Grebo’s visitor suddenly appeared in the passageway. ‘What’s up, Danny?’ He stopped when he saw Grebo and Marcus.
At that moment, Grebo turned his head a little to say something over his shoulder. Marcus knew that there would not be another chance. Grebo was standing too far away from him to be brought down with a high kick, but Marcus still had his hand on the door handle of the front door, and in that fraction of a second he knew it was time to either die or fly.
As Grebo turned his head a little, so the twin barrels of the shotgun wavered and pointed away from Marcus. It was only by a small margin but it was all Marcus needed. He whipped the door open, pulling it wide, dived forward and down and rolled to his right as a blast of buckshot roared out of the open door and flew over his tumbling body.
Marcus leapt to his feet and sprinted away towards the forest behind the house, zigzagging as he ran. Another roar of buckshot followed him and he felt some of the small pellets peppering his shoulder. He veered away, hearing Grebo in pursuit.
When Marcus got to the wall he didn’t bother to consider how badly damaged his shoulder was, but took the leap without thinking. He grabbed the top of the wall and hauled himself over. A second gun opened fire and thudded into the wall as Marcus dropped to the other side.
Because it was pitch black behind the wall, Marcus fell awkwardly and turned his ankle. He straightened up and limped away from the wall into the bracken and ferns that edged the dark forest.
A few minutes after limping into the woods he saw a torch beam flicker, its light catching the foliage of the trees. He heard Grebo call out to his visitor, telling him to head the ‘bastard’ off. Another shot echoed into the night air and Marcus guessed Grebo had fired a chance shot, hoping to bring him down.
He could now feel the pain in his ankle worsening and also his left shoulder was beginning to throb and feel sticky. But worse still was the fact that he could feel himself getting a little weaker and nauseous.
He crashed through the undergrowth, not knowing which way to run, and knowing that as he blundered through the forest he was sending out loud signals to Grebo and his visitor.
He heard a voice shout out; ‘He’s over there!’ A torch beam flickered across the trees about six feet above Marcus’s head.
He dropped lower and turned right, crashing into tree trunks and falling over logs that had been cut and were laying there ready for shifting by the Forestry Commission during the working day. Eventually Marcus came out on to a forest track. It was wide enough for articulated lorries to drive along, and it gave Marcus a chance to move further away from his pursuers. But it also gave the two men a chance to get a shot off without the trees getting in the way.
Marcus could feel his strength draining away and he was beginning to stumble now. Each time he fell he knew this gave Grebo an edge. He also knew it wouldn’t be too long before Grebo caught up with him, and it would be there that the American would shoot him.
And as he fell again for probably the tenth time, he almost blacked out. He waited until he could think clearly, but now he could hear footsteps. He scrambled to his feet and collapsed again. This was it, he thought; the end.
He heard the footsteps again. They were hurried and came thudding up beside him. He felt an arm go round his waist and a voice say.
‘Come on son; get your arse in ‘ere.’
He felt the softness of a car seat and heard the door closing behind him. Then the surge of acceleration as the car picked up speed and motored away from the forest.
TEN
Marcus woke up. He lay still for a moment enjoying the relaxed comfort of a warm bed and a soft pillow beneath his head, his last dream still lingering in the outer reaches of his consciousness. He opened his eyes and moved his head a little. He could see a saline drip hanging from its steel hook, the clear tube snaking down towards his arm. He lifted his head off the pillow and saw Cavendish sitting in a small armchair a few feet away from him.
‘At last, Blake, you are awake.’
Marcus groaned and dropped his head back on the pillow. ‘Where am I?’ he asked, his voice cracking a little because of the dryness in his throat. ‘And why are you here?’
Cavendish looked a trifle smug. ‘Well, dear boy, first of all you are in a private clinic. But don’t worry, Her Majesty’s Government is picking up the bill. And the reason I’m here is because I saved your life.’
Marcus lifted his head sharply. ‘You? There’s no way you lifted me off the ground, Cavendish.’
‘A mere detail, Blake. But you blundered into something well out of your league and we had to drag you out.’
Marcus regarded him quite severely. ‘What do you mean?’
Cavendish shifted in his chair and leaned forward. ‘We have had Grebo’s house under surveillance for some considerable time. And because we have followed you from the moment you walked out of the safe house, we knew there would be trouble once you showed up.’
Marcus struggled into a sitting position. ‘You weren’t there, were you?’
Cavendish shook his head. ‘No; I’m too old for that kind of thing. I let the younger ones do that. And fortunately the man I had on duty recognised the possibility of a disaster in the making and called up the local police. It was one of the local coppers who saved you.’
Marcus leaned back against his pillow which he had pulled up behind him. ‘So it’s all blown; Grebo knows you’ve been watching him.’
Cavendish allowed himself a little triumphant smile. ‘No, we were able to explain that there had been a report of a suspicious character in the neighbourhood and we were doing close checks on all the houses in the area.’
‘And Grebo fell for that?’
Cavendish shrugged. ‘Who knows? That was the explanation we gave; it was all we could come up with. What it means now, of course, is that we will have to pull our detail back for a while, just in case Mister Grebo has any suspicions.’
The door opened and a nurse came in. She walked over to the bed and removed the drip from Marcus’s arm. Then she hung the tube up over the empty bottle and pushed the stand to the rear of the bed.
‘Can I go home, nurse?’ Marcus asked.
The nurse smiled at Marcus and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.
‘What I want to know, Blake is how on earth you learned of Danvor Grebo and the house?’
Marcus looked away from the closed door, giving up all thoughts of the nurse and turned his attention back to Cavendish. ‘First of all, please call me Marcus; I got used to not being called Blake once I left school. And Grebo’s house? I traced it through the number plate of the Mercedes I saw in the City Road: the one used in the attack at my office.’
Cavendish looked mortified. ‘How on earth did you catch on to that?’
So Marcus told him. ‘I saw the whole thing beginning to unfold through my office window. I didn’t realise then what was happening, and by the time it clicked I didn’t have time to say anything to you because I was busy, as I’m sure you will recall.’
‘I’ll give you that,’ Cavendish admitted drily. ‘Who do you know that can trace vehicle plates?’
Marcus shook his head. ‘Can’t tell you that; client confidentiality.’
Cavendish laughed. ‘It isn’t important, but it very nearly got you killed. And I’m sure your father would have had apoplexy if that had happened.’
‘You know my father?’ Marcus asked.
Cavendish nodded. ‘Your name rang a bell. Then I remembered: Sir Henry Blake. He rang my office a few days ago. I didn’t speak to him but later I remembered that he was on my radar for a while some years back during a ‘catch-all’ enquiry we were doing.’
It was Marcus’s turn to laugh. ‘Seems to me it was my mother who was on your radar, Cavendish,’ he told him.