Vengeance in the Sun (16 page)

I turned away, unable to bear the sight of him any longer.

“Who was driving the Cadillac?” I asked Bradley.

“A friend who, like Steve, is prepared to do anything if the money is right.”

“And who did the car belong to?”

Bradley's narrow face smiled. “ Lyall. Lyall had one for his work in Palma. The work he thought we didn't know about. We borrowed it. It appealed to my sense of humour. I knew Helena wouldn't report it to the police if the attempt failed. She couldn't afford to have Lyall taken in custody for questioning. She needed him at the villa. They both knew what the accident was and she thought Lyall could handle it. After all, that's what she paid him for.”

I looked at Ian questioningly. He said simply: “I'm a private detective, not a tutor. Helena was taking no risks. Or thought she wasn't. She knew there were people who would do anything to stop John becoming Premier of Ovambia. She took kidnapping into consideration a long time ago. I had the use of one of the Ria Square flats. Telephone calls at the villa are notoriously public.”

“And that's why Janet went there to talk to you? She suspected something and knew who you were?”

“Janet Grey,” he said, his face contorted with grief. “Was my cousin, and these two smiling bastards pushed her from a fifth floor window!”

“
I wasn't there!
” Steve shouted. “
I had nothing to do with it!
”

“
You didn't exactly run to the police and tell them who did, did you!
” Ian yelled back, his face ablaze.

“And now you'll murder me, like you did Janet?” I said, turning to Bradley.

“Yes.”

Steve moved forward in a gesture of protest, to be waved back imperiously by Bradley.

My throat felt so tight I could hardly speak. When I did it was little more than a croak: “And Danielle? What are you going to do with Danielle?”

Bradley smiled, his chill, humourless smile. “You'll be responsible for her death. If you hadn't told me you'd seen Lyall tonight he might have freed her. Even if he hadn't, Danielle would never have seen me. Only Steve. And arangements for Steve to leave the island were already well planned. There would have been no need to have killed Danielle. Now, thanks to you, we have no option.”

It didn't seem to bother him much.

“Why?” I asked uncomprehendingly. “Why does it matter to you whether your father is Premier of Ovambia or not? Why is it so important that you're prepared to kill, to prevent him?”

He said coldly, not even bothering to look at me: “If my father becomes leader of a nation of illiterate wogs, my political career in South Africa is over. Besides, I wanted revenge.”

“Revenge? Revenge for what?”

He laughed unpleasantly. “ You can ask that? My father marries that black bitch, degrading my mother's memory, degrading my name and you can ask that? I've lived with the stigma of that marriage for twenty years! For twenty years I've promised myself revenge. Now I have it and no-one,
no-one
is going to take it from me!”

Violently he jabbed the gun in Ian's side. “On your feet, Lyall. We're going places.”

I gave a cry of protest and Steve said reassuringly: “Don't worry, Lucy. He's going to be all right. Brad's angry, that's all.”

It seemed like the understatement of the year.

I half rose to my feet as Ian passed, our hands touching briefly, then Steve knocked them apart and Danielle began to stir, raising frightened eyes to mine. I sat down again, watching fearfully as Bradley forced him out of the cabin. At the door Ian paused, looking back at me, grinning briefly: “ I'm sorry about that overheard conversation. I didn't want you in any danger, that's all. At least now I know why you were so unfriendly. It's some comfort,” and then Bradley dug the gun painfully in his back, sending him stumbling down the corridor.

Steve took my hand and I snatched it away angrily. His voice had thickened: “ I still want you, Lucy.”

“Dead or alive?”

“Brad didn't mean all that. He's just trying to frighten you. Stick with me and.…”

A muffled shot rang out and seconds later there came the soft drop of a body as it slid beneath the waves.

“He's killed him,” I said softly. “He's killed Ian.”

Steve's face had whitened, his grasp on my arm tightening painfully.

“Listen to me, Lucy. Brad's the boss, not me. He's the one with the hardware. But I won't let him hurt you. I promise!”

I could already hear Bradley's feet hurrying down the steps.

“And Danny?” I asked hoarsely. “What about Danny?”

Before he could answer the door opened and Bradley said briefly:

“I want the two of them back on the island.”

“Are we going home?” Danny asked hopefully. “Now Mr Lyall has gone home, can we go home too?”

“Yes,” I lied. “ We're going home.”

But I knew from the expression on Bradley Van de Naude's face that we hadn't a hope in hell.

There was no chance for heroics. Nothing to do but obediently follow Steve down the rope ladder to the dinghy, reassuring and comforting Danielle as best I could. The expression on Steve's face was one of intense anxiety. Whatever Bradley's plans were, it was obvious he hadn't taken Steve into his confidence.

The dinghy pitched and rolled, and Danielle and myself huddled together, cold and wet, and I tried to force my numbed brain to think. The waves dropped, slapping lightly alongside as we neared the shore, and then the dinghy bucked over the shallows and Steve leapt out, helping me after him, carrying Danielle while Bradley dragged the dinghy up the beach.

The sand was a silver crescent, ghostly in the moonlight. The woods still and silent as we began to climb. Hope began to grow within me. Mario and Peggy would be in the villa. If I could shout and attract attention, there was no way Bradley could talk his way out. Not after the things Danielle had seen in the cabin. As if reading my thoughts, Bradley said: “ We'll have to gag them both. I'll make sure the villa is safe. Peggy was in bed before I left but Mario was still out. He could be waiting up for me to return. I'll get rid of him and then we take them through the villa and take two of the cars.”

“That's a bit of a bloody risk, isn't it?” Steve asked, the tautness of his nerves showing in his voice.

“There's no other way to the courtyard but through the villa,” Bradley said tersely. “First things first. I don't want one whisper from these two. Not one.”

Danielle gave a frightened cry as Steve clapped his hand over her mouth. I was already drawing breath for the loudest scream of my life when Bradley forced a hanky in my mouth, binding it with broad elastoplast. Then he pulled my hands behind my back, tying them tightly, and with Danielle also silenced, we began to climb the last few bends to the villa.

The curtain of jasmine hung milky-white in the darkness, the heady smell filling the air thickly. As I brushed past it, the petals scattering on my head and shoulders, my fear vanished.

Ian was dead, and I was the only one who could bring his murderer to justice. And the only one who could save Danielle. To do these two things I had to stay alive myself. I was grimly determined to do so.

In the thickness of the woods, before the path emerged onto the terrace, Bradley handed Steve the gun and then slipped silently across and into the villa. The salon light was on and I guessed Mario was there, waiting for Bradley's return. My eyes sought Steve's.

His eyes held doubt and indecision, and then he moved quickly, trying to untie my hands. The knots were tight and he had no torch to see by. He blasphemed viciously and as they loosened Bradley was already sprinting back towards us. I turned desperate eyes to Steve's. He had the gun! If he acted now! His hand fell uselessly back to his side. Bradley, seeing my freed hands smiled grimly, taking the gun from Steve, pointing it at me.

“
I'll
take the girl. You take the kid,” and to me, “ Don't get any fancy ideas. I've told Mario you're involved in the kidnapping and he'll shoot you as soon as look at you!”

Steve lifted Danielle, carrying her a captive into her own home. I followed, Bradley's gun in my back. Coffee cups lay scattered on the glass topped tables. Mario had had a long wait. Swiftly we walked through the villa to the courtyard. Mario's old car, the Audi, the Fiat, all were there. Till then I had had no idea what Bradley's intentions were. If he wanted to murder us, it seemed simpler if he had done it at sea. He turned to Steve.

“You take the kid in the Audi. I'll take the girl. We'll meet at the Devesas.”

My eyes met Steve's and understanding dawned simultaneously. Danielle and myself. In one car. Over the cliff. Steve couldn't go along with it, I was sure of that. Now he knew what Bradley's intentions were he must be thinking of a way of helping us. But he was unarmed, and spineless, as I had just found out.

As the car rocked down onto the blackened headland, Bradley leaned across and with one hand ripped the elastoplast from my mouth, saying softly: “I owe you, Lucy Matthews.”

He touched his temple where the purple welt of bruising showed even in the dimness of the car. Then, with no warning, he swung his fist into the side of my face, sending me smashing into the side of the car, blinded by searing pain. It must have been several minutes later that my vision returned, for when I could see and hear clearly again, the mountain road was already showing like a thin white snake in the headlamps of the car. He laughed.

“I always get my revenge, Lucy Matthews. Even if it takes twenty years as it has with Helena.”

Gingerly I fingered the side of my face, moving my jaw fractionally, grateful it still moved. For the first time emotion crept into his cold, cultivated voice. He sounded elated as he said:

“Now nothing can stop me! I've sweated my guts out for political power in South Africa. I've got wealth, talent, charm, I'm a leader, not a follower like the Steve Patterson's of this world! And one thing stopped me. Would always stop me. My father's known association with APFO. When I heard what he intended doing! Christ!” he slung the car suicidally round a hairpin bend, “ That was it! Bradley Van de Naude finished for good. And why?” the elation turned to viciousness. “ Because he lets that black bitch treat him like a little dog. Well she's the one who will do the begging now! For her precious half-caste brat!” and he began to laugh as the car plunged through a tunnel of trees and down a steep rush in the mountainside.

I wondered vainly if knowing he was mad could possibly be of any help to me. We slashed through a tiny hamlet and I said: “But killing Danielle will make no difference to your father becoming Premier of Ovambia. If you don't hurt her, try to reason with your father, explain.…”

“Never,” he said gloatingly. “He had his choice and he took it! Let him have his precious APFO. Every day of his life he will know what it cost him!”

Even though Bradley was driving the Fiat flat out, we had long since lost sight of the Audi. Steve and Danielle would be at the Devesas already. Waiting for us.

The road ahead veered sharp left, hurtling down to the rendezvous. He said almost conversationally: “You know she can't have any more, don't you? There'll be no more half-breeds claiming my father's name!”

The lights of the waiting Audi arched brilliantly through the night. Bradley laughed again: “ This is it, Lucy Matthews. This is the end!”

The car sliced round the first of the bends and I grabbed the wheel, tugging downwards with all my might, the car veering dizzily across the road towards the cliff face. Blaspheming, he thrust me forcefully away, struggling to swing the car back onto the centre of the road. In the crazily weaving headlights I could see the Audi parked under cover of the pines and the silhouetted figure of Steve some yards away.

All Bradley's attention was on gaining control of the car, avoiding the hundred foot drop he intended only Danielle and myself to go over. I could hear his breathing coming shallow and fast and knew that he was afraid. I flung myself across him again, wrenching wildly at the wheel. If I could smash the car into the cliff it would be the driver's seat that would receive the worst impact. This time the Fiat skidded in earnest. A black wall of rock soared up in front of us. I heard Bradley give a scream and was aware of my own terrified sobs, and then the whole world exploded in a kaleidoscope of glaring light. For endless seconds the car soared through the air, smashing and grinding and the last thing I saw was Steve standing immediately before us, his mouth gaping blackly in the white of his face. Then as pain crushed me down into excruciating senselessness I knew the car had ricocheted off the cliff face. Was speeding backwards towards the cliff and the sea.

Light years away there came the sound of tinkling glass and the night wind on my face. Feebly I stirred, trying to move my legs, the breath choked out of me. Naked metal tore down my shin as I pulled it clear, tremblingingly opening the crushed door. I think I literally fell onto the darkened grass. For endless seconds I lay there, my ears thundering, my heart pounding, aware only of the dreadful stillness. No other sound came from the car. There was no sign of Steve.

Painfully I struggled to my bloodied knees and then to my feet. Yards away, across the road, the Audi remained safe beneath the shelter of the pines. Slowly, I turned to look at the car I had just escaped from. It was in nearly the exact position it had been when Bradley had us rammed only weeks before. As I watched, it teetered, rocking majestically for a few seconds over the cliff edge and then plunging to the dark depths below. Standing in the starlight, I could hear the suck of the waves as they closed over it, spiralling it down to the sea-bed.

Unsteadily I walked back over to the Audi and Danielle. Steve's body lay crushed in the centre of the road, his head at an unnatural angle, his pulse stilled. I let his wrist fall and knelt there amongst the broken glass and the blood, his and mine. He had said he had loved me. Perhaps he had in his way. Certainly I don't think he would willingly have participated in my death. But whatever scheme he may have been thinking up as he waited for Bradley to meet him, Bradley had the gun, and Bradley was the stronger. Relying on Steve was a chance I hadn't been able to take. Gently I closed his eyes and then opened the Audi's door.