wanted to yowl. In that desperate moment, I thought of my dad. Practical by nature, he taught me everything I knew about survival. I could never take that away from him. Electric thinking was his watchword. As if guided by his spirit, my fingers touched my new hairpin and inspiration struck.

I patted the door down and ran my fingers over the hole in front of the knob. Inserting the flat side of the pin, I jiggled, felt it connect, turned it once, and the door sprang open.

Flying out into the street, I saw that Stacey’s car had gone. Now what? I thought about what Stannard had said. Nicholas Vellender came back. Five minutes later, he tore out of the alleyway with a phone pinned to his ear.

Finding his real father was all Nick Vellender had ever thought about and needed. It had driven him away, consumed him, and, ultimately, propelled him back. How simple it would be for Stacey to draw him out under the pretext of giving him news that would lead him to his real dad. But what blew my mind more was that she no longer needed to hold back. Having approached her son after years of searching, he’d rejected her. Twisted and crippled with disappointment, she would seek to punish for her loss. With these thoughts in mind, I didn’t stop. I ran.

I didn’t know where Stacey would go next, but the restaurant was my only and best guess.

Mean streets and sleek streets roared past me; homes with chipped window frames and grimy curtains; take-away restaurants, hairdressers, and people, lots of people, all shapes and sizes and colours and creeds, yet none registered. Blood pumped through my veins and unquiet ghosts clamoured around me like a seething, restless crowd about to riot.

The entrance locked, I pushed open the wrought-iron gate and stole down the narrow alley leading to the back of the kitchen. The rear door ajar, a drift of raised voices echoed in my ears.

Breathless, I slipped inside. I passed a prepping area; racks of pots and pans and plates, and followed a maze of narrow workstations where two chefs could work back-to-back, in tandem. Gleam and steel, edge and fire. As instruments of torture went, Stacey had alighted on the perfect place to indulge her sadistic side.

An agonised scream ricocheted and bounced off machinery and inhabited all the hollow spaces. I ducked, ears ringing, crouched low and edged my way past vents and sous vide, burners and griddles, a massive charcoal oven, and hobs.

Stacey’s voice rang out. “Hurts, doesn’t it, you fucker?”

I raised my head enough to have a clear view of Otto sitting slumped, barely conscious and restrained. Blood seeped from his mouth and nose. There was livid bruising on one cheek and his right eye was a swollen slit. Bare-chested, his torso was a mess of criss-cross bleeding slashes, the meaty part of the tops of his arms were raw, scorched and bleeding. My gaze briefly caught the flare of blue flame from a blowtorch. I swallowed. Fire had always been my enemy to tame.

Behind Otto stood Stacey Walton. Zoned out with self-righteousness, she held a boning knife in one hand like a dagger. In the other, a filleting knife with a slimmer curved blade but no less deadly. It glinted with fresh blood. Nicholas Vellender had his back to me. I couldn’t see his face. His shoulders stooped, body braced, arms rigid at his side, hands tightly clenched.

“Give the word, Ryan, and I’ll kill him.”

I had no idea whether or not Nicholas had egged on Stacey, whether he was working with her, whether he enjoyed the pain she’d inflicted upon Otto, whether she had turned his moral compass south. I didn’t wait to find out. I burst out of my hiding place, smacked him hard sideways, and dropped him to the floor.

She slow-blinked, regarding me with no more concern than if I’d delivered a fresh consignment of fruit and vegetables. Scrambling back onto his feet, Nicholas looked wan and sickly.

Frantic, I took a step forward and grabbed the nearest implement, a meat cleaver. Irrationally, it made me feel safer.

“Ignore her,” Stacey ordered him. “She’s nothing. This is you and me, family, like it always was. You were such a good little boy. Together, we’re going to turn back the past. I can be a real mom to you again.”

“Nick, look at me,” I said, desperate to break Stacey’s hold. “Look at me. You don’t have to sanction this.”

He turned, eyes vacant, unfocused as though drugged. We stood there, the two of us. I wanted to reach out, tell him the truth: that he would never get those years back, that time had stolen them for good, that all he could do was move on. He shook his head sadly.

“See,” Stacey hollered, a wild triumphant glint in her eye. “He knows what’s right. It’s time for justice.”

My voice rang with protest. “This isn’t justice. It’s an execution. Nick,” I said, appealing to him, desperate now, “you don’t want to be part of this. You’ll be an accessory to murder. You’ll be throwing your life away.”

He looked from me to Stacey and back to me. Confusion tightened the corners of his mouth. I moved another step towards him.

“I understand your desire for revenge, but this isn’t the way. Be courageous, Nick. Do the right thing. Enough people have died.”

“Shut up.” Stacey sliced the air dangerously close to Otto’s right eye with the shorter blade. “Ryan, you know this is what we’ve both been waiting a lifetime for. Think of what this man did to you, how he made you suffer. Think of what he did to Mimi.”

At the mention of his sister’s name, Nick Vellender put his hands to his temple and roared. Colour leached from my face. The meat cleaver trembled in my hand. I had to break through and rescue him. With Stacey stoking his demons, he was out of reach and lost to me.

“Nick, come to me,” I shouted. “Walk this way.”

Pressing a blade against Otto’s throat, Stacey snarled, “You fucking touch my son, I’ll gut Otto right before your eyes.”

Seconds thumped past. The kitchen seemed to shrink in size. My thoughts felt clogged and sticky. Otto was going to die if I didn’t act. I spread the fingers of my free hand. “Okay,” I said, backing down, lowering my makeshift weapon. “It’s fine. Nick, stay where you are.”

“He took my babies from me.” Stacey’s voice thickened with emotion. “He deserves this.”

“Nobody deserves it,” I said, “no more than you deserved to lose your children. You never abused them. You were a victim of a gross miscarriage of justice. I know about your children’s vitamin deficiency, Stacey, the condition that led to those tiny fractures. As soon as your children were adopted, they were diagnosed and treated.”

Shock twisted her features. She let out a small cry. I was, perhaps, the only person ever to declare out loud that it was not her fault and explain why.

Everything stopped. Her face froze. Eyes the colour of jet locked on to mine. The blade in her hand, which was raised, lowered a fraction. She stood motionless.

“But Paris said—” Nick began.

“She made a mistake.”

“No. She—”

“I’m sorry.”

Despair inhabited and creased every feature on his face. “I don’t understand. Paris knew all along but said nothing? She lied to me?”

At the mention of his ex-wife’s name, Otto stirred.

“Ask him,” Nick yelled, nostrils flaring.

Otto’s eyes half opened, confused and bewildered. Stacey leant in, pressed her mouth close to his bloodied left ear. “Tell your boy what you knew, what you did.”

Otto blinked. I watched helpless, tried to see inside his mind, tried to gauge how he would react. Any sane person would beg forgiveness, express contrition. Not Otto.

“Fuck you.” He tilted his head, jutted out his jaw. “And fuck you, too,” he snarled at Nick. Otto’s eyes moved to mine in a blizzard of electric blue. I swear they were smiling.

“He bloody betrayed us,” Nick gasped.

“They both did,” Stacey said, smug and victorious.

I could hear sirens in the distance. Why the hell had it taken so long? Stacey heard them, too. Any second and it would all be over.

“He didn’t mean it,” I pleaded. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying. Tell her, Nick. Tell her to drop the knives.”

“I don’t know. I … Jesus,” he uttered, shaking his head.

“Put down the knives, Stacey,” I begged. “You have to.”

She hesitated. Did I imagine the fight draining from her?

“Nick?” I said, spreading my hands, pleading. Please.

The light in his eyes changed but I couldn’t gauge them. Locked in combat, on the edge, he straightened up, got into the zone, prepared to give the order. Despair rampaged through me. I didn’t move, didn’t speak. I’d run out of words. Suddenly Nick’s shoulders slumped, his head bowed. He couldn’t comply. Thank God.

Stacey hesitated, confusion haunting her face, and then she smiled and the boning knife clattered to the floor. Most would believe she’d reached a moment of resignation and acceptance. I knew differently. It was like watching a train about to hit a pedestrian who strayed onto a crossing. I was powerless to do anything to stop it. I let out a scream. The blade from the filleting knife flashed silver as it hurtled through space and time and plunged deep into Otto’s throat. Red, so very red it hurt my eyes, spurted then flowed free, sheeting in a cascade and onto the floor. Smell of copper and fear and ordure, rank and raw. Death, in all its sovereignty, broke loose and ran free. I started forward, grabbed Nicholas Vellender, and hauled him away.