Rules of Honour (31 page)

‘You called an ambulance, right?’ Rink asked.

‘Coming,’ Jones whispered, without taking his gaze off Tyler’s pale features. ‘It’s coming.’

‘Good,’ Rink said. He nudged me. ‘We’re leaving.’

‘You can’t. You have to wait here.’ Jones’s face was stricken, as if he did not want to be alone with him when Tyler slipped away.

‘We have to stop the bastard who did this. You know how it is, Jones,’ I said. ‘If your buddies arrive while we’re here, they’ll waste time arresting and processing us. There are still people in danger from that murderous son of a bitch. Do you want him to hurt others the way he has your partner?’

The big cop stared down on his friend. Tyler tried to say something, but all that issued from between his lips were scarlet bubbles. Even so his intention was emphatic enough. Jones turned and looked at us. ‘You’d best go out the back way, or else you’ll be stopped.’

We shared a moment, and for the first time our attitudes were ones of mutual respect. He mirrored my nod of acknowledgement. Then we fled round the side of the rickety house to where we’d left Rink’s father’s car. Rink had grabbed the sack and its contents we’d brought, and he slung them in the back. He got in the passenger seat, while I started the engine. Our original intention to grab and execute Markus somewhere far from prying eyes was now redundant. Now it didn’t matter how many witnesses there were, our hand had been forced and we had to take more direct and immediate action. First we had to get away from there.

I threw the car into drive and set off, but only made it as far as the side of the house before noticing the baleful wail of approaching sirens; over the rooftops of the houses opposite the stuttering gumball lights rebounded from the trees on the next ridge over. I hoped that one of the sirens and set of lights was from the ambulance on its way to save Tyler.

Jones’s warning to leave by the back made sense. If we went out by the same route I’d driven in, we’d be seen and chased down. There was nothing for it, then. I reversed quickly, popped a turn on the hard stand at the back, then angled towards the overgrown shrubbery. I caught a look of resignation from Rink reflected in the rear-view mirror, and I could only shrug. I battered through the foliage, hearing branches gouging the metal work, leaves and flower heads blizzarding over the windscreen as the car tore through. A sapling bent and snapped beneath the fender; I hoped it caused no major damage to the undercarriage. The next obstacle was a weathered wooden fence, but it was smashed to kindling, and I pushed the car unhindered now down a rugged slope of couch grass and plants I neither cared to identify nor worry about.

The drop off to the road was the trickiest manoeuvre to perform, and it was as much luck as skill that sent the car off the hillside at an angle, so that the two offside wheels found traction on the asphalt before I pulled at the steering and weaved off the embankment on to hard ground. As it was the resulting contact made the car slew and bounce like crazy, but I grimly held on to the wheel and forced it under control.

‘Good job we’re dumping the car after this,’ Rink said.

He was right. The chances were that I’d caused unthinkable damage to the chassis and the car would never be roadworthy again. As long as it took us to where we were going, though, that was all that mattered now. There was a whine from the engine that hadn’t been there before, as well as a rhythmical thud each time the front left wheel completed a revolution, but otherwise the car kept going. I pushed it as fast as I dared, taking us down a steeply sloping avenue towards lower ground, intent only on evading the police swarming towards Markus’s house. Nearing the bottom of the incline, I slowed, and drew up at a crossing. Waiting there we looked like any other car on the road – so long as no one made a closer inspection – and we didn’t receive as much as a glance from the cops in the marked cruiser that shot by with its sirens screeching.

‘So far so good,’ I said, clichéd but true. Once the cop car was out of sight around the next bend I pulled out, heading in the opposite direction, intent on gaining a route to Bridget Lanaghan’s house before the police cordoned us in. It was apparent to us both that Markus would have reconsidered his plans now that his identity had been discovered. With Parnell and Faulks safely out of his grasp that left only one other he could target. He’d be going for Yukiko.

The temptation was to drive fast, but that could attract too much attention, so much as it pained me I kept to the speed limit, heading across town to the Lanaghan house. Thankfully traffic was sparse by now, so there were no major hold-ups, and even the traffic lights fell in our favour. We made it to Bridget’s leafy neighbourhood in a little less than ten minutes. It felt like ten minutes too long. Rink was gritting his teeth, his features set rock solid the entire time. We didn’t concern ourselves with debating what-ifs, which would have been a waste of energy. Markus was very unlikely to have arrived before us, because his priority would also have been avoiding the police cordon. There were no guarantees that he even knew about the connection between Yukiko and Bridget Lanaghan’s home, but it wasn’t a chance either of us would take. Yukiko would have to be moved elsewhere. Probably it would be best that Bridget and the other members of her family were taken somewhere safer until this was resolved.

As I pulled up outside the well-kept garden, Rink was out the car and rushing up the path for the front door before I’d engaged the parking brake. As fast as he was, the door opened before he got all the way there, and standing in the opening was Bridget’s daughter, Judith. Even across the length of the garden I recognised the woman’s concern in the way that she plucked at her tie-dyed skirt. I couldn’t hear what she said, but their discourse lasted all of about five seconds before Rink was charging back towards the car.

‘My mom’s house. Now!’ he shouted even as he was lunging inside the car.

Without argument I hit the gas.

‘What’s happened?’

‘Why does my mom have to be so goddamn stubborn all the time?’ he demanded by way of reply. It didn’t explain, but I could read the subtext behind his words.

‘She has gone home?’ I asked.

‘Where else?
The hard-headed old goat .
. .’ Rink punched the dash. ‘Mom talked Mrs Lanaghan into driving her home. Judith phoned, to check that they made it there safely as she expected her mom home ages ago. She got no answer, Joe. Dear God, what if Markus went straight there and has hurt her already?’

Earlier my resolve to stay within the speed limit had been tested. Now it simply snapped as I floored the pedal, aiming to get to the Rington family home in record time. We had the idea that Markus didn’t know where Bridget lived, but the same couldn’t be said for Yukiko’s home. The bastard had been there before.

I tore along streets. I recalled Rink’s joke bemoaning the lack of opportunity to do a
Bullitt
when evading Chaney’s men that time, but we got it now. Andrew’s car wasn’t a super-charged Mustang like Steve McQueen drove in the iconic movie scene, but it did the job all the same, ramping off each intersection as we hit the downward slopes. Something had been knocked loose as I’d negotiated the hillside behind Markus’s house, and now it rattled and clanged and the engine was making a high-pitched shriek. I didn’t slow one bit. We cut across town and screeched on two wheels around the penultimate corner before reaching Yukiko’s street.

‘Oh, no!’

Rink’s dismay was well founded. Over the roofs of the residential neighbourhood the sky was painted an ominous orange. A huge plume of smoke billowed into the heavens. It didn’t take a genius to guess the source of the fire or its instigator. Markus had previously shown his penchant for flames as a method of murder when he set Yoshida Takumi’s house ablaze.

‘We might make it in time,’ I tried to reassure my friend, but they were empty words. I arrived at Takumi’s place just after Markus had set the place on fire, but looking at the immensity of the flames soaring over the rooftops this blaze had been going some time. Anyone caught within such a conflagration would be charred to cinders by now.

I spun the car on to Yukiko’s street, almost hitting a group of neighbours watching the fire. They leaped out of the way, and I pulled hard on the steering taking the car away from them. Clear of them, I hit the brakes and the car skidded to a halt. The crowd was made up of people who had spilled from their beds at sounds of alarm; they stood in pyjamas and dressing gowns, watching with open-mouthed awe as the roof of Yukiko’s house collapsed down into the charred guts of the building. The roar of crashing timbers was echoed by their gasps. Flame ribboned into the sky, a million sparks dancing on the breeze. Over it all was Rink’s tortured shout. ‘MOM!’

He battled his way out of the car, and I was a second behind him as he plunged towards the burning house. I raced after him. With his long-legged gait he was gaining distance, and there was no sign of him slowing. He was about to dash directly into the flames in search of his mother. There was no other recourse: I threw myself after him, wrapping my arms around his thighs and took him down. We hit the roadway, my elbows and knees slamming the concrete paving, but the pain was nothing to what Rink must have been enduring in his heart. He struggled and kicked to free himself from my grip, still intent on charging into the conflagration, but I crawled up him, holding him down. I knew that if he meant to, he could clamber up and carry me into the flames with him, but he wasn’t about to do that. His actions had been driven by a moment of intense anguish. Our tumble, followed by my exhortations for him to calm down, finally impinged on his mind. It was safe to release him, and we both scrambled up, conscious of the concerned neighbours moving all around us. Distantly came the warble of sirens as fire trucks responded to 911 calls.

Rink spun, facing the crowds. ‘Was she in there?’ he demanded. ‘My mom, Yukiko Rington, you all know her, right? Was she inside the fucking house?’

At first he didn’t receive a reply. The people were too stunned by the fury in his shout.

‘Was my mother inside the house?’ he roared again.

‘She was with that lady there. The one sitting in the car,’ an old man pointed out. He was holding a leashed poodle and was the only person in the crowd fully dressed. ‘They arrived after the fire had started. Your mom asked me to call nine-one-one, so I ran back inside . . .’

Rink wasn’t listening to the man, he was already charging towards Bridget Lanaghan’s car. She had obviously approached the house from the opposite end of the street judging from where she’d parked a hundred yards further along. The hood faced us, as did the windshield, but the smoke billowing across the road made it difficult to see anyone inside. I nodded thanks at the old dog walker before sprinting after Rink.

I covered my face with my jacket as I charged through the smokescreen, feeling the intense heat of the fire carried along with it. Sparks clung to my clothing, and as I cleared the choking cloud I batted them out. Rink seemed heedless of those that glowed brightly on his shoulders. Catching up to him as he bent to peer inside the car, I slapped the points threatening to ignite his clothing. He didn’t even notice.

He craned back and let out a shout of denial, his hands slamming down on the roof of the car. I pushed by him and discovered the source of his torment. Bridget Lanaghan sat in the driving position, both her hands folded in her lap. Her head had lolled forward and she looked as if she was sleeping. But for one thing: the blood trickling from a wound behind her left ear.

Leaning in, I pressed the tips of two fingers to her carotid artery just below the left jaw. I couldn’t find a heartbeat. But the slow trickle of blood told me that there might yet be hope. Gently I eased her head back, taking the pressure from her throat, and checked again. It was faint, but I found a steady pulse.

‘She’s still alive,’ I said. ‘We have to help her, Rink.’

‘We have to find my mom,’ he corrected.

Chapter 36

Despite having just shot his way through a police cordon, Markus made the San Mateo Bridge with little drama, and sped over it towards the lights of Hayward, having negotiated the tollgates without raising suspicion. Then it was a short run up the Nimitz Freeway to San Lorenzo where he cut across country to the MacArthur Freeway and on towards Chabot Regional Park. Despite the route, he didn’t have a clue as to how close he’d come to Parnell’s and Faulks’s hiding place, he was heading further into the national park where Sean Chaney had called an emergency meeting. His new business partner had come through for him, but in a more satisfying manner than he could ever have expected. He was keen to meet the man.

As he gained a route through the wooded hills, he phoned Chaney back and was directed on to Redwood Road, and then, a couple of miles along, down a track towards the shores of a second expanse of water called Upper San Leandro Reservoir. Markus guessed that the area could be well populated by campers and had noticed signage on the way in directing visitors to various staging grounds and campsites, but where he was heading looked less travelled. The area served him well for what he had in mind.

The trail led between dense groves of eucalyptus trees, the grass and chaparral alongside the trail bleached of their natural colour by his headlights. Then he was in a gully, its steep banks strewn with boulders, and he was forced to switch back and forth as he followed the zigzag route down towards the water. He wondered how the hell Chaney knew about this place, but the answer was obvious enough. This probably wasn’t the first time that the gangster had made someone disappear without trace. How many shallow graves held rivals of Sean Chaney out in those woods? How many enemies had been sunk to the bottom of the lake?