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  ‘So how are you going to explain away my death – I assume you intend shooting me too?’

  Amis’ smile broadened. ‘Suicide, my dear. You were so distraught after killing the man you had fallen for in such a big way that you put a bullet in your own head to end it all.’

  Lynn backed away from her. ‘But I have no intention of putting a bullet in my head.’

  ‘No dear,’ Amis accepted, stepping over Murray and advancing towards her, ‘but I have – and how are you going to stop me? After all, you have nowhere to go and as long as I am within arm’s length of you when I pull the trigger, who is to say your death was anything other than suicide? The powder burns alone will help police ballistics to their inevitable conclusion and I will leave my pistol in your hand as my parting present to you just to clinch things. So you see, my scheme is not as madcap as you think.’

  At which point Lynn suddenly felt the wall at her back and realised that, unless there was a miracle, she was dead.

  ****

  O’Donnell braked sharply as she turned into the lane leading down to Murray’s house – and not just because of her speed either. The headlights of the CID car had caught the gleam of chrome to their left as they’d turned in off the main road. A vehicle of some sort seemed to have been driven into a gap in the undergrowth there. Benchley had seen it too. Pulling over, she switched off and jumped out of the CID car after him. The blue or black Mazda MX5 – it was difficult to tell which in the dark – had been reversed into the gap, obviously in an effort to conceal it from view, and foliage and branches were trapped under its rear bumper. The sports car was empty and locked up, but a quick check revealed that its radiator was still warm and the tyres smelled of road heat. This was one car that had been driven very hard and, at a guess, only minutes before.

  ‘Seems Murray has another visitor, apart from Lynn Giles,’ Benchley exclaimed, smoothing both hands down his face to wipe off the rain. ‘No doubt an unwelcome one too.’

  Before O’Donnell could reply, the Met man’s mobile vibrated in his pocket. With an oath he dug the phone out and swiped the screen as he hurriedly clambered back into the car after O’Donnell, out of the rain.

  ‘Guv’?’ Moira Angel’s breathless voice queried. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Never mind that,’ Benchley snapped back. ‘But I can’t talk now—’

  ‘You must,’ Angel persisted. ‘It’s urgent.’

  Benchley scowled. ‘Urgent?’ He cast a quick sidelong glance at O’Donnell, who had turned towards him in her seat and was staring at him curiously, with one hand poised to turn the key in the ignition. ‘What are you on about, woman?’

  There was a burst of static. ‘The checks you asked me to do?’ came faintly.

  ‘What about them?’

  Angel’s voice cut off, then returned and he only just managed to pick up on what she was saying through heavy crackling. ‘Forget … Dubois … Not the one.’

  ‘I already know that.’

  Now Angel’s voice was really breaking up. ‘Checked staff offices … New Light

  Modelling …’

  Lightning illuminated the inside of the car like a giant white flame and Angel’s voice died again. Benchley swore. ‘Moira? Can you hear me?’

  More static, drowned by a roll of thunder, and then her voice coming through in fits and starts. ‘… Carol Amis … ex-army … Iraq, Afghanistan … markswoman … Discharged post-traumatic stress … Psychotic history …’

  ‘What?’ Benchley shouted back. ‘You’re saying Carol Amis is our killer?’

  ‘Found couple .32 rounds … back of desk drawer … same calibre as weapon used… Islington job.’

  More static and for a moment Benchley thought he had lost Angel altogether, but then her voice was back, this time without the static though very tiny. ‘Guv, you still there? I think she’s in Cornwall and she could be armed.’

  Benchley glanced quickly through the rain streaming down his window at the sports car. ‘What car does she own?’ he shouted, conscious that he was losing her again.

  Heavy static returned, but the tiny voice came through it again. ‘Blue Mazda MX5—’

  At which point the call was cut off completely, and as Benchley turned to relay the information to O’Donnell, it was apparent that she had picked up on what Angel had said from Benchley’s own responses and was already on her police radio, requesting armed back-up. Seconds later, she had released the car’s handbrake and they were coasting down the rest of the slope to Murray’s house, ignition on, but engine off and lights extinguished.

  ****

  The two detectives pulled up beside a silver Mercedes saloon which was parked close to the front gate of the property, also empty. ‘Giles’ car,’ O’Donnell commented and stared up through the rain streaming down their windscreen to where lights flickered in the upper-floor windows of the house. ‘Someone’s definitely at home too.’

  And as if to confirm the fact, the instant they climbed out of the car, the unmistakable crack of a gun-shot cut through the still mounting frenzy of the storm.

  Instinctively, O’Donnell grabbed Benchley’s arm as he started towards the front door of the house. ‘Don’t be a fool,’ she said loudly, close to his ear. ‘Wait for the ARV.’

  He tore his arm free. ‘You wait!’ he retorted, wiping the rain out of his eyes. ‘This is my mess and I’m going to sort it.’

  Left with no alternative but to utter a few choice expletives at his disappearing figure, the DI grabbed a torch from the glove compartment and stumbled after him to the front porch of the house.

  A quick check established that the front door was securely locked or bolted on the inside and as knocking was obviously out of the question under the circumstances, O’Donnell directed the beam of her torch down the side of the house. At first they could only make out a tangle of bushes writhing in the wind like spectral Dervishes, but then Nature came to their aid with a flash of sheet lightning which revealed a narrow path cutting through the bushes towards the back of the house.

  The inevitable thunderclap came as they left the cover of the porch, using the torch to pick their way along the path. But almost immediately another lightning flash rendered the torch momentarily superfluous as an archway, set in a boundary wall and sporting what seemed to be climbing roses, stood out in stark relief to their right. Negotiating a short flight of stone steps leading up through it, they found themselves at the back of the house on a lamp-lit patio strewn with tables and chairs which had obviously been overturned by the wind. From somewhere inside the house a dog could be heard howling mournfully at the storm, but otherwise there was nothing save the sound of the wind and the rain.

  Peering closely at a pair of patio doors, accessing what appeared to be a living room, O’Donnell tapped Benchley urgently on the arm. One of the doors seemed to be trembling in the light of the patio lamps, the catch apparently not fully engaged but the door itself held shut by the force of the wind off the sea. The Met man gave her a thumbs up sign in response, but it was no easy matter for him to prise the door open against the power of the wind and then to hold it there to prevent it slamming again after O’Donnell had slipped through after him.

  Once inside, however, both detectives paused for a moment to listen. The howling of the dog was very close now and its frantic cries appeared to be issuing from a room on the other side of the open door to the hallway.

  O’Donnell saw Benchley tense and grabbed his arm a second time, squeezing it hard in warning and pointing upwards. ‘Wait for back-up,’ she said again, her lips this time actually brushing his ear. ‘We don’t know what we’re getting into.’ But even as Benchley shook himself free, the decision was taken right out of their hands.

  ****

  Lynn stared with a sort of horrible fascination at the pistol in Amis’ hand. She was trapped and although her back was pressed so hard against the wall that she could feel the window-sill digging into her spine she was hardly conscious of the pain. All she was a
ware of was the fact that she was going to die and found herself wondering, in a peculiar detached sort of way, whether she would feel the .32 slug crash through her skull or whether it would be just an explosion of light and then total oblivion?

  Amis was just feet away from her now, her face twisted into a sneer of anticipation. She was not hurrying, but advancing very slowly, as if to delay things for as long as possible to extract maximum enjoyment from her intended victim’s trauma. She had already stepped over Murray’s body and was raising her gun hand for the fatal shot she would deliver when she was up close and personal – the shot which would blast Lynn’s brains through the window into the storm and leave the necessary powder marks around the wound to hoodwink the police into assuming her death was suicide.

  ‘Any last requests?’ she said softly, now just a couple of feet from Lynn who seemed frozen against the wall, like a rabbit mesmerised by the headlights of an oncoming vehicle.

  ‘Go to hell!’ Lynn whispered.

  Amis’ smile broadened. ‘You first,’ she replied, but just as her finger tightened on the trigger, the storm chose that precise moment to direct a powerful lightning strike at a distant electricity sub-station. At once the isolated clifftop house was plunged into total darkness.

  ****

  In the small bedroom, two more gunshots. Bright muzzle flashes. The smell of cordite. Shadowy figures stumbling about in the darkness. Gasps. Expletives. Panicky cries. At the same time heavy feet thumping up the stairs towards the confusion. Then suddenly flashing blue light washing through the blackness as vehicles skidded to a halt and doors banged at the front of the house.

  O’Donnell and Benchley, briefly stunned by the pandemonium above their heads, had reacted a little too late and had only just started up the stairs, using the pulsing light of the police strobes to see their way, when the fleeing figure hammering down from the upper floor slammed into them.

  ‘What the hell—?’ Benchley ejaculated, snatching at the gloom. His fingers closed briefly on the fold of a coat of some sort, but the figure tore itself free and in a moment was gone, swallowed up in the strobe-lit blackness of the hallway.

  There was a brief pregnant pause, as if the house was holding its breath, and then the screaming started from somewhere at the top of the stairs – like a delayed reaction. At the same moment the front door burst open under the swing of a police ram, filling the hall with uniforms, while shouts and powerful flashlights were reflected in the windows from the sideway outside as other officers raced to the back of house.

  Torn between responding to the screams and pursuing the fugitive, both Benchley and O’Donnell had hesitated. But then, with an oath, Benchley clambered up the remaining stairs as O’Donnell turned to face the officers pouring into the hallway below, shouting instructions at them regarding the fugitive.

  The lights were restored by an unseen hand just as Benchley reached the landing, a uniformed woman police officer hard on his heels. He stopped short in the doorway of a lighted bedroom.

  Lynn Giles was slumped on the floor just inside, with Alan Murray lying full-length in front of her. Her back was against the wall and Murray’s head was resting in her lap, his face chalk-white and his eyes closed. He was wearing some kind of white robe which was gaping open from the waist up and soaked in blood – blood that streamed from a gaping wound in his chest. Lynn’s own eyes were wide and staring. Her body shook fitfully as she stroked Murray’s hair, sobbing her anguish and obviously in a state of severe traumatic shock.

  ‘Get an ambulance – now!’ Benchley snapped at the woman constable, adding, ‘Hang in there, Lynn.’ Then reluctantly turning on his heel, his mouth clamped shut in a hard line as the officer spoke rapidly into her personal radio, he thundered back down the stairs to where another drama was already unfolding on the patio.

  Carol Amis had attempted to flee down the path at the side of the house. But she had been thwarted by the arrival of armed police officers who had suddenly emerged through the archway and she had fallen back to the low wall enclosing the lamp-lit patio. She was now facing the lead policeman, the pistol in her hand extended towards him as he covered her with what Benchley recognised as a deadly Heckler and Koch carbine.

  ‘Armed police!’ the officer shouted unnecessarily. ‘Drop your weapon!’

  Amis swung round in a panic as Benchley forced open the patio doors against the howling wind and joined O’Donnell just in front of them. The gun in Amis’ hand swung in a jerky side-to-side motion between them and the officer with the H & K. Her leather coat glistened in the pouring rain and her free hand desperately tried to clear away the hair which was now plastered across her forehead, obstructing her line of vision.

  ‘Don’t shoot!’ O’Donnell shouted at the armed policeman, noting that his colleague had come up beside him, similarly armed. In the circumstances, a Taser had obviously been considered an inappropriate alternative, which meant Carol Amis was just seconds away from being cut to pieces.

  Another vivid flash of lightning illuminated the scene for a brief moment and the patio lights dipped, then strengthened as a clap of thunder directly overhead almost drowned Benchley’s shout: ‘Don’t be a fool, Carol. Put down the gun. You can’t win.’

  But Amis was in no mood to listen. Demonstrating surprising agility, she swung herself up on to the wall, paused a moment, then dropped down the other side, leaving the armed police officers confused and unsure as to how to react.

  Benchley was first across the patio after her and he was just in time to see her figure, now spot-lit by police flashlights, stumbling along the clifftop in the direction of the steps leading down to the beach. Where she thought she was going was not clear, but in her panic all sense seemed to have deserted her. The next instant, before Benchley’s horrified gaze, she seemed to miss her footing and veer to her left, off the path. Then, silhouetted against the white-out of another powerful lightning flash, she threw up her arms like a grotesque puppet suddenly jerked away on its strings and was immediately swallowed up in the blackness, her terrified screams whipped away by the raging wind as she plunged over the edge of the cliff.

  CHAPTER 20

  The storm lost its destructive energy at around 2am and by dawn a soft pale light was reaching out across the ocean’s easy swell to caress the rugged Cornish cliffs with exploratory fingers. But for a few felled trees, overturned refuse bins and missing tiles on the roofs of the coastal cottages, it was as if Nature’s violent rampage had never happened and The Lizard seemed to be holding its breath in the hope of another fine day.

  The helicopter from the police Air Operations Unit had been airborne for two hours – these days it worked with the Maritime and Coastguard’s contracted Sikorsky helicopter out of Newquay after the closure of the Air-Sea Rescue base at Culdrose – as it swept low over the white caps, sticking to a collaborative search plan.

  On the tiny beach at the foot of the cliffs, uniformed police officers, some armed with long poles, scrambled over the jumble of rocks exposed by the now retreating tide, carrying out a thorough search of the deep rock pools and crevices and the shallows of the creamy surf. But so far they had found only scuttling crabs, seaweed and the detritus washed ashore from the multitude of vessels using the busy shipping lanes off the coast.

  More uniforms provided security cover around The Old Customs House, physically enforcing the exclusion zone which had been set up within the tapes drawn across the front door and rear patio doors. Inside the house itself, CSIs in their protective white overalls and face masks carried out a meticulous examination of the crime scene under the watchful eye of the crime scene manager, photographing and fingerprinting the bedroom where Murray had been shot. They had already carefully prised from the wall one of the two shells Amis had discharged at the moment of the power-cut, but the second had smashed through the window into the storm, never to be recovered.

  On the patio Maureen O’Donnell’s lone figure stood watching the helicopter’s search operation through a pair
of binoculars, her body trembling slightly in the dawn’s chilly autumnal air which for the moment seemed to have replaced the brief Indian summer.

  Mick Benchley mounted the patio steps behind her almost like an automaton. Exhaustion was written into his drawn, unshaven face, his eyes bloodshot and his body hunched into a borrowed Traffic policeman’s anorak.

  ‘Still no trace of her then?’ he asked, pausing beside the DI.

  She lowered her binoculars and turned towards him, eyeing him briefly before leaning back against the patio’s low wall. She looked equally pale and drawn after a long, traumatic night without sleep.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Just a big fat zero so far.’

  Benchley frowned. ‘Just can’t understand it,’ he muttered. ‘Hell, I saw her go over the edge and anyone who takes a dive off a cliff on to jagged rocks is hardly likely to get up and walk away afterwards, are they?’

  O’Donnell shrugged. ‘High tide, raging storm, heavy seas,’ she summarised. ‘She could have been swept out several miles, so she could.’

  ‘Freddie Baxter wasn’t swept out several miles,’ he reminded her. ‘He was lying where he had fallen.’

  She nodded. ‘Aye, but he landed on top of a heavy rock fall, well above normal sea level and in perfect weather – calm sea and so forth. We’re talking about an entirely different set of circumstances here. Your woman may not have actually struck rock, but hit water instead.’

  He sighed. ‘Well, it’s all over now anyway,’ he said. ‘And we got here just in time to prevent more fatalities. Even though Alan Murray did take a bullet, at least I’m told he’ll survive.’ He sighed. ‘I must admit, it would have been more conclusive from a detection point of view to have had Amis’ corpse on a slab to present to the coroner, rather than relying on the assumption that she is with the fishes. But we’ve got her bang to rights as our bomber and multiple killer nevertheless, so I suppose it’s all pretty academic under the circumstances.’

  O’Donnell nodded. ‘And as there’s nothing we can do here anymore, we might as well head back to the incident room for the final team debrief. You’re welcome to join us, if you wish.’