‘Make her let me go. She’s hurting me,’ Sara wailed.
Griffin had his knife. He was holding it in his left hand, not his right. His mouth was open. Blood was pouring down his face and shirt.
‘Are you going to come at me with that knife?’ Grace shouted at him. ‘Or will you put it in Sara first? I think you would if you wanted to. You make her do everything else. Why not make her die for you?’
‘He’s behind you,’ Sara shrieked as Harrigan came out of the dark, spanner raised to bring it down on Griffin’s head.
Griffin leaped sideways, feinted with the knife, then stumbled backward off balance, falling and twisting one leg. The spanner missed.
Sara tore herself out of Grace’s grip with enough strength to knock her backward. She leaped onto Harrigan’s back and began to claw at his eyes. Griffin got to his feet, scrabbling for his knife. Harrigan dragged at Sara with one hand, pulling her hair, swinging around. She clung on. Then he swung away, falling back heavily against the car, knocking the breath out of her. She lay in the dirt, gasping.
Harrigan still had the spanner. Griffin had the knife. They circled each other, Harrigan with one eye on Sara. He was between Griffin and the car.
Grace had picked herself up. Find the gun. It’s over here somewhere. Find it.
‘You always put her in the front line, don’t you,’ Harrigan said, contempt in his voice. ‘You get women to do your dirty work. What does that make you? A pimp.’
Sara was dragging herself to her feet. Grace scrambled in the dark. Griffin said nothing.
‘You want to get to your car, don’t you?’ Harrigan said. ‘That’s why you’re coming at me. You want to make a run for it. That’s you. You’re a coward.’
Griffin’s face was dead. There was no reaction in it to any of Harrigan’s taunts. He was choking on blood in his nose and trying to breathe through his mouth at the same time. Suddenly he took out his car keys and threw them to Sara. Still shaken, she missed catching them and they landed in the dirt.
‘Get them! Start the car,’ he shouted, but Harrigan ran between her and the keys, still holding the spanner.
‘We can get him,’ Griffin said. ‘You and me. We can.’
Both of them moved towards Harrigan as if to come at him from each side.
‘Get the keys!’ Griffin shouted at Sara.
‘Come near me and I’ll use this spanner on you,’ Harrigan said.
She hesitated, her mouth open.
‘He won’t.’
‘Yes, I will. What are you doing sending a woman to do your work? Face up to it yourself. Put your knife down and fight me man to man. You don’t want to do that, do you? You wouldn’t have an advantage.’
Sara jumped forward, stopped. Harrigan laughed at her.
‘Always in the front line. People see you but not him. He hides where no one can see him. What a cheap piece of shit he is.’
She ran at him again, just a little, stopped. Griffin suddenly raced for the keys. A bullet cracked in front of him. Everybody froze. Grace walked forward carrying her gun.
‘Kneel down,’ she said. ‘Both of you. Get down in the dirt. Now.’
Her voice was unrecognisable with anger.
‘She won’t fire,’ Griffin said, but his voice was shaking.
‘Oh yes, I will. Get down!’
They knelt.
‘This isn’t happening,’ Sara said, and began to cry.
Harrigan walked over to Grace, always keeping an eye on the two people kneeling on the ground. There was a quick glance between them, small emotional electricity communicated.
‘Are you all right, babe?’
‘I’m okay. What happened to your shoes?’
‘Gone.’
‘Like mine.’
Other than the one quick glance, she hadn’t taken her eyes off Griffin and Sara.
‘He’s got a mobile. It’s in the Camry’s glovebox,’ she said.
‘I’ll get it.’ He turned to walk to the car.
‘Eat dirt,’ Grace said. ‘Both of you. Eat it!’
Harrigan stopped and turned. ‘Babe-’
She wasn’t listening. ‘If there was shit, I’d get you to eat shit. But there’s only dirt. Now eat it!’
‘No,’ Sara said.
‘Why not? You’ve done much worse things than that. Eat it!’
Harrigan spoke softly in Grace’s ear. ‘Just keep them under control, babe. That’s all you need to do. Do this and you’ll lose control.’
‘He’s made me kneel in the dirt. He wanted to cut my throat and burn us alive. He said that people always crawl, they always cry. Well, now you can eat some dirt!’
Griffin reached down, scooped up a handful of dirt and began to eat it, his face expressionless. Sara put her hands over her eyes.
‘Eat it,’ Griffin said to her, his voice a monotone.
‘I got my one last sail in,’ she said. And then: ‘I’m not eating dirt for you.’
With a single fluid movement she was on her feet and running screaming at Grace, her face distorted into the Medusa’s mask. She leaped forward into the air. Grace fired but at the same time a second crack resounded in the night, both bullets catching Sara as she fell forward into nothing, a long resounding scream closing behind her into silence. Then she lay on the ground, dead.
There was a shout. ‘Police! Don’t move!’
Harrigan turned to look up the fire trail. Groups of uniformed and plain-clothes officers were hurrying down the slope towards them.
‘Don’t move,’ he heard Grace say and turned to look. Griffin had tried to get to his feet. The blood had stopped flowing from his nose and had stained his clothes. He looked from Sara to the police and then sat back on his heels. He said nothing. The police surrounded him.
Grace dropped her gun down, then disarmed it in one movement.
‘I didn’t need to do that,’ she said. ‘They just needed to sit there.’
The same thought was in Harrigan’s mind but he didn’t give voice to it. He looked at the blood on her neck.
‘You’re only human, babe,’ he said.
Mark Borghini appeared out of the dark and walked up to them. ‘Boss, Grace. You okay? Sorry we didn’t get here sooner.’
‘We’re alive. That’ll do. Thanks, mate,’ Harrigan said, and they shook hands.
‘If you’re here,’ Grace said, ‘where’s my backup?’
‘Behind us. We’ve been with you since Duffys Forest but we lost you coming down here. Lucky we saw the car lights.’
Still holding her gun, Grace walked over to the prone figure of Sara McLeod.
‘Which bullet was it? Yours or mine?’ she said.
‘Our marksman shot one. I know you shot another. The autopsy will tell us. Don’t worry about it.’ Borghini was dismissive. ‘She was a mad dog. I don’t have a problem with it. I’ll see if I can get the two of you some shoes. You look like you need them.’
‘Mine are in his car,’ Grace said. ‘In the back.’
She was still staring down at Sara McLeod. The bullets had hit her body. Her face was intact but there was no peace in it, even in death. Had she killed her? She did have a problem with it.
Harrigan was with her. ‘She was running at you. She wanted you to kill her,’ he said.
‘But I didn’t want to do it. They got me to do what they wanted. They brought me down.’
‘No, they didn’t.’
‘You were very brave. Congratulations.’
They both turned to see Clive standing close by. They hadn’t noticed him approaching.
‘Where were you?’ Grace said. ‘I called you three times to get me out.’
‘We’re here now. You should have trusted us. We’ve got our fish and he’s still alive. We can interrogate him. It’s been a very successful operation.’