Blame The Dead

The Cortina screeched around the corner, leaning angrily. Continental model, remember. Driver on the left. Take aim. At least he's got the sense to drive straight at me, trying to put me off…

Fire one. Recock as the glass explodes around the windscreen pillar and the car veers slightly away, not head-on now… fire two… the car snatching towards you, a tearing slam across your thighs and the sky whirling beneath you and a clattering banging screeching silence.

Reload, reload, reload.

Flat on my face in the snow I scrabbled two more rounds into the gun, snapped it shut, held it out…

Twenty yards along, the Cortina was leaning quietly against the cliff, exhaust steaming. Then the right-hand door opened in small, jerky movements and Kavanagh staggered out. The white bandage on one hand, but still the big black automatic in the other. I rammed my elbows on the road and aimed.

'Drop it, Kavanagh!'

He lifted his face and it was a bead curtain of blood. 'Sod you!' he screamed and the gun blasted – at somewhere. Blind, blind as a new kitten – but with at least six in that automatic.

'Drop the gun!' I yelled.

Instead, another shot that howled off the cliff above me.

Maybe I was lucky, at twenty yards; maybe I was getting good with that silly little gun. But I think it was the first shot that killed him. Still, you always fire twice.

I hobbled down the road – my version of running, since the front of my thighs felt like well-beaten steaks and there was a straight rip across both trouser legs. But almost no blood. Odd, that. I picked up Kavanagh's gun and leaned against the Cortina to look at the driver.

"Dave? Are you alive?'

He was bunched forward, face and both hands on the steering wheel. The windscreen just in front was a criss-crossed mess, centred on two small holes. Not bad.

'Major?' he said thickly.

I lifted the automatic – it was a Colt Commander, the lighter, shorter version of the old Army -45 – and aimed it near his right ear.

'It's me, Dave.'

'Bloody silly mess. You should've… been on our side.'

'Did I hit you?'

'In the throat… don't know what… but it feels bad. I mean, it… hardly feels at all. And that's bad… isn't it?'

He tried to lift his face to look at me, and it was studded with tiny glittering arrowheads of glass. But the moment his head lifted, the blood spurted across the wheel. He made a gurgling sound and flopped again.

'Damn silly,' he said.

'You shouldn't have killed Fenwick.'

'That's what's… so silly… Wasn't shooting… at him…'

'Only me, huh?'

'You knew… that?'

'I worked it out, finally. Just one shot, at that range in that light – you couldn't be sure you'd killed anybody, just that you'd hit the wrong man. You were going to kill me, grab the book from him, and go.'

'Didn't know… it would be… you, Major.'

'No, but you shot too early because you recognised me. I frightened you.'

'What… bodyguards… are for… ain't it?"

Suddenly I leaned back against the door and laughed weakly. 'So I got Fenwick killed just because it'sme there to protect him and so somebody shoots too soon and kills him instead… Good Christ, Dave, it would be a great world without us.' But when I looked back in, it was already without him.

Willie came trudging back up out of the snow just as I was dragging Kavanagh to the car.

He looked at them expressionlessly. 'Both of them? Yes, I suppose it had to be. Are you hurt?'

'Bruised. Help me get him in.'

Instead, he glanced at the outside edge of the road. 'Don't you think they'll be found?'

'The map says there's a lake down there. And I'll bet there's no official record of them even being in this country. And Mrs S-B isn't going to complain.'

'I suppose not.' He helped me with Kavanagh, then bent to wash his hands in the snow. 'But we can't complain either, now. I mean, Ellie should be on her way to jail for – for blackmail, murder, kidnapping… and she would be, if we'd just called the police last night instead of grabbing Nygaard ourselves. Why the devil did I let you do it? '

'Because you wanted to know what Nygaard knew. You wanted it both ways, and we got it. But there's a price.' My bruised ribs made my voice sound dry and harsh.

Willie looked at me. 'Yes. Including making David and the girl sort of accessories to a sort of murder.'

'Shut up and push.'

He didn't. 'Had you thought if you're going to tell David -about his father?'

'Yes. Everything. It won't kill him, but the blackmail's killed a lot of others up to now. That stops here.'

'I suppose…' And finally he walked over behind the Cortina and started pushing.

The wheels weren't badly bent; it rolled. It took a bit of the cliff edge with it, but that was ragged already.

Willie straightened up and said, 'And if any of this side of itdoes come out – who'll take the blame? '

Below, there was a long, heavy splash, dulled by the snowstorm. I said, 'The usual people, I expect,' and hobbled down the road to talk to the son of the late Martin Fenwick.