As soon as he saw Ayliss get out of his car and head across, he pulled his own car out from behind a tree where he’d tucked it when he’d first spotted the Audi, and edged a hundred yards closer. Then got out, deciding to do the rest on foot.
He gripped the Browning in one pocket as he went; the small plastic water bottle he’d picked up at Cienfuegos, now empty, makeshift silencer, was in the other.
The two figures by a table at the end of a promontory as he got closer, Ayliss taking a seat. A lot of talking, gesticulating and head-shaking, Nel-M concerned how long he could risk leaving it, but nervous about moving in yet; it was still light enough for them to see him approach. And as they did, one of them would probably rush to the main villa to alert Truelle’s friend, with him then on the phone to the police. A nightmare before he’d started.
If he waited just eight or ten minutes more, it would be completely dark. He could move in without either of them seeing him. Until it was too late.
Nel-M waited on the setting sun.
‘Most of the details came back out from Durrant pretty much how I’d fed them to him. Some were weaker, some stronger or even embellished with how, from his own psyche, he thought he’d have reacted. And some small details never did come out… unless maybe it was in police questioning that wasn’t shown at trial.’
Jac nodded pensively. Maybe that explained some of the extra details and reactions from Larry in Ormdern’s sessions. Maybe. Halfway through, Jac had taken out his cell-phone and put it next to the tape-recorder in preparation to call Candaret.
Eleven minutes it had taken Truelle to pour out his soul, tell all. Eleven minutes to end twelve years of hell for Larry Durrant. The sun setting, the last light fading over the coastline of Cuba as the first light of hope finally hit Larry Durrant, Jac thought ruefully.
Another minute for Truelle to wrap up the background, incidental details, and he’d call Candaret. As Truelle saw his eyes go to the phone, he lifted a hand up, as if he’d suddenly remembered something.
‘Oh, and when you phone, apart from what you’ve now got on tape,’ Truelle took a step to one side, reaching for his briefcase, ‘there’s something else that will — ’
Truelle froze then, as if he’d been struck with an arrow. As he’d stood up, part of his field of vision had swung wider, and he stood transfixed, looking past Jac’s shoulder.
Jac swung round sharply and stood up, the faint tread of footsteps reaching him in that same instant. Malley… Nel-M!
Nel-M smiled tautly as he moved closer, his gun at waist level trained on them.
‘My, this is cosy. Very cosy indeed.’ He moved a step closer, bringing their awkward triangle in tight to only three yards between them. ‘So, what have you been telling him, Lenny?’
Truelle didn’t answer. Jac saw him swallow, and was sure it was quiet enough to hear it if it wasn’t for the buzzing back in his head.
Nel-M’s eyes shifted to the recorder on the table, cassette still turning. ‘Looks like I got here just in time. Would you?’
Nel-M indicated with his gun, but as Jac reached towards the recorder, Nel-M took a plastic bottle from his pocket, and with a ‘On second thoughts — let me do that for you,’ shot through it.
Inches from his fingertips, Jac watched the recorder shatter, pieces flying as it spun off the table.
Jac’s heart dived, eyes squeezing tight, Last chance gone to save Larry… Nel-M’s figure bleary through salt tears as he opened them again, tilting gently… or maybe Jac was swaying, his legs suddenly uncertain as he took a step towards Nel-M.
Nel-M prodded the air with his gun, took half a step back to maintain the distance between them. ‘Now let’s not try and be brave.’
Then silence. Their triangle tenser now, eyes darting, measuring options. What few were left. Jac’s pulse-beat was suddenly heavier at his temples, the thrum of the cicadas louder.
Jac noticed Truelle’s eyes shift for a half-second towards the main villa, perhaps hoping that Calbrey might have heard the shot and come out. But it had been little more than a dull thud, and as Jac checked fleetingly too, Calbrey was still inside, French windows closed.
Nel-M followed their gaze for an instant; it was obviously something he’d thought of too. He wasn’t going to hang around out here long.
Something, Jac thought desperately, surely something he could do. If he could get Truelle out of this, then he could get him to speak to Candaret directly and..
Then, as if answering his last two thoughts, Nel-M suddenly shot Truelle in the stomach, bringing him to his knees.
‘No, no…no!’ Jac’s screams rose from deep within, impromptu, the buzzing in his head now so loud that he could barely hear them.
Nel-M’s gun moved briefly towards him, as if he was unsure for a second who to kill first. He who makes the most noise gets it.
But then as the gun shifted quickly back to Truelle, levelling at his head, in that final second all Jac could think of was that last head shot in the police report… Jessica Roche’s sprawled body in the photos, meeting Larry for the first time… sharing a brandy with him that night… and Larry now, looking at the death-chamber clock, waiting for him to call…
With a grunting wheeze, as if the last air was being pushed out of him, Jac suddenly propelled himself towards Nel-M.
Nel-M, distracted fleetingly by the sudden movement and noise, squeezed off the shot anyway. But in the beat’s pause, Truelle started to move — the shot hitting him in the shoulder.
Then Nel-M’s gun was swinging swiftly towards Jac.
Jac hit Nel-M full in the chest before the gun had completed its arc, the breath shunting out of him heavily as they stumbled back.
Nel-M’s gun was swinging back towards him again, Jac gripping his arm before the barrel could point at him, wrestling, still falling back — and then suddenly the ground seemed to fall away beneath Jac’s legs, them both spinning, tumbling through a small bush, and then into the air… falling…
In that final, blind-fury second, Jac hadn’t paid any attention to how close to the promontory edge they were, or how far his momentum with all the Ayliss padding would carry them…
They hit the water quickly, no more than two seconds, the breath bursting out of Jac as something hit hard against his right shoulder, rock or coral a few feet beneath — then they were spluttering back up through the water, still grappling, Jac struggling to focus again on Nel-M.
Faint moonlight finally picked Nel-M out, dapples swilling back and forth, Nel-M’s features twisted, distorted through the few inches of water between them as he tried to push Jac deeper under.
Gun! Jac choking, spluttering, trying desperately to see whether Nel-M still had it in his hand.
Writhing hard, pushing back — Jac managed to gasp two seconds of air before Nel-M thrust him back under, grappling at his neck and face.
Then suddenly Nel-M froze, gasping faintly, his face wide-eyed as it swam in and out of focus in the water between them; Jac realizing in that instant that Ayliss’s facial prosthetics had come away in Nel-M’s hands, and Jac McElroy was suddenly staring up at him from beneath.
But Jac was still desperately trying to focus on Nel-M’s gun hand, see if he still had it; and as he saw the wavering shadow of Nel-M’s right arm move towards him and heard the shot, then another quickly after — saw and felt the warmth of his own blood swilling all around him in the water — he knew that Nel-M had.
And in those final seconds, as Jac saw Nel-M’s face slowly fade as the water between them became deeper, darker, suddenly he was back in the lake again, sinking down through its dark depths; though this time he knew there was nothing to save him.