Eye for an Eye (33 page)

My mind is in turmoil. Should I strike? Or wait?

But I feel such a burning need that I know I have to do it. I decide to do it. And to do it ...

Now.

The night explodes with light.

The car swings our way.

Patterson looks to his side.

I freeze. The stave is out, and I wonder for one crazed moment if I should plunge it into his ear, kill him that way.

‘Who the hell is this?’ he growls, and moves to the gate.

I return the stave to its hidden pocket, and pull up my hood as twin beams bounce toward us. Now I know I will have to kill to survive.

Gilchrist drew the Merc to a sharp halt that had his tyres scattering gravel. He did not switch off the engine and kept the lights on at full beam and the wipers running.

He opened the door and stepped out.

From where he stood, he could make out the stocky figure of Patterson and next to him, in shadow, someone smaller. He was unable to see the face, but he knew who she was. She wore an anorak with the hood up. Just as MacMillan had described.

Something fluttered in his chest.

He had the Stabber.

He stood with his hands at his sides, not wanting to move for fear of breaking the moment and letting loose a disaster. Drops of rain ran down his collar like beads of ice. No one seemed willing to speak, until Patterson snarled, ‘Gilchrist?’

‘That’s me.’

‘What in God’s name are you doing here, man?’

‘I need to speak to you. Right now.’

‘Now? On a night like this?’

‘Especially on a night like this.’

‘What about? Dammit.’

Patterson’s failure to decipher the meaning of his words, or detect any danger, annoyed Gilchrist. He struggled to keep his tone level. ‘Could I ask you to come over to my car?’

‘No. Dammit. Say what you have to say, Gilchrist, then get the hell out of it before we all catch our death.’

The Stabber shifted her stance. Doubts flashed into Gilchrist’s mind. Surely she was not going to carry out her grisly act in front of him. Or was she? Surely she did not know he had figured it out. Or did she? But the longer he talked to Patterson, the sooner she would realize it was over for her. Of that he was certain.

God only knew what she would do then.

Gilchrist pulled the gate open, but did not enter the garden. Nothing stood between the three of them.

‘Well?’ said Patterson. ‘I’m waiting.’

From behind him, Gilchrist heard the angry hiss of water on the exhaust pipe, the sleepy beat of the windscreen wipers. His own faint shadow lay over the ground before him, falling between Patterson and the Stabber like some physical divide between life and death. He turned to the Stabber and smiled at the irony of it all.

‘It’s raining,’ he said.

‘Lord above us,’ muttered Patterson.

As if to confirm the accuracy of Gilchrist’s statement, the Stabber held out both her hands, palms up. But Gilchrist knew she was trying to lull him into thinking she was unarmed.

He focused on her eyes. ‘Like you,’ he said, ‘I love the rain.’

‘What the hell are you talking about, man? Dammit.’

Gilchrist ignored Patterson. ‘When I was a little boy,’ he said to the Stabber, ‘whenever it rained, my mother would recite a rhyme to me. She would almost sing it to me. Rain, rain, go away / Come back here another day. Then she would run her fingers up and down my body to imitate the rain falling. And do you know what she would say as she did that?’

‘What?’

‘Pitter patter, pitter patter.’

The Stabber stared at him.

‘It got me thinking,’ he said, ‘about a little group.’

The Stabber frowned.

‘Pitter. Patter. The connection,’ he said. ‘Now. And way back then.’ He almost smiled. ‘It got me thinking about cats. Or one in particular.’

Gilchrist could see the meaning of his words shift across her features. She slipped one hand inside her anorak and he realized how foolish he had been to confront her unarmed.

With calculated finality, she said, ‘The photograph.’

Gilchrist nodded. ‘You held the camera. You took the photograph. I had it digitally enhanced to find out what caused the scar.’ He stepped through the gateway. He was closer, but not close enough.

‘What scar?’ roared Patterson. ‘Would someone tell me what in the name of God is going on?’

Gilchrist kept his eyes on the Stabber. ‘We’re talking about cats.’

‘Cats?’

‘Cats.’

‘Have you been drinking again?’

‘One’s called Pitter. The other, Patter.’

‘Lord above us. Now I’ve heard it all.’

The Stabber pushed her hand deeper inside her anorak.

Ice tickled Gilchrist’s neck. He stood still.

‘You’re wasted as a detective,’ she said to him.

‘I take that as a compliment.’

‘You’re far too clever.’

‘Which is why you fabricated the complaint against me,’ he said. ‘To get me out of circulation.’

‘Among other things.’

‘But you made a mistake choosing Maggie as a witness.’

‘Maggie wouldn’t have said a word to you,’ she snapped. ‘I won’t believe you if you say she has.’

‘She did better than that. She left Lafferty’s.’

The Stabber shook her head. ‘Not for another month.’

‘She’s gone.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘She couldn’t wait to leave for the south of England with all that money you gave her.’ He saw from her eyes that his words were hurting. ‘How much?’ he asked.

‘Too much, it seems.’ Her hand pulled out.

‘I wouldn’t do that,’ said Gilchrist.

The Stabber froze.

‘I found the plastic wrapping under the floorboards.’

‘Good Lord. How many different ways do I have to say it, Gilchrist? You are suspended. Do you hear?’

Gilchrist was so focused on the Stabber’s eyes that it seemed as if Patterson was no longer there in physical form, but in voice only, like the verbal remnants of a fading dream.

The Stabber narrowed her eyes. ‘I knew when you started snooping around it would only be a matter of time. What gave it away?’

‘A cricket bat.’

‘Now you’ve lost me.’

‘It’s a long story.’

‘I’m not going anywhere.’

‘Don’t bank on it.’ Gilchrist thought if the Stabber was going to make a move, she would do so at that moment. But she stood still.

‘That’s it,’ shouted Patterson. ‘Cats. Cricket bats. I’ve heard enough. I’m ordering you off my property, right now, Gilchrist.’

‘Ask her why she shortened her name.’

‘Her name?’ spluttered Patterson.

‘Humour me.’

As if to pre-empt Patterson’s question, the Stabber said, ‘Timmy had a stutter—’

‘Timmy? Who in heaven’s name is Timmy?’

‘My older brother,’ said the Stabber, keeping her eyes on Gilchrist. ‘Timmy witnessed our father beat our mother. The attacks shocked him so severely that he developed a stutter.’ Then her eyes flickered at Gilchrist. ‘How did you find that out?’

‘I didn’t,’ said Gilchrist. ‘But when I accessed your file and saw your full name, it got me thinking.’

Silent, the Stabber stared at him.

‘And with his stutter, Timmy couldn’t say your name, could he? So he shortened it.’

The Stabber narrowed her eyes.

‘Sandra became Sa.’

Sa gave a distant smile, as if thinking back to the days before Timmy’s affliction. Then she looked at Gilchrist. ‘How did you know to come here?’

‘Your missed meeting. Your call to the Office. That was to be your alibi. No one would place you within twenty miles of here. That’s when I knew.’ Gilchrist felt his muscles tighten. They had come down to it. And Sa had nowhere to run. He eased closer. No more than a few feet separated them. He wondered if he was close enough to make a move, but Sa’s hand remained inside her anorak. He raised his arm chest high in front of Patterson. ‘Could I ask you to step back?’

Patterson glared at him.

‘Back. Please. She’s armed.’

But Patterson’s mind had locked. He stood silent, his mouth opening and closing with piscine absurdity. From the corner of his eye, Gilchrist caught a movement and turned in time to see Sa pull her arm from her anorak.

And at that instant, he knew she had him beaten.

CHAPTER 33

‘Don’t.’

But he was too late.

Sa had the bamboo stave out, shoulder high, arm pulled back.

Her face glowed with hate.

Gilchrist stiff-armed Patterson to the ground and dived at Sa as she struck. His right shoulder thudded into her stomach in a heavy-hitting rugby tackle that would have made his gym teacher proud.

They hit the damp lawn with a force that brought back the pain in his ribs with a hard grunt. He rolled to the side, searching for the hand with the stave, found it, and held on.

But Sa was strong. Fast. And smart.

Instead of resisting, she pulled Gilchrist toward her, causing him to roll over. Then with a rush of strength and a move as acrobatic as a gymnast’s, twisted her body, so that in the time it took Gilchrist to realize she had thrown him, he found himself beneath her.

Instinct told him to pull to the side.

With a wet thud, the stave drove into the grass next to his ear.

Sa pulled it out and up, but he managed to catch her arm as the stave powered down at him again, the dirt-smeared point only inches from his eyes.

Her agility stunned him. He gritted his teeth and gasped at her strength, too.

She raised her buttocks, pressed down with all her body weight. Gilchrist turned his head, felt the tip of the stave dig into his cheek, fought to pull his head away. His breath exploded from his mouth. ‘Christ.’

Sa’s face twisted with hatred.

‘It’s over,’ gasped Gilchrist.

‘Bastards,’ she hissed. ‘Bastards.’

Gilchrist’s chest burned. Without the prescription painkillers, the pain from his ribs would have been too much for him. But even doped up, he knew he could not hold Sa off for long. He pushed to the side and almost cried with relief as the stave thudded into the lawn again.

Sa freed it from the ground, rolled away from him, readied to pull herself to her feet.

Gilchrist could not allow her to stand. She was too fast, too strong.

He scrambled forward, stumbled as he dived at her, and with a frightening flash of fear realized his fatal misjudgement as he saw her body twist, her hand juggle with the stave and turn it toward him.

He could do nothing to stop himself.

He slammed into her.

Together they hit the ground.

They landed hard, Gilchrist on top. He felt the stab of the bamboo as it punched into his chest with the force of a steel rod, and he waited for the explosion of pain as its whittled point pierced his heart. He took two gasping breaths before he became aware of the limp stillness of Sa’s body beneath him.

He pushed himself to his knees.

Sa lay still, save for the puzzled blinking of her eyes and the silent movement of her mouth. Gilchrist felt his hand on the stave and saw it protruding from a point high in Sa’s chest, near the base of her throat.

‘No, Sa,’ he gasped.

He wrapped his fingers around the bamboo ridges, felt her body’s reluctance to release the stave from its fleshy grip, and tightened his hold. The stave pulled free with a damp sucking sound and he threw it into the darkness.

Blood bubbled and foamed from the hole in Sa’s chest.

Gilchrist tore off his jacket and ripped out the lining, pressed it to her throat. ‘Don’t talk,’ he said, and dabbed at her wound, trying to staunch the flow of blood that pulsed through his fingers like a living thing. He pressed harder and realized he had never felt such helplessness. He glanced over his shoulder.

Patterson was pulling himself to his feet.

‘Call for an ambulance,’ Gilchrist shouted. ‘Now.’

Without answering, Patterson stumbled along the path to his house.

Gilchrist heard the sound of a door cracking open, then the unmistakable barking of orders. He turned his attention back to Sa, tore off another strip of lining and pressed it against her wound. The stave must have sliced an artery. His fingers felt warm and wet. He looked into Sa’s eyes, thought he caught the glimmer of a smile, then noticed tiny flakes falling around them and melting in the damp grass. He stared up into a swirling darkness that fell toward them in blurring flurries.

Sa’s throat gurgled. Her lips parted, and he thought he heard her whisper, ‘Timmy.’

He pressed his ear to her lips. ‘What about Timmy?’