Death in High Places - By Jo Bannister Page 0,64
it’s illegal. That’s different. I’ll give you something in writing to produce if the police catch up with you. It won’t keep you out of court, but it’ll show that you weren’t acting on your own authority. And that Beth didn’t hire you to speed through her inheritance. Nicky, nobody will think you did anything very wicked. It’s a bit of a gray area, I admit—they only call it assisted suicide if you have the physical strength and the mental clarity to do the final act yourself. But everyone except the law knows there’s all the difference in the world between murder and mercy killing, and nobody apart from cranks thinks what I’m proposing is wrong anymore.”
“What if I think it’s wrong?”
McKendrick looked at Horn, as he sometimes did, as if he’d brought him in on the sole of his shoe. “It doesn’t matter what you think. You owe me this. You don’t have to like it. Anyway”—his narrow jaw rose combatively—“what entitles you to take the moral high ground? You cut your best friend’s rope!”
Horn’s voice was low. “I told you, that isn’t what happened.”
“You told the police something different. And you told Beth something else again. I think you’ve told so many lies even you aren’t sure what the truth is anymore.
“I’ll tell you what the truth is—the only truth that matters. Patrick Hanratty was on your rope, and now he’s dead. His father blames you, and his father’s hit man is just the other side of this wall. You don’t have to like me—in fact, it’s probably better if you don’t. But by God, Nicky, if you want to live through today, you’d better start seeing things my way!”
“Because you’ll shove me outside if I don’t?” In the white face, Horn’s eyes flamed with a kind of desperate rebellion.
“Maybe that’s exactly what I’ll do. It’s what you did—bought your safety with someone else’s life. It would be a kind of poetic justice.”
They glared at one another across the little kitchen, both stoking the anger they hoped would protect them from fear. Their backs were against the wall. Even if Hanratty’s man had got bored and gone home, their backs would still have been against the wall.
Horn broke the savage silence. “And what’s Beth going to say when she hears about this?”
“Beth isn’t going to hear about this,” McKendrick shot back, “until you’ve paid your debt. After that she’ll probably have to know. And yes, she’ll hate you forever. She’ll hate me too. I can live with that.” He grinned a vivid acknowledgment of the irony. “I can’t afford to worry too much about what Beth wants. I have to concentrate on what she needs. And this is it—this is the best I can do. And, God help me, I need your cooperation to do it.”
“Then, Mr. McKendrick, you have a problem.”
“You think this is easy for me?” When McKendrick’s temper flared, suddenly Horn could see the likeness between him and his daughter. She didn’t take after him physically. But her temperament—her intellectual arrogance, her risk-taking, her absolute single-mindedness—she’d inherited from him almost unchanged. “This isn’t how I wanted my life to be! When I was your age, I was working like a maniac so I could enjoy the kind of lifestyle I wanted. For my family, but also for myself. I imagined that around now I’d be planning my retirement. A boat on the Med. Maybe a beach house in the Seychelles. Enough money amassed to provide for whatever I wanted, whatever opportunities came along.
“I did not imagine I’d be spending my time and money and, yes, risking my neck trying to persuade someone to do me the final kindness when playing out the hand I’ve been dealt has become unbearable. Because that’s what we’re talking about, Nicky. A life so frightening that no one should be made to live it. Don’t have any illusions about what it is I’m facing. I’m not going to be just a charming old dodderer whose socks never match. I’m going to be a broken and tormented man who won’t know a moment’s peace short of death but who might have to wait ten or fifteen years for it.”
McKendrick’s voice was actually shaking. It was hard to avoid the conclusion that it was shaking with fear. He took a moment to steady it. “Look on the bright side. I might never get this illness. I might die of something else first, or I might live to be a hundred with my