Death in High Places - By Jo Bannister Page 0,38

a bit of effort and ingenuity there are other ways this could work out. And maybe you’re right. I hope you are. But just for the moment, will you humor me? Will you consider the possibility that you’re going to die today? You’re going to die, and Beth’s going to die, because you helped me when most people would just have kept walking.”

Horn swallowed, but he wasn’t finished. McKendrick waited.

“You didn’t know who I was when you took the decision to get involved. You knew nothing about me. So maybe it doesn’t too much matter to you that a lot of people wouldn’t have thought my skin worth saving. Not just not worth risking your life for—not worth getting your hands dirty for. But it matters to me. I know you wish you’d never glanced up that alley. But since you did, and we can’t change what’s happened and we probably can’t change what’s going to happen, it also matters to me that you don’t die thinking you threw it all away—all this, everything you’ve worked for—on trash.

“I want you to know the truth. I never meant to tell a soul. I meant to take it to my grave. But then, I never expected to be taking other people with me. I want you to know.”

McKendrick genuinely had no idea what was coming. “Know what?”

“I didn’t do it. I didn’t cut Patrick’s rope. Patrick cut it himself.”

CHAPTER 8

TO NICKY HORN it seemed as if he’d accidently hit McKendrick’s off switch. The man froze where he sat, twisted round from the monitors, and the rigor went all the way from his eyes into the depths of his soul. For ten, maybe fifteen seconds—which is a lot longer than it sounds when you’re waiting—he didn’t move and he didn’t speak. He didn’t even blink.

Then he did. A moment later his voice returned as a hoarse croak. “Are you serious?”

Whatever Horn had expected—and he really hadn’t known what kind of reaction his declaration would provoke—it wasn’t that. His brows gathered in a troubled frown. “You think it’s something I’d joke about?”

“Patrick Hanratty cut his own rope.”

“Yes.”

“You said he wasn’t responding—that you thought he was dead. You thought he was dead, and when you couldn’t hold him any longer you cut the rope.”

“I lied.”

“Damn sure you lied to somebody about something,” snarled McKendrick. As his emotions defrosted, the one that thawed quickest was anger. “Why in God’s name should I believe you this time?”

The only answer Horn had was the simple one. “Because it’s the truth.”

“That not only was Patrick not dead, he was still conscious and functioning. That’s what you’re telling me? But instead of trying to save himself, he cut the rope and fell to his death. Why?”

Horn’s muscles were tense, his breath coming quicker. As if he were confessing something terrible, something that could bring down the sky. He wasn’t. But he’d lived with the lies so long that he almost felt as if he was. “Because if he hadn’t, he’d have pulled me off the mountain. I couldn’t save him. But he could save me. He died alone so I didn’t have to decide whether or not to die with him.”

It wasn’t so much disbelief that came flooding back into McKendrick’s face as rank incredulity. He said it again, with added emphasis. “Why? If that’s what happened, why did you tell people you cut him loose? Why would you tell a lie that made a coward of you? Why would you deny your friend his last act of courage?”

Horn gave an awkward little shrug. His voice was small. “I thought it was better. Kinder. I thought people—some people—his people—might call what he did suicide.”

McKendrick’s brow furrowed. He seemed to want to understand but was finding it uphill work. “It’s not my idea of suicide. I wouldn’t have thought it was anybody’s, even an Irish Catholic’s. Anyway, the Church takes a more compassionate view these days, and has done for twenty years. The Hanrattys could still have buried Patrick in the family plot even if on a strict interpretation his death could be considered suicide.”

“They never got the chance to bury him,” growled Horn. “He’s still out on the mountain somewhere under Anarchy Ridge. Did you know his dad sent an expedition to recover the body? He thought it would prove what actually happened, as distinct from what I said happened. The funny thing is, he was right, it would—only, not the way he thought.” But if it had been as