Читать книгу The Rebel’s Revenge - Scott Mariani, Scott Mariani - Страница 19

The car was gaining more speed every instant, its wheels no longer spinning and the back end under control. It was accelerating down the street under full power.

Parachute training couldn’t teach you how to land on a fast-moving road surface. Jumping from a moving vehicle was more like parachuting onto a whirling belt sander. Ben knew that it was going to hurt. And it did.

The impact knocked the air from his lungs. All at once he was slithering and sliding down the road on his back. Like coming off a motorcycle, without the benefit of helmet, leathers or gloves. He tried to keep his head and hands raised off the ground and his arms and legs spread-eagled to minimise the chance of rolling. That would do the worst damage, his own momentum breaking bones and flailing him to pieces against the road surface.

He slid for maybe twenty feet, but it felt like a mile before he came to a stop, dazed and bleeding in the middle of the road. The taillights of the car were a long way off now, shrinking to angry red pinpoints in the darkness. He craned his neck to watch as it rounded a corner at the top of the street; then it was out of sight and the roar of its engine was dying away to nothing.

Ben sprang to his feet. His elbows were torn up pretty badly and his back would be a mess of abrasions. It was still better than getting shot. Either way he had no time to take inventory of his injuries. The pain could wait. He shelved it to the rear of his mind and started sprinting back towards the guesthouse. Some lights were coming on in neighbouring upstairs windows as residents, alerted by the commotion and the sound of gunshots, rushed from their cosy beds to see what was going on. Ben ignored them and ran on. The car had dragged him halfway up the street and it was half a minute before he reached the guesthouse. It was definitely too late to give chase in the Tahoe. That chance had been and gone.

Now all that mattered was Lottie.

She hadn’t moved. The dark stain around her had spread almost wall to wall. Ben knelt beside her. The pressure of his knees on the carpet squeezed blood up out of its saturated pile like wringing out a sponge. It was everywhere. He felt its warm wetness soaking through the denim of his torn, abraded jeans.

Ben felt for her pulse and detected only a weak flutter. At his touch she lolled her head to try to focus on him. Her eyes were glassing over. Her mouth opened and she tried to speak, but all that came out was a low rasping moan and a bubble of blood that swelled and then burst, flecking her lips. Now he could see the terrible slash that the sword had cut across her face and neck before her attacker had knocked her over and thrust the long curved blade right through her body to pin her to the floorboards.

Ben stared at the weapon. If he’d been interested in semantics right now he’d have called it a sabre and not a sword. The kind of implement issued to cavalry troops right up until the early decades of the twentieth century, when military minds finally began to realise that mounted charges were little match for heavy machine gunnery. This sabre was older still. The length of blade that wasn’t buried deep inside Lottie’s body was speckled with over a century’s worth of black rust. Its handle was wrapped with sharkskin and bound with gold wire, and encased within a fancy brass basket hilt designed to protect the hand during combat. The brass was tarnished and dulled with age, and bore all the nicks and scars of a weapon that had seen use in anger, a very long time ago. Basically, an antique. Probably worth money.

The question was, what kind of murderer would break into a house to attack someone with a valuable antique sword, when common implements like kitchen knives and hammers could be obtained easily and cheaply and were just as lethal? It made even less sense for the killer to leave the weapon behind.

Lottie began to cough and retch blood. More of it welled from the gaping wound where the blade was stuck through her. Her robe and nightdress were black with it. Out of desperation Ben reached up and grasped the hilt, then on second thoughts took his hand away. Pulling out the blade, whether a knife’s or anything else’s, could kill a stab victim just as fast as pushing it in. Blood vessels that were constricted or blocked off by the pressure of the blade could suddenly start gushing so fast that their life would ebb away in moments. But he had to do something. He looked around him and spotted the little stand across the hallway where the landline phone rested on its base unit.

‘I’m going to get help, Lottie. Hold on.’

He started to get to his feet to reach for the phone. Before he could stand up, Lottie raised a bloody hand off the floor and, with what must have cost her last reserves of energy, gripped his sleeve.

At first he thought she was attempting to struggle upright. But she was too far gone for that. These were her last moments, and she knew it as well as he did. He realised she was trying to pull him down closer, so that she could whisper something in his ear before she died.

Ben put his hand on hers and leaned down and said, ‘What is it, Lottie?’

‘I … I always …’ It took a monumental effort for her to speak. She coughed, and the act of coughing made her abdominal muscles clench around the sabre blade, and she let out a terrible shuddering gasp of pain and closed her eyes. For an instant she seemed to fade away and he thought she was gone. Then her eyes reopened, bloodshot and full of agony and focused on his own with all the urgency of a person frantically holding on to consciousness, slipping away and fighting it every inch and losing.

She whispered, ‘I knowed it was comin’, Ben. I knowed it.’

Ben understood that she was talking about the secret she’d alluded to earlier that evening. Whatever it was, she’d held on to it for most of her life out of fear. Now that death was so close, she seemed to want to let it out like making a confession.

‘What did you know? Lottie, talk to me. What did you know?’

She was sinking fast. Her breath was coming in fluttering gasps. Her eyes were glazed. The grasp of her bloody fingers on his shirt sleeve tightened in a last moment of panic before the darkness swallowed her, then became slack. Barely audibly, she murmured, ‘They was … they was bound to get me in the end. Like they done … to … Peggy Iron Bar.’

Ben laid his hand on hers and squeezed it. ‘Who did it, Lottie? If you know who hurt you, you have to tell me. I’ll find them. I swear. Who did it?’

But Lottie had given all she had to give. A last sigh hissed from her lips and her eyes closed, her body relaxed and Ben held her as he felt the life leave her.

He remained kneeling on the blood-soaked carpet next to her for some time, still clasping her hand in his, his head bowed with sadness for this woman he’d only just met and knew so little about. Wishing he could remove the sabre pinning her to the floor and let her lie there with a little dignity, if it wouldn’t have been messing with a murder scene.

And wondering, who in God’s name was Peggy Iron Bar?