Free Death in High Places by Jo Bannister Page A

him.”
    â€œAll right!” Horn made an explosive gesture with his hands. “All right. Beth was wrong. It was just coincidence that you happened to be walking past a back alley sixty miles from where you live at three in the morning, and nothing but old-fashioned courage that made you step in front of a gun. I believe you. Thousands wouldn’t, but I’ll try really hard to believe you. If you’ll do something for me.”
    â€œHaven’t I done enough already?”
    Horn ignored that. “If you’ll explain to me why you’re so damned determined to keep me here. Because if it isn’t for the money—if you haven’t done a deal with Hanratty—you’re going to die. All of you—you, Beth, William, the cat—the whole bloody family. If you made the call, the guy with the gun will be here soon to make a murderer of you. If you didn’t, he may take a little longer, but he’ll still get here, and after he’s killed me he’ll tidy up the loose ends. All the loose ends. All the people who might have seen, or heard, or heard about him. You, and everyone you care about. So tell me why. Why in God’s name would you take that risk?”
    McKendrick deliberated. Finally he said, “I want you to do something for me.”
    â€œWhat?” yelled Horn, exasperated beyond bearing. “You want me to do you a favor?”
    â€œYou think I haven’t earned it?”
    To judge from her expression, Beth was no less astonished by this development than Horn was. She turned a furrowed brow to the tall man beside her. “Mack? What’s this about?”
    He hushed her with a minimalist wave of the hand, his diamond gaze never leaving Horn’s face. “Well?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Horn responded bemusedly. He rubbed the side of his hand across his eyes. “I don’t know anything anymore. I thought you saved my life out of simple humanity. Now you tell me it was so I can do something for you. So I’m wondering if maybe Beth got it right and somebody did plan all this. If maybe it was you.”
    â€œDon’t be stupid,” said McKendrick coldly. “I saw you were in trouble and I stepped in to help. I’d no idea what I was getting involved in. But since you turned out to be you, and the guy with the gun turned out to be working for Tommy Hanratty, and that upped the ante way beyond anything I expected, is it so unreasonable to ask you for something in return? If I can keep you alive, why would you refuse to do something for me?”
    Beth, following the exchange like a spectator at a tennis match, gave Horn no chance to answer. Peering into her father’s face, she demanded, “ Did you phone someone?”
    â€œI told you,” he gritted. “No. Don’t worry about it.”
    â€œDon’t worry about it?” echoed Horn, recoiling from the pair of them, the girl who wore her hatred on her sleeve and the man who guarded his thoughts behind gray eyes like the steel shutters of his house. “The fact that there’s a paid assassin on his way here right now? You think that’s nothing to worry about?”
    â€œNobody’s coming here,” said McKendrick distantly. “Nobody’d get in if they came. And nobody gets out until I say so.”
    Horn gave up. “Then tell me what it is you want and let’s put an end to this pantomime. What is it? Having trouble getting a window cleaner to go up the tower? You want someone who isn’t scared of heights—or someone who won’t be missed if he falls? I’m your man. Let’s get on with it.”
    He was of course being facetious. But it was a measure of his complete bafflement that he wouldn’t have been entirely surprised if McKendrick had handed him a bucket and a chammy leather.
    McKendrick was still regarding him speculatively, as if he was weighing very carefully what was in front of him