‘And you used to be good at playing a part. Perhaps you still are.’
‘I want what we’ve always wanted,’ he says. ‘What you’ve always craved.’ He draws out that final word until she shifts her attention elsewhere. ‘And if you want a win here then that should be our focus.’ He jabs a finger at the paper she’s still holding between the tongs. ‘Not me.’
She pulls it back, hearing it crumple against her side, a sound that seems to have the same effect on her insides. ‘I won’t risk this sicko getting away on a technicality.’
‘If we catch him in the next two days, then—’ He cuts himself off, but she’s seen enough already, seen that excitement sparkle in his eyes, certain that remarkable imagination of his is currently not being used to recreate a past crime, but a future one.
His gaze narrows the way hers had just a second before. ‘You know it too. The rules don’t count anymore, do they? It ends the way it has to end for us.’
Her thoughts turn to her dad again, picturing his face as it used to be, and as it is now. The difference is remarkable, shattering. As is the view she has of him as a person on those days when she believes what he said, when she accepts his confession. Might those three words he whispered to her have said something about her own potential to step over the line?
‘No,’ she says firmly. ‘That’s not me. Nor is contaminating evidence any more than I have to. You’ve heard me tearing into my guys at the slightest mistake.’ She adds the last bit less for Nathan’s benefit than her own. She opens the evidence bag and lays it on the work surface, before using the tongs to place the paper inside. It’s a small piece with pale blue lines that run both vertically and horizontally. Leaning over and using the tip of the tongs she then carefully prizes the fold open. Nathan appears alongside her, bending over. He’s standing close, and she can’t help but notice the block of knives within his reach. But she finds her focus again, keeping her hand from shaking as she pushes open the paper and the words appear.
Home is where the heart is.
It’s written in thick, hesitant strokes, as if by someone young, or very old. She glances across at Nathan and finds his eyes are wide and his face is white, just as when he’d heard about the caravan park, or seen the swirling cuts on the stomach of Sarah Cleve, or when he’d first spotted the beans on the floor behind them.
‘You recognise the writing?’
Nathan stands straight and moves away, shaking his head several times, holding his cuffed hands down at his waist and avoiding her gaze. She’s about to put the question to him again, once more convinced he’s holding back valuable information, when she hears footsteps in the corridor behind, accompanied by a voice calling out: ‘Please, sir, please, you really can’t go in there!’
Katie moves quickly to the door and sees a tall man pushing past the duty PC and walking towards her. She instantly recognises him as the husband of Sally Brooks, having held him as he’d cried on her shoulder last week.
‘My daughter needs her doll,’ he snaps. ‘And nothing is going to stop me getting it for her.’ He’s searching the floor and then looks up, finally noticing Katie.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Just following a line of investigation, Mr Brooks.’ She tries to make herself wider, turning to block his view through to the kitchen. As with the second killing, he’d been away with the children at his parents’ house when the murder took place, and she remembers how, between sobs, he’d told her again and again that he should have been there to protect his wife. She’d wanted to assure him the man who committed the crime was both sick and ruthless and would not have thought twice about taking his and his children’s lives too, but to provide evidence of this she would have had to have given him details of the crime, something she knew he wasn’t ready to hear.
‘How do I ever explain this?’ he says, reaching down to pick up the doll he had come for, the same headless doll that Katie had spotted on the way in. ‘How do I explain any of it to my daughters?’ He reaches out and touches the wall, his hand falling between the two school photos. Tears fill his eyes, and when he speaks his words are so thick they barely leave his mouth. ‘How are they ever going to cope?’ And then, without waiting for the response that Katie is desperately trying to shape in her head, he switches back to anger. ‘I need to see in there,’ he says, pointing to the kitchen without looking across. ‘I need to know.’
Mark Brooks is a big man, over six foot. If he wanted to barge past her there’d be nothing she could do, but she will do something if she has to. He shouldn’t have to see even a trace of what she has seen.
The silent stand-off is interrupted by the sound of movement in the kitchen; the squeak of a shoe on the cheap vinyl floor. She hopes desperately that Nathan will stay out of sight and that Mr Brooks will simply assume it’s another police officer, but she can see from the man’s face, from the way it drops in shock, then tightens in horror, that Nathan has come into view. She turns to look for herself and finds Nathan standing there, head down, handcuffed hands held out in front like the accused standing in the dock at court.
Mark Brooks has clearly made a similar connection and charges forward, seeming not to see or care about Katie blocking his path. The impact knocks her off her feet before she can tell him he’s making a mistake, sending her flying backwards into the kitchen door. Mark stumbles and falls partly on top of her, and they slide across the floor, coming to a stop close to the outline of the body and the word GUTTED spelt out in now heavily congealed beans. Mark stares for a second, unable to take it all in, then he returns his attention to Nathan, pushing down on Katie’s face in his desperation to get to his feet. Straining to get a look, Katie can see Nathan hasn’t moved, nor has he said a word.
When the first punch is thrown she could swear that he moves his head into it, taking the full force of the blow. He drops in an instant, slamming into the sideboard and slumping to the floor. Mark follows him, then reaches across the sideboard and draws a kitchen knife – the second to be taken from that block with intent.
Winded by her fall and unable to speak, Katie manages to get to her feet and fling herself forward, crashing into Mark’s hip just as he’s about to bring the knife down into Nathan’s chest. The big man slams into the cupboards and lets out a groan that grows into a roar of rage. Katie knows he’s about to try and sink the knife in again and that this time, even if she’s in the way, he won’t stop. He’s blind to everything other than the need to inflict as much pain as he is feeling. She makes one last attempt to call out and fend him off with her arm. She can take a knife wound – she’s done so before – but her lungs are still empty and her arm is twisted awkwardly under her. A quick look at Nathan tells her he’s still not moving, he’s not even trying to put up any kind of defence. The punch he took would have knocked many out, but his eyes are open, unblinkingly staring up at the man with the knife. And at the corner of his mouth, where she can see a thin streak of blood, she can also make out the tiniest trace of another smile. Is it madness? Is it guilt? She waits for the blur of movement, for a grunt of effort and the flash of the blade, for the warm spray of blood. But it never comes. Instead she hears a cry from behind her and looks up to see that the young PC who had been stationed outside the house has wrestled the knife away and subdued Mr Brooks.