Stay Alive (8 page)

‘It’s the coppers,’ shouted Tim, indignation in his voice. ‘She’s running from the coppers.’

‘They’re not policemen!’ shouted the woman in the other canoe, still paddling wildly, and for the first time Jess noticed she had an English accent. ‘They’ve just killed a policeman.’

Tim didn’t sound convinced. ‘What the hell are you talking about? You’re running from them, lass, and no mistake.’

And then the gunman on the bank raised his weapon and pointed it in the mystery woman’s direction.

‘Get down everyone!’ yelled Tim, panic in his voice.

Out of the corner of her eye, Jess saw Jean scramble down in the other boat, almost upending it in the process, while the mystery woman continued to paddle backwards, keeping her head down. Jess didn’t hesitate: she rolled back in her seat, grabbed Casey in a bear hug and the two of them fell to the bottom of the canoe as a shot whistled somewhere overhead.

A second shot rang out but Tim was still in his seat, paddling wildly, managing to turn the boat round so it was facing downriver, and then he too scrambled onto the floor, keeping his head down as a third shot cracked across the river. Except this time it sounded as if it was further away, and Jess let out a very small sigh of relief as she hugged Casey close, feeling the wetness of her sister’s tears in the crook of her neck.

KEOGH CLOSED HIS
eyes and shook his head angrily. They’d lost Amanda Rowan and now he was in a lot of trouble.

He’d driven the dead cop’s car off the road and concealed it in undergrowth where it was unlikely to be seen unless someone was looking for it. The cop himself was scrunched up in the boot, and by the time anyone found him, they’d be long gone.

Now, as he jogged back up to the four-by-four, keeping his head down, the radio in his jacket pocket crackled into life. It was MacLean, the big cop who’d let go of Amanda when she’d whacked him in the balls. ‘Have you got her?’ Keogh demanded, the frustration obvious in his voice.

‘There were some canoeists down by the river,’ answered MacLean, sounding out of breath. ‘She jumped in one of the canoes with them.’

Keogh cursed. ‘How many canoeists?’

‘Four of them, I think. A family.’

This was the problem when you worked with someone you hadn’t chosen, thought Keogh. Things went wrong that much more easily. MacLean worked directly for Keogh’s employer, and Keogh had only known him a week. The guy was supposedly good but he’d messed up by letting the girl go. Still, there was nothing to gain by dwelling on that now. It was time to think fast. ‘How far have they got?’

‘Not far. We can still see them, and there’s no mobile reception down there, so they won’t be able to phone for help. There’s a lookout point about half a mile downriver on this side, called Eagles Reach. If we get there in front of them, we can cut them off.’

‘Okay, leave it to me,’ said Keogh, jumping in the four-by-four and reaching down behind the driver’s seat for the rifle as he started the engine.

*

‘Who the hell do you think you are, charging into our boat like this?’ demanded Jean, a real anger in her voice. ‘You could have got us killed.’

The two canoes were side by side, on the other side of the river and out of sight of where the two men had emerged, and they were all sitting upright again now. The river was a good fifty yards wide here, and Jess took a deep breath, feeling safe and shocked at the same time. She took a close look at the mystery woman. She was slim and pretty, and she had that well-off look about her that was only slightly marred by the fact that her hair was all over the place, and a pair of plastic handcuffs hung accusingly from her right wrist. She was paddling fast, while Jean sat glaring at her back, waiting for an answer to her question. From behind her, Jess could hear Casey crying. Turning round, she leaned down and lifted her sister into a sitting position, feeling an intense burst of protective love for her as she wiped the tears from her face.

‘It’s all right, baby. It’s all right. No one’s going to hurt you.’

‘But who were they?’ Casey asked Jess, her voice small and quavering.

Tim grunted from his position in the back of the canoe, where he too was paddling. ‘We still need an answer to that,’ he said, looking over at the woman in Jean’s canoe who was facing them all, an apologetic expression on her face.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice breathless, but calmer now that the immediate danger had passed. ‘I was out walking. I live up in the village on the other side of the hill. And those men just tried to abduct me.’

‘No one abducts anyone up here,’ snapped Jean. ‘I’ve lived in these parts all my life and I’ve never heard of such a thing. Have we, Tim?’

‘Never,’ said Tim firmly.

‘I’m telling you the truth. Why would I lie?’

‘Because you’re on the run from the police.’

‘I told you: they weren’t police.’

‘They didn’t look much like police,’ said Jess, feeling the need to stand up for the woman, because one thing was for sure, she didn’t look much like a criminal. ‘One definitely had a gun and it had a silencer on the end. How many police do you see with them?’

That quietened everyone for a few seconds, but Jean still didn’t look convinced. ‘We’ll drop you off on the opposite bank and then you can be on your way. Those men can’t cross the river here, so you’ll be safe. You’ll be able to call the police.’

‘That’s a good idea,’ said Tim. ‘Calling the police.’

‘Shit, I didn’t even think about that,’ said the woman, pulling a mobile from the pocket of her jeans.

Jess did the same, hoping that one of them had reception. She was still pretty pumped up herself from what had happened. She wouldn’t say she was scared, though. If anything, she’d just experienced a real adventure. Escaping from men with a gun. It would be one to tell Joe and her friends when she got back to the civilization of Clapham. She was just sorry that Casey had been involved. Jess gave her hand a squeeze as she examined her phone.

No service. Jess frowned and shook her head, then looked across at the mystery woman, who was also shaking her head. ‘I’ve got nothing on mine either,’ she said. ‘This is a bad place for reception. It gets better a couple of miles downriver. We can call for help then.’

‘That’s convenient,’ muttered Tim.

‘It’s true,’ said Jess. ‘I can’t get reception.’

‘Let’s just get across the river and drop this lassie off before we hit the rapids,’ said Auntie Jean, calmer now, ‘then we can all be on our—’

The shot exploded out of nowhere, cracking across the still of the water, making Jess jump in her seat. The next second, she felt a warm splash on her face. She shut her eyes reflexively and, when they opened again, Jean was tottering in her seat in the adjacent canoe, a gaping red hole in the side of her head, blood pouring down her face and onto her neck. Jess would never forget the slightly confused expression in Jean’s eyes in the half-second before they closed and she toppled heavily in her seat, falling sideways so that her ruined head hung over the side of the canoe, grey hair hanging down towards the water as if she was leaning in to wash her hair, barely touching distance from Jess.

Then everything happened at once. Casey screamed; Tim cried out like an animal in terrible pain; and the mystery woman dropped her phone and jumped into the water, keeping Jean’s canoe between her and where the shot had come from on the opposite bank. A second shot rang out and Jess’s canoe lurched hard to the left as she and Tim instinctively tried to dive for cover in the same direction.

Their canoe was capsizing as more shots shattered the silence, and suddenly Jess was in the water, flapping wildly, unable to touch the bottom, her clothes already feeling like dead weights as she reached across and grabbed a screaming Casey, pulling her close. But she was already struggling to keep the two of them afloat, even with the life jackets on, as she swam desperately for the bank, still a good twenty yards away, hoping that the upturned canoe would give them some kind of cover from the shooter.

‘Get back here!’ shouted the mystery woman from somewhere behind her. ‘We need to use the canoe as cover!’

Jess felt something whistle past her head, causing a big splash in the water no more than a few feet away. It could only mean one thing. Whoever was shooting wasn’t just aiming at the woman. He was aiming at Jess herself, and Casey too, and for the first time she felt truly scared. She was a target. Someone she’d never met before wanted to kill her.

At that moment, she came as close to panic as she’d been on that fateful night eleven years before, when she’d been just a child, and had witnessed things that no child should ever see. But she’d refused to buckle then, and she couldn’t afford to do so now.

Still hanging onto Casey, Jess turned round in the water and saw the woman hanging onto their canoe as it continued to float down the river. A few yards away, Tim was swimming out towards the other canoe, where Jean still lay with her head hanging over the side. He was trying to reach her, and even in the midst of the drama happening all around them, Jess felt a pang of sorrow for him. But Tim was struggling and he had to grab the empty canoe for support as it came past him.

Jess’s face dipped underwater as she tried to swim towards the woman, and she took in an involuntary gulp of cold river water, making her choke. Holding onto Casey was making progress worryingly slow. Casey was trying to help by swimming, but all she was doing was making it harder for them both.

‘Don’t move, Case, I’ve got you,’ sputtered Jess. ‘Just stay still.’

‘Here, grab my hand,’ called the mystery woman, reaching out towards them.

Taking a deep breath, Jess kicked with her legs with everything she had, grabbing the woman’s hand and hauling Casey over to the canoe. ‘Take hold of the boat, babe,’ she gasped at her sister, but when Casey tried to get a grip on the top of it, she couldn’t reach and slipped back into the water, bobbing upright thanks to the flotation device she was wearing. ‘Just hang onto me,’ Jess told her, her voice an exhausted gasp. She wasn’t as fit as she should be, and she could feel her energy levels sapping fast.

‘I can hold her,’ said the woman. ‘Give her to me.’

Jess turned round and looked at the woman who, though clearly tired, appeared in far better shape. She was tempted to do it too, she was that tired, but in the end, she couldn’t risk it. This woman had brought all this down on them out of nowhere, and she wasn’t going to entrust her with the care of the one person in the world she truly loved. She gave Casey a reassuring smile. ‘I’m going to let you float for a bit, okay, Case? But I won’t let go of you, I promise.’

Casey nodded but, as Jess untangled her from the crook of her arm, a shot exploded out of nowhere, blowing a hole in the canoe up near the front where Uncle Tim was clinging on. A split second later, he cried out in pain and clutched at the side of his face. Blood poured through his fingers, and Casey screamed, forcing her way back into Jess’s grip.

‘It’s okay!’ shouted Tim, looking at the hand. His cheek was bleeding quite heavily but – unlike Jean had been – he didn’t look seriously hurt, and there was actually an expression of relief on his face. ‘I think it only grazed me.’

A second bullet exploded out of the boat only a foot in front of Casey, leaving a golf-ball-sized hole in its wake.

‘Jesus Christ!’ yelled Jess. ‘We can’t stay here. It’s a death trap.’

‘We need to pull the boat towards the shore!’ shouted the woman, a calm authority in her voice that made Jess listen. ‘It’s giving us better cover than swimming for it. Everyone keep as low as you can in the water and kick as hard as you can.’

‘I can’t hold you much longer, babe,’ hissed Jess through gritted teeth, feeling Casey getting ever heavier in her free arm.

Up ahead the river eddied and rippled, its noise growing louder, as the canoes approached the next set of rapids. Jess could see an exposed rock sticking up ahead of them and she knew that the moment it got shallower they’d be easy targets again.

Another shot ricocheted off the top of the canoe and Jess felt the vibrations in the wood close to her hand. Suddenly she could feel the bottom of the river beneath her feet as they sank into silt. They were only about five yards away from shore now and it was getting shallower all the time. The water ran up to a small muddy spit backing onto woodland. There’d be no scrambling up a bank. It was a straight run, tantalizingly close now, and already Jess was having to crouch down as she waded through the mud. The water went down to barely three feet deep. Any second now they would no longer be able to conceal themselves behind the canoe, and already Uncle Tim’s head was poking over.

The next shot was way above their heads. They were finally putting some distance between themselves and their attackers.

‘All right,’ shouted the woman, ‘this is our best chance. On the count of three, run for the bank. And don’t stop for anything. One, two—’

‘They’ll kill us!’ screamed Tim.

‘Three.’

The woman let go of the canoe and dashed through the water, and Jess immediately gave Casey a shove. ‘Go baby, go. I’m right behind you. Run!’

But it was still waist-deep for Casey and she could only wade, so, with a last burst of strength, Jess picked her up under the arms and staggered through the water with her, thinking that any second now her life could be ended by a single bullet.

More shots rang out. One after the other, but Jess kept going as if in a daze, the shore seeming to take forever before it was beneath her feet.

And then Tim was by her side, helping to lift up Casey, and together the three of them ran out of the water and into the undergrowth after the woman, out of sight of the men who wished to kill them.

KEOGH STOOD AT
the lookout point watching the river curve away beneath him into the distance through the binoculars, the .303 rifle he’d been using propped up against a litter bin. The two canoes, each marked with the name of the canoe hire company, had come to a rest in the shallows two hundred metres away, their progress impeded by a sand spit sticking out from the trees on the other side. The woman’s body lay sprawled out in the nearest canoe for the whole world to see.