by C. M. Ewan
‘You don’t want to do that,’ he told her. ‘I don’t enjoy the mess a shotgun makes in here, but don’t think for one minute it would be the first time.’
She pressed her lips tight together and shook her head over and over, like she was trying to deny the inevitable.
‘Tom,’ Lionel said again.
I looked at him. He blinked, smiled sadly, shook his head.
‘I love your family, Tom. You might not believe that right now, but I do. You can give me the gun. Take Holly to the hospital. I’m prepared to trust you here, Tom. But you need to trust me. Let me do this for you and Rachel.’
A selfless act? Maybe. Perhaps I should even have been touched. But I thought there was more to it than that. My fingerprints were on the gun now. Rachel’s too. I looked up towards the camera in the corner of the room. Maybe it was still recording, but when I thought of all the equipment in the stargazing pod I began to see how easily Lionel could delete or manipulate any footage that was filmed in here. If we made it to the hospital and tried contacting the police, he could easily say I pulled the trigger. Or Rachel. His word against ours. Our prints on the gun.
‘Tom, we don’t have a lot of time. Holly doesn’t have a lot of time. You know that.’
He beckoned to me for the pistol – a little wave with his fingers.
I looked back at Ryan, gritting my teeth. Then I turned from her, slipped a hand under Rachel’s good arm and helped her to her feet. Her knees gave out. I held her up. The room began to spin.
I took one slow step forwards, feeling the air empty out of my lungs. Ryan watched us keenly. I could see she was torn. Was this her opportunity? Or had she already let it slip by?
We moved closer to Lionel. He put out his hand. I gripped the pistol for a second more, my knuckles cracking, then placed the gun in his palm. Rachel shuddered. Ice chips scattered across my shoulders. Lionel nodded to me, just once, with an expression of absolute solemnity.
‘You’ve made the right choice, Tom.’
Had I? I glanced at Ryan one last time. Was she sorry – truly sorry – for what she’d done? Or was she just scared and prepared to say anything to get out?
The doorway was ahead of us. I steered Rachel towards it and, as we stepped through, I had a plunging sensation, like we were two skydivers jumping tandem out of a plane.
‘Daddy!’
I looked up at Holly and felt the warmth spread through my chest. She was weak but she smiled through the clammy bruising on her face, lifting her arms up, ready to be carried.
I placed my foot on the first tiered step and helped Rachel up alongside me. There were four empty cinema seats to my left. Brodie was propped on his elbow against the next step up. It was hard to get a read on him because of the swelling to his eyes. He looked up at Rachel, like he was searching her for something he was afraid he’d lost.
Don’t try to stop us. Don’t try to stop us. Don’t . . .
We advanced to the second step. Another four cinema seats to our left.
‘Tom?’ Lionel called. ‘I think you should see this.’
No. Not now. Too soon.
I swung back – no air in my lungs – and stared wild-eyed through the one-way glass as Lionel took three swift paces into the room with the pistol at the very end of his reach and the shotgun down by his side. Ryan began to burst forwards.
Lionel pulled the trigger.
A dry click in the room.
Rachel jerked.
Brodie grunted and shoved himself forwards off the wall.
Lionel gasped and pulled the trigger again.
Another dry click.
I might not know a lot about guns but I’m a quick learner. I’d watched Brodie release and reload the magazine in the pool room. When I’d lowered the pistol to my lap, I’d pressed a button on the side and a magazine had dropped out. The magazine was stashed in my trouser pocket.
Ryan continued forwards and dived at Lionel. She knocked the gun from his hand. Then she wrenched the shotgun from him, turned it, rammed the stock into his stomach, all in one fluid, athletic motion. Lionel doubled up. He spat air from his lungs.
It all happened so fast. Too fast.
Ryan shoved Lionel aside and loped out of the room, raising the shotgun as she emerged. I heard Brodie shout something. I’m not sure what. ‘Move!’ maybe. I like to think so, but I could be wrong.
My instincts kicked in. I pivoted from my hips. Leaned to my left. I dived for cover between the cinema seats and pulled Rachel down with me. There was a booming flash. A mighty explosion. A hot vibration in the air.
Rachel screamed.
I heard footsteps. Yells. Another scream.
I was pinned by Rachel. It was cramped between the seats. She pushed herself off me in a frenzy. The stink of gunpowder hung in the air. There was a haze of blued smoke. My ears were ringing.
I pulled myself up to my knees, clinging to the seats. I almost fell back down again. Rachel was kneeling next to Brodie. There was blood on her hands. His chest was a cratered mess.
He was listing sideways, fading out, his breaths coming in desperate heaves. He raised a hand to her face. The hand began to slip down.
‘For you,’ he whispered. ‘All of this. Everything for . . .’
He slumped. Rachel couldn’t hold him. And I didn’t know what to do.
‘Tom!’ Lionel clutched hold of his stomach, staggering from the room. He pointed to the top of the steps. Through the misty gunpowder haze.
I turned.
Oh no. No, no, no.
I heaved myself forwards, clambered up the steps.
A terrible emptiness opened up in my chest.
No.
Holly was gone.
I stared at her vacant seat for what felt like a long time but could only have been a fraction of a second. Then I ran.
I ran like a crazy man, bursting out through the door, crashing into the opposite wall. Buster was barking in a frenzy from the living room. I sprinted towards him, pumping my legs. The corridor tilted and jolted. My vision blurred. My heart seemed to be beating from somewhere inside my head.
I skidded into the kitchen, veered to my left.
And pulled up.
Oh no. Please, no.
Ryan had one arm wrapped around Holly’s neck. She was dragging her backwards. The shotgun was pressed to her side.
‘Stay back,’ she yelled.
That swarm of bees again. They were in my chest now, stinging me over and over, again and again.
I stared at Holly. She stared back. I flashed on the alley. I thought of how I hadn’t helped her then. I wanted so desperately to help her now.
Buster barked and snarled. Then he bounded forwards, just like he had in the woods. He opened his jaws and launched himself at Ryan.
Holly screamed. The stinging pain in my chest intensified.
Ryan lashed out with one long leg and kicked Buster hard in the side.
He yelped, hobbled away. His claws skittered on the floorboards.
Holly howled and yanked on Ryan’s arm. She bit her hand. It didn’t work. Ryan just grunted and rammed the gun under Holly’s jaw.
I stopped moving. Stopped breathing.
Holly’s neck and chin were fully extended. I could see the veins pulsing in her throat.
Rachel stumbled into the room behind me. ‘Holly!’ she screamed.
Buster circled woozily. His legs gave out. He crashed to the ground.
Ryan shuffled backwards with Holly, dragging her towards the sliding glass door.
‘Daddy!’
Tears prickled in my eyes. My heart pummelled my ribs.
Ryan bared her teeth and kept the shotgun to Holly’s throat as she hauled her out onto the deck. I stumbled after them. Into the weak morning sunshine and the smell of the pines.
Your child’s life is so precious. I’d learned that in the hardest way imaginable. I’d lost Michael to this woman already. I can’t begin to explain how paralysing it was to think I might lose Hol
ly to her too.
‘Tom, do something. Please.’
Rachel clung to me. I heard slow footsteps behind us. Lionel emerged, cradling his side, the pistol in his hand. He offered it to me.
I fumbled in my pocket for the magazine but Ryan saw it and pushed the shotgun even harder under Holly’s chin.
‘Don’t.’
I froze and stayed locked on Holly. I wanted her to know that I was with her right now. I wanted her to know how very badly I wanted to keep her here in this world with me.
‘I’m sorry,’ Rachel pleaded. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Please.’
‘Let her go!’ I yelled. ‘It doesn’t have to be like this.’
My hand clenched around the magazine in my pocket. Lionel was so close to me. It would take less than a second to snatch the gun from him. Another second to slam the magazine in the pistol. But even supposing I somehow made it without Holly getting shot – which I wouldn’t – I’d already proved myself a terrible aim. There was no way I could risk trying to shoot Ryan while she had Holly so close.
I watched, stranded, as she dragged Holly on across the deck. Wind funnelled in off the jagged sea. It picked up Holly’s hair and flung it in her eyes. Holly’s face crumpled. She shook her head at me. In that moment, I had the feeling she was saying goodbye and I felt something inside of me give way and collapse.
They were getting very close to the corner of the lodge now. Ryan’s pupils darted side to side, trying to get her bearings.
‘Please,’ I said. ‘She’s my child.’
I couldn’t think what else to do. My mind raced. Still I had nothing. Maybe we should back off entirely. Wait and hope she would let Holly go. But why would she do that? We all knew the truth now. She had so much to lose . . .
There was a sudden blur of white. A sickening crack. Ryan’s head whipped sideways on a crazy angle. The breath left my lungs. Her body went slack. Then the shotgun dropped from her hand, she crashed to her knees and fell face down onto the deck.
There was a ghastly dent in the side of her skull.
Holly screamed and leaped clear, pressing her hands to her face.
My chest heaved. My lungs cramped. I couldn’t move.
I was staring at the figure in the white plastic coveralls standing behind Holly.
He peeled back his hood and tugged down his mask.
Adams.
Electric shivers in my arms. I thought again about the gun Lionel was holding out to me. The magazine in my hand.
Rachel wailed as Adams lifted his right arm in the air. I saw that he was holding the bloodied wheel wrench from our Volvo. I stared at Holly. I was so very far away.
‘It’s over,’ he said, and then he opened his fist. The wrench fell to the ground. It bounced and clattered as if in slow motion. ‘Talk to me about what we do now.’
It took a few seconds for my heart to start beating again. For my lungs to start working.
‘Tom,’ Lionel called.
I looked at him. He offered me the pistol again.
‘This is what true justice is, Tom. This is how it works.’
But not for me. Not for us.
It’s over.
That was a hard thing to believe in. A hard thing to trust. We were going to have to reach a compromise with Lionel on it, somehow.
But that could come later.
I turned with the magazine in my hand and tossed it into the sea. Holly shook her head as I stepped close and slowed up. Tears smeared her face. And then everything else fell away as I wrapped her in my arms. I pulled my daughter into me. I cradled her tight. I smelled her hair. I kissed her face. I didn’t ever want to let go of her again. I’m not sure which one of us slumped to our knees first or if we did it together. I know we were there for only a few seconds before Rachel joined us. We cried. We kissed. Then I heard a new sound. The slow scraping of claws on the decking. We turned and Buster limped towards us past Lionel, a forlorn look in his chestnut eyes. He lifted one paw in the air and we smiled through our tears and opened our arms to him, pulling him close, holding each other as a family for the first time in as long as I could remember.
EPILOGUE
More than three weeks have gone by. I say that and it doesn’t seem possible. I have moments now where what took place in the lodge feels like something that happened to another family, in another life. And then there are other moments – spells where my pulse races, my breathing goes funny and the walls around me seem to dissolve into those woods again – and I could believe I’m still being hunted, that my life since that night is nothing more than a cruel illusion.
And maybe, in some ways, that’s what it is: an illusion that Rachel, Holly and I are pretending is real.
I’m living at home again. We’re a family again. And not just any family. We hug and say that we love each other all the time. We eat healthy, balanced meals together and talk without staring at our phones. We stay up late, cuddled on the sofa, watching those romcoms on Netflix that Holly loves so much. Even Buster has got in on the act. We go out as a trio now for all his walks, but when we unclip his lead in the park, he doesn’t run off. He prefers to stick close.
I can live that way for now, but I worry. I worry about all the things we’re not saying to each other. I worry how long we can keep the darkness at bay.
Holly is doing well, considering. We took Brodie’s car and got her to a hospital almost immediately after I left things at the lodge. We claimed she’d had an early morning accident, tripping while she was walking Buster in the woods. It turned out Holly’s spleen had been punctured. She was taken into surgery right away and her spleen had to be removed. Holly will need to take antibiotics every day now for the rest of her life. Rachel tells me it could have been a lot worse – that if we’d left it any longer to get to A&E, she would have died. I nod along to that, though obviously we both know it could be a lot better. The bruising to her face is almost entirely faded. It’s the emotional scars that will take longer to heal.
Holly says and does all the right things, but under that brittle facade I know she’s angry with both of us. She should be. For too long she came second to her brother, even – perhaps especially – after his death. I made a vow to myself when Holly was in surgery that if she pulled through I would spend the rest of my life trying to make her feel as happy and as safe as I could. I go into her room every night and sit by her bed until she falls asleep. She always keeps a light on. That kills me. And every morning I get up and shower and remind myself of my vow. Then I see Holly and my heart swells to bursting, and I realize I would do anything to save her from more pain.
I think sometimes Rachel wonders if that’s why I’m really back. Sometimes I wonder the same thing. Am I home for Holly, or because it’s what I genuinely want? The truth, I think, is probably a bit of both.
I still love Rachel. Deep in my heart, I know I always will. We share a bed. We make love. We kiss and fool around like teenagers. Maybe that’s a reaction to how close we came to losing each other. Or maybe it’s another sign that we’re trying too hard to paper over the cracks in our relationship.
There’s a lot of stuff to work through. When I think of the risks she took, the danger she placed us in, the secrets she kept . . . Well, like Holly, I get angry.
But then I take a breath and remind myself of why she did it. Of the emotional mess she was in. Of Michael. And it gets a lot more complicated.
Rachel got involved in a scheme that was immoral and crazy, and, look, maybe I’m being naive yet again, but I still believe her when she says she did it for me. I came back home for Holly. Rachel nearly forced us apart for Michael. I guess there’s a symmetry in that.
You may be wondering if it helps to know how my son died. Does it bring me comfort to know he was trying to save Fiona, and that the woman who held a gun on him and caused him to crash is now dead herself?
Would you think less of me if I told you that yes, it does? Then you should also know that my heart still aches with longing f
or the son I’ll never get to hold again; for the young man of whom I’m so very, very proud.
Michael is gone for ever – I know that – but there is one way in which I have him back. I can think of him now without my memories being burdened by that crippling sense of shame. I have Rachel to thank for that. And I do, often. But, still, I never would have pursued this outcome in the way Rachel did, and that is something, long term, I don’t know if we can get past.
Today is Saturday morning. Holly has hockey practice in less than an hour. Rachel and I are going to watch. And I am busy making a picnic for us all to take to the park afterwards – under close supervision from Buster. He’s fine, by the way. He shows no long-term effects from the tranquilizer he was shot with. Like Holly, his bruises have healed.
Rachel walks into the kitchen and sees me, and when she smiles I feel that same strange mix of emotions – love and gratitude and, yes, sadness too – and from the crinkling around her eyes, the misting of her pupils, I sense she feels the same things.
‘Did you see the news this morning?’ she asks me, though she can’t quite hold my eye.
‘No,’ I tell her.
‘They’re still running the story. I wish they’d stop.’
But they won’t. Not yet. The firestorm of media interest has been too intense. Who wouldn’t find the mystery of four missing police detectives tantalizing?
For now, the prevailing theory remains that the four heroic members of the Met’s elite drugs task force must have fallen victim to one of the London drug gangs they’d been aiming to bring down. Kate Ryan, unsurprisingly, is the focus for most of the coverage. Since the story first broke, the police have dragged in multiple suspects for questioning but there are, as yet, no solid leads. Every hack journalist and true-crime blogger seems convinced their bodies will never be found. And, of course, they won’t be.
I kept up with the stories to begin with. It seemed like a necessary precaution before the stress of it got too much. So I can tell you that Detective Sergeant Nayler, the smaller man who Brodie shot in the swimming pool, was divorced with two kids. DC Kenny, the bigger man who died in the pantry, left behind a loving mother and father who’ve been plastered across the tabloids clutching a photograph of their only son in uniform. DCI Ryan has been lauded as an outstanding team leader and a tragic hero by none other than Assistant Commissioner Richard Weeks. DC Adams was single. Both his parents died when he was a teenager. I sometimes wonder if that has something to do with why he stepped out of those trees and bludgeoned Ryan. Perhaps it took someone who’d lost his own family to recognize the importance of saving mine.