Майкл Ридпат - The Marketmaker

I glanced at Nelson next to me.

‘What do you think?’

He looked at his watch. ‘We can give him a bit more time. Maybe they’re having some kind of discussion. But we can’t risk staying here too long. We don’t want to meet the rest of the gang on the way down.’

I glanced anxiously down towards the road to Sao Jose. The traffic was infrequent, but the odd car did pass up or down. We had no way of knowing if it was the kidnappers’ friends. But if they were coming all the way from Rio, and it was a good guess that they were, it would take them a while.

A quarter of an hour. Still no sign of her. Why hadn’t we told Francisco to take his mobile phone with him so we could talk to him and find out what was going on? Stupid!

I began to think about what we would do if we were forced to leave without Isabel. All would not be lost. We’d still have Francisco filho, and while we held him Isabel should be safe. But a long stand-off would be difficult to sustain, and not just emotionally. Francisco and his men knew who we were. They’d be looking for us and looking for the boy, and they would be willing to use more ruthless methods than we to get him back. No, we had to avoid that if at all possible.

I glanced again at Nelson. He shrugged. Francisco filho was biting his lip. He was just as anxious as us. Poor sod.

Then his eyes widened. I looked up the hill to see the door of the farmhouse open. A figure was pushed out. Slight, long hair blown over her face. Isabel.

She straightened up, and began to walk slowly down the hill.

I looked across to Nelson, who gave Francisco filho a rough shove. He stumbled up the hill towards her.

I would guess it was about four hundred yards between us and the farmhouse. Although he was going uphill, Francisco filho was covering more distance, so that he was soon further away from us than she was from them.

Suddenly a figure broke out of the farmhouse and began to run down the hill. He was tall, lithe, fit. Francisco followed, shouting.

‘Run, Isabel!’ I screamed.

She paused, looked up, turned to see the man bearing down on her, and only then began to hurry. Francisco filho was quicker off the mark. He broke into a run straight away.

Damn! I couldn’t shoot the boy, but if I let him go, we’d lose our chance to free Isabel. I’d have to catch him before he reached the kidnapper, who was hurtling down the hill towards him.

I sprinted.

I heard two shots behind me, as Nelson fired at the kid, and saw dirt leaping up away to his left. Nelson was firing to miss, and was only scaring the kid into running faster.

But not as fast as me. I had some distance to make up, but I was closing on him, the gun in the waistband of my trousers biting into my groin with every stride. He had no power in his long legs, and he was finding the gradient difficult. His hands were still bound and his gag must have made it difficult to breathe. Above me, the man had caught up with Isabel, throwing her to the ground. As they struggled to their feet only a few yards ahead, I dived and grabbed at the boy’s ankle. He tripped, and I was on him, gun out, and to his temple. I flicked the safety-catch off.

He lay still, scared, his chest heaving. With the gun pressed to his head, I looked up at Isabel. She was on her feet now. A man was holding her round her neck with his left arm, pointing a gun at her head with his right. He was breathing heavily. Her brown eyes stared at me, wide with fear. I caught them for a second, trying to give her reassurance, tell her she could still be free, and then she was yanked backwards up the hill by the man. He was in his thirties, wiry and capable looking.

‘Stop!’ I shouted. ‘We can still make the exchange.’

‘No! I take her!’ and he pulled Isabel up the hill with him.

The voice was deep and authoritative, and I would have recognized it anywhere. Zico.

I pulled Francisco filho to his feet. ‘Let her go!’ I shouted. ‘We’ll let you escape.’

‘How do I know that? Perhaps the police wait for us. No, Isabel goes with me!’

He dragged her up the hill. I followed with the boy. At the top I could see Francisco and another man, who looked little more than a kid. A fellow kidnapper, presumably.

We were nearing the farmhouse and a red pick-up truck.

‘Stop!’ I said. ‘Or I’ll shoot him!’

‘No!’ cried Francisco.

Zico laughed. ‘Go ahead. Shoot him. I don’t care. He’s not my son.’

He looked into my eyes, mocking me. Of course I wasn’t going to shoot the boy. I released my grip on the kid, and let my gun fall to my side. He ran up the hill to meet his father.

Zico dragged Isabel towards the pick-up truck. She looked back at me, her eyes helpless, pleading with me to do something.

Damn! There she was, just a few feet away. The elation that I had felt seeing her walk out of the farmhouse had turned to almost unbearable anxiety. I was so close to freeing her and now Zico was simply going to drive her away from me, right under my nose. I couldn’t try to shoot him. He’d kill her first, and probably me too. The only experience I’d had with a handgun was the five minutes Nelson had taken to show me how it fired. Now it felt heavy and useless in my hand.

If Zico got away with her, what then? He might kill her. Or he might let her go when he had no more need for her. Or he might ransom her for cash. She still had a chance. Stay calm, then, and let him go. She’d be OK as long as I stayed calm.

I saw movement some distance behind the pick-up. Thin black limbs scurried across the ground to a water drum. A moment later a head and a short grey barrel peeked out from behind it. Euclides! And he had the gun Nelson had given him. Where the hell did he get that? He must have hidden it on him somehow. Oh, shit! The last thing I wanted was some cock-eyed heroics from a twelve-year-old. Someone would get killed, and it would most likely be Isabel.

Zico glanced at me as he neared the truck, and I quickly switched my eyes back to him, not wanting him to realize I had seen something. I moved slowly closer.

‘Keep away!’ he shouted.

I stopped.

Behind him, Euclides ran from the drum towards the pick-up truck. I still don’t know what he was trying to do. Hide in there, probably, and surprise Zico later on. But he trod on some old corrugated iron that gave out a sharp clatter. Zico spun round. Euclides stopped in his tracks, caught in the open. He began to move his gun towards Zico, and hesitated, presumably afraid of hitting Isabel. Zico whipped his weapon away from Isabel’s temple and pointed it at Euclides. Two shots rang out, and Euclides uttered a sharp cry.

I had no time to think. Instinct made me raise my arm, and point it towards Zico. I looked down the short barrel straight into Isabel’s terrified eyes. I jerked my arm to the left and pulled the trigger in one motion as Zico turned back towards me. I hit him in the right shoulder, throwing his arm back. His gun went spinning to the ground.

He let go of Isabel and bent down to pick it up. I ran towards him. There was another shot, Zico’s head jerked sharply to one side, and he fell.

Euclides lay on the ground, gun pointing towards the crumpled figure of Zico, a broad smile on his face. There was a dark patch on the grass around his chest.

I ran to Isabel, who was squatting on the ground, sobbing.

‘Are you OK?’

She looked up and a smile broke across her tear-stained face, the smile I had played through my mind so many times over the last few weeks. She nodded.

I turned and ran over to where Euclides had fallen. He was lying in a pool of blood, which grew in front of my eyes. It was pumping out from somewhere underneath him. I hesitated, unsure what to do. Euclides was struggling to keep his eyes open. His lips moved. I bent down to listen.