The Pleasures of Summer (45 page)

Flynn drummed his fingers on the antique wood, and then stopped himself with an effort. He hated being on desk duty, but Niall was right; he was the best person to co-ordinate the search of Fielding’s properties. Intellectually, he knew he could help Summer best that way, but it still drove him mad.

He rolled back the office chair and stood up, letting his left leg take his weight. His knee throbbed with a jabbing pain that he could ignore from long practice. The looseness of the joint was harder to ignore. He walked a few steps, and only the strength of the heavy brace kept the
knee from collapsing under him. Some hero he was. Couldn’t even walk properly without crutches, and was reduced to riding a desk.

Somewhere out there, Summer needed him. He knew it.

He popped another couple of pain pills and spent a painful quarter of an hour doing the physio exercises to get his knee working again. By the time Sinead put her head around the door, he was sweating.

‘Here, let me get you a glass of water,’ she offered and disappeared before he could snarl at her. He checked his Sig for the third time that day before putting it back in its holster. It would be very useful if Fielding decided to come visiting.

‘So what happened?’ he asked Sinead when she returned.

She shrugged. ‘Malcolm is under arrest, but so far he’s only charged with stealing Summer’s panties. They’re going to hold him on that and decide what to charge him with later. He was the one who stabbed her bed that night, but he knew she was out. He wanted to scare her.’

The memory of Summer’s terrified face that morning was still fresh in his mind. ‘He did.’ She had been almost as frightened that night as she looked in the ransom demand video. He pulled up the clip again. There must be something in that video somewhere that would give them a clue. He set it to play again.

Sinead looked around. ‘Where is everyone?’ She put on the television on the news channel.

‘Out searching Fielding’s various properties. Summer has to be in one of them. But they’re scattered all over the city.’

‘You’re certain it’s Fielding who has her?’

He tore his attention away from Summer’s scared eyes.
‘I’m not certain of anything, but Niall says he’s in deep money trouble and he knew that Summer was going to Molly’s apartment.’

He forced himself to ignore Summer’s image and looked at the background. It was just a blank wall, but there must be something. He listened again, trying to hear any background noise. Nothing. There must be some clue. He examined the background again, inch by inch.

There was a blur in one corner. He zoomed in, trying to make out details. It looked like some sort of bell. ‘Why would there be a bell so high up?’ he muttered. Something about it looked vaguely familiar.

‘Oh, Christ.’ He had seen a bell just like that in Malcolm’s apartment. It was for calling a servant in a big house. Summer was in some sort of old-fashioned mansion.

Hardly daring to breathe, he thumbed through the computer printouts of Fielding’s properties. One of them was a Regency period house near Hampstead Heath. They had put it to the bottom of the pile because it was so close that it seemed the least likely.

Flynn picked up the phone. ‘Niall, I think I know where she is.’ He ignored Sinead tapping him on the shoulder until she pulled the phone out of his hand and pointed at the television.

It was an aerial view of the main road into London. ‘
… And the Eye in the Sky can confirm that the green Jaguar which fled from a police checkpoint only minutes ago is still driving erratically on the motorway. Unconfirmed reports suggest that the car belongs to property developer Robert Fielding and that the man driving the car was armed. Police are trying to block off the road. Over to the studio …
’

The reporter’s helicopter clearly showed Fielding’s car recklessly dodging in and out of traffic.

‘I have to go after her,’ he said, grabbing his crutches and swinging his way out of the house as fast as he could.

‘Are you mad?’ Sinead panted after him. ‘You can’t walk or drive. What are you going to do?’

He had reached the Venom. ‘No, but I can still ride a bike. I’ll catch her, trust me.’

As he pushed the bike to its fastest speed, he prayed that he could make good on his word. His right knee wasn’t actually painful on the bike, except for the vibration that rattled through it, so he could concentrate on weaving in and out of lanes, saving precious seconds by driving up the wrong side of the road to pass traffic. Summer. Summer. Summer. Her name echoed in his head with every turn of the wheels. He had to find her in time. It couldn’t be too late. Surely he would know if it was too late. Summer. Summer. Summer. He swerved around a tractor pulling bales of hay without dropping speed. Summer. Summer.

The screech of tires and the endless weaving between lanes made Summer lose track of time. It could have been minutes or hours. Everything jumbled into one gigantic, bruising pain. More sirens. Louder this time. She could do nothing but hold on.

The good times, the special times in her life flashed by like a series of photographs. Her dad, travelling with Molly, but most of all Flynn and the croft. The nights she had lain in his arms. The feel of his mouth on hers. The
rough tug of his hands in her hair as he pleasured her. Owned her.

Was this what happened when you knew you were going to die?

She would regret none of that. Not one single night. And if she had her life to live over again, she would change nothing. Because everything she had done, every aimless, stupid, spoilt action she had taken had brought them together. For the briefest of times, for a single summer, she had felt truly loved.

And nothing else mattered.

The car stopped and the lid of the boot opened. Robert grabbed her arm. His other hand held the gun. ‘Out. Get out now. This is all your fault. Bitch.’

He dragged her out of the boot and put one arm around her neck, holding her in a headlock. Only then was she conscious that the motorway was eerily empty. A helicopter circled overhead.

Flynn was suddenly in the middle of a honking mass of stationary traffic. He dodged around, barely slowing, and found himself facing two police cars blocking the road. It was clear they were sealing off the motorway. They were not going to stop him.

He aimed his bike at the tiny gap between the two cars, and opened the throttle. It was a tight squeeze but he got through with no more than bruises.

He was out on the motorway, flying along in search of a green Jaguar with a broken tail light. He was vaguely aware of police motor bikes in pursuit and the traffic helicopter above him in the sky. The radio told him that they
were following the Jag, waiting for a suitable place to stop it.

Flynn raced along, so concentrated on finding Fielding that the other traffic appeared to be stationary to him. All he could think about was finding Summer before it was too late. If it wasn’t already too late. No, he couldn’t think that. He had to find her. He would find her in time. There was no alternative.

He kept riding.

A snarl of stopped cars ahead alerted him. He flew along until he could see a green car surrounded by police vehicles, and a familiar fall of dark hair. His lungs seized for a moment. Summer was still alive. He was in time.

He braked sharply and dropped his bike in the shadow of an overpass. His knee wobbled as he got off, but he ignored it. If both his legs had been broken, it wouldn’t have mattered. He was in time. He would save her.

Someone shouted through a loudspeaker, but Summer couldn’t make out his words. All she was conscious of was the sleeve of Robert’s blazer, the stink of his sweat and the tarmac scraping her bare feet as he dragged her along. She was afraid to acknowledge the cold press of his pistol against her bruised face.

Everything seemed to slow down; every breath was torn from her lungs and felt as if it was her last. Her pulse pounded in her eardrums like a jackhammer, so loudly that she couldn’t make out the words that the police were shouting. The helicopter moved behind the overpass, the rotors keeping time with her racing heart.

The helicopter moved further away and in the aftermath, there was a silence so complete and so surreal that she could have been in a post-apocalyptic zombie movie. The thought made her giggle hysterically. Her chest heaved and she coughed against Robert’s arm.

In the distance, a motorbike screeched to a halt and a lone man emerged from beneath the bridge. She couldn’t see his face, but even from this distance she knew him. She blinked, trying to focus, hardly daring to believe her eyes.

It was Flynn. He hadn’t abandoned her. Flynn had come.

Flynn’s stomach twisted. Fielding was holding Summer in a brutal grip. He had his arm around her and was holding her head back by grabbing a hank of her hair. She was doing her best to stay calm, but he could imagine her panic. Fielding was holding a pistol to her head.

Flynn’s hand tightened around his Sig.

The police were talking to Fielding through loudspeakers, telling him to let her go and it would be all over. As if anyone believed that. Fielding’s grip tightened.

‘Let me go or I’ll shoot her,’ he shouted. ‘Back off.’

One of the cops moved closer. Fielding yanked Summer’s head back, making her gasp with pain. ‘Move that car out the way or I swear, she’s dead.’

The cop moved closer.

Flynn watched as Fielding’s finger tightened on the trigger.

He took a step out of the shadow of the overpass, raised his Sig and fired.

Time slowed down. It seemed that the bullet took forever to reach Fielding, and for a horrible moment, Flynn thought Fielding would see it coming and move out of its path. But the shot was clean. It took Fielding straight in the mouth, severing his spinal cord as it exited the back of his head.

Fielding dropped, Summer’s hair still tangled in his hand. She tumbled down with him. It only took a few strides for Flynn to reach her and pull her up.

She fit into his arms as if she had never been out of them. She was shivering, barely able to breathe, and to his surprise, Flynn found he was shaking too.

In the background, people were moving, vehicles got out of the way, and someone hovered over Fielding. None of it mattered. No one would ever take her away from him again. She was his, she would be his forever.