knot at the end. You wouldn't have to be Houdini to get out of it, but it would take a while, and a while was all I wanted.
'I need an ambulance,' said Bill when I'd finished. 'I'm losing a lot of blood. I feel faint.'
He wasn't losing a lot of blood. The bullet had somehow only managed to cause a minor flesh wound, but I was beginning to feel sorry for them both, so I found a clean rag, wet it in the sink and wrapped it round his ear.
I removed a small bunch of keys from Bill's belt and asked him which one opened the house.
'I don't know,' he answered. 'He never told us. This cloth's really cold. It's dripping water everywhere.'
I got back to my feet. 'Remind me never to hire your security outfit,' I said, and left them there, explaining that I'd call an ambulance shortly so long as they were quiet. 'Make a noise and you can stay like that all night.'
When I was outside, I found the key for the gatehouse door and locked it. Then I turned and, as quietly as possible, began making my way towards the house, keeping close to the foliage.
43
The rear of the property looked out onto a second lawn as large as the first, with a swimming pool at the far end. There were lights on inside the house, but the curtains were drawn so I couldn't see anything. I moved quietly forward and listened at one of the windows, picking up the sound of muffled voices. So they were here. I looked at my watch. Nine twenty-five p.m.
A substantial conservatory jutted out from the house and I walked across and tried the French windows that led into it. They were locked. I fumbled in my pocket for the keys, and tried them one by one. The fourth one opened the door and I crept inside, gently closing it behind me and removing the Browning and silencer from my pocket. The interior of the conservatory was bathed in the dim quarter-light provided by the lamps in the other rooms. Two long sofas ran down each side of it and a mahogany coffee table in the middle contained a selection of magazines. I noticed a Country Life and a Good Housekeeping, as well as the latest statement of accounts for Thadeus Holdings. Nothing controversial, then. But that was only to be expected. Like so many paedophiles, Eric Thadeus was bound to be a good actor.
The door connecting the conservatory to the rest of the house was open, and I went through into a panelled hallway with impressive watercolours of country scenes on the walls. The door to my left was ajar and I could hear voices drifting through from further inside the house. I stepped across the polished floorboards carefully, not wanting to make any noise as I made my way over to the door.
It led into a large pine kitchen with black granite worktops. On the far side of the room, another door was open, through which I could hear the clink of glasses as well as the voices of the people I'd come to kill, far clearer now.
'I'll open some more wine,' I heard the man say, and a second later his chair legs scraped across the floor as he got up from the table.
I made no move to hide as Eric Thadeus, a bigger man than I'd been expecting, dressed casually in chinos and a cotton shirt, came striding into the room carrying an empty wine bottle. I noticed he had worn leather slippers on. Then, as he saw me and opened his mouth to speak, I shot him in the left leg about six inches above the knee. He gasped, dropping the wine bottle as his leg went from under him. The bottle shattered on the floor's terracotta tiles and he fell awkwardly amongst the glass, banging his head on the door frame as he did so. I stepped over him and into the house's lavish dining room, leaving Thadeus moaning in agony and clutching at his shattered leg.
'Hello, Emma,' I said, raising the gun so it was pointed at her head.
She was at the far end of the table, the remains of a glass of white wine still in her hand. Her red-gold hair was tied back in a ponytail, and the elfin face beneath it a mask of shock. 'Dennis, please, I can explain.' She put the glass down on the table and burst into tears. 'He made me come here,' she sobbed.
'Sure he did. You look like you're under a lot of duress.' I walked over to the table, keeping the gun pointed at her head. 'Do you have any idea what this man's done, or the suffering he's caused?'
'You don't understand,' she replied, looking at me pleadingly through the tears. She was a damned talented actress, I had to give her that, and her expression was so genuine it made me doubt her role in all this myself. Even though I knew she was as guilty as sin. 'Thank God you're here,' she continued. 'He's got my parents hostage. He's had them for days. Either I do what he says or he's going to kill them.' She got to her feet and I saw that she was wearing a sleeveless white dress that made her look years younger.
'Stay where you are.'
She was sobbing uncontrollably now. Almost like a child. 'But they're downstairs in the cellar, that's where he's been keeping them. I've got to see them and check they're all right. Please, Dennis, you've got to believe me. I can prove it.' She came towards me, and I told her again to stay where she was. But she kept coming, because she knew as well as I did that I couldn't shoot her. The doubt must have been evident on my face. In the kitchen, Thadeus continued to wail loudly and dramatically in an effort to summon help.
'Emma, stop. I'm serious.'
She stopped. Five feet away, standing there with a vulnerability that made my legs go weak. She was truly beautiful in her misery, her big hazel eyes begging me to believe her. And I wanted to. Christ, I wanted to. I was faltering, and we both knew it.
There was a sudden sound behind me, and the next second I was pitched forward as someone grabbed me round the middle and knocked the gun out of my hand. It clattered to the floor, landing at Emma's feet. I hit the dining-room wall head on, knocking a painting off it.
Dazed, I didn't have time to think about resistance as I was pushed down to my knees and my arm pulled up painfully behind my back. I managed to look round and saw that I was being manhandled by a powerfully built young man in the same security guard's outfit as Bill and his friend. Unfortunately, this was where the resemblance between him and them ended. This guy, with his dark buzzcut and rugged outdoor features, was definitely ex- military, and by the speed and effectiveness of his assault, I'd have said marines or paras. Now I was in real trouble.
'You don't understand,' I told him through gritted teeth. 'These people are guilty of some horrendous crimes.'
'Shut the fuck up!' he demanded, then turned to Emma. 'Pardon my French, miss. I don't like criminals. I think you'd better call an ambulance for your father.'
Emma's face broke into a relieved smile. 'Oh, thank God you've come,' she told him. 'This man was going to kill me.'
'Don't listen to her,' I hissed, but his response was to put more pressure on my arm and I had to stop speaking as I gritted my teeth in pain. It felt like the damn thing was breaking.
'You were saying something about people in the cellar, miss?' he asked. 'Is there anyone down there?'
She started to cry again, then picked up the gun by her feet. 'Yes, it's my parents,' she sobbed. 'They're being held hostage…'
Her sobbing stopped abruptly as she turned the gun round so it was pointed at him. She gave him a sweet smile through the tears. 'But don't you worry your handsome little head about that.'
I tried to say something, but she never gave me the chance. With the coy little smile still very much in place, she pulled the trigger.
The gun hissed and the grip on my arm relaxed as the security guard tottered and fell to one side, a big red mark appearing where his right eye had been. His body shivered violently, then lay still. She was as good a shot as she'd claimed when she'd first pulled a gun on me.
'My, my, Dennis, you are proving resilient,' she said, her smile taking on a malevolence that until that moment I'd never seen. 'We keep putting these obstacles in your path, and you keep overcoming them. You were meant to be in custody facing murder charges by now. That's the whole reason you've been kept alive this long. Mind you, I think we should have suspected that you'd make it here.'
'Who are you?' I whispered, unsure what else to say.
