Silva stood and weaved between the tables, heading for the toilets. She glanced over her shoulder. Sean was at the bar, trying to attract the attention of the barman. Silva changed direction and made for the exit. To one side of the door there was an array of coat hooks, empty in this warm weather aside from Silva’s leather jacket and helmet. She grabbed them and slipped outside, sprinting across the road to where she’d left her motorbike. A few seconds later she was riding away, dodging cyclists and pedestrians, and trying not to look back.
Chapter Thirty
She headed south, intending to rendezvous with Itchy at Fairchild’s place. First though, she wanted to check on her father.
It was a little after nine thirty in the evening when she coaxed the bike up the gravel drive. The house loomed dark against a red sky, clouds piling in from the west. The windows stood black and empty, as if the place had been abandoned long ago.
She pulled up at the steps and turned the engine off. The headlight dimmed and she was left sitting astride the bike in a pale gloom. When she removed her helmet she could hear nothing except the distant rumble of a tractor and, closer, a pheasant clucking out a call as it flew up to a roost in the branches of a nearby tree.
Silva dismounted and moved towards the front door. She climbed the steps and turned the big brass doorknob. The door opened.
‘Dad?’ she said. ‘Are you here?’
Nothing.
She walked in and carefully closed the door behind her. She fumbled at the wall until she found a switch. She flicked it and lights came on in the hall and stairwell.
‘Dad? Mrs Collins?’
A wash of embarrassment came over her as she pictured her dad and Mrs Collins upstairs, going at it like teenagers. She moved to the foot of the stairs. Listened again. Still nothing. No bed creaking, no sound of Mrs Collins crying out. She shook off the vision and turned and went across the hallway to the kitchen-diner. The table was set for two and a large Le Creuset casserole pot sat on a cast-iron trivet in the centre. Silva walked over and touched the pot. Latent heat, a faint warmth. She lifted the lid. Meat, potatoes, veg. Her father liked to eat at six prompt, retire early. The casserole had been on the table for over three hours.
She lowered the lid with a clink and returned to the hallway. At the far end was an under-the-stairs toilet and the door stood open a crack. A vertical bar of white suggested somebody had left the light on inside. She crossed to the door and pushed it open.
Mrs Collins. Sprawled on the floor, her body contorted, her head twisted to the side as if she had reacted in surprise to something. Her left ear and part of her jaw had gone, blown away by a bullet that had carried on to hit a small mirror above the washbasin. Crazed glass reflected Silva’s face in segments of emotion. Shock. Horror. Fear.
Silva knelt. The head wound hadn’t killed Mrs Collins. There’d been a second shot. Upper left side of the chest. A coup de grâce direct to the heart. The pale-blue apron she’d been wearing bore a smudge of red blood and, farther down, a brown gravy stain.
They’d come shortly before six, then. Mrs Collins had either run to the toilet to hide or she was already inside, perhaps washing her hands before calling Silva’s father to eat.
Dinner’s ready!
Words she never got to say.
Silva stood and eased out of the little room and back into the hall. Where was her father? She shivered, thinking of his bedroom once more, but now the image was of him in a heap like Mrs Collins. If he’d had a chance he’d have defended himself, but this time the attackers would have been forewarned that he was armed.
She ran over to the stairs and bounded up two at a time. On the landing an occasional chair which usually stood by one wall lay on its side and the carpet runner had been scuffed up. She paused outside her father’s room, her hand on the door handle. Despite everything, she loved him. Perhaps because of everything. She pushed the door and, more in hope than in any real expectation, she called out.
‘Dad?’
‘Rebecca.’ The voice came flat and low, and with an undertone of sadness that only came to her too late.
‘Dad!’ Silva flung open the door and rushed in.
‘Rebecca.’ Her father sat in an armchair on the far side of the room. An anglepoise lamp on an occasional table cast yellow light on his face. His head hung low and there was a crimson bruise on his right cheek. His hands lay on his lap, bound together with a cable tie. The sadness had gone from his voice and now there was resignation. Defeat. ‘I’m sorry. I let you down.’
‘Dad, I—’
‘Ms da Silva. So nice to see you again.’ The bulky figure of Greg Mavers emerged from the shadows; beside him stood a grunt holding a pistol. Mavers chomped his jaws together. ‘I’m only sorry it couldn’t have been in more auspicious circumstances.’
‘You.’
‘Well, yes.’
‘He’s an old man.’ Silva gestured at her father. ‘Is that your idea of a fair fight?’
‘Self-defence,’ Mavers said. ‘He’s dangerous. We had to disarm him.’
‘And Mrs Collins? Was that self-defence?’
‘Brenda?’ Silva’s father looked up. ‘Is she…?’ His words tailed off and he shrank into the armchair.
Mavers shrugged. ‘We can throw accusations about collateral damage back and forth. For instance, Lashirah Haddad. What did she do to deserve her fate? Perhaps you put it down to sheer bad luck she happened to step into the path of your bullet?’
‘I didn’t shoot her.’
‘And I didn’t personally shoot Mrs Danvers or whatever her name is.’ Mavers nodded sideways at the man with the gun. ‘So I guess we’ll call it even, shall we?’
‘You won’t get away with this.’
‘It’s you who are not getting
