This copper, this Newland. He was part of the plan to kill her mum, and she’s never known who he was, not till now. She thought it was done a long time since, but when she sees the name and she remembers, she thinks, Fuck. Some dodgy copper selling stuff to my dad, selling stuff to Primrose. Fuck, she thinks. Some dodgy copper watching our house and saying when I wouldn’t be home.
A quick search on the internet is all it takes. Detective Newland lives in Spain now. Retired policeman. Little town. Doesn’t think anyone’s going to come looking for him, obviously.
She never meant to tell Darrell about it. It was only that he came himself to thank her for what she’d done for Ricky, and for saving his own life.
He said, ‘We know which way this is going. Ricky’s out of the picture now. If there’s anything I can do to help you, Rox. Just tell me what I can do.’
Maybe he’s started to have the same thoughts she has, about how you just have to accept this change that’s struck us all, roll with it, find your place in it.
So she told Darrell what she was going to Spain for. He said, ‘I’m coming, too.’
She sees what he’s asking her for. Ricky’s not coming back to the life, not for years, maybe not ever, and not how he was. They’re running out of family. He wants to be family to her.
The place isn’t difficult to find. GPS and a rental car, and they’re there in less than an hour from Seville airport. There’s no need to be clever about it. They watch through binoculars for a couple of days; long enough to know that he lives alone. They stay in a hotel nearby, but not too nearby. Thirty miles’ drive. You wouldn’t go looking there if you were local police, not if you were doing a routine just-in-case inquiry. He’s nice with it, Darrell. Businesslike, but funny. Lets her make the decisions, but he’s got a few good ideas of his own. She thinks, Yeah. If Ricky’s out of the game, yeah. This could work. She could take him to the factory next time she goes out.
On the third day, in the pre-dawn light, they chuck a rope up one of the fence poles, climb over and wait in the bushes till he comes out. He’s in shorts and a ragged T-shirt. He’s got a sandwich – this time in the morning, a sausage sandwich – and he’s looking at his phone.
She’d been expecting something, some kind of terror to strike her; she’d thought she might wee herself or have a rush of bloody rage or start crying. But when she looks into his face all she feels is interest. A completed circle: two bits of string tied together. The man who helped get her mum killed. The last little bit of stuff to mop up from the side of the plate.
She steps out of the bushes in front of him. ‘Newland,’ she says. ‘Your name is Newland.’
He looks at her, open-mouthed. He’s still holding his sausage sandwich. There’s a second before the fear kicks in, and in that second Darrell charges from the bushes, clonks him on the head and pushes him into the swimming pool.
When he comes round, the sun is high in the sky, and he’s floating face up. He thrashes around, brings himself to standing in the middle of the pool, coughing and rubbing his eyes.
Roxy’s sitting at the edge, fingers splashing. ‘Electricity travels a long way in water,’ she says. ‘It’s fast.’
Newland stands stock still at that.
She tips her head first to one side, then the other, stretching out the muscles. Her skein’s full.
Newland starts to say something. Maybe it’s ‘I don’t …’ or ‘Who are …’, but she sends a little thrill through the water, enough to prickle him over his whole wet body.
She says, ‘This is going to be boring if you start denying everything, Detective Newland.’
‘Fuck,’ he says. ‘I don’t even know who you are. If this is about Lisa, she got her fucking money, all right. She got it two years ago, every penny, and I’m out now.’
Roxy sends another shock through the water. ‘Think again,’ she says. ‘Look at my face. Don’t I remind you of anyone? Aren’t I someone’s daughter?’
He knows it then, all at once. She can see it in his face. ‘Fuck,’ he says, ‘this is about Christina.’
‘Yeah,’ she says.
‘Please,’ he says, and she sends him a hard jolt, so much that his teeth start chattering and his body goes rigid and he shits himself right into the water, a brown-yellow cloud of particles jetting out like it’s shot from a hose.
‘Rox,’ says Darrell softly. He’s sitting behind her, on one of the sun-loungers, his hand on the butt of the rifle.
She stops it. Newland collapses, sobbing, into the water.
‘Don’t say “please”,’ she says. ‘That’s what my mum said.’
He rubs his forearms, trying to get some life back into them.
‘There’s no way out of this for you, Newland. You told Primrose where to find my mum. You got her killed, and I’m going to kill you.’
Newland tries to make a break for the edge of the pool. She shocks him again. His knees collapse under him and he falls forward, and then he’s just lying there, face down in the water.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ says Roxy.
Darrell gets the hook and pulls him to the edge, and they haul him up.
When Newland opens his eyes again, Roxy’s sitting on his chest.
‘You’re going to die here now, Newland,’ says Darrell, very calmly. ‘This is it, mate. This is all the life you got. This is your last day, and there’s nothing you can tell us that’ll make it different, all right? But if we make it look like an accident, your life insurance will still pay out. To your mum, yeah? And your brother? We can do that for you, make it look like an accident. Not a suicide. All right?’
Newland coughs up a lungful of murky water.
‘You got my mum killed, Newland,’ says Roxy. ‘That’s strike one. And you’ve made me sit in your shitty water. That’s strike two. If we get to strike three, there will be pain you just can’t believe. I only want to know one thing from you.’
He’s listening to her now.
‘What did Primrose give you, Newland, to tip him off about my mum? What would have made you bring the Monkes down on you? What seemed worth that to you, Newland?’
He blinks at them, first at her, then at Darrell, like they’re having a laugh with him.
She holds his face in her hand and sends a pickaxe of pain along the jaw.
He screams.
‘Just tell me, Newland,’ she says.
He’s panting. ‘You know, don’t you?’ he says. ‘You’re kidding me.’
She brings her hand close to his face.
‘No!’ he says. ‘No! No, you know what happened, you fucking bitch, it was your dad. It was never Primrose who paid me, it was Bernie – Bernie Monke told me to do it. I only ever worked for Bernie, only ever did jobs for Bernie; it was Bernie who told me that I should pretend to sell Primrose information, tell him when to find your mum alone. You was never supposed to see it. Bernie wanted your mum dead and I don’t ask questions. I helped him out. It was fucking Bernie. Your dad. Bernie.’
He keeps on muttering the name, like it’s the secret that will make her set him free.