‘Then take him with you. But get a weapon first. Don’t turn your back, and take him out in the street. Stand where people can see you. I’ll get someone to you as quick as I can.’
Before Katie can open her mouth to reluctantly agree, she hears a noise – the creak of a floorboard – and she knows it’s already too late. She’s been distracted. She’s been a fool. Someone has crept up behind her. Before she even has a chance to turn, there’s a thud and a blinding light behind her eyes as she tumbles forward. Sprawled out on the floor, she stares at the poker on the other side of the room, curling her fingers as if she might be able to pick it up. To her left is the phone that has slipped from her hand, and either side of it a muddy boot below the frayed seam of a pair of jeans. She’s often stood over victims, wondering what was going through their mind at the time of their death, beyond the physical pain and fear. For her it’s a moment of revelation, not about the work – for once that has been pushed to one side – but about the man who had come so close to breaking down her defences. And it’s only now, at the very end, with nothing more to lose, that the brilliant truth about Nathan shines through.
Twenty-Four
Nathan lets the phone fall from his ear. He’s tried three more times to call Katie’s number, without success. Images of her body being twisted and stretched as his own birthmark is carefully copied on her thigh flash through his mind, but he can’t allow himself to believe that it has happened for real. He needs to get to her. And he needs help.
He’s connected to her office in less than a minute, his memory somehow dragging up the number, along with the name of the colleague she’d often talked about and clearly trusted. He won’t explain everything – it would complicate matters and slow things down, the same way it had with Katie. If he’d told her to get out instantly, if she’d trusted him instantly, the way she always used to, if he hadn’t had so much to drink, then perhaps he wouldn’t need to be making this call.
‘DS Peters?’
‘Speaking.’
‘Katie’s in danger,’ he says, glad that the terror rather than the alcohol is registering in his voice. ‘At Markham’s house. You need to get there!’ He hangs up, desperate to do the same himself, but is suddenly confronted by the practicalities; the house is far out to the west, the width of the city from where he is now. He doesn’t have money for a taxi, bus, or train, and there’s no cash he can see around the house. He thinks of her expression as she’d pulled the door closed on the little room, and realises a new frenzy building inside of him; a desperation not to take a life, but to save one.
He snatches a knife out of the block on the side in the kitchen and feeds it up the sleeve of his top so he can feel the coldness of the blade on his skin as he rushes out the door.
Out on the street he’s spinning round and round, searching for a solution. There are so many forms of transport in front of him, above him, below him, and yet nothing can get him there quickly enough. He could run, he could run for miles – his body has been craving it ever since he got back – but he knows it wouldn’t save her. He tries to slow his breathing, give himself room to think. The traffic is moving freely, some cars travelling at speed. When he sees a gap he steps out into it then turns to face a car racing towards him. He holds up a hand and hears the brakes scream. He closes his eyes and prepares himself for impact, wondering if he was being brave or reaching for a way out.
He only looks when he hears a door opening and the shouting start. The man is not as big as his voice, and the closer Nathan gets the more his words lose their strength.
‘Are you fucking mad?’
‘Yes,’ he hears himself say, and he means it as his fingers grab the man by the front of his hooded top and fling him towards the pavement. For a terrible moment, he wonders if he might stay to finish the job – take a random life while his desire is this high. But there’s still a part of him holding on, telling him there’s no time, telling him to think of Katie and only Katie.
He sinks into the driver’s seat and closes the door, and before he knows it the lights of the city are flashing by. It’s been a while, and the gear changes are far from smooth and the alcohol is still flooding his senses. A part of him hopes a police car might stop him so he doesn’t have to turn up alone, but all he sees are angry faces and the occasional scared-looking pedestrian.
* * *
As he pulls into the street where Markham lives he realises what a miracle it is he’d remembered the way. He’d barely even looked at the signs. It wasn’t a route he remembered driving, certainly not from Katie’s house, and yet again he’s been able to drag up bits of information he hadn’t known were there.
He bumps up the kerb and skids to a halt, flicking off the engine and leaving the keys in the ignition. He rushes for the gate, flinging it open and almost tripping and falling flat on his face. He doesn’t care who might be waiting for him on the other side; he just wants to be there, as he should have been, to try and help, or face the consequences.
The front door is open a couple of inches and the hallway is dark but there’s a light on in the kitchen at the end. Rushing forward, he slips on something and nearly falls, righting himself as he approaches. As his focus sharpens, he thinks he can make out a hand poking out from behind the door. The tightness in his chest is unbearable as he feels for the knife up his sleeve.
The first thing he sees is her face. Her eyes are closed, and he can see no expression, and her skin is horribly pale. Her body is laid out in the shape of a cross: legs together, arms stretched wide. There’s blood on her neck and on her temple, and far more above her head. A great pool of it, still spreading as the rest of her remains deathly still. Her fingers are flat, unbent, unbroken, and this, at least, brings a moment of relief.
He looks across and sees a small plastic shopping bag, not dissimilar to the one Katie had filled with the Steven Fish papers. Poking out of the top is something dark and hairy with eyes wide and a mouth stretched in agony. He takes a closer look. It’s far easier to look at this than to look at her. Up close he can see it’s the rigid remains of a black cat, fur sticky and matted with blood.