by Nick Hollin
‘Don’t you forget, lad, that I know everything. You, on the other hand, seem to know nowt.’
‘Where is my brother?!!’ he screams. ‘I swear, if you touch another fucking hair on his head, I will, I will…’ There is saliva hanging from the corner of Nathan’s mouth as the phone slips from his fingers.
‘There you are,’ says Markham, with the same emotionless delivery. ‘I knew it was in you. Your book described all that wonderful potential. And don’t you worry – you couldn’t put all that hate into words. Trust me, action is far more important, and far more fun. I think you’d find it easy, too. I bet if I came over there now there wouldn’t be no hesitation.’
‘Why don’t we see if that’s true,’ says Katie.
‘Part of me would love to, lassie. It would be worth risking death to see the same excitement in someone else’s eyes. But I think I’ve played with you two for long enough. It’s time for me to head for new horizons.’
‘What about Christian?’ Nathan shouts, his grip tightening again.
‘Do you really need me to spell it out for you?’
‘No,’ says Katie, grabbing the phone back and ending the call.
‘What have you done?’ says Nathan, with a disbelieving stare. ‘What the fuck have you done?’ He raises an arm as though he’s about to strike her, then something seems to switch off behind his eyes and he stumbles backwards and falls heavily to the floor. She wants to rush forward and grab him, to whisper in his ear and convince him that she’s not the cold-hearted bitch he must think she is, but the superintendent has blocked her path.
‘Your career is over, DI Rhodes,’ he says, holding her stare.
‘Has been for a while,’ she says, with a sigh.
‘But why would you…? Why?’
Katie draws herself upright and keeps her voice nice and steady. ‘He was giving us nothing.’
Taylor grabs her roughly by the arm, mouthing, what about his brother?
‘Do I have to spell it out?’
‘How can you be like this?’ says the superintendent, and again something inside of her starts to slip. ‘If we’d kept him talking he might have made a mistake.’
‘He doesn’t make mistakes,’ she says, certain this is true. The last piece of the puzzle had not been given by accident. Nathan would have spotted it too if he hadn’t been so distracted. She knows she shouldn’t keep it to herself, it’s exactly what ‘The Cartoonist’ would want, but that stubbornness is rising inside of her again; the need to get the result, no matter what the cost. Only this time it’s not just about catching a killer – it’s about creating a future that both she and Nathan can live with. ‘You heard him,’ she continues. ‘Every word carefully delivered. No emotion. No slip-ups. He knew exactly what he was doing.’
Superintendent Taylor shakes his head, but the anger is leaving him, only to be replaced by resignation and fatigue. He looks his age: the same age as her dad. ‘So, what next?’ he asks, reaching down to pick up his hat and weakly dusting it off with the back of his hand.
‘Not my problem,’ she says. ‘My career is over. I’m going up to see my dad.’
She turns her back on him and walks away, not once looking over her shoulder, stopping only very briefly in the doorway to the care home to order PC Kieran Smith – who hasn’t heard their conversation – not to take his eyes off Nathan.
* * *
Five minutes later and she’s kneeling next to her dad’s chair, lightly holding his hand. She’d needed to say goodbye first, just in case she didn’t get another chance. She also needed to express her intent out loud, as if that might help to make it real.
‘I’m going to kill him,’ she says. ‘For Nathan. And for you.’
She believes for a moment that she might have seen a response, the tiniest twitch to tell her he’s listening, but she’s been fooled that way many times before. She gets up and walks slowly to the window, the very window her dad had been looking out of when he’d let his own confession slip out. As she stands there, leaning heavily on the sill, she turns back to the remaining doubts, to the reason she hasn’t yet left. Is it selfish to risk so many lives to try and protect just two? Is it possible without anyone else ever finding out? Doesn’t an attempt to kill and never get caught make her the same as the monsters she hunts? At this point, it seems she’s unable to resist. She takes another look at her dad, picturing him all those years ago telling Markham he could walk away. Perhaps it’s in her nature. Perhaps it’s in her blood.
A movement in the car park below catches her eye. Everywhere police cars and officers are racing in and out, but this is different; it’s steady, it’s calm, as is the face looking up at her. Martin Coates offers a nod and a comforting smile, and she steps quickly back, as if he might somehow have read her thoughts and understand what she’s about to do. Then she steps forward again, realising that his presence might be exactly what she needs. The carer can help her see things more clearly, just as he had done before a drunken night ruined everything. She’s never felt more sober than she feels right now, and just a few words from him might make all the difference, guiding her away from such a reckless plan.
She heads for the door, stopping very briefly to kiss her dad on the top of his head, reminded, not for the first time, of how the tables have turned. Each time he left for work when she was a child he used to stop and kiss her on the top of the head and tell her he’d be back before she knew it.
* * *
She heads down the stairs and through the fire exit. She doesn’t want to be seen by anyone, not yet, not until she’s come to her final decision. The closer she gets to Martin the more convinced she is that she won’t go through with her plan; she’s not going to risk everything for the sake of two people. She feels a sudden sense of guilt, like she’s cheating on Nathan, like she’s deserting her dad.
She makes it to the car park without being spotted by any of her colleagues. At first she thinks she may have missed Martin, but then he appears from alongside a large black saloon car.
‘Are you okay?’ he asks. ‘I understand from my colleague that someone was attacked here.’
‘Yes,’ she says, as the memory flashes up in her mind. ‘My dad. He was humiliated.’
‘Jesus! I’m so sorry, Katie. Who would do a thing like that?’
‘Have you heard of “The Cartoonist”?’
Martin’s face visibly pales. ‘He’s been here?’ He looks up at her dad’s room again. ‘Why?’
‘To hurt me. And now I’m going to hurt him. I’m going to find him, and I’m going to kill him.’ The confession takes her by surprise, more proof that she’s starting to lose control. ‘I’m sorry, but I have to go.’
Martin stands between two cars, not a tall man but wide enough to block her path. She knows he’ll be worried by what she’s said and will want to try and stop her, so she starts backing up to find a way to walk around.
‘Wait,’ he says, and she doesn’t want to.
He has this way about him that makes her suspect he could talk her into, or out of, anything. He’d been the only carer to ever make any impact with her dad, triggering tiny movements in him whenever he was nearby. Initially giving her so much hope. ‘I might be able to help,’ he says, and suddenly she’s listening. ‘There was someone here. I caught him hovering near your father’s room the other day. I didn’t get a good look as he ran away, but I had a photo taken from the CCTV. I was going to ring the police about it, I was going to ring you, but then…’ He looks away, face reddening again, and starts to move towards the back of the car. ‘It’s tucked in one of my files. Come and look.’
Katie follows as if in a daze. If the photo is good then it changes everything, ruins everything. She steps past the raised boot of the car, glancing up at Martin; his hair is a mess, his clothes the same: a crumpled shirt and an old pair of cords. He’s tucked one hand out of sight as if he’s holding something he doesn’t want her to see, but that’s not the hand she’s staring at, it’s the ot
her one. A jacket had been covering it before, but now the jacket has slipped back to reveal a bloodied bandage wrapped around his fingers. Katie feels the world tilt, reaching out a hand to the corner of his car to steady herself. The boot is empty, except for a rope that already feels like it’s coiling round her neck, stopping her from shouting out, stopping her from running. Even if she could move, she knows it’s too late. Just as it had been back in Markham’s house, she waits for the blinding light, then darkness.
Thirty-Three
Christian is dead. For Nathan there can no longer be any doubt. The moment he’d heard those words, Do you really need me to spell it out for you? he’d known all trace had gone. Katie had known it too, cutting off the phone call because she knew it was all over.
He’s not moved from the steps for half an hour, maybe more, working his way through the words of the children’s books in his mind, repeating each sentence to calm his burning desire to kill. If he waits just a little longer he’ll finally be able to answer it, or at least die trying. Every muscle in his body is aching to run, in a straight line at last, right to the place where he knows Markham is waiting for him.
Why didn’t Katie spot the clue? So many hours spent staring at it in that tiny room in her flat. He fears she’s given up. He’d never believed she could quit anything, not in all the years they’d worked together, but so much is different this time around. If he could, he’d go and speak to her and explain why he cannot be there to help her anymore. He must remain silent for his plan to succeed. This is how his mum must have felt at the end; he cannot deny the irresistible parallels.
He feels his feet starting to twitch, feels the words of the children’s books losing their effect. But it’s all right; he’ll be able to slip away from the slowly dwindling numbers of police soon. He knows there’s one still watching him, but now he has a plan to escape. He rises slowly and unsteadily from the steps before pretending to gag into his hand.
‘Toilet,’ says Nathan to his only guard before stumbling towards the building, the young PC following close behind. He’d noticed the signs for the toilet on the mad rush up to Katie’s dad’s room, and had figured out since that it backed on to the car park.
Once he’s inside, he climbs out the window with the minimum of effort and starts to move quickly between the cars. It’s only as he’s passing a rusty old Rover that he realises he doesn’t need to run all the way to Markham’s location. The keys are still in the ignition. He slips into the driver’s seat, praying the old car will start and that Katie’s not watching him from the window of her dad’s room. The Rover bursts into life on the second attempt, and his brain is flooded with images of what might be waiting for him at the end of his journey.
Thirty-Four
Katie opens her eyes, but her head is covered by a hood and the only light is a flash of pain through her head like a lightning strike. She whimpers, wanting to reach up and touch the pain but finding her arms are pulled tight behind her back. Her feet aren’t moving either; her knees are drawn up towards her face, her body numb. She knows her time is up. All that’s left to do is wonder what it’s going to say in her speech bubble, what message her colleagues will read when they look down at her contorted body. COP-OUT, POLICE CUTS, or, with a tiny slice to a vein in her neck, NICKED. Unless, like Steven Fish, there’s still a lot more to endure before then.
It makes sense to her now, horrible sense; the way the two of them had been able to talk, the connection she’d felt, how she’d finally found a solace for her separation from Nathan. Even the killer’s knowledge of her dad’s secret and of the book from her mum she had tried to burn. She pushes against her restraints. If his intention in exposing the Maclean case had been to ruin her relationship with her dad then he had, for once, read things very wrong; she feels closer to her dad than she has ever done. If only she could free herself from these restraints, she would show them how alike she and her dad really are. There would be no witty comments written on the floor, no careful arrangement of the bodies. She’s often wondered how Nathan’s imagination could seem so real to him, but this one, now, soaked in red and framed by a huge surge of adrenaline, seems so close to life the only thing missing is the satisfaction of knowing her victim is feeling that reality too.
She silences her thoughts at the creak of a door opening, followed by footsteps on an uncarpeted floor that only stop when they seem to be beside her. She readies herself for another blow.
‘How are you, lassie?’
She sinks back. It’s not the voice she’d expected, even though she’d known that Markham would be there too. She wants to reply, to show both of them that she’s not scared, but her mouth feels like it’s only good for biting, tearing and spitting out flesh. If she’s scared of anything it’s of who she’s about to become.
The hood – and she’s certain now that’s what’s blocking her view – has been pulled a little too tight around her neck, restricting her breathing. Markham reaches down to loosen the string.
‘I hope that hasn’t hurt you,’ he says, retreating a few steps. Through the fabric, she searches for shapes but finds none, only the images of all the victims she’s come here to avenge.
‘Why?’ she says, with a dry rasp.
‘I didn’t know. Not until it was too late.’
‘It’s not too late now.’
‘I’m afraid it is.’
‘You can help me,’ she says, lowering her voice but still fighting against the ties around her wrists.
‘There’s nothing I can do,’ Markham whispers back. ‘We shouldn’t even be talking.’
‘Free me.’ She twists her wrists again, completely unable to tell how much he can see of this desperate attempt. ‘If you don’t, we will both be victims today.’
‘Maybe it’s for the best,’ says Markham.
She wants more than anything to see his face, to know if there’s any chance of winning him round. As if reading her mind, he steps over, and she feels hands fumbling at her neck and the material is lifted clear. She blinks for a few moments, but there’s little difference; the space around her is so dark it seems endless, not a wall in sight, no objects to give scale. Perhaps she is dead already.
She looks for Markham, rolling over stiffly when she realises he’s behind her from the sound of his breathing. She loses him again, and after a moment of readjusting to deal with the pain in her head and cramped legs, she determines he’s now standing above her head, remaining just out of sight.
‘I can’t do anything,’ he says. ‘But I just needed you to know that this isn’t me. This isn’t who I am. I never got a chance to talk to my daughter, to try and explain…’
She feels the need to close her eyes despite the darkness. The hope is leaving her and taking her anger with it. All that’s left now are questions, many of which she knows will never be answered.
‘How did he find you?’ she asks.
‘Through you. He’s been watching you for years, lassie, ever since you started working with his brother. He has this way of reading people. He must have spotted something when you were with your dad… I didn’t think he knew about me when he called me about a job. He said he’d been impressed with my work, and I thought he were talking about the gardening.’
‘But why did he need to work at the care home if he already knew about the Maclean case?’
‘He likes to know everything,’ says Markham. ‘Helps him control people. Knowledge of who or what they care about. Knowledge of what they’ve done.’
She’s seeing it now, the tiny signals from her dad, the connection that she’d seen that had given her so much hope.
‘When did you find out what he was really like?’ she asks, through gritted teeth.
‘Only a few days back. I hadn’t seen him in years, and suddenly he turns up at my home. He don’t look the same; he don’t act the same, neither. He weren’t aggressive or nowt, but he made it clear what I had to do if I wanted to keep my past life secret. I thought he were just playing g
ames at first. And when I found out different, when I found out what were really going on, well…’ He retreats a few steps more, but she can still hear him swallow. ‘After that his threats were different. Far worse. I just pray he doesn’t…’ He coughs to clear his throat, then moves in close again. ‘How did you know it weren’t just me?’
‘Because of your daughter, Tracy,’ she says. ‘She told me you weren’t capable of doing these things.’ Katie stops, once again thinking of her own dad, thinking of his own crime. If she’s honest with herself, and she sees no reason not to be now, she’d always suspected what her dad might have done, had seen the guilt Christian had seen. ‘I believed her. And once I’d believed her there could only be one explanation.’
‘Thank you,’ says Markham, his voice thick with emotion. ‘And if it makes a difference, you should know that Maclean were an evil bastard. Your dad shouldn’t have felt bad. He did the world a favour.’
‘I would have liked to have done it another favour with Christian,’ says Katie, softly, once again testing her restraints. ‘Why did he come to get me from the home? I was already on my way to him.’ She searches the darkness again for even the faintest outline.
‘He said he needed you here first.’
First. That single word that brings so much pain. She knows what he means; he doesn’t need to say any more. Of course Nathan will have spotted the clue; he never misses a thing. And, of course, he will try to come on his own, to answer his own desire to kill. But does he know who is here, waiting? Or does he still believe it’s just Markham? Markham has gone quiet; she can’t see him and can’t even hear him moving around anymore. She’s certain he’s played his part now – they both have. What’s left is for the two brothers to resolve. She feels herself sink down, as if the hard floor beneath her is swallowing her up.
Then she hears three words spoken from such a short distance away that she can smell the accompanying breath. It’s a familiar smell and a familiar voice, soft and low and smooth as silk. A voice that had once provided comfort in the darkest of times, but now it brings ice to her veins.