"Where's Melissa?" I repeated, doggedly.

Suzanne looked at me for a moment, then laughed. "She really is all you care about, isn't she?"

I dug my nails into my palm. "If you've hurt her, I'll..."

"You'll what?" she mocked. "Don't be so melodramatic, Alison. What exactly do you think you could do to me?"

I stuffed a hand in my pocket, hoping to quell the shaking, and felt the smooth, round surface of the pepper spray. That, the car keys, the lighter and my mobile were pretty much all I had left, although heaven knew where I'd find the courage to use the lighter if I needed to, given I couldn't light a match without dropping it. Now wasn't the time, anyway, not with Carl hovering on the edge of my vision. I had to hope for a distraction. "O... OK." Keep talking, then. "I still want to know where she is."

She leant against one of the poles holding up the porch roof, the jacket she had on over her tight, red top hanging in a way that hinted at something heavy in the pocket. A gun? "Safe." She smiled at me. "After all, you might have taken a little more persuading."

"Where?" I demanded.

Suzanne sighed. "You don't give up, do you." She gestured, lazily, off to her right. A 4x4 truck was parked there, and just beyond it I could see a signpost, marking the start of another trail. "Walk up that path, a bit over a quarter of a mile, and you'll find a viewing platform, looking out over the next valley. She'll be there." A nasty chuckle." I don't think she'll have moved. In fact, I made sure she couldn't." She shook her head as I turned to look, reached out to grab my wrist. "Not now, Alison."

I twisted my hand free. "Why should I believe you?" It was a stupid question, but it kept her talking. "I mean, you killed Rebecca, and Trish. And probably Tom and Jason too."

She laughed at me. "Do you have a choice but to believe me?" A shrug. "You're right, of course. She could be dead too, for all you know."

A cold knot of fear formed in my stomach. "You..."

"Oh, relax, Alison. Where's the fun in that?" She chuckled. "And, really... me? No. Do you honestly think I'd be stupid enough to get my hands dirty when I have someone else to do it for me?" She dropped her voice. "Carl's very good with cars. That was before I realised that making you suffer, rather than just getting you out of the way, would be just as good. And keep Martin more off balance."

"A...and Trish?" I pressed on, conscious of time passing on the deadline she'd set Martin.

A laugh. "Who do you think? Such a convenient way of tying up that loose end, especially after you came back to the hotel and blurted out everything she told you." She straightened up, smiled at me. "You might as well have pulled the trigger yourself."

I felt sick. "She never hurt you."

Suzanne shrugged. "No, I guess not. She was quite pathetic, in a way. I guessed what she was doing long before you did: it wasn't hard to track down."

I wanted to hit her, clenched my fist round the spray canister. "What about Jason?"

Her eyes narrowed a little. "He was going to go to Martin, gave me one last chance to change my mind before he did. I don't think he realised how pure that cocaine I brought was."

I shuddered. "You killed him."

She shrugged at me. "Prove it."

"Tom?" I had to know.

She sighed. "Tom? An accident, believe it or not. If I'd actually wanted him dead, which I didn't, I couldn't have planned it better. He slipped and fell, and hit his head on a table. The police've probably figured that out by now. Melissa doesn't think so, though. She was far too out of it. They both were."

"I'm supposed to believe that?"

Her shoulders lifted in an indifferent shrug that caused those expensive breasts of hers to move in a manner I'm sure many men had found attractive. "Up to you. Why would I want him dead?" She paused, then smiled. "Did you like the DVD, by the way?"

I turned away, disgusted. "You're sick."

"Do you remember the video to Madonna's 'Justify My Love'?"

It was such a surprising question that I looked back at her, baffled. "I... yes." I did. The video that MTV refused to play, shot in grainy black and white.

"There's a quote at the very end. 'Poor is the man whose pleasures depend on the permission of another.'" She smiled at me. "Or maybe you disagree?"

"You know I do," I snapped back.

Suzanne chuckled, low and husky. "You know, this would have been much easier if you'd just given up like you were supposed to."

I didn't dare admit how close I'd come. "Well, I didn't." A measure of anger had replaced my fear. "Why do you want to hurt Martin, anyway?"

She leaned against the porch rail, hair falling about her face.. "Why?" A laugh, short and sharp. "How many reasons do I need? He could have sold up to Henry when Crawler were huge, and I'd have been rich."

I stared at her for a moment, trying to make sense of it. "I don't follow."

"Oh - I forgot." Waspishly. "It's not about the money for you, is it? I've seen all your interviews. Little Ali, likes whisky, champagne, Italian food and horror movies, greatest fear, fire, would still make music just for the pleasure of it." She snorted. "I owned shares in Blue Flame. There was an offer on the table five years ago that would have made me a millionaire."

"What happened?" I asked, despite myself.

"What do you think happened?" she snarled. "Martin wouldn't sell. His precious integrity. His responsibility to his artists. And then the business changed, and any Tom, Dick and Harry in their bedroom could make a hit single without any help from us, my shares were hardly worth the paper they were printed on and we all wound up taking pay cuts." She straightened up, tossed her hair back angrily. "He actually bought them back off me, because he felt sorry for me."

Probably when he couldn't afford to, either, I guessed. I wondered just how expensive her tastes were. "And then what?"

She eyed me for a moment. "Henry made me an offer. Go figure."

With hindsight, given what I'd learned, it wouldn't surprise me if Henry Kowalski was the kind of person who didn't care exactly how things got done. "I see. So does Carl work for Henry, then?"

"Carl?" A shrug. "Yeah."

"So is that how you think you're going to get away with this? Pin the blame on Carl?" I made sure it was loud enough for him to hear. If he did, he gave no sign of it.

I should have been expecting the backhanded slap: she was wearing a heavy ring, and when I put my hand up to my face, it came away bloody. "Don't try and be clever."

My cheek smarted, but I bit my lip, held my head high. "I just don't see how you can get away with this."

"Dear." She laughed. "You have no clue, do you. It'll be my word against Martin's, and he'll be bankrupt and heartbroken." A flick of her hair, as the evening breeze blew across from the road, drifting strands into her face. "All he cares about is his 'investments'. You don't really think you're just numbers to him, huh?" My puzzlement must have showed on my face. "It's all about the artists. All this 'protecting my investments' bullshit is a smokescreen. You're like his fucking kids."

"But..." And I realised the answer, as I asked the question. "But then why tell me?"

She burst out laughing. "You really think you're going to walk away from this, Alison?"

I drew myself up to my full height, tasting blood dribbling into my mouth from the cut she'd given me when she hit me. "So why haven't you got Carl to kill me like he did Trish?" I was trembling, some unquantifiable mix of fear and rage. "I don't believe you. I think there's still a game left you want to play." A deep breath. "And you have to convince me to play it."

She studied me, eyes narrowed, for a moment, then just nodded. "All that Scotch didn't completely addle your brains, then."

I was about to reply when Carl held up a hand. "Car coming." He backed towards the cabin, found a spot at the opposite end of the porch from us and drew his gun.

Suzanne moved to stand behind me, a hand in her jacket pocket. Once again I had the uncomfortable sensation of something pressing into the small of my back. She leaned in close, lips brushing my hair. "Don't do anything stupid, Alison."

I held my breath, feeling for the spray in my pocket, palmed it. The engine noise drew closer, headlights visible along the narrow trail I'd been walking down when Carl caught me. For a moment, I thought it was going on past, then at the last possible instant it swung round, in a cloud of dust, bumping down the track towards us, and stopped. I recognised it - Adie's car.

Suzanne evidently did, too. She hooked her free arm round my neck. "You just had to get someone else killed, didn't you," she hissed.

I shook my head, desperately. "I didn't tell them where I was going, I swear."

Both the front doors of the car swung open, Adie and Joe crouched low behind them. I knew both of them carried guns, and my heart was in my mouth. "Let her go, Suzanne." Adie almost sounded bored, but I knew that hid a fierce determination. "I don't want anyone to get hurt."

She laughed. "Maybe you should have thought of that before you got here." She nudged me. "Alison and I are going for a little walk." I had little option but to do as she wanted, half walking, half dragged towards the 4x4. She hissed in my ear, "Time to find your friend. Before something bad happens to her."

There was a low-voiced conversation from over by the car, in which I fancied I heard Greg's voice raised in protest, and a sharp order from Adie, before the latter pointed out, "I can put a bullet in your tyre before you get anywhere."

"And Carl can do the same to you," she retorted. "They call this a standoff, I think."

I was hit with the sudden realisation that she was stalling, improvising desperately. "Suzanne?" She kept walking, kept pulling me with her, but made a questioning noise. "L...let me go, and I'll make sure nothing happens to you."

She snorted. "Feeling sorry for me, all of a sudden?"

"I..." I actually had to think about that. If I pitied her for anything, it was that she'd become so bitter. In a way it reminded me of Trish, but in someone like Suzanne, it had surfaced in a much more dangerous way. "A little." I was very aware that this could go wrong, horribly wrong, and at least four people involved were carrying lethal weapons.

She stopped, about ten feet from the side of the truck, and whatever she was carrying poked me in the back, hard enough to hurt. "Don't be," she snapped. "Martin was."

I knew I'd touched a nerve, wondered how far I dare provoke her. "Y...you were right. I don't care about the money. If that's what you want, I..."

She tensed, and I knew she was going to hit me, knew there was nothing I could do to avoid the blow. I brought the tiny spray canister up and across, shut my eyes and pressed the button, as the barrel of her gun contacted the side of my head. The force of the blow drove me to my knees, the spray went flying, and I saw stars.

Everything happened horribly fast after that. There was a cry of 'Ali' from over by Adie's car, followed almost immediately by Joe's "Get down, you idiot," and a couple of seconds later, what I think were three or four shots. All I remember doing is throwing myself flat on the ground, arms over my head, trying to make myself as small as possible, and a weight, which I assumed was Suzanne, landing on me.

I was breathing too hard to hear anything, and my head was ringing, so it took me a few seconds to register someone was calling my name. "Alison." It was Adie, calm, measured. "Stay down."

Suzanne's harsh breathing was next to my ear. "Little bitch," she hissed. Adie had told me enough of the effects to know that I couldn't have hit her square in the eyes, or she'd be completely incapacitated, but I got a small measure of satisfaction from knowing I'd hurt her, hearing her retch a couple of times.

There were voices over by the car. Adie asked a question I didn't catch. Joe's pained reply, I did. "Hit me in the leg. The kid's hurt bad: I'm with him."

Greg! I stifled a moan, just lay there for a moment, trying not to cry, praying that Carl would hold his fire, until Suzanne, still wheezing and retching, grabbed a fistful of my hair. "Get ... get up."

I didn't have much choice, being hauled up by my hair. Adie's voice, still calm, cut across the yard. "Let her go, S..." His words were cut off by Carl snapping off another couple of shots, and I cringed, trying to avert my gaze from the flash. Silence for a couple of seconds, in which I could distinctly hear Greg moaning, then Adie's voice came again, and I gasped in relief. "Best you can do, Carl?"

She dragged me towards the 4x4, using me as a shield, then shoving me hard enough I fell down on hands and knees beside it, as she paused to cough again. "Ach... Jesus, Alison..." She dropped to her knees, in the shelter of the car, trained the gun on me and was noisily sick. "Augh... I told you you'd get someone killed."

My head was still spinning, and it took me a few seconds to get my balance. I couldn't place why the pistol she was holding looked odd. "He's not dead. He's not dead." Maybe if I repeated it I could make it true.

"Yet," she hissed. The breeze was getting up a little, blowing away from the cabin and whipping hair round her face. "You want Melissa?"

I glanced up the path she'd pointed out earlier, and my heart sank. "It's dark..."

She smiled, nastily, between coughs. "I can fix that." The gun barrel deflected away from me, away from the car, she fired, an odd 'phut' sound, and I realised, with a shock, why it looked wrong.

It was a flare pistol.

The flare cannoned off a couple of trees some ten yards to the side of the path, illuminating the surrounding area for a moment with a sickly green glow. A glow that slowly changed to flickering red, as the tinder-dry undergrowth caught. And Suzanne laughed. "Now you can see. I'd.." Another cough. "...run, if I were you." I stared, uncomprehending, for a moment. Then I remembered her words. I don't think she'll have moved. In fact, I made sure she couldn't. And the wind was blowing up-slope, towards where she'd told me Melissa was. She watched the realisation dawn across my face. "What... augh... what are you waiting for?"

She'd planned this.

"Give it up, Carl. This ain't going to end well." Adie's voice seemed to be coming from a slightly different place.

Suzanne slid to sit, coughing still, back against the side of the 4x4, almost as if she 'd given up. My heart was hammering, and my guts twisted at the sound of the undergrowth as it caught light. That fire was getting hold. Fast. "I can't..."

She looked at me. "Then she dies. Knowing you didn't come."

Oh God.

I ran, heedless of Adie yelling my name as I did so, blindly up the path. Already I could feel the heat of the flames, and I heard Debbie's voice in my head. It hasn't rained up here in weeks.

I tripped over a tree root, got up, and ran again, until I'd rounded a bend in the track, and I had to stop because there was no light to see where I was going, save for an angry red glow through the trees at my back.

Carl had my torch.

I leant against a tree and sobbed, in fear and desperation, for a few seconds. Something in my pocket pressed against my hip. My phone.

Its backlight wasn't wonderful, but it made a good enough light to find the path and avoid tripping. As best I could, I ran, face scratched by innumerable low-hanging branches, until the trail opened up, and I found myself on a railed, wooden platform, on the edge of a steep, rocky drop above a wooded valley. Here, not hidden by the trees, the very last of the setting sun made for a spectacular view.

Huddled at the far end of the platform was Melissa, in jeans and a thin top, sat with her back against the corner post of the railings, one arm at an awkward angle. The light caught the glint of polished metal at her wrist.

Suzanne had handcuffed her to the rail.

"Alison?!" Her tear-streaked face lifted to mine as I hurried over. "S...she said you wouldn't come."

There was so much I wanted to say to her, so much I needed to say, but there almost certainly wasn't time. I put my arms round her, tried, despite the fear knotting at my insides, to sound casual. "Rubbish. I don't suppose she left you the key, did she?"

She was trembling against me. "N...no."

I held her close, her free arm around me. "You're not related to Houdini?" I felt oddly light-headed, something to do with just being able to hug her.

Melissa shook her head. "No..." She touched my cheek. "You're hurt."

"It's nothing." I was going to have a couple of impressive grazes, and a lump on the side of the head where Suzanne had hit me with the flare pistol. "We need to get you out of these." I glanced behind me. There was smoke rising above the trees, and the sounds of fire, and I knew just enough about wildfires to be aware that once they caught hold, they moved alarmingly fast, and the wind was blowing our way

Her eyes widened as she followed my gaze. "Oh my God." She clutched at my hand. "Ali..."

"Shh." I checked the handcuffs: chromed steel, with a longer than average chain linking them. Her wrist was scraped raw under the cuff where she'd been trying to tug free, and the other end had been fastened round one of the metal railings that linked the wooden supports of the platform. I tried an experimental tug, more in hope than anything else, to no avail.

Melissa swallowed. "Ali... You can't... undo them. I tried. J...just go. There's no sense in us both...."

"No way." I shook my head fiercely. "I'm not leaving you." No matter that I was likely to be frozen in fear by the time the fire got closer.

She sniffled. "I... I'm so sorry."

"Stop it." I actually snapped at her, surprising myself as much as her. "We're going to be OK." God alone knew how.

She stared at me, wide-eyed. "How can you say that?"

I could hear the fire clearly now, a dull, crackling roar that was growing louder by the minute. "I'm not leaving you, and we're not going to die." There was another noise over the sound of the flames, and it took me a second or two to realise it was my phone.

Adie calling...

Thank God. "Adie..."

His voice was still calm, collected. "Where are you?"

I took a deep breath, could taste smoke on it. "A...at a view point up the trail from the cabin. Melissa's handcuffed to the railing, and... and..." I fought down the urge to panic. "Th... there's a fire heading this way."

"I know. OK..." He could have been asking me what I had for lunch. "Describe the cuffs." I did so, and he questioned a couple of details. Then, "OK. First thing to try: hit the lock against something hard. It'll shake the lock pin loose on some of 'em."

I glanced apprehensively up at the trees: I was beginning to be able to feel the heat. "Oh... OK." The lock was on Melissa's wrist. "'Liss. You're going to have to do this. Bang the lock against the post."

She stared at me, then nodded, twisting and sliding until she could do so. Adie's voice was level, measured in my ear. "While she's trying that - do you have any keys on you?"

I felt in my pocket, watching Melissa trying to bash the lock. "Only Joe's. It;'s just the key for the car."

She looked at me, helplessly. "It's not working."

In the background, I heard Adie talking to Joe, and I tried to reassure her. "Don't worry. Adie'll figure out a way."

"Alison...." Altogether too close, several tree branches fell with a roar and a crash, and I jumped. "OK. Are either of you wearing a belt?"

"Y..yes, I am. It's not a very thick one, though."

"Even better. Take it off." Melissa watched me, wide-eyed, as I removed the belt. "OK. Here's what I want you to do." Unruffled, despite the approaching danger. "You're going to use the buckle pin as a lock pick."

I swallowed, tried not to look back at the approaching fire, despite the smoke starting to blow into my eyes and the heat on my back. "I... I've never done this..."

"It's easy. Most handcuffs don't have a proper lock, just a ratchet affair. Trust me. OK. Listen..."

It was starting to get uncomfortably hot as I followed Adie's guidance, putting the phone down so I could work with both hands, and trying to ignore Melissa watching the fire burning closer and closer over my shoulder. After a moment, I picked the phone up again. "It's not working, Adie..." I could feel myself beginning to lose it.

"There's a knack to it." He still might have been explaining how to do a card trick. "You can do it."

Melissa whimpered. "Go, Ali... just leave me..."

"No." I gritted my teeth. "I will not." The buckle nearly slipped from my sweat-damp fingers, and I grabbed for it, just in time. "Turn your wrist outward a bit."

She bit her lip, her free hand around my waist, and buried her face in my shoulder. I tried again, wiggling and probing with the slim pin as he'd instructed me, flames reflecting off the chromed metal of the handcuffs. "Ali..." The heat was almost unbearable, smoke half-blinding me. "Ali..." Suddenly, there was a click, and the cuff snapped open.

I grabbed for my phone. "Got it." And turned, to see a wall of flame thirty feet high towering above me. "Adie!"

"Get on bare rock." His instructions were delivered in that tone of voice one obeyed first and questioned later. "Get down as flat as you can, cover your head. The fire'll suck all the oxygen for a moment or two, so hold your breath."

Where? I glanced over the side of the platform, at the steep slope. It was a good hundred feet or more down to the treeline below, a forty-five degree rocky incline, but there seemed to be a flatter ledge of sorts some ten feet down. "Melissa!" She was staring, mesmerised, at the flames. "Melissa... come on!"

Don't ask me how I got down there. I have absolutely no idea. I do vividly remember, with the detail of a movie, looking up to see a huge branch coming crashing down in slow motion on the middle of the viewing platform as Melissa slid under the railings at the side, sparks and flaming twigs scattering everywhere, and my mobile slipping from my fingers and bouncing off down the valley side. She came within a couple of inches of continuing her slide off the ledge before I grabbed her hand, and pulled her to me.

We clung to each other, sprawled on the slope, as if we were drowning. And in a way, we were: the fire roared above us, drawing all the oxygen from the atmosphere to sustain its flames, its heat searing. It's entirely possible I fainted. I really don't know.

And then it was over. The fact that the lungful of air I took was laden with smoke and ash paled into insignificance beside the fact that we were alive. For the longest time, we just lay there, holding each other, crying, before Melissa sat up, cautiously. "Ali?"

I took a deep breath, coughed. "I'm here."

She swallowed. "I've been so stupid."

I found her hand, held it. "And I haven't?"

"I... I'm so sorry." She squeezed my hand. "I nearly destroyed the band, didn't I?"

"No." Now wasn't the time. "It's OK." It was funny how easily I fell back into the old, familiar ways. "Whatever you did, everything, I forgive you." I squeezed her hand. "And I'm sorry, too. I should have talked to you... about us, about everything."

She hugged me, tears tracking down ash-smeared cheeks. "I forgive you." Then she paused. "I... I killed Tom."

I shook my head. "No... no you didn't. It was an accident. She just wanted you to believe otherwise."

There was a yell from above and a fair way to our left. "Hey!"

It was Adie. "Down here," I yelled back, the effort causing me to cough again.

A beam of torch light picked us out, arms round each other. "Hang on. Help's on its way."

"Is.... is everyone OK?"

He managed to get a little closer before answering. "The cops are here. Greg'll be fine: paramedics on their way. Joe too." A pause. "Carl's dead, Suzanne's under arrest."

I sagged with relief. "Thank God."

He raised his voice again. "How about you?"

Melissa found her voice, slightly hoarse. "I'm fine."

I wiped a hand across my eyes. "I'm OK."

And for once, perhaps, I really was.