‘Maybe it’s for the best,’ says Markham.
She wants more than anything to see his face, to know if there’s any chance of winning him round. As if reading her mind, he steps over, and she feels hands fumbling at her neck and the material is lifted clear. She blinks for a few moments, but there’s little difference; the space around her is so dark it seems endless, not a wall in sight, no objects to give scale. Perhaps she is dead already.
She looks for Markham, rolling over stiffly when she realises he’s behind her from the sound of his breathing. She loses him again, and after a moment of readjusting to deal with the pain in her head and cramped legs, she determines he’s now standing above her head, remaining just out of sight.
‘I can’t do anything,’ he says. ‘But I just needed you to know that this isn’t me. This isn’t who I am. I never got a chance to talk to my daughter, to try and explain…’
She feels the need to close her eyes despite the darkness. The hope is leaving her and taking her anger with it. All that’s left now are questions, many of which she knows will never be answered.
‘How did he find you?’ she asks.
‘Through you. He’s been watching you for years, lassie, ever since you started working with his brother. He has this way of reading people. He must have spotted something when you were with your dad… I didn’t think he knew about me when he called me about a job. He said he’d been impressed with my work, and I thought he were talking about the gardening.’
‘But why did he need to work at the care home if he already knew about the Maclean case?’
‘He likes to know everything,’ says Markham. ‘Helps him control people. Knowledge of who or what they care about. Knowledge of what they’ve done.’
She’s seeing it now, the tiny signals from her dad, the connection that she’d seen that had given her so much hope.
‘When did you find out what he was really like?’ she asks, through gritted teeth.
‘Only a few days back. I hadn’t seen him in years, and suddenly he turns up at my home. He don’t look the same; he don’t act the same, neither. He weren’t aggressive or nowt, but he made it clear what I had to do if I wanted to keep my past life secret. I thought he were just playing games at first. And when I found out different, when I found out what were really going on, well…’ He retreats a few steps more, but she can still hear him swallow. ‘After that his threats were different. Far worse. I just pray he doesn’t…’ He coughs to clear his throat, then moves in close again. ‘How did you know it weren’t just me?’
‘Because of your daughter, Tracy,’ she says. ‘She told me you weren’t capable of doing these things.’ Katie stops, once again thinking of her own dad, thinking of his own crime. If she’s honest with herself, and she sees no reason not to be now, she’d always suspected what her dad might have done, had seen the guilt Christian had seen. ‘I believed her. And once I’d believed her there could only be one explanation.’
‘Thank you,’ says Markham, his voice thick with emotion. ‘And if it makes a difference, you should know that Maclean were an evil bastard. Your dad shouldn’t have felt bad. He did the world a favour.’
‘I would have liked to have done it another favour with Christian,’ says Katie, softly, once again testing her restraints. ‘Why did he come to get me from the home? I was already on my way to him.’ She searches the darkness again for even the faintest outline.
‘He said he needed you here first.’
First. That single word that brings so much pain. She knows what he means; he doesn’t need to say any more. Of course Nathan will have spotted the clue; he never misses a thing. And, of course, he will try to come on his own, to answer his own desire to kill. But does he know who is here, waiting? Or does he still believe it’s just Markham? Markham has gone quiet; she can’t see him and can’t even hear him moving around anymore. She’s certain he’s played his part now – they both have. What’s left is for the two brothers to resolve. She feels herself sink down, as if the hard floor beneath her is swallowing her up.
Then she hears three words spoken from such a short distance away that she can smell the accompanying breath. It’s a familiar smell and a familiar voice, soft and low and smooth as silk. A voice that had once provided comfort in the darkest of times, but now it brings ice to her veins.
‘Thank you, Katie.’
She’s been tricked again, and Markham has been used again to deliver carefully scripted lines. She knows without seeing that Christian is standing over her. Her fear is everywhere.
‘My brother is on his way.’
Two spotlights burst into life above her, blinding, horrifying. Over in the distance she can see Markham reaching through an endless black curtain towards the switch. Then, finally, she forces herself to look at Christian. He’s put on the glasses that had always been there, glasses that she now doubts he needs at all. They’re thick, but she can see no distortion through the lenses. His hair is dyed paler than Nathan’s and has been cut so that it looks thin at the scalp. And then there’s the face, the marks of his surgery suddenly clear; the un-straightened nose, the narrowed jawline, the too-thin lips. It’s only when she looks hard that she can see the similarity.
‘I know,’ he says, revealing uneven teeth that cannot be real. ‘You’re thinking about that wonderful night. Do you know you accidentally called out my brother’s name at one point?’ He holds his good hand over his chest with a look of mock distress. ‘I couldn’t help but take offence. It’s so pathetic how much you love him.’
The words take her by surprise.
‘And you think that he loves you?’ laughs Christian, slapping his bandaged hand hard against his chest. ‘I know all the feelings inside my brother. And none of them is love.’
He slips his hand into his pocket and draws out a six-inch blade. Katie suddenly finds herself trying to recite the words of the children’s book left by her mum, but instead all she can remember are those added by Christian: See you at the end. She looks up at him. He’s removed his glasses and seems to be carefully studying her. She can clearly see his piercing eyes, the one bit of his face he hasn’t changed, and within them a horribly familiar intelligence. Then, as if he’s read her thoughts yet again, he starts to grin and slowly shake his head. ‘Not yet, Katie,’ he says. ‘I’m going to let you watch the birth of something beautiful first.’
Thirty-Five
The ‘N’ and the ‘R’ have all but rubbed off and the rest is partly eaten by rust. The sign had been newer on the photo in Katie’s tiny room, but it’s the same sign and the same place Markham had referred to at the end of his call – ‘heading for new horizons’ – the place he had wanted him to come to, there can be no doubt. Nathan is holding the photo in his hand, pulled from the bag behind the seat in Katie’s dad’s car.
Markham must know he’s here. The factory where Steven Fish was killed is on a derelict industrial estate way out in the country, and he’ll have seen the car a mile away. But Nathan doesn’t give a damn as he jumps out of the car, his head jerking left and right, searching for movement and a chance to begin. He places his palm lightly on the bonnet of the dark saloon parked alongside, feeling the warmth spread up his arm and across his chest. Recently arrived, he thinks. Soon to be departed.