9 AM
KIT ran outside. The engine of the Mercedes was throbbing low, and the snow on its hood was already melting from the heat. The windshield and side windows were partly clear where he had hastily swept them with his hands. He jumped in, stuffing the perfume spray into his jacket pocket. Nigel clambered into the passenger seat, grunting with the pain of his gunshot wound.
Kit put the automatic gearshift into drive and touched the accelerator pedal. The car seemed to strain forward, but did not move. The plow had stopped a couple of feet away, and snow was piled two feet high in front of the bumper. Kit increased pressure on the pedal as the car labored to move the snow out of the way. "Come on!" Kit said. "This is a Mercedes, it ought to be able to shift a few pounds of snow! How big is the damn engine, anyway?" He pressed a little harder, but he did not want the wheels to lose traction and begin to spin. The car eased forward a few inches, and the piled-up snow seemed to crack and shift. Kit looked back. His father and Toni stood outside the house, watching. They would come no closer, Kit guessed, because they knew Nigel had the guns.
The car suddenly sprang forward as the snow gave way.
Kit felt a soaring elation as he accelerated along the cleared driveway. Steepfall had seemed like a jail from which he would never escape—but he had. He passed the garage—and saw Daisy.
He braked reflexively.
Nigel said, "What the hell?"
Daisy was walking toward them, supported by Craig on one side and by Ned's sulky daughter, Sophie, on the other. Daisy's legs dragged uselessly behind her, and her head was a mass of blood. Beyond them was Stanley's Ferrari, its sensuous curves battered and deformed, its gleaming blue paintwork scraped and scratched. What the hell had happened there?
"Stop and pick her up!" Nigel said.
Kit remembered how Daisy had humiliated him and almost drowned him in her father's pool only yesterday. "Fuck her," he said. He was at the wheel, and he was not going to delay his escape for her. He put his foot down.
* * *
THE long green hood of the Mercedes seemed to lift like the head of an eager horse, and it leaped forward. Craig had only a second to act. He grabbed the hood of Sophie's anorak with his right hand and pulled her to the side of the drive, moving the same way himself. Because they were tangled up with Daisy, she moved with them, and all three fell into the soft snow beside the track, Daisy screaming in pain and rage.
The car shot past, missing them by inches, and Craig glimpsed his Uncle Kit at the wheel. He was flabbergasted. Kit had nearly killed him. Was it intentional, or had Kit known that Craig had time to get out of the way?
"You bastard!" Daisy screamed after the car, and she leveled her pistol.
Kit accelerated past the crashed Ferrari and along the curving driveway that ran beside the cliff top. Craig watched, frozen, as Daisy took aim. Her hand was steady, despite the pain she was in. She squeezed off a shot, and Craig saw a rear side window shatter.
Daisy tracked the speeding car with her arm and fired repeatedly, cartridge cases spewing from the ejection slot of the gun. A line of bullet holes appeared in the car's side, then there was a different kind of bang. A front tire blew out and a strip of rubber flew through the air.
The car continued in a straight line for a second. Then it slewed sideways, its hood plowing into the piled snow at the side of the drive, sending up a fantail of white. The back swung out and crashed into the low wall that ran along the cliff edge. Craig heard the metallic scream of tortured steel.
The car skidded sideways. Daisy kept firing, and the windshield shattered. The car went into a slow roll, tilting sideways, seeming to hesitate, then toppling over onto its roof. It slid a few feet upside down then came to a stop.
Daisy stopped shooting and fell backwards, her eyes closed.
Craig stared at her. The gun fell from her hand. Sophie started to cry.
Craig reached across Daisy. He watched her eyes, terrified that they would open at any moment. His hand closed over the warm gun. He picked it up.
He held it in his right hand and put his finger into the trigger guard. He pointed it at a spot exactly between Daisy's eyes. All he cared about was that this monster should never threaten him and Sophie and their family ever again. Slowly, he squeezed the trigger.
The gun clicked on an empty magazine.
* * *
KIT was lying flat on the inside roof of the overturned car. He felt bruised all over, and his neck hurt as if he had twisted it, but he could move all his limbs. He managed to right himself. Nigel lay beside him, unconscious, possibly dead.
Kit tried to get out. He pulled the handle and pushed at the door, but it would not move. Something had jammed in the crash. He hammered madly at it with his fists, with no result. He jabbed at the button of the electric window, but nothing happened. He thought frantically that he might be imprisoned until the fire brigade arrived to cut him out, and he suffered a moment of panic and despair. Then he saw that the windshield was crazed. He shoved at it with his hand and easily pushed out a big section of broken glass.
He crawled through the windshield. He was careless of the broken glass, and a shard cut the palm of his hand painfully. He cried out and sucked the wound, but he could not pause. He slithered out from under the hood of the car and scrambled to his feet. The wind off the sea blew madly in his face. He looked around.
His father and Toni Gallo were running along the drive toward him.
* * *
TONI stopped to look at Daisy. She seemed to be out cold. Craig and Sophie appeared scared but unhurt. "What happened?" Toni said.
"She was shooting at us," Craig replied. "I ran over her."
Toni followed Craig's gaze and saw Stanley's Ferrari, dented at both ends and with all its windows smashed.
Stanley said, "Good God!"
Toni felt for a pulse in Daisy's neck. It was there, but weak. "She's still alive—just."
Craig said, "I've got her gun. It's empty, anyway."
They were all right, Toni decided. She looked ahead to the crashed Mercedes. Kit had climbed out. She ran toward him. Stanley followed close behind.
Kit started to run away, along the drive, heading for the woods; but he was battered and shaken by the crash, and he ran erratically. He was never going to make it, Toni could see. After a few paces he staggered and fell.
He seemed to realize that he could not escape that way. Scrambling to his feet, he changed direction and turned toward the cliff.
Toni glanced into the Mercedes as she passed it. Nigel lay in a crumpled heap, eyes open with the blank stare of the dead. That accounted for the three thugs, Toni thought: one tied up, one unconscious, and one dead. Only Kit was left.
Kit slipped on the icy drive, staggered, regained his balance, and turned around. He took the perfume spray from his pocket and held it out like a gun. "Stop, or I'll kill us all," he said.
Toni and Stanley stopped.
Kit's face was all pain and rage. Toni saw a man who had lost his soul. He might do anything: kill his family, kill himself, destroy the world.
Stanley said, "It won't work out here, Kit."
Toni wondered if that were true. Kit had the same thought, and said, "Why not?"
"Feel this wind," Stanley said. "The droplets will disperse before they can do any harm."
"To hell with it all," Kit said, and he threw the bottle high in the air. Then he turned around, jumped over the low wall, and ran full tilt at the cliff edge a few feet away.
Stanley jumped after him.
Toni caught the perfume bottle before it hit the ground.
Stanley leaped through the air, hands stretched out in front of him. He almost got Kit by the shoulders, but his hands slipped. He hit the ground, but managed to grab one leg and grip it tight. Kit fell to the ground with his head and shoulders jutting out over the edge of the cliff. Stanley jumped on top of him, holding him down with his weight.
Toni looked over the edge, down a hundred-foot drop to where the sea boiled among jagged rocks.
Kit struggled, but his father held him down, and eventually he became still.
Stanley got slowly to his feet and pulled Kit up. Kit's eyes were shut. He was shaking with emotion, like someone in a fit. "It's over," Stanley said. He put his arms around his son and held him. "It's all over now." They stood like that on the edge, with the wind blowing their hair, until Kit stopped shaking. Then, gently, Stanley turned him around and led him back toward the house.
* * *
THE family was in the living room, stunned and silent, still not sure that the nightmare was over. Stanley was talking to the Inverburn ambulance service on Kit's mobile phone while Nellie tried to lick his hands. Hugo lay on the couch, covered in blankets, while Olga bathed his wounds. Miranda was doing the same for Tom and Ned. Kit lay on his back on the floor, eyes closed. Craig and Sophie talked in low voices in a corner. Caroline had found all her rats and sat with their cage on her knees. Toni's mother sat next to Caroline with the puppy in her lap. The Christmas tree twinkled in the corner.
Toni called Odette. "How far away did you say those helicopters
were?"
"An hour," Odette replied. "But that was then. As soon as the snow stopped, I moved them. Now they're at Inverburn, waiting for instructions. Why?"
"I've caught the gang and I've got the virus back, but—"
"What, on your own?" Odette was amazed.
"Never mind that. The important man is the customer, the one who's trying to buy this stuff and use it to kill people. We need to find him."
"I wish we could."
"I think we can, if we act fast. Could you send a helicopter to me?"
"Where are you?"
"At Stanley Oxenford's house, Steepfall. It's right on the cliff exactly fifteen miles north of Inverburn. There are four buildings in a square, and the pilot will see two crashed cars in the garden."
"My God, you have been busy."
"I need the chopper to bring me a bug, a miniature radio beacon, the kind you plant on someone you need to follow. It has to be small enough to fit into a bottle cap."
"How long does the transmitter need to operate?"
"Forty-eight hours."
"No problem. They should have that at police headquarters in Inverburn."
"One more thing. I need a bottle of perfume—Diablerie."
"They won't have that at police headquarters. They'll have to break into Boots in the High Street."
"We don't have much time— Wait." Olga was saying something. Toni looked at her and said, "What is it?"
"I can give you a bottle of Diablerie, just like the one that was on the table. It's the perfume I use."
"Thanks." Toni spoke into the phone. "Forget the perfume, I've got a bottle. How soon can you get the chopper here?"
"Ten minutes."
Toni looked at her watch. "That might not be fast enough."
"Where's the helicopter going after it picks you up?"
"I'll get back to you on that," Toni said, and she ended the call.
She knelt on the floor beside Kit. He was pale. His eyes were closed, but he was not asleep: his breathing was shallow and he trembled intermittently. "Kit," she said. He did not respond. "Kit, I need to ask you a question. It's very important."
He opened his eyes.
"You were going to meet the customer at ten o'clock, weren't you?"
A tense hush fell on the room as the others turned and listened.
Kit looked at Toni but said nothing.
She said, "I need to know where you were going to meet them."
He looked away.
"Kit, please."
His lips parted. Toni leaned closer. He whispered, "No."
"Think about it," she urged. "You might earn forgiveness, in time."
"Never."
"On the contrary. Little harm has been done, though much was intended. The virus has been recovered."
His eyes moved from side to side as he looked from one family member to the next.
Reading his mind, Toni said, "You've done a great wrong to them, but they don't yet seem ready to abandon you. They're all around you."
He closed his eyes.
Toni leaned closer. "You could begin to redeem yourself right now."
Stanley opened his mouth to speak, but Miranda stopped him with a raised hand. She spoke instead. "Kit, please," she said. "Do one good thing, after all this rottenness. Do it for yourself, so that you'll know you're not all bad. Tell her what she needs to know."
Kit closed his eyelids tight, and tears appeared. At last he said, "Inverburn Flying School."
"Thank you," Toni whispered.