A Gun to Play With
Page 22
‘Please, Nat.’
To kill her — and have to go on living. How could she ask that of him? It would be like taking his own life, robbing himself of everything that was dear. Yet she was right — they might say she was insane, they might put her away for life. That would be a cruelty he could not bear to contemplate.
He shuddered. Was he thinking of himself — or of her? He had never had to ask himself that question before.
The girl’s eyes were on his face, watching him, reading the struggle in his mind. And suddenly he could bear it no longer, and he smiled at her. All his love was in the smile, so that for a moment his ugly, misshapen face became transfigured.
‘Give me the gun, Cathie dear,’ he said quietly. ‘We’ll go together. We’ve always been together. They shan’t part us now.’
She moved closer and handed it to him. He put an arm round her and bent to kiss her cheek. It was cold against his lips.
‘Quickly, Nat,’ she said. ‘They’re coming.’
He could hear the Superintendent’s voice calling his name. Steadily his finger squeezed the trigger. The gun barked, there was the smell of cordite. Cathie gasped and shuddered. Her eyes closed, her slim body slid away from him.
Gently he laid her on the grass. Her eyelids trembled as though she were trying desperately to open them.
‘Goodbye, Nat.’ The words came faintly and very slowly. ‘I’m sorry you can’t come with me. That was the last bullet. That — was — why —’
He felt her body tremble. She sighed, a small, tremulous sigh. And then she died.
*
Gently he withdrew his arm from under her.
‘Goodbye, Cathie,’ he said.
For a moment he watched her, the tears running down his cheeks. Then he turned and walked unsteadily into the light towards the dark, advancing figures silhouetted against it.
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