Why We Die

by Mick Herron

  ‘It’s a lot. But it’s not enough for that.’

  ‘It’s not really enough for a new life, either.’ He mushed some syllables there, but he was making sense. ‘It’s a pile, sure. But hardly enough to buy a house with, not most places. Even supposing they let you pay cash.’

  ‘So the insurance companies won’t miss it.’

  ‘It’s not a question of them missing it, it’s about whose it is. It’s stolen, is what it comes down to . . . I’m not trying to be all high and moral. But the money’s not a secret. Once Zoë’s safe, we call the police, and they arrest the Dunstans. The money will be mentioned, Katrina. And it’s not like the police’ll call it finders-keepers.’

  ‘It seems a shame, that’s all.’

  ‘Worse things happen.’ Than not having a huge lump of untraceable cash dumped on you, he meant. ‘Look, when the police come . . .’

  ‘They’ll arrest me too.’

  ‘Will they?’

  ‘Of course. They’re still deciding what to charge me with for Baxter’s death. And now the journalist who was looking after me’s in a coma, and God only knows what other mayhem Arkle’s caused . . . I’m involved in all that. They’re going to want to know how deep.’ She looked at him. ‘They didn’t know Baxter was a crook,’ she said. ‘But once they get hold of Arkle, it’ll come out.’

  ‘But you weren’t involved.’

  ‘Can I prove that?’

  ‘You don’t have to. They have to prove you did. Were, I mean. Involved.’

  She said, ‘Tim, I’m not worried about being found guilty of something I didn’t do. I’m worried about how many years of my life’ll be eaten up before people forget I was suspected.’

  Years of her life, thought Tim. She must have been about the same age as Emma – who had died at thirty-four – but he wasn’t the world’s best guesser, and this wasn’t the moment to ask. He wanted her to kiss him again, but that might be out of line too. Years of her life: leaving plenty of years . . . It occurred to him – a thought that came with its own lack-of-sobriety tag – that he could offer himself as a kind of long-life guarantee. Because if she, say, married him, what were the chances of her dying young? Of that happening to him twice? Even allowing for the fact that it wouldn’t be him it was happening to, or not primarily.

  Another car passed the cottage. Its headlights briefly probed for breaks in the curtains, then threw bright pools through them, which splashed on the walls and drained away into the corners.

  She said, ‘There are places you can go, people you can turn to. Who can help you with identities and such. It only costs money.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Instead of turning the money in. I could just disappear.’ She looked at him. ‘Then I wouldn’t have to worry about being proved innocent.’

  Tim said, ‘I’ve got a better idea.’

  ‘You saying she tricked you?’

  ‘You think I’d have come with you if I’d known the key wasn’t here?’

  ‘But the key was here.’

  ‘Not where she told me.’

  ‘So you say.’

  ‘If Arkle comes back without the money, what do you think he’ll do?’

  ‘. . . He won’t be pleased.’

  ‘I know he won’t be pleased. I’m wondering what he’ll do.’

  After a moment, Trent repeated, ‘But the key was here. So how could the money be gone?’

  ‘How many keys could there be?’

  Trent looked away. ‘You’ll have to tell him where Kay went.’

  ‘I don’t know where Kay went.’

  ‘But you were with her. You took her from that house. You saying you just let her go, when she was the only one knew where the key was?’

  Zoë said, ‘That’s sort of what “tricked” means, in the circumstances.’

  She thought she could hear a clock ticking, but it was some obstruction in the old man’s breathing.

  Trent said, ‘I can control him.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘He knows where to draw a line. That’s how come . . .’

  How come he’s still walking round free, Trent didn’t finish.

  Zoë said, ‘Looking back on our brief acquaintance, I suspect whatever controls Arkle has pretty much rusted away. Did he do that to your face?’

  Trent didn’t answer. Didn’t have to.

  ‘So what do you think he’ll do to me? Or the old man here?’

  ‘It’s Kay he wants.’

  ‘Right. And there’s a woman in a coma because she was in his way. It’s not about what he wants, Trent. It’s that he doesn’t care how he gets it.’

  ‘It’s our money.’

  ‘Forget the fucking money. Were you there when he beat up Helen Coe?’

  Trent said, ‘I don’t know what happened. I was in the van.’

  ‘Good for you. You planning on waiting outside when he loses his temper today? Because anything that happens here, you’re guilty too, you know that? Whatever he does, you’re doing it too. That’s the law, Trent. They call it collective responsibility.’

  ‘I won’t let him . . .’

  ‘Let him what? I’ve watched him take potshots at Tim with a crossbow. I could smell the blood on his teeth. You really think you can stop him?’

  ‘. . . Did you really send a letter to the police?’

  ‘Yes,’ she lied. ‘Another thing. The guy he shot in Oxford this morning? He’s a copper.’

  ‘He didn’t look like a fucking copper.’

  ‘He’s not supposed to, Trent. He’s undercover. The whole point of being undercover is you don’t look like a fucking copper.’

  ‘So what was he doing?’

  ‘Being shot by your brother. That’s the part he’ll remember, anyway. And what happens when policemen get shot, Trent? You think the rest of them throw up their hands in disgust and knock off early?’

  ‘. . . What’s your point?’

  ‘You’re already a mess. They’ll say you were shopsoiled when they arrested you. If you’re lucky, they’ll give you a bag to carry your teeth in.’

  ‘You’re just trying to get me to let you go.’

  ‘I’m trying to get you to help yourself. Arkle comes with an expiry date. That doesn’t mean you have to spend your life in prison.’

  ‘He’s my brother.’

  ‘And how much fun has that been?’

  Trent said, ‘You think you know a lot, don’t you? But you don’t know nothing. Baxter’s dead. Arkle’s all I’ve got. You think I’m going to take sides against him?’

  The deadness of his tone told Zoë she’d hit a wall.

  The things she’d said, the lies and the truths, were volleying around the room now; colliding into each other, spinning off in all directions. She could have sworn old man Blake hadn’t twitched in half an hour. If it weren’t for the odd fractured breath, she’d have thought him dead. And the fact that he wasn’t might merely be intermission, because one of the things she hadn’t been lying about was how much damage she thought Arkle might do when he came home without the money . . . There didn’t seem much hope in his turning up sheepish and rueful. Torch and run was more likely. He must know he had little time left. He was leaving the same trail of clues in his wake as a hurricane.

  She said, ‘I’m all out of things to tell you. He’s your brother. Nothing I say can change that.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So I’ll ask a favour instead. No tricks. I really need to go the bathroom. Could you let me have that much dignity?’

  He said, ‘No way am I taking that rope off.’

  ‘You don’t have to take the rope off. You can leave the damn door open if you want. But let me have that much control for when he gets back, can’t you? Please? You think I want to wet myself when he takes his crossbow out?’

  ‘. . . You’re trying to trick me.’

  ‘I watched him put a bolt through somebody this morning, Trent. For being there. He thinks I’ve tricked him ou
t of a couple of hundred grand, you reckon he’ll write that off to bad judgement? Please. All I’m asking is a little human decency, before the bad stuff starts.’

  Blake said, ‘Katie?’

  They both looked, but it was a momentary lapse, no more. Blake was already back on the other side of nowhere, though there was a pulse throbbing at his temple which hadn’t been there before.

  Zoë said, ‘Please. You don’t have to untie me.’

  Trent said, ‘If this is a trick, my brother’s the least of your worries.’

  Tim stopped talking, and raised his glass to his lips. It was empty. He didn’t remember finishing it, but his mouth felt powerfully dry; a dead giveaway. He wondered if his words had come out right. There had been an awful lot of them, and they had started by trying to explain why disappearing wasn’t a great idea, and ended by saying she should come with him to Oxford instead. Not in that way, he had probably added. He wasn’t trying to suggest. Which wasn’t to say he didn’t think. And so on. By the time he had backtracked out of several verbal dead-ends, only to walk slap-bang into a number of conversational lamp-posts, he couldn’t have found his way back to the subject with a map and a torch.

  In the quiet that followed he could hear new weather coming; the noises clouds make when they roll over themselves in the late grey sky.

  At last Katrina, ‘I was right, though. You are nice.’

  ‘Katrina –’

  ‘You’re worried I’m digging a hole I’ll never get out of.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Take the money and run. But if I do that, I’ll never stop running.’

  Yes, that’s what Tim had been saying. If her version sounded more coherent, that was because she’d had time to digest it, whereas he’d been improvising. ‘I don’t want you to run,’ he said. He put his glass down. ‘Nothing that’s happened was your fault. He hurt you, he –’ Running out of words again, he touched her face instead. She didn’t flinch. When he put his fingers to her cheek, it felt hot, as if her whole body were still working on the pain problem: converting Baxter’s damage to dischargeable energy. What was washing past him was the by-product of anger, brutality, outrage. All she had to do was stand up in a courtroom and it would come blazing out of her: that was what Tim thought. That a jury wouldn’t just acquit her; they’d dig Baxter up and kill him again. And he heard himself finish, ‘He deserved it,’ which left nothing more to say.

  After a while he took his fingers from Katrina’s cheek, to find their tips still glowing with her heat. Our hearts should always be in others’ keeping, he thought. Having sole custody of his own had nearly broken him. Was that pathetic? Maybe so, maybe so. Something once firmly attached inside him slipped away with the admission, the way a label glued on a jar floats free after soaking.

  He looked into her eyes. They were dark and deep, and it was possible he could spend the rest of his human span gauging their secrets. But first, there were things that cried out to be done. ‘We need to call Zoë again,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And if we don’t get her this time, we’ve got to call the police.’

  ‘. . . Yes.’

  Zoë went ahead of Trent, her wrists behind her back. The stairs were narrow, steep, and curved slightly in a way that didn’t seem deliberate. Perhaps the house was folding up in accord with its owner’s slow withdrawal . . . If she fell now, she’d send Trent crashing to the floor below with her. The way her luck was running, she’d be the one who broke her limbs. Reaching the top, she felt his push.

  ‘That way.’

  On the landing was a bookcase on which sat a dusty vase holding a plastic spray of flowers. Cobwebs stretched between petals, and scattered round the vase’s base was a drift of husks: spider’s leftovers. The bookcase contents looked like they were on their way to or from a charity store: a mishmash of MacLeans, Wheatleys and Reader’s Digest’s condenseds, among which nestled a pamphlet outlining the uses of a pressure cooker. She’s never happier than when she’s sorting through my books. Are you, Katie? But Trent was hustling her away already; pushing her against a door which swung open to reveal very much a bachelor toilet.

  ‘Make it quick,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t manage like this,’ she told him.

  ‘I told you. I’m not untying you.’

  ‘You think I’ll run? There’s not even a window in there, for God’s sake.’

  ‘I’m not untying you.’

  ‘I still need your help.’

  He looked at her.

  ‘You’ll have to undo my jeans. You think I’m Houdini?’

  ‘I’m not your fucking nurse.’

  ‘Trent, please. What’s the point of bringing me up here otherwise?’

  From downstairs came a rattle of some kind: faint and indeterminate.

  He said, ‘If he’s going walkabout, I’ll throw you down the fucking stairs.’

  ‘That’s a fair and reasonable response. Are you going to help or not?’

  He didn’t want to. She could see that. But could see, too, that she’d backed him into a corner, one he was too accustomed to to leave easily. Being round Arkle had done that for him. Sooner or later, he’d end up doing whatever he was told, because otherwise he’d suffer.

  She hunched her shoulders; allowed a whine to stain her voice. ‘Trent? This has got to happen soon.’

  ‘. . . What is it you want?’

  ‘Just undo my jeans, that’s all. I can manage the rest, but I can’t undo my jeans with my hands behind my back.’

  He shook his head, but it was surrender, not refusal. Muttering something she couldn’t catch, he edged forward, hands fumbling in front of him.

  ‘You try anything –’

  She closed her eyes.

  And then he was in front of her, hands still fumbling; attacking the clasp of her jeans like a man in boxing gloves peeling an orange. This close, his stench was a physical object: stale tobacco and alcohol burying something grimier and forgotten. When she opened her eyes, she was looking down on the top of his head, where hair had matted into a nest; any moment, she’d see something stir in there, and scream . . . She spoke instead:

  ‘Have you done this before?’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘Don’t be alarmed if I . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, nothing.’

  As he pulled the clasp apart she moaned slightly, and he looked up in alarm.

  Zoë brought her forehead into his face as she kneed him in the crotch.

  . . . The crotch is the soft target: every good girl knows that. But in Trent’s case his damaged face was softer still, and his howl as he staggered back pierced the ceiling. She dropped her shoulder and charged, hitting him chest high, thumping him into the bookcase – the vase smashed against the wall, and books went everywhere: flopping down the stairs like poor imitations of birds. Zoë tripped, lost her balance, landed on her knees. Trent had pitched forwards, and was scrabbling to get up. She bunny-hopped on to his back before he could, feeling the air leave him as she landed . . . Five seconds in, it was going her way. But there was a law of slim returns operating, and the longer this continued, the greater his chances of shrugging her off . . . Raising herself, she dropped on him as hard as she could; and was again rewarded with a breathless grunt. But he was gathering now, and pretty soon, he’d throw her off . . .

  She scrabbled to her feet, swallowed hard, and kicked him in the head.

  . . . There were those who wouldn’t have been shocked to watch Zoë kick a fallen man in the head. Others might have expressed surprise that she refrained from it so often. But it didn’t feel good, it wasn’t who she wanted to be, and a large black lump reached her throat as she kicked him again, because however bad it felt, it was necessary Trent stay down long enough that she get her hands free. He grunted again and was still. She made to kick him a third time, but stopped. She looked at her feet, the black zipped boots she wore, and thought for a moment she saw blood on them, but that was a t
rick of her eyes. And she didn’t have time for this: Trent was out of action, but Arkle would be back any moment. She needed to find a knife or scissors – get out of the knots she’d been tied in. Then start bringing all this to a close.

  . . . Among the scattered books was a pamphlet outlining the uses of a pressure cooker. When it had hit the ground, it had shed a load it carried; a sheaf of newspaper clippings hidden among its pages, held together by a paperclip. They’d landed facing away from her, and she squinted, trying to read the uppermost headline . . .

  That’s what she was doing when the front door opened, and Arkle returned.

  ‘Still no luck?’

  ‘Her phone’s off.’

  ‘It’s late, Katrina. We need to call the police. We should have done ages ago.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘No. She’s in trouble. Or she’d have been in touch.’

  ‘. . . Okay.’

  ‘Do you want me to do it?’

  ‘. . . Yes. That’d be best.’

  She handed him her mobile. As she did, her fingers touched his, and he smiled . . . This was strange, was practically supernatural, but it would keep happening, of that he was sure. No matter what else was going on, there would be moments of connection with this woman, and once enough of them had been laid down, they’d have a foundation on which to build.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing. Just . . . Where are we?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The police. It’s the first thing they want to know, where you’re calling from. What’s this place called?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . There’s a leaflet somewhere.’ Katrina went into the kitchen, and found one on the windowsill: a photocopied sheet with instructions for use of the premises – hot water, binmen, recycling. She called out, ‘Poachers’ Cottage.’

  ‘Does it have an address?’

  She read it out.

  ‘Okay.’ He looked down to figure out her mobile, and she came back into the room, arms folded across her chest.

  ‘Tim?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Once you call the police, everything changes . . .’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘They’ll arrest me.’

  ‘I’m sorry. But we’ve got to do this. You know that, don’t you?’