Heathen/Nemesis

Stark was lying on his back in the motel room, his shirt open to reveal the bullet wound close to his navel. Blood pumped slowly from the hole, which was tinged black and purple at the edges.

Kellerman himself looked bad. His nose was little more than a bloodied lump and the bruising around his left eye was so severe he could barely see out of it. He had two or three minor cuts and grazes on his cheeks; they looked as if someone had pulled a fork through the flesh.

On the other bed in the double room of the Travelodge David Ryker sat, head bowed, hands clapped to both sides of his skull. Every now and then he would spit blood onto the carpet. He had bandaged his cut hand so tightly his fingers were beginning to go numb. He touched his shattered front teeth with his other hand, feeling part of one smashed incisor come free. He spat out enamel and blood.

Farrell was sitting at the table in the room, thumbing 9mm bullets into two magazines for the UZI. Each held thirty-two rounds.

Fucking women, he thought, pushing the high calibre shells into the box magazine. Fucking bloody women. They were spoiling everything, those two troublesome cunts. He gritted his teeth, loading the bullets more quickly. Jesus, he’d make them pay. Especially Ward’s wife. That fucking bitch would wish she’d never seen the book or him or anything to do with it. He’d put a bullet in her brain himself. No, he’d put several in. Hold the UZI against the base of her skull and let rip. Blow her fucking head right off. Turn her face and head into confetti. He slammed the full magazine into the weapon and gripped it for a moment, the veins in his temple throbbing angrily.

On the bed Stark groaned loudly and clapped hands to the wound.

‘We’ve got to do something about him,’ snapped Kellerman.

‘Have you got any suggestions?’ Farrell wanted to know ‘Do you want to call the ambulance yourself? Why not call the police, while you’re at it? Tell them how he was shot. What he was doing when that crazy mare put three fucking bullets in him. Go on, call them.’ He banged his fist down on the table and glared at Kellerman.

‘We’ll have to leave him here,’ said Ryker, probing another loose tooth.

‘And when he’s found?’ Kellerman asked. ‘What then?’

‘We’ll be long gone,’ Farrell said. ‘There’s nothing to link him to us. We’ll take his ID with us so they won’t be able to identify him.’

Stark coughed, a sticky flux of phlegm and blood spilling over his lips. The movement made the pain worse and he groaned even more loudly.

Farrell regarded the man impassively.

‘I didn’t expect them to have guns,’ said Kellerman, gazing down at his stricken companion.

Farrell didn’t answer.

Ryker got to his feet and wandered into the bathroom. He inspected the damage to his mouth again, wincing as he saw just how much destruction Julie had wrought with the hammer. His lip was torn, a flap of skin hanging uselessly from it. The area between his gashed top lip and his nose was heavily bruised. Blood had congealed on his other front teeth; when he licked his tongue back and forth he could taste the coppery tang. He allowed a long streamer of mucus to hang from his mouth, watching as it struck the white enamel of the sink and trickled slowly into the plughole, leaving a crimson slick behind it.

‘So we leave him here?’ Kellerman protested. ‘Just leave him to die . . .’

‘Do you want to stay with him?’ hissed Farrell, turning the UZI on Kellerman. ‘Do you?’

Kellerman looked at the dying man, then stepped away from the bed.

‘What about the women? Do we go back there? Try again?’ Ryker asked, returning from the bathroom, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Farrell shook his head.

‘We follow them. Let them lead us to it. Then we’ll take care of them.’ He stroked the short barrel of the sub-machine gun. His eyes strayed to the telephone. The other two men saw him looking at it.

‘What makes you think they’ll try to get it?’ Ryker asked. ‘After what happened tonight they might have had enough.’

‘This isn’t over until we’ve got that book. Besides, Ward’s wife will want to get her hands on it. She’s stubborn, like her fucking old man was. She won’t give up now.’

He looked at the phone again then lifted the receiver, aware that his hand was shaking.

He dialled the number and waited.

Seventy-One

Julie Craig sat at the wheel of the Fiesta, her head bowed. She sucked in a deep breath then looked up, squeezing her eyelids tightly together as if to clear the fuzziness which clouded her vision. But it wasn’t her vision that was affected, she realized; it was her mind. She felt as if someone had wrapped her thoughts in a blanket. Reasoning seemed difficult; actions were a major effort.

‘Do you want me to drive?’ Donna asked, looking across at her sister.

‘No, it’s okay,’ Julie replied, starting the engine.

The rain slowed to a fine drizzle which hung over the countryside like a dirty curtain. The yard in front of the house and the dirt track were little more than liquid mud. The rear wheels of the Fiesta spun, trying to gain purchase in the sucking ooze. Finally Julie stepped harder on the accelerator and the vehicle moved off. She flicked on the windscreen wipers. One of them squeaked but neither woman seemed to notice the irritating sound. Both kept their eyes fixed firmly ahead.

Donna dared not settle herself too comfortably into her seat in case she dozed off. She doubted she’d had more than three hours sleep the previous night, and Julie only a little more. It showed, too; despite their make-up, they both looked pale and wan. Donna had managed to disguise the worst of the bruising on her top lip beneath some foundation cream and a little rouge had given at least some artificial colour to her cheeks, but as she pulled down the sun-visor on the driver’s side and peered into the mirror she realized she looked as tired as she felt.

She had no idea how long the drive into Portsmouth would take. Two hours, perhaps less? The road conditions and Julie’s emotional state weren’t going to help. Again Donna asked if she should drive but Julie merely shook her head.

‘This man at the waxworks,’ she said. ‘What’s his name? Paxton? Have you ever met him?’

‘No, but Chris got on well with him. He helped him a lot with research about the history of the building, how the models are made, that sort of thing.’ She sighed. ‘Chris must have trusted him in order to hide the Grimoire there.’

No one is to be trusted.

‘But he didn’t say whereabouts he hid it?’

‘No. I doubt if Paxton knows either,’ Donna said, looking at the piece of paper she’d collected the day before. Beside the address of the waxworks, it also had two phone numbers. One she guessed was the owner’s home number; as it was Sunday, she might well need it. Off season, she doubted if the attraction would be open. It was hardly the weather to attract day-trippers, either.

‘So what do we do when we find it?’ Julie asked.

‘I wish I knew,’ Donna confessed. ‘Read it?’ She smiled thinly.

She glanced at the dashboard clock.

1.56 p.m.

By the time they reached the outskirts of Portsmouth the rain had practically stopped, but the sky was still slate grey and threatening. There wasn’t much traffic on the roads until they approached the city centre, and then roads became a little more clogged. Julie had cold air blowing into the car in an effort to keep them both alert. The crushing weariness was a formidable enemy, though, and she felt her eyelids drooping as if they’d been weighted.

‘I’m going to have to stop for a while, Donna,’ she said finally. ‘I’m practically driving asleep.’