Kathy felt a stab of panic. It was true: he had come too far. There was nothing she could say, no angle she could work.
‘The thing you’ve got to ask yourself, Harry, is what’s the best outcome you can get for yourself?’ she said desperately. ‘Do you think Connie will agree to spend the rest of her and her kids’ life on the run with a wanted killer? When I walked in here your options narrowed very sharply. You’d better do some hard thinking up there. You’ve got Brock’s mobile number, remember? Do yourself a favour and use it.’
It was the best she could come up with. For a moment there seemed to be a glimmer of doubt in his eyes, then the hard look snapped back and he turned away with a dismissive snort.
‘Harry!’ she called after him. ‘Get me a drink of water. Please.’
He hesitated, then poured water into a glass on the table and brought it back to her. Kathy took a gulp of water, then said hoarsely, ‘What are you going to do?’
‘There’s nothing I can do, Kathy. I’m sorry. Really. What’s done is done. I have to live with it. I can’t change it now.’
‘Suppose you could?’ she whispered. ‘Suppose you could go back a month, and forget about the hold-up, and Kerri, and Speedy, and everything.’
He shook his head. ‘Christ… life isn’t like that.’
‘There’s no hard evidence linking you to the hold-up or North, or to Kerri’s death either.’ She lifted her face closer to him, straining to make him understand. ‘If you were to stop North right now, a citizen’s arrest, and rescue me, who’s to say you’re not a hero? Me? Not likely. North? Everyone knows that he’d sell his mother for tuppence.’
‘You’d look after me, I suppose?’ he said. ‘Oh sure.’
‘Yes, Harry, I promise. You’ve got a good record. Why not? You can start again, with Connie.’
He smiled, looking sick. ‘You’re a trier, Kathy. Got to hand it to you. But you know I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. You’ve seen what he’s like. He’s got that gun. I couldn’t take him.’
‘If you had a gun, I could distract him, Harry.’
‘If…’
‘There’s one in the pocket of Orr’s coat.’
‘Eh?’ He looked at her as if she were mad.
‘In the right-hand pocket. An old service revolver, loaded. He brought it to shoot Verdi. Unfasten my handcuffs, and wait until he comes towards me.’
He shook his head and backed away from her. ‘God, you never give up, do you?’ He turned and went to the door.
North watched TV for the best part of an hour. At times Kathy thought he might have fallen asleep, but then he would sit up and look over to see what she was doing. Whenever he seemed absorbed in the screen she would continue with her attempts to ease the bed to which she was handcuffed away from the wall and closer to Orr. After a long, suppressed struggle that left her sweating and aching, she discovered that it would budge no further, and when she looked under it to see what the problem was she discovered that one of its legs at the head was chained to a bolt in the wall. She had been wasting her time. In desperation she tried stretching out on the floor, reaching out as far as possible towards Orr. Straining on her handcuffed wrist, she was just able to get a foot to within a couple of inches of the top of his motionless head, but no closer.
She was sitting crouched on the end of the bed, shivering with frustration and chill, when North yawned, stretched, jabbed the TV off and turned to stare at her.
‘Like The Bill, do you, Greg?’ she asked as he came towards her, not liking the look in his eyes one bit.
‘Yeah, always used to watch it. Didn’t think it would still be on when I came back, but there they were, the same old characters. Well, some had changed. June, for instance. I understand she had a spot of bother. I was sorry to hear that. I always had a soft spot for June. Being a blonde, maybe, like you.’
He contemplated her with a slightly dreamy look, then squeezed his nose and sniffed noisily. He seemed suddenly voluble, and she guessed he’d been snorting something.
‘I should have let you watch it, darling,’ he went on. ‘Special Christmas Eve episode. Reg played Santa at the children’s hospital with a raving paedophile on the loose. You’d have enjoyed it, the way they all back each other up, and the villains always get caught in the end. Would you say that’s realistic, darling? From your perspective, as a serving officer, in the flesh, like?’ He stared down at her legs. ‘How did you get your jeans on again?’
‘Harry-’
‘Oh, good old Harry.’
‘I don’t know about good, but he’s certainly smart.’
‘Oh yeah?’ he said vaguely.
‘Smarter than you, anyway, if you haven’t figured out what he’s going to do tonight.’
North grinned at her tolerantly. ‘Don’t try it again, darling. I thought I taught you about your lip.’
Kathy shrugged and looked away. ‘Suit yourself.’
There was a short pause.
‘Go on then, I could do with a laugh. What’s he going to do?’
‘When he’s finished, there’s going to be three dead in here.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yes. The old man and me shot with your gun, and you dead of an overdose, same as Speedy.’
‘Is that right?’ North sniggered. ‘You amaze me, you really do. Now why would he do that?’
‘Because he has no choice. My coming here doesn’t make much difference to you-you’re going to be on the run anyway. But for him it’s a disaster. He doesn’t want to go on the run. His new girlfriend won’t stand for it. His whole plan was to retire in respectable comfort with her, a free man. Hasn’t he told you about the villa overlooking the Mediterranean?’
North nodded, more cautious now, looking as if he resented having to get his nicely mellowed brain to work.
‘We already had our suspicions about Harry, and if you two kill me Brock won’t rest until he’s put him away. That’s not Harry’s plan at all. That’s what he and I were talking about while you were watching Bart Simpson. So now he only has one option. He has to make you responsible for everything, and he has to have you and me both dead so we can’t tell the truth. It worked with Speedy, maybe it’ll work again. My guess is that at this moment he’s desperately trying to figure out a way to do it that won’t look too suspiciously much like the way Speedy died. That’s really his only problem. Then, when he’s done it, he’ll help Brock to find this place, and clear up the case. After a decent interval he’ll go off with his half share, confident that Greg North will never come crawling out of the woodwork one day to give him away.’
North stared down at her, silent, and with a sense of dread Kathy watched his doped smile fade and black fury flare in his eyes.
He bent down and grabbed her left arm and leg, lifted her up and threw her bodily across the bed. Her right arm jerked taut and twisted on the handcuff, and Kathy screamed as she felt the muscles in her shoulder tear. He was on top of her, on her back, spitting as he shouted into her ear.
‘Nice try, bitch! You’re a fucking comedian, know that? Now I’ll tell you my fantasy. You’re a copper, see? Let’s call you June, eh?’ He began pulling at her clothes. ‘Yeah! And June is going to die, right? Just like on The Bill. Only this time, when you’re dead’-he was gasping with effort and rage, tearing at Kathy’s clothing-‘and they open you up on the stainless-steel table… inside of you.. . they’ll find a message… a personal message, from me… to Brock.’
Beyond his hoarse shouting in her ear and the pain screaming in her shoulder, Kathy heard another voice calling out, telling him to stop. Jackson, she decided. Finally North heard it too, and he paused long enough in his struggle with her jeans to tell him to fuck off.
Then he went abruptly still.
Kathy twisted her head up and saw his face inches away, saliva dribbling from his mouth, and the barrel of Orr’s gun pressing up under his chin.
‘I said’-Jackson’s voice came from somewhere beyond-‘get off her, Greg.’
‘What are you doing?’ North was genuinely astonished. ‘What are you fucking doing?’