Holly’s breath was coming in puffs of white mist, but she hadn’t reached the point of exhaustion yet. She’d run the Kielder Dark Skies marathon in October and it seemed to her now that the race had been training her just for this moment.
When she came to the edge of the clearing, she recognized it at once. This was where they’d found Constance Browne. The blue-and-white police tape remained, though the woman’s body had been taken away. Holly stood, silent, and watched the scene playing out in front of her.
She saw the man first. Neil Heslop. So, Vera had been right all along and it had been a man who’d killed Lorna and the teacher. He was kneeling, his back to Holly. She couldn’t see what he was doing.
‘Move away!’
He got to his feet but he didn’t move. He was as still as the dead branches that littered the clearing. She saw a pile of clothes at his feet. No, not a pile of clothes, Holly thought. That was Vera, lying in the snow, looking smaller than Holly would have thought possible.
She ran towards them. ‘Move away from her!’
No response. Heslop seemed barely to register Holly’s presence. All his focus was on the woman. Holly continued, her voice sharp and fierce. ‘Move away. You’re surrounded. There are armed officers with their weapons trained on you.’
Now Heslop did turn. He walked a couple of steps in Holly’s direction. ‘On your knees,’ Holly shouted. ‘Put your hands on your head.’ She fixed him in the light of her torch, willing him to obey. He was bigger and stronger than she was and she knew she wouldn’t be able to take him on. The bluff about the armed officers would only work for so long. He hesitated for a moment and she thought he might run. She hoped he might run so she could give her full attention to Vera. They knew who he was now and he wouldn’t get far. But all the fight seemed to leave him. He crumpled back to his knees in the snow and when she got to him, he followed her instructions in silence. She tied his hands behind his back with the plastic restraints she had in her pocket. ‘Stay where you are.’
He still didn’t speak. He seemed lost in a world of his own.
Holly ran to Vera. The woman seemed lifeless and cold. There were livid marks on her neck where the man had tried to strangle her, just as there’d been on Constance Browne’s body. For the first time since leaving the Falstones’ farm, Holly was frightened. From the moment she’d joined Northumbria Police, this woman had ruled her life, and Holly wasn’t sure, now, how she’d manage without her. Joe would never forgive her if she didn’t take Vera back to him, alive and well. She tried to remember all she knew about CPR, but her thoughts were scrambled and she realized that tears were running down her face. She lay Vera on her back and unbuttoned her thick jacket so she could start pressure on the chest. All the time desperately trying to remember all that she’d been taught on the first-aid course, knowing that she was too late.
‘What on earth are you doing, hinnie? I’ll catch my death.’ The words were very faint, scratchy, as if it hurt the woman to talk. As if she was learning to speak again after years of silence. It was the voice of a ghost. The shock of the sound sent a rush of adrenaline through Holly’s body. She began to shake uncontrollably.
‘I thought you were dead.’
‘Well, so did I.’ Holly helped her into a sitting position and Vera continued, her voice still strained. ‘I lost consciousness for a bit and only came to when I heard you shouting. He’d have finished me off, though, if he’d realized.’ She looked across at Heslop who was still kneeling in the snow. ‘Two women dead, he’d have nothing to lose.’
‘I need to call it in.’ Holly’s hands were still trembling as she reached for a phone. ‘Get you an ambulance.’
‘Where’s the cavalry then?’
‘Still halfway between Kimmerston and Kirkhill, as far as I know.’
Vera nodded towards Heslop. ‘So you were bluffing then.’ There was a strange choking sound, which made Holly anxious again. Then she looked at the woman more closely and understood that Vera was laughing.
‘Eh, lass,’ she said, ‘I didn’t train you so badly after all.’
Chapter Forty-Three
VERA WOKE UP IN HOSPITAL AND saw Joe sitting by her bed. She was glad it was him and not Holly. Holly had saved her life, and Vera had never enjoyed feeling obliged to anyone. Besides, Joe was her lad. Her man. She was pleased to see him. She’d been dozing on and off all day. Now it was mid-afternoon and she was itching to be sent home.
‘How’s the boy?’ It was still painful to talk, but nothing that honey and lemon with a good slug of Scotch wouldn’t heal. They’d kept her in because of the hypothermia rather than the attempted strangulation. In the ambulance they’d wrapped her up in a foil blanket so she’d looked like a
