‘Sooner than you may think.’
Frank leaned forward and put his head close to Swain’s, their eyes locking. The gun in his jacket pocket felt heavy. His desire to end this man’s life was now overwhelming.
‘You and your sister have taken too much away from me. More than I can bear. Your sister had a bloody end, and I wish I had pulled the trigger. Now it’s your turn. There’s no one else down here with us, Larry. No one at all. Custody sergeant is away from his desk. So, there’s nothing to prevent me from killing you right here and now.’
Swain closed his eyes and sighed. ‘You can’t rattle me, Frank. You seem to forget that.’
‘Oh, I think I can, Swain. Remember Tiny, my hairy eight-legged friend?’
Swain visibly paled. His face lost its arrogant sneer, torn away in a single moment of recollection. ‘So, you won that one. You’re still lagging behind, Frank. That minor triumph doesn’t compare with what I’ve done to your head.’
Again, the weight of the gun pressed against Frank’s chest. It would take only seconds to pull it and fire, empty the clip, end this bastard’s miserable life. Seconds out of a whole lifetime.
‘How can I allow you to live, Swain? How can I allow you to live and breathe while my son is no longer able to?’
Swain smiled at him. ‘Because you haven’t got the balls.’
Frank returned the smile, hardening his eyes. ‘Really? Are you sure about that?’
‘Oh, I’m certain. It takes strength to do what I do, Frank. The kind of mental strength you simply don’t have. If the roles were reversed, you’d be dead already.’
‘Are you baiting me, you prick? You want me to prove I have what it takes?’
‘Anytime you’re ready, Frank. Here I am, waiting. On the other side, I will have my dear sisters with me. You can kill me, Frank, but you can’t hurt me. And you know what else?’ His eyes gleamed triumphantly. ‘You can’t possibly win.’
Frank straightened, looming over the man. He glared down at him for several seconds, his hand itching to move to the inside pocket of his jacket. He wanted this man punished. But how do you punish a man who seeks death? The question hung before his mind’s eye. And then suddenly the way ahead was so clear he almost stopped breathing.
‘You’re wrong,’ he said flatly. ‘I’ve been agonising over this, Swain. One minute I want you dead and I want to be the one who wipes you off the face of the planet, and then a voice reminds me that I have a daughter who needs me more than ever before. An accident? A little fall down the stairs? I’ve considered that, too. But that isn’t personal enough. Shooting you would be the easiest thing in the world, and we both know you deserve it.’
Frank paused, turning it over in his mind. ‘You said I can’t win. I believe I can. I want you gone, but the truth is I want you to suffer the way my daughter suffered. To feel terror, fear and pain. It occurs to me now that the real fear, the real suffering for you would be to carry on living in this world, locked away from your desires, locked away inside your own mind.’
The madman’s eyes flew open. His face had now taken on a bleached-white pallor. ‘You don’t mean that, Frank. You can’t. What about what I did to your son and daughter? You can’t allow me to live after all I’ve done to you and your family.’
‘Swain, if that’s what hurts you the most, then that’s how I’m going to have it. Killing you now would give me pleasure for a moment, but forcing you to live will provide satisfaction for the rest of my life.’
‘You don’t know that. You can’t. If you have a gun, Frank, use it now. That’s the only way you can be certain of my suffering.’
‘I don’t think so. Not now. I don’t think you want to be locked up in a small cell all by yourself. It gets dark in those places at night. I could even drop one of the screws a few quid and have him slip something into your cell the way I did.’
Swain’s flesh now pressed tight against the bone beneath, his neck and cheeks drawing colour from rage. ‘Your son begged for mercy, Frank. Laura, too. I tore your boy to pieces, and I screwed with your little girl every chance I got. What kind of man are you? What kind of man would let the person who killed his son and ruined his daughter live a single day more?’
His words echoed, lingering in the room like uninvited guests. Frank looked deep into Lawrence Swain’s eyes, and saw not his soul but what lay in his heart. ‘The kind of man who is better than you,’ Frank whispered. ‘I know you now, Swain. I know you don’t want to live. You will die some time, but not today. And not by my hand.’
‘Coward!’
‘Enjoy the next forty years or so, Swain. And remember something while you’re sitting in jail: I’m the man who put you there. Think of that every minute of every day.’
‘No. That’s not the way it’s meant to be. Kill me, Frank. You have to kill me.’
‘I don’t have to do anything of the sort. Do you appreciate the irony of that, Swain?’
The man shook his head, sitting upright now, face creased in abject misery. ‘I can’t be allowed to live. You must want me dead. You must.’
‘And I do. So much more than you can possibly believe. But only after you’ve felt the fear your victims felt. Only after you’ve been left to rot in your own stench, knowing that I could have killed you and chose not to.’
‘But that’s not the way it was meant to be.’
‘‘Meant to be’?’
‘Yes. Let me quote you something: ‘I only knew what haunted thought quickened his step, and why, he looked upon the garish day with such a wistful eye. The man had killed the thing he loved, and so he had to die.’’ He nodded frantically. ‘Had to die, Frank. Had to.’
‘Another gem from your idol, eh, Swain. The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Did you imagine yourself ever being in jail like him?’
And then the absolute truth dawned on Frank. So clear, so bright, so obvious. He’d missed it all along.
‘Yes, that’s it. Of course. You have imagined it. You wanted this, didn’t you? You killed Sophie all those years ago, and when you found you couldn’t really replace her, you convinced yourself that you had to die for it. The man had killed the thing he loved, and so he had to die. That’s why you involved me. You could have gone on taking girls indefinitely, but you changed your MO. That’s also why you left Karen Redbridge alive. Another lead for us. You wanted to be caught, didn’t you, Swain?’
‘No.’
‘You’re lying. I can tell, you know that by now I’m sure. Your subconscious was telling you all along that you had to die. You killed Sophie – the thing you loved most – and so you had to die. You couldn’t kill yourself, that would have taken far too much courage, so you had to get someone to do it for you. It just happened to be me. After you’d taken Laura and you realised who I was, you started setting it all up. You knew that if you hurt me by hurting my family, that I would want you dead. Isn’t that right, Swain?’
‘No. No, you’re wrong.’
Frank took a step forward. ‘Isn’t that right, Swain?’
‘No. No, no, no!’
‘Larry?’
Silence. Then: ‘Yes.’
‘And you wanted to die like those men described by Wilde.’
‘For my sins. Yes. I killed the thing I loved, Frank. I killed her over and over and over. I have to die. You have to kill me, Frank.’
Frank’s grin had turned icy. He stared down at Swain as if looking at an insect. ‘You’ll rot inside a cell, you bastard. And you’ll know pain every day for the rest of your life.’
‘No!’ Swain howled. He got to his feet. ‘You can’t do that to me. You must kill me. Think of what I did to Laura, to Janet and Gary. They’re inside my head and I can’t get rid of them. They haunt me, Frank. Sophie, all the others …’
Frank moved slowly back outside the cell. ‘Suffer,’ he said. ‘Suffer, because a monster like you deserves to.’ And then he slammed the cell door shut.
As he walked unsteadily along the corridor he heard the madman’
s cries. This time they were not triumphant. This time they were cries of terror and utmost misery.
69
Frank felt as if he ought to have a season ticket to hospital. Two recent visits to have his own wounds tended, Laura still being observed in a specialist unit in Fulham, and now yet another trip to a private room in which the woman he loved struggled to regain her health following several days in the intensive care unit.
On the same day that Laura had been rescued, a ruptured appendix had almost cost Debbie her life. Frank was acutely conscious that he had spared her little thought and less time in the days that followed, Laura’s condition having demanded most of his attention. Today he brought fruit with him, but mostly he was laden with an overwhelming sense of guilt.
Debbie was sitting up in bed when he arrived, some colour having returned to her cheeks. She’d lost a good deal of weight, and only yesterday had cracked a joke about the ‘near-death’ diet. Frank took his usual place by her side, perched awkwardly on the edge of the bed. He kissed her lips, and smiled as he recognised a familiar taste.
‘You’re wearing lipstick,’ he said. He studied her closely. ‘And is that a little blusher and eye-shadow I see?’
Debbie gave a wide grin. ‘It is. Some of the doctors here are hot, you know.’
He winked. ‘Some of the nurses, too, if you’re that way inclined.’
She ran a hand down his stitched cheek. The wound was still fresh and ugly. Her other hand reflexively sought her own wound. She shook her head and managed a weak laugh. ‘Aren’t we a couple of fine specimens? A pair of disfigured book-ends.’
‘A damaged-yet-perfect pair,’ Frank said. ‘How do you feel, sweetheart?’
‘I feel stronger, Frank. Strong enough for you to tell me what’s been happening the past few days.’
He nodded and took her hands in his. He told her about Laura’s lack of real progress, the misery of seeing his daughter in an almost catatonic state, about the clamour of media attention he’d received, and then spoke about Lawrence Swain for the first time since his last visit to the man’s cell.
‘I wanted to kill him, Debs. But not just shoot him in the head and have done with it. No. No, I wanted to put a bullet in each knee, then one in each elbow. I wanted him to feel some pain, the kind of pain he’s been dishing out. Then I wanted to gut-shoot him and let him bleed out, because I know it’s a slow and excruciating death. I wanted him to suffer before dying. But most of all I wanted him gone.’
Debbie was regarding him as if she barely recognised the man sitting by her side. ‘Then it’s a good job you came to your senses,’ she said, her voice flat and uncertain.
‘It was nothing to do with senses. I simply realised what would torture him more. And that was living with it. With all those voices inside his head, eating away at him each and every day.’
Frank realised his grin was becoming fixed in place, but he couldn’t help himself.
‘How exactly did you find out where Laura was being held?’
Frank told Debbie about Swain’s fear, and how he had exploited it. The look of horror on her face disturbed him, but in his own mind he knew that what he had done could be justified.
‘It was either that or claim Laura’s body later,’ he finished weakly. ‘He would never have told me otherwise, and we would never have found out without him telling us. I had to find a way inside his head, Debs.’
‘Oh, I think you did that, Frank.’
He nodded. ‘You sound almost as if you wished I hadn’t. Ask Laura if she agrees with you.’
Debbie snatched back her hand. ‘I’m tired now,’ she said. ‘I think I’d like to rest for a while.’
Frank realised he’d been unkind. As he got to his feet he held up his hands. ‘Okay, I apologise for that crack about Laura. I can see how repulsed you are at the tactics I employed to get that information out of Swain, but surely you can understand why I did it. One man’s brief few moments of terror in exchange for a life has to be worthwhile, Debs. Particularly when it was my daughter’s life. Why can’t you accept that?’
Debbie held his gaze. In her eyes, there was sadness and regret, where minutes before there had been joy and hope.
‘It’s not that I can’t accept it, Frank. I understand why you did it, of course I do. But you don’t seem to appreciate the cost.’
‘What cost? I got Laura back. She’s safe now. Where’s the problem?’
‘The problem is that you crossed over into the abyss, Frank,’ Debbie said, lowering her head. ‘And I’m not at all sure that you will find your way back.’
70
When Debbie called at the house it was something of a surprise. She had been out of hospital for a few days, but had not wanted to see him. Frank had respected her wishes, despite not knowing exactly what had gone wrong between them. He had telephoned her a couple of times, but their conversations had been stilted and one-sided.
Laura had recently moved out of her self-induced coma-like state, so he’d had other things on his mind during that time. The look of joy on her face when he slipped her stuffed Tigger into the bed alongside her, reminded him that despite Laura’s age, she was still a child at heart. It felt like a lifetime ago since he had removed the toy from Paul Clarke’s home, not knowing at the time whether Laura would live to enjoy it. Yet here she was. His baby was unwell, but she was safe. Nothing else seemed to matter.
Now he and Debbie sat together in the garden, sipping sparkling white wine; uncomfortable, seemingly out of reach of one another.
‘I had to come,’ she explained, managing a weak smile. She shifted uncomfortably on her chair, winced. He imagined her stomach would still be tender. ‘I had to see you. Talk to you, face to face.’
He lowered his eyes so that she would not see his pain. He could guess what she was about to say, had known it since that day in the hospital.
‘You’ve come to say goodbye,’ he said.
Debbie nodded. ‘That is why I came here today, yes. There was so much going for us before … before all this. It’s not your fault that things have changed, that we have changed, but it’s not mine either. I feel so desperately sorry for all that you’ve lost, Frank. And for how things are with Laura, of course. It must be so difficult for you to have saved her from that woman, only to have her so badly traumatised. Unimaginable. But one day, she’ll come all the way out of it. One day you’ll have her back.’
At that moment, Laura was still lying in a hospital bed, wide awake yet completely unaware of her surroundings. She had recognised Frank when he’d seen her last, but had spoken less than a dozen words to him. She remained under constant observation, but he had been warned not to expect a swift recovery.
‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Maybe she’ll come out of it. But even if she does, I doubt she will ever be the same little girl.’
‘So, you have to be there for her. Make it up to her somehow, lead her out of the darkness.’
‘But you won’t do it with me?’
‘I don’t know if I’m strong enough, Frank. I have to be this honest, because I think so much of you. You come with a lot of baggage, that’s for sure. But it’s not even that. The fact is … you frighten me.’
‘I know.’ He looked away.
The garden was warm and welcoming, as it had been throughout the entire summer. But at that moment it felt cold and lonely.
‘Something inside you died, Frank. There’s a huge piece of you missing now. I worry that what happened squeezed all the goodness out of you. You say that Laura will never be the same, well, neither will you. I’ve seen signs of that already.’
Frank nodded. His heart, already incredibly burdened, grew heavier still. ‘You need to bear in mind my emotional state that day at the hospital. And how it was when I did those things to Swain. None of that was entirely the real me. But you’re right, even so. I know you are. I know that I have to get my life in order, and then somehow get my little girl back. I just didn’t want to face all that without you.’
/>
Debbie wiped a stray tear from her cheek. ‘You must think me heartless.’
‘No.’ He shook his head, shifted sideways and took her hands between his. ‘No, Debs, you’re the one thinking straight. Perhaps there can be no future for the two of us, when I’m not even certain of my own.’
Frank closed his eyes as the conversation paused. There was no Gary to break the silence. Never would be again. Laura would be home eventually, but in his heart Frank believed he had also lost his daughter for good. And now Debbie.
He had a life to be getting on with, a business to resurrect, a little girl to help through the bad times – out of the darkness, as Debbie had put it. Perhaps if he kept busy enough he would somehow stop himself from reflecting on how empty his life was going to be, and how desperately lonely he already felt.
This was just all so damned wrong. After he had been through so much, overcoming the worst life has to offer, there seemed no point in not taking one more step. He looked into Debbie’s eyes.
‘Do you love me?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘I do. Of course, I do.’
‘Then can you really see no way past this, Debs? Sure, we have fences to mend. They may be badly broken, but are they so completely irreparable? So insurmountable?’
Her gaze narrowed. ‘I honestly don’t know, Frank.’
He squeezed her hands tighter. ‘Which to me suggests we still have a chance.’
‘You may be right. Thing is, Laura will need you soon. All of you, if she is going to recover.’
He nodded. ‘I realise that. I just happen to think that what she really needs is a happy me. And you make me happy. With all that I have lost, I genuinely believe I still have a shot at being happy.’
‘And you deserve to be, Frank. You so deserve to be.’
‘Then please don’t give up on us, Debs. Even if you have to walk away now, don’t make it for good. I’m not stupid enough to believe you won’t struggle to get past what I did. But I also believe that, given enough time, you may come to understand my reasons and accept that I am never going to be that person again. How awful it would be, for all of us, if that were to happen too late to rescue everything we have.’
Degrees of Darkness Page 36
