Not Dead Enough

115

Cleo felt as if her veins had filled with freezing water. She turned, in terror.

A tall figure was standing inches behind her, brandishing a large claw hammer. He was garbed head to foot in an olive-green protective suit that reeked of plastic, latex gloves and a gas mask. She could see nothing of his face at all. She was staring at two round, darkened lenses set into loose-fitting grey material, with a black metal filter at the bottom in the shape of a snout. He looked like a mutant, malevolent insect.

Through those lenses, she could just make out the eyes. They weren’t Richard’s eyes. They were not any eyes she recognized.

Barefoot and feeling utterly defenceless, she took a step back, stone cold sober now, quaking, a scream jammed somewhere deep inside her gullet. She took another step back, trying desperately to think straight, but her brain was shorting out. Her back was against the door, pressing hard against it, wondering if she had time to yank it open and scream for help.

Except hadn’t she just put the damn safety chain on?

‘Don’t move and I won’t hurt you,’ he said, his voice sounding like a muffled Dalek.

Sure, of course not, she thought. You’re standing in my house, holding a hammer, and you’re not planning to hurt me.

‘Who – who – who?’ The words jetted out of her mouth in high-pitched spurts. Her eyes were swinging wildly from the maniac in front of her to the floor, to the walls, looking for a weapon. Then she realized she was still holding her cordless phone. There was an intercom button on it that she’d hit a few times in the past in error that would set the extension in her bedroom shrieking. Trying desperately to remember where on the keypad the button was located, she surreptitiously pressed a key with her finger. Nothing happened.

‘You had a lucky escape with the car, didn’t you, bitch?’ The deep, baffled voice was venomous.

‘Who – who—’ She was shaking too much, her nerves twisting around in knots inside her, jerking her throat closed like a ligature each time she tried to speak.

She pressed another button. Instantly there was a shrill sound up above them. He tilted his face towards the ceiling for one distracted instant. And in that moment, Cleo leapt forward and hit him on the side of the head as hard as she could with the phone. She heard a crack. Heard him grunt in shock and pain and saw him sag sideways, thinking for an instant that he was going to go down. The hammer fell from his hand and clattered on to the oak floor.

It was difficult to see inside this thing, the Time Billionaire realized, recoiling dizzily. It had been a mistake. He could not get any real peripheral vision. Couldn’t see the fucking hammer. Could just see the bitch, hand raised, holding her shattered phone. Then she was lunging on to the floor – and then he saw the gleam of the steel hammer right in front of her.

Oh no, you don’t!

He dived down on to her right leg, caught her bare ankle, which was sticking out of her jeans, and jerked it back, feeling her wriggling, strong, wiry, fighting like a big fish. He saw the hammer, lost sight of it again. Then, suddenly, a quick gleam of steel in front of his face and he felt a fierce pain in his left shoulder.

She’d bloody hit him.

He let go of her leg, rolled forward, seized a handful of her long, blonde hair and pulled sharply towards him. The bitch howled, stumbled then turned, trying to pull free. He pulled harder, jerking her head back so sharply for a moment he thought he’d snapped her neck. She howled, in pain and anger, twisting round to face him. He headbutted her hard in her temple. Saw the hammer spinning like a top across the floor. He tried to scramble over her, still missing too much of his vision, then felt an excruciating pain in his left wrist. The bitch was biting him.

He swung his right wrist, hit her body somewhere, swung it again, trying desperately to wrench his arm free from her teeth. Hit her again. Then again, crying out in pain himself.

Roy! she thought desperately, biting harder, harder still, trying to bite his bloody arm off. Please come, Roy! Oh, God, you were on the phone. If you’d just stayed on one second longer. One second—

She felt the blow on her left breast. Then on the side of her face. Now he had her ear, was twisting it, twisting, twisting. God, the pain was agonizing. He was going to wrench it off!

She cried out, released his arm, rolling away from him as fast as she could, scrambling for the hammer.

Suddenly she felt a grip like a vice around her ankle. She was jerked sharply back, her face scraping along the floor. As she turned to resist, she saw a shadow hurtle at her face, then felt a jarring, blinding, agonizing crunch, and she was falling on to her back, giddily watching down-lighters in the ceiling hurtle past above her, out of focus.

And now she could see he had the hammer again, was on one knee, crouching, levering himself to his feet. And she was not going to let this creep get the better of her, was not going to die, here in her home, was not going to let herself get killed by a madman with a hammer. Not now, especially not now, just at this moment when her life was coming together, when she was so in love—

A weapon.

There had to be a weapon in the room.

The wine bottle on the floor by the sofa.

He was on his feet now.

She was by the bookshelves. She pulled a hardback out and flung it at him. Missed. She pulled out another, a thick, heavy Conan Doyle compendium, getting on to her knees and launching it at him in one movement. It hit him in the chest, making him stagger back a couple of steps, but he was still holding the hammer. Moving towards her.

Now through her pain and anger she suddenly felt scared again. Looking desperately around, she saw Fish’s empty tank on the table. Lunging forward, she seized it, lifted it up, water sloshing. It was so damn heavy she could barely hold it. She swung it at him, hurtling the entire contents – several gallons of water and the pieces of miniature Greek architecture – at him. The weight of the water took him by surprise, knocking him back several steps. Then, with all her strength, she threw the tank at him. It struck him in the knees, bowling him over backward like a skittle, with a muffled, angry howl of pain, then shattered on the floor.

Still holding the hammer, somehow, he was already starting to get back on to his feet. Cleo stared around frantically again, trying to work out her options. There were knives in the kitchen. But she would have to pass him to get in there.

Upstairs, she thought. She had a few moments on him. If she could get upstairs, into her bedroom, lock the door. She had the phone in there!

Staggering to his feet, ignoring the excruciating pain, the sound of his breathing echoing all around him as if he were in a diving chamber, he watched, with pure, utter hatred, tinged with a degree of satisfaction, as her bare ankles and feet disappeared up the stairwell.

And a deep stab of lust.

Nothing up there, sweetheart!

He knew every inch of this house. Jangling in his trouser pocket, inside his protective suit, were the keys to the roof door and to the locks of all the triple-glazed windows. Her mobile phone was lying on the sofa next to an open folder containing some project she appeared to be working on.

He was aroused now. She had put up a spirited fight, just like Sophie Harrington, and that had been a very big turn-on. He smiled at the thought of the nights he had slept with Sophie Harrington, when all the time she had thought he was Brian Bishop.

But the biggest turn-on of all was now. The knowledge that in a few minutes he would be making love to Detective Superintendent Grace’s woman.

Evil creature.

You’ll think twice before you ever call anyone an EVIL CREATURE again, Detective Superintendent Grace.

He limped forward, his left shin in particular hurting like hell, knelt and unplugged the phone jack from the cordless base station. As he stood up again, he saw a jagged rip in his left leg, just below his knee, with blood leaking out. Too bad, nothing he could do about that now. Carefully, he placed his foot on the first tread of the stairs. It wasn’t so easy in this gas mask, as he could not see directly down in front of him very well.

In addition his balance didn’t seem to have been too good these past couple of days. He was still feeling feverish, and in spite of the medication he was taking, his hand did not seem to be healing up. It had been a big decision, wearing this. He liked the thought that it would frighten the bitch. But most of all, he liked the idea that a third victim found with a gas mask would make Detective Superintendent Grace look a fool, because it would show he had the wrong man locked up.

He liked that a lot.

In fact, the gas mask had been a masterstroke! He had Brian to thank for that – he had found it by chance in a cupboard beside the Bishops’ bed when he had been looking for toys to entertain Katie with.

It was the only thing in his entire life that he had to thank his brother for.

Cleo slammed her bedroom door shut, hyperventilating. In near blind panic, she grabbed the Victorian wooden chest at the end of her bed, and dragged that over, jamming it against the door. Then she threw herself at her large bed, grabbed it by one leg and tried to pull it. But it would not budge. She tried again. It wasn’t moving. ‘Shit, you bastard, come on!’ Her eyes jumped around the room, looking at what else she could use for a barricade. She dragged across her small, black lacquered wood dressing table, then the chair, which she wiggled into the remaining space between the dressing table and her bed. Not brilliant, but at least it should hold long enough for her to dial Roy, or maybe 999. Yes, 999 first, then Roy.

But as she pressed the button to activate the phone, she let out a whimper of terror. The line was dead.

And the stainless-steel door handle was turning. Slowly. Incredibly slowly. As if she was watching a freeze-frame video inching forward.

Then a loud BLAM-BLAM-BLAM as if he was kicking the door, or hitting it with his hammer. Her stomach curdled in terror. The door was moving, just a fraction. She heard wood splintering, and realized to her horror it was the wooden trunk and the chair from her dressing table that were both, slowly, disintegrating.

In desperation she ran over to the window. She was two storeys up, but it might be possible to jump. Better than being in here. At least out in the courtyard, even injured, she would be safe, she reasoned. Then a shiver rocked her.

The window was locked and the key was missing.

Frantic, she looked for something heavy, ran her eyes over make-up bottles, hairspray, shoes. What? What? Oh, please God, what?

There was a metal reading lamp on her bedside table. Gripping it by the top, she swing the flat, round base at the window. It bounced off.

Down below she saw one of her neighbours, a young man with whom she occasionally exchanged pleasantries, wheeling his bike across the courtyard, engrossed in a call on his mobile. He was looking up, as if trying to see where the banging had come from. She waved at him frantically. He waved back cheerily, then, continuing his conversation, headed with his bike towards the front gates.

Behind her she heard another BLAM-BLAM-BLAM.

And more splintering wood.