One of the Annex C characters, thought River Cartwright. Anton, Lars and Cyril. He couldn’t remember their full names. But one of them.
Not far away, sitting in the snow with his back against a tree, was J.K. Coe.
River went to join him.
When Frank had gone over the cliff, River had lain breathing heavily for maybe a minute, staring at an empty sky; a huge grey vault of untouchable space. He could still feel Frank’s grip on his upper arms, and was unsure of the sequence that had thrown him free. At last, though, he’d got up and approached the cliff edge. When he’d looked over, there’d been no sign of Frank. The drop wasn’t sheer, which didn’t mean Frank hadn’t ended in the water way below, and didn’t mean he wasn’t spread-eagled on the rocks, camouflaged by his parka. Alternatively, River supposed, he could be clinging on somewhere invisibly, or making his way, handhold by handhold, back up the steep drop, like a family-sized Tom Cruise. If so, River supposed he’d be seeing him again before long. Frank wasn’t one for a quiet exit.
He’d hunted about a bit, recovered his gun, and decided to head back inland, find Coe and Shirley. If Louisa and young Harper were hiding out along the coastal path, Frank would have found them. And if he’d found them, he’d have let River know: the man had been incapable of not making speeches. So this was another dead end. He’d walked back along the path, rejoined the road, and navigated his way to the turning Coe had taken; towards the first of the barns he’d identified on his map.
And here he was.
He sat next to Coe, and neither spoke for a long while, until River at last said, “Okay.” Then said it again, breathing it out slowly, making it a paragraph.
“O—kaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy . . .”
Then he closed J.K. Coe’s sightless eyes with his palm.
From a distance, Coe had looked peaceful, as if he were taking a rest after combat, his hands folded across his stomach. Up close, he had clearly been holding his stomach in. The knife—the other man’s knife, River guessed—lay on the ground beside him, staining the snow, and if an expert might have been able to choreograph the moments preceding this tableau, it was enough for River to know that Coe had won the battle, having made his way to this tree once the fighting was done. Though even a partisan view would have to admit that, long term, you’d have to call it a draw.
“I’m sorry,” he told his dead colleague, then went through his pockets, removing Coe’s ID and phone. Unlike River’s this still had some charge in it.
As if his looting had triggered an alarm, a phone in the other body’s pocket chose that moment to ring.
Emma was dead.
When Lucas arrived at the gate marking the end of the estuary footpath, instead of heading straight up to the High Street he veered left, along a lane skirting the town’s southern edge which a signpost warned led nowhere. He left a broad, scattered mess behind him in the shape of frightened tracks in the snow, but there was nothing he could do about that.
Emma was dead.
He’d explored this town a million times, on boring holidays. Had arrived every year hoping some major refurbishment had taken place—an amusement arcade, a multiplex, an international athletics stadium—and hunting for them had left him familiar with the tiny sidestreets, all the rubbish business premises. There was a garage along here; not a city-type garage, with a car showroom attached, but an oily little yard where a man in overalls tinkered with bits. His mum had brought the Skoda here once to have a tickling cough in its engine cured: the car had been left out on the lane for her to collect, its keys balanced out of sight on its onside rear wheel.
Emma was dead.
There was no escaping the rhythm of the thought: it was there in the heavy tread of his feet on packed snow, in the pounding of blood in his ears. Emma was dead. Lucas had met her for the first time just the previous night, but that had been long enough to cause her death, because that was the short brutal truth of it: Emma would still be alive if not for Lucas.
And Lucas, too, might be dead soon, because whoever was looking for him was out here somewhere in the snow.
There was a row of cars outside the closed-for-weather garage. Lucas wasn’t a great driver, technically wasn’t a driver at all, but he’d learned more failing two tests than most people learned passing one, and he could identify a rear onside wheel no trouble. He looked round before checking the first car. The lane curved, so he couldn’t see the footpath gate, but nobody had appeared from that direction, and he could see nobody watching from the back windows of the few houses.
The snow was deeper here, as was usual in unregarded spaces. It had gathered almost as high as the wheel arch; still, the keys were there, first time of trying. Perhaps there was something to be said for small-town life; for its reliable beat. Still nobody in sight. If Lucas could get the car to start, if he could drive it as far as the road leading up to the High Street: things would get easier. It was a more occupied area. It stood to reason the road surfaces would be clearer, have more traction; that there’d be fewer murderers around. He cleared the windscreen with his arm, and caused a minor avalanche opening the car door. No alarms went off. He dropped the keys, scrabbled about, picked them up, and managed to insert one into the ignition. It trembled a little, but did the job: Emma was dead but the motor was alive. Now what? Now he urged the car into motion, and nearly killed it leaving its parking space.
Most of the tracks headed up into town: the sane, the obvious direction. The alternative was a no-through lane, its lack of access heralded by a traffic sign on the corner. A single set of tracks led that way, presumably belonging to someone from one of the few houses.
Still, Louisa hesitated.
Lucas knew the town, knew its shortcuts and footpaths. Maybe there was a way round here; a cutting between houses that led . . .
Led where? Fucking Narnia? Any shortcuts led straight to the High Street, so on she went, up the hill, all her muscles aching now, and her cheeks numb with frozen tears.
When Lars arrived at the barn, his arse felt like he’d been taming a kangaroo, not driving a car, but that thought vanished before he’d jerked to a halt. Cyril lay out in front of the barn, and had either drowned in his own blood or marinated himself in it before giving up the ghost. Lars remembered Frank not giving him a gun: You made the naughty list. Try not to get hit by any more wrenches. Something sharper than a wrench had done this. Anything blunter would have taken ages.
There was another body too, under a tree. This one looked relatively peaceful, but equally dead. The chances of it being an innocent passerby who’d got into it with Cyril over illicit barn usage were not high. The average rambler wouldn’t have given even a concussed Cyril trouble. Lars went through the body’s pockets, and found no phone, no ID, which more or less proved he was spook. A citizen generally had a wallet, and always a phone.
Snow was mashed up everywhere, and the place looked like a polar bear’s picnic spot. Lars scanned for recent presence, but couldn’t tell one set of bootprints from another. A whole bunch led round back of the barn, but they’d all been taking dumps round there. Aside from that, everything came up or down the main track to the road.
But he didn’t have time to work it all through. He’d left one corpse behind already, and there were pissed-off locals stomping round the area. . .
Lars had made worse exits from nastier places, but that didn’t mean he could afford to hang around now. Pull the bodies into the barn and burn the place; the car too. It would be on search-lists soon. Couldn’t be too careful.