suspicious going on there, but you’ve lost huge chunks of your memory? Sounds really plausible, doesn’t it? And are you going to tell them that you’re on the run from your husband with your little boy, who you probably shouldn’t have brought out of the States?’
‘What? How did you . . .?’
‘Come off it, Kate. I’m not stupid. For one thing, I overheard a lot of what you told Miranda, and the rest I figured out. You’ve just confirmed it. What do you think will happen to Jack if we go to the police? At the very least they’ll tell your husband where Jack is. Also, there’s the risk that if we get derailed now we’ll never find out what happened to Stephen.’
‘But what about Mrs Bainbridge? She was murdered; we saw him kill her. And she saved your life, Paul. Like you saved that cashier’s.’
‘I know. Don’t you think I feel sick when I think about it? But telling the police about Sampson isn’t going to bring her back. We need to find more evidence about what was going on at the CRU, including more about who Sampson is and where we can find him. Then we can go to the police. But if we go now, we’ll risk screwing up everything.’
Kate didn’t know what to do. Her instincts screamed for her to call the police right now, but what if Paul was right? Vernon would be over on the next flight – if he wasn’t already here – and she’d lose Jack. Paul would be arrested and most likely charged, and she might be seen as an accessory if they really believed Paul was the killer.
In her head, she could see Stephen. He was telling her to trust Paul, to go along with it.
She studied Paul’s worried, earnest expression. Looked at the lips she’d kissed earlier that day. He had made mistakes in the past, there was no doubt about that. But it was a long time ago, and he’d saved a woman’s life.
It was crazy, but she felt closer to this man, whom she’d only known for a few days, than she ever had done to her husband.
‘Okay,’ she said, making up her mind and praying she wasn’t going to regret it. ‘What next?’
‘We should think about finding somewhere to stay.’ He lifted his empty pint glass, the insides streaked with foam. ‘Somewhere nearby because now we’ve both drunk too much to drive with a clear head.’
‘Okay.’ She looked up at him. ‘We’ll get a room.’
‘A room?’
Kate became suddenly aware of the ache that had been growing unnoticed inside her. She didn’t reply to Paul’s question, but didn’t break eye contact either. When he reached across the table, touching the side of her face, running his fingers along her jawbone, she felt the urge to drag him from the table into the toilets and order him to take her, right there and then, and the image made her bite her lip. She could wait. But not for much longer. She felt close to him . . . but she wanted to get a lot closer.
Paul went to the bar to ask if the barmaid could recommend a nearby hotel or bed and breakfast. Beneath the roar of adrenaline that rushed through his veins was a whisper of anxiety: the shotgun in the boot. What was Kate going to say if she found out, especially after he’d just told her about his past? His only defence would be the truth: that despite his past experiences with guns, the promise he’d made to himself years ago to never use one again, when he saw the shotgun he knew it was an opportunity that had to be grasped. He had watched that maniac Sampson shoot an old woman, with a bullet intended for him. He needed the shotgun to protect himself and Kate, a woman with whom, he realised, he was falling in love.
And who knew? If revenge needed to be taken for what happened to Stephen, at least he now had the means with which to take it.
Sampson held Kate’s discarded phone in his palm, stroking the screen with his thumb. He navigated to the phone’s photo album and flicked through the pictures. Most of them were of the brat, but among them was a photo of Kate, slightly blurry, probably taken by the kid. She was smiling and leaning forward towards the lens, revealing the shadow of her cleavage. He stared at the photo for ten seconds, running his tongue over his dry lips, then put it into his pocket.
The stillness around him was absolute, the dark spaces between the trees seemed to beckon to him. When all this was over, he decided, he was going to go fishing. Head up to somewhere remote, like the Highlands of Scotland, and camp out beside a loch. He had done it before, spending whole days watching the still, flat surface of the water, waiting for the fish to fall into his trap; then the one-sided fight. There was something elementally satisfying in watching the fish flap and gasp for breath on the shore, before finally lying still.
The most content he’d ever been was when he lived at the CRU, close to nature – even if many of the things going on in that place were far from natural. After the fire had destroyed it, he’d felt an unfamiliar emotion: an ache of regret. It soon faded, though, replaced by the familiar flatness of his emotional landscape.
Today there was a weird feeling beneath his skin, a crawling unease. He had done his job badly – but there was more to it than that. He’d felt it for several days, since he’d heard that she was back in the country, and seen her dash across a CCTV screen.
When he had aimed at Wilson, he’d hesitated a moment too long. Not because he’d had second thoughts about killing him. Oh no. It was because he’d wanted to savour it, like a wine enthusiast taking a moment after opening a vintage bottle. And by screwing up in this way – which was so unlike him; usually, he was like a machine, a Terminator – he’d given the old lady time to get in his way. He had done something he should never have done – let emotion influence his actions.
As soon as he got back in the car, his thoughts were interrupted by the rude chirrup of a mobile. He first glanced at Kate’s phone, but the ringing was coming from one of his other mobiles.
He picked up, to hear Gaunt’s familiar voice. ‘What the hell happened today? I’m getting reports that Jean Bainbridge is dead. Please don’t tell me that was anything to do with you.’
Sampson explained what had happened.
The doctor exhaled. ‘You fucked up.’
Sampson clenched his teeth until his jaw muscles trembled.
‘You’d better get out of the area, quickly.’
‘What the fuck do you think I’m doing?’
Gaunt’s voice dropped from cold to Arctic. ‘Don’t use that tone with me. Remember who you’re talking to.’
Sampson drew in a deep breath and held it, fighting the urge to tell the doctor what he thought of him, allowing himself a satisfying fantasy in which he snapped Gaunt’s scrawny neck: grip and twist, and let go. The image calmed him.
‘Call me when you’re somewhere safe and we’ll talk,’ the doctor said. ‘In the great scheme of things, the old woman’s death isn’t important. I just don’t want anything to get in our way at this critical moment.’
‘I know that.’
‘Good. Don’t forget it. I still need you to deal with Maddox and Wilson.’
Sampson drove on, north out of the forest towards Stoke-on-Trent, and on into Hanley, the city’s central shopping
