by Thorne Moore
I pictured it. Al, driving in search of Kim who had gone to Aberystwyth. Chancing upon Christian as he was trying to hitch a ride, in the black of night, in the middle of nowhere. Christian, the malicious little drugs dealer, who would always be a threat to Kim and her like. Christian, whose removal could only make the world a cleaner place.
Al wouldn’t have given it a second thought, would he? Any more than he’d thought twice about throwing Kim’s dealer down stairs. Any more than he’d hesitated about bloodying a little mugger in the park. Al has his own take on justice, Jo said.
Violence had always disgusted me. I’d tasted too much of its shadow to find it anything other than despicable, and yet – and yet I’d uncovered uncomfortable equivocation when it came to Al and violence. The allure of the alpha male? It might have amused me once, but now the thought of Al murdering Sylvia’s son, in cold blood, made my own blood ran cold.
What was I supposed to do? Tell the police? Avoid him like a leper? Or pray that he got away with it?
He wouldn’t have a moment’s regret for what he had done, I was sure of that. But Sylvia would. Oh God.
*
‘What am I going to do, Kate?’ said Sylvia, topping up her wine for the fourth or fifth time. Our dutiful supper had turned into a celebration feast, and Sylvia was celebrating with a vengeance. She was already a little too loud, a little too voluble, even for Sylvia. ‘I have to settle things with Christian, you see that, don’t you?’
‘Mum, don’t,’ said Tamsin, to no effect.
‘No, but listen,’ said Sylvia. ‘Look at Hannah, you see! She needed help. We should have helped her, shouldn’t we?’
‘Sylvia—’
‘And Christian’s the same. He needs help. I’m going to help him. I keep wanting him to love me, you see. That’s the mistake. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t love me. It doesn’t matter if he hates me, just as long as I help him, ’s long as he gets better. That’s all that matters, isn’t it? If only we could find him.’
‘I’m sure…,’ I began, and stopped, not knowing what to say. I met Michael’s eyes, and saw, in them, my own despairing conviction. Of course. There had been a death, I’d said, and he’d believed me. He understood, as I did, who it must be. Part of me was grateful that I could share this appalling secret. Another part was terrified that he too had identified the murderer. But I could see in his grieving eyes only concern for what awaited Sylvia. The who or how was of no importance. All that mattered was that Sylvia’s dreams of restitution were utterly doomed.
‘I don’t suppose the police will bother looking for him anymore, if he’s not a murder suspect,’ said Tamsin, running her finger round the cream bowl.
‘Oh but they have to find him. They must. I’ll report him missing. That’s what I should do, isn’t it, Mike?’
‘Yes,’ he said, leaning across to kiss her cheek. ‘That’s what you should do.’
She laughed. ‘Such a weight off my shoulders, knowing the worst isn’t true. I mean, how could I have believed it? My own son. Well, I’ll make up for it. I know things are going to be difficult but I’m going to do it, sort him out and never let anything like this happen again. And you’re going to help me, aren’t you, my love?’
‘Yes, of course,’ murmured Michael.
The farcical feast over, Sylvia was too unsteady on her feet to attempt the washing up. ‘I’ll do it,’ I said, rescuing glasses from her.
‘Yes, come on, Mum.’ Tamsin guided her. ‘Come up with me. I’ve got to get tweeting, tell them the Quigley’s safe and sound after all.’
‘All right, all right. I’m all right.’ With Tamsin’s support, Sylvia made it up the stairs, singing.
Leaving me looking at Michael.
‘The Quigley’s safe and sound,’ he repeated softly.
‘Yes.’ I began plunging cutlery. ‘That’s good news, isn’t it?’
He was silent for so long, I thought perhaps he hadn’t heard. Then, ‘Yes. Of course it’s good news. But you know someone died.’
I was scrubbing compulsively. ‘I don’t know. I’m a mad woman. Sometimes I think odd things, and the next moment—’
‘You were certain someone died that night?’
I gave up. ‘Yes, that’s what I thought then.’
‘It wasn’t Hannah.’
‘No it wasn’t Hannah.’
‘So it was Christian?’
‘Yes. Perhaps.’
‘It was Christian.’ He paused. ‘I’ve always known it was Christian. He’s dead and she’s waiting for him to come home.’
‘I know.’ I clutched at a handful of forks. ‘Poor Sylvia, what’s it going to do to her?’
‘It will destroy her.’
‘There’s nothing I can do.’
‘No. Nothing. It’s all too late. Nothing can be undone.’
‘And all because – oh damn it!’ A plate slipped from my fingers and smashed. ‘Damn, damn, damn!’
‘Leave it,’ said Michael. ‘Kate. Leave it. Go on up. I’ll sort it out.’
‘Are you sure?’ I wanted nothing better than to escape.
‘Yes,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll finish it.’
I lay on my bed for a while, in the dark, listening to rain beating on my window, lashing the panes in torrential gusts, as I wallowed in my guilt. Guilt for wishing Christian dead, guilt for not thinking how Sylvia would be devastated, guilt for recognising a murderer in Al and not condemning him.
But how could I condemn him? I couldn’t really know for sure that Christian was dead, let alone that Al had killed him. Except that I could picture it so clearly, it seemed impossible I hadn’t witnessed it. At what point had Christian realised that this was the end, that he couldn’t talk or bully or threaten or wheedle his way out of this last confrontation? Had he been terrified? It was Christian’s fear that came back to me now, not his loathsome malice. If I’d been a drug dealer, alone in a dark place with Al, I would have been petrified.
How had Christian got to be like that? We’d watched him change, over the years, the gold tarnishing, the promise wasted, the hopes deflating. Why hadn’t we done something to stop the rot? Sylvia had tried, oh how she had tried, but she’d never got it right. She’d failed because she was alone. I’d stood by and watched his fall with disdain; I’d wished him dead.
I was overwhelmed by pounding regret, a longing to undo what could never be undone. Hopelessness, darkness, shame, despair; it sucked me down. I’d done nothing to reach out to Christian, even though I’d felt his fear. I’d felt it because that was what I did. I was tuned into people’s emotions, not just their deaths. I felt…,
I felt people’s emotions.
I was tuned in.
Stupid woman! I sat up, so abruptly my head span. Stupid, stupid woman. Of course I was tuned in, but I hadn’t had the wit to see it. So wound up with my own feelings, didn’t I realise that all this guilt and despair washing around me wasn’t mine? How long had I been walking in another’s agony? The murderous anger, the guilt and grief, the sense of Hell. All doubts within me evaporated like water in a hot pan, sizzled away by the sudden blinding understanding of what had been going on. I took one small step to the side and, in an instant, everything was aligned, everything dropped into place.
It wasn’t Al.
It was Michael.
I didn’t know what he’d done, but I knew that he’d done it. And was living with it, regretting it, torturing himself with it.
I got up, heart pounding. Months before, I’d felt Leo’s lurch towards death from halfway across London and I’d failed to acknowledge it until it was too late. I’d felt my mother’s slow slide into oblivion, grieving for my absence, from a hundred miles away and there had been nothing I could do. This time, surely, I could react. I could do something.
How long had I been wallowing there? Long enough for Michael to have come up to bed, except that he hadn’t. I’d have heard him, but the house was silent except for the beating of the rain.
I ran downstairs. The kitchen was empty, dishes left drying on the draining board. I opened the drawing room door, taking in the rumpled cushions, Tamsin’s discarded trainers, Sylvia’s magazine. Everything just as it had been earlier in the evening, except for the letter, white as a ghost, on the mantelpiece. I picked it up, my fingers shaking, and read the clear lettering, Michael’s hand, made studiously neat for this final purpose. To whomsoever it may concern.
For a second my finger hovered, ready to rip the envelope open, then instead I thrust it in my pocket. What did a letter matter? It was Michael I needed to find now, not an explanation.
Where? I thought of the Great Hall, the pointless vandalising of Michael’s work.
Splintered panelling was piled, a mound of black in the enveloping darkness of the hall. No Michael. I groped inside the black interior of the exposed priest hole, brushing aside the horrors within as easily as swatting a fly. Let them exhale! I no longer cared about them. It was Michael’s new fresh agony that mattered. The ancient horror parted before me, faded and sank back into the stonework. But the priest hole was empty.
Where else? His workshop?
I stumbled in the dark, in icy rain, without a torch or a coat, running up against something sharp as I groped for the light. The workshop was empty, that was what I cared about, not the chisel that had ripped my jeans and drawn blood from my thigh. Where then? In God’s name, where?
The river. No. Please. I was already racing down the drive when it came to me. The place where Michael would be, because I’d told him it was the place to be. A place of execution, I’d called it.
*
He was there, as I knew he would be. The overhanging rocks and trees held the mire in a cup of impenetrable darkness, but as I reached the place, scratched and torn and panting for breath, the rain eased, billowing clouds parted and moonlight streamed through. A gibbous moon. Shadows seeped and shifted, as the clouds boiled around it.
‘Michael?’
He was sitting, his back against a tree, legs crossed, one hand on his heart, the other extended, like a Buddha set in this shrine to misery. As I spoke his name, his eyes moved slowly from the oily waters to me. ‘Kate.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘It’s too late, Kate.’ His voice was dreamy, distant, as if the cold and the rain had seeped too deeply into him.
‘No. No. It isn’t. Michael, whatever you did, don’t shoulder all the blame. Listen. Christian’s been doomed for a long time. Sooner or later, he was going to kill himself, or his friends would catch up with him, or—’
‘No excuse.’ He bowed his head for a moment, before raising his eyes back to mine. ‘Do you know the worst of it? I caught myself wanting the girl dead.’
‘Yes, I know. I understand, Michael. If Christian had murdered her, that would have been justification—’
‘No justification!’ He was almost fierce for a moment. ‘How could I have let myself imagine there could ever be justification? You see, Kate, when corruption sets in, it destroys all decency. The girl’s alive, and Christian isn’t a murderer. Just a pathetic boy. He was always just a pathetic boy.’
‘Yes, he was a pathetic boy, who was bent on killing himself. Perhaps that’s what he did, Michael. Perhaps he killed himself. You can’t know that you were to blame.’
The clouds closed in again. Out of the darkness came his voice. ‘I killed him.’
‘How?’ I had an idea that if I just kept talking, we would come through this, he would return to the house, we would sort something out.
I heard him sigh. A reluctant sigh, as he forced himself to respond. ‘His secret stash you gave me. When was that? Years ago, it seems. I made up some tablets. Lethal. Quick. Painless, I hope.’
You planned to kill him even then? I was about to ask, but I already knew the answer. He’d had no thought of killing Christian when he’d made those little doses of death. For safe-keeping, I’d given potentially lethal drugs to a man I knew had suffered from appalling depression. He’d analysed them, because he would, and idly, without precise intent, he’d constructed the perfect suicide pill. Because he could. He’d made them for himself, I was sure of that. Not with any thought of using them, but just in some abstract memory of his worse suicidal moments. A memento, because he was no longer suicidally depressed; he had Sylvia and all her life-affirming joy.
And then he had Christian, and the darkness swept back.
‘I understand.’
‘He spat at her, Kate. He was bent on destroying her and everything she had. I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t let him continue to hurt her. It came over me, such a rage. And then I remembered these.’
The moonlight was back, dancing like devils in the dell. In his outstretched hand as he opened it, I could see two small oval pills.
‘You put one in his car when you confiscated that bloody wash bag?’
‘Yes. Pushed into the passenger seat. I knew he’d be desperate before too long. I’d taken his supply but he’d look, he’d hope…’ His words died away.
‘He’d hope you’d missed something?’
‘Just one,’ said Michael. ‘Not enough for him to sell. Just one.’
‘And almost as soon as he’d gone, you regretted it. I know you did, Michael. You drove out to look for him, you phoned, you were desperate for the police to look for him. That’s what counts.’
‘No. All that was too late.’ He was staring at the two pills in his hand.
‘What are you going to do with them?’ I tried to keep the panic out of my voice. ‘Why don’t you give them to me?’
He slowly shook his head, then, with an effort, flicked them out into the mire. They settled, sank, and were gone.
I heaved a sigh of relief. ‘Thank God. Michael, leave it now. Come back to the house. We can talk there, but come away from here, before you catch your death.’
He smiled. In the ghostly light, I could see him struggling to keep his eyes open. ‘Too late, Kate.’
‘No! There were only three, weren’t there? Michael! How many tablets did you make? Tell me you only made three.’
‘Four,’ he managed, with an effort.
I’d been kneeling near him but, with my heart pounding, I leapt to my feet. I should have realised he’d already taken one. I groped in my pockets. A letter but no phone. The camp. It was only two or three hundred yards down the hill. I stopped before I’d run half a dozen steps, remembering, Jo had taken them off to some get-together in Narberth. She’d invited me. Nobody would be there.
Then I would have to fight and scramble and blunder my way back to the house, just as I’d fought my way here, in the dark through the trees, losing my way, ripping and tripping and twisting ankles, so that I could phone.
I could go down and call for help that would arrive too late, or I could stay with Michael.
The answer was obvious. Just for once, get it right.
I turned back.
‘Michael? I’m here.’
Chapter 25
The stones were cold, so cold that my skin no longer registered the minute grains and undulations biting into my back. My legs no longer felt the wet, wiry prickle of the turf. This was eternity; no feeling, no sensations, just empty stillness.
The darkness had faded, pallor seeping out to the distant milky smear of the sea, long before the sun edged up over the hills behind me. The valley below was a sea of white, engulfing trees, houses, farms; rivers of mist flowing into every crease and fold of the land. I heard birds, a raven’s harsh croak and cows lowing, the occasional panicking bleat of sheep, a dog’s bark. Somewhere, down in the valley, a cockerel. No humans. No voices, for once no traffic. This was a world, briefly, without Man, and therefore a world without evil.
It didn’t last long, this cold, still emptiness. From somewhere came the hum of a passing car, then another, then the cough and moan of distant machinery.
A man appeared, at the top of the track leading from the excavations. Al. Clear of the trees, he paused, pee
ring along to the stones hunched behind me, his hand shading his eyes. He was looking into the sun, the molten brass disc that I had not yet turned to acknowledge, although its glow was full on him, spilling colour across the empty moors.
He saw me, raised his hand in greeting, and strode towards me.
‘Kate? Are you all right?’
I couldn’t break out of the silent stillness to answer him. I merely watched as he approached, urgency in his step although his face registered wary relief. He looked down at me, figuring how to cope, then he dropped beside me as if to enjoy the view.
‘Been here long?’ His fingers tested the wet grass, as his eyes took in my sodden clothes. He already knew the answer.
‘Some time,’ I said, though it wasn’t true. No time: that was the meaning of eternity. One endless moment, without beginning or end.
He pulled off his sweater. Hand knitted. The frizz of the wool felt alien against me, as he tugged it round my shoulders. Warm. I didn’t want to be warm. His arm around me prevented me from shrugging it off.
‘What’s the matter, Kate? What’s happened?’
I was going to have to break out of this capsule of isolation. Move. Speak.
‘Sylvia called me,’ he explained. ‘She’s worried. Michael never came to bed and when she went looking for you, you weren’t there either. She’s in a panic.’
‘Yes. Of course. Poor Sylvia.’
‘Have you been out here all night, Kate?’
‘No. Not all night.’
‘It rained. You’re drenched. And hurt! Look. You’re scratched and bruised and there’s blood on your leg.’
I looked down at torn, soaked denim. ‘Oh. Yes. I walked into something.’
Al was looking me over for worse damage. ‘Maybe you should come down now?’ he suggested softly. ‘You’re like ice. We don’t want hypothermia.’ Cluck, cluck. This was how he worried over Kim.
I would have to go, to humour him, but my limbs wouldn’t move. Had the stones claimed me? I didn’t mind. It was a good place to stay.
He gathered me up, raising me to my feet, rubbing life back into my arms and legs. ‘I searched around, then I thought of the stones. Kate, why are you here?’
