‘Ahem. So as you see … Wendy had had enough. She needed to find someone completely credulous to clear her name. She had you down as a mug, basically.’
‘A mug?’
Kim said, ‘Don’t,’ as if fearful that Edward’s growing anger might attract some sort of retribution.
From behind them once more, Wendy said, ‘Given that we’ve arrived here, and you found everything out, you can have the satisfaction of knowing that I was wrong. You are no mug, Mr Temmis.’
She started pulling Kim’s gag back into place, but Kim shook her head.
‘Wait. Can I just ask why your husband had to die?’
Charlie spoke. ‘We work as one. Or we used to. He was going to go to the police. Whistle-blow. We couldn’t allow it. Let’s get on with it.’
Hubert Hearst stepped forward, syringe in hand once more.
His brother spoke. ‘We have a choice for you both, which we thought you might enjoy. You’ve spent a lot of time following the trail of our Actinium-224, and now it’s coming to find you. Safe to hold, lethal to swallow, and horrific for the human body if injected direct into the heart – you can have that. Or you two lovebirds can walk off the cliff, just miss your footing and go down together. It’ll be a suicide pact and you’ll be spoken of with reverence for—’
‘Cut the guff, Charlie,’ said Wendy. ‘I know nobody can see us here, but I don’t want to spin this out. Ask Kim.’
The Hearst twins were still between Edward and the sea. He swallowed. His body was shaking. ‘If you inject us, the police will know.’
‘Not if we throw you off the cliff,’ said Hubert.
‘Injection, or walk,’ his brother repeated.
‘Put the syringe down,’ said Kim. ‘Put the syringe down and we’ll walk.’
‘You’ll have to untie us,’ said Edward.
‘You’ll go singly,’ said Charlie. Edward sensed he was the dominant twin; had he come out of the womb a second beforehis brother? Charlie Hearst was the brains. He was the business. There was no doubt about it, watching the way the others deferred to him.
‘I think I met two of your customers,’ said Edward suddenly. ‘Les and Lily Boyd. She’s in terrible pain. I understand now why she hates me. I stopped her dying. I didn’t mean to. But my show meant you couldn’t deliver any more ampoules.’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ said Hubert. ‘We’ll get back to business pretty soon. I’m sure the Boyds – did you say that was the name? – will be on our list.’ Edward gaped. If Hubert didn’t recognize the name of his own customers, how many did they have?
‘You wouldn’t believe how many people we’ve got paying fifteen grand for a capsule that costs tuppence-halfpenny to manufacture,’ Hubert was saying, as if reading Edward’s mind.
Charlie shouted: ‘Stop running your mouth off!’ and suddenly there was an explosion of bright light.
Somewhere in the house, a spotlight had been turned on at a window. The beam wobbled and found the group. Coming from behind Edward, it cast his shadow and Kim’s across the two brothers. And then they heard the woman’s voice through a megaphone:
‘Do not move. This is the police. We are here in numbers. Look down and you will see you are targeted by snipers.’
Sure enough, two red dots danced on the twins’ chests.
‘Move backwards five paces.’
The twins did that, checking all the time that they were not about to step back over the edge of the cliff. ‘Do not move a muscle or you will be shot.’ The laser dots moved up their chests to their foreheads.
Edward recognized the voice. If he was wrong, a bullet would be his reward. He lurched up, still tied to the chair. But he could not move his feet because his ankles were tied together, or catch his fall with his bound hands. He fell sideways, smacking hishead on the grass. There was a scream and a rush of movement at his feet. He could not see the twins. He saw a flash of Kim in her chair, and then, with a rumble and tremble and rush of noise, the earth began to move.
Kim screamed.
The cries of the Hearst twins echoed off the cliffs as the ground beneath them crumbled and they plunged over the edge.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Jordan Callintree arrived before any of his officers. The spotlight Stevie had used was now dangling from the window of the Post-it room, throwing a beam down the side of the house.
