THIRTY
Panic fluttered behind Aly’s breastbone like a bird in a cage. She dug her fingernails into Grant’s hands, but even as she drew blood, he gritted his teeth and tightened his grip. Her boots scraped on the hardwood floor as she writhed, her legs flailing uselessly.
She scrabbled at the small of her back, reaching for one of her knives, but Grant hauled her away from the wall, slamming her into the floor with enough force to crack her head against the hardwood and send stars spinning through her vision.
His weight pressed her into the floor as he threw a leg over her hips, his thighs squeezing her sides.
Darkness crowded the edges of her vision and her kicks slowed, her grip on Grant’s hands loosening. Fear clutched her insides, turning them to ice.
Grant leant closer, shifting his weight, and the sunlight coming through the window caught the topaz in Grant’s sgian dubh. With the way he knelt over her, the knife tucked into the top of his sock was mere centimetres from her hand.
A sgian dubh wasn’t meant to serve as a weapon. The blade was less than ten centimetres long, a utilitarian object rather than an offensive one. But it was all she had—if she could get it.
She let her hands flop to the floor, her head lolling to the side as much as she was able in Grant’s grasp. Her vision wavered, but she kept her eyes on the sgian dubh, barely more than a shadow in the dull winter light.
The tufted carpet chafed against her fingertips, hindering her hand’s progress towards the hilt of the knife. Her lungs burned, and she forced her drooping eyes open, barely able to see through her eyelashes as she reached for the sgian dubh.
She closed her fingers round the hilt and, in a single movement, ripped it out of its sheath and thrust it up into Grant’s abdomen.
It was a poorly aimed strike, but it was enough.
He reared back, releasing her throat as he crumpled over his wound.
Aly gasped in a breath, coughing and spluttering.
She fought the urge to lie on the carpet until the spasming passed, driving her shoulder into Grant’s abdomen and heaving him off her.
Stumbling to the door of the flat, she wrenched it open and staggered into the corridor.
Her throat ached as she gulped in air, limping over to the stairs.
Her knee was dripping blood on the plush carpet and her head throbbed where Grant had hit it.
She needed a hospital. Leaning heavily on the polished wood railing, she dragged herself down the stairs, her vision blurring as she descended.
It took less than two flights of stairs for her to crash to the ground, tumbling down three steps to the next landing and thudding into the panelled wall as the world darkened.
Calum’s gaze fell on Aly’s coat, slung over the back of a chair.
He rubbed his hands over his arms, trying to sate the sudden itch that pricked over his skin like spiders.
He’d let his jealousy get the better of him and said things he shouldn’t have.
More than jealousy, if he was being honest. He’d been possessive, as Lewis and Sorcha said, trying to control her actions because he was afraid something would happen to her.
But he hadn’t been lying when he’d said he was done.
She’d said herself that Grant had nearly killed her.
He refused to profit off her risking her life, and that was exactly what he’d be doing if he continued to ask her to clipe on Grant.
He’d hoped, foolishly, that she’d change her mind about returning to Grant when he’d said he wouldn’t use her to take the crime lord down.
At least now she wasn’t going to put herself in further danger by stealing letters and sharing information with a copper.
Calum picked up the coat, the blue-grey tweed soft beneath his fingers. It was well-made, the stitches small and barely visible, save for those that attached the mismatched fabric buttons. The original arrest report was in his office, and he checked the address she’d provided.
The sensible thing would be to send a constable with the coat, someone Aly wouldn’t know.
Calum’s heart turned leaden at the thought.
He wanted to see her. He wanted to apologise, though he wasn’t entirely sure for what.
Not for telling her Grant was dangerous or that he wasn’t going to use her position for his investigation anymore, certainly.
And he was hardly going to confess that he’d been motivated by his feelings for her.
There was no future to be had for a detective inspector and a crime lord’s deputy, and even if there could have been, it was clear Aly didn’t feel the same way.
But the fact remained that he’d been rude and judgemental, and Aly deserved an apology.
And that would be the last they’d see of each other.
The thought made his ribs contract around his heart, but there was no other way.
Grant had already been asking her about Calum.
He wouldn’t put her in danger through her association with him.
Snow fell in fat, wet flakes around him as he walked through town, making the cobblestones slick and dusting the buildings like flour scattered across a tray of baps.
As he approached Broad Street, the tall, narrow tenements gave way to three- and four-storey houses and blocks of flats, while the closes and alleys were replaced with broad walkways alongside grey canals.
Calum passed a theatre with a sign outside announcing a production of The Kinairgid Affair. It was a popular play around Hogmanay, popular enough to have matinée showings during the week. Water taxis lined the canal next to the theatre, awaiting customers after the performance.
He turned a corner onto a wide paved street overlooking a canal.
The sign above his head proclaimed it to be Broad Street.
Number thirty-four was on his right. It was unlocked at this time of day, and the door swung open as he twisted the brass knob, revealing a staircase with a handsome wooden banister and wine-coloured carpet curving up away from him.
He took the stairs two at a time, turning the corner towards the first landing—and stopped dead.
Aly lay on the landing above him, her copper curls spilling over the carpet. Calum’s heart plummeted as he hurried up the stairs, reaching for her. He dropped her coat, cupping her too-pale face and whispering her name. Bruises were forming on her throat, stark against her pale skin.
Her eyes fluttered open. “What are you doing here?”
Calum tilted his head at the coat, tossed on the floor next to him. “You forgot your coat.”
“Well, don’t get blood on it.” Aly shuffled backwards, her eyes on her legs.
Calum followed her gaze and saw the gash on her knee and the spreading rust-coloured stain on the carpet. “What happened?” he asked, helping her to her feet and sliding her coat onto her shoulders.
Aly grimaced. “What do you think?”
Calum peered up the stairs, but there was no sign of Grant. “Is he . . .?”
“I stabbed him with a sgian dubh.” Aly began to limp down the stairs, her legs trembling as she clutched the banister.
Calum glanced up the stairs again. The iron would slow Grant, but it was only a matter of time before he caught up to them.
“Let me help,” Calum said, lifting her into his arms. To his surprise, she didn’t protest; she merely wrapped an arm around his neck and leant her head against his shoulder.
His heartbeat quickened. He didn’t like how limp she was going.
He carried her down the stairs and around the corner to the queue of waiting water taxis.
He climbed into the nearest one, settling Aly in the seat and turning to the gondolier, fumbling his warrant card out of his pocket.
“My name is Detective Inspector Erskine,” he said. “I need you to take me to the nearest hospital.”
The gondolier, a man with fading hair that was perhaps once a vibrant ginger, scowled at him, casting a plaintive look over his shoulder at the customers spilling out of the theatre, but he didn’t argue.
With a muttered word, the gondola sped from the dock, gliding smoothly down the canal despite the wind.
Calum sat next to Aly, brushing a lock of hair off her face. She tensed, and he snatched his hand away as though it had been burned.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice soft.
Calum’s cheeks burned. “Your hair—” He gestured vaguely at her face.
“I don’t mean that.” Aly shook her head. “I mean—why are you still here?”
Because I love you. “I need your statement.”
“You said you were done with that.” Her next words were so quiet Calum could scarcely hear them over the sound of the gondola slicing through the water. “With me.”
“I was afraid that if we kept at it, something like this would happen.”
“Don’t say, ‘I told you so’.” The faintest smile curved the edges of Aly’s mouth as she tilted her head towards him.
Calum let out a whisper of a laugh. “I wasn’t going to.” He sighed, his breath pluming in the cold air. “But I was going to apologise. I said things I shouldn’t have.”
“You’re right.” Her voice was filled with ice. “You shouldn’t have said them.”
“I was scared of what Grant would do.” Calum rubbed a hand over his chin, trying to decide how to phrase the matter without confessing how deep his affection ran.
“You weren’t responding to the threat the way I thought you should, so I got upset and took it out on you. And I’m sorry. It was wrong of me.”
Aly gave a stiff nod. “Thank you for apologising.”
They were silent a while, with no sound but the rhythmic splashing of the water parting on either side of the gondola’s hull. Then Aly said, “So you’ll help me? You’ll help me take him down?”
“If it’s the last thing I do.”
Aly laced her cold fingers through Calum’s, a small smile on her lips. “Thank you.”