Every hair on her head was screaming, her broken nose pulsing, but the pain was floating just beyond her. Not felt yet. There was too much adrenaline in her blood screaming at her to get up and fight, grab something, anything, stop this.
Stop it right now.
He kept moving, hauling her into the living room, the rug rucking up under her feet as she twisted and kicked.
Ferreira stuck her hand out and grabbed the leg of the console table, toppling its contents, the landline phone and a pair of lamps and an ammonite on a brass rod scattering across the floor. She snatched hold of a lamp and struck out blindly with it, catching him across the side of the kneecap.
Walton grunted in pain and let go of her hair.
Her vision swimming, she quickly scrambled back onto her feet again. She yanked the lamp out of the wall, held it ready to hit him again. Her throat was filling with blood she spat out onto the floor.
‘There’s a patrol car outside,’ she said. ‘Two officers, on their way up here right now.’
Walton shook his head. ‘One officer asleep, the other one on her phone.’
‘I called them the second I heard you breaking in, you stupid bastard.’
‘No, you didn’t. You’re too arrogant to do that. You’re like all the rest of them. Think you’re invincible, swanning about, making shit for people, abusing your power. You think you can do whatever you want. Until you run into someone like me.’ He threw his chin up at her, coming closer. ‘Look at you, you’re terrified.’
Ferreira backed away and he lashed out again. She threw the lamp up, blocking the blow.
The second one caught her. No real power to it.
She could feel him holding back, knew then that he was going to make this last. Whatever he did to her. He wasn’t worried about being disturbed, wasn’t bothered what happened to him after this.
Her breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t exhale, couldn’t even blink away the cloudiness across her eyes.
He was going to kill her.
‘There it is,’ he said. ‘The look they all get when they know it’s over.’
Her hands tightened around the lamp.
‘Still got some fight in you?’ He nodded. ‘Good. I reckoned you’d be a challenge.’
Where was Billy?
Why tonight? Why had that stupid kid come home tonight and walked straight into a surveillance operation and taken him away from her?
She would kill him for leaving her like this.
‘You should have told your fucking boyfriend to stay away from my family,’ Walton said as if he knew what she was thinking. ‘I warned you. And him. You’ve brought this on yourself.’ He took another step towards her and she took two more back. ‘Everything that happens tonight, it’s on you.’
Keep him talking, she thought, seeing how fast the blood was running out of his cut arm, pooling on the floor by his feet.
‘You don’t think some of it’s your own fault, Lee?’
‘I just wanted to make a fresh start,’ he growled.
Another step towards her. The sound of his blood drumming onto the wooden floor, the beats coming faster.
Ferreira took another two back, shuffling. Out the corner of her eye she saw her bag, thrown down behind the sofa when she came home.
‘You got a fresh start.’ One more step. ‘You got your family back.’
Walton’s eyes darkened and he lurched towards her, faltered and grabbed at the corner of the sofa, bloodying the leather, splashing the cushions.
‘You sent social services,’ he said, drawing himself up again, huge and square, his face flushing. ‘They were going to take my boy away from me.’
He pushed away from the sofa and Ferreira threw the lamp at his head, dropping onto her haunches and snatching up her bag. He lunged towards her and she kicked out, catching him in the face as he fell, sending him sprawling onto his back.
She reached into her bag, watching him right himself. Up onto one knee. Then two. Then on his feet again as her fingers fumbled blindly and finally closed around a slim metal canister.
Walton dived at her and she sprayed the CS gas in his face. He roared in pain, eyes streaming, nose burning, but he kept coming. Hit her again, full-fisted.
Her lip burst open. A raw, sharp pain that made her cry out.
His hands fumbled for her throat and she felt the weight of him pressing on her, crushing her pelvis and ribs, his fingers tightening around her windpipe.
She jabbed the canister into the knife wound down his arm and he screamed, snatching his arm back. She hit the button again, spraying it directly into his open mouth.
Walton collapsed onto his side and she shoved him away onto his back. She could hardly see now, the gas tearing up her eyes too, burning and raw in her throat, stinging her split lip. She forced herself up onto her knees, bent over him as he bucked and thrashed, trying to wipe his face clean. He caught her a glancing blow to the face and she reeled back, no thoughts in her brain beyond the single notion of stopping him rising again.
She pinched his nose shut and emptied the gas canister into his mouth.
He rolled onto his front, trying to spit it out, his eyes swollen shut. The agitation was sending the blood pumping out of his wounded arm even faster.
Ferreira inched away from him, heart hammering, knowing she should stop this, call an ambulance, call the patrol car that was parked downstairs. She should do the right thing.
She would do it.
She had no choice.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
Mrs Walton’s house was all lit up when Zigic arrived. The only one in the cul-de-sac still awake at half past eleven, but he supposed things were more fraught there than at the neighbours. Harder to sleep when your son was a killer, when your boyfriend was waiting for the slightest reason to hit you, when you knew a murder you’d got away with
