Cupid's Arrow (26 page)

I remember what Dreaming Holmes had said about Maurice Ferrier, how violent and cruel he had been. She would have been a good mate for him. How awful it is to think that true love could also flourish between psychos. How useless to think that, in the last moments of my life. I should try instead to send homecoming thoughts, thoughts of love to Remy, and to my poor mother. Already, I feel as though I'm moving onto another dimension, a twilight place between life and death. Everything is silent and still around me, but no longer dark, everything making perfect sense and I...

'Are you ready?' says Christine, startling me.

I close my eyes. 'Yes.' Get it over with, quickly, I prayed. Oh God, please don't let her botch it. Please let it be quick. Please look after my mother and Remy. Please don't let them be too sad. Please take care of them.

But there is no gun against my head. No sudden shaft of pain, followed by blackness. She's talking. Still talking. And after an instant or so, my scrambled brain begins to make sense of what she's saying. 'I respect you,' she says. 'You're brave. Braver even than I thought. So I've decided to give you a chance. A sporting chance. Run.'

I think I haven't heard right. 'What?'

'Run,' she repeats impatiently. 'See if you can get away from me. If you can hide. If you can, then you're free, and so's your boyfriend. I'll leave and never come back and you can go and free Remy and live in peace however you want. But if I catch you – then I kill you. Either way, Remy is safe. Okay?'

Her eyes are glinting with a glowing light that suddenly reminds me of the fox's. I whisper, 'I don't understand.'

'I don't think you should die meekly, like a cow in the yards,' she says brutally, her eyes fixed on my face. 'You deserve more. You're not like the others. Raymond was an old bastard. The PI made money out of people's misery and secrets. Valerie Gomert was dead inside. That was a mercy killing, really. And Oscar – well, he was weak. But you – you're strong. Brave. Bright. You should have a sporting chance. And that I promise you, on Maurice's memory. Well? What do you say?'

She's bonkers. Bonkers. Bonkers. But what alternative do I have? Certain death, or uncertain death? Strangely, it doesn't come to me to doubt her word, about freeing me and Remy. She would keep to the promises she'd made on her cousin's memory. I know that, instinctively. So I nod, and say, 'all right'.

'Start running, then,' she says, but before she even stops speaking, I'm sprinting past her, not down the path, but into the bushes on the side, plunging into the dark woods.

I'm running. Running very fast. Running for my life. The breath is whistling in my throat, my heart's pounding, my feet are on fire.

Someone's after me. I know who it is, now. I know she means me harm. I can hear her footsteps crashing after me, I can hear her panting, excited breath.

It's dark in here. Very dark. Not the dim green-gold light of my nightmare, but thick darkness crisscrossed with patches of lighter shadow. Big trees. Small trees. Bushes. Vines. Stones on the path. Mossy patches. Slippery dead leaves. Things to trip you up, to stumble, to fall.

I'm running. Branches whip against me, stones fly out from under my feet. Sweat is pouring off me, cold sweat, making me feel clammy, shivering in the midst of my running. My scalp is pricked all over with cold needles of fear. For the faster I go, the more I can hear her coming, the more I can feel her presence: an evil, evil that will hunt me down like a wild beast till I am exhausted, unable to do anything anymore to protect myself. And I think, that's why she gave me this chance, because she loves it, the thrill of the hunt, my fear ...

Suddenly, something looms in front of me. A big grey pile of something. A large ruined house I think at first, and then, as I come closer, I see it's a tumbled pile of big grey rocks, threaded with yellow and green lichen. Boulders, really. Tall and rounded, with openings in among them. Like a terrified animal, I head for them. I can hide there. I can escape her. I can.

I dive in among the grey rocks. I slip, recover, then slide down into the dark shadows of the openings. I crouch there, so frightened that I'm almost beyond fear. My body feels disconnected from my mind, floating in some strange limbo where there's nothing, no thought, no feeling, just waiting.

She's almost there. Running footsteps, coming closer. Ragged breath. A crack of twigs. A feeling of presence. She knows I'm here. I'm trapped. I'm going to die. I know it. I just know it. I can't help it. I open my mouth and scream...

Oh God, I shouldn't have done that. She'll know now where I am. For sure. She'll come homing in, the predator intent on her prey. I move further back into the shadows, further, but I know that sooner or later there'll be nowhere left to retreat. Now I can hear her panting as she arrives at the rocks and searches for the right opening to squeeze through. She's a bit bigger than me. Maybe it'll take her longer, but only a bit. Only a bit. I have seconds maybe. Fractions of seconds.

I'm pressed up against the wall of the rock now. There's nowhere else I can go. Like a terrified wounded animal caught in a trap, I'm going to die here in the dark. My legs are like lead and won't move. My brain's seizing up, I can't think clearly anymore. My ears are full of whispers and clicks, as if my system is going into overdrive, shutting down. I am beyond terror now. I feel detached from my senses, like I'm floating, like I'm in some other world.

And then –
and then something happens.
As I press against the rock, I get the strangest feeling. It's as if the rock moves under my hand, slides like a living thing. At the same moment, something appears in my head. I can hardly call it a thought. It's like a picture, but not a picture I'm conscious of forming. More like someone sending me a picture on a mobile or on email or something. It just appears. And it's very clear. There's a hand holding a rock. A jagged piece of rock. My body responds without my being aware of it. My hand reaches back for the wall, where I felt the rock move. There's a cranny there, in the wall. I reach in. And there is a loose rock. I can feel its weight, the jagged feeling of it, and I know what I have to do.

I don't have long to wait. I can hear her dropping down into the darkness of the rock opening. I can hear her moving towards me. She can't see me – it's too dark in here. But she'll find me. Nothing surer. It's not a big place, down here.

But I can see her. Well, not exactly, but I can sense the shape of her movements. I can't explain it more than that. My brain is quite still and clear. I know I have to wait. I hardly even breathe.

She comes closer. Closer. She's going to see me soon. Closer. And then, I do it. I throw the rock. Hard, straight at her. Somehow I know I'm not going to miss. There's the picture in my mind, showing me, as if it was light in here and I can see everything, can aim properly.

I hear the sickening crack of the rock against flesh and bone. I hear her gasp and cry out. I hear the thud as she falls. Something hits me on the toe. It's the gun that she's dropped as she's fallen. I pick it up. I edge away from the wall, away from where I think she's fallen. I get down on all fours and scramble out, towards the rock opening. I keep expecting her to grab me, but nothing happens. She doesn't move. Crumpled, she lies still. In my mind I can see blood on her head. I think maybe I've killed her and the thought makes me feel both pleased and sick. But I don't linger on it. It's there, then it's gone, vanished, replaced by more urgent thoughts. I have to run back to the house, free Remy, get help, get Mum, the police .

I'm out into the night now. It's less dark here, touched with a weird greyish light, and in its dim glow the boulders of Fairy Rock look uncommonly like the tumbled ruins of an ancient house. A phrase comes into my head.
The Lady's House.
I feel a strange little tremor under my skin. But I don't have time to think, to wonder. I turn my back on that place and I run through the woods towards where I think the path is, as fast as I can go, the gun in my hand, my legs moving like pistons without my being aware of it.

Then suddenly it seems like the whole wood is full of light, of shouts, of crashing. I can hear dogs barking. I can hear yelling. Into my mind comes a picture of people dressed in Roman armour slipping through the woods, carrying someone on a stretcher, a long-haired man whose eyes turn to me – large, dark, suffering eyes, but full of courage, and hope – and I know I'm seeing something that happened long ago. But then the picture vanishes in a blink of an eye and I know that help has come already for me, that somehow they've found me, and that now I'll be safe and she can't hurt me anymore.

So I run towards the sounds and the lights, yelling at the top of my voice. When I finally burst onto the path, it is Remy I spot first of all. He has a black eye and his hair is all over the place and there's a big cut on his hand. When he sees me he stands stock still for an instant. Then he moves, running towards me, shouting my name, and I do the same, and time seems to stop as we run towards each other. Nothing else is real and it feels as though all the lights and the sounds and the other people clustering around don't exist.

Then time starts moving again, and I cry out, 'Remy, how did you ...' just at the moment as he says, 'Fleur, how did you ...' We look at each other and laugh but before the laughter's over he's kissing me and we cling to each other. I'm about to ask him why his clothes stink of wine and how he cut his hand when people come up to us. Policemen, I can see straightaway, and I have to tell them what happened, I have to tell them about Christine, lying dead in the rocks, and that I killed her, and why. My face feels numb as I say the words, I can hardly believe they're my words, they come out so crisp and clear and unfeeling. But then as I go on, my stomach begins to churn and the nausea rises up into my throat. I can still feel that rock move under my hand, I can see that picture in my head, clearly showing me what I had to do, and I know I can't tell it to them, not like that. They'll never believe it, because who would? Do I, even? I must have imagined it. Extreme terror must do that. My mind had told me I was doomed but somehow my body had fought on regardless. I'd been casting around for something to defend myself with. It was coincidence I found that cranny in the wall, and that loose rock. Yes, I hadn't felt like I was myself, I had felt as though someone else was showing me, but that was what super stress did to you. Fight or flight, apparently were the two reactions people had to extreme danger. In that case, I'd chosen fight. Because I had no other choice. Because I couldn't flee any longer.

So I tell it to them like that, straight, without letting on about what I thought I felt and saw, and they nod and seem satisfied. Someone takes the gun from me and puts it in a plastic bag, a bit late because all the prints'd be smudged now, and someone else takes Remy and me to an ambulance parked down near Christine's car, and Oscar's, but the rest of the officers take off through the woods to Fairy Rock.

But we don't wait to see what will happen. The paramedics check us both over briefly then I ask them if I can use their mobile. I call Mum on her Blackberry and she answers at once. She screams so loudly when she knows it's me on the phone that everyone else hears and then when I start gabbling at her, giving her an abridged version of what happened, she says nothing at all at first but then she suddenly starts to weep. She sobs all the way through my explanation and I feel so bad, so dreadful, I can hardly begin to describe how ashamed and horrible I feel about having deceived her and then worried her to death. It's the first time I really understand that she really really loves me and that she would be shattered if anything happened to me and that her life would be totally destroyed. I mean I sort of knew that but that night it was brought home to me with such force I'll never ever forget it. I stutter to a stop and say I'm so sorry, Mum, I'm so sorry and I love you so much, Mum and I'm really sorry but I had to help Remy, I had to, do you see? And then she says very quietly that yes, she understands, and that nothing else matters now I'm safe. She's going to meet us in Avallon, at the hospital where we're being taken to be properly checked. It's just as she's about to ring off that she drops her bombshell and I'm too shocked to really take it all in so I just say, yes, Mum, yes, I see.

Then we are driven away, out of the woods and down the night roads out of Quarré to the hospital at Avallon. And as we go along, I tell Remy quickly what happened to me, and then he tells me what happened to him. He says he's got a much harder head than Christine Foy realised and when he came to in the cellar he realised what had happened. He didn't know why she did what she did, but he knew that for some reason she had attacked him and that it was more than likely I'd be in danger. She had tied his hands but not his feet and he had managed to wiggle along the cellar floor till he got to one of the racks of wine she kept in there, then kicked out a couple of bottles from the rack. They smashed, spilling wine and broken glass everywhere and he was able to use bits of the broken glass to hack at the tape around his hands. It wasn't easy – the glass slipped once or twice, and cut his hand. He was soon free. He looks very sad then and tells me how once he got out of the cellar, he'd found Patou lying in one of the rooms, dead.

'There's not much more to tell,' he says, after a silence. 'I rang the police and they came pretty quickly and searched the house but found nothing. They thought she must have taken you somewhere in the car because it was gone. But then a couple of them were still searching the grounds with the dogs and they went out through the back garden and discovered Oscar's body.' He looks at me. 'Well, then, I don't know how to explain it, but
I saw you.
I saw you running in the woods, and I remembered that dream you told me about, and suddenly I was sure that it had been a premonition. I thought that's what she was doing, she was hunting you through the woods. I remember you telling me about how in your dream you came to that place – that rocky place. We'd thought it was the Lady's House, near Bellerive; but what if it was near here? So I said to the police, is there any place around here in the woods where there are big rocks, places where you might hide? And one of them comes from Quarré, and he said, yes, there's
La Roche des Fées,
it's not very far from here.'

'You saw me,' I say.

'Yes. I did.'

I swallow. 'Did you, did you send me a picture of what to do?'

He stares at me. 'What do you mean?'

So I explain. Jerkily, anxiously. He says nothing for an instant after I've spoken, then he sighs and takes my hand. In soft French, he says, 'It wasn't me, Fleur,
chérie.
Not me.' He shoots me a sideways look and switches back to English. 'You know what people say about places like that. It's called Fairy Rock for a reason. It's said there are otherworldly presences there. Helpful, sometimes. To the right sort of people.'

'But I don't believe in that sort of stuff,' I say, loudly. 'They're just stories. I imagined it, that's all.'

'Maybe. Maybe not. But I think, I think you have something, Fleur. Something that picks up on – on something most people don't.'

I snort. 'I'm psychic, you mean? Don't be silly. I'm just ordinary.'

'You're anything but,' says Remy, very quietly, and what I see in his golden eyes then makes my heart beat so fast I feel as though it's going to jump into my throat. He goes on, gently, 'There's that dream, too, Fleur. You can't explain that away.'

'No,' I say, after a moment. 'I can't. Not really. But I don't, I don't want to think about it. It scares me, Remy.'

He nods. 'I understand.' He puts an arm around me.

'Remy,' I say, after a while. 'You really did see me? I mean, in your mind?'

'Yes,' he says, looking into my eyes. 'I really did.'

I nod, and suddenly my whole body is flooded with a strange sense of wellbeing and happiness. I say, 'Remy, you know what my mother told me?'

'To keep away from men like me?' he says, teasingly, the golden eyes alight.

'No. She – she said she would be glad to meet you. And she said – she said she'd done something that she should have done long ago but wasn't brave or unselfish enough to do before.'

'What's that?'

'She'd read the cards, she said, and they'd told her she should do it. For me.' I think of Mum, even in her distress and fear, spreading out her Lady of the Lake tarot, and I feel a mixture of love and annoyance. 'She said it was time. Time I needed to know Tom Mallory, my father. So, Remy, she called him! I didn't know she knew where he was. She's never even wanted to talk about him. And there was that story about him being a spy, too. I didn't know what to think. And now she's called him. She said she was sorry, she knew how much I've wanted to know about him. Oh, Remy! It's, like, such a huge thing for her to do. So amazing. I–I might even get to meet him, if he can be bothered to come over and see me, that is.' I break off. I can't continue. Remy holds me tighter. And so we stay together, like that, all the rest of the way to Avallon, without speaking, without needing to.