‘Exactly like him,’ says Mr Markham, directing the shears at Nathan. ‘I guess it must have been Christian, then, but I’m sure he said he was you. And the funny thing is…’ His hand comes up to his chin, drawing down his fingers to suggest the length of beard. Then it moves behind his neck to show the length of the hair.
‘You’re wrong,’ says Nathan. ‘He wouldn’t have come here. He’s just like me.’ He wipes his hands down the sides of his trousers, as if suddenly finding they’re as dirty as the gardener’s, adding a barely audible, ‘Not like me.’ He remembers the phone call, remembers the doubt so swiftly answered, remembers the vision of sunshine and beaches and the nephew he’s never met. ‘You’re wrong,’ he says again, this time with a little more force. ‘Christian is down in Cornwall. I spoke to him only yester—’ He cuts himself off a second too late, and doesn’t need to look at Katie to know that she’s staring. He returns to the phone call, carefully working through the conversation. Had Christian specifically said he was in Cornwall? No. He’d simply said it was sunny there. Might he have been worried by the call, sensed something in his voice and come to London looking for his brother, starting in the most obvious place? The timings don’t work, even Nathan with his loose grasp of time can see that. But he can also see that it doesn’t matter, because his brother might not have needed a phone call to sense something was wrong; it might have been in the connection he’d described, the one that Nathan had tried to deny, the one that might also explain how he’d grown the same hair and a beard.
‘I think you must have misheard,’ he says, a calmness in his voice to reflect his growing satisfaction with the explanation. ‘He probably said he was looking for Nathan.’
Markham nods. ‘I imagine you’re right. My ears are not what they used to be. And maybe he thought I were answering that question when I told him I hadn’t seen either of you in years.’
‘Did he say where he was going?’
‘No. He left quickly. I think he got a bit upset about…’ He looks over Nathan’s shoulder into the house.
‘But did he seem okay in general?’ Nathan asks, a different concern growing this time. If his brother looked exactly like him in his current state then he couldn’t be doing very well at all. It’s a far cry from how he’d pictured him on the days he’d allowed himself to do so: the perfect life, the perfect family, playing on the beach or quietly pottering around his legal practice in a pinstriped suit.
‘If I’m honest,’ says Markham, ‘he seemed a bit…’ He tips his head back, as if the word he’s searching for might be somewhere up in the clear blue sky, or in the tangles of clematis trained to the wall above the door. Several possibilities present themselves to Nathan, although none matches the answer that finally emerges, ‘… scared.’
‘You mean, worried?’
‘No, it was definitely more scared. He was constantly moving and kept looking around, peering down the side of the house.’
‘Like he’d seen something, or someone?’
‘Kind of,’ says Markham, and now it’s the gardener’s turn to be shifting nervously from foot to foot.
‘What do you mean?’ says Katie, cutting in.
‘Well… it don’t make sense, because it’s your house and everything, even if you couldn’t ever bring yourself to…’ He readjusts both his feet and his line of conversation, before returning to Nathan. ‘The point is, although I haven’t seen you and your brother that often, I know you two. I know you’re good people, and so…’
‘So…?’ Katie jumps in again with increasing impatience.
‘It was like he didn’t want to be seen. I mean, when he first spotted me I think he were surprised. I’m not supposed to be here on a Wednesday, you see. Today is my normal day, but the work were getting on top of me a bit so I came in yesterday as well. Plus…’ Markham looks directly at Nathan as if waiting for permission to proceed, which he eventually gives with a reluctant nod, eyes closing in anticipation, expecting the worst. ‘He told me not to tell anyone he’d been around. And I wouldn’t have done if it hadn’t been you, or rather if I hadn’t believed you were him come back.’ The gardener glances nervously across at Katie. ‘Have I done something wrong?’
Katie answers for Nathan, a tightened excitement in her voice. ‘Absolutely not. You’ve helped a great deal. Now I need to have a quick word in private with my friend, and then we’re going to have a look around the house. I hope you don’t mind, but it’s probably best if…’
Nathan is aware of her looking across at him, despite the tears blurring his eyes, despite the whole world seeming to tilt and sway.
Markham offers a little bow and starts to retreat. ‘I understand, ma’am,’ he says. ‘I’ll pack up my things and be off. I’d done most of what I needed to anyway.’ He catches Nathan’s eye and offers a hesitant smile. ‘I hope you and your brother are okay.’
‘So do I,’ says Nathan, weakly.
Sixteen
Katie stands facing Nathan, not knowing which emotion to turn to. There’s the fizzing excitement of a breakthrough in the case, a suspect she’s never met before but whose face could not be any more familiar. There’s also the doubt; how long had Nathan suspected his brother? Long enough to have cost someone their life?
‘I need everything,’ she snaps. ‘Now!’
‘It’s not him,’ Nathan snaps back.
‘I will be the judge of that.’
‘Says a detective who can’t solve a case.’
The words strike her with a physical force and she steps back, taking a moment. ‘Well, this one seems clear enough, even to me. Food from your childhood, references to home, knowledge of intimate marks on your body—’
‘And on yours.’ His body has straightened, stiffened, set firm. He looks ready to attack. ‘Is my brother one of the many men you’ve fucked recently?’
‘You think I’d go anywhere near someone who looks like you?’ she shoots back.
His hand leaves his side and she’s ready for him, but it’s only to grab the shirt she lent him. ‘The clothes certainly fit.’
‘It’s what’s on the inside that counts. And you’re not fooling me about that anymore.’
‘You still think I am capable of killing someone?’ he says, the anger suddenly leaving his eyes.
‘I think you would let someone else die to protect your brother.’
‘And what about your dad? What secrets are you keeping to protect him?’
Her mouth falls open. How could he possibly know? But it’s the same question she always asks about Nathan. The question she’d asked right back at the beginning, after she’d first taken the young profiler to a crime scene and watched him perform his magic. Although this is different. No good can come from this. She shouldn’t have trusted him; shouldn’t have allowed her desperation to cloud her already questionable judgement. She shouldn’t have invited him into her home.
She’s looking at the ground now, fighting the urge to sink towards it, but aware he’s moving closer.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘Your family has nothing to do with this. And this is what we agreed to focus on. Nothing else.’
She lifts her head and meets his gaze, seeing the sadness she’d thought she’d heard. ‘You need to help us find your brother,’ she says, pulling out her phone, trying to remember what she’d already found out from the gardener, Markham. ‘It was Christian, wasn’t it?’
Nathan pushes out a long breath before answering, as if even this is some kind of betrayal. ‘Yes.’
‘And do you have an address?’
‘I have a telephone number.’
She remembers the phone in her bedroom, and Nathan’s attempt to cover it with the dirty washing. ‘Did you call him last night?’
‘To check he was all right.’
‘And to check he was innocent,’ she says, shaking her head as she punches DS Peters’ number into her phone.
‘He is innocent,’ Nathan insists. ‘He couldn’t have committed those crimes.’
‘How can you be so certain?’ she asks.
His eyes open even wider and seem to draw her in. ‘I know how killers think, remember. That’s what you always used me for.’