‘How do you know this pretty lady?’ Melvin asked, nodding to Kelly, but still lovingly toying with the knife.
‘Paul, perhaps you should sit down on the floor; you look as though you’re having a rough time detoxing from that crap they put in you,’ Kelly said.
‘Don’t try to be my friend,’ he said. His eyes narrowed and Kelly stepped closer towards the door. There was enough distance between all four of them that nobody had a stabbing chance without making a run for it, but that didn’t mean they were safe.
They performed a kind of macabre dance together. A quartet, wary and ungraceful, tense and taut.
Kelly cocked her head as the sirens returned and grew louder.
Thank God, this time they were here.
Her eyes darted about for any sign of Kevin Streeting. His orders would surely be to come here, to eliminate the witnesses to Jamie and Angelina’s murders. She didn’t see any sign of him, but she did sense a shift in the mood.
‘I know you didn’t kill Jamie, Paul,’ she tried again. ‘Or Angelina.’
Paul shook his head and covered his ears. She could tell he was struggling with whatever substance they’d forced on him, but that wasn’t her concern right now, only her safety and that of Johnny focused her attention. She could tell that Johnny was thinking the same thing. It was also eminently clear that whatever had been controlling these two men was not simply a powder mixed into a shake; it was much more than that.
The sirens deafened them now and they heard car doors slamming. Kate had sent the cavalry and Kelly rarely found herself in this situation where she was on the inside of a building about to be entered by the task force. She knew that the sensible thing to do would be hit the deck, but she looked at Johnny.
Then she saw Sandy say something to Melvin, and he lunged forward with the knife.
Chapter 62
Kelly felt her face hit the floor and a body on top of her, but she could tell by the smell that it wasn’t an assailant’s; it was Johnny’s. She heard him grunt and saw Melvin’s feet, wearing over large CAT boots that didn’t fit him properly, right next to her head, as the kitchen filled with screams and shouts to get down and hold hands in the air.
She was so winded that she couldn’t move at all.
And Johnny was a dead weight on top of her.
‘That fucking hurts,’ he said under his breath, and she could hear that he was holding it in for her. Then she felt the warm liquid on her trousers and looked down as far as her neck would twist and saw the blood. She wriggled and fought so hard that eventually she was able to turn around and get Johnny’s weight off her so she could move. She saw Paul on the ground, Melvin struggling with uncharacteristic strength, though still in vain, with an officer who had to resort to punching him in the ribs to restrain him, and Sandy crying. Kelly saw that she’d decided to play the innocent woman act.
‘It’s all a mistake,’ she whimpered. ‘They’ll tell you! It’s those two you want, not me.’
‘Medic!’ somebody shouted, and calls of ‘Clear, clear,’ rang out in the small house.
She looked at Johnny’s side where Melvin had plunged the knife in, and he slumped onto her.
‘No, Christ, Johnny, stay with me.’
Two paramedics took over and she crawled out of their way as they found the wound and began checking Johnny’s vital signs. He held out his hand for her to take and she knelt beside him and took it. He squeezed it and she smiled at his face. But hiseyes closed, and the paramedics yanked his body upwards and onto a stretcher.
Then he was gone.
She was left sitting on the floor, with her trousers covered in blood, staring at the ruby ring he’d given to her years ago, when they’d been in love and before Lizzie had been born. It was the most precious thing she had, after Lizzie.
The rubies were the colour of his blood.
She clasped her hands together and stared at the scene. Johnny’s blood was on the floor and her professional brain tried to assess if he’d be able to survive the loss of volume, and perhaps where on his body Melvin had stabbed him. A millimetre could make all the difference. Things paramedics said flashed through her mind. Their calculations, their assessments, their sucked-in teeth when all was lost.
She got up, keen to avoid touching anything lest she contaminate the scene.
Paul had been arrested for the murder of Tilda Dent and taken outside to a waiting squad car. Sandy was bundled into a second one and the ambulance carrying Johnny had already left.
‘Nobody else in the house, ma’am.’
‘Are you sure?’ she asked.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
