Road Kill

I had no idea what she was on about but Jamie’s face was a picture of horrified embarrassment. His eyes slid away over my shoulder like they wouldn’t stick.

“I expect we can,” I said evenly. “How about you leave right now and I don’t call the police. That civilised enough for you?”

She made a snorting sound that might have signified amusement. Jamie stood silent between us, equally ignored. I kept my eyes on Isobel’s face and her hands and paid him no attention.

“If it came to it I do have a right to be here,” she pointed out at last. “Legally I am, after all, still Jacob’s wife.”

That was news to me. I knew Jacob and Isobel had been separated since before I’d moved to Lancaster to begin with, but that didn’t mean they had ever actually jumped through the hoops and made it official. I tried to remember if he’d ever mentioned it but couldn’t bring it to mind. She still could be lying, though. Isobel struck me as the kind who would try to brazen out being caught in the wrong.

I inclined my head, mentally crossing my fingers.

“Technically, yes,” I agreed with just enough of a drawl to be insulting. “As far as the laws on trespass go, probably not. Would you care to put it to the test?”

Her eyes narrowed again at that. Her hair was dark and glossy, the colour younger than her face. She pursed her lips and let out a long stream of smoke towards the ceiling. “So Jacob’s left you to play guard dog, has he?” she said sharply. “Where is the old bastard, by the way?”

“Away,” I said. “In Ireland, as a matter of fact.”

She cast a glance towards Jamie but he didn’t catch it. I saw something flicker behind her eyes, fast as a flame, then it was gone and I was left wondering if I’d seen it at all.

“Well, that’s all right then.” She stood up and stubbed the last half of her cigarette out in a saucer containing foreign coins on the mantelpiece. “Last chance. Are you going to play ball or not?”

I shook my head.

She hid the faintest flicker of a smile and shrugged. “Well, if that’s your attitude, I can’t help you,” she said, then raised her voice and barked, “Eamonn!”

I heard a door open behind me and footsteps moving quickly down the flagged passageway from the living room. I’d time to turn as a slim man in a pale grey suit came bowling across the hallway and scooped me up as he came by with an ease that took me by surprise.

“Get rid of her,” Isobel instructed, her tone indifferent.

I heard Jamie begin to protest as I was borne away down the hall towards the front door. His mother told him to shut up in the same crushing kind of voice she must have been using since he was six.

I cursed myself for not expecting that Jacob’s wife might have brought some extra muscle. The man wasn’t a traditional heavy but he was deft and professional, nonetheless. He’d undoubtedly done this kind of thing before and the confines of the hallway was not where I wanted to find out how much. I went limp in his arms and waited for the space to make a stand.

When we reached the forecourt Eamonn let go with a jerk, so I was abruptly sent scattering across the mossy cobbles on my hands and knees. Thankful I was in my bike leathers, I rolled through the fall without injury and came back up on my feet.

I found myself facing a pale man with narrow pointed features and dark reddish hair parted at the side. He wasn’t wearing a tie and his shirt collar was open. The jacket of his suit had been intended for someone with wider shoulders, so the front bagged. Maybe he just liked to have plenty of room to manoeuvre, which was probably not a good sign.

He’d also been expecting the surprise manhandling to have thoroughly unnerved me. That it had clearly failed to do so must, I suspected, have been something of a disappointment to him. But there was a gleam of speculation and interest there, too, and that I did find disturbing.

As I watched, his tongue flipped out to wet his thin lips like he was trying to scent the faintest trace of my fear.

“Who sent you?” he demanded. He had a Northern Irish accent and his voice was all the more deadly for being so soft.

I thought of Clare. “None of your damned business,” I said.

“Oh but it is my business,” he said. “It is very much my business.” He smiled unpleasantly at me and moved in, putting his feet down with careful delicacy. I backed as he came on. “I want you to take a message back to your boss man – whoever he is,” he went on, still smiling. “You can tell them it was a nice try, but if they think that’s going to stop me, they can think again.”

Before I had time to ask what the hell he was on about, Eamonn had reached into his jacket and pulled a black cylinder out of his inside pocket. I recognised it instantly and all the hairs stood up on the back of my neck.

As he brought it out he flicked the cylinder downwards with enough force to deploy the two inner segments. They telescoped outwards with a smooth mechanical click and locked into place making a solid baton about a foot and a half long.

The baton was similar to the asps the police use, the kind I’d been trained on for crowd control when firearms were not an option. The kind that, if wielded skilfully, could inflict all manner of nasty damage on the human body. And Eamonn struck me as someone who would practice with an unbecoming zeal.

His smile grew broader but my eyes were drawn to the baton which he was lazily swinging in front of me. I flicked my glance outwards, trying not to become blinded to other threats but there weren’t any. It was just Eamonn and me.

“Now don’t you be worrying too much,” he said. “I’m only planning on breaking the one ankle, so you’ll still be able to ride away on that little bike of yours.”