Page 124 of Carbon

The vehicle developed a worrying clunk soon after we left the motorway, but thankfully we made it to Sandlebury in one piece. Darryl slowed down as we approached the village.

“Could you drop me off a little bit down the road from my house?” I asked. “I’d like my visit to be a surprise.” And I didn’t want an innocent party to get shot if Leroux decided he needed another hostage.

“It’s your money, lady.”

I had him pull over in a lay-by two hundred yards from the entrance to our driveway, and immediately regretted it when I stepped out of the vehicle and my legs started to buckle underneath me.

“Back in a minute,” Darryl told me. “I just need to nip back to that petrol station we passed and fill up.”

“Please be quick.”

What was I thinking? I wasn’t cut out to be a heroine, no matter how much I might wish it in my books. But I was here now, and I had no choice. My whole body trembled as I walked along the grass verge towards the place where this whole sorry story had begun with Ben’s arrival and my sister’s death. I almost hated the place now.

The gates lay wide open, inviting, not like the solid barrier guarding Albany House back in London. Oh, how I wished I was back there, watching a movie with Roxy or sampling Ruth’s afternoon cakes.

A click from behind made me freeze, and although I’d never seen a pistol in real life, I knew from television what the cocking of a hammer sounded like. I turned slowly, raising my hands in the air as I did so.

“Where’s your car?” Leroux asked. I recognised him from the pictures Gideon had brought, only his eyes had a crazy gleam in them that didn’t show up on a computer screen.

“I-I-I couldn’t find the keys, so I took a taxi.”

“A taxi? A fucking taxi? Which part of my instructions did you not understand?”

“You just said come and pick up the key.”

“Yes, in your car.”

“I told you, I couldn’t bring my car. Now, give me the damn key, and I’ll get your damn money.”

He started laughing. “You really are as stupid as your sister, aren’t you? It must run in the family.”

“Angie wasn’t stupid!”

“She was stupid enough to believe me when I told her I was a French baron looking for a lady to make my wife, and quick enough to let me fuck her.” He reached out and ran the back of one hand down my cheek. “Wonder if sister number two is a better lay?”

I almost threw up then and there. Breakfast again threatened to escape as I fought from gagging. “What about the money? We had a deal.”

“Don’t you get it? There is no money. I needed a vehicle and a hostage, and thanks to you I’ve only got one of the two.”

“What do you mean a hostage? What about my family?”

He grabbed my arm and twisted it so I fell into step in front of him with the gun poking into my side.

“See what I mean? Stupid. You honestly thought I’d take on Blackwood’s bodyguards to get into your house? Your father’s locked in his study, nobody would pay a ransom for the staff, and if I were you, I’d let me shoot your mother in a heartbeat.” We got out to the road and he looked both ways. “Now, where’s this taxi?”

“H-h-he went to get petrol.”

“Merde. Why do these things always happen to me?”

“Because you’re a murdering bastard.”

That got me an elbow in the side, and I doubled over, gasping. Leroux swore under his breath, babbling hate against women in general and me in particular until the sound of an approaching car made us both look up.

The sick grin on his face made my stomach clench.

“Looks as if my luck is changing.”

He forced me into the middle of the road and held the gun to my head as a black Porsche Cayenne with tinted windows came around the corner. In the narrow lane, the driver had no choice but to stop or run us down as Leroux stood his ground.

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