in your car and drive away. Now.
Somehow, I reach the end, leaning around to check the empty parking space. But there is no one there, just an eddy of litter spiralling in the wind, blowing round and round, up and over the parapet into empty air. The offices and shops and streets of Hillingdon spread out below me, railway lines cutting through the sprawl. Maybe this is another test to make sure I’m alone, Max observing me through telescopic sights. Maybe he’s gone already and I’m alone up here.
There is a tingling at the back of my neck, the fine hairs standing up. Movement behind me. A shift in the light, a figure rising, slipping between two parked cars. Emerging from behind a big SUV, moving out into the centre of the pitted concrete lane.
But it isn’t Max, or Kathryn.
It’s Dominic Church.
40
I’m trapped.
Behind me is a dead end, a low blank wall. Beyond it, a hundred-foot drop. In front of me is Dominic, standing between me and my car. He looks even worse than he did three days ago. He’s wearing the same black bomber jacket and blue jeans but there is a large plaster on the cheekbone below his right eye, the skin around it puffy and bruised. Big fists at his sides, the fingernails crusted with dirt. In my head I hear Gilbourne’s voice: convictions for assault, robbery, drugs.
Dominic’s lured me up here to throw me off the roof.
‘You,’ I say finally, taking out the wrench from under my coat and gripping it in my right hand. ‘Don’t come any closer.’
‘You going to hit me again?’ He walks slowly towards me. ‘Because I’ve had just about enough of being hit for one week.’
The gap between us is only five or six metres or so, close enough for him to reach me in a few strides. All the terror of the last time I saw him is flooding back – but at the same time I’m furious with myself because I should have guessed, should have known it was him. The anonymous contact, checking I wasn’t followed to the park, the isolation of this spot. It all fits with the way he behaved on Tuesday, the way he tore Kathryn’s bag apart, looking for tracking devices. Next-level paranoid.
I heft the wrench. ‘I will if you come any closer.’
‘Look, I just want to talk.’ He slows his pace. ‘How about you put that thing down?’
‘How about you back off? Why didn’t you tell me who you were?’ The wind is icy on my cheeks and threatens to carry my words away. ‘Why did you let me think you were Max?’
‘Would you have come if you thought it was me?’ He shakes his head. ‘Of course you wouldn’t.’
No, because you’re a violent kidnapper who threatened to kill me. But I don’t want to aggravate him any further. Neither of us speak again for a moment but he’s clearly agitated, on edge, and the wrong words could set him off.
‘Why did you say Mia is in danger?’ I say. ‘That I am in danger?’
‘Because it’s the truth.’
‘But Mia’s safe now, she’s with—’
‘She’s not safe. She’s in more danger now than ever, and there’s only one thing that will change that.’
‘What?’
‘If I tell you, you’re going to have to trust me first.’
‘After what you put me through?’
He stares, bright green eyes studying me, as if seeing me for the very first time. A gust of wind almost pushes me sideways but he is as steady as a rock, feet planted shoulder-width apart, black jacket flattened against the slab-like muscles of his shoulders and chest.
‘Kathryn made a good choice,’ he says, ‘when she picked you. The right choice. I understand that now.’ He nods. ‘She trusted you and now you’re going to have to trust me.’
Gilbourne’s words come back to me. Do not engage. Do not approach. Whatever you do, don’t trust either of them.
‘I can’t think of one reason why I should.’ I indicate the healing cut above my eye. ‘You kidnapped me, attacked me. Fifty-fifty you’ve been in my house too.’
He frowns. ‘Someone broke into your house?’
‘Twice.’
He shakes his head emphatically. ‘That wasn’t me.’
‘That’s exactly what the other guy said.’
‘I have no reason to lie.’
‘You have every reason to lie.’
‘What did they take?’ He takes another step towards me. ‘When they broke in, what was stolen?’
‘Stay back!’ I move away, backing into the low concrete wall. ‘I told you to stay back.’
‘You’ve got this all wrong, Ellen, you’ve got me wrong. I