A Silent Death by Peter May (book recommendations website txt) 📕

reasoning with this madman. He would kill her, and orphan her son. And God only knew what would become of Ana.

‘Don’t fucking move, Cleland!’

The voice was hard and full of menace, and came from behind. Cristina glanced over her shoulder to see Mackenzie and another man standing at the top of the steps, both of them breathing hard. The other man pointed a pistol directly at Cleland.

Cleland immediately returned his gun to push it hard against the side of Ana’s head. His confidence was dented, but he still managed the hint of a smile. ‘Well, well, Mr Mackenzie. It seems I’m going to have to kill you twice. I was so sure I had sent that bullet winging its way straight to your black Glasgow heart.’

Mackenzie struggled to contain his anger. ‘You did. It was my iPhone that saved me.’

Cleland seemed vindicated by this. His aim had not been errant after all. ‘Apple has a lot to answer for, then.’

‘Lower your weapon,’ Greene shouted at him. ‘If you pull that trigger you’re a dead man.’

A single gunshot pierced the pitch of the wind, and Greene looked down in surprise at the hole in his chest, his failing heart fighting immediately to pump blood into the dawn. He fell forward on his face, then toppled on to his side, and Mackenzie saw blood pooling around him on the stone flags. Less than an hour ago, as Mackenzie placed his call requesting help from the Gibraltar police, he had probably still been in bed.

Mackenzie looked up as a familiar figure stepped from the shadows of the ruined guardhouse.

‘Jefe!’

It took Cristina’s exclamation of astonishment to clear the fog of confusion and disbelief from Mackenzie’s mind, and he felt all hope slip away. He was bereft, debilitated by his own sense of failure. His father had ignored his superiors and failed. Mackenzie had put faith in his, and failed too. He was going to die. And so was Cristina, and Ana. And he had been unable to prevent any of it.

He closed his eyes and pictured the Jefe’s melancholy as he sipped his Glenfiddich that night at the finca. A dead wife, a dead son. My only future here is looking back, he’d said. Loss stealing reason and purpose.

He opened them again to stare at the somehow diminished figure of the chief of police. The gun still in his hand, regret still on his face. And everything fell into place. ‘Paco was your man,’ he said. ‘Obviously I just missed seeing you together at the golf club that day.’

The Jefe shrugged acknowledgement.

‘That’s how Cleland managed to live here undetected all this time.’

Cleland said, ‘It helps to have friends at court.’

Cristina was bewildered. ‘I don’t understand. What are you talking about?’

But Mackenzie kept his eyes on the Jefe. ‘Why in the name of God did you have to kill Antonio?’

Cristina cast Mackenzie a look of disbelief, then turned her gaze on her boss. The Jefe seemed embarrassed.

He said, ‘He overheard me and Paco having a row in the locker room. Paco was still pissed off at Cleland shooting him in the leg. And it hadn’t been any part of the deal, he said, for Cleland to kill all those Guardia.’ He threw a venomous glance towards Cleland. ‘And he was right.’ He sighed. ‘Antonio was incandescent. Said he was going to tell Cristina. Paco was sure he could talk him out of it. But I knew we couldn’t take the risk.’

‘You killed him!’ Anger and hurt and disbelief all conveying themselves in Cristina’s three words. She made a lunge for him, but Mackenzie grabbed her arm to hold her back.

The Jefe couldn’t meet her eye. ‘Not directly.’ Then he looked from one to the other, as if soliciting understanding. ‘I never ever thought it would come to this. But . . . you know . . . when things go wrong you have to go where they take you. So much that can’t be undone.’

‘And where are these things that can’t be undone going to take you now?’ Mackenzie’s voice was laden with sarcasm.

The Jefe inclined his head a touch. ‘To a yacht in the harbour down there, señor. Enough cash stashed aboard it to make sure I never have to worry about money ever again. A new identity. A new life. And no need to look over my shoulder.’

‘Well, anyway, that was the plan.’ Cleland spoke for the first time in a while. He had been listening with interest. And now he swung his pistol away from Ana’s head and shot the Jefe in the face. The force of the bullet jerked the chief’s head back, and he spun away across the stone flags, dead before he hit them. A pale smile lit Cleland’s face. ‘Loose ends,’ he said. ‘Hate them.’ And he brought his weapon around to point towards Cristina and Mackenzie. ‘Who’s first?’

*

Ana has felt both shots. Even in this wind, the firing of a gun deforms the air. A physical sensation. An acrid whiff of propellant caught in a gust. She is too late to save Cristina, and a large part of her dies with the realization. She cannot explain the second shot, but has the scent of death in her nostrils, can almost smell the blood.

And now she feels Cleland’s grip on her arm relaxing. She has an extraordinary sense of them both, up here in the sky, battered by the wind, drenched by early morning sunlight. A great void beneath them.

His descriptions traced on her palm have brought images to mind from long-ago school days. Photographs of the Rock in history books, Spanish outrage at British theft. The long ridge that sweeps between peaks, and the sheer fall to the sea below.

A sense of freedom from the chains of her disability infuses her whole being. She is an angel. As in her dreams, she can fly. But it is the thought of poor Sergio, and her anger at the death of Cristina, that fuels the ferocity with which she