The pit bull lay on its side, eyes half-closed. Even as Hannah took in the sight of the creature, it twitched. A convulsive movement. The dog was coming round. Striving to get its bearings.
‘Save me!’ Marc hissed.
She took a step forward. He shook violently. A strip of tightly wrapped plastic cord linked his wrists to the hook on the wall. Another bound his feet.
The pit bull made a throaty rumble.
‘Quick!’
A quick fumble inside her coat. Thank God, she hadn’t tidied away her last hope of keeping Marc alive. The knife she’d taken to peel the apple at Undercrag was still in the pocket.
She sawed at the cord. Christ, Marc stank. He’d wet himself, but it didn’t matter. All she cared about was setting him free before the dog came round.
‘Faster!’
The pit bull had opened its eyes and panted hard as it tried to struggle onto its feet.
Hannah sawed harder. The cord was tough, but had begun to fray. This wouldn’t take long.
‘Please, please, hurry!’ Marc was dribbling, but it was too late for disgust or nausea. Numb with cold and horror, she felt herself sweating as she tried to cut the cord.
Suddenly, it snapped.
Marc would have collapsed to the ground if she hadn’t caught hold of him.
She needed to sever the cord around his ankles too, but the pit bull was clambering to its feet.
The animal’s gaze met hers. In its eyes, she saw only hate.
Wrapping her right arm around Marc, she bundled him to the door. He was a dead weight.
The dog found its voice and bellowed. A cruel roar, brimming with fury.
She pushed Marc through the door and threw herself out after him. The dog was moving, but it slipped on the rock, unsteady on its legs after a long drugged sleep. The stumble gave Hannah the chance to turn the key in the lock.
She stood with her back braced against the door, as the pit bull charged into it and then howled in pain as its head struck the unyielding oak.
Marc lay on the patch of mud in front of her. Eyes open wide.
Pleading for forgiveness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
‘A bloody good result,’ Fern said as she munched from a packet of prawn cocktail-flavoured crisps. ‘So, how is Marc?’
They were in a bar off Stricklandgate. At the next table, Greg Wharf was regaling Donna and Maggie with a lusty account of his part in the murderers’ downfall. Everyone was in celebratory mood, except for Hannah, who was sipping lemonade. Half an hour earlier, she’d sat at Marc’s bedside in Westmorland General.
He was a wreck, but the doctors reckoned he’d make it through without too many scars. At least, not physical scars. The last thing Hannah wanted right now was to spend the evening in company; the urge to run away and hide was overwhelming, but it was vital to make an effort. No choice, she must tough it out. Couldn’t have everyone feeling sorry for her. Pity so easily tipped into scorn.
‘He’ll live.’
‘And learn, I bet.’
Hannah shrugged. ‘We’ll see.’
Fern leant towards her. ‘Don’t be too hard on him, kid. Men are all the same. She was a gorgeous woman, and she set out to snare him.’
‘Didn’t have to make it so easy for her, did he?’
‘Give it time.’ Fern hesitated. ‘If you want to.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘You like Daniel Kind, don’t you?’
On the way here, Hannah had called Daniel. It was only fair to tell him the news, before he heard it on television, and she’d thanked him for pointing her in the direction of Arlo Denstone. He sounded subdued and said Louise was showing signs of depression. The reality of discovering Stuart Wagg’s remains was kicking in.
Hannah supposed his book about De Quincey and murder would become a best-seller after this, but he wouldn’t find that much consolation. He and his sister had been through the mangle during the last few days. They needed time to come to terms with everything that had happened.
‘Fern, don’t go there, OK?’
‘All right, all right. Keep your hair on. Last thing I want is to sour the mood. Not on a day like this, when we’ve solved three cases at a stroke. And claimed a special bonus by saving the courts the time and expense of putting on a double trial.’
The bodies of Cassie Weston and Arlo Denstone had been recovered. Their bloody corpses lay in a thicket yards away from the Serpent Pool. Greg’s siren had disrupted the killer’s plan, but Hannah was sure Arlo intended them both to die once they’d feasted on the spectacle of Marc’s death — as, she guessed, he’d drooled over the sight of Cassie pushing Bethany Friend’s head under water. The symmetry would have appealed to him. Two lovers, dying together at the scene of their first crime. An elegant example of murder and suicide as a fine art. Not even De Quincey could have made it up.
‘Greg told me Denstone wasn’t lying about the cancer, after all.’
Fern nodded. ‘Yeah, he had skin cancer three years back in London and his GP gave him bad news a week before Christmas. Prostate cancer this time, and pretty aggressive.’
Across the room, laughter erupted at Greg’s table. Donna was loudest, her merriment raucous and uninhibited. A young, pretty woman, out for a good time. Hannah felt a pang of envy, then reminded herself about the disease that had wrought havoc inside Arlo Denstone’s body. As malignant and destructive as jealousy.
‘Come on,’ Fern said. ‘Give us a smile. We did a great job, you and me.’
‘You think so?’
‘All right, then — you did.’
Hannah finished her lemonade. ‘I’ll be off.’
‘See you in the morning. We’re going to be busy.’
‘Too right.’
Hannah didn’t have much in common with Scarlett O’Hara, except for a name. But that line in Gone With the Wind summed it up.
Tomorrow would be another day.