At the corner of the house, we stopped and peered at the vehicles parked fifteen yards away, side-on to the building.
She whispered to me, “Keep out of sight. They’ll shoot when I call to them.”
Christmas shouted to the men hiding by the cars, “The police are on their way. Your friends are dead. Throw your weapons down. Come forward and lie on the ground.”
Booming flashes of fire and bullets came at us from around the nearest car. We flattened ourselves against the wall. Bullets whined past and shattered on the corner of the brickwork, spraying masonry over us.
From the copse, the crack of rifles sounded. Metallic impacts echoed from the car.
We looked from around the wall as the car door on the far side opened. A figure ran around to the door on our side. The rifles cracked again.
Christmas fired at the figure on our side. He stumbled, opened the door and fell inside. Firing with two pistols, her bullets shattered the car’s side windows and perforated the front door.
The car started, reversed a few yards and moved off, wheels spinning and spraying gravel.
The rifles kept up a steady drumbeat on the vehicle, smashing the offside windows and puncturing the roof and doors.
Christmas fired rapidly, emptying both of her pistols into the car, its rear window shattering and the front windshield cracking.
The vehicle reached the dirt track in front of the house. It failed to turn left down the hill, driving instead into a wire fence and pitching forward into a roadside drainage ditch. The rear wheels left the ground and the engine revved wildly.
I looked behind. A figure from the back of the house came toward us in the moonlight, hunched like a fighter, a large pistol in hand. I put my finger on the trigger but kept the pistol pointed at the ground.
I called, “Is that you Frank?”
There was no answer. He momentarily disappeared from the moonlight under the shadow of the overhanging tree. The figure emerged into the moonlight again, just yards away, gun waving in our direction.
I heard a metallic click as Christmas reloaded her last magazine. She spun around beside me to face the threat. Crouching, she brought her pistol up in a two-handed grip.
I saw a distinctive glint from the jacket. Gold. A tiny figure. Time stood still. An eight-year-old voice said, Don’t shoot him Zavvy.
Christmas squeezed the trigger just as I pushed her hands sideways a fraction. The weapon fired flame and sparks into the black air.
The figure fell backward, shouting, “Don’t shoot. It’s me.”
We ran forward. I held him by the shoulder, “Frank are you alright? Are you hit?”
“I think I’m ok,” he bellowed, “But I can’t hear a thing.”
Christmas said to me breathlessly, “I was only going to wing him. And then make a decision if it looked like he was going to fire back.”
He shouted, “Miranda’s fading fast. Where’s the ambulance?”
“It’s on the way. Go back and stay with Vanessa,” Christmas said loudly to his ear, pointing to the rear of the house, “We’ll come back very soon.”
At the front, four men in dark weatherproof clothing came down from the copse.
Cautiously, we all converged on the car, its engine howling. I opened the passenger door, Christmas at my side, gun ready. One of her uncles shone a flashlight on the figure lying against the driver, eyes unblinking against the bright light, jaw loose, blood from a torn ear coated thickly across his jaw, a black hole in the side of his neck, and blood dripping heavily from his clothes.
Christmas took a pistol, sticky with blood, from the dead man’s limp hand.
The driver was slumped against the car’s dashboard. The nose-down attitude of the vehicle had thrown him forward and he lay in a heap, cheek against the dash beside the steering wheel, his knees in the footwell.
Going around to the driver’s door, we opened it and saw the back of his head, fair hair darkened with a bloody hole. His pistol was on the floor of the car. One of the uncles turned the car’s engine off. Christmas collected the gun. The uncles checked that both men were beyond any lifesaving effort.
The backseat was empty. The trunk contained tools, body bags, rope and a large fuel can, which we guessed would have been used to stage the car crash and fire needed to categorize our murders as further tragic accidents on the circle of death.
Christmas said to the four men, “Miranda’s in the backroom. If she’s alive, she only has minutes left. Shout loudly to Frank before you go in. I left him with a gun and he’s a bit deaf just now.”
They hurried down the side of the house. In the dark distance, a procession of vehicles with flashing blue lights made its way toward the farmhouse.
THIRTY-FIVE
We followed the men to the back of the house, hanging back to give them some privacy with their wayward sister. Inside, Christmas stepped gingerly over the dead bodies, around the dark pools of blood and bloody bootprints, past the crowd in the back room and disappeared into the house. Returning with matches she’d found in the kitchen, she pulled the death list from her pocket and burned it in the field beside the house. Let the police deal with one slaughter at a time,” she said, using a spade found leaning against the building’s rear wall, to cover the ash with soil. Hurrying to the trunk of our car, she said, “And remember, I’m not officially related to anyone here—we were visiting Vanessa because she’s a family-friend kind of aunt. Let’s keep things simple.”
Christmas took her carryall from the vehicle. “I don’t think we’ll be driving this car away.” She took a bottle of water from the bag and rattled a small container of capsules from her toiletries. “Take this,” she said, putting a pill in my mouth and giving me water. “You don’t want to add to your current schedule of nightmares.”
I swallowed the anti-anxiety pill. “I didn’t know you needed these too,” I said, as she shook a pill into her hand.
“I’m as fragile as the next person when it comes to mass shootings. I can’t carry on like nothing’s happened, without a little chemical help.” Christmas hesitated, the pill in the palm of her hand. “I’m pregnant.” She broke the pill in half. “A half-dose.” She stared at the fragment in her hand and then threw it on the ground. “They’ve been through enough today haven’t they? The tranquillizer…”
I put my arm around her. “I hope they’re ok. I’ll do whatever I can to help you with your anxieties.”
“You’d think I’d be used to it; killing a bunch of bad people.” She looked at the car in the ditch. “Maybe I am.”
Vanessa came to the front door. The ambulance crew would not be able to save Miranda. She was gone. We agreed with Vanessa to leave Sophie out of any discussion.
I felt uneasy but since there was still no hard evidence linking Sophie with Aleksy, I decided to avoid make accusations for now. But I still wanted to hear from Sophie.
Soon the track to the farmhouse was lined with police and ambulance vehicles, blue lights flashing, people bustling by with equipment.
Police officers took everyone’s weapons.
Our car was part of the crime scene. A dark-haired young woman lay dead on the backseat. Christmas had shot her twice in the midriff, firing from inside her coat pocket and through the front seat. The girl was blanched white, having bled to death within minutes of injecting us with tranquillizer.
The ambulance medics flitted from one dead body to the next and eventually got around to the living. They checked Christmas for concussion and gave her an ice pack to reduce the bruising on her face.
The senior detective remarked that everyone seemed to be who they said were, with the exception of the dead men, some of whom appeared to be wanted criminals. As local landowners, farmers, and upstanding members of the local community, mostly village councilors, he decided to let the Limewood people go home to their own beds while the investigation continued.
They arrested me on suspicion of the manufacture and use of a scheduled substance in contravention
of the Chemical Weapons Act. And possible murder. I was handcuffed and put in a steel cage inside a police van, its engine running.
I saw Christmas, also handcuffed, being led to the caged rear seats of a police car.
At Carlisle police station, Christmas waved her cuffed hands and smiled reassuringly to me from the vehicle behind, as I was led into the building.
Inside they took fingerprints, a mouth swab, and then photographed me. I quickly memorized Raymond Pendle’s secretary’s phone number before they removed all my possessions, belt and bootlaces.
The Custody Sergeant let me make a phone call; I called the professor’s secretary and left a message telling her where Christmas and I were being held. I guessed Christmas would probably call her father directly anyway.
Then the sergeant put me in a steel-doored cell, furnished with a hard bench, a thin blue mattress, flat pillow and blanket, and in the corner, a washbasin. Another officer brought a microwaved meal in a box, mostly sausages and beans, which I ate quickly in the cell. Then I slept.
In the afternoon I was taken to a spartan interview room. The professor had sent a lawyer. I told him in guarded terms how I’d acquired the VX-laced money. He interpreted this for me as a situation where I hadn’t known what the substance was. I’d merely kept some of the contaminated money after the attack in the café, intending to wash it clean. The lawyer sat with me when the detectives came in and questioned me about how I’d obtained the poison impregnated cash and how it had been given to the dead men. His helpful interjections made it clear that they’d taken the money from me while I was bound as a kidnap victim.
After piecing together the events of the night before and talking to DS Cattermole about the nerve agent attack in the London café, the police detectives decided they weren’t going to charge me with anything for now. They released me on police bail while they continued their investigation.
I collected my possessions and left the station. Outside, I met Christmas and Vanessa, sitting in a muddy but sleek SUV with the windows down.
Vanessa said, “Let me drive you to the train station.”
“I’m relieved you’re out,” I said to Christmas.
She got out of the car and embraced me, kissing my cheek. “We’ve been waiting for an hour. Were they alright with you?”
“They’re looking into the nerve agent. I might be charged later.”
“I’m glad you did it. What a risk you took though! I had no idea you had such an appetite for mischief, carrying that stuff around in your pocket.”
“I surprised myself, if I’m honest. How was it in there for you?” I nodded to the utilitarian brick fortress behind us.
“Well that place gets no more of my business. The bed was hard, the food was awful and the room service unforgivably slow. No more budget hotels for us darling.” She hugged me, a wide smile on her upturned face.
“I mean, what did they say about the shootings?”
“Oh that. I told them that my personal protection weapons are for defending myself from kidnappers and violent criminals. If I’d been unarmed, we’d be lying dead in the bottom of a ravine right now. Those villains were wanted in every European country that they’ve passed through on their way to the UK. The police just needed to check everyone’s identity and my weapons permit. The lawyer helped speed things up.”
We got into the car’s backseat. Vanessa drove.
I said to her, “I’m glad you came to our rescue. But what caused you and Frank to visit Miranda’s last night.”
Vanessa sighed, “My headstrong sister. She wasn’t always like that. I can’t believe she’s gone.” She was silent for a while and then she explained, “When you left, I waited to see you drive away. I thought Christmas might wave to me. Sam waited too at the front door.” She looked at Christmas, “We heard the car doors close and then muffled bangs. I saw the flash of gunfire through the hedge. I wasn’t sure what I was seeing, but I knew you had all those guns and I was worried one had gone off by accident. I’d started to make my way down the path, when one of the thugs from last night appeared. I saw his head above the hedge. I think he raised the car’s hood, did something, and then I heard the hood close. He disappeared. I was almost at the gate when your car moved off. I was very suspicious because we don’t usually get anyone we don’t recognize in our road.
“I told Sam to follow you on her motorcycle. By the time she’d put on her helmet and jacket and caught up with you, another car had joined close behind. She followed you to Miranda’s farm. With you being so heavily armed and expecting trouble,” she nodded at Christmas, “I knew something wasn’t right.
“Sam recognized the other car as belonging to these rough characters that Miranda has hanging around. We see them drive up to her farmhouse, sometimes late at night, and then drive through the village in the small hours. She’s had that place a long time and doesn’t seem to do anything with it. We’ve had growing suspicions. Your list of dead people made things very clear. I rallied some of your uncles and we came ready to defend ourselves. I wasn’t expecting actual shooting though.
“Miranda denied that you were there. Things got heated when we said that we knew it was your car outside and Sam had followed you. That’s when we found you in the backroom. The rest you know.”
At the train station, Christmas and Vanessa hugged.
While they said goodbye, I called the car rental company to explain that their car was part of a crime scene and was being held by the Cumbria Constabulary about three hundred and fifty miles away from the rental depot.
They didn’t like that much. They liked it even less when I added that it had damage which included blood on the rear seats and carpets, and bullet holes through the front seat. I couldn’t say when they’d get their car back.
They said I’d be getting a very big bill. Underneath the conversation I could hear furious typing, which I imagined as notes being written onto my client record to say, never ever rent out a car to Xavier Fox again.
We took the train back to London.
At Christmas’s apartment she phoned her weapons dealer and ordered new pistols, since she didn’t think she’d be getting hers back anytime soon. Then we cooked, ate and went to bed.
The phone rang at eight o’clock the following morning. I had a feeling it meant more trouble.
THIRTY-SIX
Christmas answered the phone, listened for a minute and then passed it to me, “It’s the Home Office.”
I could feel my brow furrowing as I took the phone. I don’t usually get calls from the great offices of state.
The voice on the other end of the phone had the modern breeziness and perfect enunciation that marketing people crave for advertising. Friendly, very English but with no trace of a regional origin. She introduced herself with too much self-assurance for eight o’clock in the morning and said, “I work in the private office of the Minister of State for Security, assisting the minister’s private secretary. We were wondering if you and Ms Christmas could attend an interview at two o’clock this afternoon, here at the Home Office in Marsham Street.”
“Why?”
“I’m not at liberty to say just at the moment, but it would be very helpful if you could attend. I will send a car to bring you here. It’ll be outside Ms Christmas’s address at one thirty. Would that be alright?”
“Who are we being interviewed by?”
“We’d like you to talk to one of our intelligence officers.”
I covered the phone mouthpiece. “Are you okay to meet the Home Office this afternoon or should I say we’re busy?”
“I think you’ll find that’s a polite summons rather than an invitation.”
After a moment, I said into the phone, “We’ll be ready.”
“Thank you so much. See you then,” she ended the call with brisk efficiency.
I turned to Christmas. “What do you think they want?”
“They’re either going to put you in prison or give you a pat on the back. I’m not sur
e which, but there’s no sense in hiding. Better to confront the challenge.”
“You’re not worried?”
“I did shoot four people dead, so I’m guessing they’ll have questions. But I think I can account for myself without invoking any aid from above.”
“You’ve got protection from friends in high places if you need it?”
“Maybe. I’m more worried about you.”
“Let’s have breakfast then.”
“No, let’s stay in bed for a while before we eat. We should make the most of this morning in case they put you in a dungeon this afternoon. Priorities sweetheart.”
* * *
Christmas’s new pistols were delivered at midday. At thirty minutes past one o’clock precisely, her doorbell was rung from the street again. We’d been sitting pensively for five minutes, dressed and jacketed. Christmas was armed with just one pistol. She wore dark glasses and a little makeup so that her bruising was less obvious.
We made our way down to the street and got into an anonymous, black sedan, driven by a man with military bearing, dressed in a dark suit.
He drove briskly through the bustling West End streets, down to Trafalgar Square, along Whitehall, past the Houses of Parliament, and then turning away from the river at Lambeth Bridge. After another turn, we arrived in Marsham Street where we stopped outside the front entrance of the steel and multicolored-glass Home Office building.
A young woman in a businesslike skirt and jacket, emerged from the building entrance as we got out of the car. She strode quickly toward us, introduced herself as the same assistant private secretary we’d spoken to that morning, looked twice at Christmas’s bruised face, and walked us across the broad pavement into the building’s reception area.
Christmas handed her pistol to a police officer near the reception desk, showed him her permit for the weapon and told him firmly that she wanted it back at the end of our visit.