Blood and Ashes Page 5

  ‘Yeah.’ Better and better. ‘When all comes to all, he’s the children’s father. If he doesn’t want me there I don’t see what I can do about that.’

  ‘No. Whatever he says, he’s wrong. I won’t have my grandchildren put at risk.’

  ‘He’s their father, Don. He decides what’s best for them.’

  Don shook his head adamantly. ‘He doesn’t realise the enormity of the threat.’

  Maybe he does and has realised that you’re just a paranoid old man. But I had to bite down on that thought. If Don was misguided, then what did that make me?

  Don was chewing on the end of his moustache. His eyes were fixed on a spot only a couple of inches from the end of his nose. Suddenly he turned towards me, quivering in anger. ‘Apart from when I was a policeman, Adrian knows little about my past, what I did or what I was involved in. He doesn’t understand what kind of enemies I’ve made. And anyway, he does not have a final say on what happens to the children.’

  ‘I think you’ll find that he does.’

  ‘No, he doesn’t. I’ve asked you to look after my family and even he won’t be able to do anything about that.’

  ‘He’s their father, Don. He has every right in the world to tell me to sling my hook.’

  Don snorted. ‘Adrian has no say where Beth or Ryan is concerned. He was married to my daughter, yes, but he isn’t the kids’ biological father. They’re my blood, not his.’

  I was surprised by this announcement but didn’t let it show. If the truth were known, I’d already suspected that the children weren’t Adrian’s. Brook and Adrian were dark-haired, with green and brown eyes respectively. In the photographs dotting the living room of Don’s house, both kids were blond with the palest blue eyes I’d ever seen. There were often anomalies in birth, but the difference was a bit too dramatic to be explained by ancient DNA reasserting itself.

  Then there were the dates.

  Beth and Ryan’s births both pre-dated their parents’ wedding. Not unusual in this day and age, but enough to have placed doubt about parentage in my mind.

  ‘Who is their dad?’

  Don shook his head, unprepared or unwilling to answer.

  ‘It may be important, Don.’

  ‘You think that this has something to do with him; a waste-of-time drunkard who left her with two small babies when the going got too tough for him? No, Hunter, you can forget that line of thinking. I’m telling you: this is all Hicks’ doing.’

  Up ahead the school bus was a yellow stain in the steamy haze rising from the road. Then it was gone and I realised that we were approaching the intersection where the mountain road joined the main highway.

  ‘Take a left,’ Don said.

  Don had already informed me that Adrian and the children lived in a house in its own walled enclosure, but had been a little vague on its location, saying that he’d direct me when we were on the road. So it was a distance from the city of Hertford where the school bus was heading to? Good and bad. Cities made things difficult if I had to respond in kind to violence: the cops were too close by and that severely hindered my options. But out in the wilds a house was exposed and difficult to defend. It was beginning to look like I was going to have to call in back-up.

  No, not yet, I decided, I still didn’t know what I was up against. For all I knew I was just being sucked into Don’s fantasy. It wasn’t a nice thought, but perhaps it would be better if the two men I’d killed turned out to be nothing but local low-lifes who’d made the mistake of confronting me.

  Something in me, though, also hoped that wasn’t the case.

  Chapter 8

  If he chose, Vince Everett could be a real charmer. Sometimes he put his raffish good looks to the test, giving the ladies the flick of his pompadour and the curl of a lip. Other times he just shot them a glance from his baby blues. In fact in his late twenties, he appeared much younger, and he could rely on his teen-idol face and chirpy demeanour to disarm even the most cynical. Usually he would use this approach to inveigle his way past a person’s defences, but he had the sense that this time a more stealthy approach was in order. Don Griffiths was on edge and it stood to reason that his obsession with Carswell Hicks’ imminent return might also have rubbed off on his daughter Millie.

  Past experience told him that going in through the front door was never a good idea. Not when the potential for witnesses was too great. The back door would most likely be locked, but he’d find a window off the latch or some other form of ingress soon enough.

  Don’s vehicles, a Lexus and a chunky Merc SUV, were parked on the driveway but that wasn’t surprising. The door to the carport was wide open, and there were kids’ bikes and other toys taking up the area inside, relegating their grandfather’s vehicles to the whim of the elements. The kids’ belongings cost a fraction of what it would take to purchase a tyre for the Lexus, but wasn’t that the way of those that loved their brats?

  Vince glanced back and saw Sonya perching on the lip of the wishing well. She had her legs crossed, one ankle hooked under the other. She was waving her cell as if it was a microphone and she was conducting an interview with the invisible man. She caught him looking and flashed him a grin: loving playing the game.

  Vince glanced at the front windows. He couldn’t detect any movement. He then walked directly into the carport, negotiating his way around a spillage of Star Wars action figures. He had to step over a multicoloured tricycle. One of the kids had tried to make the bike even more colourful with juvenile slashes of a wax crayon. The child had outgrown the bike, but it still took precedence over Don’s super-expensive vehicles. Good sign, Vince decided. It showed how much he doted on his grandchildren.

  Vince didn’t get that. When he was a brat, his lot was to be seen and not heard. Usually his parents didn’t even want to see him and reminded him with a well-placed kick in the ass. He couldn’t understand why Don felt such an attachment to Beth and Ryan, but decided that the psychology of it didn’t matter. He loved them and that was good. That love could be used to control him.

  He laid his ear to the back door. Beyond it he guessed he’d find a utility area or kitchen and wondered if the woman had gravitated to either since the men had left the house. They were always his mother’s designated areas, but maybe not every woman’s domain in these more liberated days.

  He couldn’t hear anything from inside. He tried the handle and was gratified to find his suspicion borne out. The door opened easily on well-oiled hinges. Apparently Don had been keeping busy in his retirement.

  He found a large kitchen that doubled as a dining area. There was a cooking range, a work surface and a large breakfast bar along one wall with stools beneath. The kids probably ate snacks there, he surmised, while the adults dined at another table further inside the house. The sink held a trio of unwashed mugs, but otherwise the room was pristine and felt a little deserted. The only thing that told him the kitchen had been used recently was the faint fishy scent of tuna spooned on to a saucer on the floor. The saucer had been licked clean but little flakes of fish lay scattered around it.

  The information supplied to him had revealed that the Griffithses didn’t own any pets. Dogs in a home always made a stealthy approach difficult and he’d checked that some hound wasn’t going to give him away. A cat was no concern though: they were self-centred critters that couldn’t give a hoot about the comings and goings of humanity.

  He walked towards the door to the hall. He paused there, glancing round the frame into the dimly lit space towards the front door where the weak daylight struggled to push through the patterned glass. He paused to check his cell phone. He had it on silent, but pressed buttons to check it would vibrate if Sonya called to warn him that someone was coming. Happy, he dipped the phone in his shirt pocket, making certain it was secure as he’d need it pretty soon. Then he spooled out the guitar string, wrapping the weighted ends round his fists so that there was approximately a foot and a half of wire dangling between them. With a flick of his wrists he
snapped the string tight, smiling at the thrum that went up his forearms.

  He heard murmuring from a room to his left. The woman speaking on a telephone?

  Typical, he thought. It would mean waiting until she hung up otherwise the person on the other end of the line would be alerted to his presence. If it was Don or the other guy that might not bode well for him getting everything done before they came racing back.

  Better that he remain silent in the hall, wait until she was finished and then go introduce himself. Except he couldn’t contain himself and took a quick peek around the door frame. Millie wasn’t on the phone; she had her back to him, arms folded loosely as she stared out of a window. Vince followed her gaze and saw that she was looking across the green towards where Sonya sat on the well. Millie was muttering distractedly to herself and he was worried that maybe she’d made Sonya. Any second now she could call for reinforcements, spoiling his plan.

  He rolled his right wrist. The guitar string formed a loop and he allowed it to widen just far enough that it would encompass the circumference of the young woman’s head.

  Then he started forward.

  The room was thickly carpeted and even his silver-tipped boots were silent as he approached. He held his breath, moved as slow as dripping honey. Little flutters of anticipation raced through his body, making him jerk spasmodically.

  Three feet from the woman he stopped.

  He’d noticed the sudden squaring of her shoulders.

  Had she heard him?

  Had his faint reflection in the glass warned her of his presence?

  Maybe some sixth sense had kicked in and told her that she was about to die if she didn’t goddamn move . . .

  With the thought he took a half-step towards her and dropped his hands, the loop of wire trailing only a second behind.

  But Millie was also in motion.

  She dodged to the side, letting out a wordless cry, and she bounced off the window frame, spinning to face him.

  The guitar string garrotte missed her by a mile and Vince snapped it taut between his fists even as he swung to face her.

  ‘Son of a bitch!’

  His curse came out high-pitched. Not because he’d missed her, but that he’d come to the wrong conclusion. Millie hadn’t been talking to herself, she’d been cooing and comforting a goddamn cat she held to her chest. One look at the ragged old thing told Vince that it wasn’t only humans who possessed Cain’s eyes. The skanky old tom shot him a murderous look even as Millie’s arms came up and tossed the cat at him.

  In an attempt to ward it off he tried to snare the cat on the wire, but it came at him like a dervish, spitting furiously, its claws raking his face.

  The cat fully intended blinding him by the way it tore at his face, but it was also a wild thing whose instinct was to flee danger. Its assault lasted only as long as it took to rake him into red stripes, then it was tearing over the top of his head seeking escape. It was just about the most ferocious few seconds of Vince’s life – even worse than when he was kicked senseless by a group of liberals who took offence to the Confederate battle flag emblazoned across the shoulders of his leather jacket.

  The cat was gone in a flash, streaking out of the room still yowling like a demented thing.

  Then Vince was similarly yowling, in pain but also in a rage.

  His fingers were dotted with blood from where he tested his face. His first instinct was to go after the cat and stamp it to death under the heels of his boots. Movement to his right refocused him on the task in hand. Millie, open-mouthed in a silent scream, rushed to follow the cat out of the room.

  ‘Oh, no, you don’t!’

  Vince took a step after her, hands reaching. The guitar string was great for throttling a victim, but it was an encumbrance when wound round both fists. His outstretched hands missed Millie and he staggered after her as she twisted round the door jamb and out of his line of sight. His boots clumped from carpet on to hardwood as he charged into the hall. Millie was ten paces distant, heading for the front door. In seconds she was there, but he’d already covered half the distance. Sure that he could catch her before she could pull open the door, he lunged for her even as he allowed one end of the wire to slip from his grip.

  Apart from the rapid tattoo of his boots on the floor there was very little noise. The scream still appeared to be caught in Millie’s throat and Vince wasn’t aware that he was holding his breath. Even the tom had stopped its caterwauling now that it’d found a dark place to hide.

  Millie surprised him.

  She didn’t go for the door. There was a chain in a bracket, a couple of locks, no way that she could free them all before he was upon her. Instead she dived at a small table standing next to the door, grabbing at the handle of a drawer. She tugged at the drawer but it refused her until she practically lifted the table off the floor and slammed it down again. The warped lock mechanism popped open and she dragged the drawer out, the contents spilling on the floor.

  There were papers, pens, an address book and a couple of business cards.

  And a gun.

  ‘Shee-it!’ Vince’s gaze went to the gun even as Millie was bending to snatch it up.

  He was caught in a flux: carry on with the plan or run for it?

  His momentum decided the dilemma for him.

  He skidded the last couple of feet, and his shoulder rammed into Millie, jamming her against the front door. Her body, bent over, missed the glass but she banged against the wooden bottom half and the sound was like an explosion in the confined space. Vince tumbled over her and his face whacked the window sharply. As he rebounded there were smears of his blood on the glass. He neither noticed nor cared. All he was interested in was wrenching the gun out of her grasp. First he softened her up with a smack of his forearm to the nape of her neck. Millie grunted and went all the way down to her knees. Vince felt like he was climbing on her back, his silver toecaps digging into her body as he fought for balance. Then he reached down, trying to snatch the gun away.

  Millie suddenly found voice. She shrieked but it was paper-thin and wouldn’t carry beyond the confines of the house.

  Vince was cursing savagely, but not in words he’d remember later. He punched her twice on her shoulders, hoping to deaden the muscles to make the task of taking the gun from her numbed hand easier. But that forced Millie down further and she sprawled under him. Vince lost his balance, banged against the door glass again, then scrambled to his feet. One heel skidded away from him and he felt an explosion of pain in his knee, making him swear all the more.

  ‘Enough!’

  Vince thought the word, but it wasn’t him that shouted it.

  Millie had twisted under him and the gun was now aimed at his gut.

  ‘I said enough. Now back away or I swear to God I’ll shoot you.’

  In a state of madness Vince – like anyone else – might ignore the fact that a bullet was faster than his ability to kick the gun out of her hand, but something clicked in his mind and he blinked down at the muzzle of the gun pointing directly at him. Millie angled it so that he got a good look down the barrel; a hole leading to an eternity of blackness.

  He stepped away.

  ‘Whoa! Easy there, Millie.’

  ‘Further,’ Millie snapped, the fact that he knew her name not lost on her. She jabbed the gun in emphasis. ‘Now. Do it!’

  Vince lifted his palms in what was supposed to be a non-threatening gesture but the wire still dangling from one fist told the lie. He glanced at it, then shrugged. Time for the baby blues, he guessed.

  ‘Hey! You’ve got me all wrong. I wasn’t gonna harm you. I was just surprised by that devil of a cat. Why’d you throw the goddamn thing at me like that?’

  Millie slowly came to her knees, then grabbed at the wall to steady herself as she came to her feet. The gun never wavered from its target. Vince’s admiration of the woman’s cool actually forced a smile to his lips. Small and slim but tough as a goddamn nut, she was. He didn’t doubt that she’
d have it in her to put a round through his brain if he went after her again.

  Not that he believed she’d put a bullet in his spine if he turned away.

  Which was what he did.

  ‘Hold it right there,’ Millie barked.

  Vince ignored her, kept walking. He crunched his eyelids together, hoping that he’d read her properly.

  ‘I said hold it!’

  Vince kept going.

  The fact that he made it to the kitchen with his wits intact meant that he’d been correct. She couldn’t shoot him in the back. Not cold-bloodedly.

  He glanced at the kitchenware; saw a wooden block with a range of knives slotted into it. Take a big-assed knife and go back? No way. He made it to the door to the carport, ensuring it slammed loudly behind him. No need for stealth this time, he just kicked the kiddie cycle out of his way, stamping through Chewbacca and Darth Vader as he hurried out on to the drive.

  He snuck a glance towards the house and saw Millie staring at him out of a window next to the front door. Her features were as pale as the dead, her mouth pinched as she glared at him.

  He kept going, picking up speed.

  Peripherally he saw Sonya get up from her perch and swerve away from the wishing well. Best that he didn’t go directly to her or Millie would see and know that Sonya was working with him. Vince angled around the green, heels clipping on the cobblestones that had been laid to give the old-world town an air of quaintness.

  There were people out and about, but evidently none of them had been alerted to what had happened in Don Griffiths’ house. He kept his head down, hiding the claw marks on his face as he surreptitiously shoved the guitar string into his jacket pocket. He cursed under his breath. Normally Vince Everett strutted, but this time he was forced to slink away like a kicked dog, limping slightly on his twisted knee.

  They’d parked their car in an alleyway between two stores.

  Vince saw a handwritten note tacked to the windscreen by the wipers, a polite notice asking that he didn’t park there in future. He crumpled the note in his fist and dropped it on the ground just as Sonya caught up to him. Her mouth made a hollow ‘O’ as she stared at him.