‘Did Howdon set you up to this?’ I asked.
He didn’t answer. His eyes were fixed on the knife blade. He tilted it, backwards and forwards, so the reflected torchlight moved. He seemed mesmerized, as if this were a strange form of self-hypnosis. I was mesmerized too, but I continued to talk.
‘Howdon must be behind all this. He forged the papers for me to sign. But why did he want Thomas dead? Why did he let me think Philip was the boy’s natural father?’
I was talking to fight off the panic, the old helplessness which had started to insinuate itself into my brain as soon as I sat down. I was a hostage again, squatting on the floor, held at knifepoint by a lunatic I’d thought I understood, I’d felt some sympathy for. I imagined Jess raising her eyes to the ceiling. Don’t you ever learn, Lizzie Bartholomew? Won’t you ever look after yourself?
Nicky moves me to the floor when they gather outside his door. They talk to him all night. They’ve cleared the other kids off the corridor and they negotiate with him to open the door, just a crack.
Their voices are soft and reassuring, but I can’t take in the words, and I don’t think Nicky’s listening either. He’s still whispering, saying where he’s going to cut me, how he’s going to hurt me. Then he says, ‘They can kill me, but I’ll take you with me. Are you ready to die, Miss?’ That’s when I wet myself.
Occasionally he shouts back to them, but it’s never anything that makes sense. It’s not like he’s having a real conversation with them.
I don’t know how long I’ve been there. It could be days.
Suddenly my eyes are seared by a bright light. Phosphorescent white. Brighter than anything I’ve ever known. A voice commands, ‘Run, Lizzie, run.’ But I don’t run. My brain’s too sluggish. The message gets slowly to my legs and I stagger to my feet. Nicky’s responses are quicker. He lifts the knife above his head. I see it through eyes half shut against the light and wait for it to strike.
There’s an explosion, so loud I expect the windows to shatter. Framed in the door is a man I don’t recognize, a thug in dark clothes and a baseball cap. He holds a gun, which now is pointing to the floor. And when I turn round Nicky is lying in a heap in the corner with blood seeping through his clothes. Then I lose it. I crouch beside the boy and stroke his hair away from his face and say it was all my fault and I never meant him to die.
In the wood I hadn’t lost it. I was still in control, still talking. Shaking perhaps, but holding myself together. ‘There was something going on within the Countryside Consortium. Was that it? Did Thomas find out?’
My mind was racing. Ronnie must have done the killing. Howdon would be too squeamish, too soft. He’d not want blood on his suit or his hands or his fat belly. Had Ronnie taken money to kill his own stepson? When I’d seen them together in Whitley Bay, was Howdon paying Ronnie to get rid of me? Was this the result? Another nuisance disposed of?
Ronnie looked up suddenly from the knife. His face was underlit by the torch. His eyes were in shadow. The sockets looked hollow. ‘Did you sleep with Philip?’ he asked.
‘What the fuck has that got to do with you?’
‘I’d understand if you had.’ His voice was a dreamy whisper. It was as if he’d had sex with Philip and was running the pictures in his head. ‘He was a wonderful man.’
‘What would you know about that?’ I couldn’t just sit there any more, passive. I had to put up a challenge, provoke a response. Perhaps then Ronnie would lose concentration and forget about the knife.
‘He was famous, a celebrity, on the television. But he still had time for his friends. He had time for me. I’d have gone under if it hadn’t been for him. He believed the best in everyone.’
‘Why did he get mixed up in the Consortium?’ The more I’d learned about the organization, the more I’d regretted Philip’s involvement with it. They were a bunch of self-seeking whingers. Philip hadn’t been like that.
‘He believed in the dream,’ Ronnie said. Then he paused and the voice slowed and softened again, slurring over the start of a stutter. ‘At least he believed in Joanna and she believed in the dream.’
‘What dream would that be, Ronnie? The countryside for country people? It’s a bit fascist that, for me.’
He obviously didn’t like the question or the tone. He ignored it.
‘What’s the plan here, Ronnie? Are we going to sit on our bums all night like a couple of turds, or are you going to let me go back to the car and we’ll forget all about it. I know what it’s like to get carried away, after all. Is that a deal, eh, Ronnie? One lunatic to another.’
‘I can’t let you go,’ he said. It was as if he was sorry. Just following orders. Is that how it had been in his African jungle?
‘Howdon need never know. I’ll say I ran away.’
‘I can’t let you go,’ he said again.
‘Yes, you can, Ronnie.’ Her voice was clear and loud. I hadn’t heard footsteps, any movement at all to make me aware of her presence. Perhaps she’d been there all the time, listening to our conversation. She came closer and then it was as if she was talking to a child. ‘That’s quite enough now. Quite enough killing.’
He swung round the torch and we stared at Joanna. She had style. It was as if she’d dressed just for the effect she created in this moment, as if she knew this would be how we’d first see her. She wore boots, tight trousers like jodhpurs and a loose white shirt. Her hair was down and blown by the wind. Lara Croft’s mother would look like this. She was unreal.
‘You don’t understand,’ Ronnie said. The stutter had returned.
‘No? Let her go. Come to me, Lizzie. Walk away from him. He won’t hurt you.’
It was like when they’d shouted at me to run that night at the unit. But this time I did what she said. I stood up and walked towards her, and Ronnie sat where he was, fiddling impotently with his knife.
‘Go home,’ she said more gently. ‘Go home to Kay and the girls. Your car’s in the drive.’
And he just got up and scarpered, bounding down the bank and away from us. It was as if we were two performing dogs in a circus and she was the ringmaster standing there with her long boots and her white shirt. All she needed was the whip.
‘You can’t let him get away. He’s a lunatic, a killer.’
‘The police will know where to find him,’ she said. ‘He hasn’t got the brains or the guts to run away.’ She sounded exhausted. ‘Come to the house. I need a drink and so do you.’
Chapter Thirty-six
When did I work it all out? Not in logical steps, and it didn’t come in a flash like moonlight breaking through a gap in the trees. It was more like a fairy tale that you hear once when you’re a child, then forget about, until you hear a snatch of it again and the whole lot comes back. Perhaps I’d known all along but couldn’t face the truth. The implications were too much for me to cope with.
I followed Joanna down the bank towards the house. She was sure-footed but I slithered and tripped, and she stopped every now and again for me to catch her up. She took me in through a back door. It wasn’t as if it were the tradesman’s entrance and she wanted to put me down; it was the way the family used and she wanted to make me feel included. That’s how I saw it, at least. There was a scruffy hall with a narrow staircase ahead of us. I suppose once servants would have used it, but tonight Flora was there, dressed in pink pyjamas, sitting on the top stair and looking down anxiously. She must have been waiting for her mother’s return.
‘It’s all right, darling,’ Joanna said with a mixture of exasperation and affection. ‘I’m back and I’m fine. You can go to bed now. I’ll come up once I’ve had a drink.’