It took him an hour to quieten her, reassure her and take her to bed. He held her close until she fell asleep, and waited until her breathing was deep and regular. He hadn’t told her about his fears. This closer threat was more immediate and had to be dealt with first. It was time to be a husband.
He slipped out of the bed and dressed warmly, took the carving knife and strode along the beach to Dawson’s house. He let the anger boil with every step, and by the time he arrived at Mitchell’s house, he was a seething cauldron of rage. Someone had threatened his wife for the last time.
The lights were on and the ranch slider was open. Mitchell was sitting in a lounge chair, wearing a bathrobe, reading and drinking wine, almost as though he was waiting. He didn’t look up as Vinnie strode in.
Suddenly Vinnie had an unsettling feeling he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
‘I thought you were away,’ Mitchell said finally.
‘Apparently so.’
Slowly Mitchell raised his eyes and then he laughed. ‘You brought a knife?’
Vinnie bristled. ‘You assaulted my wife. You might be some kind of maniac.’
Mitchell laughed louder. ‘And you thought a knife would help?’
‘If I had a gun, I’d have it in my hand.’
Mitchell raised an eyebrow in surprise. ‘Really? Now who’s the maniac?’
Vinnie shook his head. He needed to stay in control and ignore the goading. ‘What the hell did you think you were doing? She’s mine. How dare you!’
Mitchell put the glass and the book down on the table beside his chair and pulled himself to his feet. His legs were uncovered, and for the first time Vinnie noticed that his thigh bones were long.
‘I made a pass at your wife and she put me in my place. I’m sorry. I should never have hit her. It was most ungentlemanly of me.’
Vinnie locked eyes with him. The other man’s eyes were ice cold. Something, he couldn’t place it, but something … ‘Who the hell are you?’ Vinnie asked softly.
The corners of Mitchell’s mouth twitched.
It was a tic – Vinnie hadn’t noticed it before, and it was strangely familiar.
‘I’d like to say I’m competition, but Charlotte’s far too noble for that. Or scared of you.’
Vinnie punched Mitchell in the gut. His fist bounced off the taut muscles as if they were concrete. Mitchell grasped Vinnie’s shoulder and squeezed. The pain was excruciating. The nerves in Vinnie’s arm went numb, his hand opened and the knife dropped to the floor.
Then Mitchell’s other hand struck him across the face. ‘I’ve wanted to do that for such a long time, you pompous ass.’
Vinnie regained his balance and launched himself at the taller man. They crashed to the floor, wrestling and landing half-hearted blows.
‘Stay away from –’
‘Oh grow up! Didn’t that fancy public school teach you anything?’
Vinnie kicked himself clear and moved out of reach. Something about this man was all wrong.
‘How do you know I went to a public school?’ he asked.
Mitchell shrugged. ‘Good guess.’
Vinnie’s eyes narrowed. ‘How do you even know what a public school is?’
Without waiting for an answer, he threw himself at Mitchell and caught him off-guard. He struck higher up, and felt rib bone crunch under the blow. Then he gripped two fingers in his hand and bent them back as far as he could. The joints and bones cracked loudly.
‘Fuck! Let go!’
That voice, those bloody clipped public school vowels!
Vinnie spat the words into his face: ‘Don’t take no shit from nobody.’
The answer was automatic and involuntary: ‘No shit.’
It hit him as sharply as it had all those years ago, so hard he felt winded. He let go of the fingers and scrambled away across the floor.
‘No! No way! You’re fucking dead!’
Vinnie’s brain was swirling, and a roaring noise filled his ears. How was this even possible? And what the hell was he going to do now?
Marcus gave a short, humourless bark. ‘I was tempted to call myself Lazarus, but I thought it might tip you off. Been fun watching you, and flirting with your precious Anna. She’s a piece of work.’
Vinnie felt dazed and shocked, and very afraid of this ghost from his childhood. He knew Marcus could, and would, kill him without hesitation.
‘Why did you come here?’ he asked.
Marcus gave a triumphant smile. He seemed to be struggling with himself, with something he couldn’t help but brag about.
Vinnie remembered what Peter Harper had said at the identity parade about Marcus’s Achilles heel being his need to boast. ‘How the hell did you find me?’ But he knew the answer: the nosey woman in Auckland had been Melissa.
Still Marcus just smiled.
‘What are you going to do to us now?’
Marcus didn’t answer, but Vinnie could see he was desperate to share.
‘I know who you are, so you might as well tell me what you plan to do, now that your cover’s blown. You can’t get away with –’
Suddenly Marcus laughed. It was a bitter sound, with more than a touch of hysteria.
‘It’s done! It’s too late. My cover wasn’t all bullshit: I have been researching chilli. Your precious white chocolates are injected with pure capsaicin, the oil in chilli. But this is from the ghost chilli, Bhut Jolokia. Less than four grams will kill in twenty minutes. Anaphylactic shock. An exquisitely painful death. It’s so strong it burns through plastic. Those chocolates are now potent killing machines.’
Vinnie was almost lost for words.
‘Why?’ he spluttered.
‘Why? Are you completely stupid? This makes you a mass murderer. You’ll have no defence, and they’ll lock you up forever. Trust me, there are things worse than death, and a life sentence is one of them.’
It was ingenious and cunning. But the person who would take the blame would be his mother. At that, a red mist of rage rose up in Vinnie and he let out a shriek as he flung himself forward and punched Marcus in the face. Marcus’s head bounced on the floor with a sickening thud. They traded punches again, but harder this time, first Vinnie on top and then Marcus, who was hampered by his damaged left hand. Vinnie drove his knee up into the other man’s testicles and Marcus screamed in pain.
Marcus pulled himself away and staggered to his feet, looking urgently around the room. Then he saw what he was searching for on the table, grabbed it and advanced towards Vinnie, his lips drawn back in a grimace of agony. ‘Payback time, you murdering bastard,’ he gasped.
Vinnie had been on his knees and sprang up. ‘Takes one to know one. Did you know your father shot my dad? It wasn’t suicide at all – it was murder. Norman told me just before he died in a vat of my wine.’
Marcus stopped. It was clear he’d had no idea. ‘You’re lying.’
For a moment they stared at each other and the years fell away. Two little boys on a bridge.
‘No, I’m not. Your father shattered my world, broke my mother’s heart and condemned us to a life of shame.’
Then Marcus started advancing again. ‘He must have had good reason. Don’t you think it’s fitting that it comes down to us? After all these –’
‘Vinnie! What the hell’s going on?’
They both swung around. Anna was standing in the opening of the sliding door, her face ashen and another knife in her hand.
‘Call the police, get the neighbours!’ Vinnie yelled.
She fled, and, while Vinnie was still distracted, Marcus moved with lightning speed.
‘It may be over but you’re going to pay for killing my dad,’ he screamed as he ripped open a case and drove the needle of a syringe into Vinnie’s shoulder, depressing the plunger all the way.
The pain shot down Vinnie’s arm and across his upper chest. He reeled back, the syringe still embedded. Marcus stood above him as he sank down the wall.
‘Don’t follow her,’ Vinnie said quietly. ‘Stay. Watch me die.’
Marcus smiled. ‘Oh, I intend to.’
‘How long did you say it takes?’ Vinnie asked.
Marcus looked at his watch. ‘It’s been ten minutes. You should be in real pain by now,’ he said.
Vinnie smiled. ‘I hate to be a party-pooper but I feel fine, and Anna’s gone to the neighbours. The police have to come some distance. They’ll be a good half-hour, but the neighbours won’t let you escape.’
Marcus shrugged. ‘Where would I go?’
‘Exactly. Only one road in and you’ll meet the police coming.’
Marcus was sitting on the floor beside him. The adrenaline had subsided in both of them and, with it, the hatred and the fury of the confrontation. Vinnie wondered if Marcus felt as exhausted as he did.
‘How’s your hand?’ Vinnie asked.
Marcus looked at it. The joints were swelling and red, and had to be hurting. ‘I’ll live. I had worse in prison.’
‘Shame we can’t have a chocolate,’ Vinnie cracked.
‘Do you remember Cookie’s scones and jam?’
‘Oh God, yes! And her lemon curd. And those sodas she made with coke and ice cream.’
‘Do you remember duck racing?’ Marcus asked.
Vinnie chuckled. ‘You wanted them to drown, and they just sailed out the other side of the bridge. We couldn’t tell them apart, and yet your duck always won. You were a competitive little shit.’
Marcus laughed. ‘You wanted to be a pilot. What happened?’
‘Life. Wine. Marriage. What did you want to be?’
There was a pause. ‘I … I wanted to stay at school. I’m sorry my dad shot your dad – I’m sure he didn’t deserve it.’
Vinnie looked at him. It was hard to see Marcus – he looked completely different, but he was still under there. ‘Nor did David Kelt.’
Marcus shrugged. ‘Fair cop … Feeling any pain yet?’
Vinnie shook his head and then ran his free hand through his curls. They were damp with sweat. ‘I have a fucking great syringe in my shoulder, but apart from that I feel fine. Why didn’t you just grab your second chance and go off and have a life somewhere? Mitchell Dawson could have gone anywhere – no one is looking for you.’
Marcus poked him. ‘You’ve nearly destroyed me, Vinnie. You killed my dad.’
‘Well, your dad killed my dad.’
‘My grandfather worked for years to build his empire, and when you gave the police Kelt’s notebook, it gutted our money-laundering business, the heart of everything.’
‘Good! It was illegal.’
‘You betrayed me and put me in fucking prison. For life.’
‘You killed my employer! You nearly had me crippled once.’
‘But I didn’t, I saved you.’
‘Let’s be honest here: when you found out that it was me in Kelt’s cellar, you would have had me killed, and Anna and –’
Marcus shook his head emphatically. ‘No. If you’d come to me with what you had seen at Kelt’s, I’d have given you the bloody money to start your vineyard, and none of this would have had to happen.’
‘But your father –’
‘Need never have known it was you. I’d have found some lowlife to take the rap. You’ve forced me to hurt you; I would never have chosen to.’
Vinnie winced. His shoulder was starting to hurt.
Suddenly Marcus glanced at his watch, and then slammed his fist onto the floor. ‘Fuck! That conniving scumbag – you know what he’s done?’
This is straight out of a French farce, Vinnie thought as he watched Marcus pull himself to his feet.
‘No. Who? What? Has someone done the dirty on you? Heaven forbid.’
‘Tom fucking McGregor. And he’s taken most of the family money to do this.’ Marcus started to pace the room. ‘He came to me in that fucking Swiss clinic and gave me two vials of what he said was fucking pure capsaicin! Guaranteed to kill.’
His distress was driving him to walk faster. He lunged out and overturned a small coffee table as he passed it then picked up another and threw it at the wall. Wood flew in all directions.
While Marcus was venting his fury, Vinnie scanned the scene. His eyes came to rest on the wine bottle that had crashed to the floor and rolled across the room.
Marcus was being consumed by his frustration and rage. ‘It was the perfect fucking plan: set you up as a murderer and then disappear before the crime is discovered. Enjoy myself as the new American boss of the Lane gang while you rot in jail. But now I’m going to have to slit that motherfucker McGregor’s throat!’
Using his good arm, Vinnie grabbed the bottle and hurled himself back against the wall.
‘Those chocolates should be lethal and you should be fucking dead!’ As Marcus spat out the last words, he turned towards Vinnie, who shrank back in apparent fear.
‘First, I’m going to have to kill you, Vinnie, and make my escape. No one else knows who I am, and no country pigs will catch me. New hair colour, glasses, beard, new passport and I’ll be home before you know it.’
There was that heel again, Vinnie thought, the need to boast. He could use that.
Marcus picked up Vinnie’s discarded knife and looked at it. ‘Gutted by your own knife. How appropriate.’
Vinnie didn’t answer. His good hand was behind him and he gripped the bottle by the neck.
‘Aren’t you going to tell me I’ll never get away with it?’ Marcus said in a mock whine.
Vinnie shook his head. ‘You’ll get away with it – you always do, you jammy bastard.’
Marcus beamed. ‘True. You should have stuck with me, kid. I’d have made you a master criminal.’
He advanced swiftly, the knife raised to head height and pointing down. Vinnie waited for the perfect moment, then hit the bottle hard on the bronze statue beside him and felt it break. He rolled sideways and avoided the plunging knife, hitting Marcus on the shoulder with the bottle and then driving it into his lower stomach.
The knife fell away, and Marcus let out a loud roar. ‘Fuck!’ He flailed at the bottle neck with his right hand, but it was stuck fast.
Vinnie grabbed the knife and gestured towards the floor. ‘Lie down. Stop thrashing about. You’ll lose less blood that way,’ he ordered.
‘Get it out!’ Marcus screamed. He clawed at the bottle and blood spurted through the neck.
Vinnie shook his head firmly. ‘If I pull it out, you’ll die from blood loss very quickly. It’s in your stomach, not your heart. If you stay still, you might live.’
At least two high-pitched sirens broke the tension, still a little way off but getting closer every second. Marcus groaned in pain, but Vinnie kept the knife pointed at him.
Marcus stretched out an arm. ‘Help me, Vinnie!’
‘I am. I’m keeping you still. They’re almost here.’
As the police burst through the door, both Marcus and Vinnie began to laugh, one in sheer relief and the other with bitterness.
Vinnie joined Anna talking to a detective on the veranda. The sun was coming up behind the house, and the dawn mist was lifting.
‘I need to call Detective Inspector Peter Harper of the Met in London,’ Vinnie said as he sat down. The detective looked up and nodded at him.
‘I’ve already called him, sir. Do you think this Mitchell Dawson has anything to do with the Lanes?’
Anna sprang to her feet, panic on her face. ‘What?’
‘He has more to do with the Lanes than you can ever imagine, Detective. Peter will want a DNA sample from him to compare with Norman’s widow.’
Anna sat down. ‘Why?’ She sounded confused and shocked.
Vinnie reached out, took her hand and squeezed it. Here we go. ‘Mitchell Dawson is Marcus.’
‘No!’ Once again the force of her emotion thrust her to her feet. ‘You’re lying! It’s not true. It’s not possible.’
‘Anything’s possible in this day and age,’ Vinnie said gently.
Anna sank back into her chair and covered her face with her hands. ‘I just couldn’t have been that stupid,’ she murmured, and then began to sob.
Vinnie picked her up and held her in his arms, stroking her hair and soothing her. ‘No one could know. No one. He’s got brains, determination and no conscience. You never met him. He was my boyhood friend and even I didn’t suspect anything.’
The detective coughed.
‘It was a brilliant plan, you’ve got to give him that. His revenge was to ruin my life. I’d be charged with murder on a mass scale and he’d be long gone.’
Anna pulled back and looked up at him. ‘Oh, my God. I fell for his lies. I showed him around the shed, into the storage room. I’m so, so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?’
He smiled at her, brushed the tears off her face and kissed her. ‘There’s nothing to forgive: you called the police – you saved me.’
She shivered. ‘I need a drink. Is it too early for a glass of wine, Vinnie?’
He kissed her again. ‘It’s never too early for wine, my darling.’