Deadly Virtues (26 page)

For a long minute, concentrating with all her senses, she saw and heard nothing untoward. The cottage looked as it had when she left half an hour ago. The car was where she’d parked it under the lean-to. The door was closed; the curtains were open. No sound of voices reached her on the spring-scented breeze. Nothing was wrong.

Something
was wrong. Patience knew it, and Hazel knew it, too. Finally she saw what it was that her senses had picked out automatically. A shadow where no shadow should have been. The afternoon sun was casting a shadow that was separate from the shadow of the house, and half an hour ago there’d been nothing in the backyard to explain it. Someone had driven to the cottage in the time she’d been away, and had parked discreetly around the back.

Visitors don’t do that. If it had been a neighbor calling with milk and a welcome, or a particularly desperate candidate for the parish council canvassing for support, they would have parked at the gate. These visitors wanted to go unnoticed. Not by Ash, who’d have heard the car arrive wherever they parked it, but by her. She was meant to walk unknowing into an ambush.

So where were they? Watching for her, for sure. Had they spotted her before the dog growled? If not, would they wait? Or were they out looking for her already? If she ran, would they catch her?

She was young and fit. Mickey Argyle’s men were probably also pretty fit, and stronger. She’d be outnumbered. They could use their car to cut her off. Oh yes, they’d catch her. Unless she got a good head start.

Before she committed herself, she took a moment to wonder if running was the best option. She’d be leaving Ash to his fate, at least until she could round up some help. On the other hand, if Argyle had them both, he could kill them both, dispose of the bodies, and defy anyone to tie him to the disappearance of a couple of misfits. If he only had Ash, he’d probably wait until he could be sure of tying up all the loose ends.

The decision made itself. It wasn’t just in her best interests to stay free; it was in Ash’s, too. The question now was, how.

By getting off anything you could call, however generously, a road. Their car would be no advantage if she took to the fields. Afraid Patience would head back to the cottage, she put the dog’s lead on, found a weak spot in the hedge, and forced a way through. She needed to put some distance between herself and the interlopers before she started trying to explain all this on the phone.

*   *   *

Gabriel Ash knew he was going to die the moment he heard the car draw up outside. Hazel had gone for a walk, leaving hers in the lean-to. No one else was supposed to know they were here. Except—his heart lifted for a moment—the farmer they’d rented the cottage from. He might have come around to check that they weren’t trashing the place. Then Ash remembered what they found when they first opened the door and his heart sank again. Lighting a bonfire in the sitting room would have counted as home improvements.

Also, the man who owned the cottage would probably have knocked before entering, he wouldn’t have brought two friends, and they wouldn’t have come in through the front door, the back door, and the sitting room window simultaneously.

Ash was sitting in the chair in the kitchen. It took an effort of will, but he stayed there. It was too late to do anything except try to hang on to some dignity.

“You’re Ash,” said the man who’d come through the back door. They had actually met before, in Windermere Close. He was the man Nye Jackson recognized as Andy Fletcher. “Don’t try and deny it.”

“I wasn’t going to,” said Ash.

“Where’s the girl?”

“She’s gone.”

“Gone where?”

He tried to think fast, and look like he wasn’t thinking at all. “To the village. For some food.”

“The car’s outside,” said the big man, scornfully. “Walk, did she?”

“Yes,” Ash said simply. “She took the dog.”

One of Fletcher’s companions came in from the hall. “She’s not here.”

“He says she’s walking to the village shop.”

“It’s bloody miles!”

“She took the dog,” Ash said again, helpfully.

“Unless she took a tent and a sleeping bag as well, she hasn’t gone to the village,” decided Fletcher. “We didn’t pass her in the lane, so she’s gone the other way. I’ll wait here. You two go look for her. While we’re waiting”—he pulled a bentwood chair out from the ancient table—“I’m going to sit here with Mr. Ash and we’ll have a nice little chat.”

When they were alone, he said conversationally, “You know, I don’t really go for it.”

“For what?”

“This dummy act of yours. I don’t think you’re stupid. I think it’s like camouflage. I think you hide behind it.” He was a man of about Ash’s age but a hand taller and twice as far around. He wore a black leather jacket that strained to meet at the front.

“Yes?”

“I think
you
think that if everyone thinks you’re crazy, nobody’ll bother you.”

“Not really working, is it?”

Fletcher grinned with a confidence born of knowing he could deal with anything Ash might try. Ash knew it, too, and wasted no time wondering if he could make a fight of it. If they fought, Ash would lose. He hoped he had an intellectual edge on a man who thought with his fists, but that was only an advantage over someone with decisions to make. This man had come here with orders, and probably nothing Ash could say would stop him carrying them out.

“See?” said Fletcher, pleased. “That’s not what a dummy would say. I won’t make the mistake of underestimating you.”

“Okay.”

The man gave a puzzled frown. “What, no arguments?”

Ash shrugged. “You’re asking me if I think I’m sane? What possible faith could you put in the answer?”

Fletcher chuckled, but there was a slight uneasiness behind his eyes that hadn’t been there when he came in here. “Lots of people talk to dogs.”

“Yes, they do.”

“It’s what you do if you’ve got a dog. It’s
why
you have a dog.”

“Do you have a dog?”

“Yes. For the kids, mostly. But you get fond of them, don’t you? I like a dog about the place.”

“Do you talk to it?”

“Course I do. It’s
normal.
I ask it if it wants its dinner. I tell it it’s a good dog for
eating
its dinner. I ask it if it wants a walk, or should we just go down the shed for a smoke on account of it’s starting to rain.”

As an insight into the home life of a professional thug it was fascinating. “So there’s nothing abnormal about talking to dogs is what you’re saying.”

“Exactly.”

“How about when they talk back?”

CHAPTER 25

O
N GOOD GOING,
you can cover a couple of hundred meters in a minute without much exertion. Two hundred meters over plowed fields was going to take longer than that. Hazel plugged on until her chest began to crack and her muscles burned. Glancing back, she saw no sign of pursuit, so she labored a little farther until she could drop into the shadow of a hedge, where she pulled out her phone. Her nice new phone that hadn’t protected them for a whole day.

How Argyle could have found them so quickly was something she’d have to think about, but not right now with her lungs trying to squeeze out through her ears. She’d thought she was fit. She
was
fitter than most of her colleagues. But running over broken land and burgeoning new crops was as much of a workout as Hazel could take.

Who to call? Fountain first, obviously—he needed to know they were in trouble. He’d mobilize help from somewhere closer than Meadowvale. But with her finger on the button, Hazel hesitated. Maybe she should take time to think this through. She’d taken every precaution to ensure Argyle couldn’t find them. The only person she’d called was Chief Superintendent Fountain. But somehow Donald Murchison had got hold of …

Of what? She hadn’t told Fountain where they were. If Murchison was listening at his door, or scanned his blotter with an ultraviolet lamp as soon as the chief went out, he still couldn’t have sent Argyle’s heavies after them.

Coincidence, then? They hadn’t left a trail a bloodhound could follow. Only the farmer knew they were in his cottage, and he didn’t know they were hiding, let alone who from. It didn’t seem possible. She even wondered for a moment if she’d misread the situation, overreacted to the visit of a particularly determined Jehovah’s Witness.

But in a way it didn’t matter. She had to get help. If it turned out she didn’t need it, she could apologize then. If she did nothing and
that
was the wrong call, it would be too late for apologies. So she called Fountain. She didn’t bother with subterfuge this time—the secret she’d been trying to protect was already out.

But Fountain wasn’t in his office. His secretary tried to raise him on his mobile, but it was switched off. “Shall I have him call you back?”

There wasn’t time. “Put me through to Detective Inspector Gorman.”

It was a gamble. She had no reason to suspect Dave Gorman of taking handouts from Mickey Argyle, but then, she’d had no reason to suspect Donald Murchison until someone died in his cells. If Gorman was involved as well, no help would come. If Gorman was involved and it really
was
a Jehovah’s Witness parked behind the cottage, Mickey Argyle would come.

Either she told him what was going on or she didn’t. Reduced to a choice that simple, Hazel decided to take the chance. When Detective Inspector Gorman came on, she gave him a zip file of the essential facts in less than a minute and the whereabouts of the cottage to the nearest half mile, which was the best she could do.

Then she went back.

She told herself it was the last thing Argyle’s men would expect. She told herself that she could creep up on the cottage from behind and work out what was happening while they were scanning the far distance with binoculars. But really, she was going back because she couldn’t face leaving Ash to whatever Argyle had in mind.

The dog was a problem. If Hazel let it go, it would run to the cottage and warn those inside that she was returning. She could keep it on the leash, but it’s hard to sneak up on someone with an excited dog bouncing up and down beside you. Or she could tie it to a fence somewhere, in which case it would almost certainly bark. In the end she did what Ash would have done: bent down, looked it in the eye, and whispered, “It is really, really important that you keep quiet.”

Patience returned her gaze in that solemn, down-the-nose way that only something with a greyhound’s face can, then fell into step at Hazel’s left heel, silent as a ghost.

Hazel looked at her phone. Five minutes since she’d spoken to Gorman. How long before she could expect help? Another twenty at least, and only then if there was a patrol as close as the nearest village. How long before these people gave up on finding her, bundled Ash into their car, and drove him off into the sunset, never to be seen again? Again, impossible to know, but maybe not too long now. She walked more quickly over the rough land.

Delay was the name of the game. She had to keep them from leaving while Gorman organized a relief squad. What would happen if she simply presented herself at the door? Would they grab her, grab Ash, and leave immediately? Or would they relax because their job was done and it was no longer a matter of urgency to be on their way? Would it be better to barricade the only exit? If this had been livestock country, she’d have opened every gate she could find and chased every animal into the lane. But it was arable, and you can’t herd turnips. She found a couple of gates anyway, cut the baler twine securing them, and threw them across the lane. But they weren’t long enough; all they did was turn a straight into a slalom. The car might have to slow down a little, but it wouldn’t have to stop.

The only ace left in the pack was Hazel herself. She leaned against the blind side of a tree, steadying her nerve. She could just hide and wait for reinforcements. But there was no knowing what orders these men had. They’d run Nye Jackson down with a car—quite possibly
this
car. They wouldn’t slap Ash’s wrist and tell him to mind his own business in the future. If she was with him, perhaps she could protect him.…

Or she could die with him. She thought about that for a moment. To her surprise, the mere possibility was not enough to end the mental argument. There
are
things worth dying for, and Hazel Best wouldn’t be the first police officer to decide that doing the job well was one of them. Johnny Fountain had the power to suspend her; he had no way to stop her from being a police officer, accepting the obligation to protect the public even at the risk of her own safety. Gabriel Ash was a member of the public, and he certainly needed protection, and unless DI Gorman had managed to whistle up a passing helicopter, she was the only member of the police service close enough to help. Looking at it that way, she really didn’t have much choice.

She was stepping out from behind the tree when she heard the car start.

They’d given up on finding her. Plan B began with manhandling Ash out to their vehicle. Fletcher checked that the car in the lean-to wasn’t going anywhere, not with knife slashes in two tires; then he got into his employer’s 4x4 and they set off.

Fifty meters down the lane the young woman they’d wasted the last half hour looking for stepped out in front of them.

“What do you want me to do?” asked the driver tersely. He was a much smaller man than Fletcher, and had answered to the nickname “the Rat” for so long that Fletcher could no longer remember his proper name.

The big man thought, but not for long. “Flatten her.”

Hazel, waiting in the middle of the lane, expected them to stop for her, thought that was what they were here for. Only when the driver floored the accelerator and the big black car leapt forward did she realize that death was coming for her, right here, right now, and she’d never get the chance to help Ash. That she’d thrown her life away for nothing.

She jumped then, as far to the side as she could from a standing start; but it wasn’t far enough. The wing of the car, as high as her midriff, caught her in midair and tossed her like an angry bull, flinging her against the tree she’d been hiding behind. Not that she knew anything about it.