by David Mark
Hollow manages the tiniest of smiles. ‘I thought she’d want him dead. I had to honour her wishes.’
‘You never involved any of your other damsels in distress the way you involved Hannah. Why not?’
Hollow looks around him. His hair flutters in the breeze from the smashed window. He looks at the mingled blood on the stone floor. His shoulders slump.
‘With the others, I liked that they knew, but didn’t know. They met a man, told him their problems, and those problems went away. Hannah saw the world differently. She wanted to believe in gallantry. Chivalry. The old ways. I wanted her to know that David Hogg was suffering for no other reason than because she ordered it. I wanted her to know I was hers.’
‘You wanted to fuck her, Reuben.’
‘No.’
‘You might not want to admit it, but you wanted to fuck all of them.’
‘I didn’t. Not like you think.’
Pharaoh considers him, sucking on her cheek. ‘Your internet history should make for interesting reading. Delphine says you’re into all sorts of dark stuff. Smells. Hair. Hannah knew all that. She read up on how to become the perfect woman for you.’
‘She was a good person. She was beautiful. But I wouldn’t have ever let anything physical happen.’
‘I don’t think you physically could anyway, Reuben. I think you’re impotent and you get your kicks seeing yourself as a hero. I don’t think the woman you physically want actually exists.’
‘I wanted you.’
‘No you didn’t. You wanted me to look at you with adoration and admiration in my eyes. You wanted me to know you were somebody spectacular.’
‘You lied to me,’ says Hollow, looking at her for a moment before turning away. ‘You were trying to catch me. What did you really think of me? Underneath all the lies and pretending? Do you think I was doing anything bad?’
Pharaoh takes another swig of elderflower gin. ‘You’re going to go to prison for murder,’ she says flatly. ‘Lots of murders. So is Delphine.’
‘She’s not a murderer,’ says Hollow. ‘She made mistakes.’
‘She killed Hannah because she knew Hannah better than you ever did. She knew she was a good person who couldn’t live with knowing what she knew about you. Eventually, Hannah would have told somebody. Delphine stopped that. She pretended to be you. Set Hannah up and killed her. Brought her home and dumped her body under a pile of manure. When did she tell you about it? Were you supposed to be pleased? Did it make you twitch?’
‘Don’t say these things, Trish. Please.’
Pharaoh shakes her head. ‘Ava Delaney,’ she says, accentuating each syllable. ‘She wasn’t such a good girl, was she? She was much more honest about what she wanted. She wanted money to keep your secret.’
‘She was confused. Life’s difficult. She would never have gone through with her threats.’
‘Delphine thought she would. She was so convinced that Ava would tell your secrets, she went to her home, poisoned her and killed her.’
Hollow looks down at the floor. Pharaoh would love to know what he is seeing behind his closed eyelids.
‘I told Ava personal things,’ he mumbles. ‘When Delphine saw the pictures she sent me, it upset her. It upset her a lot.’
‘She sent you pictures of herself looking vulnerable and helpless and with a full bush of armpit hair,’ spits Pharaoh. ‘She tried to win your heart, or at the very least, interest your dick.’
‘You’re spoiling it,’ says Hollow. ‘You’re dirtying it.’
‘It was fucking dirty, you silly bastard,’ hisses Pharaoh. ‘You weren’t Sir Fucking Galahad. You were a creepy bloke in the pub who killed people to impress women. And when you impressed the wrong ones and they fell for you, your stepdaughter killed them.’
‘I would have talked her down,’ says Hollow, desperately. ‘I’d never have let her kill you.’
‘I saw it in your eyes, Reuben. You wanted to watch. You wanted to see her carve me up. I think you probably always wanted to fuck Delphine but it didn’t fit with your idea of helping these poor desperate princesses. I bet when she told you how she felt about you, it half killed you not to let her have what she wanted.’
‘No.’
‘You did this to her. You tried to impress a young girl and you liked it when she fell in love with you. You helped her dump Hannah’s body at Hector’s bloody house!’
‘She deserved to be laid somewhere pretty. Delphine was sorry for what she’d done. I was cross with her for leaving her body under the manure pile for so long. She deserved to be treated better. When you told me how much she meant to McAvoy it made sense to leave her for him. He would take care of her.’
‘You half broke his soul, you sick bastard. I bet you stroked your stepdaughter’s hair the whole drive there and back. I can see it. I know what you are.’
Hollow sneers at her, momentarily recognisable as the man who turned her world upside down.
‘You wanted me,’ he says defiantly. ‘You know you did.’
Pharaoh considers this. Gives him a smile. ‘Maybe. But when we had our moment, I saw nothing but fear in your eyes. Fear that I would find out your secret. Fear that I’d realise you can only get hard for pictures on the internet and the look of adoration in women’s eyes. That’s why you rejected me. You were scared of me.’
‘Don’t say that . . .’
‘A man called Aberlour is going to come and talk to you soon,’ says Pharaoh, screwing the cap back on the gin bottle. ‘I don’t know what he’ll want you to say. But I think that if you want people to view you the way you view yourself, you’ll confess to all of your crimes. And if you want Delphine to spend her life getting help rather than counting off the days of a life sentence, you’ll persuade her to do the same. I know that what matters most to you is the way women view you. You can be a good man in their eyes, or you can be a sick fuck. The choice is yours.’
Hollow cannot hold her gaze. He looks away but finds nothing to sustain him, so he looks down at the floor.
‘It’s not easy,’ he says, almost to himself. ‘Being good. Being the right kind of man.’
Pharaoh pushes herself back from the table. Looks at him with nothing but contempt.
‘I know what a good man looks like.’
Hollow watches her turn her back and enjoys the shape of her. He catches her scent and savours it.
‘You liked my sculptures of you,’ he says, to her back.
Pharaoh stops. She turns. Sees nothing but a shrivelled, half-formed thing.
‘They weren’t sculptures of me,’ she says, as she walks up the steps to the door. ‘They were sculptures of a person only you could see.’
‘You’re beautiful, Trish.’
‘Fuck off, Reuben.’
Chapter 34
Wednesday morning, 9.04 a.m.
A private room at Hull Royal Infirmary. The smell of wet wool and dried blood. The trace of lipstick and machine coffee. Two types of perfume and cigarettes.
McAvoy’s decision to wake up is an act of mercy for himself. He simply can’t listen to any more.
He makes a show of opening his eyes. Feigns grogginess for a while. Allows the yellow light and the white walls to swim into focus. Stares up into the faces of two women who could be mother and daughter, but who would kill him for ever saying so aloud.
‘You’re back,’ says Pharaoh, trying not to smile. ‘Christ, you snore like a hippo.’
‘Jesus but you scared me,’ says Roisin. ‘The coffee from that machine tastes like it’s been stewed in a fecking sock.’
McAvoy screws up his eyes. Gives a groan as he takes stock.
‘Broken ribs . . .’
‘Broken hand . . .’
‘Hairline crack to your shinbone . . .’
‘Sixteen stitches in the back of your head . . .’
‘They had to shave your hair . . .’
‘You look great.’
McAvoy closes one eye. Wonders if he was better off pre
tending to be asleep. Then he remembers the agony of listening to his wife and boss make small-talk. Remembers their polite conversation; the sheer, desperate need to be civil. Decides he’s marginally better off conscious, but that if it comes to it, he’s not above passing out.
‘Hollow,’ says McAvoy. He swallows, painfully. ‘Did I cuff him? Before I passed out?’
Pharaoh gives a grin. ‘Broken jaw. Broken nose. Concussion. You beat the shit out of a serial killer, Hector. Even the people who hate you are drinking in your honour.’
‘His daughter . . . How did we not know? Did Aberlour . . . ?’
Pharaoh looks away. ‘She’ll live. Don’t know whether she wants to.’
Roisin considers him with soft eyes. She looks tired but has still found time to do her make-up. Examines him through long lashes and sparkly eyeshadow and grins at him with a mouth painted the shade of crimson that he likes.
‘The kids are downstairs with your dad,’ says Roisin. ‘He was grumbling about having to come all the way back down here. I told him you were fine but he’s not having it.’
McAvoy wonders how to feel about that and decides he has earned the right to have no opinion at all. Shifts his weight and gets a whiff of Issey Miyake and pungent Turkish cigarettes. He studies Pharaoh properly. She looks pale, but better than she has for a while. She’s washed her hair and put on some blusher. Changed her earrings and undone a button on her white blouse.
‘She killed the girls, Aector,’ says Pharaoh quietly.
‘Roisin?’ asks McAvoy, confused.
Both women laugh. He feels a warm hand stroking his bicep, but couldn’t say which of the women in his life is responsible for the act of affection.
‘Delphine. She killed Hannah. Ava, too. She had an obsession with her dad. Couldn’t stand anybody else having a hold on him.’
McAvoy lets Pharaoh’s face swim into focus again. ‘You always knew Hollow was a killer?’
She nods, holding his gaze. ‘Him, yes. Her, no. Nobody knew that. Just him, and he indulged her. They’d probably have made a good couple if they weren’t father and daughter. Or insane.’
McAvoy swallows again. Feels a sharp pain in his hand and raises it to see three fingers taped together.
‘I thought you were going soft on me,’ he says to Pharaoh, and holds her stare for a moment longer than he knows Roisin would like. ‘Thought he’d worked his way into your affections.’
‘He was a charmer,’ says Pharaoh. ‘He killed bad people. I liked him a lot. But we can’t live like that. We can’t just do what we think is best.’
‘Will he make a confession?’
‘I think so. For her, he will. She was wearing Ava Delaney’s armpit hair when she tried to kill me. That’s not a massively normal thing to do. She might spend her days in a psychiatric hospital. She’s been in the system before – she was reported as a minor. She dug up a school friend’s kitten when they were seven and was found playing with the skeleton. Her mum did her best with her but she was always a good long bus journey away from being mentally stable.’
McAvoy lifts his head. Looks at the flowers at the foot of the bed. Heather and gerberas, gypsophila and irises.
‘Helen,’ says Roisin, by way of explanation. ‘There are some chocolate strawberries from Sophia. Your mammy sent gift vouchers . . .’
Pharaoh looks at Roisin quizzically. Mouths, ‘Mammy?’.
‘She’s always a bit lost when it comes to Aector,’ says Roisin. ‘They’re not mad close. But I phoned her. You have to, don’t you?’
McAvoy lies in the bed and listens to them talk. He tells himself that they like each other, deep down. Comforts himself with the knowledge that they are making an effort to get along for nobody else’s sake than his.
‘There’s a card from Hannah’s family,’ says Pharaoh suddenly. ‘It’s simple but heartfelt. Just a thank you.’
McAvoy closes his eyes again. Swallows, and feels himself filling with a familiar emotion.
‘Where was she?’ he asks. ‘Hannah. All those months . . .’
‘Don’t think about it now, Hector. She was dead before you even took a call about her. And we’ve got who did it. That’s all we can do. We’re police, not fucking saints.’
McAvoy lies still. Enjoys the attention and wonders who stripped him and put him in his pyjamas.
He looks at Pharaoh as she smiles, then winks. It’s the closest she can get to saying she doesn’t really know what the hell has happened these past few days. Doesn’t know what to make of the world right now. He watches as she fights with her emotions. When she met Reuben Hollow he was just meant to be a new target. Somehow, he made her give a damn. Somehow, he made her want him. But whether she tried to kiss him to gain his trust, or because of something else, she will never truly know.
‘I’ve got some fancy stitches in my armpit,’ she says brightly. ‘Going to be a challenge for my roll-on. I don’t know what she’d have done with it. Sold it, maybe. Leo Sayer might be looking for a hair transplant . . .’
Roisin doesn’t have much else to tell her husband. Feels a little left out. Sucks her lip and then feigns a sudden surge of excitement. She leans forward and kisses her husband, hard and hungry, on the mouth. Before McAvoy closes his eyes, he sees Pharaoh close hers.
‘I’d best leave you to it,’ says Pharaoh. ‘Media are circulating. We don’t know what road to take on Hollow. A former inmate has told the press that Hollow spent all his days sculpting miniatures of me, so that’s going to require a carefully worded statement. Helen keeps trying to get hold of me, and I’ve got Shaz Archer bitching about being sidelined. I’ve got a million voicemails to ignore. The guy who took Hollow is only talking to Helen, but I’ve got a few questions for him myself, like what the fuck he was doing at my house. Shaz is doing her nut, which pleases me immensely. There’s never a dull moment. Seriously, Hector – stay a sergeant. It’s so much bloody easier.’
Pharaoh stands. Looks at Roisin for a moment too long. ‘I’ll sort it all,’ she says, and her words are aimed at Roisin.
Roisin nods, managing a smile. Then she turns her attention back to her husband and Pharaoh heads for the door.
McAvoy says nothing. Drinks in his wife’s perfume as she presses her face to his and inhales him. Listens for the door to close before he turns his head to Roisin and replies to her kiss.
‘He wasn’t a hero,’ she says, into his ear. ‘Not really. He found an excuse to do what he wanted. You don’t do that. You don’t want to do this. You just have to.’
McAvoy pulls his other arm out from under the blankets. Holds her to him. Kisses her cheek and uses his bandaged hand to stroke her hair. Sees himself, laid out in his hospital bed, imprinted on her beautiful, searching eyes.
‘I nearly lost myself,’ he says. ‘I nearly became something I always feared was in me. I could be him, Roisin. I could be him.’
Roisin smiles. She strokes his nose against hers, kisses him again and savours the feeling.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘But he could never be you.’
Epilogue
He’d half hoped for daylight, had allowed himself to imagine a brief splash of sunlight on his cheeks. But it’s dark. Cold. He only has a moment between the back door and the car but it’s long enough for him to get a sense of where he’s been these past months.
He’s surprised that the building is so palatial. He had expected a rubbish-strewn garden, rotten timbers and flaking paintwork. He figured, from the pervasive smells of ethnic food and the sound of video-games from the room above, that he was in a more broken-down neighbourhood than this.
Instead, he glimpses wrought-iron railings and sand-blasted brick. Snatches a look at a six-storey apartment building with a curved façade and neat balconies. He gets a glimpse of wealth and status.
‘In. Ublyudok! Get fucking in.’
He obeys the well-muscled European. He’s too weak to do anything else. His body doesn’t feel like his own. It hasn’t for a long time. His mind
feels only loosely tethered to his own control; a kite, pulling and weaving on a frayed piece of string. He only half remembers himself. Recollections bubble up unbidden, gently breaking the surface of his consciousness like goldfish rising to feed. He has a memory of his second wife. She was Thai. They buried her in a bamboo casket and when the light shone on her coffin during the funeral, he could see the outline of her corpse. He half remembers a son. A lad who called him ‘Dad’ for a while and who asked if he would stay in touch if he and his mam ever split up. He doesn’t know whether he honoured his promise.
He slithers onto luxurious leather. Presses his face against cream calfskin. Recoils, wincing, in anticipation of pain, as he realises that the mucus and blood from his nose might mark the sumptuous interior of the vehicle.
A part of him tells him to do it again. A part of him tells him to take a shit, right here.
The engine turns over with a soft, expensive-sounding purr. He feels the vehicle move away. Catches sight of himself in the blacked-out windows.
There’s not much left of him, physically. He has a sensation that he has degenerated into something made of half-devoured food. His face is little more than a skull, covered with a meat that puts him in mind of gone-off ham. His remaining teeth protrude from gums of soft, over-ripe fruit. His eyes are olive stones, pushed into chunks of brie.
Through his own face, he sees the city beyond. Sees the wealth, the pleasure-craft that bob in the harbour and the Audis and Bentleys that sniff one another’s bumpers at the kerbside.
‘Head down.’
He obeys the accented voice. He can tell something is wrong. There is anger and fear in the voices of the two men in the front of the car. They have moved him before, but never so quickly. Never so openly. Never with such panic in their eyes.
He stares at his shoes. The leather is torn and blood has soaked into the uppers. His grey trousers are the colour of wine on stone.
A memory rises. A bearded man, wordy and arrogant, bleeding out in his arms . . .
Her. The blonde. His friend. Lying. Betraying him. Doing this . . .
