Ready or Not, page 26
Then she smiled.
‘Roland,’ she said. ‘What a pleasant surprise.’
Alice
What the fuck was he doing here?
How did he even have the address? Tom – the fucking idiot – must have told him for some reason. And now he was here. But why? What could he want?
She didn’t know, but it didn’t really matter. He was going to have to die, one way or another.
But that presented a problem. Two brothers in the same place, on the same night? If he’d come an hour or two earlier it would have been fine. She could have postponed killing Tom, but now there was no way of backing out of that. He knew everything, so he couldn’t live.
And now Roland was here, neither could he.
Which left her right back at the same problem. Two brothers dead in one night? It was too much of a coincidence. Questions would be asked. Questions would be answered. Emails would be read.
Her true identity would be uncovered.
Unless she made it work for her. A coincidence would raise eyebrows, but what if there was no coincidence? What if one death caused the other?
She smiled.
Yes. That was the answer. And she had the perfect way to make it happen.
‘How was the drive?’ she asked. ‘And what brings you here?’
Roland
Her smile reminded him of a doll his grandmother – his mum’s mum – had had when he and Tom were kids. It was porcelain, and the smile was painted on. The rest of the face was expressionless and the red lips were out of place, almost sinister.
‘I had to run something by Tom,’ he said. ‘That’s all. I tried to phone but it didn’t ring. I guessed you had no service up here.’
‘It must be quite urgent,’ she said. ‘To come all this way.’
‘It is,’ he said.
‘What is it?’
He could hardly tell her, but what could be so urgent he would drive this far to tell his brother?
Of course. The answer was obvious.
‘It’s Dad.’
‘What about him? Has something happened?’
He nodded, glad of a lie that made sense. ‘He’s taken a turn for the worse.’
The smile morphed into an open-mouthed look of shock. It was no more genuine.
‘My God. How bad is he?’
‘Worse,’ Roland said. ‘Not critical, but worse. Tom might want to come and see him.’
It really was the perfect excuse for him being here. Believable, and even better, it was a reason for Tom to leave immediately. He might not have to discuss the photo – and what the police had said – until they were on their way home.
They could bring Joanna, too. Say she needed to see her grandad.
And then he would tell the police where she was and they could come and deal with her. Something was very wrong here, but he, Tom, and Joanna would be safe, and that was all that Roland cared about.
‘That’s awful,’ she said. ‘And he’s going to want to see him, for sure. But he’s out on a walk with Jo at the moment. He left minutes before you arrived, so he may be a while.’
‘I didn’t see him as I drove in.’
‘There’s a path by the lake. He went that way.’ She gestured to the terrace. ‘Do you want to wait out there? Take a seat. I’ll make you a cup of tea.’
He didn’t want to spend any more time there than he had to, but there was no sign of Tom, and it was possible he was out walking.
And he had no choice.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘That would be lovely.’
Alice
It was clear from his demeanour that he was lying about their father. She had seen the look of relief on his face when the lie came to him; if he had thought of it earlier it might have been more convincing, but she had seen exactly what was happening.
He was here for another reason entirely, and she knew what it was.
There was only one thing it could be.
He knew about the photo. Somehow he had found out.
She bit her lip hard in frustration. She should have figured that out earlier, maybe gone through Tom’s emails. But things had moved too quickly, and now here Roland was, fucking up her plans.
Well, it didn’t change anything. He was going to die anyway. This just meant she’d have to find out whether he’d told anyone else before she killed him. And if he had, she would have even more to deal with.
But she was calm. She would find a way. She always found a way.
She looked out of the kitchen window. He was sitting at the table, facing the lake. The boat wasn’t visible from that angle; the lawn was flat and then there was a sudden dip. You had to be much closer to the lake shore before you could see anything on it.
The kettle whistled and she poured the water onto a teabag. As it steeped she opened her day pack and pulled out what she needed.
She smiled. This was going to be a fun warm-up to the main event.
And she couldn’t wait.
She put milk in the tea and went outside.
Roland
This was not right at all. There was a chill in the air and the sun was setting. At this time Tom should have been home, eating with his wife and daughter before getting ready to put her to bed, not wandering around the shores of a lake.
He forced himself to keep calm. It was possible Tom was out walking. Perhaps the fresh air helped Joanna to get to sleep. Perhaps it helped Tom clear his mind and relax.
Perhaps.
But none of that could change the feeling that something was wrong. It was the whole situation. The photograph, the lack of a response from Tom, the police phone call. There was something going on with Alice, something long-standing and very bad that was not going to end well.
And he was worried that whatever it was, was coming to a head. Maybe Tom had confronted her with the photo and they’d had a huge row. Maybe he had stormed out and was out there now, unwilling to come back. Maybe he’d left her for good. That would certainly explain the strained atmosphere she gave off.
He glanced down at the table. Tom’s phone was lying on it, face down.
He would have taken it if he had stormed out or gone for a walk.
The kitchen door opened and Alice came out holding a mug of tea. She put it on the table and sat opposite him.
‘He forgot his phone,’ she said. ‘No surprise. There’s no signal anyway. And I think he enjoys the quiet time with Jo.’
‘Does she like the walks?’
Alice shrugged. ‘Seems to. She’s too young to know where she is.’
‘It goes in, though. One way or another.’
‘So people say.’
‘Did he say when he’d be back?’
‘I don’t think it’ll be too long.’
There was a cry from upstairs. They both glanced up at the open window.
The cry came again, then turned into a wail.
‘I thought you said he took Jo with him?’ Roland said.
‘Oh,’ Alice said. ‘I must have got mixed up. She was probably asleep and he didn’t want to wake her.’
The tension between them rose. He caught her eye and held her gaze.
‘Alice,’ he said. ‘There’s something we need to talk—’
Her left hand snaked out and grabbed his wrist. She slammed it down onto the tabletop, palm upwards, then jerked him forwards. Her right hand curled into a fist and she slammed it into his temple.
His head swam and stars danced in front of his eyes. He blinked to clear them, and then he saw what she had done.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No. Not that.’
Alice
It was surprisingly easy, but then his body was used to it.
After she hit him she reached into her pocket for the things she had taken from her day pack. Two syringes, both full of heroin.
This was how it would end for the Sark brothers: Roland, having fallen off the wagon, came to see his brother and, while there, overdosed in spectacular fashion. While Alice tried unsuccessfully to revive him, Tom – already on the ragged edge of sanity – finally collapsed and, in a grotesque imitation of his brother, took his own and his daughter’s life.
No coincidence here, but one all too predictable death – she’d read once that a lot of overdoses happened when a junkie fell off the wagon and couldn’t hold themselves back – and one caused by it.
A tragedy she would never recover from. A poor, devoted wife and mother grieving at the savage loss of her husband and child.
She pushed the needle into his vein and pressed the plunger, but only a fraction of the way. She wanted to watch him succumb, wanted to extract the maximum satisfaction from this.
He blinked, shaking away the fog the punch had left in his brain, and looked down at his arm. His eyes widened in alarm. He knew what this meant.
She pushed the plunger a little deeper. His pupils enlarged as the drug ran through his body, coursing along all the pathways it had carved over the years and lighting them up.
She could see the bliss spread over him. She could feel her own body respond as her craving for the drug she needed was satisfied.
She groaned, then laughed and took her hand off the syringe. It toppled sideways and he grabbed it to stop it falling from his arm.
She put a second syringe on the table. Either he’d inject it himself after the first one, unable to resist, or she’d wait for him to pass out and inject it herself.
What a night this was turning out to be. It was thrilling beyond anything she could have imagined.
Roland
Oh God. Oh God, not this. This was the one thing he could not resist.
He could feel it in his body. It was wonderful, better than anything. And he wanted more.
Then she took away her hand and he grabbed the syringe. It was so familiar, so comforting, blissful. Just a little more, and all this would go away. Not that he cared any more, not now, not with the drug, his best friend, his one and only true friend, running riot in his body and taking away all his worries.
She stared at him, her eyes boring into his soul.
‘Go on,’ she said. ‘It’s yours. All yours. You know what to do.’
The smile was back, but this time it was not forced. It was real. It was her true self.
And it was demonic. She was inhuman, a force of pure evil without any shred of compassion or love or human feeling at all.
He was terrified. He knew he was going to die at her hands, be consumed by her hellish fire.
And that made him want – need, crave – the release of the drug even more. What was death when you felt this good?
His thumb went over the plunger. This was it. This was the end.
Then he heard a sound. It was like a baby crying.
It was a baby crying.
It was Jo. His niece.
And he understood. It wasn’t only him who would die at her hands. It was Jo and Tom and countless others.
The cry came again, louder this time.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No.’
He pulled the syringe from his arm and threw it as far away as he could.
‘Where’s Tom?’ he said. ‘Where’s my brother?’
Alice
Well, fuck that.
It turned out he had a spine after all. Never mind. She’d have to do this the old-fashioned way.
She reached into her day pack and took out her hammer. She had no idea how she’d explain this, but she’d come up with something.
And then he lifted the table and slammed it into her. Her chair tipped over backwards and she fell, her legs up at a weird angle and her head against the stone terrace. He leaned on the table, his weight pinning her to the ground.
‘It’s over,’ he said. ‘It’s finished. Where’s Tom?’
She shook her head. It was hard to breathe and the words came slowly. ‘Not saying.’
‘I know,’ he said.’ You’re not who you say you are. Right, Brenda?’
‘Andrea,’ she gasped. ‘For what it’s worth.’
‘Andrea?’
‘Yeah. I can tell you because I’m going to kill you.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘You’re not. The police know about you too. They’ll be here soon enough. And I’ll lie like this until they do.’
Idiot, she thought. He shouldn’t be telling her all this.
Because it changed everything again.
She felt her clarity of thought return. The police were on their way. So she had only one option.
Tom would get what he wanted after all. She would have to disappear, and start again somewhere else.
She shifted so that her hips were against the ground and her knees were on the tabletop.
‘Don’t try anything,’ he said. ‘It won’t work.’
What was he? Five ten and skinny? She’d leg pressed much more.
‘I’m not trying—’ she began, and then twisted so her feet were against the lip of the table and shoved as hard as she could. It wasn’t the perfect position, but it was enough to spin the table and put him off balance so the pressure lessened for a moment and she was able to wriggle free.
She jumped to her feet. She had to get out of here. There was time, but not much. Every second counted now. She had to get in her car and get out of here.
But he would follow her.
Shit.
She could kill him with the hammer. But he would fight, so there was no guarantee it would work, and then she would have used her time, and he would still follow her. It could make the situation worse.
But there was a way to stop him from following her. An easy way.
Roland
She held the hammer raised and ready to strike. She was tense, coiled like an animal, and he could see she was weighing up what to do, cold and calculating.
He glanced at the second syringe she had left on the table. The taste he had had was nowhere near enough. God, he wanted to grab it and shove it in his arm, vanish into the abyss.
No. He had Jo and Tom to think about, not to mention the fact she was going to attack him. She was going to lunge at him and swing the hammer at his head. He’d be ready. He’d been in his fair share of fights down the years. You couldn’t mix with the people he had mixed with unless you could look after yourself.
But then she licked her lips and turned away and ran into the house.
He saw immediately where she was going. She was going to get Jo.
She was going to hurt his niece. To bash her brains out with that hammer.
He ran after her. She turned out of the kitchen and into the dining room and he heard her footsteps on the stairs. Good. He could trap her upstairs.
He walked up the stairs. When he was near the top she walked out of a bedroom door and onto the landing. In one hand she was holding Jo. In the other, she was holding the hammer.
‘Hand her to me,’ he said. ‘You don’t need to do this.’
‘Move,’ she said. ‘Now.’
‘No. I can’t let you hurt her.’
‘I said move.’ She lifted the hammer close to Joanna’s head. ‘I’m going to count to three, and then I’m going to kill her.’
‘You won’t do that.’
‘One.’
‘I know you won’t.’
‘Two.’
She was perfectly still, her eyes trained on his. They had the same emotionless, inhuman look as before.
There was no doubt she would do it, then try to do the same to him. He could run away, but it would be too late for Jo.
He took a step down.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Keep going. All the way.’
He backed away and she followed, keeping a few steps’ distance between them. When he was at the bottom of the stairs she nodded towards the terrace. ‘Outside, back to me.’
He went out, looking forward, all too aware she was behind him.
‘Lie down,’ she said.
He lay on the terrace, next to the scattered furniture. This was it. He braced himself for the sharp blow from the hammer.
It never came.
Instead, she set off at a jog towards the lake, Jo bouncing in her arms.
Alice
He would follow her, no doubt, but that was part of the plan. He would think she was going to drown the infant, and he would run after them.
She glanced over her shoulder. He was on his feet, looking at them. As she watched, he started in their direction.
Good. She sped up. She needed to reach the water before he caught them.
She ran down the slope that led to the rocky beach. Tom lay sprawled in the dinghy, his head lolling over the side of the boat. She ran into the lake until she was waist deep in water.
Roland appeared at the top of the slope.
‘Tom,’ he said. ‘Is he alive?’
‘For now.’
‘What did you do to him?’
‘Heroin.’
His eyes widened. ‘You gave him heroin?’
‘To knock him out. Then I was going to push him out on the lake with Jo and capsize them. It’d look like a murder-suicide. But you showed up.’
‘So what now?’
‘This,’ she said, and dropped Jo into the lake.
Roland
Jo splashed into the water and sank. Alice sprinted out of the lake and up towards the house.
Roland understood her plan, but there was nothing he could do to stop her.
She was making him choose between rescuing his niece or chasing her. And there was only one choice.
He ran into the lake. The water was bitterly cold and dark. He reached the spot where she had dropped Jo and searched for her. For a moment he couldn’t find her, and then he saw a flash of white and plunged his hands into the water, grasping for his niece.
He felt an arm or a leg and grabbed it, then yanked her out of the water. She was pale and faintly blue and he didn’t think she was breathing, but he slapped her back and then she frowned and opened her mouth and started to cry.
