22. Mel
Mel tried to break free, but Wayne’s grip was unbreakable.
He held her tight against him, so she felt the power of his body, felt every move, felt his breath on the crown of her head as his big hand clamped her mouth shut, forcing her head back against him. His other arm pressed crushingly against her belly and ribs, reaching across her front to hold her arm.
She couldn’t move. Couldn’t make any noise more than a pathetic whimper. Could barely even breathe.
What had happened to Harriet? Why was she still not moving?
Suze had hit her, taken her right out in one flowing movement as she rose from that squatting position where she’d landed below the window.
Harriet moved at last, and Suze dropped on top of her, knees either side of the girl’s arms, a hand clamped across her face.
Why were they silencing them?
What had she missed?
§
Two figures, appearing around the front of the farmhouse.
Glenn.
Jimmy.
Talking intently, seen from the back.
Even if they turned, they probably wouldn’t see Mel or the others, hidden in the harsh shadows between farmhouse and outbuildings.
She tried to cry out, but Wayne’s hand only pressed harder across her face.
Tried to squirm free, but it was no good.
She felt as if she was about to black out, unable to breathe, smothered.
She felt dizzy, her vision darkening at the edges.
Everything started to drift, become not real. Glenn... Jimmy... they might not even have been real. Figments. Mirages.
Then... a slight tensing in Wayne’s body, in the way he held her. She struggled to twist, to see, to...
She managed to raise one leg, bring it down sharply, her heel driving into the big man’s instep. He wore heavy boots, but still the impact startled him and he flinched, grunted, squeezed harder with that big hand across her face.
He tensed then and she had an instant of absolute fear, knowing this must be the prelude to something new, something worse, and then... a tiny fraction of a second later an explosion ripped through the silence.
Wayne fell, one arm still around Mel’s ribcage, and Mel crumpled with him, pulled down on top of him.
She felt a spatter of something hot and wet against her cheek, then the abrupt impact as the two of them hit the ground.
Reflexively, Wayne’s fist had clamped around her arm, twisting her as they fell, and only now flopping free.
She gasped, cried out, tumbled away to end up lying on her side on the hard ground of the yard, staring back into the man’s lifeless eyes, his mouth part open, and a dark red circle in the middle of his forehead, a red line of blood drawn down from it toward the ground.
She heard footsteps, felt hands on her, turning her, saw Jimmy looking down, so close.
Was this still a fragment, a cruel vision of some kind?
He drew her up to a sitting position, folded his arms around her.
This was no dream, no vision.
He’d found them. She’d thought he was walking away when she’d first spotted him with Glenn but he’d seen them. Maybe he’d heard Wayne’s grunt when Mel had stamped on the big man’s instep. He’d...
“Jimmy? I love you, Jimmy. I never stopped. You have to know that.”
He squeezed. “I know, Mel. I know.”
He drew away a little then, and she felt his arm move, saw him pointing his handgun in the direction of Harriet and Suze.
The dancer took one look and backed away, hands half-raised.
Harriet turned, pushed herself up, said, “Guys?” and nodded past them to where Glenn still stood at the front of the farmhouse.
He wasn’t alone.
The gunshot must have drawn attention, and now he was flanked by two more men, each with a gun drawn and leveled on the three.
Jimmy was standing already, moving across to form at least a partial shield for Mel and Harriet, as they climbed to their feet.
He had his gun aimed, and Mel felt as if she was standing in the middle of some Wild West shoot-out. She reached for Harriet, curled an arm around her friend’s waist.
“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen, Glenn. Are you listening?” Jimmy paused, then went on: “Me and my two friends are going to walk away from here, and no-one else is going to get hurt. That’s what’s going to happen. That’s all I want out of this.”
“You’ve got nothing on me, Jimbo,” said Glenn, after a long, calculating pause. “Nothing that will stick. By the time you get anyone here the place will be clean as a whistle.”
“I know that. I don’t care. I’ve got what I came for. I knew I’d never get to take you down as well, much as I’d like to.”
She heard the bitterness in his tone and saw from Glenn’s expression that he had too.
“You never had it in you, did you, kid?” Glenn said. Then: “Go on. Run. Tail between your legs. I don’t care about you. I’ve realized that, at last. You don’t matter.”
Glenn turned, and walked back toward the farmhouse, arms across the shoulders of his two henchmen.
Jimmy turned to Mel, and shrugged. “I guess we walk,” he said. “I may be brave, but I’m not stupid. I could never take this lot out alone, and both Glenn and I know that. But I don’t care. I’ve got what I came for.”
How tough must it be for him to simply walk away? To swallow his pride.
She went to him, just had to hold him again. “He hasn’t won,” she said. “He can’t just get away with what he’s done.”
Jimmy smiled. Said, “Oh, I know that. Like I say, I knew I could never take out this lot alone, so I’m leaving that to your old man. See, I called him before I came in here...”
She stared. “But... you just let him–”
“I gave Glenn his moment,” said Jimmy. “One little glimmer of triumph, and a bit of space to gloat, where he thinks he’s got away with everything, where he might actually believe he’s untouchable, before he loses everything. All I’ve done is give him a greater distance to fall. Mind games. It’s exactly what Glenn would have done.”
He reached for Mel’s hand then, turned, and led her and Harriet down the lane that led away from the farm, and before they’d taken more than a dozen steps Mel saw dark cars approaching them from the main road.