Dead Of Winter (Willis/Carter #1)(104)

Jeanie felt the pain as she looked down and saw the knife sticking out of her groin before Nikki pulled it back out and ran. Jeanie remembered that as a child she’d been running with a bottle of red lemonade in her hand and had dropped it. It had hit the pavement and smashed and sent a jet of red liquid out into the air just like now; but this time it was her blood. Every beat of her heat sent another spurt out from the wound. She fell slowly to the ground . . . slow motion . . . such a long way . . . she stayed where Nicola had stabbed her, sandwiched between two ambulances, and watched Nicola drive away. She heard the sound of the helicopter above whoosh-whoosh, as it glinted in the sky. She shivered and she looked down: the blue of her trousers was turning red.





Chapter 77


With his rifle on his back, Carmichael kicked his bike off its stand and into life. He was near to the Mansfield hospital now; he looked into the sky and saw the helicopter hovering over. He spun his bike around and kept the helicopter in his sights as he headed past the roundabouts and joined the M25; caught up with the ambulance speeding along the outside lane.

Ebony ran around to the back of the hospital towards the ambulances. She found Jeanie on the ground. ‘It’s alright, Jeanie . . .’

She grabbed Ebony’s arm. ‘Don’t let me die here . . . I want to hold my baby . . . please, Ebb, don’t let me die here.’ Ebony looked up at the sound of a helicopter in the sky above. She looked around; there was no one about.

‘I’ll go and get help, Jeanie.’

‘No, Ebb. Don’t leave me alone here. I don’t want to die alone.’

Ebony took out her phone and phoned Robbo: ‘Ring the reception here. Tell them to get a paramedic out to the back of the hospital fast. Jeanie’s been stabbed.’

Carmichael followed the ambulance as it swerved erratically and turned off at an exit. The police helicopter was circling. He knew they would have spotted him. He knew he only had to see this through. He followed from the end of the lane as the ambulance drove up towards an intersection and took a left turn as it continued to climb up over the brow of the hill. Carmichael could see a few small planes to his left, a flattened field, a landing strip. He watched the ambulance park haphazardly and saw Nicola get out and run towards a small six-seater aircraft whose pilot was waiting. Carmichael drove his bike onto the runway and stopped between Nicola and the plane. For a few seconds his heart stopped.

‘Linda?’

Nikki de Lange stood watching him walk towards her. His rifle in his hands.





Chapter 78


Davidson and Harding stood alone in his office. Harding was still on the phone to her ex-husband. On the other end of the phone Simon was feeling a growing nausea in his stomach. She had it on loudspeaker for Davidson to hear.

‘I thought it was a miraculous thing, but you have to understand: I was the surgeon standing there with a woman with her chest open, waiting for a donor heart. I wanted to have a happy ending for this scenario. When Martingale said he had another heart I was relieved, I didn’t really give a shit where it came from. I wanted my patient to survive. We waited another hour and the heart arrived. It was healthy. The blood supply to the new heart was good. We performed the transplant and I left.’

Carmichael walked towards Nikki. She didn’t move. She stood waiting for him. When he reached her she took his hand and placed it on her chest.

‘You knew when we met . . . when we made love . . . our hearts recognized one another.’ She smiled sadly. ‘You can’t kill me; the heart that beats for you inside this breast is your wife’s. I’m dying. She’s coming home to you. Let me go.’





Chapter 79


Carter saw the smoke billowing out of the ground floor of Martingale’s house way before he reached it.

Carter ran back to his car and pulled out the fire extinguisher from under the back seat. ‘Call the fire brigade,’ he shouted to the officer in the surveillance car as he passed him and ran towards Martingale’s front door. He kicked it open as he opened the valve on the fire extinguisher and aimed the jet of foam into the hallway. Flames ripped along the ceiling as he made his way into the living room on the left. He looked towards the middle of the room where there was a solid ball of flame with a human being sitting in the middle of it.





Chapter 80


‘Hold on, Jeanie.’

Jeanie let go of Ebony’s hand as the trolley pushed through the operating theatre doors and Ebony stood and watched them swing. Noel came running in, recognized Ebony and handed her Christa, who was making her mind up whether to cry as she stared at Ebony in confusion . . . Ebony smiled nervously at Christa and took out her phone to call Carter.

‘How’s Jeanie?’

‘She’s gone in to be operated on now. Nicola got away from here. I don’t know whether she made it.’

‘She got away. Carmichael could have shot her, apparently, but he didn’t. He chose to let her go. I don’t know why. She’s unlikely to get far. They’ll arrest her when the plane touches down in Berlin, hopefully.’

‘Is Martingale in custody?’

‘Killed himself . . . couldn’t face it. He set fire to himself.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Why do you sound like you’re running?’