Joe Country / C13

Chapter 13

Book 6 Part Two 6186 words POV: Louisa Guy, River Cartwright, Lars Becker

Summary

Louisa Guy and Lucas Harper walk the wooded estuary path away from the shed where they spent the night, Louisa wearing Emma Flyte’s coat. Louisa hears a branch snap behind them and, reaching the shore, mistakes a figure on the cliff path for River Cartwright before recognising Frank Harkness. She turns Lucas back towards the trees. Behind them, Lars covers Emma Flyte’s body with snow and leaves and tells Anton the job has gone wrong, then heads for town. Harkness, his head gashed and walking with a stick taken from a kissing gate, follows them. Louisa finds Emma’s body off the track, shot through the chest, and Lucas bolts. Lars hides from five villagers and drives for the barn. River, having lost Harkness over a cliff, reaches the barn, finds one of the crew dead and J.K. Coe dead against a tree, and takes Coe’s phone. Lucas steals a car from a garage lane and crashes it into a craft shop window on the High Street. Louisa bluffs Harkness, who walks away. River watches the barn burn with Coe inside, meets Shirley Dander and rings Lamb.

Beats

C13S01 · Louisa Guy — Louisa Guy walked the wooded estuary path behind Lucas Harper, who was pulling ahead, and heard a branch snap somewhere behind them. The track opened onto the estuary: a pub with a snowbound car outside, a shingle beach, a steep white hill with a stile at its foot. A bundled figure came down the cliff path. Louisa first took him for River Cartwright, then recognised Frank Harkness. She made a show of checking her watch, rehooked the red rope on the gate and turned Lucas back towards the trees.
C13S02 · Lars — Lars stepped out of the trees, glanced back at the woman’s body under its covering of snow, leaves and loose branches, and rang Anton back. He reported finding the second woman; Anton called the search a waste of time. Lars was already walking towards town, away from the body, choosing to cut his losses and regroup. Asked about the kid, he said they had missed the moment, then heard a group of people ahead and warned Anton they might have a problem before ringing off.
C13S03 · Frank Harkness — Frank Harkness took a walking stick he found hanging from a kissing gate and started down to the shore, his head wound packed with snow and a handkerchief wadded into his broken boot. Snow smoothed the ground everywhere. Below, a couple threw a ball for their dog; out of the woodland came a woman in a long dark coat and a young man walking fast. He recognised Louisa Guy, smiled at how little hunting was needed, and followed, probing each step with the stick.
C13S04 · Louisa Guy — Louisa Guy took Lucas Harper back under the trees to wait for Emma Flyte, sure Emma would do as she had said, though she did not rate the local police against Harkness. A cramp tore up her side and Lucas began dancing on the spot, insisting the men had guns. Then Louisa noticed a patch that could not be snow lying off the track: her own white ski jacket, and beneath it Emma Flyte’s body, eyes open, a chest wound. Lucas looked, then fled.
C13S05 · Lars — Lars counted five of them on the track, the couple from earlier plus three men dressed for snow, and worked out the order in which he would take them apart, saving Broken Nose for last. He did none of it. Stepping off the path, he stood among the oaks until the group stomped past without noticing him, then rejoined the track and sprinted for town, knowing the body would be found before long. He told Anton to head back to the barn, then rang Cyril.
C13S06 · Louisa Guy — Louisa Guy ran after Lucas Harper, telling herself there was nothing to be done for Emma Flyte that could not be done later, and that losing the boy would mean Emma had died for nothing. She reasoned that Lucas had made for town and that whoever killed Emma had gone that way too, so he might overtake the man hunting him. Her cramp returned. Rounding a bend she met five villagers, four men and a woman, who asked whether a boy had just run past, and she ran on.
C13S07 · Anton — Anton rang Cyril and got no answer, which he did not read as another nap; problems, in his experience, arrived together. He decided the barn would have to be burned, evidence and all, and their own car with it, Frank presumably having a back-up plan. Walking the road near the crossroads, he passed an electric blue Ford Kia ploughed into a ditch, tracks leading away across the field and nobody in sight. Then he saw Lars approaching in that same car.
C13S08 · River Cartwright — River Cartwright came up the track to the barn and found a body in front of the doors, throat cut, blood pooled round its head, one of the three men Coe had named. J.K. Coe himself sat against a tree, hands folded, apparently resting. River remembered lying on the clifftop after Frank went over, finding no sign of him below, then walking inland to find Coe and Shirley. He sat down, said okay twice, closed Coe’s eyes and took his ID and phone. Then the dead man’s phone rang.
C13S09 · Lucas Harper — Lucas Harper reached the gate at the end of the estuary path and turned left along a lane that led nowhere instead of climbing to the High Street, leaving scattered tracks behind him. The thought Emma was dead kept time with his feet; he believed she had died because of him. He knew the town from childhood holidays, and knew the garage on the lane where a customer’s keys were left out of sight on a rear wheel. He found them, started the car and lurched out of its space.
C13S10 · Louisa Guy — Louisa Guy stopped where the tracks divided. Most led up into town, the sane and obvious direction; a single set led along a lane signposted as leading nowhere. She hesitated, thinking Lucas knew the town’s shortcuts and cuttings between houses, then decided every shortcut ended at the High Street anyway and went on up the hill, her muscles aching and her cheeks numb with frozen tears.
C13S11 · Lars — Lars halted at the barn to find Cyril dead in front of the doors, his blood spread wide, killed by something sharper than the wrench Frank had joked about. A second body lay under a tree, peaceful and stripped of phone and ID, which told Lars it was a spook. The snow was churned past reading. He decided to drag both bodies inside and burn the barn and the car, and had started on Cyril when Anton arrived.
C13S12 · Frank Harkness — Frank Harkness reached the end of the estuary path with his handkerchief soaked through and no feeling left in his toes, and found the town coming alive: locals strewing sand on the road, a group on the path who eyed him and let him pass. He came through the gate on his scavenged stick and rested just short of the corner where the road dwindled into a lane. There a car went bucking and slewing past him, with Lucas Harper at the wheel.
C13S13 · River Cartwright — River Cartwright took cover behind the barn when the dead man’s phone rang, following the bootprints round to a fouled patch of ground and crouching there. A car arrived; a man found the bodies and began dragging them inside; a second man joined him on foot, and from their greeting River gathered that Lars was alive and either Anton or Cyril was dead. He had one round left. The car was driven into the barn, matches fizzed, and the barn exploded.
C13S14 · Louisa Guy — Louisa Guy reached the High Street and found no Lucas, then saw him coming up the road in a bucking car with Frank Harkness on the pavement behind. Lucas ploughed into a craft shop window; a woman at the footpath gate shouted for help; a mile out of town a black plume of smoke rose. Police came out of their station. Louisa stood by the driver’s door in Emma Flyte’s coat, tapped the breast pocket as though armed, and held Harkness’s stare until he nodded and walked away.
C13S15 · River Cartwright — River Cartwright lay in the snow while the barn burned, one round left and no way to stop Lars and the other man heading for the coast. He assumed their job was done, which meant Louisa and Min Harper’s boy were presumably dead too. Using Coe’s phone, he called Shirley Dander, who was walking back to the main road, and met her there. She handed him a foil-wrapped sausage sandwich, and he understood it had been meant for Coe. Then he rang Jackson Lamb and told him the story.

People

Louisa Guy — Slow horse on the run with Lucas; wears Emma Flyte’s coat, finds the body and fronts down Harkness on the High Street.
Lucas Harper — Min Harper’s teenage son; sees Emma’s body, bolts, steals a car from a garage lane and crashes it into a craft shop.
Emma Flyte — Former Park officer who went for the police; found shot through the chest in the wood, her body hidden under snow and leaves.
Frank Harkness — The man hunting Louisa and Lucas; head gashed, walks with a scavenged stick, follows them into town and walks away when Louisa bluffs him.
Lars Becker — One of Harkness’s crew; killed Emma Flyte, hides from the villagers, finds the bodies at the barn and burns it.
Anton Moser — Another of Harkness’s crew; on the phone to Lars, then walks the road planning the clean-up and the burning of the car.
Cyril Dupont — The third of the crew; does not answer his phone and is found with his throat cut outside the barn.
River Cartwright — Slow horse; survived the clifftop with Harkness, finds Coe dead, watches the barn burn and reports to Lamb.
JK Coe — Slow horse; found dead sitting against a tree at the barn, a knife on the ground beside him, his stomach wound hidden by folded hands.
Shirley Dander — Slow horse; meets River on the road and gives him the sausage sandwich she had bought for Coe.
Min Harper — Named as Lucas’s father; a dead colleague whose son Louisa is trying to keep alive.
Roderick Ho — Slow horse whose car Shirley had taken and which does not appear at the meeting point.
Jackson Lamb — Head of Slough House; River rings him at the end and gives him the story.

Lines worth keeping

“We need to go back the way we came.” — Louisa Guy, Louisa has just recognised Frank Harkness on the cliff path and tells Lucas to turn round.

“Sometimes, you didn’t need to go hunting. Sometimes you just had to drop anchor and wait with open arms.” — Narrator, Harkness watches Louisa and Lucas come out of the woodland and start towards him.

“Emma’s eyes were open, but all life had fled.” — Narrator, Louisa finds Emma Flyte’s body under the bushes beside the track.

“I’m armed, she was lying. Don’t even think about it.” — Narrator, Louisa taps the breast pocket of Emma’s coat while holding Harkness’s eye across the High Street.

“I think we’ve missed the moment.” — Lars, Lars answers Anton’s question about the boy as he walks away from the body.

“You only brought one? What was Coe going to eat?” — River Cartwright, Shirley hands River the warm foil-wrapped sandwich and he realises who it was for.

Threads

Plants: The stones Louisa slipped into her jacket pocket as a surprise for Emma are never used; she bluffs with the coat instead.; River has one round left in his gun, which is why he does not intervene at the barn.; Lars’s order to burn the barn and the car, and his failure to reach Cyril, leave the site a fire visible from town.; Shirley’s sausage sandwich, bought for Coe, is handed to River instead.; Harkness’s head wound and his scavenged walking stick mark him in the town and are seen by Louisa.
Payoffs: The phone ringing in the dead man’s pocket at the end of c13s08 is taken up at the start of c13s13, when River takes cover.; Louisa’s broken branch heard on the track in c13s01 is explained by the suppressed gunshot that killed Emma.; The body Lars covered in c13s02 is the body Louisa finds in c13s04.
Continuity: Emma Flyte is dead: one chest wound, hidden under snow and leaves off the path; Lucas saw her.; Louisa wears Emma’s long dark coat; her own white ski jacket is on the body.; J.K. Coe died at the tree by the barn; River closes his eyes, takes his ID and phone, and later burns with the barn.; Cyril is dead at the barn doors, throat cut; his body and Coe’s are dragged inside before the fire.; River’s own phone is out of charge, so all his calls are made on Coe’s phone.; The barn burns and the crew’s car burns with it; the smoke is visible from the High Street, a mile out of town.; Time: the second morning, snow easing and the town coming alive; the whole sequence runs from first light to late morning.