Death in High Places (9 page)

“Get the police,” said Horn. “It's too late for anything else. But for pity's sake, warn them what they're up against. They need to come armed and mob-handed. He'll kill anyone who gets in his way.”

After a long moment McKendrick turned to his daughter. “Do it. We can explain later. Use the landline, I don't think we've time to be hunting for a mobile signal.”

Finally, thought Horn.
Finally
the man realizes he's put his own life and his daughter's life and even his brother William's life in danger. Maybe now I can get some sense out of him.

Still for a moment Beth hesitated. But then she nodded, and turned and ran across the hall, back into the sitting room.

“How long will it take them to get here?”

McKendrick shrugged. “Our nearest police station is about twenty minutes away. I don't know if they're equipped to deal with a professional assassin.”

Horn looked at the windows, steel-shuttered again and admitting no light. When he'd installed the castle's latest defenses, McKendrick had known that one day his life might depend on them. He'd spared no expense. “Okay. Well, these shutters should keep him out for longer than that.”

The tall man looked indignant. “These shutters should keep him out, full stop! Have you any idea what they cost?”

Horn neither knew nor cared. “Nothing will keep him out forever. Men like him found ways across the Iron Curtain at the height of the Cold War. If armies and mines couldn't beat them, a bit of steel shuttering won't either. But it will slow him down. The cavalry should get here before he finds the weak spot.”

“There is no weak spot.”

“There's always a weak spot. Give him time to feel his way round, look at what you've got and what you haven't, work out where you compromised because of the Grade II listing, and he'll be walking round in here like he owns the place. But time's on our side. All we have to do is make sure he can't get inside in the next twenty minutes.

“One thing,” Horn added. “You'd better warn your brother, and get him down here. We should all be together.”

McKendrick blinked stupidly at him. “My brother?”

Horn rolled his eyes. “Your brother William. He doesn't know what's going on, does he? And if we're not all together, we can't be sure who's making any noises we hear.”

McKendrick pursed his lips. “You're quite good at this, aren't you?”

“I've
got
good at it,” growled Horn. “Now—William?”

“Problem with that,” said McKendrick pensively. “William has to stay in his room.”

Horn stared at him in disbelief. “What—use the wrong knife for his fish, did he? Punish him another time. Right now he needs to come down here.”

McKendrick regarded him with dislike. “William's an invalid. He can't leave his room.”

“Oh, for…!” But there wasn't time to waste talking about it. “Okay. These shutters—they cover his windows as well?”

“Well, no,” admitted McKendrick. “I was advised that securing the first three floors was all that was necessary—that no one could mount a serious attack any higher than that. William's room is on the next floor up. For the view.”

Momentarily distracted, Horn looked puzzled. “Who did you upset? I know who's trying to kill me, and why. But why does someone like you need this level of security?”

McKendrick raised a haughty eyebrow at him. “Money, of course. I told you. It's not just my personal fortune, I control assets equal to the gross national product of quite a large country. That makes me a target for anyone with more muscle than morals. I consulted a security expert and he said the biggest danger I faced was kidnapping. Not so much me as Beth—that someone could snatch her and hold her to ransom.”

Privately, Horn thought that anyone who snatched Beth McKendrick would send her back pretty quickly and might pay a small premium to complete the deal. He thought about the shutters and the keypads, and the bank of monitors in the entrance hall, and sniffed. “It might have been cheaper to pay the ransom.”

McKendrick shook his head decisively. “You don't pay ransom. Ever. If you do, it's going to happen again.”

And the really scary thing was, Horn believed him. It wasn't just lip service that would collapse as soon as it was put under any pressure. This rich, important and powerful man had supplemented his stone walls with steel shutters because he didn't want to lose his daughter, not because he didn't want to lose his money.

Horn gave himself a mental shake. McKendrick's priorities weren't the issue right now. “Those screens in the hall—that's the CCTV?” McKendrick nodded. “Then the rest of us stay there and watch. Of course, he'll have located the cameras by now. But we might get a bit of warning when he's ready to make his play.”

Four monitors were grouped around a console behind the exercise bike. Currently they were showing four entirely static views of the McKendrick estate. In one a couple of sheep were grazing in the middle distance; none of the others showed a living soul.

Horn thought there'd be more channels but he couldn't work out how to access them. Joiners don't spend that much computer time. Recognizing his difficulty, McKendrick took over. “What do you want to see?”

“Everything. How many cameras are there?”

“Sixteen.” McKendrick tapped keys crisply, and each of the four screens divided itself into four. “They cover all the approaches, all the doors, the courtyard, the front terrace and the gardens.”

Horn leaned closer to the monitors, watching for movement. But there was nothing.

Then there was. Not a movement, but suddenly one corner of one screen went blank. McKendrick frowned and tapped the glass repeatedly. “Malfunc—?” Before he'd even finished the word he realized how stupid it would sound. “Probably not.”

“Where's that camera?” asked Horn quietly. His absolute focus gave McKendrick a glimpse of how someone whose idea of fun was playing Russian roulette with a mountaintop dealt with stress. By moving onto a separate level where there's no room for panic because doing the right things in the right order is what keeps death at bay. A man whose mind worked like that could believe he was capable of anything.

“At the gateway into the courtyard,” said McKendrick. “That's where he is.”

Horn shook his head. “That's where he was twenty seconds ago. He'll be somewhere else now.”

“Why didn't we see him?”

“Because he doesn't want to be seen.” McKendrick might be playing catch-up with the crisis, but at least Horn no longer suspected him of orchestrating it. He'd been genuinely taken aback by the turn events had taken. No one is that good an actor. McKendrick had thought they couldn't be found right up to the moment that they were, and possibly a little longer.

Horn had known they could be found, and would be found, and the only question was how quickly. He wasn't shocked at the development. He was sickened to find himself doing this again so soon. And he was tired, tired to the marrow of his bones, with running and running and only taking his problems with him. And he felt guilty that someone who'd tried to help him, whatever his reasons, however selfish his motives, was going to pay a price he could never have guessed for his intervention. Horn hadn't sought his help, had tried to warn him what it would mean, had tried to be somewhere else when the pursuit caught up with him. None of this stopped him from feeling like a murderer.

“You think I'm good at this? I'm an amateur. The guy out there's the professional. He does it again and again, and he always wins in the end. He wouldn't stay in business if he didn't.”

“But…” McKendrick was still struggling with the evidence of his eyes. “This isn't right…”

Horn barked a grim little laugh. “Well, no. I guess contract killings
are
frowned on in polite society. I wouldn't know—more to the point, neither would Tommy Hanratty. He thinks it's right enough if it's what he wants.”

Movement behind them made both of them start. But it was Beth. Her face was expressionless but her voice was as taut as a steel hawser. “The landline's dead.”

McKendrick sucked in a sharp breath. Horn gave a shrug that was a brave attempt at fatalism. “He's cut it. Of course he has.”

“And the mobiles?” asked McKendrick.

“Couldn't get a signal on either of them. But there's nothing unusual about that.”

Horn stared at her. “You have mobile phones that can't get a signal?”

“At home we use the landline,” she retorted. “Or walk as far as the ha-ha.” She offered him her phone. “Give it a try.”

“Ha ha,” said Horn coldly, and it might have been a question or a comment, but he didn't take up her invitation.

There was half a minute's silence while they all considered the situation. McKendrick broke it. “So, essentially, we can't get help, we can't tell anybody we're in trouble, you don't reckon the vastly expensive security system I installed will keep him out forever, and you reckon that when he gets in he'll kill us all. Is that a fair assessment?”

The shock was dissipating. Horn was impressed by McKendrick's businesslike tone. “Pretty much.” Something occurred to him. “With all these shutters and things, didn't you get one of those alarms that ring in the nearest police station?”

McKendrick had the grace to look embarrassed. “Well, yes and no. I installed one. It went off so often when it wasn't meant to that they said they wouldn't answer it anymore.”

Horn's expression froze on his face. “So twenty minutes away there's a policeman looking at a flashing light saying, ‘Not them again!' and sending out for a cup of tea?”

“'Fraid so.”

Beth was eyeing her father with a mixture of exasperation and almost enough affection to eclipse the fear. “Go on—tell him the rest.”

McKendrick dropped his eyes and mumbled something.

“Sorry?”

“I said,” he repeated forcefully, “I kept playing with it! All right? This is my fault. You can die with a clear conscience, and Beth with a satisfied smile, because this is all my fault. Or, and this is just a thought, we can try to find some way of not dying, at least not yet. What do you think?”

“I know a way of not dying,” said Beth softly. “For most of us, anyway.”

Horn had a fair idea what was coming. McKendrick seemed not to. “Let's hear it.”

She nodded at Horn. “If Mr. Hanratty's man gets what he came for, he'll go away.”

Neither of them looked at the visitor. They looked at one another, the cool, narrow man and the strong, passionate woman, father and daughter with so much in common and so much not, chips cut off opposite facets of the same block. McKendrick blinked first. “I'm not going to open the door and shove him outside!”

“You won't have to. Not if he volunteers.”

Her father's voice soared. “Do you know what you're asking?”

Beth gave a disingenuous shrug. “He's been begging you to let him out of here. Do as he asks.”

“That was before”—her father jerked a nod at the bank of monitors—“turned up. When he thought he had a head start.”

“So now it's a short head. Maybe he can still get away. He said it himself, he's been doing this long enough to get good at it. He has a better chance out there than either of us. If he gets through, he can send help.”

“He won't get through.”

“He might.”

“He won't.”

Finally Beth looked at the subject of their discussion. Her eyes were cold and her voice unyielding. “Then better him than us. He should have died four years ago, trying to save Patrick. He bottled it. Now he gets another chance. He can die saving us instead.”

When Horn at last found a voice, it seemed to come from a lot farther away than the pit of his stomach. “You know, don't you, that it won't change anything? After he's killed me, he'll come in here and kill you.”

Her smile was more than half a sneer, then she looked back at McKendrick. “It's just another lie. He's trying to hide behind us. Why would anybody risk hanging around after he'd committed a murder?”

“Because you've seen his face.” Horn too was speaking directly to McKendrick. He knew that if his fate depended on persuading Beth, he was already a dead man. “He won't leave any witnesses.”

“But…” McKendrick stopped, swallowed, started again, his voice cranked down to a normal, rational tone. “Look, Beth, maybe he's mistaken. Pro or not, maybe the shutters
will
keep him out. He knows Horn won't be here forever. When he leaves, he'll pick up the trail again and corner him somewhere he'll be easier to deal with. Where there won't
be
any witnesses.”

“You're missing the point,” growled Horn. “You're already a danger to him—you were the moment you decided to step into that alleyway instead of walking past. You've seen him, talked to him. He knows you know what he is. You don't have to see him kill me to be a witness against him. This man's livelihood, his whole way of life, depends on him not having a face. You've seen his face.”

Horn turned to Beth, and his expression was stony but there was regret in his eyes. “I'll tell you something else. If I take my chances out there, and somehow manage to get past him, he won't follow me. Right now McKendrick is more of a threat to him than I can ever be. He can always find me again. But if he leaves here now, he knows what'll happen. McKendrick'll go to the police. He'll sit down with a PhotoFit guy and come up with a likeness that'll go out to every police station, railway station, airport and dock in England, and across the Channel to Interpol. He'll never be able to work again. Finally he'll be picked up as the result of a minor traffic accident in Marseille or somewhere.
That's
why he has to kill you. All of you. If it'll make him safer, even just a little bit safer, he won't hesitate.”