bed in the middle of the room. She somersaulted across it, dragging half the bedclothes with her as she rolled to the floor on the other side.
No way out of the room. She’d cut off her escape route.
But when she ripped open the bedside table drawer and came up from behind the bed with a pistol in both hands, he understood why she’d made for this bedroom. Fight before flight. Definitely his sister.
The numbing crack of the shot filled the small space. He threw himself down and hit the smooth floor, sliding feet first. Crashed into the bottom edge of the bed and flipped it violently up on its side, shattering the bedstead and jamming her between the mattress and the wall. She let out a muffled cry, and the pistol went tumbling out of her hand.
Ben was up on his feet before she could do anything, and tore the bed aside. She threw a punch at him, but she was disoriented by the impact and he easily slapped it aside.
It was time to finish this.
Every so often in his life, Ben had to do things he hated doing. This was one of the worst. With the heel of his right hand he delivered a short, hard, stunning blow to the side of the neck. She went limp and crumpled, knees buckling under her. He caught her before she could fall to the floor.
‘I’m sorry, Ruth.’ He laid her down on the broken bed, checked her pulse. When he was sure he hadn’t done her any lasting harm, he picked up the fallen pistol, made it safe and stuffed it in his pocket. Then he grabbed her arms and flipped her body up over his shoulder.
He hadn’t known exactly what his plan was as he followed her home, but now he realised there was only one option open to him if he wanted to get her somewhere quiet and have it out with her. He was going to have to smuggle her back over the border into France and west to Le Val. And he needed to move fast. He was pretty certain there were more than three of the gang living here. Sooner or later, someone was going to return home, and he didn’t want to be there when they did. He might not be so lucky if four or five of them jumped him at once – especially if they were armed.
He carried his sister out to the poultry shed. Her two friends, the handsome one and the scrawny bearded one, were still out cold. He laid her very carefully down next to them and used more of the cable-ties to bind her wrists and ankles, taking care not to pull them so tight against her flesh. Then he taped her mouth and ran to fetch the car.
A body was a tight fit inside the boot of a Mini. Not the best car in the world for this purpose, he thought as he lowered her gently inside the cramped space, but he guessed that was something the designers hadn’t felt the need to consider. He did his best to position her comfortably for when she woke up, then slammed the lid.
He stared pensively at the back of the car. Sighed, bit his lip, shook his head. No, that wasn’t going to do at all. He had a long drive ahead, and it was a confined space in there with very little ventilation. He’d only just found her. The last thing he wanted was to suffocate her.
‘Fuck it,’ he said out loud. Opened up the boot, slipped the pistol out of his pocket. Thumbed off the safety, picked the best angle and emptied the rest of the magazine into the inside of the metal panel. The 9mm bullets punched neat round holes through the shiny green bodywork. Fourteen of them. When he closed the boot lid a second time, it looked like a colander – but at least she’d be able to breathe.
He walked back to the poultry shed, thinking about what he was going to do about the other two. If they’d been the kind of shaved-headed hard-nuts who normally went about wearing swastika badges, he might just have left them to rot where they lay. But these guys were different. Something else was going on.
He trotted over to the house, yanked the carving knife Ruth had thrown at him out of the doorframe, and snatched a black felt pen from the table where the phone was. He used the knife to cut the ties around the handsome one’s wrists, then reached into his bag for another tie and attached the guy’s left hand to the bearded one’s ankle. He tossed the carving knife a few yards across the garden, so that they’d see it when they came to. The good-looking one would be able to use his free hand to cut himself and his friend loose, but not before they’d had to drag themselves several very difficult yards over the ground. That should delay things a bit.
One of the principal advantages of committing crimes against criminals was that they tended not to call the police to complain about it afterwards. But in Ben’s experience you could never be too careful, and that was what the felt pen was for. He rolled the bearded guy over on his back and used it to write on his forehead.
On the way back to Le Val, Ben’s phone rang. It was Brooke.
‘Just wanted to check in and see how things were going.’
‘Things are … interesting,’ he said.
‘Where are you?’
‘On my way home. I should be there by midnight.’
‘Did you find her?’ Brooke asked after a pause.
‘Yes. I did.’
‘And it’s definitely Ruth?’
‘It’s definitely Ruth.’
‘I don’t know what to say, Ben.’
‘You don’t have to say anything,’ he replied.
‘So what’s happening? Where is she now?’
‘Here with me.’
‘She came with you?’
He hesitated. He’d already lied once to Brooke about his sister in the last few days, and he wasn’t about to do it again. ‘She’s in the boot,’ he said simply.
A moment’s shocked silence on the line. ‘What did you just say?’
‘I said she’s in the boot. But she’ll be all right. She’s tough.’
‘Ben, do you realise what you’re telling me? That the sister you lost because someone kidnapped her is now a prisoner in the back of your car because you went and kidnapped her back? This is insane. You can’t go around snatching people.’
‘I didn’t kidnap her. I rescued her. That’s what I do. I got her out of there, and now I’m taking her home and she and I are going to have it out.’
Another long silence on the other end. Then Brooke said firmly, ‘Right, that’s it. I’m coming over. I’ll be there in the morning.’
‘I can deal with it, Brooke. Stay put.’
‘No, Ben. I seriously don’t think you can. I think you need help. Maybe more than she does. Have you lost your mind?’
‘What about Sabrina? You can’t just leave her there on her own.’
‘Sabrina will be fine. She can take care of herself.’
‘I don’t think—’
She cut across him. ‘See you at Le Val.’ Then, before he could protest, she ended the call.
He drove on into the night, thinking about his cargo in the back and how he was going to handle the situation when he got to the house. He had to admit he was flying blind now. No situation he’d ever found himself in before came remotely close to this.
Just before midnight, he arrived at the Le Val security gate and saw the figure of Raymond come out of the gatehouse. He and his colleagues Claude and Jean-Yves were the three-man local security outfit Ben had hired to man the gates and patrol the perimeter. Ben rolled down the window and greeted him, trying to look as natural as possible without hanging around long enough for the guy to spot the bullet-riddled back end of the car or hear its occupant moving about inside. Raymond didn’t notice anything.
