Shouting voices.
She must only have been out for a second because she could see Nick’s legs, his long legs in black jeans, his feet moving past her and she could hear Duncan, and as she heaved herself upright she saw him, Duncan, she saw him launching himself through the doorway at Nick.
The two men collided.
Maggie dragged herself to a chair, forced herself upright, looked for something to use as a weapon.
There was a big book on the coffee table.
She grabbed it, and it flapped open, but she managed to slam it closed again and stagger to where they were, to whack at Nick’s head, but the book glanced off him as he moved back.
As he pulled a knife from Duncan’s belly.
‘No!’ she yelled.
She tried to hit him again, but he kicked out at her, hardly even bothering to look round, and she was flung against the back of the couch and could only watch as he stabbed Duncan again, in the chest . . . could only watch as Duncan collapsed to his knees, his eyes wide with shock, his hands pressed to his belly where blood was blooming crimson on his white T-shirt.
‘Okay there, Dad?’ Nick shouted, pulling out the knife and peering at the chest wound. ‘That looks nasty!’
Duncan keeled over onto his side and Maggie scrambled across the carpet to him, she reached for him, but before she could get there Nick was grabbing at her, and she fought him, she thrashed and spat and she tried to bite him, but he was too strong. He lifted her like she was a child, and as she screamed, as she yelled Duncan’s name, Nick slammed her to the floor and all the air went out her lungs.
She lay there, gasping like a landed fish, as Nick calmly tied her wrists behind her back with something. And then her ankles, and now she could see he was using blue twine.
Then all her attention was back on Duncan.
‘Help him,’ she got out, looking straight into Nick’s eyes, searching there for something she knew she wouldn’t find. ‘He’ll die. You need to – call – an ambulance.’
‘Oh, right,’ went Nick, standing back up, hands on hips, looking from Maggie to Duncan like he was surveying his handiwork. ‘Is that what I need to do? Call an ambulance so they can save Dad’s life?’ He crossed the room in a couple of bounds and brought his face down next to Duncan’s with a sickly smile. ‘What do you think your life’s worth to me now, Dad?’ He spat the word at Duncan’s grey face. Duncan, gasping for breath, stared back at Nick, and he tried to say something but just a gurgling came from his mouth and then he was coughing, coughing blood, and Nick jumped back.
‘Ugh.’
‘Help him!’ Maggie wailed.
‘You know, it’s strange, isn’t it, the difference twenty-two years make? Twenty-two years of being all alone because your dear daddy has buggered off and left you – left you to think he was dead? Weird, the difference that makes. Up until then, yeah, sure, if you’d been injured I’d have called an ambulance pronto, as you’d say, Mags. I’d have done everything I possibly could to save you. I’d have died for you!’ The words came out on a sob.
Again, Duncan tried to say something.
‘I thought you’d do the same for me – but no, turns out I was wrong about that. Turns out you don’t love me at all.’
Duncan groaned.
‘If you loved me, you wouldn’t have abandoned me! Who does that? Who goes off and abandons their kid and makes it look like he killed them?’
‘That wasn’t Duncan!’ went Maggie. ‘That was me! He didn’t know I’d set the place up . . . to look as if we’d not left voluntarily. To look as if you might have killed us.’
Nick turned to her. ‘Really, Mags? Granted, the plods aren’t the sharpest pencils in the box, but really? I was out all day with witnesses. I know you set it up to look like I’d done it while we were having breakfast, but a very early breakfast it would have to have been, to give me time to dispose of the bodies. And what sort of monster would kill his whole family and then go off for a nice day out in Edinburgh? Yes, the plods questioned me, but they never seriously suspected me. Weirdly, there were no fingerprints on that third mug, because I’m not a total idiot. I knew we’d cleared up the breakfast stuff. I thought you’d killed Dad and taken off with Isla and set those mugs up to try to implicate me – so I wiped my mug clean before the cops got there.’
Maggie must have grimaced, because he smiled.
‘Their theory – and the irony is that I didn’t accept it, you fooled me good and proper – was that you’d up and gone to get away from me, after what I did, or at least, from the plods’ point of view, what you thought I did to Isla. They never bought your assertion that what happened with the pram was deliberate. But they reasoned you’d both got it in your heads that I was a danger to Isla and were shit-scared of what I might do next. They thought I’d caused your disappearance, but indirectly. What a turn-up that they were right.’
‘Please, Nick,’ Maggie begged. ‘He always meant to come back for you! I know you still love him! If you’ve got any feelings left for him, you’ll call an ambulance now!’
‘Hmm.’ Nick tapped a finger to his mouth. ‘Let me think about that.’ Tap, tap, tap, as Duncan’s breathing became more and more laboured.
‘Please,’ Maggie sobbed, looking not at Nick now but at Duncan, capturing his unfocused gaze, willing him to hold on.
‘Okay. I’ve thought. And the answer is . . .!’ He made the words perky, like a game show host. ‘No! Whatever feelings I once had for you, Dad? You’ve ripped them out and stamped all over them and kicked them to death! So don’t look at me like that. You’ve only yourself to blame. Now hurry up and die, because I don’t want to have to stab you again. It’s not like I’m a psychopath or something, eh, Mags?’ He chuckled.
There was no hope.
None.