Page 74 of King’s Ransom

And dressed better.

He wore a black woollen peacoat, leather gloves and grey trousers.

Garrett came up beside me as I stood over the dead man in the nice clothes.

‘Sam Speedman, meet Sergei Kazan, the Grandmaster,’ Garrett said.

Garrett turned to me and grinned.

‘Holy fucking shit, pal, we did it,’ he said, slapping me on the back.

But I wasn’t listening.

I was already hurrying back to the bridge to check on Audrey.

The chaos at the cemetery was over.

(Soon, a different kind of chaos would engulf us as every cop car, ambulance, fire engine and news crew in New York descended on the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.)

Paramedics from the local hospital arrived first and were gobsmacked to see that one of the people requiring their ministrations was none other than Aristo King, the richest man in the world.

The other was Audrey.

One set of paramedics threw a silver thermal blanket over King as he sat on the rear fender of an open ambulance—his head bowed, clearly still in shock—contemplating a day that had included being buried alive for a time.

A second ambulance crew took care of Audrey at the bridge.

As Xiao and I watched, they applied some temporary gauze bandages to her stomach wound, set up an IV, strapped an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth and then loaded her onto a gurney and wheeled it quickly back to their ambulance.

I raced alongside the gurney, holding Audrey’s hand.

At the ambulance, the senior paramedic asked me, ‘How do you know her?’

‘I’m her . . . um . . . friend, her boyfriend . . .’ I’d never been in this situation before.

‘Whatever you are, you can’t help her right now. She needs surgery, ASAP. We’ll take her to Phelps. You can catch up with us there.’

Then he slammed the ambulance’s rear doors in my face.

I stood there for a moment, not sure what to do.

My mind—usually so organised and structured—was all over the place. In addition to Audrey’s condition, I was still concerned that King’s youngest daughter hadn’t been found yet.

Then someone tapped me on the shoulder.

Merritt Garrett. Bill was with him.

‘Sam,’ Garrett said. ‘The Feds are on their way from the cathedral. Before they get here, come look at something that your partner, Bill, found.’

I glanced at Bill. He gave me a short nod.

Garrett and Bill led me over to the three bodies of the killer-kidnappers.

‘What am I looking at?’ I asked.

Garrett said, ‘So, right after you took off to see what was happening down at the bridge, I cleared the dirt on the coffin and prised open the lid and found King inside it. But then these three assholes came running out from the trees over there, guns blazing.’

Garrett nodded at the tree line to the northeast. ‘I knew there had to be more than one of them.’