The Beautiful Dead

by Belinda Bauer

  She slid half an inch, and the fine golden wire bit into her neck.

  ‘Help me!’ the killer gasped. ‘I can’t hold on!’

  ‘Then let go!’

  He didn’t, but slipped a few more inches down her in a relentless drag. Eve shouted in pain and looked up to see the skin slowly start to peel up her hand in its effort to fit through the shackle. She twisted and pulled and kicked one desperate leg free of his grasp.

  He shouted furiously, ‘If I fall, he’ll die! You’ll never find him!’

  ‘I already found him, you prick! I already know where he is! And as soon as I’ve kicked you off me I’m going home and we’ll all have a good laugh about you over Christmas fucking lunch!’

  ‘Whore!’ he roared. ‘Whore!’ He tried to climb her. Strengthened by fury, his fingers squeezed and bruised her thighs, his nails scraping deep gouges in her hip. His hand grabbed for hers … Eve shrieked and snatched it away, then groped above her head and found the cuffs with her left hand; she gripped the short chain – a little relief for her right wrist – and started to twist and strain against him. She felt something start to trickle down her neck, under her right ear. She hoped it was sweat; she knew it was blood. How much flesh and tendon was left between the wire and her jugular vein? Half an inch? Half a millimetre?

  She needed him off her!

  Eve ignored everything but her own survival. Kicked madly at him. Felt his grip loosening—

  His contorted face was flecked with blood that Eve knew must be hers. And beyond him, below him, the crowd – the audience they’d both craved. The faceless, amorphous mass of stupid humanity staring up expectantly, like sea lions waiting for fish.

  Except for one small space where the masses had parted to give room and respect to …

  … a tiny black woman pointing a gun.

  Even from here, the gun looked enormous.

  The killer saw it – and then looked up at Eve with such raw terror that she laughed.

  ‘Now it’s your turn to die!’ she cried.

  And then kicked him in the face. And again. And again. Even as he clutched and jerked beneath her, and even as her own hand funnelled agonizingly through the metal cuff.

  ‘Not me!’ he shrieked. ‘Not me!’

  ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ she laughed at him. ‘Don’t you feel lucky?’

  ‘We had a deal!’ he screamed. ‘This is my exhibition!’

  ‘Well, everyone’s watching you now,’ she said. ‘You fucking show-off!’

  And she kicked him one last time.

  The crowd scattered as the killer fell, but Eve never saw him hit the ground.

  With an inhuman howl, her thumb finally gave way and her hand slipped right through the shackle of Emily Aguda’s best handcuffs.

  But she didn’t fall.

  Why didn’t she fall?

  For a moment Eve was disorientated. She swayed drunkenly in the air – still waiting for the dizzying drop to her death.

  She looked up into Joe’s face – sweat on his brow, and teeth gritted with the effort of holding on to her slick, bloody wrists.

  Slowly he hauled her up to the precarious safety of the broad iron branch.

  He loosened the golden wire from around her bloody throat while she cradled her swelling hand and shook like a leaf on a great iron tree.

  ‘We have to go,’ she croaked.

  He nodded. ‘I’ve called an ambulance.’

  ‘No!’ she said. ‘We have to go home!’

  Joe didn’t argue. He led her shakily back to the balcony, while far below them, the last audience Eve would ever have barked their approval and clapped their flippers and jostled to film the exploded corpse on the gallery floor.

  53

  ‘EVE! WAIT FOR the bomb squad! WAIT!’

  But Eve Singer didn’t wait. She had opened the door and was out of the Range Rover before Aguda had brought it to a halt. She disappeared through the garden gate.

  ‘Shit!’ Aguda slammed on the brakes in exasperation and threw open her own door. ‘Is she always like this?’

  ‘Always,’ said Joe as he followed both of them.

  Aguda thought he made it sound like a good thing.

  ‘Dad! Dad!’

  Eve ran through the house.

  Duncan wasn’t downstairs. She ran upstairs. His room. Her room. The box room.

  ‘DAD!’

  Joe and Aguda came after her.

  ‘He’s not here,’ cried Eve, with panic rising within her. ‘He’s not here!’

  She’d been so sure that he would be. So sure, that she hadn’t cared any more if the killer died. Kicked him to his death! She didn’t need him to find Duncan! She knew where he was! All she had to do was go home and he’d be right there! She knew it. Her gut had told her so.

  Her gut had been wrong.

  How stupid she’d been. How arrogant! To equate random white noise with the ambient soundtrack of her own life! Even if what she’d heard on the video was a plane – and even if that plane was landing or taking off from Heathrow – there must be a hundred thousand buildings under the flight path. A hundred thousand places Duncan could be!

  And if this wasn’t the right place, then how would they find him?

  The ghastly truth was that they wouldn’t. Not in time to save his life.

  Eve checked her watch. Fifteen minutes to go.

  It was too late. Her father was going to die.

  Somewhere.

  And it would be her fault.

  ‘I smell cat’s pee.’

  Eve and Joe both looked at Aguda. Her nose was wrinkled in disgust.

  ‘I don’t have a cat,’ said Eve.

  ‘Then it could be gas,’ said Aguda.

  ‘I don’t have gas either.’ Then she frowned. ‘Mr Elias has gas …’

  Joe banged hard on Mr Elias’s front door, but there was no answer.

  No lights were on, even though it was already dark outside.

  Eve peered through the letter box and shouted his name, but heard nothing in return. A shiver ran up the back of her skull as she spotted loops of golden piano wire spilling from a pile of splintered wood in a doorway off the hall.

  ‘Stand clear,’ said Aguda, and pulled out her gun.

  Eve quickly put her good finger in her ear, but Aguda didn’t fire. Instead she smashed the front window.

  The stench of gas spilled out.

  ‘Stay here,’ said Aguda, and switched on her torch. ‘No sparks!’ Then she cleared the frame with a few swift swipes of the barrel of her gun, and dived head-first into the house.

  The room looked as if a bomb had already gone off in it. Mr Elias was lying on his side on the destroyed sofa, unconscious. With a grunt, Aguda heaved him on to her shoulders and then tipped him through the window to safety.

  ‘Get him away from the house!’

  She didn’t wait to make sure she was obeyed. She checked her watch. Twelve minutes to go.

  The beam of her torch was narrow and the house was torn up, so it was hard to see what was what. If there was a bomb, she wasn’t going to find it unless it was very big, and labelled BOMB. So instead of searching for it, Aguda started to throw open doors and windows, running from room to room, trying desperately to empty the house of gas so that the explosion, when it came, might not be so great.

  Ten minutes.

  The gas got her in the back of the throat and made her cough, but it wasn’t at killing levels. That was good. It meant Mr Elias was probably still alive when she’d thrown him through the window – she hadn’t stopped to check.

  She had a coughing fit, as she dashed up the stairs to check the bedrooms for Duncan Singer. Or anyone.

  There was nobody there.

  Eight minutes.

  Aguda had done all she could. She yanked open the front door and ran up the garden path.

  ‘He’ll be OK,’ said Joe.

  They were kneeling in the snow outside the gate. Joe had peeled the tape from around Mr Elias’s head, and once
the gag had been removed from his mouth, his colour had started to come back.

  They could hear approaching sirens.

  ‘We need to get away from the houses,’ said Aguda, skidding to a breathless halt beside them. ‘Over the road!’

  ‘But what about Dad?’

  ‘He’s not in there, Eve. I checked. I’m sorry.’

  Aguda and Joe got Mr Elias to his feet and supported him as they crossed the road to the red phone box.

  Eve looked at her watch.

  Seven minutes to go.

  ‘Shit!’ she said. ‘Munchkin!’

  Before anyone could stop her, she turned and dashed back inside. Munchkin was waiting for her, up on his hind legs accusingly.

  ‘Did you think I’d forgotten you?’ she said. ‘Well, I had!’

  And she leaned and scooped him up in her good hand and popped him in her pocket.

  ‘There were birds in the sky …’

  Eve froze. Then slowly turned her head towards the song.

  ‘But I never saw them winging …’

  ‘Dad?’

  It was her father’s voice. That old song he used to sing to her mother in the car. So clear and yet so far that it was like a magical memory, buried deep inside her own head.

  ‘There were bells on a hill …’

  A heart-ache of a tune and timeless words. And a simple acoustic guitar—

  ‘Oh my God!’ she shouted. ‘He’s in the attic!’

  Eve took the stairs two at a time, so fast that it was more like flying. In the box room she looked up, panting, and felt the blood drain from her heart.

  It was there – on the hatch.

  EXHIBITION

  Venue: Here

  Date: Today

  Time: 16.00

  Eve looked at her watch.

  She had four minutes.

  54

  ONLY ONE OF Eve’s hands was useful and it was the wrong one.

  The hook on the end of the long wooden pole wouldn’t go through the eye in the hatch for what felt like days! Eve’s eyes were so blurred by desperate tears and her hand so shaky that she couldn’t keep the bloody thing still!

  Finally it hit home, and she yanked the ladder down, threw aside the pole and clambered awkwardly up the rickety wooden steps.

  The stink of gas was much worse up here.

  ‘Dad!’

  Duncan Singer looked at her in surprise. He was sat on a box in the dark, with his guitar on his knees and a phone on his chest that counted down the last minutes of his life in glowing green numbers:

  00:03:17 … 16 … 15 …

  Eve scrambled across the rough planking and hugged him, and a single great sob of relief escaped her.

  Old relief, new panic.

  ‘Dad, we have to get out of here.’ She took his hand and tried to pull him to his feet, but he didn’t budge.

  ‘Who’s Dad?’ he said blankly.

  That was why he hadn’t answered her earlier. Of course! He never knew he was Dad.

  ‘Da—Duncan,’ she said. ‘We have to go! Hurry!’

  ‘I’m busy,’ he said, tapping the guitar. ‘I’m doing important work for the government.’

  ‘But there’s a bomb in the house!’

  ‘I know,’ he said, looking at his own chest. ‘Three minutes to go!’

  ‘Duncan, you have to come with me or we’re both going to die!’

  She grabbed his hand again, but he shook her off.

  ‘You go on ahead,’ he said. ‘And your mother and I will catch you up.’

  ‘Don’t—’

  Eve almost cried. She almost gave up. She almost did. She almost just left him and ran.

  00:02:22 … 21 … 20 …

  Eve looked around desperately for inspiration. The attic was just as she’d last seen it, except for a pile of rubble that had been part of the wall between their attic and Mr Elias’s. Her mother’s books were newly covered in brick-dust.

  Seeing those books made her ache for the people they used to be. No wonder Duncan’s mind had taken refuge in the past. Everything was easier there.

  Not everything, she thought suddenly.

  ‘Duncan,’ she said firmly. ‘Mrs Cole’s electrics have gone.’

  ‘Oh no!’ he said, and put down the guitar. ‘I only just rewired that house!’

  ‘I know!’ she said. ‘Hell of a job!’

  He stood up a little shakily and walked towards her in the darkness. All she could see were those glowing green numbers: 00:01:55 … 54 … 53 …

  She went down the ladder so fast she nearly fell, wincing every time her injured hand touched anything.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  She looked up. Duncan had stopped near the top of the ladder.

  ‘Mrs Cole’s. The wiring. Hurry!’

  ‘Who’s Mrs Cole?’

  Eve looked up at her father in horror. He’d never forgotten Mrs Cole. Not once! Mrs Cole had been a constant in their lives for three long years – a touchstone she could always rely on to connect her to Duncan. And now, just when she needed her most, Mrs Cole had dropped from the crumbling edifice of her father’s brain like a chunk of falling masonry.

  Eve reached up and grabbed his trouser cuff and tried to drag him down the ladder, but he tried to pull away and climb back into the attic.

  ‘Daddy! Duncan! Please! I don’t want to die and I don’t want you to die, so we have to get out of here!’

  But her father looked down at her without recognition or understanding in his eyes, and Eve saw the numbers on the timer turn red.

  One minute to go.

  She yanked him off the ladder. He landed on top of her and she shoved him off her. He was dazed and winded. She didn’t care. She didn’t care if he’d broken every bone in his body. She gripped her father’s arm and dragged him down the landing to the top of the stairs.

  ‘Joe!’

  Joe grabbed Duncan and slung him over his shoulder like a pig off to market.

  ‘Get out!’ he yelled. ‘Get out!’

  And she did. They all did. They went downstairs and out of the house and into the Christmas-card street, where fairytale decorations were joined by the flashing blue lights of two fire engines coming slowly down College Road.

  Joe put Duncan down at the garden gate and between them they led him off the kerb and between cars, towards the blood-red phone box where Mr Elias was standing and breathing and alive, beside Emily Aguda.

  So what if the house blew up? It wasn’t important. They’d got out! They’d made it by the skin of their teeth, but they were all alive and that was all that mattered—

  ‘Eve! EVE!’

  Suddenly Aguda was running and shouting, ‘Get down! GET DOWN!’ And pointing.

  But not at her.

  At her father.

  Eve turned to look at Duncan.

  And it was only then – under the silver puddle of street light – that she saw he was wearing the bomb.

  55

  ‘EVE! RUN!’

  It was the only thing to do.

  But Eve didn’t do it.

  The red numbers ran down.

  13 … 12 … 11 …

  Joe had her arm, but Eve didn’t move at all. Not even her heart. It stopped, and she actually felt the absence of beats.

  Instead she stood and looked stupidly at the bomb that was strapped around her father’s waist with brown packing tape. Wires and switches and connectors and a grey block of what she assumed was plastic explosive. Hidden first by the guitar, and then by the dark, and then by her own mad panic.

  She couldn’t outrun it.

  Facing it wouldn’t help.

  8 … 7 … 6 …

  ‘Eve!’ Joe pleaded. But he didn’t let go of her.

  Eve lived a thousand lifetimes in the eternity between second six and second five, and replayed her decision a million more –

  5 … 4 … 3 …

  – and always came up with the same answer.

  ‘I love you!’ she said fie
rcely, and hugged her father as hard as she could.

  He put his arms around her and said, ‘No seconds to go.’

  Eve never heard the bomb go off.

  56

  SLOWLY, SLOWLY, EVE Singer opened her eyes.

  They were still in the snow in the middle of College Road.

  She looked down at the timer between them.

  00:00:00

  ‘It didn’t go off,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ said Duncan as he stepped away from her. ‘I made it safe.’

  He held up two loose wires. Next to one was a little yellow sticker off a banana.

  Fairtrade, it said.

  ‘He made it safe?’ said Joe, as he slowly opened his eyes. ‘He could have told us!’

  Eve started to laugh.

  Duncan smiled at them both. ‘Sometimes I just wish I could die too,’ he said, and Eve’s laugh died on her lips.

  ‘But not today,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Not today.’

  57

  Christmas Day

  BY ORDER OF Detective Sergeant Emily Aguda, Eve Singer saw in Christmas Day in an A&E department that was a lino purgatory of drunks, blood and vomit.

  Her thumb was dislocated, and putting it back into its socket now that her adrenaline had worn off was even more painful than popping it out had been, but for some weird reason the NHS saw no need for a painkilling injection to complete the operation.

  Finally, in the face of Eve’s howls of pain, Aguda shouldered aside the tight-lipped nurse, opened a cupboard, found a syringe and a bottle and gave Eve a shot of morphine, right in front of the furious, frazzled junior doctor.

  ‘I’m reporting you to your commanding officer,’ he yelled.

  ‘And I’m reporting you to Hippocrates,’ she said calmly as she depressed the plunger. ‘So I win.’

  While Emily Aguda was being underestimated by the National Health Service, Huw Rees was sitting at his desk in a near-empty office, watching the video footage found on the killer’s cracked but functional iPhone.