The Heights

by Louise Candlish

  What the hell was he doing here? His face was sufficiently puce to suggest he was well into his run; had he strayed into Tanglewood Road accidentally or was this his intended destination? Either way, it was hard to tell precisely where his attention was directed. The tilt of his head suggested our living-room window.

  Just as I was about to summon Justin, still half-asleep in the bed behind me, Kieran pushed open the gate. I held my breath as he walked down the path with that familiar loathsome spring of his. I hissed over my shoulder – ‘Justin?’ – but he groaned and rolled to face the other way.

  Downstairs, the letterbox rattled. Next thing, Kieran was bouncing back down the path, through the gate, and off out of range.

  I tore down to the front door. On the mat lay an envelope, face down. I knew immediately what it was – to an extent, I’d been expecting it for years – but now it was here I didn’t think I had the stomach for it. A written apology. Dared I hope there’d be answers, too? If not a full confession of the events of the night of the accident, then at least a less sketchy version than the one that persisted.

  But when I picked it up, it felt thin between my fingers, no more than a single sheet of paper, I judged. I turned it over and frowned. The name on the envelope was not mine, but Freya’s.

  Without thinking – and certainly without consulting her or her father – I ripped it open.

  Dear Frey,

  I hope you are well. I know life must have been very sad for you since Lucas died. I don’t know if you hate me like your mum and dad do. All that stuff on the internet was brutal. If you would like to meet, here is my number. We can talk about Lucas or anything you like.

  Love Kieran

  Maybe because it was early, the house still silent, or perhaps because I was standing right up at the front door, I had a sudden and acute sensory memory of the day the police came and I doubled over, clutching the note to my abdomen. We’d all changed since that morning, a part of each of us had been extinguished, and Freya was no exception. Well, I was damned if I was going to stand by and watch her be robbed of more.

  Straightening, I moved to the kitchen and read the note a second time – Frey… very sad… love – before ripping both it and the envelope into small pieces and sprinkling them in the kitchen bin. After standing doing nothing for a minute, I put on rubber gloves, went back to the bin and stirred the shreds deeper into the rubbish.

  I said nothing to Freya of her stolen mail. To Justin I served up a reduced account with a cup of tea in bed.

  ‘I just saw Kieran. He was at the gate.’

  ‘Our gate?’ Justin sat up at the news. ‘What was he doing?’

  ‘Running.’

  ‘Running? That doesn’t sound like him.’

  ‘He’s a changed man. You saw how much thinner he is. He probably came from Prisca’s through South Norwood Country Park. It’s not a crazy distance if you’re in shape.’

  Justin rapped his fingertips on the mug. They made no sound. ‘If it was him—’

  I interrupted: ‘It was. There’s no if.’

  ‘Okay, well, I’m sure it was a one-off and he won’t come again. If he does, we’ll talk to the police and see what can be done.’

  Nothing can be done, I thought. At least not by them.

  * * *

  The following morning, as soon as I was alone in the house, I phoned the Foxwell Academy safeguarding officer. ‘You may not know that the man who caused the death of Freya’s brother has recently been released from jail and has come back to the area. It’s possible he may try to contact Freya, which is something we would very much like to prevent. Can I ask you to keep an eye on her?’

  ‘Of course, Mrs Saint. We’re grateful to you for alerting us.’ She was a relatively new member of staff and I had no idea how much she knew about the school’s role in bringing victim and killer together, but she duly took notes and promised to brief Freya’s teachers.

  ‘Have you considered monitoring her social media?’ she asked, but I only half-listened to her suggestions. Kieran’s first approach had been quaintly old-fashioned, but sooner or later he’d have a fully functioning smartphone and his tech skills would quickly surpass any that Foxwell’s safeguarding team could offer. As for me, even if I were to demand to know Freya’s passcodes and the right to scrutinize her friends and followers, I had a cat’s chance in hell of identifying an avatar or username as his.

  Next, I phoned Vic at work. Through the window, the garden was drenched with colour, but I thought only of that old Stones song ‘Paint It Black’. I’m sure you know it. Melancholic, but not without elegance. The feeling that grief might have some kind of grace wrought from it.

  ‘I’ve got something to say,’ I began. ‘And I think you’re the only person I can say it to.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You don’t have to get involved, obviously, but I want to give you the option.’

  ‘Ellen,’ Vic said. ‘What are you talking about? Get involved in what?’

  ‘I warn you, it’s going to sound like something out of a bad TV show.’

  ‘Just say it.’

  I sucked in my breath. ‘I want to deal with Kieran once and for all.’

  ‘ “Deal with” him?’ ‘Yes.’ I turned my face from the window, from the glorious, sinless colours of the natural world. ‘I want him gone for good.’

  Chapter 21

  The following day, Vic and I met at the cemetery. It was early evening, the light weakening as we stood facing each other across Lucas’s grave, and I could feel the intensity of my own gaze as I searched his face for shadows of our son. But the older Vic got, the fewer there were.

  ‘Has something happened?’ he said. ‘Something new, I mean?’

  ‘Yes.’ It was obvious to me that I could only involve Vic in this if I was going to be completely honest. There could be no deception between us, no withholding of information. ‘He tried to contact Freya. She doesn’t know, nothing came of it, but he won’t stop. He won’t keep away. He’ll groom her, he’ll take her, he’ll destroy her.’

  Vic’s eyes flared. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Even without that, I can’t bear it, Vic. I want an end to this, this condition.’ That was how I thought of it, this thing that blended my longstanding hunger for revenge with the fresher emergency of protecting my daughter. A condition with no medical name. ‘I fantasize about attacking him. Beating him, seeing his blood.’

  He raised a hand to his ear and scratched. ‘I can certainly identify with that.’

  ‘Can you identify with what I said on the phone?’

  We locked eyes. ‘About wanting him gone? I assume you mean—?’

  ‘Dead,’ I said. ‘I mean dead.’

  He dropped his hand to his side. ‘That’s the dream, sure.’ ‘But if there were a way to make it a reality, would you be on board?’ I took his silence as permission to continue. ‘We wouldn’t do it ourselves, obviously. It wouldn’t help anyone if we ended up being put away. It would have to be completely untraceable, which means it would cost us.’

  ‘I would have thought so. To be honest, I think this could be out of our budget, Ellen. Out of our league.’ Vic hesitated and I knew this was a prompt for me to laugh the idea off, to say, You’re right. I’m talking crap. Forget it.

  ‘I’ve already done the research,’ I said. ‘The going rate is fifteen thousand and I’ve got the money.’

  He gave a single heavy blink. ‘Tell me you haven’t googled “contract killer” on your phone?’

  ‘No, an old iPad. I taped over the camera and I’m only using it in public places where hundreds of people are connected to the Wi-Fi. I’m going to get one of those burner phones as well. Completely untraceable. I’ll ditch them both the moment it’s done.’

  ‘Right.’ Vic’s gaze narrowed and I found myself speaking slightly beyond him, into the dipping sun.

  ‘I’ve read all about these people. They usually use a gun, shoot the person point blank, but they can also make it look
like an accident or natural causes. Maybe that’s better in this case. And nothing too similar to how Lucas died or it would look like an eye for an eye.’

  ‘Wow, Ellen.’ A siren started up in the street and he waited for it to fade before continuing. ‘Look, if we do try to sort something out, you know, along professional lines, I think Danny might be able to help us.’

  ‘Danny? Do you trust him?’

  ‘I trust him. One hundred per cent. I’m not saying he’d want to take an active part, but he’s got the contacts, might be able to recommend someone.’

  Like we needed a roofer or a piano teacher. Someone to clear the gutters.

  ‘He’ll need to be paid, as well,’ I said. ‘That’s fine, of course. I’ll find the money.’

  Vic made a quick dismissive gesture. ‘Danny won’t want paying. He loved Lucas.’

  As I fought a suffocating feeling in my throat, Vic moved a foot back and forth over the grit. ‘He shouldn’t be here,’ he said, watching the cloud of dust he’d kicked up. ‘He should be living his life – whatever that turned out to be.’

  ‘That’s why I have to do this,’ I said. ‘I can’t not.’

  He raised his eyes to mine. ‘I’m seeing Danny at the weekend, so I’ll sound him out. Meanwhile, don’t go making any contact with these people you’ve researched. If we do use one of them, let me and Danny be the go-betweens. You keep out of it. You’ve got Freya to think about.’

  ‘All right.’

  We parted with a peck on the cheek and I watched as he made his way past the rest of the dead to the main gates. Idling a moment or two, I summoned Lucas’s face in front of mine, that heartbreaking blend of adult and child, of tough and tender. We love you, I swore. Dad and I will prove to you we have not forgotten.

  But could I count on that plural? Instinctive agreement was one thing, but after he’d slept on it would Vic really want to unite with me in this, the ultimate, the most extreme act of parenting?

  I had my answer late on Saturday night, when he texted me in the concise, non-specific style that would characterize our ongoing communications:

  Spoken to D. He will help us.

  * * *

  And so it was agreed: I would supply the money and Vic – with Danny’s help – would make it happen. A reasonable division of labour. When we met again, by then almost a week after that graveyard conference, Vic suggested as our target date the Wednesday of the week after Kieran’s supervision period ended: 3 July. He’d be subject to less nannying then; plus, it gave me time to liquidate the fee.

  Using the secret iPad, I’d researched how to amass fifteen thousand pounds in cash without triggering the interest of HMRC or the police. I’d need to withdraw it in smaller amounts over the course of several weeks, get a bit creative with my personal and business accounts. Helpfully, I had almost two thousand already, withdrawn to pay a supplier who’d asked for cash and then changed his mind.

  ‘That amount is bang on, according to Danny,’ Vic said.

  ‘Good. So tell me what else he said.’

  ‘At the risk of sounding like a line in a soap, he said he knows someone who knows someone.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘I don’t have a name. I’ve deliberately kept us in the dark, because if it does end up looking like suspicious death and not an accident, we’re sure to be questioned.’ He gave me a rueful smile. ‘It’s not like it hasn’t been in a national newspaper that we hate Kieran’s guts. It’s an Albanian outfit, though, Danny says.’

  ‘Right.’ I experienced a wash of disbelief. Organized crime. Contract killers. And not to have stumbled into it by accident like a character in a novel in the wrong place at the wrong time, but to have sought it out! To be a paying client.

  Vic sensed my hesitation. ‘I haven’t confirmed yet, so we can still change our minds. We need to be totally sure.’

  ‘I’m sure.’ I bit down on a fingernail, felt the stickiness of my lipstick on my fingertips.

  ‘Has he tried to make contact with Freya again?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Certainly not by post.’ I’d been watching my daughter more closely this last week and nothing about her demeanour had suggested a fundamental change of mood. My guess was that Kieran would give her time to respond to the letter before trying an alternative form of communication.

  Vic lowered his voice, causing me to move closer. ‘Okay, so listen. I’ve been keeping a bit of an eye on him since we spoke. These people will want to see where he goes and if he’s got any routines, that kind of thing.’

  I felt a gathering of nerves. ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘He’s got a job at a takeout chicken place in Penge, but it’s part-time and seems to be a different shift every day. He’s not allowed to drive, obviously, and so far he’s had a lift with Prisca twice, got the bus once, and walked once, so it’s impossible to anticipate. But there is one constant: he goes for a run almost every morning.’

  ‘In the streets?’ I thought of him at my gate, striding down the path. The Lycra gear, the newly honed physique.

  ‘Partly. Every time I’ve seen so far, he’s taken the most direct route to South Norwood Country Park and then he runs laps there. He uses the entrance on Albert Road, a few streets over from Prisca’s place. And I’ve only ever seen him running alone. That might be useful information for our new colleagues, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Definitely,’ I said.

  He pulled back a fraction, looked me in the eye. ‘I need your word that you will never tell anyone about this. Not even Justin.’

  ‘You have my word.’ My sincerity was profoundly real and not without regret. This would be my sacrifice: the frankness I took for granted with the man I loved. The knowledge that he could never again fully know me. My daughter, too. As for the changed status between Vic and me, the increased co-dependency, it was a calculated risk. Neither of us had anything to gain from breaking the pact, but plenty to lose.

  ‘Anything else to report?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Then let’s do it.’

  Chapter 22

  I’ve never told Vic this, but there was a heart-stopping moment in the process of my putting together the fee. Getting dressed one morning, Justin discovered part of the stash in a box in my wardrobe. (There was another in a rarely touched cupboard in the utility room – I’ll leave you to make your own puns about laundry.)

  ‘Is this your running away money?’ he said, with a trace of real concern.

  ‘Why are you looking through my things?’ I countered.

  ‘I need a belt. The buckle on this one’s just snapped.’

  Thinking furiously, I found a belt looped over a hanger and handed it to him.

  ‘Thanks. So what is the cash for?’

  I shook my head, acted a little sheepish. ‘I didn’t want to tell you in case you thought I was mad.’

  ‘Go on.’ He began feeding the new belt through the loopholes of his waistband, helpfully focusing on that and not on me.

  ‘You know how Lucas started giving cash to rough sleepers after doing that geography coursework? Well, I thought I’d use some of the money Dad left me to do the same. Basically, I’ve been carrying cash with me everywhere I go and handing it out. Every time I take money out of the cashpoint, I think of both of them. It really helps.’

  This was both wholly true and shamefully false.

  ‘Is that not a bit labour-intensive?’ Justin queried. ‘Wouldn’t it be easier just to give a lump sum to a homeless charity?’

  ‘It doesn’t always reach the people on the street. That was the whole point of Lucas’s project, arguing the case for direct action.’

  ‘True.’ He checked himself in the mirror before heading down. ‘Well, don’t let anyone see you getting wads of cash out, okay? You don’t want to be mugged.’

  ‘Of course.’ It was shockingly easy to lie, and not only because I knew the truth would appal him (not to mention end our marriage), but also because my commitment was
unwavering. Far from getting cold feet, I had begun to feel the fanaticism of someone whose mission is absolutely – almost divinely – right.

  * * *

  At his own request, Vic had received no details of the planned method, only the agreed date: necessary for us to be able to provide ourselves with an alibi.

  ‘They know about his jogging regime,’ he said, when we next met. He’d made no remark when I handed him a small knapsack containing fifteen thousand pounds in fifty- and twenty-pound notes. It didn’t look like a whole lot, but it was all there, down to the last twenty, and my fingers carried the repellent odour of used banknotes for hours after I’d done the final count. ‘The Albert Road gate to the park is pretty quiet, so maybe they’ll run him over in a van or snatch him when he’s out of range of any CCTV. I don’t know. I don’t want to know.’

  ‘Just tell me this,’ I said, ‘so I can prepare myself: will there be a body to find?’

  ‘I don’t think so, no. I’ve made it clear I’d prefer the other way.’

  What did that mean? Kieran’s remains at the bottom of the river, weights on his wrists and ankles? Buried in concrete on a building site? Put through some sort of meat mincer and fed to pigs? I’d seen all and worse on screen and often in the form of documentary. Real life, not fiction.

  ‘Will they send us proof? A picture or something?’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea for us to have something like that,’ Vic said, ‘even on the unregistered phones. The proof will be that he’s no longer here.’

  I tasted the phrase. Kieran Watts no longer here.

  Vic continued: ‘If it plays out the way I expect it to, Prisca or a friend will report him missing the next day. Or maybe the day after that. It’s not like when a young child disappears. They give adults a bit more time.’

  ‘We might find they get in touch with his offender manager rather than the police?’ I suggested. ‘It’s probably not that unusual for ex-convicts to take off just after their supervision period ends. It might not even be escalated into a missing persons inquiry.’