The Last Witness

THIRTY-FOUR

Lorena held her breath for a moment, listening.

The faint, muffled voices she’d heard downstairs had stopped. Her stepparents had stopped talking. Sound of footsteps on the stairs now. Mr Ryall or Mrs Ryall? After a second she could pick out that the step was lighter: Mrs Ryall.

She settled back again and eased out her breath. Probably Mr Ryall wouldn’t come to her room this first night, he’d wait a few days. But the waiting would be almost as bad as the fear that he might come in at any minute.

She was tired, very tired. She’d slept on the flight, but only a couple of hours. And now it was three or four in the morning. She’d lost track. But she felt almost too afraid to fall asleep in case Mr Ryall did come to her room.

Maybe once she’d heard his footsteps come up the stairs and head for his room, she could relax a little. But then several times he’d come out of his room without warning an hour or two later to see her. It was almost like he knew instinctively the best time to visit, when she was at her most drowsy, her defences weak.

But what would she do? She couldn’t stay awake every night, waiting. She remembered in the sewers when Patrika died, for several nights after they’d laid awake for hours listening out if the waters might be rising again. But after a few nights they were exhausted and would have slept through anything.

What had Dr Lowndes said? When he starts counting down, put other numbers and thoughts in your head. Act as if you’re succumbing, falling under, but all the time keep your mind alert, resist. If she didn’t get sleep, then her mind simply wouldn’t be alert enough to be able to resist.

She held her breath again for a second, listening. Footsteps starting up the stairs, heavier this time. Mr Ryall!

She swallowed hard, looking over at the large Mountie bear. She’d positioned it where they told her, looking straight at her and the bed. Perhaps it would have been better if they hadn’t told her anything about it all. They’d tried to put her mind at rest: ‘Don’t worry, as soon as he starts touching you, we’ll be there. That’s the whole idea: to stop him touching you once and for all.’

She said she could do it. But now as the moment was upon her, her nerves were racing out of control. Her whole body had broken out in a sweat. Mr Ryall was bound to notice her fear, her body’s trembling.

Footsteps moving closer, creaking some boards among the top steps.

She closed her eyes, feigning sleep. The darkness felt welcoming, her tiredness threatening to suck her under. Maybe she should just sleep through it all, wake up when it was over. If he came in and started counting down, just let herself sink under. Let it all stay in the darkness and shadows, like every other night. Where it belonged! She just didn’t think she could bare being awake for a second while his hands moved over her body.

Her breath froze, suspended, as the footsteps reached the top of the stairs; then released again as she heard them start moving away towards his bedroom. But after a few paces they paused, turned, and started heading towards her.

Derek Bell watched the blue-grey images on a monitor less than a mile from the Ryall’s.

He adjusted the dials for a second. With the directional mike, he had to work hard to cut down the background hiss. Finally it was clear: the fall of Lorena’s breathing, the faint rustle of bedsheets.

Rush job, but that was often how he liked them. More of a challenge. He’d only had forty minutes turn-around to get everything planted and the bear sewn back up again. The lens was in the cap band, the mike in the belt.

He noticed Lorena look over directly for a moment, and silently prompted: Get used to not looking. Act as if I’m not here.

Her eyes shifted towards the door after a second, then finally flickered shut. Faint sound of footsteps from the corridor. They receded for a moment before turning and becoming more prominent again. Bell watched Lorena’s eyes flicker open again fleetingly, then shut again.

The footsteps were now in the room, moving closer, closer… and Bell clearly saw Ryall — his back at first, then more of his profile. Bell adjusted the focus slightly, his hand staying expectantly by the dials.

Ryall leant over and touched Lorena’s hair, starting to lightly stroke. Bell’s pulse was suddenly in his throat. He thought he’d been in for a long few nights, but now he began to wonder.

‘You poor girl,’ Ryall mumbled under his breath. ‘You’ve been through so much.’

Bell tweaked the volume up a bit.

‘…So much. Such an ordeal.’ The hand continued stroking, now gently tracing across Lorena’s brow as Ryall sat on the side of the bed.

Lorena’s eyes stayed closed, though Bell knew that she was feigning sleep. Only as Ryall’s hands traced down and started gently stroking one cheek and her neck, did she finally flicker her eyes slowly open, probably sensing that it was too much for her to sleep through.

Good girl, good girl, Bell thought. Keep this up and we’ll get the bastard. Bell was leant forward, intently following each small movement, beads of sweat shiny on his forehead in the glow from the screen.

But as Lorena’s eyes looked up, Ryall’s hand suddenly paused, hovering an inch above her cheek. Had he sensed something was wrong, seen something in her eyes to alert him? Or was he just deciding: count her down into a deep sleep so that his hand could continue its journey, or return another night?

The heavy rotor blades cut through the night sky.

Michel felt its rhythm driving him on, pumping his adrenalin. The energy of the motion and the five men sat expectantly with him, rifles and automatics at the ready, was the only thing to make him feel positive.

He found it hard to escape the feeling that they were heading there after the event, it would all be for nothing. The cavalry turning up after the last Indian arrow had hit Custer. They must be at least an hour behind Roman and his men. Roman might spend some time checking the lay of the land and finalising a plan, but an hour?

Michel slowly closed his eyes, the dull thud of the rotor pumping almost in time with his pulse. And there was no doubt now that Roman was on his way. He’d had Maury on the radio-phone only minutes ago: phone bugs at both the Donatiens’ and at a switching box outside the Montclaire. Roman knew every last detail!

‘Ontario border ten miles ahead!’ the pilot announced.

‘Okay.’ Michel opened his eyes, nodding. He’d purposely asked for the alert: they’d hit sector 14 only twenty-five minutes after the border. And if there was still nothing still from Mundy, they’d have to start circling. More time lost to Roman.

Michel asked to be patched through again to Melanie Fuller — he’d already spoken to her twice in the last eighty minutes they’d been airborne.

No, she confirmed, she still hadn’t heard anything from Mundy. ‘…We just missed him at a restaurant by minutes, but he didn’t head home — so now it’s down to bars and clubs. But it’s more difficult: no check-in reservations. We’ve either got to eyeball him or find his car. So there’s a team out there checking every possible dive, and every patrol car’s alerted.’

‘We’ll be crossing the border any minute, so time’s tight now.’ Michel had to raise his voice to be heard above the rotor.

‘I know. I know. Don’t worry, the second I’ve located Mundy, I’ll be back to you.’

Michel’s gloom, his sense of despondency, settled like a fast descending cloak in the silence following.

‘Four miles now to the border,’ the pilot announced. ‘We’ll be crossing any second.’

But the cloak was heavy, difficult to shake off this time. Six men on a hell-bent mission — to nowhere. Probably he’d known all along they’d be too late, but he needed all of this activity so that he could reassure himself later that he’d done everything he could. Because unlike the men with him, he knew that he was mostly to blame. The set-up so that he could push Donatiens into the Witness Protection programme. Making sure that Donatiens’ birth mother could see him and take a message to Simone to keep him there. If you tell a lie…

At every stage he’d pushed the envelope, and now this was the payback! They’d get there and there’d be nothing left to do but pick through the bodies, see first hand the result of-

Michel visibly jolted as the radio-phone went again, thinking it was news on Mundy — but it was Phil Reeves at Dorchester Boulevard.

‘Strangest call just come in, Michel.’

‘Why? What is it?’

‘Jean-Paul Lacaille has just phoned. He’s on the other line right now — wants to speak to you.’

Michel was stunned into silence, and after a second Reeves prompted: ‘Do you want me to tell him you’re too busy to talk right now.’

Michel snapped himself back. ‘No, no, it’s okay. I’ll take it.’

Darkness. Constant, all-enveloping darkness.

Elena tried to think of it like the solitude she’d sought in the chine, an escape from all the madness outside — God knows she’d seen more than her fair share these past days — and for a while that worked. She could retreat into her own thoughts, continue spinning around what she might say to Georges. But the bumpy flight did little to help her already jaded nerves. And as the darkness continued, the long minutes stretching into hours — the journey seemed to be taking forever — her unease returned. This was different! This was a forced darkness, an imposed solitude. In the chine she was always free to make her way back up to the light.

In that moment it suddenly struck her why Lorena had run in panic from the chine — she’d spent half her life in forced darkness with the sewers and the orphanages, and now Ryall. Eyes clenched tight shut behind the visor, Elena said a silent prayer that it all went well with Crowley. And she was suddenly piqued at her own rising paranoia: all she risked was rejection, non-acceptance if she said the wrong thing. Probably all she deserved having blanked Georges from her mind for a lifetime. It paled in comparison to what Lorena faced.

She should be rejoicing, not chewing her fingernails — she’d finally got what she wanted. Isn’t that what the whole nightmare had been about? Perhaps her anxiety was as much because of that passage than what was to come. A sense of a lifetime’s odyssey coming to a close. She’d get her few hours in the spotlight with Georges to try and make good, and then that was it. And she wasn’t just performing for herself: she couldn’t help sense her father riding along with her. He’d been unable to track Georges down, make amends before he died: now it was down to her to make amends for both of them.

Forced darkness. But as they hit the last stage of their journey driving from the plane, Michel Chenouda’s chilling account from their last conversation was suddenly back with her: how Georges had been blindfolded in the back of a van and would have been killed if they hadn’t intervened.

Probably that journey wouldn’t have felt far different from this, Elena thought, settling back for a moment into the darkness and the thrum of the wheels on the road. She shuddered at what that must have been like: going through this same forced solitude thinking that at any second you were about to die?

But as it struck her that in part she was grappling for an empathy link — a reminder of the chasm she faced with little idea of how to even start crossing it — she pushed the contemplation away.

Brian Cole weaved through the tables of the busy jazz club.

On the small stage, a trio were running through a passable instrumental rendition of Jobim’s ‘Girl from Ipanema’. He thought for a moment he could see Mundy in the far corner, but as he got closer and could get a clearer view, it wasn’t him.

Only nine clubs they thought Mundy could get away with visiting at his age, but each one took time to search. They’d split the list between two of them: this was now the third on Cole’s list. Bars and cocktail lounges presented more of a problem: they’d made a list of twenty, but there were probably a dozen more they could have added. The other two in their team were busy working through them: the only advantage was that they could rush in, a quick scan, and rush out again.

It wasn’t until Cole started down the steps of his next club that his mobile rang. His colleague Tim had found Mundy at The Glue Pot.

‘…He’s here with me now. I’ll pass you over.’ Tim was almost shouting to be heard above the noise of the club.

Mundy came on with a gruff ‘What is this?’ — clearly irritated at the intrusion — and Cole sneaked a quick glance at his watch as he explained the problem. Almost an hour and a half into their search: he wondered whether they’d still be in time.

‘Come on, come on!’ Roman rubbed his hands together and stomped his feet to fight off the cold.

He wore a lined bomber jacket — it was still bitter at night in Montreal — but where they were now felt a good ten degrees colder. And with the waiting around, it was starting to cut through more to his bones.

Funicelli studied the house through the night-sight binoculars: two lights on that he could see. One at the side upstairs which also shone through at the front onto the veranda — probably the main lounge. And the other downstairs at the back. They hadn’t been able to check the far side of the house; although the lake wrapping around was iced over, they’d have been too visible. But they couldn’t see any reflected glow on the lake surface.

Thirty-five minutes now they’d been waiting for the two men escorting the English woman to leave — an hour and twenty minutes since Jake Kirkham had followed them there. Maybe Roman was wrong. He thought they’d be heading off to a local hotel or, if it was a brief meeting, heading back with the woman — but maybe they were staying the night. The house looked big, but was it big enough to take them all? These places usually had a tight spec: enough room for the guards and the main subject, with not a lot to spare. And already they might have to make room for the woman.

Funicelli had placated that maybe it didn’t matter. With the gas he was using, it was going to knock all of them out anyway.

But it was the panicky few minutes between them cutting the telephone and power lines and putting in the gas that Roman was worried about. With only three or four men, one would see to the generator and they wouldn’t dream of leaving less than two guarding Georges or risk sending someone out alone on reconnaissance. But with another two, they’d have the extra manpower to check for anything suspicious.

Roman had decided to wait, but now the cold and his impatience were getting the better of him.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ Roman muttered under his breath. ‘Maybe we should take all the fuckers out at the same time.’

‘Yeah,’ Funicelli nodded mechanically, still checking through the binoculars.

Massenat was to Roman’s side with Desmarais and Jake Kirkham hanging a couple of yards back, as if they were only peripherally involved with whatever the three decided.

Roman had quickly set the tone on first greeting when Kirkham glanced at the blood splatters on one shoulder and arm and asked what happened. ‘I cut myself shaving.’ As Kirkham’s eyes shifted to the heavier splatters on Massenat’s collar and chest, Roman added with the same wry smile: ‘He’s got the same razor.’ The message was clear: Don’t pry. We’re here to get a job done, not answer twenty fucking questions.

Kirkham’s other two goons they’d left over a mile away at the start of the dirt track leading to the lakeside. Funicelli had given them simple instructions on exactly where and how to cut the electricity and telephones to the house: one advantage in the wilds, everything ran overhead. But they looked like two rejects from Wayne’s World; Roman seriously wondered if they could manage even that without frying themselves.

‘Wait!’ Funicelli announced breathlessly, adjusting the sights. Shadow of figures moving across, but as the car interior light flickered on with one door opening, they became clearer. ‘Looks like they’re leaving after all.’

‘Great.’ Roman stomped his feet again, but now it was more to mark time: four or five minutes to let them get down the track and clear, then they could cut the lines and move in.

‘I know this call is going to seem strange to you — but I didn’t know what else to do.’

Michel listened as Jean-Paul explained that his original plan had been to spirit Georges away somewhere, possibly Cuba — but he’d suddenly discovered that Roman had other plans. ‘…That’s why I’m phoning now.’

‘I know. That’s where I’m heading now,’ Michel said, and the line fell silent for a moment. Before Jean-Paul got the impression that his call might have been wasted, Michel added: ‘But the one thing I don’t know is exactly where the safe house is — only the general area. Did Roman mention anything to you?’

Jean-Paul was fazed for a second that Chenouda didn’t know the location. ‘Uuh… just some place called Cochrane, Northern Ontario. But no exact address.’

‘Cochrane, Cochrane,’ Michel repeated, gesturing towards Stephan, the ERT Constable with the map.

A moment while Stephan traced one finger about on the map, and then as it settled on one spot he held the map up towards Michel.

‘Okay, we’ve got it. We’ve got it!’ Such was his long-ingrained suspicion of the Lacailles that for a second it struck him that Jean-Paul could be giving him a false location. But he could see clearly that Cochrane was in sector 14. Another awkward pause, then: ‘Thanks. I know it couldn’t have been easy for you to call. I owe you a drink for this.’

‘Yes you do,’ Jean-Paul agreed, adding dryly: ‘And lifting the threat of a jail sentence from my head wouldn’t be a bad idea either.’

The line clicked off and Michel looked towards the pilot. ‘Time estimate for Cochrane?’

The pilot glanced at the map, skewing his mouth as he mulled it over. ‘Fifteen, sixteen minutes.’

Michel tried to shake off his earlier despondency that they’d be too late. Still they needed to raise Mundy to know the exact location. That call finally came through ten minutes later.

Michel breathlessly explained their dilemma and Mundy said that he’d phone through to warn them and call straight back. But when Mundy’s return call came, he had crushing news: subdued, defeated tone as he told Michel that the line was dead. He couldn’t get through.

Michel’s stomach dropped like a stone, his hopes fading again.

‘What about mobiles?’ he asked frantically.

‘We don’t use them — for security reasons. Too easily tracked and monitored. The secure line is the only line in and out, and it’s already dead.’

Michel closed his eyes. This time the image of them picking through the bodies was more vivid, difficult to shake off. But the hardest part Michel knew already would be him living with what he’d been responsible for.

Ascending the stairs, Cameron Ryall had been in two minds what to do.

It had been one of those days. Three days of being on the police’s back every other hour over Lorena with little or no positive feedback, then suddenly out of the blue they’d phoned mid-afternoon to say she was on her way. From Canada!

Ryall shook his head. Most of the police search had been centred on Europe, no wonder they hadn’t found her. And now they were fluffing about whether or not to press charges.

‘She did give Lorena up voluntarily in the end. And then we’ve got the problem of that original tape left and her explanation of why she took Lorena: what she thought might be happening with her. Mrs Waldren took her to a couple of sessions in Canada, but nothing conclusive came out of that in the end — which is why she’s now returning her. But if we did press charges, no doubt all of that would come out in her defence.’

The call had come through from Crowley. Obviously Turton found it all too awkward to tackle himself. It was left to Crowley to carefully tip-toe round words like molested or interfered with.

Nothing conclusive. Ryall wondered just what had happened at those sessions in Canada. He’d have thought that pressing charges against Elena Waldren would normally have been automatic. Maybe more had come out than they were making out; enough at least for them to harbour strong doubts about proceeding against her.

His step was measured as he made his way up. The thought was starting to rankle: what had come out of those sessions, what did they know? Probably now he’d never know, and did it really matter? If it had been that serious or suspicious, he’d have been the one the police would be charging, or at the least asking some very pointed questions.

His step was a shade lighter as he reached the top. He’d been in two minds, but finally decided not to go to Lorena’s room. Let her rest for a few days, settle in. But a few paces along he suddenly paused, having second thoughts. He listened out. Faint shuffle of movement from Nicola in their bedroom. She’d hit the gin and pills even heavier with the nervous anticipation of Lorena’s return. She’d be zonked out within minutes. Besides, she’d never interfered, had never dared in all of the eleven years since he’d discovered her secret. He remembered the one time she’d caught him by accident with Mikaya; she just turned from the doorway after a second without saying anything. The mounting neurosis of her carrying the burden of his secret on top of her own showed mainly with her increasing diet of pills and alcohol. It was all that kept her going. Pathetic, but Ryall was long past caring. The most important thing was that she wouldn’t disturb him.

And Lorena’s first night back after such an ordeal — it was just the time that any father would brow-soothe, reassure. He turned and started towards Lorena’s room, his mouth suddenly dry with anticipation. And he’d desperately missed her: missed the gentle feel of her skin at his fingertips; the soft, even fall of her breath on his cheek as he’d lean over, lightly trace one finger across her closed eyelids just before he counted her back awake. She was totally his in that moment; he had control over practically her every breath.

He stood stock still for a second, controlling his own breathing now as he looked down at Lorena; then, his hand visibly trembling, he reached out and lightly touched her hair. And in that moment it suddenly struck him how he might find out what had happened in the sessions in Canada.

Bell’s every nerve-end was as taut as piano-wire as he watched the images on screen.

And as Ryall started to talk and count Lorena down into a hypnotic sleep, he punched the air with a fist. ‘Yes, yes! Got you, you bastard! First night back, but you just couldn’t wait.’

‘…Seven… eight… feeling drowsier now, every limb in your body feeling totally relaxed. Drifting deeper… deeper…’

Bell was on the edge of his seat as Ryall hit nine and ten, then reached out and lightly stroked Lorena’s cheek and passed the same hand twice only inches in front of her eyes.

Then silence. Stone silence.

Bell couldn’t tell whether Lorena was in a real sleep or not. Had Lowndes advice about mentally counting down other numbers worked?

Bell watched Ryall’s hand. It had made contact again at her shoulder and traced down her arm a few inches, then stopped.

Some trivia about the trip and Canada and the rough time she’d been through to which Bell didn’t pay much attention — he was too busy watching where Ryall’s hand might travel next. Then suddenly he tuned in to where the conversation was heading.

‘…And when you were there you saw a doctor. A psychiatrist. What did you talk to him about?’

Bell’s whole body went rigid. Ryall was digging for what had happened in the sessions! If Lorena was really under, at any second she’d spill the beans. The whole operation would be over before it had started!

‘About my time at the orphanages… the sewers and Patrika. And about my family.’

‘I see. Your family. So what did he ask you about them?’

Oh Jesus. Bell swallowed hard. He tapped one finger repeatedly on the desk by the screen, could hardly bare the tension of everything hanging on what Lorena said next. His eyes were back on Ryall’s hand. It had moved a fraction to lower on her arm, the thumb spread and touching the edge of her breast. But was it enough? Probably not. Could be construed as innocent.

‘Come on!’ Bell hissed. ‘Move that hand lower and — ’ Then he suddenly stopped, could hardly believe he was egging Ryall on because he feared they might only have seconds left. And it suddenly hit him that if Ryall uncovered their game, realized that they were trying to entrap him — Lorena could be in danger. He glanced anxiously at the phone, wondering whether to call Crowley and stop it all now; except that they wouldn’t get there in time. If the game was up, Ryall would know everything within the next couple of minutes.

‘Different things. He… he seemed worried if I was happy with them.’

‘Happy with them… happy with them? But what did he ask you in particular about them?’

Crunch time. Bell’s stomach sank. Their only hope was if Lorena wasn’t really under, could bluff and lie her way through. Ryall’s hand was on the move again: it traced tantalisingly down her arm and across, coming to rest on her stomach. Still not enough.

‘He… he asked me if anything bad was happening to me. Anything I didn’t like.’

‘What sort of bad things? What did he — ’ Ryall suddenly broke off, looking towards the door as the telephone started ringing.

Late for anyone to be calling, but then this was the night his stepdaughter had returned: maybe a relative or well-wisher. Bell’s pulse raced double-time. Was Lorena awake and fending Ryall off, or relating accurately how the session had gone? With the danger of FMS, Lowndes would probably have avoided directly prompting about Ryall molesting her. But within a few questions, Ryall would unearth the truth. The telephone stopped ringing: either they’d given up or Nicola Ryall had answered.

And as Ryall looked down again at Lorena and finished his question, Bell leant closer to the screen, his eyes only inches away, following every small movement: the delicate flicker behind her closed eyes, her gentle moistening with her tongue as she spoke. His hands were balled tight in fists, and he unclenched one and lightly touched the screen. ‘Come on little angel, be awake. Be awake.’ But he couldn’t tell either way.

Jean-Paul noticed the car trailing in his rear-view mirror soon after hanging up on Chenouda. Two cars behind, a steady fifty yards. But he was sure it was the same car he’d seen follow him into Avenue Papineau from Gouin. He’d since taken two more turns, and it was still with him a mile further on along St Denis.

Just to make sure, Jean-Paul took the next right at Rue Jarry, then left again onto St Laurent heading towards the city centre. It followed at each turn the same steady distance behind — except for the last turn when almost a hundred yards grew between them when they had to wait for a car to pass before pulling out. No doubt left: they were trailing him!

‘Why are we trailing around like this?’ Raphael asked from the back ‘I though we were going to Le Piemontais?’

‘Yes, we are. We are.’ Jean-Paul wrenched his eyes from the mirror. He’d frightened them to get them out of the house, but he didn’t want to panic them now. He’d told Lillian where they were heading when she’d impatiently asked as soon as they’d started moving.

But his eyes couldn’t help being drawn back to the car as he noticed it swing out and overtake the two cars in between, closing the gap again to fifty yards.

As Lorenzo Petrilli cut back in from overtaking the last car, Nunzio asked, ‘Do you think he’s made us?’

‘I don’t know, I…’ Then, as he noticed Jean-Paul glance once more in the mirror. ‘Yeah, yeah — looks like it. I think he must have had some kind of warning. The way he left the house like his ass was on fire… and he made us too easily.’

Nunzio looked at his brother for a second, not sure if he was just making excuses for following too obviously; but what he said made sense. He shrugged. ‘Whatever. We’re going to have to make our move sooner rather than later. Closer to downtown it’s going to get more difficult.’

Lorenzo nodded. Right now they could make the hit and swing on to one of the cross highways and get away easily. Downtown there’d be more junctions before they could get clear, and more police cars. Lorenzo put his foot down, closing the gap towards Jean-Paul’s car.

Jean-Paul’s palms were damp on the steering wheel as he watched the car move closer behind. Surely they weren’t going to make a move with his son and mother with him? They’d wait until he was alone. But as he watched the car edge closer still, that hope began to fade.

With his repeated glances in the mirror, this time Raphael picked up on his consternation. ‘What’s wrong?’

Your uncle has sent someone to have me killed. And Lillian would be even more destroyed at discovering this Cain and Abel drama between her two beloved sons. All he said was, ‘What I was worried about earlier.’ Then, towards Lillian beside him in the front, he hissed under his breath: ‘Cacchione!’ The name meant something to her, but not the boy. That’s what it had been about all along: changing their lives so that his son didn’t have to live in the shadows like he’d had to. But now his son was in the middle of it all; in the end the shadows had reached out to him anyway.

Jean-Paul’s jaw worked tight, cursing Roman: he’d been so eager that everything else had quickly gone to the wind; he’d broken the golden rule: never involve other family.

Jean-Paul took the gun out of his jacket and held it in his lap as the car edged closer — only twenty yards behind now — feeling Raphael’s eyes on him anxiously. His father the great protector. In reality he hadn’t fired a gun in years, and Roman knew that too: he’d be an easy target.

The car moved closer — twelve yards, ten — and at that moment its full beam came on, washing them in light. Sudden flash image of him and Roman together as children, playing in the garden on a sunny day as their father called out to them. Happier days. But it faded quickly to the raw reality of the car pressing close behind, almost imagining Roman in the back seat goading them on.

Jean-Paul put his foot down, trying to put some distance between them. Street-lights and neon flickered past more rapidly. He had to concentrate hard on the road ahead. A car edged out suddenly at a turning just ahead, and he blared his horn and swerved around it. He gained some distance, but it was short-lived; checking his mirror, they were rapidly closing the gap again: fifteen yards, then back to twelve again. He checked his speedo: seventy, and edging up.

Jean-Paul was shaking hard, his palms clammy on the wheel. If they pulled alongside, what was he going to do? If he put the window down to get a shot at them, he’d be all the more vulnerable. And he wasn’t even sure he could get in a good shot and control the car with one hand at this speed.

The lights ahead changed to orange, but he kept his foot down hard, screaming through as it turned to red. The car behind stayed with him, a couple of cars beeping at it as they started across the intersection.

‘Watch out!’ Lillian shouted as a bike with a weak tail-light loomed suddenly on the inside.

She’d been remarkably restrained so far: normally she complained if he was doing 10 mph over on a downtown shopping trip. Jean-Paul swung a yard out to clear it, and felt the back drift slightly.

At this speed he risked killing them all anyway. The Cadillac was heavy, difficult to control if he had to swerve or make last second adjustments. He wished now he’d brought the Jag: they’d have been cramped and had less protection, but he could have weaved in and out easier and sped away and probably lost them. Heavy. It suddenly gave him the spark of an idea.

As the car started to close the gap again, this time Jean-Paul let them; he didn’t speed up to try and gain distance. But at the same time he had one eye on the car lights coming towards them.

‘Okay, I think we’ve got him now,’ Lorenzo announced as he closed the distance down to only five yards. He tapped one finger on the steering wheel as he waited on a car passing, then swung quickly out and accelerated. The next approaching lights were some distance away, and didn’t seem to be moving that fast.

Nunzio opened the side window and the air-rush filled the car. He levelled his gun: the Cadillac glass was only slightly tinted, he could pick Jean-Paul out clearly. He thought he had him with a clean shot when the Cadillac suddenly pulled forward a few yards.

Nunzio looked across as Lorenzo frantically pulled level again, eyes darting between the Cadillac and the traffic ahead. And suddenly the shot was there again. Clean. Clear. Nunzio levelled his gun at Jean-Paul’s head and eased the trigger.

A heavy kick and the Cadillac seemed to swing away a fraction with the impact. But as Nunzio focused on the starburst where the bullet had hit, he saw that it hadn’t penetrated. Bullet proof glass! The side of Jean-Paul’s mouth curled in a smile. Nunzio levelled his gun again.

‘Come on! Come on!’ Lorenzo screamed, glancing across and suddenly registering what had happened.

‘A couple more in the same spot should do it!’

‘But quick, huh!’ Lorenzo’s eyes were fixed back on the lights ahead, faint sweat beads popping on his forehead. He could see now that it was a large truck. But they’d still be able to swing back in time.

Nunzio got aimed square-on again, but then the Cadillac suddenly swung in towards them at the last second, startling him — it swerving away or pulling forward again would have been the natural reaction. He squeezed off the shots anyway, saw two more star bursts appear to the right of the first just before Jean-Paul’s face loomed inches away and the Cadillac crunched against them.

They drifted away a few yards, and Lorenzo juggled frantically with the wheel, pulling them back in. His eyes opened wider. The truck was bearing down hard, its air-horn blaring — but they should still make it in time. He accelerated to cut in front of Jean-Paul, but at that instant the Cadillac swung towards them again. Another shot squeezed off by Nunzio, and Lorenzo had anticipated this time by turning his wheel back in just before impact.

But it was no contest — the Cadillac was almost twice their car’s weight, and the shunt was much harder this time. They careened wildly towards the truck as Lorenzo tried to make a last second compensation with the wheel.

Too sharp. ‘What the…’ The back swung around and they slued totally out of control.

The screeching of tyres and air-brakes filled the air. The truck driver had expected them to cut in, or even if they pulled over slightly there’d have still been room for him to pass — so he was late braking. The car fish-tailed at the last moment and he hit it broadside, staving in the driver’s side and carrying it along for ten yards before the momentum rolled it over: it turned through 480? coming to rest on its roof.

The driver finally managed to come to a halt five yards short of the mangled wreck. He jumped out, not sure whether to advance closer or get clear. The driver he could see had been killed instantly, but he was trying to judge whether there was any movement from the passenger when the spilt petrol igniting made the decision for him. The flames quickly leapt higher, and he was only eight paces into his sprint away when the whole thing blew.

Jean-Paul had pulled over fifty yards down on the far side and they’d got out of the car. Jean-Paul braced one hand on the Cadillac roof as they looked on. His father had bought the car in the midst of their battles with the Cacchiones: it hadn’t been able to save Pascal, but his father would have been smiling on at them now if he could see the good use it had been put to. Something from the past to allow them to escape to the future: somehow fitting.

As the explosion came, he could see for a second the excitement reflected in Raphael’s eyes — the stock reaction of the video-game generation — then as it dawned on the boy how close they’d come to death themselves, his face crumpled and he pulled in close as his father hugged him tight. Lillian gently clasped Jean-Paul’s hand over Raphael’s shoulder — but still the circle wasn’t complete, Jean-Paul reminded himself. If Roman got to Georges, Simone never would be reaching out for his hand.