S Bolton - Sacrifice

'If it's all the same to you,' I said, glaring at Gair, 'I'd just as soon you drowned me now.'

Without my noticing, Richard had moved closer. 'She has a weapon, Stephen. Something tucked down the front of her suit.'

Gair glanced at Richard, then back at me. His eyes dropped to my stomach. 'I'll say she has. Sorry, love, you and your little friend are far too valuable.'

My right hand was ready to slip inside my waterproofs. 'What are you talking about?'

'You're pregnant, Tora. Congratulations.' His grin got even wider. He looked like a wolf.

'What?' For a second I was so amazed I forgot to feel afraid. 'In the club, up the duff, bun in the oven.'

'You're insane.'

'Richard, is she pregnant?'

I risked a glance at Richard. 'I'm afraid you are, Tora,' he said. 'I took a blood sample last Sunday while you were sedated. There were significant levels of hCG. I guess Duncan got careless with his medication.'

hCG, or human chorionic gonadotropin, is the hormone produced by the body of a pregnant woman. It is hCG that home-testing kits are designed to detect, but a blood test can pick it up a matter of days after conception.

Gair was still smiling at me but I could hardly see him. It didn't occur to me to doubt what they were saying. I'd felt like shit for days: nausea and exhaustion are classic symptoms of early pregnancy, but I'd put them down to stress. I was pregnant. After two years of trying and failing, I was finally pregnant. I was carrying Duncan's child and these guys – these monsters – thought they were going to take it away from me.

'How did you get into my office?' I said, feeling a surge of hatred for Gair as I remembered the drugs I'd unwittingly taken the night I'd discovered Melissa's identity. Drugs can do any amount of damage to a young foetus. 'I know how you got into the house; how did you get into my office?' Even as I spoke, I realized how he'd done it. My office keys had gone missing. Gair had stolen them the night he left the strawberries and the pig's heart in our house. He was a petty thief as well as everything else.

'Pick up that rope and tie up Richard,' I said, gesturing to the rope I'd dropped minutes before. 'Do it quickly and properly and he won't get hurt.'

Gair looked back and the emptiness in his eyes was perhaps the most terrifying thing I've ever seen.

'And why would I do that?' he asked.

I pulled my hand out from my pocket. 'Because a two-inch iron bolt ramming into your brain is going to hurt a bit.'

Gair glanced down, looking, to my immense satisfaction, slightly less sure of himself.

'What the hell is that?'

'My grandfather's humane horse-killer. Except you're not going to think it very humane when it's pressed up against your temple.'

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Richard drop his head into his hands, rub his face and then straighten up. As a gesture it was so completely Kenn I wondered why I hadn't guessed immediately the two of them were father and son.

'Tora, please put that down,' Richard said. 'Someone's going to get hurt.'

'You are so right,' I said. And it isn't going to be me.'

Gair moved towards me. I jerked my hand up. He danced back and came at me the other way. I jabbed the weapon at him and he jumped back again. He moved, left then right, feinting attacks, always diving back at the last second. He was taunting me, trying to unnerve me, and it was working. He was also gradually moving round the cabin, away from the steps and closer to me, forcing me to turn my back on Richard.

I spun, jumping round and away from him, to Richard's other side. Richard reached for me and I ducked. Then I grabbed Richard by the neck of his pullover and pushed the gun up against the side of his face. If I pulled the trigger now I would miss his brain but still make a hell of a mess.

'Don't move. Don't move a fucking inch. Either of you.'

Gair froze. He held his hands in the air and stood poised, ready to leap, eyes glinting with excitement.

'Tora,' gasped Richard. 'Others are coming – they'll be here any second.'

'Good,' I spat, although I was still thinking coherently enough to know the news was anything but good. 'There are one or two things I'd like to say to Andy Dunn, not to mention my favourite boss.'

Gair frowned. Richard twitched his head in my direction.

'Do you mean Kenn?' he asked.

'Richard, can we just-'

'Kenn isn't coming,' said Richard.

I released the pressure I'd been applying to Richard's face, allowing him to turn his head and face me. Gair tensed, as if ready to spring.

'Don't try it, Stephen. I can pull this trigger before you get here.' I hadn't taken my eyes off Richard. 'What do you mean?' I asked.

Richard's eyes narrowed, as though searching for something in my face. For a moment or two he said nothing and I held my breath. Then, 'Kenn isn't one of us,' he said softly, as though breaking bad news. 'I can see why you might think so – he certainly looks the part – but he isn't.'

'How come?' I demanded, unwilling to let myself believe something that logic told me couldn't possibly be true. 'How come Duncan is… was… but Kenn isn't?'

'Richard, do we really have time for this crap?'

'I loved his mother,' said Richard. 'When it came to it, I couldn't hurt her. I helped her escape. She's lived in New Zealand for the past forty years.'

'Kenn knows nothing about this?'

Richard shook his head. 'He knows his mother. I helped them make contact a few years ago. But no, he's not one of us. It's a great shame in many ways. He is an exceptional man, very gifted. What he would have achieved if… Well, it doesn't do to dwell on these things. My fault, of course. I let myself get involved. It won't happen again.'

I could see Gair making impatient movements.

'You were never intended to be part of this, you know,' continued Richard. 'Elspeth and I are fond of you. We know Duncan loves you.' His eyes left me and his gaze seemed to turn inwards; I wondered if he was remembering Kenn's mother. 'A year from now you could have adopted a newborn baby. It could even have been Duncan's baby. You weren't supposed to be harmed.'

'Unlike the poor child's mother, of course. Did I meet her tonight? Which one was it to be? Odel or Freya?'

'This is getting us nowhere

'I wish you'd put that thing down,' said Gair, taking a step forward.

'And I wish you'd slit your wrists and jump over the side.'

A sudden movement, a noise – that none of us had made. Richard and I both turned as one to the port cabin. Gair leaped at us. Too late, I swung the gun up, just as his full weight came crashing down on me. I pulled the trigger, felt the bolt connect and then the gun was knocked from my hand as we both fell.

For a second I lay stunned on the cabin floor. Gair lay over me, pinning me down.

'Be careful with her, for heaven's sake,' said Richard. 'We don't want to lose that baby.'

'Richard, will you take care of the boat? God knows where we are right now.'

I heard Richard move, then the revs of the boat increased and we turned sharply to port. I heard the crackle of the ship's radio and him speaking into it, trying to make contact with another boat.

Gair was wearing a crumpled grey business suit, no doubt the same one he'd been wearing when he'd been arrested, questioned and charged with murder. He probably hadn't been allowed to change before spending the night in the cell. He'd have been wearing it that morning when he'd swallowed the sedatives that reduced his peripheral pulse, when he'd pretended to hang himself and had been carted off: not to the morgue, of course, but to Tronal. A dark stain on his right shoulder was spreading slowly, but if he felt any pain he wasn't showing it.

I think a thousand different ways of pleading with him came into my head that moment. I was all out of bravado. I didn't want to fight any more. I just wanted to live a bit longer.