Michael broke into a trot. If the schedule of the attackers required that they run to the manor house and back, surely it required that he run too. If the driver heard or saw a man trotting toward him instead of sneaking, he’d feel reassured. At least he would until Michael got there.
As he went farther toward the woods, he could smell the exhaust of the car in the night air, and then he could hear the engine, faintly. The car had to be in among the trees. Michael followed the sound and found the car parked just inside the edge of the woods, where the trees were far apart. It was a big black Bentley sedan. The car added to the evidence that these men had not simply been violent burglars. They had been sent to kill him. He approached the car in its blind spot to the right behind the driver’s head.
When Michael was close behind him, the driver jumped and spun halfway around in his seat. He appeared to recognize the rain jacket Michael had taken. “You think that’s funny?” An English accent, but not from Yorkshire. “I ought to leave you here.”
Michael held one of the pistols to the man’s head. The driver was frozen looking up at him, and Michael could tell he was thinking he would have been better off if he had backed into the woods and were still facing the windscreen. He might have stomped on the pedal and sped off.
Michael answered his thought. “You wouldn’t have made it. I’ve killed a lot of men when they tried to drive away. But if you can tell me who sent the four of you after me and why, I’ll let you go.”
The driver seemed to feel cheated of his expectations. He obviously hadn’t been paid yet. “Where are the others? Them three? This was their job, not mine. I was just hired to drive the car.”
“I could tell. That’s why I couldn’t offer them the same deal.”
“I heard shots. Are they dead?”
Michael nodded. “They weren’t as good at this as they needed to be. Did they even know who I am?”
“Maybe they did,” the driver said. His brain seemed to be working frantically. “I don’t.”
“Who do you work for?”
“Nobody. I drive customers on long-distance rides. They found me online.”
Michael flung open the door, dragged him out onto the ground, and held the gun on him. “Somebody owns the Bentley, or owns you, and sent you to do a dangerous job. You wouldn’t have sat waiting for them to finish a murder if they were strangers who hired you online. You shouldn’t have lied. One more chance.”
“I told you the truth.”
Michael fired into his forehead and stepped back from the car and into the trees. He waited for any other man he hadn’t seen to come toward the car, but after a few minutes, none had. He took the driver’s wallet, got into the driver’s seat, and backed the car onto the pressed-gravel drive to the manor house. Then he went inside and turned on the lights in the great hall to look at the bodies.
The first man, who had the shotgun lying across his chest, was dead. The third man, who’d shot from outside, had been fooled by the shotgun and put a bullet through his head. Michael had shot the third man from the floor as he leaned in the window; a bullet under his jaw had come out the top of his head. Michael had some hope for the remaining man. His only wound was the shotgun blast from the other side of the big room. In the dark Michael had guessed that the shells were probably number 7, because the only game anyone had shot here in modern times as far as he knew was pheasant.
He looked closely at the man and felt for the pulse in his neck, but found he had been optimistic. He opened the breach of the shotgun and saw that the shells were number 4, intended for deer and men. He closed the shotgun, set it carefully on the table beside him, and looked up. His eye caught movement at the top of the big staircase.
Standing there in an ankle-length white satin nightgown and a long, lightweight robe was his wife. Meg stood with perfect, erect posture looking down at him.
“Oh, hello,” he said. “I’m sorry for all the noise and commotion.”
“I assumed it must have happened again,” she said. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“It looks as though you’ve got it under control.”
“Yes, it’s pretty much over.”
“What sort of time have we got?” she said. “Should I be throwing on some clothes and running for the car, or do we have time to talk?”
“We’ll make the time,” he said. “I have these two men under the windows, one outside, and another in the wood on the way to the gate. I’ll join you after I’ve cleaned up.”
“You know, Michael, you’re not thirty anymore. Maybe we could ask some men we trust to help out.”
He shook his head. “I’d rather not. Even helping at this stage would make them guilty of serious crimes. That wouldn’t be much reward for being worth trusting.”
“I suppose not.” She turned and walked away from the top of the stairs toward their bedroom.
Michael took a deep breath and knelt beside the two bodies. He searched for wallets, weapons, and other belongings and discovered they both had US passports. He got up, closed and latched the window, and set the broken piece of glass on the table with the shotgun.
He took off the first man’s rain jacket, spread it on the floor, rolled its owner onto it, and dragged him to the door and out to the rear of the Bentley. Then he took the jacket back and used it to drag the second body out, and then used it a third time on the grass for the man he’d shot through the open window.
He had too many bodies to transport in a car trunk. They would have to be in the seats. He hoisted one of them to the rear seat and fastened the seat belt around him, and then another. He opened the trunk and managed to get the head, arms, and torso of the third man’s body up over the edge of the trunk, and then one leg at a time, bending one knee and then the other. The final man was the most difficult. The whole process of loading the car had taken no more than ten minutes, but Michael’s arms, back, and legs felt as strained as if it had taken several hours. He sat on the stone steps until his breathing returned to normal.
He heard Meg’s voice. “I hope you didn’t hurt yourself.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “I’m fine. Do you remember what we did with that blue tarp we bought for the painting last summer but didn’t use?”
“It’s in the carriage house. They used it to shade the coolers for the cold drinks during the day and then put it in there.”
“Thanks.” He got up and walked to the carriage house to retrieve the tarp. When he came back, Meg was looking in the car window at the three killers he had propped up.
“It’s not like you to look.”