Ian Rankin - The Impossible Dead

‘I decide to end it all?’ Fox watched Pears nod. ‘And what are you doing all this time?’

‘We drove here together. You proposed some crazy theories. You directed me to this place, thinking it would mean something to me. Then madness got the better of you and you ran into the woods. I left you to it and drove home.’

‘It’ll all still come out – you and Alice, Vernal and Alan Carter …’

‘There’ll be hearsay,’ Pears agreed. ‘But I doubt the media will make much of it.’ He paused. ‘I have a battery of lawyers at my disposal, and I believe injunctions are all the rage. Trust me, precious little will be allowed to emerge. Why not toss your mobile phone on to the back seat? You won’t be needing it.’

Fox hesitated, and Pears dug the tip of the gun into his ribs. He winced and removed his phone, threw it into the gap between the two seats.

‘Out,’ Pears ordered. He had opened his own door, keeping the pistol pointed at Fox. Fox undid his seat belt and got out of the car. The air was cold and clear: country air. They were next to the small cairn commemorating Francis Vernal’s life.

A patriot.

It was a silent rural road. There would maybe be another car passing in half an hour or so. Plenty of time for Pears to carry out the execution – and no witnesses. There was a barking in the distance – a farm dog, or maybe a fox. Fox wished he was more like his animal namesake: swift and lean and nimble.

Cunning, though: there was always cunning…

Pears had closed the driver’s-side door and come around to Fox’s side of the Maserati. He slammed shut the passenger door.

‘Not often you see an expensive sports car parked here,’ Fox speculated. ‘Sure you don’t want to leave it somewhere less visible?’

‘I’ll just have to risk it,’ Pears responded. ‘Let’s get going.’

‘No rope,’ Fox told him.

‘It’s waiting for us.’ Pears waved the gun in the general direction.

‘Bit more planning than I gave you credit for.’

‘I read about it a while back. A man walked into a forest somewhere. He was too old to get the noose over a high branch, so he just tied it to a lower one, placed his neck in it, and leaned all the way forward…’

‘That’s what I’m going to do, is it? Sounds like I’d be better off refusing and taking a bullet. At least that way you’ll be in the frame.’

Pears shrugged. ‘My word against yours, except you won’t have any words. A body could lie out here for years without anyone finding it.’ He gestured towards the forest again. ‘Let’s not think about all that yet, though. Let’s just walk…’

Fox took a few steps forward, until he was within touching distance of the first line of trees. ‘Something nobody seemed to know

…’ He tried to sound beaten, resigned to his fate.

‘What?’

‘But you will, I suppose.’

Intrigued, Pears repeated his question.

‘The actual tree Vernal’s car collided with.’

Pears considered for a moment. ‘Probably that one,’ he answered, gesturing with the pistol. The moment it was pointed away from him, Fox made his move, grabbing Pears’s wrist and twisting it. Pears gasped, his fingers splaying involuntarily. As the gun dropped to the ground, Fox scuffed it away with his foot. But Pears was the stronger of the two – he got in a few heavy blows as Fox wrestled with him. It took Fox only a few seconds to realise he was not going to win this fight, not at close quarters. He couldn’t see the gun, so he gave Pears a shove backwards and ran for it.

Pears didn’t follow, not straight away, which gave Fox a bit of time to dart between the trees. He was a good twenty or thirty feet away, the gloom working to his advantage, when a bullet shattered some bark inches from his left shoulder. A splinter penetrated his cheek, stinging like hell. He left it where it was and kept weaving as best he could.

He didn’t know how deep the woods were. How soon would it be till he reached open ground, where he’d be an easy target? There was a half-moon in the sky above, obscured by a thin layer of shifting cloud. Enough light to see by. More than enough for Stephen Pears.

A bullet lodged in a tree: evidence waiting to be found. But would anyone find it? Though times had changed, the police could still be sloppy. He patted his pockets. If he started to discard credit cards and the like, he would be leaving a trail for Pears as much as for any investigators. Another bullet zinged past him and thumped into bark. Pears was heavyset; probably didn’t get much use of the gym at the house – did Fox have half a chance of outpacing him?

Didn’t matter: it was the bullets he had to outpace, and that wasn’t going to happen.

Outmanoeuvre him, then – but how? The road was his best chance. It would depend on an elusive passing car, but his run of luck could change for the better, couldn’t it? Another option: double back to the Maserati. Pears hadn’t locked it, but Fox couldn’t remember if he’d left the key. His phone was on the back seat. So was the little recorder he’d borrowed from Joe Naysmith. He’d thrown it there along with the battery pack, having switched it on first. Everything said in the car would, he hoped, be on it – and audible.

But only useful to him if Pears didn’t find it…

Another shot, another miss. Would a farmer maybe hear? A poacher? Sweat was running down Fox’s back. He could remove his jacket, but it was darker than his shirt and he didn’t want to give his pursuer a more inviting target. His chest was hurting. He remembered the stitch when he’d run across the Forth Road Bridge. Stitch or not, this time he had to keep moving.

The fourth shot, however, found its target. He felt the impact against his left shoulder. It went in and out again, numbing him for a moment. His legs almost buckled, but he wouldn’t let them. A burning sensation, and then pain shooting down his arm all the way to his fingertips.

He gritted his teeth. Knew he couldn’t stop, not even for a second. Warm blood, oozing and running. He gripped his left hand in his right, cradling it against his chest.

And ran.

Risked a glance behind him but could see no sign of Pears. He realised he was being stalked. Pears wasn’t panicking. He was being his usual methodical self. He was watching, listening and calculating. He was wearing his quarry down. Let Fox run in circles, then pick him off. Fox cursed his own stupidity and kept moving. Images flashed into his mind: Mitch and Jude; Imogen Vernal and Charles Mangold. Mangold getting him into this in the first place.

No, who was he kidding – he only had himself to blame.

Paul and Alan Carter…

Scholes and Haldane and Michaelson…

Evelyn Mills and Fiona McFadzean…

Players in the drama of his life and death.

Alice Watts morphing into Alison Watson.

Hawkeye hiding behind the eyes of Stephen Pears.

DCI Jackson, caretaker of state secrets.

Chris Fox.

And back to Mitch and Jude again.

They swirled around him as he headed up a noticeable incline. Moss and leaves mulched beneath him. Every breath he drew into his tired lungs tasted of loam.

‘Fox!’

The yelp from Pears told Fox that the man was maybe thirty or forty yards away. It also hinted at irritation, and this gave him a glimmer of hope. He tried to smile but couldn’t. He licked his lips instead, his saliva as sticky as wallpaper paste.

And he ran.

‘Fox!’

Keep shouting, pal: means I know where you are.

Every movement he made sent another jolt of pain through his shoulder. Blood was dripping on to his trousers and shoes. Thinking about it made him nauseous. He swallowed hard, tasting iron and bile. Emerging into a small clearing, he paused for only a moment to stare at the noose hanging from a tree branch, almost exactly in line with his eyes, one end wrapped around the trunk and knotted fast.