Page 64

Helen hurried away from the Southampton Evening News offices, marching fast down the road.

Later today, Emilia’s allegations would hit the headlines, the paper’s digital feed disseminating news of Regus’ criminal behaviour onto phones, tablets and computers all over Hampshire.

Helen wanted to be ready to strike when the bomb dropped.

She was deep in thought, her mind already scrolling forward to future confrontations, when she suddenly became aware of a noise behind her.

The harsh, rhythmic slap of boot on concrete, growing ever louder.

Suddenly tense, she strained to hear, now detecting two sets of footsteps coming up fast. Darting a glance at the front window of a nearby house, she caught sight of two burly forms in the reflection, closing in fast. Their body language, the speed of their approach, suggested that they meant business.

Had they been waiting for her outside the newspaper’s offices?

If so, how did they know she was there? Had they been following her all morning, trailing her to the clinic, then here?

The thought made Helen uneasy and she instinctively pressed a protective hand to her midriff.

Increasing her pace, Helen strode on, casting surreptitious glances into the windscreens of the parked cars to her right.

And now her heart skipped a beat, as she caught a clearer glimpse of her pursuers.

Both had shaven heads, both wore dark leather jackets and jeans, but it was the sight of the leader’s heavily scarred face and immobile eye that sent shivers down her spine.

This was no chance encounter. This was an ambush.

The two men were nearly on top of her, so what to do?

Now a civilian, she was not armed in any way.

She had no baton, no spray, nothing with which to defend herself.

Scanning the streetscape, she searched eagerly for a construction site or builder’s skip, somewhere she might find an offcut of discarded pipe.

But there was nothing, nor was there any obvious escape route, the street flanked on either side by residential houses, their interiors gloomy and lifeless.

There was a nursery towards the end of the street, but she hardly dared lead her assailants there, then a branch of H.

Samuel’s. Beyond that, Helen thought that there was a Tesco Metro around the corner, but she wasn’t totally sure and, besides, what chance did she have of making it there when they were nearly upon her?

Striding forward, Helen picked up her pace yet again.

There was no question now that they were following her and they appeared to have chosen their spot well, the quiet street all but deserted this morning.

Helen’s brain was firing, seeking solutions, opportunities to escape, but with each passing second the window was narrowing.

What did they intend to do? Threaten her?

Abduct her? Kill her? Helen suddenly felt hopelessly exposed, cursing herself for not having parked closer to the newspaper’s offices, for not having anticipated this attack.

Passing the nursery, she spotted an alleyway up ahead that ran off the street to the rear of the jewellery store.

The faint echo of a memory flitted across her mind and with a sudden burst, Helen ran to the mouth of the cut-through, taking her pursuers by surprise.

Behind her, she heard angry curses as the men took to their heels, thundering towards her.

Bursting into the alleyway, Helen hurdled a discarded packing case, landing deftly.

Dropping her shoulder, she prepared to sprint away, but before she could do so, a meaty hand grasped her trailing arm, tugging her violently backwards.

Her momentum arrested, Helen staggered sideways, off-balance.

Now another hand gripped her neck, prompting an immediate response from Helen, kicking out violently behind her.

Her thrusts met thin air, however, and now she felt herself spin, her attacker flipping her round before slamming her back into the alley wall.

Helen connected sharply with the rough brickwork, the air punched from her lungs, as she came face to face with her heavily scarred assailant.

Enraged, sweating, he looked like a man who’d known a lot of pain in his life, who’d doled out plenty of the same himself.

He was hungry for violence, fizzing with a dark energy, one eye eagerly seeking out his victim’s startled gaze, even as his other eye stared straight ahead.

‘You can run, but you can’t hide, Helen …’

He pushed his face into hers as he spoke, his breath rank and bitter.

Clearly, he was expecting the use of her name to freak her out, but Helen refused to give him the satisfaction.

Instead, she looked him up and down, before shooting a look down the alleyway, seeking a way out of her desperate situation.

‘Don’t think of trying anything,’ her captor breathed angrily. ‘You wouldn’t stand a chance.’

‘Is that right?’ she fired back.

‘You can’t fight your way out of this and you can’t arrest us, can you?’

Helen glared defiantly at her attacker, refusing to be intimidated.

‘I take it she sent you?’

‘It doesn’t matter who sent us,’ he spat back. ‘All that matters is the message.’

He pressed his elbow onto her throat, pinning her hard against the wall.

‘Forget what you saw, forget what you think you know and walk away.’

‘Or what?’

Quick as a flash, the gun was in her face, her assailant taking great pleasure in running its snub nose down her cheek, before ramming it into her throat.

‘Or I’ll splatter your brains all over this wall.’

His grim smile revealed an array of stained teeth, his excitement, his lust for violence, palpable.

‘Trust me, I’d enjoy doing it.’

He eased back the hammer, his gun now primed and ready to fire.

‘Well, that sounds charming,’ Helen gasped in response, struggling to breathe. ‘But before you do so, you might want to know that you’re being watched.’

Despite his vice-like grip, she nodded towards the end of the alleyway.

Confused, her captor shot a look back towards the street.

Helen clocked his confusion – there was no one in the mouth of the cut-through – then his sudden realization as he noticed the CCTV camera high on the wall, pointing directly down at them.

‘The jewellery shop has been broken into three times in the last two years, hence why they’ve put up extra security back here. Safety first and all that …’

Helen had hoped this might give her attacker pause, might even convince him to turn tail and flee, but to her surprise, he now threw his head back and laughed.

‘You think that will stop me?’ he replied, incredulous.

‘You’re really going to murder someone live on camera?’ Helen challenged, sounding far more confident than she felt. ‘You think you can do something like that and get awa y with it?’

‘I know I can,’ he replied, grinning. ‘Don’t you get it, Helen? The police don’t run this city anymore. We do. Which means we can do whatever the fuck we want.’

His finger tightened on the trigger, ready to fire.

‘I could shoot you right now and nobody would lift a finger to stop me. Is that how you want to die, Helen? Alone, with us, in this dirty alleyway?’

He squeezed the trigger, blood lust consuming him. Instinctively, Helen turned away, closing her eyes, but the image of her brains coating the wall, her lifeless body slumping to the ground, forced its way into her mind. Was this how it was going to end for her? For her child?

Then suddenly, unexpectedly, the pressure was released, her assailant stepping back smartly, removing his arm from her neck, as he slid the gun back into his jacket. Breathless, unsteady, Helen stared at him, shocked.

‘Last warning, Helen, or it’s …’

He ran a finger across his ravaged neck, before turning and heading away, his accomplice trotting dutifully behind.

Reach-ing the end of the alleyway, he paused to look directly into the CCTV camera, blowing a kiss at the lens, before rounding the corner, chuckling darkly to himself.

Helen watched him go, her hand once more clamped to her belly, her body pressed tight to the dusty brickwork.

She was fighting hard to regain her composure, to shrug off this distressing encounter, but in truth she was deeply unsettled by it. She was enraged. She was relieved.

But most of all, she was scared.