Fifth Victim

look what you did …’

‘Crazy? No. Livid? Well, now you’re talking.’

‘Hey, I—’

I didn’t have time for this. So far, nothing had stirred in the buildings on either flank, but how long that state of affairs would continue was anyone’s guess. I lunged forwards and grabbed the biceps of his right arm, just about in the centre of the bandaged area, and dug in hard.

The effect was immediate and severe. His speech chopped off, eyes ballooning as the spike of pain locked him up solid. He staggered back against the door-frame, almost fell. I pushed up close.

‘Yeah, getting shot’s a bitch, isn’t it?’

‘Shot? What the shit are you talking about? I ain’t been shot!’

Under the pain I registered surprise – shock, even – but no desperate invention. No outright lies.

‘Prove it – whatever’s under there,’ I said, and when he wavered, I sighed and reached towards the SIG again. ‘Or I will give you something to compare it with. Lose the bandage.’

I didn’t even need to clear the holster. As soon as my hand flipped under my jacket, he was already tugging at the dressing, letting it unravel down his arm like a loosely dressed mummy, paddling it on its way.

Beneath the bandage was a simple rectangle of gauze and a mass of intertwining bruises with a definite shape at their epicentre. I gestured and, with obvious reluctance, he peeled back the gauze. Only then did I recognise the central pattern on his discoloured flesh.

It was a near-perfect partial imprint of a horse’s hind shoe.

Horses’ hind feet are a very different shape to the front, more oval, less rounded, so their hoofprints are distinctive. And I realised at the same time that I’d been coming at this from completely the wrong direction.

When Cerdo had let rip with both back legs at Dina’s would-be abductor, that day at the riding club, he’d landed a direct hit on the man’s upper arm. That much I knew.

The thin curve of metal with its central fullered groove – designed to give more grip in soft ground – had caused a small but nasty gash, even through the guy’s clothing. It should have been professionally stitched, but I could understand why he’d kept away from the hospitals.

The sheer horsepower behind the blow had also caused a welter of bruises. After several days, they were dispersing in multicoloured array in all directions along his arm. It looked like he’d probably torn up the muscles at the same time.

But no way was it a gunshot wound.

‘Don’t you think it’s ironic,’ I said after a moment’s inspection, ‘that you clobbered Dina’s riding instructor with that baseball bat, and it was her horse who laid into you?’

Ross scowled, carefully sticking the gauze back in place and gathering up the streamers of bandage. He didn’t want to even look at me.

I shrugged. ‘OK, you don’t want to talk here, that’s fine – talk to the police instead.’ I hooked my cellphone out of my pocket, started to dial. ‘But you were the one following me, don’t forget.’

He hadn’t forgotten, not for long. He barely let me key in the first digit.

‘OK, OK! Jesus, why d’you think I’ve been on the run, man? I daren’t go home, in case the cops are there already. We thought the big guy at the riding club was the bodyguard, all right?’ he admitted through his teeth. ‘All we knew was she had a bodyguard called Charlie, and it sounded like she called him that. How the hell were we supposed to know you’d be a chick, huh? I mean, c’mon – shit, I thought your name was Pam or something.’

It might almost have been funny, if it wasn’t so bloody tragic instead. ‘What were you going to do if you’d managed to grab her?’ I asked. ‘Bury her alive? Or beat her to death first, like Torquil?’

‘No! No way! Listen, that wasn’t anything to do with us. You gotta believe me.’ His tone had turned wheedling. I wondered if he knew it did nothing for his cause.

I squared up to him, glanced at the phone still in my hand, as if in warning. ‘Who’s “us”, exactly?’

The emotions that crossed his face might have been comical in other circumstances. On the one hand, he wanted desperately to confess to the crimes he saw as his own, but he must have known he was hopelessly compromised if he did.

‘I’m not the police,’ I added, hoping he wouldn’t pick up on the fact I hadn’t promised not to call them regardless.

‘Me and Lennon,’ he said at last, unwillingly convinced.

‘So, does that make you McCartney?’

The Beatles reference was lost on him. He gave me a puzzled frown.

I sighed. ‘OK, Ross, so you admit you and your pal were behind the attempt on Dina at the riding club—’

‘No!’ he said again. ‘We just carried it out, OK? But the brains behind the whole thing? No way.’

‘Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?’ I murmured. ‘Who was giving you your orders?’

He flushed at that, but gave me a shrug that seemed as frustrated as it was reflexive.

‘Lennon was the one who dealt with them, man. He just used to get text messages. Instructions, directions. That’s how we knew where to find Dina and that she had a bodyguard. Lennon showed me the texts, but I never knew who sent them. He just asked me to help him out, so I did, y’know? We’re buds.’

I remembered the old saying about a friend is someone who will help you move, but a real friend will help you move a body. Looked like Ross was a real friend …

‘Helping out your “bud” probably just earned you life with no possibility of parole,’ I said coldly, going for the phone again.

‘Wait!’ he cried, the desperation sending his voice climbing. ‘Look, I’ll tell you everything, but you’ve gotta help me. Lennon asked me to give him a hand to take the other three, sure, and we had a go for the kid you were with – at the riding stables. But it was all, like, play-acting, not for real! Jesus, what d’you take me for?’

‘From where I’m standing? A kidnapper and murderer.’

‘Murder?’ he demanded, almost a squawk. ‘Hey, I tell you, someone’s trying to frame us for killing the Eisenberg kid.’ He shook his head vigorously, shivered in the mild air. ‘That was nothing to do with me. I never signed on for that.’

‘So, where do I find your buddy Lennon?’ I asked, grim. ‘Sounds like he and I really need to talk.’

‘That’s just it, man, I don’t know,’ he muttered, sour and defiant in equal measure. ‘You not been listening? Why d’you think I’m here? He’s gone. All I know is he got a message a couple days ago. He went out, saying he’d be back real soon, and how they’d promised him something big, and I ain’t seen him since!’

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

‘Lennon got me into this whole thing,’ Ross said dully. ‘We were on the same basketball team in college.’

‘College kids?’ I murmured. It didn’t quite have the ring of the ghetto about it. ‘So, what went wrong?’

‘My dad lost his job, and his medical benefits, so when my mom got sick …’ He gave an expressive twitch of his shoulders. ‘I was bussing tables, parking cars, anything to earn a dime. Only trouble was, I had no time to study. I flunked out. This was like a gift, y’know? Man, I needed that money.’

‘Spare me,’ I said shortly. ‘Not everyone who’s having a hard time of it turns to kidnapping to make ends meet.’

His gaze flashed out, sharp and angry. ‘Yeah? Look around you!’

We were sitting in a grubby little bar about a mile away from the site of our collision. I’d called the breakdown recovery service Armstrong-Meyer used, given them directions, and told them to collect the wrecked Accord and wait for further instructions.

Ross left the keys tucked above the sun visor – not that they would do anyone much good. What was left of the car’s engine was proving quietly incontinent on the cracked asphalt, and both front wheels currently sat at odd angles where the whole of the suspension had collapsed.

Nevertheless, the Navigator had made light work of dragging the carcass to the side of the road. A sturdy tow rope was standard equipment for all Parker’s company vehicles.