He offers a nervous nod and retreats up the stairs, still holding the hammer. She nips through to the kitchen to replace the knife she’d taken and suddenly notices the smear of blood on the tip and more of it close to the carrots. She’s breathing easier now and greedily draws in the late evening air as she fetches her phone while the kettle is boiling.
When she’s back in the house and the tea is made, retrieving milk from the fridge and a couple of sugars she wouldn’t normally bother with, she sits down in the living room and waits for Markham. He reappears in a grey sweater and a pair of jeans, looking slightly embarrassed. He’s also still holding the hammer, which he places next to him as he sits down on the edge of the old leather sofa.
Katie’s perched on a small wooden chair with a high back and slightly bowing legs. She’s sitting as lightly as she can manage, most of the weight kept on her toes.
‘How’s the hand?’
‘I’ll survive,’ he says, all the time looking around, seemingly unconvinced.
Katie has one eye on the hallway, certain she’d heard Markham bolt the front door as he’d come down the stairs. She makes a face and gets up, holding her tea.
‘Mind if I put a couple of sugars in here?’
‘’Course, lassie. China pot next to the kettle.’
She leaves the room. From where Markham is sitting he can’t see if she goes left or right, so she quickly does both: first heading to the front door, where she draws the bolt silently back, and then through to the kitchen where she makes plenty of noise but adds no sugar.
‘How are you doing?’ she says on her return, offering a concerned smile.
‘Are your colleagues coming?’
‘I think we’ll be okay,’ she says with a smile. ‘And I’m going to need you to accompany me to the station to make an official statement, anyway.’
‘Now?’ he asks, part-rising.
‘In a minute,’ she says, gesturing for him to sit back down. She takes a sip of tea. She’d wanted to take him away immediately, but the other part of her, the part that insisted she go and pull back the bolt on the door, wants to risk everything if there’s a chance of catching Christian. Something in her gut is telling her the killer is close, watching, waiting. All around her are weapons – a vase to smash, a poker by the fire, even a pair of secateurs on the mantelpiece. ‘I thought we might have a more informal chat about yesterday before we go.’ She glances across at the TV, small and covered in a layer of dust. ‘You will have heard about the body at Nathan and Christian’s house. We don’t know whose it is yet, and we don’t know when it was put there.’
‘They were talking about a connection to some other killings?’ he says, nervously picking at the edge of the bandage on his hand. ‘Were those Christian, too?’
‘We’re not sure at present,’ she says. ‘But it’s something we’re looking into.’
‘It’s unbelievable,’ he says. ‘Those boys were always so polite and kind and…’ He stops to nod at the TV. ‘They’re saying Nathan works with you people, that he’s some kind of criminal psychologist. Did he not recognise what was going on with his own brother?’
‘Sometimes people are just too close, or too good at hiding who they are,’ says Katie, as she considers her own willingness to put the old man at risk – to use him as bait.
‘We should go,’ she says, standing up.
‘Okay,’ says Markham, doing the same. ‘Just let me get a jumper. I know it’s not cold, but…’
‘No problem,’ says Katie. ‘I’ll be waiting here.’
Markham heads slowly upstairs again, and she can hear cupboard doors being opened. She stands in the doorway to the living room with a good view of both the front and back doors. Markham took the hammer with him, so she’ll have to make do with the poker she’s lifted from the fireplace. She stands perfectly still, listening to every little noise. She jumps at the sound of her phone ringing. She slips the poker under her arm while she retrieves the mobile from her pocket, before peering down at a number she could hardly fail to recognise.
‘Are you all right?’ she whispers, taking a step back into the living room.
‘Where are you?’ asks Nathan breathlessly. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Are you?’ she asks again, searching for clues in his voice. ‘How did you get out of the room?’
‘I had to break the door down.’
She can hear the slur in his words, and she remembers. ‘Did you drink it all?’
‘Yes,’ he says, as if suddenly remembering himself. ‘But that’s not the point – the point is I’ve been there, and…’ He pauses, and she can hear him swallow.
‘Did you see something?’ she says, although she’s not sure see is the right word.
‘It’s not my brother.’
‘What isn’t?’
‘None of it. None of the killings. It wasn’t him.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Because it wasn’t right, it didn’t feel like him,’ he says, the slur seeming to get worse. ‘You know how it works.’
She doesn’t, she never has, but now is not the time to try and understand.
‘He wasn’t moving like my brother. You remember the footprints in the flowerbed, the thread on the rose bush, the scuff marks on the floor, the way the victim didn’t die instantly like you said, but had time to lift her arms, to slip, to fall. He was slow. He was clumsy. He made mistakes.’
‘People make mistakes.’
‘Christian wouldn’t,’ says Nathan, and a moment of silence follows.
‘Come on, Nathan,’ she says eventually, moving away from the door and laying down the poker so she can shield her words with her other hand. ‘I’m sorry, but…’ She tips her head back, with no desire to go through it again; he’s drunk, he’s desperate, there’s no need for her to spell it out, and yet her disappointment in his failure to help with this last case pushes her on. ‘He was seen at your house, looking suspicious. The victim found there was somebody known to you and your brother, somebody you both had reason to want to hurt. The other victims might have been strangers, they might not, we don’t know yet, but there were personal markings, clues specific to you. If it were anybody else we wouldn’t be having this conversation – there’d be no doubt. I mean, it’s natural that you aren’t quite ready to accept what’s happened, but…’
She stops and listens to the silence, digging a nail deep into her thigh as she curses her directness. There had been that moment back in her flat when she’d been sure she felt the walls finally coming down. But now, as always, work is getting in the way.
‘What if my brother never went to my parents’ home?’
‘What?’ It takes her a moment to digest. ‘But we know that he did,’ she whispers. ‘We have a witness.’
‘And you believe him more than you believe me?’
‘It’s not a question of believing. It’s about following the evidence.’ She tells herself that’s exactly what she’s doing; weighing it up, shutting out the emotion. She knows what it’s like when there’s family involved, how easily it can interfere with reason.
‘Where are you?’ says Nathan. The rising panic in his voice sets her heart racing.
‘I’m with Markham.’
‘Is he in the room with you?’
‘He’s upstairs.’
‘Then get out!’
‘Why?’
‘What if he was lying?’
‘Why would he lie?’ She asks the question, but she’s already reached the answer herself. ‘No,’ she says, remembering the old man’s face when she’d arrived. ‘No, that’s not possible.’ She shakes her head, and raises her voice beyond the previous whisper. ‘You’re wrong.’
‘Leave anyway.’
‘Not without Markham.’