‘What do you mean, bad?’
‘Didn’t you smell it?’ she shouted. The dog, which had returned to its master, started barking.
‘Smell what?’
‘You couldn’t miss it. The stench in his flat.’
‘What are you getting at?’
Marc’s bewilderment and his headache intensified in equal measure. He needed to take a pill as soon as possible.
Emma opened the driver’s door. ‘He killed her. The girl in the bathroom. I traced the smell and found her.’
‘The woman’s paranoid,’ said Benny, echoing Marc’s thoughts.
‘Please get in,’ Emma pleaded in a slightly calmer voice. ‘Just you, Marc, not your brother. You’ve got to trust me.’
‘Trust you?’ Marc fought for composure. All that prevented him from slapping her face was the gun in her hand.
‘Yes, I can explain everything.’
‘Then you’d better start with that licence number. Why did you lie to me?’
‘It was all I could think of on the spur of the moment,’ she said, trembling harder.
Benny started to say something, but Marc forestalled him. ‘So you’re in cahoots with them, are you? They’ve employed you to drive me insane.’
‘No.’
‘Why? Who’d be interested in destroying me?’
‘That’s the right question, Marc, but I can’t answer it. Please,’ she repeated, ‘you’ve got to trust me.’
Benny laughed. ‘Says the woman who claims she can smell dead bodies and threatens us with a stolen gun.’
Marc nodded, although something about Emma’s tone of voice had puzzled him. Either she was a consummate actress or she genuinely believed she could justify her behaviour.
‘Look, Marc, I know you don’t believe I saw your wife. Even a photo of her wasn’t enough for you.’
Using her left hand, Emma took her mobile from her jacket pocket, activated the display and handed it to him.
‘You were so mistrustful of me, but I didn’t want to be on my own again, so I quickly thought of a licence number – the first one that occurred to me. It’s the number of the ambulance that’s been tailing me ever since I broke out of the clinic.’
‘That’s another goddamned…’ Marc was about to add ‘lie’ when Benny cut him short by snatching the mobile from his hand.
‘One moment,’ he said, turning the display through ninety degrees. ‘Did you take this?’
Emma stared at him suspiciously. ‘Yes. Why?’
‘A yellow Volvo?’
‘Yes.’
‘With a dent in the side?’
Emma nodded more vigorously, although it was clear she didn’t know where his questions were leading.
‘Right side or left?’
‘The dent? I don’t know. Left, I think, towards the back.’
She started coughing again. The sweat was trickling down her cheeks now.
‘What is it?’ Marc broke in. ‘Do you know that car?’ He hugged his chest, although he didn’t really know what was making him shiver, cold or fear; probably both.
Benny gave an affirmative click of his tongue. ‘Yes. I drove it recently.’
‘Really? So you know who it belongs to?’
Out of the corner of his eye, Marc saw a cyclist on the other side of the street get off his bike and look over at them with interest.
‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’
‘We must get going,’ said Emma, who had also noticed the cyclist, but Marc wasn’t listening.
‘What do you mean, you’re afraid so? Who is it, for Christ’s sake?’
‘Oh shit, you really don’t want to know.’ Benny handed back the mobile with a sigh, shoulders sagging.
‘Why not?’ Marc demanded. He was about to grab Benny’s arm when his brother darted forwards.
The first shot that rent the air prompted the cyclist to pedal off as fast as he could. He didn’t look back even when another shot rang out and the barking and cries of pain behind him steadily increased in volume.
43
Within the space of a heartbeat Benny had grabbed Emma’s wrist and forced her arm upwards, complete with gun. The second shot went off right beside her head. The agonizing pain took only an instant to have the desired, paralysing effect.
She let go of the gun and sank to her knees beside the car with both hands clamped to her left ear. The blast had ruptured her eardrum.
‘What have you done?’ yelled Marc, slow to grasp what had just happened before his very eyes. All he saw was the blood oozing between Emma’s fingers and staining the collar of her white jacket. For one horrific moment he assumed that Benny, the kid brother who’d never hurt a soul in his life, had actually shot her in the head. Then she tried to get up and although she was only emitting hoarse cries of pain, he guessed that her injuries could not be life-threatening after all.
‘What now?’ he demanded, more quietly. This time the question was directed at Emma as well as Benny, who had retrieved his gun.
‘I’m going,’ said Benny.
‘You can’t just push off!’
Marc knelt down beside Emma, at his wits’ end. The bleeding was worse, if anything, and had plastered the hair to her temple. In a kind of displacement activity, he felt her forehead like a mother checking her child’s temperature. It was burning hot.
‘We must get her to a hospital. Please Benny, you’ll have to drive us there…’ Startled, he broke off and clutched Emma’s hand, which had suddenly gone limp. She’d passed out again. ‘At least help me get her into the car. Benny?’
He looked up, expecting some objection, but none came. His brother had disappeared.
‘Shit, shit, shit…’ Marc broke out in a sweat despite the cold. He was desperately tired and his headache had spread to his neck. He was afraid he didn’t have the strength to manhandle Emma into the car.
Damnation.
He got out his mobile, intending to dial emergency, but the battery gave out after one keystroke.
Shit!
He patted Emma’s jacket in search of her mobile. Then it occurred to him that Benny had had it last, so he’d probably pocketed it.
He rose to his feet, leant against the car and surveyed the buildings across the street. As far as he could see, there was no one at any of the windows, and the balconies were deserted.
Why hasn’t anyone called the police? Someone must have heard those shots.
He was just about to bend over Emma again when he was startled by a voice he’d heard once before.
‘Hello there, mate.’
Though very much quieter, the voice was definitely the one that had complained about the noise. Marc looked up. The old man was standing on the pavement with his dog on a length of chain.
‘What do you want?’
The dosser seemed to take as much care of his clothes as the circumstances of his life on the streets permitted. It was easy to overlook the fact that he was destitute, because only close proximity revealed the crumbling layer of grime on his once expensive, crudely patched serge overcoat, beneath which lurked a sports coat far too big for him. Close proximity also enabled them to smell the cloying, rancid body odour that provided a further indication of his homelessness.
‘No worries, mate,’ the old man said with a toothless grin. ‘I didn’t see a thing.’
‘It isn’t the way it looks. I’m taking this woman to hospital.’
Marc caught hold of Emma under the arms and, with his last remaining strength, hauled her to her feet. Her breathing was fast and shallow.
The dosser just nodded indifferently and watched him struggling with his burden. He didn’t start chuckling until Marc had managed to drag Emma to the other side of the car, open the passenger door and buckle her into her seat.
‘Some night, eh?’
Marc turned to him, wiping the sweat from his brow. ‘Look, if it’s money you’re after, I’m sorry. I’m skint myself.’
He made sure Emma’s head couldn’t sag forwards and shut the passenger door.
‘I know.’
Marc, who was about to make his way round to the driver’s side, stopped in his tracks.