By the time he’d done so the SIG was out in my hand and lined up on the bridge of his nose.
“Hey,” I said quietly. “She — and the dog — are under my protection. Think carefully before you act.”
Peck shifted his eyes from the end of the SIG’s barrel to my face and beyond it. He showed his teeth in a similar way to Lemon and said then, “I would strongly advise you to do the same, my friend.”
Behind me I heard the unmistakable metallic click of the hammer being thumbed back on a service pistol.
“Oh, I always think before I act,” I said. “And either way it goes, the outcome for you does not look promising, does it?”
He absorbed that in glowering silence before signalling curtly to the man behind me. I heard the hammer released, the rasp of leather, and only then allowed my arm to drop.
Hope was staring at the pair of us, wild-eyed. Wilson’s own dig team looked as though they were praying for another aftershock — one big enough to open up a massive sink-hole and swallow the lot of us.
The radio clipped to the shoulder of Peck’s coveralls began to squawk then. He reached for it, adjusted one of the knobs and tilted it towards his mouth, pointedly turning his back on me. I used the opportunity to glance behind me and met the stony faces of his men. It was difficult to tell which of them had drawn on me. They all looked eager for the task.
Peck finished his transmission and rapped out orders. He turned back and gave us a nod. “I am needed elsewhere,” he said.
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who resisted the urge to say, “Good.”
His men had already begun to move off but before could do so himself, Hope stepped forwards. Unaccountably, I saw she was offering him a shy smile.
“I’m sorry — about before,” she said in a slightly breathy voice. “I didn’t mean to be rude. And Lemon’s just a bit over-protective of me, aren’t you, girl?” She looked down to the dog who was staring back up at her adoringly. “She’s just a big softy really.” Hope seemed to give a little twitch that might have been a shrug.
Lemon skipped over to Peck and butted him in the knees in a clumsy display of affection. Reluctantly, he leaned down to pat her flank and, seemingly encouraged by this, she bounced up and got her booteed feet nearly to his shoulders. He staggered back under the unexpected weight with a sharp curse.
Hope gave a rather ineffectual cry of, “Lemon!” and dashed to grab the dog’s collar, but struggled to drag her off him. Then she started frantically brushing the dirt and dust bootprints left by the dog’s feet from his clothing. She wasn’t too careful where she put her hands and after a moment he paddled her away, face flushing. And all the time, Lemon leapt around them, barking.
“Please!” Peck said stiffly. “Please, it is no matter. I am dressed for the work.”
It was neatly done. The noise, the dancing dog, the profuse apologies and exaggerated waving of hands that acted as a complete distraction. So I was probably the only one who noticed Hope’s nimble fingers slip into the police commander’s coverall pocket. When they came out again the dead woman’s wallet was pinched between them. But by the time the girl had pulled Lemon a few stride away and calmed her, her hands were empty and her face was without guile.
Into the quiet that followed came a burst of radio static. Not from Peck’s police network this time, but from one of the handsets issued to the dig team. And then, loud and clear, I heard Wilson’s voice over the air:
“Hey! We got someone here. We got someone. And he’s still alive!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I sat in a hospital corridor waiting to talk to a man who might or might not regain consciousness. Been there, done that. Didn’t like it much the last time.
It was only mid-afternoon but already it had been a very long day that was barely halfway over.
The whole atmosphere had changed out there with the realisation of a live find. A sudden energy and purpose swept over everyone as they put their strategies into operation. There was nothing worse, I was told, than finding someone alive but bringing them out dead.
I could think of a few things that were infinitely worse, but I kept them to myself.
Commander Peck and his men slipped away before they could be volunteered to help dig. And as soon as they were out of sight Hope used the increased level of activity to cover her return of the wallet to the dead woman’s body bag. Just for a second I debated on tackling her about that deft sleight of hand, but decided against. Her ability was curious, but until I knew if it was significant to the death of Kyle Stephens it was better to pretend I’d hadn’t seen a thing.
That was the trouble with uncovering secrets — you couldn’t pick and choose.
Getting the injured man out of the ground was a painstaking task that called for many different kinds of expertise. Keeping him alive until he could be freed, and not bringing down the rest of the building on top of him in the process were the two main difficulties. Wilson radioed in for reinforcements and it did not surprise me that the two figures next on scene were Joe Marcus and Dr Bertrand, arriving in the khaki-coloured Bell with Riley at the flight controls. He set down with a casual elegance onto the uneven piles of bricks at the end of the street.
Dr Bertrand swept past us and immediately started interrogating the dig team about the condition of the casualty. But Joe Marcus took a moment to have a word with Hope. She seemed bursting to tell him something, but he put a hand on her arm to stay her. Even from a distance I could see his lips form a single word: “Later.”
As he turned away and caught me watching the pair of them, his gaze issued a flat challenge:
You may think you’ve just seen something but you haven’t, and if you’re wise you won’t push this further.
What makes you think I’m wise?
But the most interesting thing about the encounter, to my mind, was the fact that when Joe Marcus touched her, Hope didn’t flinch at all.
Lemon was sent in twice more, under Hope’s direction, to pinpoint the position of the trapped man more accurately. I heard her barking in there as if to say, “It’s so obvious. What’s the matter with you people?”
I helped load the three bodies into the Bell. They had each been tagged with a Unique Reference Number, with the same URNs added to the bags of personal items collected from close nearby.
It was not the first time I’d handled body bags but I can’t say I’ve ever enjoyed the experience, and it’s not something you want to get used to. The bodies inside graunched and folded in places they were not supposed to fold when fully intact.
“I’ll drop them off at the morgue after we’ve got this other guy to hospital,” Riley said. But he glanced back frowning at the lumps of masonry that were being cleared away from the man’s position. “Or maybe I’ll only have to make the one stop, you reckon?”
But against all the odds, they brought the buried man out alive. He was bleeding from a vicious head-wound, crazed, dehydrated, barely conscious and with the bones of his left forearm visible for the world to see, but he appeared to have escaped the worst of what might have been.
Dr Bertrand pumped him full of painkillers via a rapidly inserted cannula into the back of his right hand, stabilised his left arm, put a neck collar on him and set up a bag of fluids. She moved with brisk efficiency and inside a couple of minutes he was on a stretcher being carried towards the Bell.
“Charlie, go with ’im and get ’is identity,” Dr Bertrand ordered. “Oh, and see if the woman found nearby was known to ’im, also.”