Death in High Places - By Jo Bannister Page 0,36

company that installed the security here,” she said pointedly, “advised you against squandering the goodwill of the local police by testing the speed of their response every few days.”

“Well, that’s true,” admitted McKendrick. “Okay. We’ve got the Tablecloth of Truce flying over the battlements. And we’ve worked out a plan of campaign. Will you sit with William, Beth? Keep the phones with you—nip outside every few minutes and try for a signal. But be careful. It wouldn’t take a genius to guess we’ll be doing that. Keep low, behind the parapet.

“I’ll man the screens, try to get some idea what he’s doing. I’ll have the baby monitor in here so if you need help upstairs, or if you see anything, or if you get a phone signal, you can let me know.”

Beth nodded.

“And the other thing we can do,” continued McKendrick, “is prepare some fallback positions. So if he gets inside the house, we can retreat and put some solid doors between us. Remember, that’s what this house was designed to do. Long before there were steel shutters—long before there was steel—it was laid out in such a way that the defenders would always have the advantage over the attackers. Using your house as a weapon may be a bit of a lost art, but we’ll get the hang of it. We have all the advantages—stone walls, steel shutters, CCTV, food and water. He has to make all the going. All we have to do is sit tight.”

“For how long?”

“As long as it takes. Until something changes.”

“You mean,” said Beth flatly, “until he finds a way in and slits all our throats.”

McKendrick regarded her coolly. “That would count, yes.”

“And you’re going to let it happen?” She was looking at Horn.

But McKendrick answered, and his tone left little room for argument. “No, Beth, he’s going to do what you’re going to do. You’re both going to do what you’re told. You’re going to go sit with your uncle William, and Nicky’s going to prepare some last-ditch defenses. Get together some things we can fight with if push comes to shove.”

Horn thought that push would go a great deal further than shove but he’d already said so as clearly as he could. And maybe McKendrick was right. Maybe something would happen. Even hit men are only human: they get heart attacks, they get toothache, they get the trots. This was a good place to finish the job he’d been paid for, but if circumstances turned against him, he would know he could always find Horn again. He’d leave here before compromising his own safety or his client’s identity. Maybe McKendrick was right, and all they had to do was make it really difficult for him.

Horn wished with all his heart that he could believe it. But he didn’t. He thought he was going to die today and take with him some people who didn’t deserve it. That was almost his biggest regret. He didn’t want to die; but he didn’t much want to go on living the way he had either. It left him with not much to lose. The McKendricks had more. If it was hardly worth the trouble of fighting for his own life anymore, something deep inside him told him it was worth fighting for them.

Courage and optimism, McKendrick had said. A man could have a worse epitaph. “Do you have any guns? Shotguns, sporting guns—anything?”

McKendrick shook his head. “Never saw much point in shooting at something that couldn’t shoot back.”

Horn had to laugh. It was that or go mad. “I wish everyone felt the same way. What about the simple stuff—swords, spears, bows and arrows?”

“Yeah, right,” began McKendrick in tones of vast scorn; but the words dried in his mouth. A look of surprised appreciation stole into his eyes. “Yes. Of course. To me it’s just medieval wallpaper, an apt way to decorate a castle, but that’s not what it was designed for. It was designed to kill people. The Great Hall, on the first landing. Take anything you can find.”

Horn took his toolbag with him. He assumed that, when you hung a morning star on the chimney breast, you relied on more than a picture hook and a bit of string to keep it there.

All things are comparative. In one of the grander castles, Warwick or Arundel for instance, Birkholmstead’s Great Hall would have been little more than an anteroom. But it was the heart of McKendrick’s little fortress. It occupied virtually the whole of the first