Free Death in High Places by Jo Bannister

getting up in the morning. So maybe that wasn’t why McKendrick had left the room. Between the bruises the color drained from his face as if a tap had been turned. “Is that what’s going on?” he choked, the fear flooding back. “Is that where McKendrick’s gone—to call Tommy Hanratty?”
    Beth blinked once, then looked away in disdain. “Don’t be stupid.”
    But it made sense. Too much sense, more than anything else that had happened this morning. Horn’s voice was stretched thin with shock. “That’s it, isn’t it? When he realized who I was, he guessed there was a price on my head. If he’d let events take their course he wouldn’t have seen any of it, but if he brought me here and let Hanratty know where to find me … Dear God!—and I’ve been so bloody grateful !”
    He spun on his heel, back toward the door; but his new understanding changed nothing. If he couldn’t open it before, he still couldn’t open it. One hand, accustomed to moving fast enough and gripping hard enough to ensure his survival, shot out and grabbed Beth McKendrick by the throat. “Open it. Now.”
    She gave a startled squawk; and perhaps she’d have done as he said, or perhaps she’d have spat in his eye and dared him to do his worst. There was no time for either of them to burn their boats. Robert McKendrick came back through the sitting room. “Well, that’s William comfortable…” His voice petered out as his eyes took in the scene.
    The tableau of momentary violence had frozen, giving no clue as to when their relationship had turned physical. McKendrick looked at his daughter, all icy rebellion, and at Horn, pale, angry and afraid; and probably if he’d seen any signs of injury he would not have said, as he did, quite mildly, “Getting to know one another, I see.” But it was hard to be sure.

 
    CHAPTER 5
    H ORN SNATCHED HIS HAND BACK as if Beth’s skin had burned him. “You have got to let me go,” he insisted thickly. “Right now. You didn’t have to get involved. If you’d stayed out of it, what came next wouldn’t have been your fault. But bringing me here, and telling Hanratty where I am, that makes it your fault. That makes it murder.”
    He flashed a quick glance at Beth. “She said it was all a plot. That it was too neat to be coincidence. I thought she was imagining things. But she was right and I was wrong. I was more than wrong—I was crazy, believing that someone like you would risk all this”—his unsteady gaze swept only the kitchen but implied the castle and everything it represented—“for someone like me. But it wasn’t for someone like me—it had to be me, didn’t it? I’m worth a small fortune to you. And when you’re rich, one fortune is never enough.”
    For a moment McKendrick said nothing. Then he said distantly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He didn’t even try to make it sound like the truth.
    â€œPlease,” begged Nicky Horn, “there’s still time. It’ll take him a while to get here. Hours, maybe. I can get a head start, if you let me go now.” He would never have believed that, after living the way he had for four years, his life still meant enough to him that he was prepared to plead for it.
    â€œNobody’s coming here. I told you that.”
    Horn tried to see things the way someone such as McKendrick might look at them. “I can’t buy you off. I haven’t got the sort of money Tommy Hanratty has. I haven’t got the sort of money Tommy Hanratty’s head gardener has. But I can do something for you that no one else can. I can save you from being a murderer. Even today, I can run far enough and fast enough that he won’t catch me. So it won’t matter that you phoned him.”
    â€œI didn’t phone