Strike a Match (Book 1): Serious Crimes (27 page)

Where had she seen the man before? She hadn’t, she was sure of it. Yet there was the vague sense of recognition whenever she thought of his face.

She reached the first landing and another door. She tried it. It was sealed. She breathed out, and realised that she was alone in the building, except, perhaps for that man. She knew she should go and get help. The words of Captain Weaver, and Ruth’s own self doubt, kept her putting one quiet foot in front of another as she climbed the stairs.

The second landing ended in another locked door. She thought she could hear voices coming from above her. One sounded American. Familiar. There was a crackling hiss behind the voice. It was the ambassador, speaking on the radio. Then she knew how she’d recognised the half-eared man. He matched Mitchell’s description of the man who’d run when he’d arrested the ambassador’s assistant.

Ruth was at the third landing. The radio broadcast was coming from one floor above. It was too late to turn back.

The gun’s grip was slick in her hands. The stairs loomed above her. The door to the next landing was wedged open, and she could hear the voice on the radio more clearly.

“This is a time to formalise the centuries old friendship between…” the ambassador was saying. Ruth tuned it out.

The wedged-open door led to a corridor off which there were four closed doors either side. The corridor ended fifty yards away in another open door. She inched forwards, quietly raising one foot then the other. You are police, she repeated in her head. Not for comfort, or reassurance, but to drown out the other voice that kept asking what she’d do when she reached the open door. She reached it all too quickly.

There was one man in the room, a rifle in his hand, the barrel, and his eyes, pointed at the stage visible over his shoulder. It wasn’t the half-eared man she’d seen outside. It was Emmitt, and he hadn’t seen her.

Over the radio, an announcer said, “Ladies and gentlemen of two continents. I present Mrs Emma Wolton, Prime Minister of…”

The barrel of her revolver wavered as Ruth took aim. “Don’t…” The word came out as a whisper. “Don’t move!” she said, this time in a loud bark. Emmitt turned his head slightly, but barely glanced at her before turning back to the window.

“I’ll shoot,” she said, and he just ignored her. For a moment she couldn’t believe it.

“I will,” she said.

“If you remembered to load your gun,” he replied softly, shifting his stance, taking aim. “I’ll take my chances.”

Over the radio, the Prime Minister said, “Thank you all. I cannot tell you how glad I am to be here today…”

Time slowed as anger flared, at herself for being someone just caught up in events, at Maggie for her secrets, at Mitchell and Isaac for their guarded conversations, and at the commissioner for deceiving her and everyone else. Then it boiled over into fury at the sheer arrogance of Emmitt. Her finger curled on the trigger. A final flash of doubt crept over her as to whether she
had
loaded the gun before the revolver bucked and the gun roared.

The shot sounded strange, almost as if it had echoed. No, it wasn’t an echo. Emmitt had fired too. There was shouting coming from the radio now. Emmitt turned. His face was expressionless as he raised his left hand to his right arm.

“You broke my arm,” he said, in that same soft voice. He strode towards her, crossing the room before she had a chance to react. A rough slap knocked the gun from her grip. The backhand knocked her against the wall. His fist curled, and she dived to the ground before he had a chance to throw the punch. She rolled to her feet, looking for her gun, but it was on the other side of the room.

A knife appeared in Emmitt’s hand and sliced through the air between them. Ruth ducked again, dived, rolled, and grabbed the pistol, bringing it around and up just as he threw the blade towards her. She kicked herself out of the way as the knife plunged into the floorboards where her arm had been. When she brought the gun up, Emmitt was already out of the door, running down the corridor. She took aim, but there in the doorway at the end of the long hallway was the man with the missing ear. In his hand was a gun. He fired. Ruth ducked as the bullet tore splinters from the doorframe. She pushed herself to her feet, and then to the doorway, spinning around, gun levelled, but the hallway was empty.

Over the radio she heard the Prime Minister saying, “I’m fine, really I am. Sorry, everyone, a light fixture exploded. As I was…”

Ruth didn’t think. She didn’t hesitate. She just ran. Along the corridor to the stairs, bounding down them, three steps at a time, all doubt was gone. They would run, but she would chase, and she wouldn’t let anything stop her from catching them. She reached the building’s entrance and dived outside, rolling across the grass, expecting one or both of the men to be waiting either side of the door. They weren’t. They were running down the hill towards the path that led to the beach.

She ran across the wild-grown grass, and jumped over the low wall and down onto the road. Her feet hit the ground with a resounding slap of leather on concrete. The half-eared man heard it, turned, and fired. The bullet hit stone somewhere to her right. Ruth didn’t stop. Emmitt did. He yelled something Ruth didn’t hear, waited for the other man to catch up, and then took the gun from him. His right arm hanging loosely by his side, Emmitt raised the pistol in his left, and fired. The bullet came nowhere close. Ruth grinned and sped up.

The two men started running again, along the path that curved down the cliffs. They were a hundred yards away. Ninety. A hundred. Ruth could feel a dull ache rising up her legs. She wasn’t gaining, but she couldn’t give up. Not now.

They reached an old one-bar gate that blocked the end of the winding road. Emmitt had to slow to duck under it. He paused at the other side to fire. Again he missed. It was too great a range, Ruth thought, and he was right-handed, not ambidextrous. The two men set off again, dodging around the wooden beach huts to the sand-strewn path that ran alongside the beach. Ruth didn’t slow as she neared the gate. She put a hand out, ready to jump over it. At the last second, realism caught up with her feeling of invincibility, and she dived underneath, grazing her hand as she sprawled back to her feet.

When she rounded the beach huts, she saw there was less than seventy yards between her and them. Slowly but surely, she was gaining on them. Emmitt glanced around. The other man did the same. Emmitt barked something. The man put on a burst of speed, but he couldn’t sustain it. He was tiring, Ruth thought. Emmitt wasn’t. Even with the wound in his arm, his stride had an easy gait, suggesting he could keep going for hours. It didn’t matter. She only needed to arrest one of them.

Sixty yards. Emmitt looked back. Ruth raised her gun. Emmitt finally sped up, leaving the other man behind. He tried to keep up, but couldn’t. There were fifty yards between her and the half-eared man. Thirty. Kicking up sand, dodging twisted metal from the decaying hulks lining the beach, the distance shrank. Twenty, and the man stumbled. Ruth raised her gun again. No. No, she couldn’t. The man was unarmed. She switched her aim towards Emmitt, but he was at least a hundred yards ahead.

The half-eared man stumbled again. With victory within her grasp, Ruth found a last burst of speed. Sprinting the final few yards, she dived forward in a one-armed tackle that knocked the man down.

“You’re under arrest,” she barked, pressing her knee into his back, bringing her gun up, looking for Emmitt. He’d stopped, still a hundred yards away. He raised his pistol, fired, and missed. Ruth returned fire, and missed. Emmitt gave an almost sardonic shrug and shot at her again. The bullet struck sand on the beach to her right.

The other man struggled.

“Stay down,” Ruth said. “He’s not aiming at me. He wants to kill you. Stay down and you might live.” She wasn’t sure how true that was.

Emmitt fired again, and again the shot went wide. Then he waited as if giving her a turn.

She aimed, carefully, and then stopped. How many bullets did he have left? One or two? It didn’t matter because she realised that it wasn’t his gun and he didn’t have any spare ammunition. He was waiting for her to waste her bullets at an ineffective range, and then he’d get closer as she was reloading. She held her fire, and smiled.

The standoff continued until Emmitt finally took a step towards her. Then she pulled the trigger. It was a miss, but a close one. He stopped, and raised the pistol to his forehead in a mocking salute. Then he turned around and ran away along the path.

“Remember,” she hissed at the man as she pulled out her handcuffs, “he was trying to kill you.” She cuffed the man quickly. When she looked up, Emmitt was gone.

She pulled the man to his feet, and saw his face was covered in blood. He’d broken his nose in the fall, and gashed his forehead, almost exactly underneath the scar that turned that streak of hair white. From the way he staggered as she pushed him towards the cliffs, she suspected he had a concussion. When he fell to his knees and threw up, she thought that confirmed it. Because of that, by the time she saw the Marines running down the beach towards them, they were barely a hundred feet from where she’d arrested him.

At the head of the Marines, almost as if they were racing one another to stay out in front, were Agent Clark and Riley.

“Emmitt,” Ruth said. “He went that way. He’s injured. I shot him in the arm. The right arm. I think it’s broken. He’s armed, but I think he’s only got one bullet left. And he’s not a very good shot with his left hand.” She bit her lip to stop herself from babbling any further.

“Emmitt? He’s the one with the scarred face?” the American agent asked.

“That’s him,” Riley said.

Without another word, Clarke started running in the direction Emmitt had gone.

“Go with her,” Riley ordered the Marines, and they did.

“Let’s get him back,” Riley said, hauling the suspect back to his feet. “You did good.”

“What about the broadcast?” Ruth asked.

“The Prime Minister was shot, but it was only a glancing blow. She gave a slightly shorter version of her speech, and then they cut to the pre-recorded broadcast. No one will ever know.”

“But she was shot?” Ruth asked.

“She’ll be fine.”

“Emmitt escaped,” Ruth said. “Again.”

“You managed to wing him,” Riley said. “And you caught a suspect. That’s not bad for a cadet. Weaver will be pleased.”

“And Mitchell,” Ruth asked, though she wasn’t sure why.

“He’ll be pleased you’re still alive.”

Epilogue

TRUTH

Ruth sat at the small desk in her bedroom staring at the odd coin she’d found in the commissioner’s drawer. Coincidences did happen, of course they did, but not like this.

THE TRUTH LIES IN THE PAST. She read the inscription again, and then reached up to the bear that sat, almost forgotten, between a collection of dog-eared detective novels. She’d been clutching the bear when Maggie had found her wandering alone in the immigration camp. Other than the rags she’d been wearing, it had been her only possession.

Around the bear’s neck was a singed ribbon. Carefully, she untied it and laid it flat on the desk. On it, one word was visible. ‘Ruth’. That was how she had gotten her name. Except it wasn’t ‘Ruth’ but ‘RUTH’. There was a ragged hole in front of the ‘R’ and the ribbon ended after the ‘H’. She held it up to the light. Could the letters ‘THE T’ have once preceded the ‘R’? Possibly.

She picked up the coin again. When Maggie had found her, the only word of English that Ruth had known was ‘five’. Separating each word of the coin’s inscription were five stars. Coincidences did happen, but surely not ones this large. Surely not.

She brushed a little dust off the bear and then placed it back on the shelf. After a moment’s thought, the coin and ribbon went next to it.

There was a connection, she decided. That meant there was a link between the coin and her. Not with her directly, but perhaps with her real parents. Of course, that meant there was some link between them and the commissioner. She mulled that over. It was unlikely to have anything to do with the counterfeiting. That, she decided, was the coincidence in all of this. But what should she do?

“Be a detective,” she said. “Find the proof.”

Which was easy to say. She would begin with the commissioner. Not with what he’d done recently, but who he’d been in the past. Then she would find out where the camp was from which Maggie had rescued her. She would go there and then… then she would see.

She took the uniform down from the hanger. It was already looking ragged. Some stains just wouldn’t come out. She’d have to put in for a new one. As she dressed, she wondered whether she should make that request of Mitchell or Weaver. She left the house, but she didn’t head directly to work. Instead, she went to the home of Mr Foster, their landlord.

She knocked on the door. When there was no answer, she tried hammering.

“Coming! I’m coming!” she heard from inside, followed a moment later by feet stamping down the stairs.

Foster opened the door bleary-eyed and sour-breathed. “What the hell is it? What are— Why are you dressed as a copper?”

“I’ll keep this brief,” Ruth said. “I get paid in three months’ time. We’ll pay what we owe then. You can evict us if you want. But if you do, or if you ever threaten us again, I’ll have my colleagues tear your house apart looking for contraband. Every day, Foster. We’ll rip out the floorboards and dig up your pitiful excuse for a garden. That’s a promise. Understand?”

“You can’t—” he began.

“Try me,” she said, her eyes fixed unblinking on his.

He stared back. Seconds crept towards minutes. Finally, he blinked.

“Fine,” he said, and slammed the door.

Feeling as if she’d won a victory greater than when she’d arrested the man on the beach, Ruth started cycling to work. The case was far from over. Emmitt might have escaped, but they had a suspect in custody, and there were many questions she wanted to ask him. In her short time with Serious Crimes, she’d learned that there were always questions. Perhaps if she asked enough, she would start finding answers.

The end.

The investigation continues in Book 2.