The Last Witness

was egging Ryall on because he feared they might only have seconds left. And it suddenly hit him that if Ryall uncovered their game, realized that they were trying to entrap him — Lorena could be in danger. He glanced anxiously at the phone, wondering whether to call Crowley and stop it all now; except that they wouldn’t get there in time. If the game was up, Ryall would know everything within the next couple of minutes.

‘Different things. He… he seemed worried if I was happy with them.’

‘Happy with them… happy with them? But what did he ask you in particular about them?’

Crunch time. Bell’s stomach sank. Their only hope was if Lorena wasn’t really under, could bluff and lie her way through. Ryall’s hand was on the move again: it traced tantalisingly down her arm and across, coming to rest on her stomach. Still not enough.

‘He… he asked me if anything bad was happening to me. Anything I didn’t like.’

‘What sort of bad things? What did he — ’ Ryall suddenly broke off, looking towards the door as the telephone started ringing.

Late for anyone to be calling, but then this was the night his stepdaughter had returned: maybe a relative or well-wisher. Bell’s pulse raced double-time. Was Lorena awake and fending Ryall off, or relating accurately how the session had gone? With the danger of FMS, Lowndes would probably have avoided directly prompting about Ryall molesting her. But within a few questions, Ryall would unearth the truth. The telephone stopped ringing: either they’d given up or Nicola Ryall had answered.

And as Ryall looked down again at Lorena and finished his question, Bell leant closer to the screen, his eyes only inches away, following every small movement: the delicate flicker behind her closed eyes, her gentle moistening with her tongue as she spoke. His hands were balled tight in fists, and he unclenched one and lightly touched the screen. ‘Come on little angel, be awake. Be awake.’ But he couldn’t tell either way.

Jean-Paul noticed the car trailing in his rear-view mirror soon after hanging up on Chenouda. Two cars behind, a steady fifty yards. But he was sure it was the same car he’d seen follow him into Avenue Papineau from Gouin. He’d since taken two more turns, and it was still with him a mile further on along St Denis.

Just to make sure, Jean-Paul took the next right at Rue Jarry, then left again onto St Laurent heading towards the city centre. It followed at each turn the same steady distance behind — except for the last turn when almost a hundred yards grew between them when they had to wait for a car to pass before pulling out. No doubt left: they were trailing him!

‘Why are we trailing around like this?’ Raphael asked from the back ‘I though we were going to Le Piemontais?’

‘Yes, we are. We are.’ Jean-Paul wrenched his eyes from the mirror. He’d frightened them to get them out of the house, but he didn’t want to panic them now. He’d told Lillian where they were heading when she’d impatiently asked as soon as they’d started moving.

But his eyes couldn’t help being drawn back to the car as he noticed it swing out and overtake the two cars in between, closing the gap again to fifty yards.

As Lorenzo Petrilli cut back in from overtaking the last car, Nunzio asked, ‘Do you think he’s made us?’

‘I don’t know, I…’ Then, as he noticed Jean-Paul glance once more in the mirror. ‘Yeah, yeah — looks like it. I think he must have had some kind of warning. The way he left the house like his ass was on fire… and he made us too easily.’

Nunzio looked at his brother for a second, not sure if he was just making excuses for following too obviously; but what he said made sense. He shrugged. ‘Whatever. We’re going to have to make our move sooner rather than later. Closer to downtown it’s going to get more difficult.’

Lorenzo nodded. Right now they could make the hit and swing on to one of the cross highways and get away easily. Downtown there’d be more junctions before they could get clear, and more police cars. Lorenzo put his foot down, closing the gap towards Jean-Paul’s car.

Jean-Paul’s palms were damp on the steering wheel as he watched the car move closer behind. Surely they weren’t going to make a move with his son and mother with him? They’d wait until he was alone. But as he watched the car edge closer still, that hope began to fade.

With his repeated glances in the mirror, this time Raphael picked up on his consternation. ‘What’s wrong?’

Your uncle has sent someone to have me killed. And Lillian would be even more destroyed at discovering this Cain and Abel drama between her two beloved sons. All he said was, ‘What I was worried about earlier.’ Then, towards Lillian beside him in the front, he hissed under his breath: ‘Cacchione!’ The name meant something to her, but not the boy. That’s what it had been about all along: changing their lives so that his son didn’t have to live in the shadows like he’d had to. But now his son was in the middle of it all; in the end the shadows had reached out to him anyway.

Jean-Paul’s jaw worked tight, cursing Roman: he’d been so eager that everything else had quickly gone to the wind; he’d broken the golden rule: never involve other family.

Jean-Paul took the gun out of his jacket and held it in his lap as the car edged closer — only twenty yards behind now — feeling Raphael’s eyes on him anxiously. His father the great protector. In reality he hadn’t fired a gun in years, and Roman knew that too: he’d be an easy target.

The car moved closer — twelve yards, ten — and at that moment its full beam came on, washing them in light. Sudden flash image of him and Roman together as children, playing in the garden on a sunny day as their father called out to them. Happier days. But it faded quickly to the raw reality of the car pressing close behind, almost imagining Roman in the back seat goading them on.

Jean-Paul put his foot down, trying to put some distance between them. Street-lights and neon flickered past more rapidly. He had to concentrate hard on the road ahead. A car edged out suddenly at a turning just ahead, and he blared his horn and swerved around it. He gained some distance, but it was short-lived; checking his mirror, they were rapidly closing the gap again: fifteen yards, then back to twelve again. He checked his speedo: seventy, and edging up.

Jean-Paul was shaking hard, his palms clammy on the wheel. If they pulled alongside, what was he going to do? If he put the window down to get a shot at them, he’d be all the more vulnerable. And he wasn’t even sure he could get in a good shot and control the car with one hand at this speed.

The lights ahead changed to orange, but he kept his foot down hard, screaming through as it turned to red. The car behind stayed with him, a couple of cars beeping at it as they started across the intersection.

‘Watch out!’ Lillian shouted as a bike with a weak tail-light loomed suddenly on the inside.

She’d been remarkably restrained so far: normally she complained if he was doing 10 mph over on a downtown shopping trip. Jean-Paul swung a yard out to clear it, and felt the back drift slightly.

At this speed he risked killing them all anyway. The Cadillac was heavy, difficult to control if he had to swerve or make last second adjustments. He wished now he’d brought the Jag: they’d have been cramped and had less protection, but he could have weaved in and out easier and sped away and probably lost them. Heavy. It suddenly gave him the spark of an idea.

As the car started to close the gap again, this time Jean-Paul let them; he didn’t speed up to try and gain distance. But at the same time he had one eye on the car lights coming towards them.

‘Okay, I think we’ve got him now,’ Lorenzo announced as he closed the distance down to only five yards. He tapped one finger on the steering wheel as he waited on a car passing, then swung quickly out and accelerated. The next approaching lights were some distance away, and didn’t seem to be moving that fast.

Nunzio opened the side window and the air-rush filled the car. He levelled his gun: the Cadillac glass was only slightly tinted, he could pick Jean-Paul out clearly. He thought he had him with a clean shot when the Cadillac suddenly pulled forward a few yards.

Nunzio looked across as Lorenzo frantically pulled level again, eyes darting between the Cadillac and the traffic ahead. And suddenly the shot was there again. Clean. Clear. Nunzio levelled his gun at Jean-Paul’s head and eased the trigger.

A heavy kick and the Cadillac seemed to swing away a fraction with the impact. But as Nunzio focused on the starburst where the bullet had hit, he saw that it hadn’t penetrated. Bullet proof glass! The side of Jean-Paul’s mouth curled in a smile. Nunzio levelled his gun again.