Picasso went in and dropped her through the opening in the slats. Then he opened the gate to let the animal have the run of the place. There was no need for him to stay behind and check that the fumes’d finish her off. Everybody needs oxygen and there wasn’t any down there.
She didn’t try to climb back out. I couldn’t hear her spluttering as the slurry covered her face. The bull was making too much noise for that.
I went to my car, emailed Picasso’s laptop in his Transit (I’d told him to bring it with him), telling him what to do next: see to Conor then Anne. Job done.
All the Donavans would be gone.
And I would have what I had wanted since I was nine years old.
PICASSO
It was now clear that I was at the mercy of a devious and savage mind. Under penalty of exposure, I had been blackmailed into dispatching two sisters in a fashion both prolonged and unnecessary. I have little time for gratuitous violence. It is the preserve of the sadist. Having to treat two harmless creatures in such a manner was very distressing. I shall not describe it to you in detail, but I have never experienced anything like it.
However, while I had initially considered the tenuous possibility that the only person in a position to exert such control over my actions might have been Conor Donavan, it soon became evident that this was not the case. Another’s deception was at work. But who was this unknown person? Naturally I had deduced that he, or she, in some way had an association with those now departed. Perhaps a relative, conspiring to profit from their demise by way of a bequest or suchlike. A precise identification was required, and it was towards this goal that I had taken my own investigative measures.
You will recall that I had taken possession of Jackie Hay’s camcorder. If a camera had placed me in this predicament then a camera might steer a course back out of it. I had therefore placed the camcorder on the dashboard of my Transit before the incident to which I have just alluded.
Consequently I now had footage of a man coming out through the entrance to the riding stables. Darkness, alas, had been against me. His identity remained a mystery. However all mysteries provide clues. And while I may not have been able to discern his face, he did have one distinguishing characteristic.
‘Lucille, do any of your male relatives walk with a limp?’
‘Wha …?’
‘Do you know anyone with a limp?’
‘No.’
The Donavan sisters’ funeral might provide the answers I was seeking. If the man on the film was a relative, his gait would single him out from the cortège.
Of course to take this a measure further, there was my own position to consider. Weak, yes, but strong also. Whatever the nature of his involvement, I had been instrumental, and, indeed, it had been made abundantly clear was to be of further assistance in bringing his as-yet-unknown aim to fruition. If profit it be then surely I was deserving of my rightful share, as it were, of the take. After all, had not his evidence against me been rendered somewhat academic? I now had similarly damaging evidence against him. Were I to be apprehended, police analysis equipment would enhance his image. If he continued to blackmail me, I could counter by threatening reciprocity. He could not turn me in any more than I him. Any further participation on my part, therefore – participation, I might add, which had already been requested, but which I had had occasion to withhold – would have to be remunerated. Fair’s fair.
‘My apologies, Lucille, for having cast aspersions on your grandfather.’
‘My grandfather?’
‘He is not responsible for the deaths of your great-aunts, because he and your mother are to meet a similar fate.’
‘Oh God, please don’t harm my mother, please … I’ll do anything you say. Please …’
Lucille had undergone a rather distressing experience and was in a state of shock. Had I not returned when I did and dispersed the rats with a blazing torch, she might not have survived.
The rats had eaten their way through the crate. Her weight on a makeshift ladder she had constructed had made the wood cave in, smashing the timber they’d been gnawing through. She had done it to herself. She had been so determined to break out through the ceiling that she hadn’t noticed until it was too late, and I found them biting into her. She had tried to climb up this ladder to get away from them, to get a hold on the small opening she had made in the floorboards so she could hang from the ceiling, but they had jumped up onto her, and she couldn’t shake them off. Clinging onto her clothes in such numbers, their weight brought her back down. She was covered in a feeding frenzy of teeth. When she screamed they went for her open mouth. They tore at her hair, her dress … there were too many to fend off. When she tried they went straight for her face. When she covered her face, the rest of her was exposed. They were between her legs, under her arms, locking their jaws into her fingers to get at her eyes …
I had placed her in the adjoining room, replicated conditions prevailing, minus the replacement timber.
‘Thank you for uncovering the weakness in my security measures, Lucille.’
RED DOCK
Time to have another talk with ‘Apropos’. The bastard had double-crossed me by the way. He was supposed to deal with Anne and Conor, but he just drove off.
I’d an idea what he was up to, so I got online and
