‘Shut it. That dirty slut went with them but not me. Then she waltzed off with Laurence. I liked her. I actually liked her but Paddy and Adam, they just wanted to shag her. It was me who liked her.’
‘So what did you do?’
Narey heard something that might have been a sob or a gulp coming from Deans before he answered.
‘Adam and Paddy were going to Bracklinn Falls and I told them I was going to stay at the bothy. But instead I went to the lake. I knew they were going to walk to the island. I wanted… I just wanted to know what they were doing. The place was teeming with people and they probably wouldn’t have noticed me anyway but I walked round and onto the island from the other side. They were walking hand in hand like… like fucking sweethearts. I was mad at her for treating Laurence like that after what she did with Paddy and Adam.’
‘And for not screwing you.’
‘They argued,’ Deans ignored Narey’s jibe. ‘They were only on the island a few minutes and they were arguing. Laurence tried it on and she knocked him back. The bitch said no even though she’d been such a slut the night before. I was… it just wasn’t…’
‘Fair?’
‘I don’t really know what happened. Laurence left and the next thing I knew I was standing over her. I’d hit her. And hit her. Over and over. There was blood everywhere. The snow was soaked in it. I got this tree branch and just… hit her. I don’t know how many times. She was… she was dead.’
‘Twenty-two.’
‘What?’
‘You hit Barbie twenty-two times. Quite the big man.’
A troubled silence fell between them, broken only by the whisper of the wind and the call of a pair of geese overhead. Narey’s head throbbed and she wondered how much blood she had lost.
‘What did you do with the branch?’
‘I threw it as far across the ice on the far side of the island as I could and left it for the lake to melt. Then I went back to the bothy. I got there before Laurence and no one knew I had left.’
‘So was the rest of what you told me true? About making a pact not to talk about it because she was under sixteen?’
‘Yes.’
‘And who told them that she was only fifteen?’
He laughed inanely.
‘I did. I told them that Barbie had told me she was fifteen but it wasn’t true. Paddy and Adam nearly shit themselves. Laurence too. She was never mentioned again.’
‘Until this year.’
‘Yes. Until those adverts in the Sunday papers. Then those emails. Everything was fine until then: my wife, my daughter, my job. Everything had been perfect until then. It was all going to be ruined. She’d have left me. I told you that. Couldn’t let it happen.’
‘So you assumed it was Paton, Mosson or Bradley? The only ones who knew you had all been with the girl. And you decided to take them out.’
‘Yes.’
‘You made Paton and Mosson look like accidents. You even faked an attack on yourself, you sick bastard.’
Narey suddenly let out a tired, ironic laugh. This one, unlike the others, not done by design to wind Deans up even further. This one she simply couldn’t help.
‘What’s so fucking funny?’
‘It’s not so much funny as sad, Deans. You see, I don’t think it was any of them who were blackmailing you.’
‘What? But… then who?’
‘I’ll tell you after I arrest you,’ she taunted him. ‘Right now all you need to know is that you killed Paton, Mosson and Bradley for no reason. All that trouble and all you did was fuck up your own life as well as theirs.’
Deans sat in sullen silence, chewing on her words.
‘What about Bradley?’ she asked him.
‘Fuck you.’
‘The rumour that “Lily” was a gypsy girl. That was no coincidence, was it? You started that rumour because you wanted to find out where Bradley was. You couldn’t find him, so you used us to track him down.’
‘I started that rumour years ago, the first time I heard that Paddy had married into travelling folk. I wanted to know where all three of them were. I needed to know — just in case. I knew if Paddy was with gypsies, then he’d go off the radar. I wanted a way of being able to bring him back in.’
‘Very clever.’
‘But not as clever as you, is that right, Sergeant Narey?’ he growled. ‘Well, it seems there’s something you’ve forgotten.’
Narey heard not just the renewed confidence in Dean’s voice but also realised that it was stronger than it had been.
‘And what’s that?’
‘You remember what happened to Paddy Bradley?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘So you tell me: how do you think I managed to slit his throat with a golf club?’
Narey’s heart stopped for a second. As much as she didn’t want to, she sat up and looked over at Deans. Like her, he was propped up on his elbows but his right hand held a knife — a large kitchen knife. He’d been telling her the truth about what had happened in order to buy himself time to recover from the punch that she’d delivered to his throat.
Deans got to his feet, the knife held before him. Narey scrambled towards the golf club but he was on her before she could pick it up, slicing at the back of her hand with the blade and drawing a bright red line that bled from her knuckles to three inches above her wrist. Clutching at the cut, she was forced to fall back and he was on top of her, pinning her to the ground.
Deans used his weight to hold Narey in place, making sure she couldn’t swing her legs at him this time. To seal the deal, he held the knife to her throat.
‘You came to my house,’ he snarled. ‘My wife was in. I’d spent nearly twenty years trying to do the right thing, to make it all right. Then you came and threatened to ruin everything.’
Deans stuck the point of the knife to Narey’s neck and pushed it forward, drawing blood.
‘I could still have made it all okay. When your DC Corrieri told me where Bradley was, I went after him. To finish it. I wanted to bring him back to the scene of the crime. Have it look like he killed himself here — out of guilt. But there were so many people. I didn’t expect so many. I couldn’t… We were surrounded by people.’
Narey just stared up at him, refusing to show him the fear that coursed through her. Her heart hammered at her ribcage; every nerve jangled. She wanted to buck him off but her arms were trapped by his knees and he was too heavy. And the knife was so close. He pressed it forward again, an inch or two from the first cut, drawing another sliver of blood from her throat.
‘The first cut was for Laurence,’ he told her. ‘The second was for Adam. And this… this is for Paddy Bradley.’
Deans pushed the sharp tip of the knife slightly lower on Narey’s neck, forming a perfect bloody triangle and pushed it so that it broke the skin and sent a cold, agonizing tingle through her. The three lines of red trickled down her throat. He drew the knife away slowly, its blade glinting in the moonlight, and held it over her.
She’d decided that she had one last desperate gambit: if he came in close enough and if she could dodge the knife, then she would head-butt him as hard as she could and try to get out from under him. It was a terrible plan and a terrible option but it was all she had.
‘Even with all the people here, even then I might have got away,’ Deans continued, gibbering now. ‘It was Bradley. Everyone thought it was Bradley. I was going to the island to be safe. Then you… you turned up.’
She tried to shrink back against the snow-covered ground, seeking every inch of space to allow her to move away and up.
‘I’ve cut you for Laurence; I’ve cut you for Adam and for Paddy. And this is for the girl.’
Deans drew the knife back, cold madness in his eyes, and she readied herself to move her head to the side, then to thrust it up and into his with every ounce of strength she had left. Damn, the knife was so close…