by Nick Hollin
‘Do you have a name?’ he asks.
‘Several. But seeing as this is probably the end for both of us, I’ll give you the one that means the most. The one that my mother gave me. It’s Max.’
‘Does anybody else need to die here, Max? Haven’t you got your revenge?’
‘Maybe when you’ve stopped talking.’ She moves quickly across from the door and presses the barrel of the gun to his temple. ‘And stopped breathing.’
The cold of the barrel is soothing in a way, and he strains to keep his head against it. ‘So if I’m dead, then you won’t hurt anybody else?’
He feels the barrel tap twice against his head. ‘Ah. I see what you’re asking. Now isn’t that sweet. You’re worried about your little detective friend. Well, I’d love to tell you that I’ll leave her alone. And in truth, she means next to nothing to me. But you see…’ Max moves back over to the door, this time cautiously peering out from behind it. ‘It’s not just revenge for me that I’m seeking.’
Forty-Six
Sam and Katie had believed they would get to the scrapyard first, and Sam had driven recklessly in trying to do so, but when they arrive they find half a dozen officers are already at the scene. Armed police have been called, and have started to position themselves around the site.
‘Impressive,’ says Sam, sullenly. ‘I shall miss being part of something as efficient as this.’
‘Let’s just focus on getting Max.’ Katie rubs her wrist, wishing she had a watch. ‘And Nathan.’
‘We’re not getting in there,’ says Sam. ‘Not till they’ve secured the area. And even then…’
‘But we have to,’ says Katie. ‘He might not have long.’
‘We don’t know that for sure. That might have been another lie.’
‘I’m not willing to take that risk.’
‘And they,’ she gestures towards the police teams rushing around, ‘aren’t going to take a risk with you. Besides, they’ve not even got the gate open yet.’
Katie looks over at the scrapyard gate, where two men are struggling with bolt cutters to cut through several thick chains. Hearing a noise behind her, she turns and can just make out some press crews arriving in the distance, being shepherded to the side of the road by police officers.
‘They’re going to crucify me when the truth gets out,’ says Sam, rubbing at her cheek as she stares back at them, finally trying to remove the last of the muddy mark. ‘They won’t understand why. Nobody will. And I don’t want to be remembered as being like Carl. I’m not like Carl. I was trying to do some good, trying to make a difference.’
‘You could help save a life here,’ says Katie. ‘That would be making an enormous difference.’
‘Do you love him?’ asks Sam, turning her back on the press. ‘Or is it just an obsession, a need that has to be answered?’
‘I’m not sure I know what the difference is. Certainly not at the moment.’ Katie places a hand on her stomach. ‘We were supposed to be there for each other. He was supposed to protect me.’
‘I was supposed to be there for my little sister,’ says Sam. ‘I didn’t even know about her drugs problem until it was too late. I’m not sure my parents ever forgave me. Or themselves. And I know for sure that I’ve never stopped wishing I’d been a little less wrapped up in my own world and seen what was right in front of my face. It’s given me drive in my life, and it’s given me desire, but it’s also pushed me into making some unforgivable decisions.’ Sam pulls at the collar on her mud-covered shirt, dragging it away from her neck as if she’s struggling to breathe. ‘Maybe I’m a fool, still blind to people’s faults after all this time, but I don’t think I’m a bad person.’
Katie watches the final chain fall away on the gate. Then she reaches out and grabs Sam by the elbow, gripping her hard and staring into the senior policewoman’s eyes. ‘We’ve all fucked up in the past. This is about the present. Now I need to get in there, and there’s no way I’m going to be able to unless you do your thing.’
Sam looks at her for a moment, her emotionless face threatening to crumble. Then her features set solid again and she nods, before shaking off Katie’s hand and striding forward. ‘Come with me.’
The head of the armed response unit is at the gate, barking orders into his radio. Katie strides up and matches his no-nonsense tone as she holds out her identity card.
‘DS Rhodes, and I need to get inside.’
‘That’s not going to happen, I’m afraid, ma’am,’ he says. ‘I have strict orders not to let anyone in. I also have very specific orders in relation to the two of you.’
Katie tips her head back and groans. She should have predicted as much. The accusations against them have been out in the world for more than an hour now. They have already been stripped of their powers. And yet at the same time Katie feels something else growing inside of her. It’s not the gift of life. She will never have that. Instead, it’s the gift of not caring about her own life. Or rather, being willing to give it up for another.
With this in mind, she starts to run. The policeman reaches out and tries to grab her, but she’s too quick and is through the open gate in less than a second, sprinting deep inside, waiting for a shot to ring out, perhaps from Max, or perhaps from one of those who are supposed to be on her side.
Fifty paces in and Katie realises she doesn’t know where she’s going. It’s a big yard, and it isn’t obvious where Nathan is being held. She looks frantically around, her heart banging in her chest. She runs ahead, going around and behind hundreds of stacked cars, abandoned diggers, twisted sheets of metal, rusting old white goods. She’s so focused on trying to spot which direction she needs to head in that she only hears the footfall at the very last second. She spins round, lifting her arms in defence, ready to be bundled to the ground by someone trying to protect her, or flattened into oblivion by someone looking to kill. In the end neither of those things happens. It’s Sam, and she passes right by, calling out, ‘This way!’
Katie catches up quickly and they find themselves zigzagging between more stacks of cars that look precariously balanced. They round a corner, mud splattering up the backs of their legs, their hair flattened to their foreheads with sweat, and they see the rusting blue shipping container in the distance.
‘That’s it,’ says Sam. ‘I’m sure of it.’
‘How do you know?’ asks Katie as they start to run again, this time at a slightly slower pace, ready to throw themselves out of the way of a bullet.
‘I waited behind just that little bit longer,’ says Sam. ‘The armed response lead had downloaded a map of this place. That container is perfect for hiding someone.’
They slow to a cautious jog as they draw close, and they can see that the container’s door is partly open.
‘I’ll go first,’ whispers Sam, but Katie doesn’t allow her to push in front.
‘We go together,’ she says.
On the ground in front of the doorway is a three-foot-long, hollow metal tube. Katie bends down and picks it up. She doesn’t believe it’s a coincidence that it looks so much like the metal bar that Nathan had failed to bring down on his brother’s head. It’s been left there for a reason, but she’s not about to give up the chance of having something to fend someone off with or, better still, of starting an attack.
‘Come in,’ calls a woman’s voice. ‘I hope you’re not too late.’
Any sense of self-protection Katie might have felt has vanished. She drags back the heavy metal door, before lifting the bar above her head. Sam is alongside her. A faint, occasionally flickering bulb hanging from the roof reveals Nathan curled up motionless on the floor at the far end of the container. Sitting in front of him, with her legs crossed, like a little girl in a school assembly, is a woman of about thirty years of age, with shoulder-length brown hair and eyes that seem to cut through the semi-darkness.
Katie looks for the gun and waits for the bullet, but as her eyes adjust she can see the woman has her arms down by her sides, palm
s flat on the floor, just behind two syringes – one full and one empty – and a gun. She looks perfectly relaxed, and yet at the same time everything about her is a threat.
Katie draws in a breath and readies herself to rush forward.
‘Not just yet,’ says the woman, placing a hand lightly on top of the gun. It’s obvious to Katie that she could lift it and fire it long before Katie could cover the distance between them. ‘I was joking before. Nathan will still be with us for a while. Let’s have a chat first. I’ve wanted to speak to the two of you alone. I mean, so much of our conversation up until now has been done on the internet or in the press, or in the messages I’ve left for you. By messages, I mean bodies. I should probably be specific, to avoid any confusion. Anyway, it’s nice to make it more personal.’ She draws out the final word with a grin that Katie would love to wipe from her face. ‘So we should probably start with introductions, shouldn’t we? My name is Max.’
‘I know who you are,’ says Katie. ‘And you know who I am. You also know what I’ll do if you don’t hand over that antidote in time.’
‘And I’m sure you’d take great delight in it. The same way that Nathan told me he enjoyed taking another person’s life. He might have acted all upset about it, but it would hardly be the first time he’s put on a performance for you. We were talking, and with the sort of honesty that people save for the end of their life, he told me it was the greatest thrill, like finally becoming who he was supposed to be. I imagine you’ll feel the same, which is why you two are perfect for each other.’
‘And were you perfect for Christian?’ asks Katie, not taking her eyes off the syringe, her fingers curling by her side as if she already has it in her grasp.
‘We had our moments,’ says Max. ‘He could be very sweet.’ She grins again. ‘But I forgave him that in the light of all his other, far more positive traits.’
Sam is leaning forward, peering into the dark corners of the container. Katie knows what she’s looking for. She wants the evidence of her relationship with Carl. She wants it so that she can destroy it.
‘How much did Christian tell you?’ asks Katie, wondering how many of her own secrets were shared by Nathan’s brother.
‘About your night of passion?’ asks Max. ‘About the night Christian, post some rather dramatic plastic surgery, persuaded you to sleep with him? I imagine I know more about it than you do, given how much you’d had to drink. Christian was very specific, you see, and had a great facility for words. He didn’t write them down like his mum and his brother, but he passed them along when he knew they’d give pleasure.’
‘How could the man you supposedly cared about sleeping with someone else have given you pleasure?’ asks Katie, pushing back the images of that night that were flashing up in her mind.
‘Because of the pain that followed for you,’ says Max, taking on a softened tone, as if she’s talking to a child. ‘Because of the horror. I knew you wouldn’t understand. You don’t get it. Just like Thomas Shaw didn’t get it.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘All muscle. All surface. But when it came down to it, when I pushed him to see how much he could achieve, he got pathetically scared.’
Katie’s own fear is continuing to gather. She needs to find a way to help Nathan. She’s even started to consider which way to twist and turn her body to increase her chances of surviving the bullet that will get to her before she can get to the antidote. But above all this careful contemplation, Katie keeps returning to the same word, again and again, the word that has haunted her since she first looked at the scars on her cheeks and since the doctor told her that she couldn’t have a child: hesitation.
‘You’ve talked,’ says Katie. ‘And I’ve listened. And if bringing pain and horror is what you’ve been trying to do, then you’ve certainly succeeded. But I don’t think you brought us here to see Nathan die.’
‘What makes you so sure of that?’ asks Max, raising an eyebrow.
‘Because of who he is. Because of his twin. If you kill him, that will be like killing Christian.’
‘You’re forgetting that thanks to the plastic surgery that managed to fool you, Christian didn’t look at all like his brother.’
‘Surface,’ says Katie, stealing Max’s earlier word.
‘But Nathan proved himself different on the inside, too. He couldn’t kill. He was all talk. Or rather, all words. It was down to me to take those words and make them mean something.’
‘He’s still the twin of the man you loved.’
Max opens her mouth to answer, but Sam cuts in.
‘Maybe she didn’t love him, not at the end. I think maybe Christian gave her up for his brother.’
‘Who cares what you think,’ snaps Max. ‘Oh, everyone thinks you’re super-smart, bringing down drugs gangs, climbing the ladder, but you needed my dad for that. And he played you all along. You got him off a couple of murder charges, helped put his rivals away, and he even managed to make you believe that he cared about you, when all the time he loved Steven Fish.’
‘He wasn’t so clever when he let you walk up behind him and smack him over the head,’ says Sam.
‘He underestimated me,’ says Max. ‘Most people have. They see a small woman and they make their judgements. He came to kill me.’ She lifts the gun in front of her, tapping the barrel with her other hand. ‘He had this very weapon to shut me up. But I think in the end he wanted to finish me off like he did Mum, making it look like another drug addict overdosing. Problem was, he lost his focus, convinced himself the little girl couldn’t be a threat. He must have forgotten whose DNA I was carrying.’
‘Or maybe not,’ says Sam. ‘I doubt he’d forgotten what you did to Steven Fish, to the man he loved. And maybe it all finally dawned on him when he came face to face with his past, with the monster that he had helped to create, that he couldn’t escape justice anymore. Maybe he didn’t want to.’
‘That’s just shit!’ says Max, her face flushing, the gun lifted and pointed directly at Sam. ‘Shit that’s been costing Nathan precious time. So let’s get down to it before it is too late.’ She turns to look at Katie. ‘You were right. I don’t want Nathan to die. I want you to save him. And you can, very simply. I will let you come and take the antidote and I will hand myself in if you do one simple thing.’
‘What?’ says Katie quickly, sensing more than ever that her hesitation might cost her everything.
‘Bring that bar down on Ms Stone’s head with enough force to kill her.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t think I need to repeat myself. What I will say is that you have two minutes to make your decision.’
‘And if I won’t?’ says Katie, although she believes she’s already figured out the answer.
‘Then I’ll shoot you both, before crushing the syringe containing the antidote.’
Perhaps it’s the anticipation of the bullet, or the memory of the last time blood had been spilling out of her, but Katie’s free hand moves to her cheek and then to her stomach.
‘Why two minutes?’ says Katie.
‘Less than that now, but it’s more fun with a bit of pressure on. Now to help with your decision, not that it should be all that difficult, let us consider once again what Sam did for my dad.’
‘Do you have any actual evidence of that?’ says Sam.
‘Of course. And that will come out, in the fullness of time. But I wouldn’t worry about it, because time is something you don’t have, Ms Stone, not in any of the scenarios I’ve just described. Besides, you helped my dad get away with murder. Twice. Your death will be nothing less than you deserve.’
‘You’re probably right,’ says Sam, taking a step forward. ‘I should be punished for my crimes. So why not shoot me yourself?’
Max’s eyes widen, then she recovers her outward calm. ‘Because that’s not the deal. Not yet. I want to see what Katie is made of first. Stronger stuff than her former boyfriend, I think. But then she only has about twenty seconds left to prove that, or she’ll be ending up
every bit as dead as he will.’
‘Then do it,’ says Sam, turning to look at Katie. Katie doesn’t return her stare. ‘Close your eyes and fucking do it! There’s no other option. You have to. My career is over. I have nothing left to live for.’
Katie looks over at Nathan, at the one thing she has left, and that will soon be gone if she doesn’t make a decision.
‘Save yourself and save Nathan,’ says Max.
‘By becoming a killer?’
‘It’s exactly what Nathan did with Thomas Shaw. That’s how he saved you. Are you not willing to do the same in return?’
Katie feels the weight of the bar, knows she has to do something, to come to a decision that she’ll either regret for the rest of her life, or that will bring about the end of her life. And it’s not that she’s panicking, far from it – her mind is doing what it’s always done under extreme pressure: it’s processing information even quicker. She’s working through the words she’s just heard, judging them, interpreting them. Hesitation. She keeps returning to that word again. What’s the real reason Max is so keen to have this finished? Is she only interested in achieving what Christian was unable to – making someone a murderer? Is she really so desperate for Sam to die? Katie takes another step forward. She’s only inches from the barrel of the gun now. She can see the speed with which Max’s chest is rising and falling. She can also more clearly see two syringes either side of the younger woman on the floor. One is full and the other not quite empty.
‘You didn’t give him all of it,’ says Katie, nodding down at one of the syringes. You couldn’t. It’s like your dad, when you wanted to kill him with whatever you hit him with, but you held back.’
‘I gave him enough,’ says Max. ‘And you’re the one that’s holding back now. You’re the one that’s killing him.’
‘What will you do once this is over?’ asks Katie. Sam remains close behind, seemingly determined to keep within striking distance of the bar.
‘I’ll be taken away by your colleagues,’ says Max. ‘I’ll spend the rest of my life in jail.’
