The Birdwatcher (35 page)

‘
Yes you’re lovely . . . Never ever change . . .
’

He stood in the room, holding his phone in front of him to create a dim light. Her phone was shining too as it sang. In their pale light, the redness shone. She was in a yellow dress, lying on her back, eyes open wide, on the double bed.

The white linen around her was dark with blood. Her hands lay on the deep cavity of where her stomach would have been; all soft tissue had simply been blasted away. Sleight must have held the gun close when he pulled the trigger. She would have bled to death in a matter of a minute or two.

The phone she had called him with was still on the bed, close to her hand, playing its tune. He switched off his phone. She must have known she was about to die.

He reached out and took her hand. It was still as soft and as warm as if she had still been alive.

Poor Gill. She had loved Bob; Bob had loved her. She was dead, and he had not been in time to save her. If he had been cleverer, he could have. He felt the weight of it, heavy on him. Both lovers were dead now.

But if not from in here, where had the noise he had heard come from? He dropped her hand back onto the bed and moved out again into the hallway.

Stupid.

Sleight would know exactly where he was. He should have looked before he’d gone back out there.

The doorway opposite was Cameron’s room, he guessed. When he’d last seen it, the door had been closed. It was open now.

‘Vincent,’ he said.

No answer.

‘I know you’re in there.’

A slight creaking sound. He moved forward.

‘You need help, Vincent. Please let me help.’

Nothing.

‘You’re upset. Your wife was having an affair. It must have been a shock to you.’

He caught a glimpse of something moving; shining the torch he saw a small glinting figure-of-eight and in that second realised he was staring at the twin barrels of a shotgun.

He jolted right and started to sprint for the front door, expecting the explosion at any second. The door was swinging open in front of him. He dived through space, straight onto the porch floor just as the gun fired. Wood and glass sprayed onto his back.

He scrabbled back onto his hands and knees, then upright, and ran towards the pool, ducking into the shadows on the far side of the house.

His brain felt sluggish. Think, he told himself. Think. It was a twin-barrel hunting gun. There would be another round in the other barrel. Or was there another weapon too?

Pressing himself back against the wall of the house, he heard steps on the gravel to his left. What had happened to the boy? He remembered what Cupidi had said at the start of all this.
Someone who literally cannot control themselves, or doesn’t want to. Someone who is so consumed by anger they cannot stop.
Cautiously he peered round the corner.

Lit in the orange of the street light, Sleight was calmly opening the gun. He pulled out a cartridge and slotted another round into the empty barrel, then turned towards where South was hiding.

‘Stay in the fucking house,’ Sleight shouted over his shoulder.

Who was he talking to? His son of course. Cameron. The university child. The Cambridge boy Sleight had always been so proud of. Where was he now? He must be terrified.

South shrunk himself into the darkness; but a light came on in the James Bond house, shining on the pool and illuminating his darkened corner.

‘Come out, Bill,’ said Sleight. ‘Not going to hurt you.’

South stayed as still as he could. The empty swimming pool was in front of him. If he fell into that, he would be trapped. To his right was the guest house which was joined to the main house.

If Sleight rounded the corner, he would be able to see him. If he ran to the left, he would be heading straight towards Sleight. If he moved to the right side of the pool he would have to run alongside the far edge, by the guest house. He would come into view after just a couple of paces. For fifteen yards, until he made it into the blackness of the garden beyond, he would be an easy target.

‘Come on, Bill. Things have just got a bit confused. You and me got to talk, like you said. You know me. You can trust me.’

He stayed as still as he could, calculating. The police would be here soon. Could he risk waiting?

The wind made it hard to make out footsteps.

And then, lit by the street lamp behind him, Sleight rounded the corner, gun at waist height. He looked South in the eye, then raised the gun.

A shout. ‘Dad. No.’

In Sleight’s flicker of hesitation, South took his chance. He sprang away to his right, up alongside the pool. He heard the gun boom and simultaneously felt the crackle of shot pellets around him, but didn’t stop to look back. As he reached the end of the pool, the gun fired a second time but this time the miss must have been wider. How? It was hard to miss with a shotgun. That was the point. Rather than a single bullet, they emitted a cone of pellets that sprayed out, catching everything. Sleight must have shot wide. His luck was in.

At least he would have a couple of seconds while Sleight reloaded.

Then, as his ears got used to the ringing that that shot had caused, he realised someone was screaming in pain, but it was not him. He squatted behind one of the small conifers that dotted the lawn and took a second to look around and figure out what had happened.

Looking back at the house, he saw, sprawled on the gravel in front of it, a dark shape, lit by the neighbour’s security lights.

It hadn’t been him that Sleight had fired at the second time. The son was lying on the ground a few feet away from Sleight, his arms moving slowly, as if swimming, but going nowhere. It was him who had taken the second shot.

Sleight seemed to have pockets full of shells. He had cracked the gun open already and was methodically reloading. Before South understood what he was doing, he had lifted the gun, and was pointing it at the body on the ground.

South had speed at least. As he ran, Sleight must have heard him because he looked up. By now South had gathered pace and was sprinting in his direction. Sleight was just beginning to swing the barrels up towards South, away from the man on the ground, when South hit him, knocking him flat.

‘Dad,’ said the sprawling man. ‘Dad.’

South had no time to process the horror of it, of the fact that Sleight had just tried to kill his own son, because Sleight was on the ground now too, next to him, kicking hard as South clutched his waist. South was trying to look upwards at him, attempting to see where the gun was, if there was any chance of grabbing it, when Sleight’s shoe caught him on the bridge of his nose. Once. Then twice.

Though Sleight held the gun, South was too close – and the shotgun too long – for him to aim the barrels at South’s head. For anyone watching, South realised, there would have been something almost comical about their struggle, had it not been so deadly. Sleight writhed to try and put enough distance between him and South so he could get a shot in. South, the stronger of the two, grasped Sleight’s waist, clinging on as hard as he could.

‘Fuck off,’ screamed Sleight.

As long as there was a small space between them, he was safe. But he had to try and get the gun. Sleight’s shoe kicked his face again. He couldn’t hold on much longer.

With no time to think, he let go of Sleight to try and grab the barrel of the gun, but knew it was a mistake the instant he’d done it. It gave Sleight the freedom to yank his body back. The barrel swung wildly. South’s hand grabbed air instead of metal. With a loud crack, the gun went off again, but the first shot went wide, spraying gravel onto the lawn ten yards away.

South lunged again for the gun, knocking it upwards just in time as the second barrel exploded, this time smashing a window above him.

Again, two shots. Sleight would have to reload. That gave him a few seconds.

South tried to get to his feet to throw himself onto Sleight again, but as he did so, the young man grabbed his arm, holding him back. ‘Help me,’ he pleaded.

With Cameron clutching him, instead of catching Sleight, he clawed at empty air.

Sleight was getting to his feet.

South turned and shouted, ‘Let go,’ but when he looked back again, Sleight had vanished. South twisted his head round to the left and right.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Where had he gone? He would be reloading his gun.

His first thought was to get the wounded man indoors. But what if Sleight had gone inside himself? To be safe, he needed to know where Sleight had gone.

‘What’s going on?’

A woman’s voice from the road beyond the gate.

South looked up. A woman was standing in the road, her back to the street light. ‘Police. Get back in your house,’ shouted South.

South scooped Sleight’s son up and, stumbling with the weight of him, headed to the gate where the woman was standing. He recognised her; it was Olivia Gemmell, the JP.

‘Come on,’ he shouted. ‘Get inside.’

South looked back just in time to see Sleight emerging from the light of the house behind him with the gun raised.

The woman seemed to stand there, reluctant to give any ground.

‘Run,’ he screamed at her. The boy cried out, wide-eyed, in shock from the pain. There was no time to get into his car. The James Bond house was their closest shelter. He heard a roar of anger from behind him.

‘What’s going on, Mr Sleight?’ called Mrs Gemmell towards him. ‘Is there a burglar?’

‘He’s got a gun,’ shouted South, struggling to run towards her with the young man in his arms.

She hesitated, trying to make sense of the situation, and was still standing rooted to the spot as South passed her. With the young man’s weight, every pace seemed like an effort.

‘Vincent?’ the woman said. ‘Is this man bothering you?’

South made it down the short driveway towards her house and the open front door and he turned to scream at her to follow, one last time, just as the gun fired.

The shot hit Mrs Gemmell’s head, snapping it backwards. Her dead body dropped straight backwards out of sight.

South tore himself from the horror of what he was seeing. He had to get the boy to safety. He manoeuvred himself through the massive door, the bleeding boy in his arms.

He turned. They were inside and he went to lock the door.

When he stepped back, Sleight was at the gate. He stood with the gun, panting, looking at them through the big glass walls.

‘Fuck you,’ he mouthed, then refilled the empty chamber.

The only thing separating him from Sleight was a sheet of glass. It would be no protection.

From behind him, a door opened. A pale boy in low-slung underpants came out, yawning. It was the boy on the motorbike. He looked at South and the young man in his arms and said, ‘Jesus. Cameron. What’s wrong?’ The half-naked boy looked around. ‘Where’s Mum? What are you doing here?’

Somewhere down the hill South noticed the bare winter trees were being lit by distant blue flashes. The police were coming at last. But it would be too late.

‘Get back,’ he shouted.

With a tremendous bang, the entire glass wall seemed to turn pale. The shattered glass hung for a microsecond, then dropped, scattering onto the bare floor.

He could hear Sleight clearly now. ‘Fuck you all,’ he shouted, and pointed the gun directly at South.

It was as if they were suddenly in the open; the roar of the wind was on them. The room where they were standing was effectively now just part of the garden. And for the first time South could hear the sirens too, getting closer, but still too far away.

South watched Sleight, hair matted against his scalp by the rain, tightening his finger on the trigger, the gun pointed at his head. Sleight was going to kill them all, starting with him.

But he didn’t. Sleight heard the distant wail of sirens and stopped. He stepped forward, still pointing the gun at South.

‘Inside,’ he shouted. ‘Everyone.’

For a second, South was puzzled. They were already inside, even with the window smashed down.

Then he realised that Sleight wanted them to move further into the house, out of sight of the approaching police. Holding the wounded young man, South looked around. The room was open plan. A dining room and living room all in one. But there were two doors leading off it.

‘Get in there,’ Sleight shouted, nodding towards the door nearest them.

The boy from the house looked paralysed with fear. ‘Where’s Mum?’ he asked again.

‘What’s in there?’ South shouted.

‘Kitchen,’ he said. ‘Is she OK?’

‘Move!’ screamed Sleight.

South led the way, moving sideways through the door. ‘Do as he says.’

‘He’s going to kill us,’ whispered Cameron Sleight.

The kitchen was large, set around a huge marble island. As gently as he could, he laid Cameron down on the stone floor. Sleight closed the door behind them.

‘Everybody get down,’ Sleight shouted, waving the gun.