Death in High Places - By Jo Bannister Page 0,22

changed nothing. If he couldn’t open it before, he still couldn’t open it. One hand, accustomed to moving fast enough and gripping hard enough to ensure his survival, shot out and grabbed Beth McKendrick by the throat. “Open it. Now.”

She gave a startled squawk; and perhaps she’d have done as he said, or perhaps she’d have spat in his eye and dared him to do his worst. There was no time for either of them to burn their boats. Robert McKendrick came back through the sitting room. “Well, that’s William comfortable…” His voice petered out as his eyes took in the scene.

The tableau of momentary violence had frozen, giving no clue as to when their relationship had turned physical. McKendrick looked at his daughter, all icy rebellion, and at Horn, pale, angry and afraid; and probably if he’d seen any signs of injury he would not have said, as he did, quite mildly, “Getting to know one another, I see.” But it was hard to be sure.

CHAPTER 5

HORN SNATCHED HIS HAND BACK as if Beth’s skin had burned him. “You have got to let me go,” he insisted thickly. “Right now. You didn’t have to get involved. If you’d stayed out of it, what came next wouldn’t have been your fault. But bringing me here, and telling Hanratty where I am, that makes it your fault. That makes it murder.”

He flashed a quick glance at Beth. “She said it was all a plot. That it was too neat to be coincidence. I thought she was imagining things. But she was right and I was wrong. I was more than wrong—I was crazy, believing that someone like you would risk all this”—his unsteady gaze swept only the kitchen but implied the castle and everything it represented—“for someone like me. But it wasn’t for someone like me—it had to be me, didn’t it? I’m worth a small fortune to you. And when you’re rich, one fortune is never enough.”

For a moment McKendrick said nothing. Then he said distantly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He didn’t even try to make it sound like the truth.

“Please,” begged Nicky Horn, “there’s still time. It’ll take him a while to get here. Hours, maybe. I can get a head start, if you let me go now.” He would never have believed that, after living the way he had for four years, his life still meant enough to him that he was prepared to plead for it.

“Nobody’s coming here. I told you that.”

Horn tried to see things the way someone such as McKendrick might look at them. “I can’t buy you off. I haven’t got the sort of money Tommy Hanratty has. I haven’t got the sort of money Tommy Hanratty’s head gardener has. But I can do something for you that no one else can. I can save you from being a murderer. Even today, I can run far enough and fast enough that he won’t catch me. So it won’t matter that you phoned him.”

“I didn’t phone him.”

“All right!” Horn made an explosive gesture with his hands. “All right. Beth was wrong. It was just coincidence that you happened to be walking past a back alley sixty miles from where you live at three in the morning, and nothing but old-fashioned courage that made you step in front of a gun. I believe you. Thousands wouldn’t, but I’ll try really hard to believe you. If you’ll do something for me.”

“Haven’t I done enough already?”

Horn ignored that. “If you’ll explain to me why you’re so damned determined to keep me here. Because if it isn’t for the money—if you haven’t done a deal with Hanratty—you’re going to die. All of you—you, Beth, William, the cat—the whole bloody family. If you made the call, the guy with the gun will be here soon to make a murderer of you. If you didn’t, he may take a little longer, but he’ll still get here, and after he’s killed me he’ll tidy up the loose ends. All the loose ends. All the people who might have seen, or heard, or heard about him. You, and everyone you care about. So tell me why. Why in God’s name would you take that risk?”

McKendrick deliberated. Finally he said, “I want you to do something for me.”

“What?” yelled Horn, exasperated beyond bearing. “You want me to do you a favor?”

“You think I haven’t earned it?”

To judge from her expression, Beth was no less astonished by this development than Horn was.