hapter 56

Caroline looked at the police constable behind the counter in the Lairg police station and despaired. He looked about twelve. A gawky, awkward twelve at that. He had dark-blond hair that had been cut by someone with no feeling for the job. His face was a pale moonscape of lumps a bumpy forehead, prominent cheekbones, a thin nose with an angular bridge and a curiously round tip, jawbones like chestnuts, a sharp jut of chin and an Adam's apple the size of a ripe fig. He'd actually blushed when she walked in and said she needed his help.

"This is going to sound kind of strange," she said. "But it's a matter of life and death." Oh fuck, I already sound like a nutter.

He picked up a pen and said, "Name, please."

"Dr. Caroline Matthews." Sometimes, having a title helped. Sometimes, even the wrong assumption that went with it helped. "Look, I don't want to be difficult about this, but can we leave the form-filling for now? My friend's life may be in danger, and I think you need to deal with that as a matter of urgency."

His mouth set in a stubborn line, but five seconds of Caroline's cold blue glare reduced him to submission. "Aye. Right. What seems to be the problem, Doctor?"

There was, she realized, no point in attempting the whole story. "A friend of mine has a cottage locally. Kit Martin? The thriller writer?"

The young policeman's face lit up in a smile. "Oh, aye, out at Allt a' Claon."

"The thing is, he's been receiving threatening letters and his partner was worried about him because she couldn't make contact. She's afraid he's got a stalker and that something must have happened to him. Anyway, she went out there about an hour and a quarter ago. She said if she wasn't back in an hour, I was to go to the police." She gave him her warmest smile. "So here I am. And I really think you should head out there and see what's what."

He looked doubtful. "I'm going to need to go and talk to somebody about this," he said, in the tone of voice that indicated he was suggesting something monumentally difficult.

What's keeping you, then? Caroline wanted to scream. "Make it quick. Please?"

He scratched his forehead with the end of his pen. "I'll go and talk to somebody, then." He unfolded his long, thin body and crossed to a door in the far wall. "You just wait there, I'll be back."

Caroline closed her eyes. She could have wept. With every passing moment, her dread grew. Please God, keep her safe, she prayed to a deity she had never believed in. He hadn't kept Lesley safe; deep in her heart, she knew he'd be no use to Fiona either.

But there was nothing else she could do.

The news from the team searching Gerard Coyne's flat was distinctly encouraging. Steve began to feel slightly less anxious as he listened to the preliminary report from the officer in charge.

Underneath the bathroom carpet, they'd found an area of floorboarding that had been cut and glued to allow a section to be lifted clear of the rest. Inside the cavity, they had found a plastic zip lock bag stuffed full of newspaper cuttings. The stories covered every one of the rapes Terry had identified as being part of the cluster, as well as a couple of general pieces in North London free sheets about the prevalence of sexual attacks in the area. Even more significantly, there was a thick wedge of clippings relating to Susan Blanchard's murder. There were no other crime reports in the bag.

Also in the cavity was a Sabatier kitchen knife with a sharply honed blade. It was already on its way to the Home Office labs where it would be exhaustively tested for the slightest trace of Susan Blanchard's blood. "I can't believe he held on to the knife," Steve had said, still capable of being astonished by the stupidity or arrogance of offenders.

"We don't know yet that it is the knife," his colleague cautioned. "It might be the one he used on the rapes. It's not necessarily the same one he used on Susan Blanchard."

Among Coyne's clothes, they had found several lycra cycling garments, all of which had been bagged up and sent for analysis.

They also found several trophies and certificates for cycling races that Coyne had won. There was no question that he could have been the cyclist hammering down the paths of Hampstead Heath that morning.

He had both the skill and the stamina to have carried it off without even breaking sweat.

Steve walked into the observation room and settled down to watch the two officers he'd chosen to interrogate Gerard Patrick Coyne begin their work. The questioning had just begun when the call came through from Sarah Duvall.

Looking at the map, Blake could see only one possibility. No way they'd head down to the loch side road. They knew he had wheels at his disposal and they'd have no chance of avoiding him. The only other option was to hike out across the shoulder of the hill. That way they'd hit the road into Lairg near some cottages where, presumably, somebody would have a phone.

He couldn't believe that Martin had the stamina or the strength to make it that far. She'd probably leave him at the bothy and set off to find help. That would suit him perfectly, he thought with satisfaction. If he drove round to the end of her escape route, he could climb higher up the hill and find a vantage point where he could take her out with the shotgun. There were plenty of places to hide a body in a landscape as wild as this.

Then he could make his way back across the hill to the bothy and finish what he'd started. It would be a bonus, allowing him to get back to The Blood Painter. Much more satisfying than if they'd perished in the ravine.

It looked like the gods had decided to reward him for his patience. He deserved it, but it wasn't often in this life that people got what they deserved. He'd been changing that lately, and it was nice to see the universe joining in on his side.

Blake turned the key in the ignition and smiled with satisfaction as he set off back down the hill towards the dark waters of Loch Shin.

Few of the officers who worked with Steve Preston had ever seen his temper. But there was no doubting the towering anger that had him in its grip as the hapless officers who had been responsible for the surveillance on Francis Blake stood before him. Joanne and John, pulled off the interrogation of Coyne before it had even begun, and Neil, summoned back from the suspect's flat before the search was complete, were in no doubt that they had not so much fallen down on the job as collapsed in a disintegrating heap.

"It's beyond belief," Steve raged, his face pale apart from two spots of high colour on his cheekbones. "You're supposed to have had this man under tight surveillance, yet according to the City Police, he's been in and out of his flat at will, without any of you knowing. You have no idea what he's really been up to, have you?"

"Nobody told us about the bike," John said stubbornly.

"All this time, Blake's had a ten-speed racing bike in the back yard, a key to the back door, access to the van way that runs along the back of the row of houses. In all the time you were supposed to be watching him, did none of you think to take a look at the back of the premises?"

Neil stared at the floor. Joanne shrugged helplessly. "We didn't realize you could access the back door from Blake's flat, sir," she tried.

"You're supposed to be detectives," he spat, his voice heavy with contempt. "A uniformed probationer would have had more nous than the three of you put together. As it is, City think we're a complete bunch of tossers." He slammed the flat of his hand on the desk. "Does anyone have any idea where Francis Blake is right now?"

No one responded. Steve closed his eyes and clenched his fists. He needed this like a hole in the head. Kit appeared to be on the missing list, Fiona was God knew where in the Scottish Highlands doing God knew what, and he couldn't do anything about it because the Susan Blanchard case was suddenly alive and kicking again. It was his worst nightmare. He opened his eyes and growled, "When was the last time any of you logged him in or out of his flat?"

"He went to the paper shop on Friday morning," Neil said. "It was a miserable day, so when he didn't come out again, I wasn't too surprised. The light was on in the flat all day."

"It could have been on a timer switch, couldn't it?" Steve snapped. "So the bottom line is, we have no idea where Blake has been since yesterday morning? And we have no idea when he'll be back?"

Again, none of them replied.

"Has anyone any idea where he's gone?"

They exchanged looks. No one spoke.

"Brilliant." Steve took a deep breath, trying to get a grip on his anger. He took a cigar from his desk drawer, unwrapped it and lit it. The nicotine hit seemed to go straight to his very soul, calming him with its familiarity. "Neil, I want you round at Blake's flat. Talk to the neighbours, see if you can get anything out of them that City have missed. And you two go and have a coffee, get your heads on straight and get back here in twenty minutes. We've got a suspect to interrogate, even if City don't."

As they filed out, his shoulders slumped. This was rapidly turning into the worst day of his life. And it could get a lot worse before it got better.

Fiona rounded the outcropping of rock where she'd left Kit fifteen minutes earlier. He was sitting on a flat stone, leaning against the boulder, sipping a can of Coke. His face was still ghostly pale, but he appeared more alert than when she'd helped him the few yards from the Land Rover to his resting place.

"How did it go?" he asked.

Fiona rubbed her shoulder where she'd landed awkwardly. "Let's just say it looks a lot easier in the movies," she said.

"But it worked?"

She nodded. "I left the driver's door open, I put it in first gear, wedged the rock halfway on the gas pedal and jumped. And as you predicted, the door shut behind me and the Land Rover carried on in a straight line. On to the bridge and down into the gorge. I don't think he can have seen a thing."

Kit managed a wan smile. "You did well, Fiona."

"It was fucking scary, let me tell you."

"Are you hurt?"

She pulled a face. "Shoulder. I caught it on a rock as I rolled. Nothing serious, I don't think, but I'll have a hell of a bruise. Now, we need to start making tracks."

"I don't know if I can do this," Kit said. "I'm still so dizzy."

"I don't know if you can either," Fiona said. "But I'm not leaving you here. If Blake has rumbled our little ploy, he's going to come after us. And I'm not leaving you alone and vulnerable. Let's get as far along the hill as we can. And if you can't go on, we'll find somewhere safe where you can lie up and wait till I fetch help. But this is far too near the bothy. We've got to put some distance between us and Blake."

She folded out the Ordnance Survey map and together they studied it. After she had spotted the problem with the bridge, Fiona had driven the Land Rover back to the bothy, then as far as she could across the rough ground behind it, where she'd unloaded Kit. According to him, it was possible to walk from here to the main road near where she'd left Caroline. It was a distance of between five and six miles, she reckoned.

On her own, it would take her a little over two hours. With Kit in his present state, it could be more like four or five. But they had to make the effort. At least he didn't seem significantly concussed, which would have put the whole idea out of the question.

She got him to explain the route to her, then went over it again for her own benefit. For the largest part of the trek, they would be more or less level, staying on the contour line above the forestry plantations. According to Kit, there was a rough path little more than a sheep track most of the way.

"OK, let's do it," Fiona said, stripping off the wax jacket and helping Kit into it. It would help conserve his body heat, and she suspected she'd soon have no need of the extra warmth. She tucked herself under Kit's right shoulder and heaved him to his feet. With the stick in his left hand, he slowly started to drag himself along the track. Fiona walked on the heather by the side of the narrow path, her eyes on her feet to avoid loose rocks and treacherous roots. At least the weather was on their side, she thought. In Kit's condition, a cold wind and even a shower of rain could be fatal. But the sky was more or less clear, the sun shining still, and hardly a breath of wind disturbed the cool air.

The rasp of Kit's laboured breathing was all she could hear, the weight of his body against her all she could feel, and the low thrum of his anxious fear all she could sense. They wasted no energy on speech, concentrating simply on putting one foot in front of the other.

After half an hour, she called a halt at the first suitable point, a long low escarpment of striated schist a dozen shades of grey against the heather's brown. She lowered Kit into a sitting position, then sat down beside him. "Five minutes," she said. "There's some high-energy bars in your jacket. Can you manage to eat one?"

Kit nodded, too tired for speech. He fumbled a bar out of his pocket, but his numbed fingers still couldn't manage the unwrapping, so Fiona took it from him and opened it. "You'll be OK," she reassured him. "It's just that nothing's working properly yet. It's the shock to the system."

He ate slowly, munching every mouthful carefully before he swallowed. He offered the bar to Fiona but she shook her head. When he'd finished, she got to her feet. Time to make a move. By her reckoning, they'd covered about a mile, and it wasn't enough.

Again they plodded on, Fiona taking as much of his weight as she could bear. The ability of the human body to respond to crisis was amazing, she reminded herself. What a fabulous drug adrenaline was. She knew she'd crash and burn when all of this was over, but she also knew that until then, her capacity for endurance would be more than she could have imagined possible.

Another half-hour, another break. She could see he was tiring fast, and knew that there was no way he could manage another four miles of such rough going. If she could get him another mile or so along the way, Fiona decided she would seek out a hiding place where she could leave him. Under her own steam, she could cover the remaining three miles in half an hour to forty minutes if she pushed herself. Help couldn't be far away then, so near to Lairg. With luck, Caroline would have persuaded Sandy Galloway to mobilize some sort of local response. They could do the rest for her.

She got Kit to his feet and urged him on. The landscape was changing now, the heather hillside giving way to rock. The path had more or less disappeared and they had to pick their way more carefully. The route was still clear, but it was rougher going, with patches of loose scree that threatened to send them flying. After about twenty minutes, Kit said, "I need to stop. I just can't ..."

"No problem." Fiona looked around for a suitable perch. A few yards ahead there was a pair of flat boulders that would do for a seat. She steered Kit towards them and helped him to settle. His breath was coming fast and shallow and a sheen of sweat glistened on his face. It wasn't looking good. Fiona took deep breaths and tried to stay calm. They must be close to the halfway point, she thought. Time to start thinking about finding Kit a bolt hole She leaned back against the rock and stared at the hillside ahead of them.

Suddenly, something caught her eye. About half a mile away, maybe seventy feet above them on the hill, what looked like a pipe kept bobbing into sight above the ma chair It dawned on her with appalling clarity that it was the barrel of a gun. Blake was no countryman; he clearly didn't realize that although he was keeping low, the gun barrel was as obvious as a mastiff in a crowd of dachshunds. "Kit," she said. "I don't want to worry you. But I think there's somebody up there ahead of us. On the hill. Is it likely to be somebody local? Or a hill walker

"Where?" he said lethargically.

"I don't want to point in case it's Blake. But it's round about where a reasonably fit man would be if he'd driven back to the main road and started hiking in from this end. Over to the left, maybe seventy feet above us. There's a shoulder of the ridge behind him. He's maybe forty or fifty yards to the right of it."

"I can't see anything," he said. His voice was slurring again, Fiona noticed with anxiety.

"I saw what looked like a gun barrel bobbing up and down. Could it be a local?"

"I don't think so. There's no reason for them to be up here. There's nothing to shoot."

"Fuck," Fiona breathed, getting a better view. "He's coming after us. Let's move on a bit and see what he does."

Wearily, they dragged themselves to their feet and laboured on to the next place where it was possible to sit down, a stagger of about five minutes.

"Has he moved?" Kit asked.

Fiona angled her head so it looked as if she was staring straight up the mountain. But out of the corner of her eye, she was scanning the area where she had seen the barrel. "I've got him," she breathed. "I can actually see the blur of his face. I don't think he's moved."

"Good," Kit said. "About five minutes ahead, there's a sort of crevasse. It's about four feet wide, but from up there, it just looks like a dark line in the rock. It's about half a mile before it opens out again. He won't be able to see us in there. Leave me and go on, you'll have a head start. It's not that far to the road, you can get away."

"And what about you?"

Kit sighed. "There's no way I'm going to make it out of here. I'm practically on my knees now. I can't go much further. He doesn't have to get both of us. Please, Fiona. Leave me."

She shook her head. "I'm not leaving you, Kit. I can't. Not after Lesley. Dying would be easier, believe me. But I don't have any plans to die either. Give me the map."

Kit pulled the map out of his pocket and she spread it across her knees. "Right. We must be about here?" She pointed.

"No, not quite that far along." He corrected her, jabbing the map clumsily with his finger.

"There's a stream runs down across this track," she said. "How far is that from the end of the defile?"

"A few yards. Maybe a dozen?"

"How deep are the banks?"

"I suppose a couple of feet deep ..." His voice began to trail away as his energy ebbed.

Fiona nodded. "So if I can get up the stream bed without him seeing me, I should be able to come up above and behind him. I can jump him. Hit him with a rock or something. Deal with him, anyway."

"You can't do that. He's a big strong bloke," Kit protested. "And he's got a gun."

"Yeah. But I'd put money on my will to live being a damn sight stronger than his. And that, my love, is a professional opinion."

"You're crazy. He'll kill you."

Fiona put her hand in the pocket of her fleece and took out the craft knife. "I'm not exactly unarmed. And I'm willing to use it. It's our only chance, Kit. I'm not going to sit here and wait to be killed."

Kit put his hand over hers. "Be careful." He frowned at the inadequacy of his words. "I love you, Fiona."

She leaned into him and kissed his cheek. The cold clamminess of his skin reminded her there wasn't time to delay. She checked that Blake was still in position. Then she stood up. "Let's do it."

Chapter 57

Caroline checked her watch. It felt as if half a lifetime had passed while she'd been sitting in the reception area of the police station. Whatever was going on, it was taking long enough.

At last, the door in the far wall opened again and the PC returned, followed by a man who looked as grey and monolithic as some of the rocky outcroppings on the nearby mountain. His light-grey suit was creased in all the places it should have been smooth and he showed no sign of pleasure at Caroline's presence. "I'm Sergeant Lovat," he said. "You're lucky I'm here. I only popped round with a message for Sammy here."

"Has he explained the situation?"

"Well, he's told me what you told him, which doesnae sound like much of an explanation to me." He leaned against the counter and cocked his head, as if assessing her and not much liking what he saw.

Caroline was conscious that she was not at her most prepossessing. Her hair was a mess and she knew she was probably almost as crumpled as Sergeant Lovat. Nevertheless, she needed to make an impression. "I've never been more serious in my life, Sergeant," she said. "I really do think something untoward has happened to Fiona Cameron."

"Untoward, eh?" Lovat said, chewing the word as if it were spearmint gum.

"Look, I know it sounds like a bizarre tale, but Dr. Cameron is not a woman who wastes police time. She's worked as a consultant with the Metropolitan Police for years and I don't think they'd be ..." Her voice tailed off as a possible solution to her dilemma presented itself. She'd been so busy worrying about getting her message across, she'd lost sight of the obvious lateral route. She took a deep breath and smiled at Lovat.

"Detective Superintendent Steve Preston," she announced. "New Scotland Yard. Please, call him. Tell him what I've told you. He'll know this isn't some wind-up."

Lovat looked faintly amused. "You want me to call Scotland Yard on your say-so?"

"It won't take you more than a few minutes. And it could save at least one life. Please, Sergeant Lovat." She forced a cool smile. "It would be so much better coming from you than from me. But if you won't make the call, I'll have to."

Lovat looked at the PC and raised his eyebrows. "What are you waiting for, Sammy? This should be a good one."

The rock walls closed around them, about a dozen feet tall, producing a narrow channel that twisted away to the left. As soon as they were inside the sheltering defile, Kit urged Fiona ahead. "Go, now. Just leave me. I'll find a place to sit down."

She threw her arms round him in a quick hug. "I love you," she said. Then she was gone, moving swiftly along the base of the passage. Sure-footed and driven, Fiona moved with the easy confidence of a regular traveller in the rough terrain of hill and mountain. Within minutes, she could see the defile start to widen out, opening into a rocky slope with patches of heather and bracken pushing through. She paused, checking out the lie of the land.

The stream cut its own channel through the peat hag, its banks a rich, dark chocolate-brown fringed with the yellow of rough upland grasses and the cinnamon of bracken. It was, as Kit had said, about a dozen yards from the final cover of the low cliff. There was no way of checking whether Blake had figured out where they would eventually emerge or if he was just scanning the hillside in frustration, wondering where they'd disappeared to.

She considered for a moment. If she ran across to the stream, the very speed of her movement might attract attention. The fleece was a bright scarlet. But the thermal polo neck was mid-grey, her trousers a dark olive-green. If she shed the fleece, she would be pretty well camouflaged against the rock. It was worth a try.

Fiona pulled the fleece over her head and tossed it to the ground. Then she remembered her knife and retrieved it, making sure the blade was retracted before she put it in her trouser pocket. She dropped to her knees, then spreadeagled herself against the rock. In an agonizingly slow commando crawl, feeling hideously exposed, she crossed the dozen yards to the stream, crabbing round as she reached the bank so she dropped in feet first. The water was so cold it took her breath away for an instant. She crouched in water that came up to the middle of her calves, her head barely above the bank. She scanned the hillside, looking for Blake's vantage point.

"Gotcha," she said softly. From this side, he was entirely unprotected. She could see the outline of his body against the hillside, the gun barrel protruding like an obscene prosthesis. He had a hand up to his eyes, as if he was looking through binoculars. Fiona made a rough calculation of where she needed to be so that she'd emerge above and behind him. The burn took a sharp left bend a few yards beyond where she wanted to be. Taking that as her marker, Fiona ducked down below the banks and started up the burn.

It was a treacherous ascent, the stones of the stream bed slippery with algae and too uneven to make her passage anything other than slow and awkward. More than once, Fiona lost her footing altogether and sprawled full length in the chilly waters. After the third or fourth ducking, she decided she couldn't get any wetter and started using her hands and arms to move her along faster, scrabbling up the burn like a chimpanzee.

So fiercely was she concentrating on her progress that the bend in the burn was upon her before she realized how far she'd come. She squatted on her haunches, trying to get her breath back. No chance of a stealthy approach if she was panting like a dog on a summer's day.

Slowly, cautiously, Fiona peered over the lip of the bank. She frowned. She was pretty sure she was looking in the right direction. But there was no sign of Blake. She sighted down the burn, to make certain she'd come far enough up. There was no doubt about it. She was exactly where she'd planned to be, which meant Blake should have been about a hundred yards away from her, maybe fifteen feet down the mountain. But he wasn't.

The tight hand of panic gripped Fiona's chest. She stood up, scanning the mountainside. There was no sign of her quarry. "Fuck," she moaned, scrambling out of the water course and on to the rocky side of the bank. Even with this higher vantage point, there was no mistake. Blake had vanished from the landscape.

That could only mean one thing, she thought. He'd panicked when they disappeared and made his way down to the last place he'd seen them. Where Kit was lying, vulnerable and weak as the runt of the litter.

Fiona took off like a mountain hare. Heedless of her safety, she hurtled across the steep slope at an angle she hoped would bring her to the beginning of the channel in the rock where she'd left Kit. Her wet boots squelched, skidded and slipped as she ran, and only the sharpest of reflexes stopped her pitching headlong down the slope.

As she raced down the hillside, what had started as a dark line in the rock gradually defined itself as the gap. From this angle, it looked like a giant split in a massive slab of stone. The closer she approached, the more Fiona realized she had misjudged her line. She was actually going to hit the edge about halfway along. She adjusted her course slightly, but the going was too steep now for it to be possible to make much of a correction.

She slowed to a walk, stepping sideways until she was at the edge of the drop into the defile. She looked back towards the beginning, but the angle of the bend was too sharp for her to see all the way to where she'd left Kit. Without the concentration of the downhill run to protect her, fear coursed through her like electricity.

Fiona forced herself to breathe deeply and started the treacherous scramble back along the rock. Halfway to her destination, she came to an abrupt halt. She could hear a man's voice raised in anger. She inched forward so she could see over the edge again.

What she saw made her stomach clench in pure terror. Down below, about fifteen feet away, Kit was sprawled on the ground, half sitting, propped against the rock wall. With his back to her, Francis Blake stood above him, hefting the shotgun in his hands. She couldn't make out his words, but his intent was clear. He took a step back and started to raise the gun.

Without pause for thought, Fiona sprang into action. She took a short run up along the edge of the defile and launched herself through the air.

As the gun levelled out, Fiona crashed on top of Francis Blake, the momentum carrying them both in a heap on top of Kit.

The crack of a gunshot split the mountain air.

Chapter 58

The city glittered below her in a tawdry galaxy, zirconium to the diamond sparkles of the stars blotted out by the light pollution. It was, Fiona thought, probably all she deserved. She'd come up to her favourite vantage point on the Heath in spite of the frosty night air because she wanted to be as alone as it was possible to be in the heart of the city.

She pulled the letter out of her pocket, fumbling it through her gloves. There was barely enough light to make out the letterhead, but she needed to check its reality. The Procurator Fiscal had decided she was not to be prosecuted for culpable homicide. There were to be no formal repercussions for that single minute of chaos when the gun had gone off, taking most of Francis Blake's head with it. They had finally accepted that there had been nothing calculated in her actions; a few seconds either way and the outcome would have been quite different. Earlier, and Fiona might not have won a struggle for the gun. Later, and Blake would have fired and destroyed Kit utterly. Somehow, miraculously, she had landed at precisely the right moment. The gun had jerked back, Blake's finger on the trigger, and suddenly it was all over.

Both Fiona and Kit had been injured too, which was probably what had made the police believe her story that she had had no intention of killing Blake when she jumped from the edge of the defile on to his back. It would, she thought, have been much less credible if they hadn't taken some collateral damage.

She couldn't really blame the police for their incredulous reaction. She must have presented a bizarre sight, staggering off the hill covered in mud and blood, soaked to the skin. Reeling from the shock of what had happened, she had been cold-hearted enough to strip Francis Blake's body of his padded jacket and use it to make Kit as comfortable as she could. Then she'd torn herself away from him and covered the last few miles to the road in a blur of fear and pain, every stride sending a sickening wave of agony through the shoulder that had taken a blast of shot in the fatal moment.

Only adrenaline had kept her going all the way to the road. When she finally emerged from the last belt of trees, the phone box where she'd left Caroline had shimmered like a mirage through the miasma of her exhaustion. She'd staggered over to it and dialled the emergency services. Her relief when she was connected to a police officer almost made her buckle at the knees.

A squad car had been with her within minutes. Somehow, she'd managed to string her story together. And because Caroline had made the police talk to Steve, they took her seriously. But suspiciously.

And at least they'd mobilized an emergency helicopter to get Kit to hospital. She'd had no time to luxuriate in her relief; while paramedics extracted lead shot from her shoulder, the police had hovered, grim-faced and unsympathetic, waiting to pick holes in her story.

But she had been believed eventually. Everyone, from Steve to Sandy Galloway, had assured her there was no chance of her facing charges, but it had taken anxious weeks for the official notice to reach her.

She wasn't sure what she felt. Part of her believed she deserved some sort of punishment for taking the life of another human being. But her rational self kept telling her how foolish it was to imagine that anything formal could assuage that particular guilt. And she couldn't deny that she felt a sense of remission that she wouldn't have to relive those terrible seconds when she had to make a life and death decision that, ultimately, had been no choice at all.

It was ironic that the only person who would ever appear in a courtroom in connection with Francis Blake's murders was the false confessor, Charles Redford. He was languishing in prison awaiting trial, charged with perverting the course of justice, threats to kill and of fences under the Protection from Harassment Act. On the same wing as Gerard Patrick Coyne, due to face a jury for the murder of Susan Blanchard. The proximity of the two men who linked the crimes of Francis Blake provided a satisfying symmetry to Fiona.

The sound of footsteps on the path broke into her thoughts. She turned her head and saw a familiar figure approaching. Fiona looked back across the city lights, unwilling to appear eager for company.

Steve cleared his throat. "I thought I'd find you here. Kit said you'd gone out for a walk." He stood by the bench, uncertainty on his face.

"Did he also mention I didn't want company?"

Steve looked embarrassed. "His actual words were, "You're taking your life in your hands, mate. She's off doing a Greta Garbo."

She sighed. "Now you're here, you'd better sit down." They'd rebuilt most of their bridges over the previous weeks, but the sense that Steve had somehow betrayed her still lurked in Fiona's heart. That was something else she wanted to disappear from her consciousness, along with the memory of killing Blake.

Steve sat down beside her, keeping his physical distance. "Kit also told me the news."

"You didn't know already? I assumed that's why you came," Fiona said.

"No. I came because I finally managed to get Sarah Duvall to give me a copy of Blake's journal. He started it while he was in prison, and kept it right up until a couple of days before his death. It was written in code, but it was pretty simple, and Sarah got it transcribed. I thought you'd be interested in seeing it."

Fiona nodded. "Thanks."

"It covers all the practical stuff of how he laid his plans and carried them out. How he gave the Spanish police the slip when he was supposedly over there in Fuengirola. It turns out he has a cousin who lives in Spain. This cousin lent Blake his car, and simply stayed at the villa when Blake was over in the UK and Ireland, killing Drew Shand and Jane Elias. They looked similar, and as long as the Spanish cops saw someone answering Blake's description when they cruised past the place a couple of times a day, it never occurred to them that it wasn't him."

Fiona nodded listlessly. "I see."

"He was able to enter the UK and Ireland by ferry without a problem because, of course, there was no general alert out for him. He'd got all the background information he needed from the Internet and from published material about his targets. He even managed to track down Kit's bothy via Land Registry records. He was a clever bastard. He covered all his bases. The only mistake he made was not taking account of the CCTVs in Smithfield."

"That's fascinating, Steve. But does this journal answer the important question?"

"You mean, the motive?"

"What else?" Attempting to understand had kept her awake more nights than she could count. She knew there had to be some coherent motivation in Blake's actions, even if it only appeared reasonable to him. But why he should want to take revenge on thriller writers for what had happened to him had eluded her so far.

"It's twisted, but it makes a kind of sense," Steve said.

"Don't they always?" Fiona said ironically. "So, what's the story?"

"Blake was eaten up with the desire for revenge for what happened to him. But he knew if he took direct vengeance, he'd never get away with it. The more he brooded, the more he realized that there were people other than the police he could blame."

"Thriller writers?" Fiona protested. "I still don't see it."

"He reckoned that if the police had never called in a psychological profiler, he'd never have had his life destroyed. But he also decided that the main reason profilers get taken seriously is because they've been turned into infallible heroes. And who turned them into heroes?"

Fiona sighed deeply. "His victims all wrote novels where the profiler was responsible for tracking down the killer. And their work inspired films and TV that took the idea to a much wider audience. So, ultimately, they were the ones to blame."

"That's about the size of it," Steve agreed.

"And seeing Susan Blanchard's murder had made him realize it wasn't such a hard taboo to break," Fiona said, half to herself. She looked up at Steve. "Does he talk about her murder?"

"Endlessly. How much it excited him. How it made him understand that killing was the most powerful thing one person could do to another."

"It always conics down to power," she said softly. Fiona got to her feet. "Thanks, Steve. I needed to know that."

"That's what I figured."

"Would you like to come back for dinner? I'm sure Kit's half expecting you."

Steve stood up. "I'd love to, but I can't." He stared down at the ground, then looked up to meet her quizzical look. "I said I'd meet Terry for a drink."

Fiona's smile was one of genuine pleasure. "Not before time," she said, stepping forward and hugging him. "I was getting really bored with telling the pair of you how much you'd misunderstood each other."

"Yeah, well. I'm not saying I forgive her for what she did. But we both reckon we should at least listen to what the other has to say, now the dust has settled."

Fiona looked out over the Heath. "Is that what's happened?" "Isn't that always what happens after the world gets turned upside down?" Steve said. "Even if it takes a while, the dust always settles."

Epilogue

Dear Lesley,

I'm writing to say goodbye.

If you'd still been around, you'd know that I turned into the kind of psychologist who doesn't really believe in this kind of therapeutic device, but since I agreed that I'd have post-traumatic stress counselling, I feel honour bound to do what the professional recommends, no matter how foolish and self-conscious it makes me feel.

It's amazing how little we understand of what provokes our responses. Even trained professionals like me lack insight when we're dealing with our own motivations. But what I've come to realize `>-3-' is that your death and the manner of it has never left me, no matter how hard I've tried to pretend otherwise. Its legacy has been one of pain and guilt. I felt guilty because I encouraged you to go to St. Andrews instead of joining me in London. I felt guilty because I survived and you didn't. I was your older sister and I was supposed to protect you, and I failed. I felt guilty because I didn't manage to push the police into uncovering your killer. And I felt guilty because I couldn't stop what happened to Dad after you died.

As well as that, there has been the pain of loss. At every milestone in my life, I am conscious of your absence; I wonder what you would have achieved and how your life would have been. I watch Caroline changing and growing, making mistakes and getting things wonderfully right and I think about how you would have handled them differently.

Sometimes I look at Kit and wish more than anything that you two could have known each other. I know you'd have liked each other. The two people I love best in the world. How could you not? I can feel the time together we've missed, the happiness lost to us, and it tears me up. I miss you so much, Lesley. So many of my best memories have you in the centre of the picture. You were the one with the gift of optimism, the giver of grace. I was so proud of you, and I never told you. I loved you so very, very much, and I never told you. You died without knowing how much you were cherished, and that's another bitter regret for me. Because the guilt and pain have been so strong for so long, I'd lost any sense of the blessing you were while you were alive. What I'm trying to do now is to take the good things from the recesses of my memory and put them in the foreground, in the hope that they'll gradually swamp the hurt and stop it shaping the way I view the world.

What I also have to accept is that the other legacy of your murder has been my professional life. Because of you, I chose to move in a particular direction. It was as if I felt that, having failed you, I had to try to do what I could to stop something similar happening to anybody else. I suppose I was looking for a kind of redemption.

So I have to acknowledge that when Kit went missing, my subconscious probably grasped at this as an opportunity for finding my own salvation by saving him. In hindsight, I could have, should have done more to force the police into action. But at some level, I accept now that I almost wanted them to reject me, so that I would have to walk the high wire.

I did not expect that it would leave me with blood on my own hands and a different kind of guilt.

And when I saw the man I love staring death in the face, none of those considerations came into play. I simply acted without thought or hesitation and did the only thing it was possible for me to do.

But I still wake up at night to the sound of a gunshot and the nightmare memory of Francis Blake's head exploding in my face.

The one outstanding item, according to my therapist, is my need to reconcile myself with you. That's what this letter is meant to be about. I suppose what I have had to come to terms with is that it is impossible for me to change the past. I have had to accept that what happened to you and to us as a family is not my responsibility but rather the responsibility of the man who took your life.

I guess I was afraid that if I admitted that to myself, I would have no reason to carry on doing what I do so well. I was wrong. What I do is worth doing for its own sake. I probably would never have chosen it if you had not died as and when you did. But that should not be a millstone around my neck. It is, like my friendship with Caroline, a gift your death gave me.

Understanding that and accepting it are two different things, of course. But one will almost certainly lead to the other, and this letter is a step in that journey.

And so, I take my leave of you. I will never forget you or stop loving you. What I hope is that I will stop feeling that I owe you something I can never pay. With love, Your sister Fiona.