Enough of your games! I want forty thousand pounds now! Orââ He raised the penknife in a menacing gesture. âOr I will cut your life to pieces! They will know about Dakin. And what you are.â His narrow, pale eyes glared at her. âYou have an hour.â He stepped away. âI havenât much time. A bank check will have to do. After I cash it, I will send you the Cloverleaf.â He gave a short laugh. âYouâll have to trust me.â
Â
From the cluster of trees, he watched her flee, blundering and tripping across the field. Liar that she was! He hadnât even had a chance to lay out the brutal facts, to spit out what he knew. He frowned, thinking of what sheâd said about him stealing the penknife from Sylvester Hall. Because of course he hadnât stolen it. She knew that very well! Was she deviously clever? Apparently. For all the good it would do her!
Damn her! The money. He looked at his watch. An hour. After that, if she didnât come, he would show no mercy.
He picked up his suede hat, slapped it against his leg, and leaned back against the oak.
20
A t Glasshill Hospital, Inspector OâHare looked bitterly down at the unconscious man in the high, white bed. A bulky bandage slanted across his temple and was wound around his head; his face bore blue bruises; his eyes were closed, the lids a faint lavender. His lips were so pale they looked bloodless. Unconscious, blast it! Informative as a piece of wood. What a cock-up!
âIâm sorry, Inspector,â Head Nurse Huddleson, a buxom woman in her fifties, said apologetically at his elbow. âMr. Brannigan became conscious. And the way he was talking, agitated, garbled, and so frightening, what with every other word being âkill.â So when I called and spoke to your Sergeant Bryson on the phoneââ
âYes, I see.â OâHare wanted to lean down and shake the unconscious man awake. The trip from Ballynagh to Glasshill, thirty miles away, had been a time waster. The Tuesday traffic, ordinarily light, had been stalled because of an accident. If heâd used the police car instead of his Honda, he couldâve sirened his way through, blast it! Sergeant Bryson was still too much a novice to be sent to interview the injured man. So heâd had no choice.
âI only thought,â Nurse Huddleson began, but stopped short at a moan from the bandaged man. Branniganâs eyes
were closed, but the lids were twitching. Two deep lines formed between his brows. He jerked his head from side to side, his lips moved and he began to mutter.
âThere, you see!â Nurse Huddleson was triumphant.
OâHare slipped his notebook from his pocket and found his pen. The mutter was turning into words, at first indistinguishable, then clearly, âThe old woman lied to me! Trapped, penniless ⦠There were keys in a green marble ashtray on the dashboard. âYou push the button to make it open.ââ
Brannigan moved his head more violently from side to side. Suddenly he cried out, arched his back, and raised up, throwing his head back. âIt was a thunderclap!â A heave, and he was half out of the bed, arms flailing, eyes open and staring.
âAldrich!â Nurse Huddleson grasped at the flailing arms, âNurse Aldrich! Dr. Conners!â OâHare lunged forward and heaved Branniganâs body back onto the bed, and heard behind him a âChrist!â and swift footsteps; a white-coated arm reached past, held up a hypodermic, and plunged it into Tom Branniganâs upper arm. Branniganâs arched body collapsed, his staring eyes closed. He breathed evenly.
âWell, now.â OâHare straightened his police jacket and picked up his notebook from the floor.
Dr Conners, a young man with tired eyes, accompanied him out through the main hall. âItâll be at least a week, maybe longer,â Conners said, âbefore weâll see the