He was tall and lean in mud-splattered white overalls with a denim jacket over them. He was unshaven and the dark stubble gave his narrow face a saturnine look. His eyes were shrewd as he backed up to the wall. ‘Bullshit. You’ve come for her. Well, you can have her. Just leave me alone.’
‘Damien.’
‘Shut up! Fair trade? Her for me?’
‘No trade, Talbot. Megan, your mother sent me to get you.’
She’d been lying down until that one word – mother – brought her upright. She sprang from the mattress. I could see the athleticism that had carried her over Tadpole Creek so easily, but her dark, beaky face was twisted with rage.
‘Mother! Some fuckin’ mother. That stuck-up bitch abandoned me at birth.’
‘Yeah! Tell ‘em, Meg.’
Talbot was high on something or perhaps coming down. His hands were clenching and unclenching as he flexed muscles in his arms and shoulders. He was going to be hard to control.
‘You can talk to her about that,’ I said. Just come with me, both of you.’
‘No!’ She threw herself in front of Talbot, who’d been waiting for something just like this. He grabbed her around the throat in an arm lock and took something from the bib pocket of his overalls. A click and a twenty- centimetre blade was against her throat.
‘Put the gun down or I’ll take her head off.’
I wondered if he had the strength to hold her. She looked physically capable of contesting with him, but the knife made the difference. He had the point under her chin and she could feel it.
‘You’re in trouble, Talbot,’ I said. ‘I mean over the guard. But it’s not the end of the world. If you let Megan go and come with me it’ll be better for you. Something in your favour. You’re looking at prison but not forever. Harm her and it’s entirely different. Kidnapping plus more violence and you’ll be lucky to be out before you’re fifty.’
‘Fifty,’ he sneered. ‘Who cares about fifty.’
‘You will, believe me.’
‘Believe you? That’s a joke. I haven’t believed anyone but myself for…’
‘You’re talking to yourself. Stop it! Let her go. She hasn’t hurt you.’
‘The fuck she hasn’t. Everyone’s hurt me and I’m just starting to hurt back. If you want her still breathing drop the fuckin’ gun!’
There was no chance I’d let him have the gun. I ejected the magazine and threw it back into the passage. I dropped the gun onto the mattress and came forward.
‘Stay there!’ he yelled.
I stopped. I had to keep him talking, shake him somehow and give Megan a chance to get away. ‘What happened between you and the doctor, Talbot?’
‘That fat bastard. He lied to me like everyone else. He promised me… Back off!’
‘But he cut you loose when you killed the guard, right?’
He wasn’t listening and Megan wasn’t doing anything constructive. Talbot slid along the wall towards the French windows that gave out onto the deck. He was stronger than he looked, dragging Megan with him easily and keeping the knife where it belonged.
‘Smart arse. Fuckin’ smart arse. We’re leaving and you’re not going to stop us.’
Then I realised that she wasn’t resisting. She was going along with him. They reached the windows and Talbot leaned his weight against them. They sprang apart and the wind billowed Talbot and Megan’s clothes as they backed out onto the deck. I picked up the empty gun and followed. I had a spare magazine in my jacket but this didn’t seem like the time to produce it.
The wind was howling and the whole building shook as gusts hit it. The deck was in as ruinous a state as the rest of the house and Talbot’s boots slipped as he moved towards the corner of the house. There had to be some way down at the side – steps or a ladder – but I hadn’t seen it. This wasn’t too bad, Megan wasn’t fighting him but where could they go? If this continued on up to the van the odds’d be even.
‘There’s nowhere to go, Talbot,’ I shouted ‘Your van’s been disabled.’
‘I’ll take your car or whatever I can find.’ He cut her and the blood ran down her neck. I don’t think she felt it. She was going with him, backing around the corner.
‘Megan. Your brother’s up there. He…’
She screamed: ‘I haven’t got a brother! I haven’t got anybody!’
She pushed away from him like a middleweight breaking a lightweight’s clinch, and came at me with her fingers spread, thrusting at my eyes. I side-stepped and she hit the wall with a force that made the deck shake. Talbot lunged forward, then grabbed the rail and moved back around the corner. I slipped and skidded after him. The full force of the wind hit him; he staggered and the rail gave way. He went over the edge into the roaring torrent and disappeared.
‘Damien! No!’
Megan French came up beside me, shoved me aside like something weightless and for a moment I was sure she was going to jump from the deck into the surging water. I grabbed her arms and held her but there was no need. She sagged against me and I helped her back into the house. She dropped down onto the mattress and squatted there with her knees drawn up and her head in her hands.
‘He can’t swim,’ she said.
I crouched, careful not to loom over her. ‘It wouldn’t matter,’ I said. ‘Not in that.’
‘I nearly jumped in.’
‘I know, but you didn’t.’
I found myself minutely examining my feelings and reactions. I felt protective, relieved that she was safe, and slightly self-congratulatory that I’d seen things through to this point. Did I feel anything else? Paternal? I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell. Up close, wet and bedraggled as she was, the resemblance to Eve wasn’t striking. Professional instincts were taking over – she was a young woman, the subject of my enquiries, and in trouble.
She rubbed the sleeves of her sweater across her eyes, face and hair and looked at me. ‘What now? Police?’
‘I don’t know. What happened with the guard?’
‘It was a sort of accident really. Damien challenged him and the guard hit him with his torch. Damien lost his cool and took the torch away and…’
‘Did you see this?’
‘No. That’s what Damien told me. He was sort of pleased to have killed someone at last. Always knew he would. But he was scared, too.’
‘Why did you go with him?’
She shrugged.
‘Megan…’
‘Get fucked. Who’re you that I should tell you things?’
That’s when I made a decision. ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘You can come with me and see your mother and try to behave like a human being. If you do that I’ll try to protect you. Or I can just throw you to the cops as Talbot’s accomplice. Your choice.’
Too hard, I thought as soon as I’d said it. She’s too young to handle stuff like that. But I was wrong. The real measure of a person is in terms of what he or she has been through and Megan French had been through a lot. She looked around the dilapidated room and the few possessions she and Talbot had brought into it. Blood was still trickling from the cut but she was unaware of it.
‘I used to come here when I was a student.’
‘I know. Your… Mrs French, told me. That’s how I got here. She cares about you.’
‘Jesus, you really have been digging, haven’t you? What’s your name?’
‘Hardy. Cliff Hardy.’
She sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. ‘Don’t tell me she’s pissed that bastard off?’
‘Her husband? No, she just got away from him for a bit. Just long enough.’
‘Poor dumb thing. If I go along with you, what about Damien?’
‘He’ll be found and it’ll be over.’
‘What about me?’
