Empire of Gold

41


‘I know you,’ said Stikes with a suspicious frown as Sophia Blackwood descended the steps, her long black coat billowing in the idling helicopter’s rotor wash. ‘You were Chase’s wife.’

‘I know you too,’ said Kit, alarmed. ‘You tried to set off a nuclear bomb in New York!’

Stikes’s frown deepened. ‘You’re also, if I remember correctly, supposed to be dead.’

Sophia smiled, coming fully into the light at the foot of the stairs – revealing that her beautiful face was marred by a deep, crooked scar that ran from an inch behind her left eye down her cheek and on to her neck, disappearing beneath a black scarf. The rest of her outfit was also black, including a pair of expensive leather gloves. ‘Gentlemen, I’m all those things, and more,’ she said. ‘But right now, I’m the person you wanted to meet’ – she turned away from Stikes and looked at Kit – ‘and, like it or not, your superior. So shall we get to business?’

‘As you wish, Lady Blackwood,’ said Stikes. There was a faint tinge of mockery to the word; the British government had stripped Sophia of her title following her failed attack on the United States. She gave him a cold look. ‘I assume Jindal told you what I want in exchange for these.’ He held up the case.

‘I know what you want,’ said Sophia. ‘However, the people I represent are more curious about why.’

‘It’s simple, really. When I first met Jindal in Venezuela, I knew something wasn’t right. Interpol division heads don’t go out and do fieldwork – and they certainly don’t do fieldwork that’s only tangentially related to their job. He gave me some cock-and-bull story about the archaeological expedition being connected to a smuggling investigation, but he obviously had some other motive for being there. So I had a little chat with him, and learned about your organisation. The Group.’

If Sophia’s look at Stikes had been cold, the one she directed at Kit was positively icy. ‘Funny. He somehow forgot to mention that.’

‘I was tortured!’ Kit protested. ‘If I hadn’t said anything, he would have killed me. And I didn’t tell him why the Group need the statues. How could I? I haven’t been told myself.’

‘You told him more than enough, apparently.’ She turned back to Stikes. ‘So, you have some idea of the Group’s objectives. What do you want from them? Your wanted status with international law enforcement to disappear, perhaps? Or is it just about money?’

‘Only indirectly,’ said the Englishman. ‘I’m actually offering them my services.’

Sophia arched a perfect eyebrow. ‘Are you now?’

‘Yes. I have the experience, the connections and, frankly, the ruthlessness to be a great asset. From what Jindal told me, what they’re planning will genuinely change the world. I want to make sure I’m on the side that benefits when it happens.’

‘Everyone will benefit. Or so they say.’ There was a glint in her eye that suggested she had a different opinion.

‘They will,’ insisted Kit. ‘I wouldn’t be a part of this if I didn’t believe it would help the world.’

Stikes rattled the case. ‘But they need these first, don’t they?’

Sophia glanced back at the blond man watching from the top of the steps. ‘There was a suggestion – not mine, I’ll point out – that we should take them from you by force.’

Stikes gave her a lupine smile. ‘That would be a bad idea.’

‘I know. We used a thermal scanner to see who else was here before landing. Mikkel is very good, but I doubt even he could pick off all three of your men before they killed us.’

‘He’d be lucky to draw his—’ Stikes broke off abruptly. ‘Three men?’

Sophia responded in kind to his sudden concern. ‘What is it?’

‘I only have two men.’

‘Then who’s the third?’

‘Ay up,’ said a Yorkshire voice.

The trio whirled to see Eddie climb on to the catwalk, carrying a SCAR. Mikkel’s hand flashed into his jacket to draw a gun – but Eddie had already whipped the rifle up and fired. The blond man collapsed, two bullet wounds in his chest.

The SCAR came back to the three people on the walkway. ‘So,’ said Eddie, advancing, ‘interesting little meeting. My ex-comrade, my ex-wife, and,’ a searing glare at Kit, ‘my ex-friend.’

‘Eddie, this isn’t what you think,’ said Kit, raising his hands. ‘Interpol authorised me to make a deal with Stikes for—’

‘Shut up!’ Eddie roared. Kit flinched. ‘Don’t give me any more of your f*cking lies and bullshit. You’ve been working with him the whole time to get those f*cking statues – and you killed Mac for them!’

Silence, Kit frozen with an expression of shocked guilt. Stikes finally broke it. ‘McCrimmon’s dead? What a shame.’

Eddie’s mouth tightened with anger. He snapped up the rifle and fired. Stikes’s beret flew off and disappeared into the darkness. The mercenary staggered, dropping the case and clutching his head as blood ran down his face.

‘You missed?’ said Sophia, affecting casualness as she recovered from the shock of the gunshot. ‘Not like you, Eddie.’

‘I don’t miss what I’m aiming at from this range,’ he growled.

Stikes felt the wound. The bullet had carved a deep gash in his scalp, red spreading through his fair hair like ink on tissue paper. ‘That was a mistake, Chase. If you want to kill me, you should have done it then. You’ll never get another chance.’

He stared at the other former SAS man, anticipation growing as he waited for the crack of a distant rifle, an explosion of blood and bone . . .

His expectancy faded. Nothing happened.

‘Oh, were you waiting for one of your sniper mates to shoot me?’ asked Eddie sarcastically. He held up the SCAR. ‘Got this off the bloke on top of the tank. And I killed the guy on the cliffs over there before I got here. You’re getting sloppy, Stikes, putting your men in the most obvious positions.’ A gesture with the rifle. ‘Okay. Weapons. Chuck ’em.’

Stikes reluctantly pulled the Jericho from his holster and tossed it past Eddie, where it hit the machinery below the catwalk with a dull clank. Eddie moved the gun on to Kit. ‘I’m unarmed,’ he said.

Eddie nodded; the Indian wouldn’t have had the opportunity to acquire a new weapon. The SCAR lined up on Sophia. ‘So am I,’ she said.

Her ex-husband gave her an irritated look. Sophia sighed and reached into her coat, drawing out a matt-black Glock 36 compact pistol, which she dropped over the edge of the walkway. There was something odd about her left hand, Eddie noticed; some of her fingers seemed unnaturally stiff inside the leather glove. And looking more closely, besides the scar, there was something different about her face: her cheekbones looked sharper, the line of her nose more curved. Had she had plastic surgery?

‘So, what are you going to do now, Eddie?’ she asked. ‘Are you going to kill us?’

‘Him?’ said Eddie, nodding towards Stikes. ‘Yeah. For what he did to Nina. You, I haven’t decided yet. Since I already thought you’d died twice, might have to make it third time lucky – but I wouldn’t mind seeing you back in prison either.’ He rounded on Kit. ‘As for you, though . . . Isshould kill you. But first, I want to know why. Why did you do it – why shoot Mac? Why?’

Despite the cold wind blowing down from the hills, Kit was sweating. ‘I didn’t want to do it, Eddie, you have to believe me. But he didn’t give me any choice. He was going to destroy the helicopter – and the statues.’ His eyes flickered towards the fallen case.

‘The statues,’ Eddie echoed quietly – before suddenly erupting. ‘Those f*cking statues! Am I the only one who doesn’t put all this stupid archaeological shit above people’s lives? What’s so important about the f*cking things?’ He aimed the rifle at the case. ‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t blow them to f*cking pieces right now.’

He noticed Sophia tense – she had a reason, at least. But Kit spoke first, taking a step closer with his hands spread, almost pleading. ‘I . . . I can’t tell you, Eddie. I wish I could. But it’ll change the world. We have to have the statues. For . . . for the sake of all humanity.’

Eddie regarded him for a moment . . . then his eyes narrowed. ‘Not good enough.’ His finger tensed on the trigger—

Bright lights washed over him.

He looked round. Another car was pulling up beside Kit’s—

The instant of distraction gave the Indian an opening. Kit leapt at him, one hand grabbing the SCAR and shoving it away from the case. Eddie fired, a burst of bullets twanging off the pipework below. Stikes jumped away from the line of fire, Sophia hurriedly taking cover behind him.

With both hands on the rifle, Eddie couldn’t defend against a punch that jarred his vision. He and Kit grappled for control of the SCAR, lurching back along the catwalk. The gun’s ejection port was facing the Interpol officer; Eddie pulled the trigger again, more rounds ripping into the pumping machinery - and showering Kit’s face and neck with searing cartridge casings.

Kit shrieked and jerked back, still trying to wrest away the SCAR. Another burst of fire, but this time the spent brass sprayed over his shoulder as he forced the gun upwards. Eddie kicked at his legs, trying to trip him—

A shrill screech came from a pipe below, followed by an earth-shaking thud and a thunderous roar of flame.

The bullets had damaged one of the pumps, gas escaping through a cracked valve . . . and igniting as more red-hot rounds flashed through it.

Nina and Macy exited the taxi – and jumped in shock as an explosion rattled the vehicle, a fireball boiling skywards from the pumping station. Beneath it, a forty-foot-long line of fire blasted out almost horizontally from the machinery, the force of the flame seething against a complex knot of pipes.

Stikes and Sophia recoiled from the heat. The two fighting men were almost directly over the burning gas jet – which was acting like a blowtorch, slicing into the neighbouring pump’s pipework.

‘Time to leave, I think,’ said Sophia. She reached for the case – but Stikes was quicker. The former soldier snatched it up and opened it, moving as if to tip its contents over the guardrail.

‘Do we have a deal?’ he demanded. ‘Because if not, I’m going to throw these things into the fire and get the hell out of here before this whole place goes up!’

Sophia gave him a sour look, then nodded. ‘We have a deal.’

‘Excellent. Then I’d appreciate a lift!’ He looked at the helicopter, which was already rising from an idle to takeoff revolutions as its pilot realised the danger.

‘Well, it does seem that I have a spare seat.’ She hurried up the steps with Stikes behind her, passing Mikkel’s body without a second glance.

Racing through the open gate, Nina saw someone jump into the helicopter. A man, blond hair standing out in the firelight: Stikes? The brief glimpse wasn’t enough for her to be sure.

Macy, behind her, looked fearfully around the compound. ‘Do you see Eddie or Kit?’

Dismay filled Nina’s voice. ‘Oh, yeah. I see them.’

‘Where?’

She pointed above the flame as she ran faster. ‘Take a guess!’

The detonation had knocked both Eddie and Kit down – with the Indian landing on top. He threw another punch at Eddie’s face, knocking the Yorkshireman’s head back against the walkway’s grillework floor. Eddie’s grip slackened, and Kit managed to prise one of his hands off the SCAR. He struck at the Englishman’s face again, bloodying his mouth, then rolled back on to his haunches, pulling the gun with him.

He turned the bulky weapon round, pointing it at the man who had been his friend—

The conflict in his mind made him hesitate, just for a split second. He didn’t want to do this, but he had to – Eddie had deduced the truth of what happened to Mac, had seen him with Stikes and Sophia Blackwood. It was the only way to maintain his cover at Interpol and prevent anyone else from learning of his involvement with the Group.

The only way, he told himself. Finger on the trigger—

One of Eddie’s legs lashed upwards, striking the rifle just as it fired. Two shots exploded from the barrel, whipping just above his head – then the SCAR clicked impotently, its magazine empty.

Eddie didn’t hear it; the gunshots, practically in his face, had left him deafened and half blind from the flash of the muzzle flame. But he could still see well enough to slam his other foot hard against Kit’s chest. Kit fell backwards, head smacking against the guardrail.

Spitting out blood, Eddie kicked the other man again before using the railing to pull himself to his feet. The heat from the flame jet was like standing at an open oven.

He looked along the catwalk. Stikes and Sophia were gone - as was the case containing the statues. The chopper was at full power, about to take off. No way he could stop them from escaping.

That left Kit.

Even as part of his mind protested at leaving Mac’s killer unpunished, Eddie knew he would have to bring Kit in alive. He was the only link to whatever the hell was going on, the only way to learn the truth behind the Scot’s murder. He grabbed Kit by his black hair and slammed his head against the railing again, then hauled him upright—

A sudden noise, loud enough to break through even his addled hearing. Straining metal, something giving way under immense heat and pressure . . .

Nina was almost at a ladder up to the catwalk, Macy a few yards behind, when a very threatening sound made her stop abruptly. ‘Get back!’ she shouted, turning and diving to the ground—

The damaged pump exploded.

Shattered sections of pipe were thrown hundreds of feet into the air as a pillar of fire blasted skywards like an erupting volcano. The entire facility shook, the noise of burning gas a jet-engine roar as it sucked in air to feed the conflagration. The explosion was powerful enough even to jolt the helicopter as it took to the sky and wheeled away.

Eddie’s slowly recovering hearing had been obliterated again – but that was the least of his worries. The new geyser of flame was forty feet away, but he didn’t need to touch it to be burned. The combined heat from it and the ruptured pipe below was horrific. He could feel his exposed skin stinging, his hair scorching.

But worse was to come. The walkway juddered, joints snapping—

The world suddenly rolled around him, a whole section of catwalk giving way like a giant hinge. He fell, hitting the guardrail – which broke. Nothing below but the blazing gas—

He jerked to a painful stop as one of the severed rail’s stanchions speared through his flapping leather jacket, almost wrenching his shoulder from its socket. Six inches to the side, and it would have gone through his chest. Eddie hung helplessly, dangling only feet above the line of flame . . . then with an agonising effort managed to twist and claw the fingers of his right hand into the grated floor.

The catwalk was tilted at a seventy-degree angle. Eddie pulled himself higher, shrugging his left arm out of his ruined jacket and finding a secure hold with that hand before tugging the other sleeve inside out to free himself. Something dropped from one of the pockets.

His father’s business card, still in its evidence bag. It landed in the fire and was instantly incinerated.

He would go the same way if he didn’t move fast. The grillwork cutting into his fingers, he hauled himself up until he could stand on the support, and looked round. An intact section of the walkway was six feet away in one direction; in the other . . .

Kit hung from the catwalk’s edge, his feet closer to the flame jet than Eddie’s had been. He struggled to climb, but couldn’t get a firm enough grip.

His panicked eyes met Eddie’s.

The Englishman hesitated, looking across to the nearby catwalk, and safety . . . then he stepped across to the next stanchion to reach Kit.

Ears ringing, Nina sat up to see a spear of fire at least a hundred feet high roaring into the dark sky. Smaller blazes were already spreading across the pumping station as debris fell all around like burning hailstones.

She heard a shriek, and whipped round to find Macy clutching her thigh where she had been struck by a piece of smouldering shrapnel. ‘Macy, get out of here!’ Nina shouted, waving towards the gate – where she saw the taxi rapidly making a skidding turn as the driver fled.

‘What about Eddie? And Kit?’

‘Just go!’ She stood, flinching as another chunk of pipe smacked down nearby, then started back towards the ladder.

To her horror, she saw that a section of catwalk had partially collapsed – and someone was hanging from it over a searing fire. Kit. A moment of sickening fear – where was Eddie ? – then she made out her husband through the broken walkway’s gridwork floor.

He was moving towards Kit. Was he going to rescue him, or. . .

She scurried up the ladder, recoiling from the heat at the top. A security camera watched her. The pipeline’s operators had to know by now that something was badly wrong, and be trying to stop the flow of gas.

Unless they couldn’t.

The fires were spreading, getting closer to the gas tanks. If one exploded, it would take the others with it, obliterating the entire area.

‘Eddie!’ she cried. But he didn’t hear. ‘Eddie!’

Kit finally got a firm hold on the grating. He dragged himself up, looking for anything that would assist his climb.

A small pipe to one side, connecting two larger conduits running from the pump. He shifted his weight towards it, finding a foothold – and something else.

Stikes’s gun was wedged between the two main pipes, just within reach.

Despite the danger, he was thinking one step beyond immediate self-preservation. He still had to protect his cover. Which meant he still had to deal with Eddie—

A foot on the stanchion. Eddie loomed over him.

Kit made his decision – and grabbed the gun.

Nina hurried along the catwalk, holding up her arms to shield her face from the almost unbearable heat. Her eyes stung - she rubbed them and blinked, seeing Eddie standing over Kit—

Eddie was about to reach down to Kit when he realised the Indian’s hand was already moving. Not towards him, but to something under the catwalk, nickel glinting on the steel pipes . . .

Stikes’s Jericho, now in Kit’s hand.

The Indian twisted his wrist, aiming the pistol upwards—

Eddie’s foot snapped out, catching Kit hard in the face. Blood sprayed from the Indian’s nose, shock causing him to lose his grip. He fell.

Into the fire.

For a fraction of a second, Eddie saw his expression in the inferno’s light, a mixture of pain and anger and terror – then he was gone, vaporised by the fury of the escaping flame. The Jericho dropped with him, vanishing into the fire.

He turned, starting back towards the intact section of catwalk - and saw Nina standing there, staring at him in utter disbelief.

Even in the searing heat, Nina somehow felt cold, as if her blood had been replaced by icy water. Her mind refused to accept what her eyes had just witnessed. It couldn’t have happened. It couldn’t!

But it had. Eddie had just climbed over to the helpless, flailing Kit . . . and kicked him to his death.

He came closer, the stanchions shuddering under his weight. ‘Give me a hand!’ he called as he reached the end of the broken section and tried to clamber up. She didn’t move. ‘Nina!’

She broke out of her freeze and pulled him up. ‘Oh God, what did you do? What did you do?’

‘We’ve got to go!’ he shouted, looking towards the spreading fires. ‘Run!’ He pushed her ahead as he raced along the walkway. The security camera looked on with its glazed eye.

Nina reached the ladder and hurried down it, jumping off halfway. Eddie followed. They ran for the gate, the roar of the fires now accompanied by the squeals and groans of warping metal. The gas tanks were giving way . . .

Through the gate. Macy sprinted for the highway ahead of them. The squeals turned to shrieks—

One of the gas tanks blew apart in a seething white ball of fire, the others following it in a chain reaction. A shockwave erupted outwards, whipping up a wall of dust and blowing Nina and Eddie off their feet. A roiling mushroom cloud rose into the night sky, a marker visible for miles around for the crater that had once been station fourteen.

It took minutes before Nina felt composed enough to speak, or even think. She had a vague, confused memory of Eddie carrying her along the dirt road, Macy running back to help them, then sitting beside the highway trying to recover from the shock.

Not merely the shock of the explosion. Her memory of what had happened on the catwalk was crystal clear. It kept replaying, unbidden, in her mind: Kit dangling from the walkway by one hand, struggling to get a grip on a pipe with the other, Eddie’s foot lashing out, Kit’s face filling with horror as he dropped into the fire . . .

Vigilante justice. Revenge-driven murder. Just like Jerry Rosenthal in New York. Only this time it wasn’t a mere moral talking point, a topic of argument. It was something her husband had done right in front of her.

Someone sat beside her. Eddie. The light from the still burning pipeline revealed his scorched clothes and reddened skin. ‘Hey,’ he said, putting his arm round her shoulders.

She pulled away.

He looked startled, then hurt. ‘What’s wrong? Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ Nina said curtly, standing. In the distance, she saw flashing lights – emergency vehicles coming along the highway.

Eddie stood as well. ‘Then what’s the matter?’

‘What’s the matter?’ she cried. ‘You murdered Kit, that’s what’s the matter!’

Macy, sitting nearby, reacted in disbelief. Eddie’s response was only slightly less surprised. ‘What?’

‘Eddie, I was right there! He was hanging off that walkway, and you – you kicked him into the fire!’ Saying the words out loud brought back her shock at what she had seen, full force.

‘He was trying to kill me!’ Eddie protested. ‘He had a f*cking gun in his hand!’

Nina shook her head. ‘He didn’t have a gun.’

‘He did – how could you not have seen it? You were right there, you must have seen it!’

‘He didn’t have a gun,’ she repeated forcefully. ‘And why would he have been trying to kill you?’

‘ ’Cause he was working with Stikes,’ said Eddie, anger rising. ‘He was all along. All they wanted the whole time was those statues. Kit killed Mac to protect them, and tried to kill me because I figured it out.’

It was now Nina’s ears, not her eyes, that she doubted. Kit had killed Mac? The idea was impossible to believe. More than that, it was . . .

Insane? The word sent another chill through her. Could Mac’s murder – compounded by the news of his grandmother’s death – have possibly affected Eddie so badly? ‘Why?’ she asked.

‘How the f*ck would I know? I wasn’t in on whatever they were doing. But I’ll tell you who else was,’ he added. ‘Sophia.’

Nina stared at him. ‘Sophia?’ she said after a pause. ‘Sophia, as in your ex-wife Sophia?’

‘Yeah. She was the one who wanted the statues.’

‘You mean Sophia Blackwood?’ said Macy, bewildered. ‘The terrorist? I thought she was dead.’

‘She is dead,’ Nina told her. ‘And Eddie should know – he threw her off a cliff!’

Eddie looked in frustration between the two women as the wail of approaching sirens reached them. ‘She was here – she took off with Stikes in that chopper. Don’t tell me you didn’t see her either!’

‘I saw Stikes – I think.’ Nina glanced at the now empty helipad. ‘But the only other people I saw were you . . . and Kit.’

‘There! Kit and Stikes were working together, like I told you! That’s why he kept the whole meeting a secret!’

‘He told me about it.’ Eddie’s face revealed his shock. ‘Stikes offered Interpol a deal – immunity in return for the statues. Kit didn’t tell you because he knew how upset you were about Mac, and thought you’d react badly if you knew he was talking to Stikes.’ Nina let out a short, bitter laugh. ‘And he was right!’

‘No, that isn’t – that’s not what happened,’ Eddie insisted, desperation entering his voice. ‘Kit wasn’t negotiating some immunity deal. He was working with Stikes and Sophia!’

‘Stikes and Sophia,’ Nina echoed. ‘Two of the people you hate most in the world – and they’re both involved in a conspiracy to cover up Mac’s murder? By Kit? Eddie, this whole thing, everything you’re saying, is just, just . . .’ She didn’t want to say the word.

He knew exactly what she meant, though. ‘I’m not f*cking mad, and I didn’t f*cking hallucinate this.’ He grabbed her by her upper arm. ‘Kit killed Mac! And he would have killed me too, if I hadn’t killed him first!’

Nina recoiled with a gasp of pain as his fingers dug into her. ‘Eddie, let go,’ she said. It was the first time she could remember that he had ever physically hurt her. ‘Let go of me!’

He opened his hand, and she jerked away, almost tripping as she scurried backwards. ‘Jesus Christ, Eddie! You killed a policeman – you murdered your friend!’

‘That’s not what happened!’ he shouted, starting to follow her.

‘Don’t touch me!’ Nina brought up her hands, balled almost into fists. Eddie stopped as she continued to retreat. ‘Get away from me! I don’t – I don’t even know you any more! What have you done?’

Eddie stayed still, stricken, as the first emergency vehicles reached the dirt road. Leading was a yellow van bearing the gas company’s logo, which tore past and headed for what was left of the pumping station. Behind it was a police car, which screeched to a stop at the roadside. Two cops jumped out, running to the group and drawing their guns. They shouted orders in Spanish.

‘What the f*ck’s this?’ Eddie demanded, raising his hands as the men fixed their weapons on him.

Macy translated. ‘Oh, my God. Eddie, they say they’re arresting you for murder!’ She ran to the cops and asked panicked questions in their language, getting brusque responses. ‘The gas company saw you and Kit on the security cameras!’

One of the cops approached Eddie. He gestured for the Englishman to hold out his hands, ready to be cuffed. The other hung back suspiciously, unsure what to make of Nina and Macy and splitting his attention between the three.

‘I didn’t murder him,’ Eddie said – to Nina, not the cops. ‘He was trying to kill me. You’ve got to believe me.’

‘I . . . I don’t know if I can,’ she whispered.

The first cop waved his gun impatiently. Eddie gave Nina a long, saddened look, then held out his wrists. The cop fumbled one-handed for his handcuffs, glancing down as they caught on his belt—

And was sent reeling as Eddie’s fist crashed against his jaw, his other hand wrenching the pistol from his grip.

The second cop hurriedly brought up his gun – but found his partner between him and their intended prisoner. He hesitated, then clumsily sidestepped to get a clean line of fire—

A single gunshot, and the second cop’s weapon spun away with a crack. He screamed and clutched his hand. Eddie’s bullet had shattered on impact with the pistol’s harder steel, sending shards of metal spearing into his flesh.

‘Tell ’em not to move,’ Eddie barked to Macy as he rounded the two men, smoking gun covering them, and headed for their car.

‘Uh . . . I think they figured that out for themselves,’ she said, shocked.

Nina was stunned, struggling to take in the latest turn of events. ‘Eddie, what the hell?’

‘Kit killed Mac, and he tried to kill me,’ said Eddie, reaching the car. Its engine was still running. ‘He was working with Stikes, and Sophia. And I’m going to prove it. I don’t have a f*cking clue how, but I’m going to prove it to you.’ The gun still raised, he slid into the driver’s seat. ‘Only I can’t do that from inside a Peruvian prison. So . . . I guess this is it.’ He put the car into gear and reached to close the door – then spoke again just before it slammed shut. ‘I love you.’

And with that the car peeled away, swinging across the central divider and heading at high speed back north, leaving the overwhelmed Nina behind.