There was a second thunderous crash as the next statue went over. He would now be creeping towards the one that sheltered Crane. Crane got slowly to his feet and waited, beads of sweat trickling steadily down his back. He knew only too well that if he waited too long it would be as bad as not waiting long enough. The timing was utterly crucial. The nerve-shredding seconds fell away and he knew Hellewell must now be very close. He could just detect the tiniest movement of his feet on the earth track. Crane breathed slowly and deeply then suddenly toppled his own statue outwards.
‘Christ!’ The whisper sounded almost like a shout. Crane couldn’t begin to guess what damage its fall had done to the man, but its descent to the ground had definitely seemed obstructed, so it must have given him some kind of blow on its way down.
He didn’t stay to find out. As Hellewell cursed and groaned behind him, he ran to the end of the lengthy tree-tunnel, along the beam of his torch.
The tunnel led to the main conservatory, the one that angled from the left side of the rear of the house. This meant Crane was back in the area of the pool and the formal garden. And at this point there was an opening from the tunnel that provided an escape route.
But he hesitated. He could make a dash for it, possibly even reach his car. But he didn’t know what state Hellewell was in. He didn’t sound to be out of action, as he’d hoped. His powerful hands must have been reaching for the statue even as Crane began to topple it over. The damage could have been relatively light, maybe a bruised shoulder or a damaged arm. He was no longer making any noise.
Crane tried the door of the conservatory. It wasn’t locked, but controlled by a closing mechanism to ensure it wasn’t left open by mistake. The door to the house though, at the far end, was sure to be locked. He was certain Hellewell wouldn’t believe he’d go in the conservatory. He’d think he’d now be making for his car, by some circuitous route. He crept in, glad that hinges had been kept well oiled. Maybe he could sit it out in here until he was sure Hellewell had gone off into the great rambling spread of land beyond the pool and the formal garden, then pick his time to make for his car and phone. He daren’t risk his torch again, but to the right of the door he located what seemed to be a rough wooden table against which leant garden tools. With a sigh of relief, he grasped something with a shaft and handle that had to be a spade or a fork. He was armed. But in seizing it he dislodged some other implement. It began a sliding fall then crashed on to what must have been a concrete floor. Hellewell’s torch instantly ignited from halfway along the tree-tunnel and he began to run towards the conservatory. Bent double, Crane scuttled along one of the narrow paths that cut its way past pulpy exotics, oppressively scented flowers and fronds of greenery that touched his forehead like moist hands. He crouched behind a dense screen of foliage towards the centre of the house of glass. He heard the clatter of what could only be the garden tools being swept aside, and then the grating sound of what seemed to be the table itself being dragged somewhere. He cursed. He’d be putting it in front of the door. He grunted with pain as he did so, but the statue clearly hadn’t done him any damage he couldn’t handle.
The table wouldn’t stop Crane getting out, but it would slow him down, give Hellewell enough time, wherever he was in the conservatory, to get to him. Hellewell began thrashing about him now, at plants and foliage and the curtains of dangling fronds. He no longer bothered to douse the torch, as he had Crane cornered. All Crane could see of him was his shape behind a narrow but high-powered beam, and what looked to be a thick heavy stick.
From what he could gather, a path ran down each side of the wide chamber, with cross-paths to give access to fixtures laden with plants, flowers and shrubs. Hellewell wasn’t advancing in a straight line, but branching off along the cross-paths to give his lethal attention to every square foot of the room, as systematically as a beater driving game until it broke for cover.
But Crane wondered what break he could possibly make. Sweat now ran down his spine in rivulets from the heat needed for the many rare tropical blooms. His mind seemed almost to seize up with the overwhelming pungency of the scents clotting the atmosphere. At least he had the spade. And he was in good physical shape. But not in Hellewell’s class, the action man who spent his entire life outdoors working the land.
The beating and slashing was getting relentlessly closer. He forced himself to think calmly and logically. He pictured the garden again as he’d seen it last evening. His mind had been trained to gather detail. He recalled the look of this lengthy conservatory, jutting from the end of the house, like a pier. Had there been a second entrance along the side, one that could be reached more easily from the terrace or the pool area? He was near certain there had been a glass-panelled door that had barely defined itself against the glass walls.
Hellewell was about two yards off, working his way steadily along a cross-path, slashing and clubbing at costly blossoms and alien wide-leaved plants, even swinging at hanging flower baskets in case Crane had pulled himself up on to a beam. Crane estimated he was about halfway down the lengthy annexe, possibly roughly in line with the side door. He began to creep to his right behind the screen of foliage. For part of a second the beam of Hellewell’s torch flicked over the conservatory’s garden side, but it was enough for Crane to glimpse the door he’d been near-certain would be there. He crept rapidly up to it, holding carefully on to his spade, paused until the torch beam was focused elsewhere, then slipped through the side door and began to run as rapidly as he dared, giving brief flashes on his torch to light his way. But it was no good. Hellewell had razor-edge reflexes to go with the honed body. Within seconds, Crane heard the soft thud of his feet behind him. They were on the circle of lawn now that bordered the pool, which he could see clearly in the light of Hellewell’s torch.
Crane was fast, Hellewell was faster. He came up on him so rapidly Crane knew he’d have to protect himself with his spade. He’d need to hold it in both hands to get his full strength behind the blow, so he stuffed his torch in his pocket, swung round and brought the spade down towards the shadowy figure behind the streak of light.
Hellewell dodged the blow with an almost contemptuous agility, and with his beam now locked on to Crane’s legs, gave him a blow to the side of his left knee. It sent him sprawling, gasping with pain. He knew, in a nanosecond that this was it. There was nowhere else to go. The torch’s beam then trawled with a deliberate, almost sadistic precision over his body. When it reached his head he knew the carefully positioned strokes would follow it. He also knew he’d not be left holding on to life like Ollie Stringer. Not by a single thread.
But suddenly, inexplicably, the area was flooded with light. High-voltage security lamps blazed from points along the house’s façade and the balustraded terrace. Both men were momentarily blinded. Except that, when they could see again, Crane wasn’t looking at Hellewell, though the man was tall and fair and fit-looking.
‘… Geoff?’
‘… Frank?’
TWELVE
‘Are you all right, Frank?’ a voice cried.
It was Julia. She stood on the terrace, looking down at them from across the balustrade, her face pale as wax, her hair dishevelled, the gleaming, bloody patch on her temple clearly visible. She had what looked to be a double-barrelled hunting gun trained on Anderson.
‘More or less, Julia,’ Crane said, getting shakily to his feet. The pain in his knee was excruciating and he could stand only by taking the bulk of his weight on his right leg.
‘Have you any idea what’s going on here? Why did that maniac attack me? It was you who rang just before he did, I take it?’
He tried desperately to clear a brain that had had one shock too many. ‘I … I rang you from the road outside. I needed to warn you you might be in some kind of danger.’
‘From him?’