So Say the Fallen (Dci Serena Flanagan 2) (31 page)

52

Flanagan stood wedged into the space between the door and the end of the row of high- and low-level cupboards, the edge of the tiled worktop digging into her hip. Perhaps she should have made for the back door, but she could not do so in silence. Roberta, Hannah, whoever the hell she was, would have heard the door creak open and would have either attacked or fled.

But what to do?

She had listened to the woman on the other side of the door, heard the clicks of the combination lock, the rustling of paper, then the clank as the safe closed once more. Then deep silence. Why didn’t Roberta go? Just turn around, go back out and drive away? Flanagan and Murray could find her, follow her. It was almost certain she would head north towards the airport. But she did not go. Flanagan pictured her on the other side of the door, listening as Flanagan listened.

Slowly, Flanagan let her fingers creep towards the holster attached to her waistband. She undid the catch, eased her Glock 17 from the leather, brought it up to her other hand. No round in the chamber. She could not risk racking the slide, the snick-click sounding like a thunderclap in the quiet.

The door handle moved, the springs of its mechanism creaking. Flanagan held her breath, pressed herself deeper into the space. The handle depressed, the door opened, cracking from its hinges. She felt the door against her shoulder. In the window, her faint reflection, and that of Roberta Garrick, separated by a barrier of white-painted wood.

53

Roberta looked into the kitchen, saw the source of the breeze: the back door open, its frame split at the lock. Cool air on her face.

Who had been here? And when?

Perhaps a burglary, some intruder hoping for an easy haul. They would have been disappointed, the only thing here a safe they couldn’t open and would have struggled to move.

But no. Too great a coincidence.

It had been the police. Had to be. So they had traced Hannah Mackenzie to this house. How? The only thing that linked Roberta to Hannah was a payment bounced through the Isle of Man account, and the accountant had assured her that it was in a separate jurisdiction, one that was known for its financial discretion, and no UK authority could touch it. What if he had been wrong? Freddie Boland had been her husband’s accountant for years, and she had always had a low opinion of him, but surely he couldn’t get something like that wrong?

She would have cursed him, but it didn’t matter now. The police had been here, and the passports and documents were now useless to her. The only remaining option was to head for the border, use the cash to buy some time until she could figure out what to do next.

She was about to close the door, head for the car and get out of here, when she noticed her reflection in the window, silhouetted by the light from the hall. Hannah Mackenzie’s reflection. Roberta Garrick’s reflection. The lives of both of those women had now ended, and she felt a pang of mourning for them both.

Move, she thought. Get out. Find a new woman to be.

Then she noticed the other reflection, faint next to hers.

A woman on the other side of the door.

For a wild moment, she thought it was another her, Roberta and Hannah separated, standing side by side. As panic flared in her breast, she stared, forced her eyes to focus on the faint form.

Then she knew, and the panic turned to scorching rage.

54

Flanagan stared at the ghosts on the glass, met Roberta’s reflected eyes, thought: She sees me.

They both stood still and quiet, not a breath between them, watching, watching, watching.

Slowly, so slowly, Flanagan raised her left hand up to the pistol held in her right, gripped the slide assembly, silently counted to three, then pulled it back, released it.

She didn’t see Roberta move, only felt her weight on the other side of the door as she slammed her body against it and into Flanagan. The door drove Flanagan’s hip into the edge of the worktop, and the side of her head into the upper cabinet. Hot and heavy pain burst behind her eyes, she saw the room turn as if upended. A warm trickle over her ear. Her knees gave way, but she caught herself with an arm on the worktop.

A moment to swallow a breath, then Roberta screamed and rammed the door into her once more, the weight of it now trapping Flanagan’s chest between the wood, crushing all air from her lungs. She fell, her right hand striking the linoleum first, the pistol clattering from her grasp, then her chest and chin, sending more black stars to dance in her vision.

The pistol, get the pistol.

She tried to get to her hands and knees, but her lungs shrieked for air, her diaphragm flexed and spasmed. The Glock remained three feet beyond her reach, and she crawled on her belly towards it, but Roberta fell on her back, put a knee between her shoulders. Flanagan croaked, a string of spit flowing from her mouth.

Air, air, please God, I need air.

Roberta drove her fist into the side of Flanagan’s head, and Flanagan heard a crunch and a cry of pain before everything went grey for a moment. Another cry, and Flanagan knew something had broken in Roberta’s hand. She turned her head, tried to shift her weight, but Roberta’s forearm dropped onto her cheek, slammed her head against the floor, and once more she lost the edge of her consciousness to the grey.

Then the weight left her back, and she felt she could float there an inch from the floor, and she saw Roberta scramble to the pistol, grab it with her left hand, heard the bark of its discharge as her finger found the trigger, sending a bullet into the wall. Roberta gasped and dropped it again, the empty cartridge jangling across the floor. Flanagan squirmed towards the pistol, her ears ringing with the shot, but Roberta retrieved it, crawled to the other side of the kitchen.

Blood pooled on the linoleum beneath Flanagan’s chin. Her mouth filled with hot pennies. A stream of it around her ear. She tried to inhale, choked on it, coughed a spray across the floor. Then she vomited, her gut convulsing, the grey flooding in, and now she wanted to sleep. Roll away from the foulness she lay in, close her eyes, let the darkness take her.

Concussion, I’ve got concussion. Stay awake.

Flanagan forced her gaze upwards and saw Roberta hunkered against the wall, cradling her right hand in her lap, the pistol held loose in her left. Roberta raised the Glock, her hand trembling. She pushed up with her legs, her back sliding on the tiled wall. The Glock’s muzzle twitched in Flanagan’s vision. Roberta brought up her right hand, already swelling around the break, and steadied her left wrist against her forearm.

‘Don’t,’ Flanagan said.

She saw the muzzle flash, felt the pressure in her ears, and linoleum and concrete exploded inches from her face. Somehow she found the strength to roll to the side, her back hitting the cupboards as another boom hit her ears, another burst of concrete.

Stop, she wanted to shout, stop, let me see my children again.

She opened her mouth, found a gasp of air, heard the crashing of wood through the high whine, saw the gate through the back door, saw it slam against the wall, teetering loose from its hinges. Murray there, his weapon up and ready, peering into the dimness of the kitchen.

Roberta saw him too, swung her left hand around, pulled the trigger once, twice, three times, the glass spidering, fragments hanging from the wire mesh, spent cartridges falling to the floor. Flanagan saw Murray duck back into the alley, his head down. Roberta sank back into the corner where the worktop met the wall. Her back against the cupboard doors, Flanagan smelled cordite and vomit, and her stomach threatened to revolt again.

Murray edged back to the door, then dipped away again as two more shots cracked and boomed. Flanagan got to her knees, but Roberta turned her jittering aim back to her, and Flanagan
raised her hands, knew beyond all certainty that Roberta would not miss this time.

Another shot, but from outside, and the cupboard door closest to Roberta’s head splintered. She turned back, fired again and again, hitting nothing but glass and air, Murray taking shelter once more.

Flanagan crawled back towards the kitchen door, keeping her eyes on Roberta. She threw herself through, catching a glimpse of Roberta turning back to her, heard an animal scream, a shot, felt wood splinters scatter above her head. She got to her hands and knees again and crawled into the living room, turned on her back, kicked the door closed, put her feet against it.

‘Bitch!’ The voice high and fractured on the other side of the door. ‘Fucking bitch!’

The door pushed against Flanagan’s feet, and she pushed back.

Crack, crack, crack, three splintered holes in the door, three explosions of plaster dust, photographs falling from the wall. Then another shot from further back, Murray, coming after her. And running footsteps, the front door opening, slamming closed again.

Flanagan got up on her knees, grabbed the door handle, hauled herself to her feet, opened it as Murray emerged from the kitchen, his pistol smoking.

‘After . . .’ Not enough air to finish the command, Flanagan pointed at the front door.

Murray sprinted for it, open, through, out onto the street. Flanagan heard the spinning tyres, a metallic thud as Roberta’s car hit another, then the engine roaring and fading. She staggered to the front of the house, tried to tell Murray to get his car,
but her lungs would not allow it. He understood anyway, ran to the side of the house where he had parked.

Flanagan lurched along the path, stopped to throw up once more, wiped blood and vomit on her sleeve. She followed Murray to the corner, and he reversed to meet her. He spoke as she collapsed into the passenger seat, but she couldn’t hear him above the whine in her ears and the roar in her skull.

The car launched forward as she closed the door, and through the chaos in her mind she wondered why Murray drove this way. Seconds later she understood as he followed a curving lane that looped back to the main road. They rounded the bend in time to see a wreck of a Citroën pull out of the junction, causing another car to swerve.

The Citroën went right, not left. ‘Not . . . going for the . . . the airport,’ Flanagan said, squeezing the words between shallow gasps.

‘She’s heading back to Moira,’ Murray said. ‘The airport’s no good to her now. She’s going to try for the border.’

He flicked on the car’s hazard lights. His own personal vehicle, the BMW was not equipped with blues or a siren. He accelerated out of the junction, two cars between them and Roberta.

Flanagan slumped back in the seat, fighting nausea. ‘Just . . . keep her in sight. Not a . . . pursuit.’

Roberta’s Citroën edged to the centre of the road as she searched for a gap to overtake the car in front of her.

‘Get Pu . . . Purdy on the phone. Tell him . . . she’s coming back their way. Head her off.’

Murray kept one hand on the wheel as he fished his mobile phone from his pocket, the call connecting over the car’s
Bluetooth system. Flanagan wound the window down, let the rush of cold air blast the fog from her mind, willed herself not to throw up over Murray’s upholstery.

Ahead, Roberta Garrick, Hannah Mackenzie, the animal, veered between cars, nothing but death in front of her.

‘I won’t let her die,’ Flanagan said.

Murray glanced at her. ‘What?’

Purdy’s voice barked over the car’s speakers before Flanagan could say it again.

55

Roberta Garrick glanced in the rear-view mirror.

Yes, Roberta Garrick. Hannah Mackenzie remained back in that house, a ghost to haunt it for as long as it stood. Hannah Mackenzie was gone, and Roberta Garrick was here, looking in this mirror. She craned her neck, saw her own eyes, wild and wide. Then the road behind her.

The white BMW still there, but hanging back. She hadn’t seen them get into that car, but it had followed her out of the junction. It had to be them. So why didn’t they chase her?

The gun lay on the passenger seat, a faint pale ribbon of smoke still coming from the muzzle, filling the car with its acrid smell. She didn’t know how many bullets it held, how many were left. She kept her left hand on the wheel, her right forearm holding it steady when she needed to change gear.

The end of the world, she thought.

This morning it seemed as if everything was on track, her future secured. And then, in less than two hours, it had all burned to the ground. She would die today, there was no doubt of that. It was only a matter of how and when. How much pain could she endure in the act? All the pain in world. She could take every burning drop of it.

The car drifted to the centre of the road, forcing the oncoming traffic to move to the hard shoulder. Horns blared, but she could barely hear them. One jerk of the wheel, and she could meet one of the cars head on. Or she could lift the gun from the passenger seat, put it to her temple, or into her mouth.

‘Not yet,’ she said.

Roberta Garrick – and that was her name, she was almost certain – began to cry. A desperate keening. She wished to take it all back, to start again. The same way she’d felt when that other her, Hannah, after that drunken night at the Students’ Union bar when she had pushed her housemate down the stairs, after she’d stood and watched the girl bounce down the steps, arms flailing, and the snap of her neck as she hit the floor. Back then, Hannah, sober in a cell, had cried and begged God to take today, wipe it out, and make it yesterday.

She wanted that now. The past hours to be erased, the clock to be reset to midnight. And that could not be, so tears were all she had. Had her rational mind been in control, she might have been conscious that she wept not out of remorse for her sins, but out of fear for herself. She did not want death, but it wanted her, and it would have its due.

Another pealing of car horns as she drifted once more, her vision blurred, the road ahead a streak of grey cutting through green. She wiped her eyes on her right sleeve, blinked them clear. She saw the BMW in the mirror, still keeping its distance. How long had she been driving? And where to? She knew she was headed back to the Moira roundabout. There was no chance she would make the border, and even if she could, it wouldn’t help.