He hit the back wall of the house running, breathless, heart and ears pounding with blood.
He twisted through the kitchen door, sliding the bolt across to lock it. He found the room empty with one exception: Jake Coulton was where he had been left, sitting up raggedly against the wall, his massive head wound exposed dreadfully.
Repulsion at the sight made Henry queasy for a moment.
‘Unlucky, pal,’ he said and crossed the kitchen to the inner door which led to the hallway, picking up his mobile phone from the table as he passed.
The sniper used a combination of uncorrected vision — his eyes — his telescopic sights and his night binoculars to comb the area below him for Verner. He scanned from the house, along the path to the stables, and back towards the old farm buildings. He had watched Henry Christie make his way across the field and then disappear around the back of the barns, but his main concern was the whereabouts of Verner. He had lost him completely.
A little bit of panic set in.
Verner could not be allowed to get away.
He searched desperately for a glimpse of his target, kicking himself for not having blown his head off when he’d had the chance. That was what lack of practice did — made you stale.
Verner lay deep in the ditch, having inched the full length of it, so that he was at the point where it ended close to the house. He was perhaps twenty metres away from the gravel-covered parking area at the front of the house. The fact he had made it so far reassured him. It meant that the gunman on the hill could not see him and did not know where he was — but he was under no illusion that as soon as he emerged from the mud, there was a good chance of him being picked off.
He was deeply curious as to who had been hired to take him out of the picture.
Ramirez was good. He was a Spaniard who had worked around the world for various organizations, but he was expensive, probably too costly to be doing a job like this. And last Verner had heard, Ramirez was somewhere in Latin America.
It could be Orlando, an Hispanic hit man working out of Florida. He was good at long range, but if it had been him, Verner knew he would have been dead by now.
So it had to be a second-rater, or someone out to make his spurs. Verner plumped on who it was. Jackson, the British ex-Army guy who had, recently, had a slightly suspect record of achievement. He had missed the last two hits, despite bragging he was a long-range specialist.
That thought made him feel better.
He took a chance and raised his head slightly. Four cars were parked on the graveclass="underline" Wickson’s Bentley was nearest to him, then parked next to that was the heap of crap Henry Christie had arrived in, then Tara’s Mercedes and then a small black sports car belonging to the late, great Jake Coulton.
Two down, Verner thought. Wickson and Coulton. If I get the chance to take Henry Christie and Tara Wickson, I’ll be pleased enough. Firstly because they were both witnesses and secondly because he wanted to kill Henry anyway. If I can do that, he thought, I’m sure I’ll be able to outwit the sniper on the hill. But I’m going to have to be quick about it.
They were in the hall. Charlotte was trying to drag, cajole, push her injured mother towards the front door.
Henry came into the hall, dishevelled, dirty and desperate in appearance. Charlotte saw him. She opened her mouth to scream.
‘It’s me, Henry,’ he said, holding up his hands. ‘I’m a bit of a mess.’
She stifled the scream by clamping both fists over her open mouth.
Henry knelt down by Tara, who had slithered down the wall into a heap. He inspected her head. Verner had hit her very hard, causing a deep, wide gash. Henry could see the grey of her skull in the split on her scalp. It needed to be treated quickly. Lots of blood was being lost through it. Henry switched on his mobile, but the battery died with a pathetic bleep. He looked around and saw a house phone on the wall, rose and grabbed it, holding it to his ears. Nothing. It was dead. Had Verner cut the wires before entering the house?
‘I’ve got my mobile phone upstairs,’ Charlotte volunteered.
‘Go get it. . go on, go,’ he shooed her.
The youngster dashed upstairs, leaving Henry with Tara. He pondered whether or not to get her to her feet, but decided against it.
He went to the front door, a big, solid oak thing with one small pane of glass in it, distorting any view outside. He turned the handle and opened the door a fraction, peering out with one eye. The crusher was still churning away hungrily. He looked towards the hill in the distance, but saw nothing. Who the hell was up there? And where was Verner? Had he been driven away? Henry doubted it.
Immediately outside the house were the cars, parked in a variety of different ways. The black sports car and Tara’s Mercedes faced the house; his Astra and the Bentley, parked almost side by side about ten feet apart, were backed up to the house, so they faced down the driveway.
He was weighing up whether it was worth trying to get the females out into his car and to get them the hell away from the house, or to do a runner with them into the fields and get them to lie low and wait for the arrival of the cops. . and where were they? he wondered. Would they ever feel the need to turn up? Henry was thinking like a disgruntled member of the public again.
Quite simply he did not know what to do for the best.
A thought struck him like a bolt of lightning.
Charlotte came flying down the stairs and handed him her mobile phone. He pushed it back into her hand. ‘Call the police — 999.’ She looked shocked at being asked to do such a task, and dropped to her knees beside Tara. Henry squatted down beside them and said urgently, ‘I need to get to my car. . No, it’s OK,’ he said, halting Charlotte’s intended interruption. ‘I’ll be straight back, then we’re going to lock up the house, sit tight and wait for the cops, OK?’ He nodded enthusiastically. Charlotte nodded back, less enthusiastically. ‘OK, you get the police on the line while I go to the car. I’ll only be gone for seconds.’
He stood up, knees, as ever, cracking, and went to the door. His car was perhaps fifteen feet away. On the left was the Bentley, which would give him some cover from the hillside if necessary. It would take just seconds, he reiterated to comfort himself. In his mind he process-mapped his task, step by step, visualizing it. He crouched down and pulled the door open. Then he had another thought. What if it all went wrong when he got to the car? Over his shoulder he called, ‘Charlotte, come here, love.’
Reluctantly she crawled across to him, not wanting to leave Tara.
‘When I go out,’ he said in as plain English as he could manage so he would not be misunderstood, ‘you close the door behind me. But stay by the door — don’t go back to your mum, OK? Stay by the door and let me back in when I come running, OK?’
She nodded.
‘Make sure you let me in,’ he said, just to make sure she had got it.
‘Right.’
‘Good lass.’
He edged out of the door, then sprinted to the back of the Astra.
Verner found a foothold on a rock from which he could propel himself towards the parked cars. He repositioned slightly until he was in exactly the right position and would not slip. He braced himself, counted down, his muscles coiled. Then he exploded like a greyhound out of the traps.
The sniper was fractionally late picking him up. He fired three shots — crack, crack, crack — all three bullets marginally behind the running figure of Verner, who flung himself out of sight behind the Bentley. Frustrated, the sniper put another couple of shells into the body of the Bentley.
Henry had the hatchback of the Astra open. He was crouching down behind the car, delving into the recess where the spare wheel should have been. He heard a noise behind him, went very cold, spun round slowly, keeping his right hand behind his back.
Knelt down by the back nearside corner of the Bentley was Verner.