Private Games

Chapter 104

‘GOOD JOB, LAD,’ Knight said, lying back, smiling at his son, glancing at Marta – who was still cradling the gun – and feeling a thick chunk from the bottom of the juice glass lying on the floor just below the small of his back.

The fingers of his right hand closed round it just as Marta said to Luke, ‘Go and sit down next to your sister – and don’t move.’ She turned to inspect Daring, who was now shifting on the bed.

‘Wake up,’ she said again. ‘We have to go soon.’

Daring moaned as Knight twisted the chunk of glass into the duct tape around his wrists and began to saw at it. Luke came dutifully towards his father, smiling and saying, ‘Lukey big boy.’

His attention jumping back to Marta, Knight said, ‘Brilliant. Now sit down like Marta told you too.’

But his son didn’t budge. ‘We go home, Daddy?’ Luke said, and Bella began to whine in agreement behind her gag. ‘We go and have party?’

‘Soon,’ Knight said, feeling the tape begin to part. ‘Very soon.’

But then Marta snatched up the gun and a roll of duct tape and started towards Luke. His son took one look at the tape and cried, ‘No, Marta!’

Luke ducked and started to run. Marta became infuriated. Pointing the gun at Knight’s son, she barked, ‘Sit down. Now. Or you die.’

But Knight’s son was too young to understand fully the implications of having a loaded weapon aimed at him. ‘No!’ Luke said impudently, and jumped onto the mattress beside Isabel, his eyes darting around, looking for escape.

‘I’ll teach you, then,’ Marta said, stalking towards Luke, her stare fully on the boy and not on Knight who felt his wrists come free.

As she passed him, looking to corner his son, Knight lashed out with his bound feet.

They connected hard with Marta’s Achilles tendons. She cried out as her legs buckled and she fell sideways to the floor. The gun clattered away.

Knight twisted around, clutching that chunk of glass, and tried to slash her with it. But her reaction time was stunningly fast and practical. She threw up her forearm, taking the cut there before kneeing Knight hard in the chest.

The wind knocked out of him, Knight let go of the glass shard.

Insane with fury, Marta jumped to her feet and snatched up the gun. She marched over to one of the Coke bottles, opened it, and stuffed the muzzle inside and down into the liquid before saying, ‘I don’t care what Cronus wants. I have had enough of you, and your bastard children.’

Marta deftly wrapped duct tape around her bleeding arm, and then around the gun barrel and the mouth of the bottle before swinging around the crudely silenced weapon. Her eyes had gone dark and dead, and Knight had a glimpse of what all those Bosnian boys must have seen when the Brazlic sisters had come calling. With grim intent, Marta marched towards Luke who still sat beside his sister. She said to Knight, ‘The boy goes first. I want you to see how it’s done.’

‘Lancer is going to kill you!’ Knight shouted at her. ‘Just like he killed your sisters!’

That stopped her progress. She turned to him and said, ‘My sisters are very much alive. They have already escaped from London.’

‘No,’ Knight said. ‘Lancer killed them both. He broke Andjela’s neck, and then cut off her hands and sent them to me. Nada’s throat was cut from ear to ear.’

‘That’s a lie!’ Marta snarled as she came at him, raising the gun.

‘They were found in the same abandoned factory near the gasworks where you kept Selena Farrell.’

That information made Marta pause briefly. ‘How come it hasn’t been on the news?’

‘They probably haven’t alerted the media,’ Knight said, fumbling for an answer. ‘They do that, you know – hide things.’

‘You’re lying,’ she said. Then she shrugged. ‘And even if it is true, so much the better for me. I am sick of them. I think of killing them myself from time to time.’

Marta clicked off the rifle’s safety catch.