hands over her eyes.
‘Eat it,’ Griffin said to her, his voice a monotone.
‘I got my one last sail in,’ she said. And then: ‘I’m not eating dirt for you.’
With a single fluid movement she was on her feet and running screaming at Grace, her face distorted into the Medusa’s mask. She leaped forward into the air. Grace fired but at the same time a second crack resounded in the night, both bullets catching Sara as she fell forward into nothing, a long resounding scream closing behind her into silence. Then she lay on the ground, dead.
There was a shout. ‘Police! Don’t move!’
Harrigan turned to look up the fire trail. Groups of uniformed and plain-clothes officers were hurrying down the slope towards them.
‘Don’t move,’ he heard Grace say and turned to look. Griffin had tried to get to his feet. The blood had stopped flowing from his nose and had stained his clothes. He looked from Sara to the police and then sat back on his heels. He said nothing. The police surrounded him.
Grace dropped her gun down, then disarmed it in one movement.
‘I didn’t need to do that,’ she said. ‘They just needed to sit there.’
The same thought was in Harrigan’s mind but he didn’t give voice to it. He looked at the blood on her neck.
‘You’re only human, babe,’ he said.
Mark Borghini appeared out of the dark and walked up to them. ‘Boss, Grace. You okay? Sorry we didn’t get here sooner.’
‘We’re alive. That’ll do. Thanks, mate,’ Harrigan said, and they shook hands.
‘If you’re here,’ Grace said, ‘where’s my backup?’
‘Behind us. We’ve been with you since Duffys Forest but we lost you coming down here. Lucky we saw the car lights.’
Still holding her gun, Grace walked over to the prone figure of Sara McLeod.
‘Which bullet was it? Yours or mine?’ she said.
‘Our marksman shot one. I know you shot another. The autopsy will tell us. Don’t worry about it.’ Borghini was dismissive. ‘She was a mad dog. I don’t have a problem with it. I’ll see if I can get the two of you some shoes. You look like you need them.’
‘Mine are in his car,’ Grace said. ‘In the back.’
She was still staring down at Sara McLeod. The bullets had hit her body. Her face was intact but there was no peace in it, even in death. Had she killed her? She did have a problem with it.
Harrigan was with her. ‘She was running at you. She wanted you to kill her,’ he said.
‘But I didn’t want to do it. They got me to do what they wanted. They brought me down.’
‘No, they didn’t.’
‘You were very brave. Congratulations.’
They both turned to see Clive standing close by. They hadn’t noticed him approaching.
‘Where were you?’ Grace said. ‘I called you three times to get me out.’
‘We’re here now. You should have trusted us. We’ve got our fish and he’s still alive. We can interrogate him. It’s been a very successful operation.’
He was looking over to where Griffin was still kneeling on the ground, the police around him. Someone tapped him on the shoulder and he stood up. As he was led away, he didn’t once glance towards Sara on the ground.
‘What we have to do now,’ Clive said, ‘is find his records and his money.’
‘Check in the roof cavity at Duffys Forest. There’s a manhole in the linen cupboard,’ Harrigan said, watching Clive with barely controlled anger.
‘How do you know that?’
‘I put them there.’
‘That building’s due to go up in smoke. It could be burning by now,’ Grace said.
‘We moved in and secured it as soon as you left.’
‘You were there,’ she said. ‘You let Griffin drive away with me. Why didn’t you intervene at the house? I gave the call.’
‘The job wasn’t finished. He might have led us to those records, which we’re now told are still in the house.’
‘I gave the call for you to get me out. When we left, I had no wire. You couldn’t hear me, you couldn’t know what was going on. We were flying blind.’
‘We knew he was going to take you somewhere else. We needed to know where. I told you, you should have trusted us. We were there, we’re here now, and we’ve got you out. We weren’t going to let you die. I’ll be in touch about a debrief.’
As he turned away, he stopped to look at Harrigan. ‘Your partner’s a very brave woman.’
‘I could have told you that years ago.’
‘Take my gun,’ Grace said. ‘I don’t want it. It’s needed for ballistics anyway.’
Clive took the firearm and walked away.
‘He didn’t keep his side of the bargain,’ Grace said. ‘He left me there just in case I gave him something more. I’ll never trust him again.’
A uniformed officer walked up to them carrying two pairs of shoes.
‘The DS sent these over. These are yours, miss. And for you, boss-a pair of thongs. Sorry. That’s all we’ve got.’
‘They’ll be fine. Thanks.’
With some relief, they put the shoes on.
‘Do we have to stay?’ Grace said. ‘Can we go? We shouldn’t be needed tonight. I want to see Ellie.’
‘They might need to photograph your neck,’ Harrigan replied. ‘I’ll ask. We won’t be able to take our car, but there may be someone here who can give us a lift.’
They turned to each other. She gave an exhausted half-smile and he put his arms around her. They hugged, hard and long. Harrigan looked over her shoulder and saw Clive watching them. Then the spymaster turned away into the night.
‘Come on,’ he said, and they walked away. They walked past the car where Griffin sat, but he was staring ahead. If he saw them, their existence didn’t seem to register. His face was completely empty, as if there was nothing in him, no thought, no emotion.
‘He’s got your picture,’ Grace said. ‘The one you took of me when Ellie was born. It’s in his pocket.’
‘Does he now?’
Harrigan walked away and found Borghini. A little later, Borghini and two uniformed officers went over to the car.
‘Could you just step out, Mr Griffin? Just for a moment, thanks. We need to check your pockets.’
Griffin did. After a short search, one of the uniformed officers handed Borghini a photograph. He nodded, walked back to Harrigan, who had returned to Grace, and handed it to him.
‘There you go,’ he said, and walked away.
Much later, a police car took them to Harrigan’s older sister’s house where Ellie was sleeping. They had called Ronnie earlier and she was waiting for them.
‘She took some settling down but she’s asleep now. I told her Mummy and Daddy would be here soon. She seemed okay with that. So, big little brother,’ the diminutive woman said, giving Harrigan a sharp-eyed glance, ‘what have you been up to?’
‘Later,’ he said. ‘We just want to go home.’
Grace picked Ellie up from the bed. The little girl rubbed her sleepy eyes and put her arms around her mother’s neck.
‘Hello, chicken. Mummy and Daddy are here. We’re going home. How’s that?’
I have you back, Harrigan thought. Safe at last.
