I leaned against the sink, trying to catch my breath. I looked at the inert body crumpled at my feet and realized that all I had to do was walk away to get my own back for that gratuitous boot in the ribs. Given the rate the water was pouring into the kitchen, it wouldn’t be long before Moustache said good night, Vienna.
Call me a wimp, but I couldn’t do it. I crouched down, grabbed his hair and hauled his poleaxed head out of the water. I yanked him on to his back and propped him in a sitting position between the wall and the sink unit. I’m too nice for my own good.
Keeping one eye on him, I backed across the kitchen to the phone. Using both hands, I picked up the receiver and tucked it into my left shoulder. I punched in a familiar number and listened to it ring out. I was starting to panic when it reached the thirteenth ring: it’s not easy being patient when you know someone’s on their way to send you to the crematorium.
Just as I was about to abandon the phone and leg it, the ringing stopped and a blurred voice muttered, ‘’Lo?’
‘Della? It’s Kate. This is an emergency. Are you awake?’
There was a grunt, then Della said, ‘Getting there. What is it?’
‘Della, there’s a guy on his way to kill me. It’ll take too long to explain it all now, but he’s the hit man who killed Cherie Roberts, the single mum who got blown away this afternoon? He’s coming after me!’ I could hear the hysteria rising in my voice, and I was overwhelmed by the urge to giggle.
‘Kate? Are you pissed?’ Della asked incredulously.
‘No, but I think I’ve been drugged,’ I said. ‘I swear this isn’t a wind-up, Della. I know it’s not your beat, but you’ve got to get a posse out here right away, double urgent. This guy’s a paid killer.
And he’s after me!’ Even to me, my voice sounded like Minnie Mouse.
‘OK, calm down. Where exactly are you?’
‘I’m in a house on the corner of Oliver Tambo Close, near the Apollo. The house is full of kiddy porn. They’ve been drugging the kids to get them to perform,’ I gabbled.
‘Later, Kate, later,’ Della interrupted. ‘I’m going to hang up now and get the local lads to send the area car round there pronto. And I’ll be there myself as soon as I can. But I want you to get out of there right now. Don’t hang about. Just get out. Go back to your house and I’ll meet you there.’
I snorted with insane laughter. I was beginning to feel really silly. ‘I can’t go there,’ I giggled. ‘He knows where I live. He’s already blown my door away.’ Before she could make another suggestion, the line went dead. Not the way it goes when someone hangs up on you. This was dead, hollow, a void. Suddenly, I didn’t feel like giggling any more. Somewhere outside the house was the man who had been sent to kill me. And his automatic first action was to cut the lines of communication.
I checked my pockets for the van keys, but they weren’t there. Wildly. I looked around the kitchen. I spotted them on one of the worktops, along with my wallet. I paddled through the water and picked them up, stuffing my wallet in my trouser pocket. In the kitchen doorway, I hesitated, water flowing like a spring stream round my ankles, trying to decide whether the assassin would approach from the front or the rear.
I didn’t wonder for long. With a crash that reverberated round my skull, the back door slammed against the wall. I didn’t even wait to look. I whirled round to the front door. The gods were on my side, for the key was in the lock. I turned the key, pulled it out of the lock and yanked the door open. I was through it and had it closed in the time it took the hit man to travel the length of the hall. I shoved the key in the lock and turned it. Then I stumbled and weaved down the path, my breath coming in ragged sobs.
I’d reached the pavement when the night exploded in a pair of catastrophic bangs. I turned to look back at the house. The door was hanging drunkenly on one of its hinges, and the silhouette of a man was pushing it aside. In his right hand, he carried a sawn-off shotgun. I drew in my breath in a horrified moan and ran for my life.
Now I was swerving madly by design as I approached the van. I pressed the burglar alarm remote-control button, which unlocks the doors as well as deactivating the alarm. I was barely at the back of the van, and I could hear him gaining on me. Then, suddenly, the sound of his footsteps stopped. I knew he was taking aim. Desperately, I threw myself into a rolling somersault round the rear of the van to the passenger side, putting the van between him and me.
Weeping with fear, sweating in spite of the cold night air on my freshly grazed skin, I scrambled to my feet and staggered along the side of the van to the passenger door. I grabbed the door handle like a lifeline and pulled myself into the cab. I had the presence of mind to lock the doors behind me. I fumbled the key into the ignition at the second attempt.
I was still cuffed, so driving wasn’t going to be easy. I swivelled round to shift the gear stick into first, then released the handbrake. Movement at the edge of my peripheral vision made me swing round to look out of the driver’s window. The shock of what I saw nearly had me stalling the engine. As it was, I let the clutch out way too fast and the van bucked forward in a series of jumps like a kangaroo on acid.
In my wing mirror, I saw him step back involuntarily to avoid having his feet run over by the van’s rear wheels. Crazy Eddy Roberts, locked somewhere on the slopes of Mount Tumbledown, clutching his gun like mothers clutch frightened children. A man who’d lost touch with human feelings to the point where there was nothing difficult about taking a damn sight more than thirty pieces of silver to kill the mother of his children.
For a fraction of a second, our eyes locked. The engine was screaming a protest at still being in first, so I took my hands off the steering wheel to change up into second. When I looked in my mirror again, the twin barrels of the gun gleamed dully in the distant streetlights as Eddy swung it up towards me. I put my foot down and grabbed the steering wheel. I could feel the van fishtailing as I tried to wrench the wheel round to clear the oncoming corner.
I heard the boom of the gun as the window shattered. I’d lost control of the van almost simultaneously. I hit the kerb at speed and clipped a lamppost. As the van toppled over on its side, the last thing I saw was a pair of flashing blue lights.
Chapter 25
I couldn’t believe how blue the sea was. It glittered under Mediterranean sunlight like one of those crystal beds that New Age fanatics have lying around their living-rooms. I propped myself up on one elbow and watched the lumbering half-tracked harvesters further down the beach, gathering and refining the spice that had caused the planet wars that had ravaged Dune for a generation. Suddenly, the sand shifted, only feet away from my leg, and the head of a huge, carnivorous sandworm reared up. The ferocious jaws opened, to reveal Moustache’s face.
I swam up the levels to consciousness, passing from dreaming to awareness via that state where you know that you’ve just been dreaming, but you’re not quite awake. My head felt like an oversized block of stone, though there didn’t seem to be as much pain as I remembered enduring before the accident. The accident!
My eyes snapped open. I was in a small room, dimly illumined by lights glowing through frosted glass from the corridor outside. I tried to lift my head, but it was too much of an effort. Instead, I shifted my feet to check I was still functioning below the neck. You put your left leg in, you put your left leg out…Yeah, the lower limbs all did the hokey cokey. I breathed deeply. There was a bit of pain from my ribs and chest, but nothing felt broken, which was pretty miraculous given that I hadn’t been wearing my seat belt when I crashed the van. I raised my right arm, which seemed fine, apart from the puffy bruises that ran round hand and wrist like designer bangles by the Marquis de Sade. My left arm had no watch on it, only grazes from shoulder to wrist, and a drip running into the back of my hand, which was more than a little disconcerting.