Set in a clearing dotted with tree stumps, the house was a stone barn conversion with an open-air porch containing all-weather sofas arranged around a large firepit. And there sat Mick, puffing away at a cigarette and seemingly oblivious to the light rain. Like a guy on holiday, no worries in the world. Dave paced nearby, agitated.
He saw them clearly in the light from the flames despite their black clothing, but they did not see his approach until he was almost upon them. Like an apparition, he appeared from out of nowhere on the porch, right next to Dave who jerked with a grunt when Brad said: ‘Why are you two outside?’
‘Where the hell is she?’ Dave snapped. He was thirty-five, short and black and sinewy, like a track guy.
Mick jumped to his feet. He was in his late forties, tall and white and heavily built, like a gym guy. He had an iron-grey buzzcut. ‘Where is she, Brad?’
Brad ignored the question, his eyes on the kitchen door, fearful of what lay beyond. He didn’t like that his partners were both outside. And not wearing their balaclavas.
Dave seemed to sense Brad’s concern and said: ‘It went bad. Ain’t a summer scene in there.’
Brad started for the door. He got the handle in his fist and was about to twist it when Mick called out: ‘We can’t leave her body out in the trees, Brad. Come on, let’s go get her.’
Brad hesitated but didn’t turn around.
Mick said: ‘I mean, a body she is, right? Dead and no threat to us, for sure. Because you wouldn’t stroll back all casually like this if she had escaped.’
‘She escaped.’
Dave started cursing.
Mick’s voice was low and calm as he said: ‘Brad, how did she get past you and outside from all the way upstairs? A five-foot woman in high heels.’
He ignored that question and explained that she’d hit the road and jumped into a passing vehicle. This news increased the tempo of Dave’s complaints. He’d expected rage from Mick, but there was none. The man simply shook his head like a parent disappointed in a child.
Brad said: ‘She’s running for her life. Scared. That’s what you wanted. What’s the problem?’
‘Shut the screeching, Dave. Why don’t I show you the problem, Brad? Open the door.’
* * *
Brad entered the house, his worry rising. The kitchen hummed with modern technology but retained a graceful air with bespoke cabinets, a slate floor and exposed timbers. There was a wine rack. It had been attached to the wall beside a tall freezer, but was now broken on the floor, bottles scattered or shattered everywhere, and in among them was a man in a white suit, sitting against the wall. The red soaking his torso wasn’t a vintage Bordeaux.
Grafton. Dead.
Mick spoke from right behind him, like a devil on his shoulder. ‘I wish you could have seen his face. He knew the end was coming.’
Brad could hear Dave further back, still moaning.
‘I’m thinking the plan to put him in a wheelchair looks like a no-go now, right?’ Brad asked, shocked. But was he really that surprised? He knew what Mick was capable of.
‘Well, I fucking apologise, Brad. I went a bit far.’
Brad turned to him. ‘You didn’t go too far, Mick. You made the exact journey you planned. You were going to kill this guy all along.’
‘For what he did to me, you really think it was going to be just a scare? Really?’
The silence of the house. Dave’s constant moaning. The fact Dave and Mick had been waiting outside, no balaclavas. Something was horribly wrong about that picture. Brad moved through the kitchen and stopped in a hallway with a vaulted ceiling and paintings lining both walls. It was there he learned exactly what was wrong.
Another body. Another man. This guy wore jeans and a corduroy jacket. He was down on his face, and there was a chunk missing from where his shoulder and neck met, as if a giant bite had been taken out of him. The shotgun blast had taken him in the back. As he ran away.
‘He had the audacity to turn his back on me, this one,’ Mick said.
Brad ignored him. The vast living room was next. Three-quarters of the floor was carpeted, the rest wood and set aside for an office. Here again was a vaulted ceiling in white and exposed timbers painted black. Colour had been added with yellow and green spotlights arranged artfully around all the walls. The lounge section of the room had a corner sofa and upon it, sitting back as if relaxing in front of the TV, was a woman in a dress. A spotlight above the sofa bathed her in green, making Brad think of some bizarre art exhibit. Her death had been cleaner because she had just a single bullet hole in her forehead. No blood, strangely. His head spun.
‘Jesus Christ, Mick, what the hell is this? We came here to put Grafton in a wheelchair, but he’s dead. That was overkill. But this. I don’t know what the hell to call this.’
Dave followed them into the room looking like he’d just lost a winning lottery ticket. ‘This is a fucking escalation into a new universe, that’s what this is. What do we do? And the woman’s running around out there. So now we’re fucked.’
‘Not if we get her before she goes to the cops,’ Mick said.
‘She’s probably in a police station right now,’ Dave screamed.
Mick grabbed Dave’s shoulders. He was a clear head taller than him. ‘Calm down. She won’t be running to the cops tonight. She’ll expect this to have been a robbery, or some guys wanting to give her sweet hubby a hiding. Like you said, he always told her: if any shit kicks off, crawl under a rock and wait it out. So, she’ll just hide away somewhere till morning, and then try to call him, or go to some place they pre-arranged. He’d fucking kill her if she brought the cops around. So she won’t be going to any fucking police station tonight. Hell, he’s Mr Invincible, remember. Maybe she thinks he killed us all. So, we have time to find her.’
‘And then what?’ Brad said. ‘Kill her right out in the open?’
Dave was shaking his head. ‘We need to sterilise this place and get rid of the bodies. Make out somehow that Grafton fled. No one was ever here. Let’s think about this. No one knows about this place. Everyone thinks he’s in Spain. That gives us time to get rid of the bodies. We could torch the place afterwards. It won’t matter if his wife goes to the cops after that.’
Mick let him go. ‘That wasn’t the plan—’
‘This slaughterhouse wasn’t the damn plan!’ Dave yelled.
Mick pulled something from his pocket, holding it out to Dave and Brad. ‘This was the plan. And we’re sticking to it. It will work. Understand, you two?’
Dave glared at the item in Mick’s palm. ‘Provided he didn’t go to a party five minutes after I stopped watching him. He could be surrounded by witnesses.’ That would muck up their plan entirely.
‘It buys time. It gives him a damn headache. That’s enough for me. So that’s the plan. Right, Dave?’
‘Whatever!’ Dave said, throwing up his arms like a petulant child.
‘Right, Brad?’ Mick asked.
Brad didn’t speak, and he didn’t look. He was staring at the woman on the sofa. The only one who hadn’t fled. When they had burst into the house, the three dead people had been in here, very much alive and sitting on the sofa and chatting. Grafton’s wife had been upstairs, using the toilet. When Brad had gone up to get her, he’d left Dave and Mick holding their guns – a shotgun for Dave and a pistol for Mick – on the three captives. Brad could see now how it had gone down. At some point after Brad had climbed through the bathroom window in pursuit of Grafton’s wife, Mick had shot sofa woman, and the two men had fled. No way would Dave have pulled the trigger, so Mick must have taken the shotgun from him and pursued the two men. He had probably blasted the other guy first just because he was a loose end – an obstacle between Mick and his target. Grafton must have thanked his lucky stars when he heard the explosion in the tiny hallway and the guy next to him had dropped. But there were no lucky stars a few seconds later. Grafton hadn’t been shot in the back, so, trapped in the kitchen, he probably turned to face his executioner. Mick probably said something to the man before pulling the trigger. Probably smiled right at him, knowing the last laugh was his.