“OK, McKenna, let me fill in some blanks for you,” I said at last. “You played on your concussion from yesterday to avoid going into Einsbaden today, then when we’d all gone you came down here and helped yourself to one of the damaged Audis and set off after us. Don’t try and deny it,” I warned as his mouth opened. How could he even try, when I’d practically tripped over him in the street?
“OK, so you leave before Blakemore and you wait for him on the road back, at a point where you know one good clout will have him over the barrier. Then you scarper back here, stick the car back, and make like you’ve never been away. How am I doing so far?”
The boy was shaking his head with vigour. “No,” he muttered, “you’ve got it wrong. I didn’t kill Blakemore – even if the bastard deserved it.”
I leaned against a tree, folded my arms and indicated with a raised eyebrow that I was still listening.
“Yeah, I took one of the Audis, but I didn’t know any of the damaged ones would still run. I just took the first one I came to that had enough fuel in it. I drove down to the village because I needed to talk to Blakemore before I left.”
His eyes flicked up to mine, daring me to disbelieve him. I kept mine neutral. “You’re leaving?”
He nodded. “Yeah, the taxi’s on its way. I’d already had enough before any of this happened, but now I just want out of here while I’ve still got the chance.”
“What did you want to talk to Blakemore about?”
“Why they covered up my uncle’s death. Why they hinted that he’d stolen the car he was driving. We all know they do driving drills on the road. We’ve seen them and we all know how bloody dangerous it is. Look at yesterday!”
“That wasn’t quite on the open road,” I pointed out. “And the circumstances were a little different.”
“Yeah,” he burst out, “but how do we know something similar didn’t happen then?”
I glanced behind me. The afternoon light was turning dull, dropping from pale blue towards a darker shade. Lights were already coming on in the house and the view back across the grass to the car park was hazy with twilight.
“So what did Blakemore say?” I asked.
“Nothing,” McKenna muttered. “I never got the chance to speak to him alone. There was always someone else around.” He threw me a reproachful look and I realised that I’d been one of those someones.
“So after we bumped into each other you decided you wouldn’t talk to him at all,” I said, my voice cold, “you thought you’d kill him instead.”
“No!” he squawked, pushing himself to his feet and looking poised to flee. “Look, you’re not going to pin this on me. No way! I got back into the car and I drove it straight back here. I passed another Audi on the road, parked up. I’m sure it was one of the school cars, but I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t get a good look at the driver. He had his head turned away from me. Why don’t you go looking for him instead, if you’re so desperate to know who killed Blakemore? Me, I don’t give a shit. I’m out of here.”
“So why did you run just now?”
“After everyone got back and they told me about what had happened, I wondered about the car I’d seen, that’s all, so I came to check,” he swallowed, embarrassed. “Look, I don’t know who was in that car. I didn’t see them clearly, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t see me. They could think I’m a witness, you know? I don’t want to get caught up in that, and if it was someone from the school who’s responsible, well, I don’t want to become the next victim, either.”
“What about your proof?” I asked. “Wasn’t that what you came here for?”
“What good’s proof if I’m dead, too?” he threw back. “This place is a death-trap. I don’t know what game the Major’s playing, but he’s gambling with lives. I’m not going to hang around long enough to find out if he’s on a winning streak.”
He pushed past me, started out across the grass. After only a few strides he paused and turned back to me. “If you had any sense, Charlie, you’d be doing the same.”
Sixteen
It took me a few minutes after McKenna’s departure to put my thoughts in order.
To begin with, out there at the scene, I’d been so certain that the Russians were responsible. I remembered the fear and the loathing on the Peugeot driver’s face after Blakemore had threatened him. His need for retribution had been fierce and blazing, to wipe away that paralysing moment of weakness. Was it enough to override the danger to the child?
But after I’d spoken to Madeleine, McKenna seemed to fit as a suspect on all fronts. Yet when he’d told me about seeing the other school car my instinct had been to believe him. I wasn’t entirely sure why.
I looked up. Evening was dropping rapidly over the Manor now. The interior lights were harsh in their brightness, beginning to cast outwards. It was cold, too. I shivered inside my sweatshirt and wished I’d stopped long enough to put on a jacket.
With a sigh, I trudged back towards the house. I walked across the parking area and up the steps to the smokers’ terrace. I was halfway up before I realised someone was standing out by the French windows, in the shadows, waiting.
I climbed the rest of the way cautiously. It was only as I reached the top that the figure moved out into the light and I recognised him.
“Charlie,” Hofmann greeted, his voice expressing neither happiness nor displeasure at finding me. “Was that McKenna I saw you talking to?”
For a few seconds all I could do was stare back at the big German, my mind furiously working up a reasonable excuse for my actions.
Eventually, I said, “Yes, he told me he was leaving. He just wanted to say goodbye,” I added, hoping Hofmann hadn’t been around for long enough to see me grappling McKenna to the ground. I might have a little trouble convincing him that kind of behaviour was an English tradition for those departing.
“We were just realising how close a shave we had the other day,” I went on quickly, hoping to distract him. “Something like Blakemore’s accident really brings it home to you.” I waved a hand in the general direction of the blue tarpaulin that covered the wrecked Audis over in the corner. “We survived a roll and being shot at, and walked away without a scratch, yet Blakemore makes one mistake and poof, he’s gone. Doesn’t it make you think how lucky we all were? How fragile life is?”
Hofmann considered for a moment, his heavy face reflecting the slow turn of the machinery inside his head. “Motorcycles are dangerous things,” he said at last.
I felt my shoulders drop a fraction at his response, made to move past him, but as I did so I noticed the narrowed shrewdness of his gaze as his eyes rested on me.
The next moment he’d turned away and that dull, almost vacant air had settled over him again. Like his mind was totally occupied with the processes of walking upright and operating his lungs.
So, I wasn’t the only one who’d come to Einsbaden Manor pretending to be less than I was. But why had he?
Before I could form that thought into a question that stood any chance of an answer, Hofmann said abruptly, “I was sent to fetch you. Major Gilby wants to speak with you in his study.”
He stayed by my shoulder as we went in through the French windows, like he’d been told to stop me making a break for it. If that was the case, why send a student, rather than one of the instructors? Maybe the Major thought such a move would put me more off my guard.
Hofmann almost marched me down the set of corridors to the Major’s study without pausing to consider the way. I wondered briefly if he was just efficient, or if there was more to it than that, and I remembered Sean’s warning that the German security services had infiltrated this course. The more I thought about Hofmann as a possible for that, the more he seemed perfect.