by Steve Mosby
Because the second thing that separated us was Anna.
I’m sorry for everything.
I still remember the phone call I received from Anna during that second term after she started university, when she told me that she’d met someone else and that it was over between us. At the time, she didn’t tell me who that person was, and I hadn’t thought to make the connection. I even spoke to Rob about it – crying down the phone at him – but he was either too nervous or too ashamed to tell me the truth. It was a few weeks before I found out.
And after that, I never spoke to either of them again.
Will, you must have seen the news. You must know what’s happened.
Yes, of course I saw the news when Anna went missing, and I understood what it meant. Everything changes, and what I felt when I learned what had happened was an immense, crushing sadness. I understood how easy it can be when you’re hurt to cast aside things that once meant so much to you. I imagined how it might have been to meet Anna accidentally some day, and how, with enough time passed, I might have been able to look back on our relationship with quiet affection rather than pain. Impossible once she was gone. But then you often figure out what’s important after it becomes impossible to do anything about it. Regret clarifies many things.
Not everything, though. There’s always room to make more mistakes.
I could really do with getting back in touch with you again right now.
Please talk to me.
I never did reply. Looking back now, I knew I should have overcome the long-dead anger I’d felt and reached out to him. We had been best friends once, and we had loved the same woman, and I was one of the few people alive who could understand what he was going through. I remember picking up that snail on the Bridge that day. It was a stupid act, perhaps, but it had been done out of a childish love for my friend, a recognition of how he felt about his sister dying, and a desire for him to feel safe and okay. But I found I still couldn’t swallow that old pain and resentment. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. And again, I only understood the mistake after it became impossible to change it.
I wonder, do you ever think about that day on the Bridge? I don’t know if you even remember, but one day we cycled there and I thought I saw a man. A man with a sad face. But there was nobody there really.
Do you ever think about him?
Yes.
I do now.
Every single day since.
‘How did he end up like this?’ Emma asked.
She sounded reluctant to ask, as though the question might be inappropriate or an intrusion. Or perhaps because she was worried what the answer might be.
‘He took his own life.’ I corrected myself. ‘Tried to, at least. Although I suppose to all intents and purposes he succeeded. You can’t really say he’s alive any more, can you? The life he was living at the time – he ended that.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s been a while now. Going on seven years.’
‘God. He’s been here that long?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘There was a bridge. Near where we grew up.’
The Bridge. It had been a key waystation for me as a child, but the memory of it had faded over time, and it had become just a bridge, any bridge. We leave these things behind. But yes, I still remembered the day Rob and I had gone there together and everything had felt slightly off kilter, as though the world had somehow folded over and a dreadful moment from the future had been briefly juxtaposed over the present.
A man with a sad face.
I could picture Rob standing there, years later, alone in the darkness. His hands on the rough stone, hoisting himself up on to the wall and then sitting there for a while, maybe staring at the night sky and the stars. Then looking to one side, thinking back to that day. And perhaps even seeing himself as a child for a moment, looking back at him in shock.
And then falling through nothing.
‘The fall should have killed him,’ I said. ‘But it didn’t. In the darkness, he’d got the angle wrong, so he didn’t land on the train tracks. Someone saw him from the road, before he jumped, and had already phoned the police. They saved him. I suppose you can call it that. But he’s been like this ever since.’
‘I’m sorry, Will.’
Emma sounded helpless. She still didn’t understand.
‘I am too.’
Rob’s more obvious physical injuries had healed, but he had never regained consciousness. He had remained in this state ever since, suspended somewhere between life and death. He wouldn’t have wanted that. His suicide attempt had not been a cry for help; those had come before, and I, at least, had ignored the one made to me. But his parents were broken and they were rich. It was their decision to maintain his life support. In a different life, I might have had that argument with them – carefully, tactfully – but I’d given up that right a long time ago. They had lost their other child at a very early age and Rob was all they had, and I supposed that I understood their motivations well enough. In my own way, once upon a time, I had loved him too.
‘Why did he do it?’ Emma said.
‘He didn’t leave a note,’ I said. ‘He didn’t need to. He’d been depressed for a few years. He lost his sister when we were just kids, and I think he always blamed himself for that – the fact that he hadn’t been able to protect her. Which is stupid, I know, but like you said, people often feel guilty for things that aren’t their fault. And Rob always felt things strongly. He cared very deeply.’
‘You were kids. Surely that was a long time ago?’
There’s no such thing as a long time ago, I thought. The very centre of the oldest tree is a long time ago, but it’s still always there at the heart of it, shaping it.
‘Then he lost someone else,’ I said.
For a moment, I couldn’t continue. It had been easy enough to tell Emma what Rob had done. What was harder to explain was why, and the guilt I felt. To reveal my connection to the case and how much it meant to me, knowing that it, along with my behaviour, would make it likely that I would be removed from the investigation. That both of us might be. And even worse, the simple fact that I hadn’t confided in Emma from the beginning. You don’t have any friends, she’d told me outside. I looked at her now, and I knew it wasn’t true.
She deserves to know the truth.
I took a deep breath. And I told her a story about a girl named Anna.
Thirty-Three
It was dusk by the time Bunting finally arrived home.
The street was deserted, and his heart was pounding harder even than it had been in Moorton. While there had been reason to be nervous back there, it had not been borne out. As he drove through the warren of country lanes away from Frog Pond, taking bend after bend and crossing junctions, putting distance between himself and the scene, he’d been constantly astounded by how easy it all was. Maybe it wasn’t easy at all. Perhaps some of Blythe’s vanishing magic was somehow working on them both.
Regardless, there was a lot to be nervous about now.
He reversed carefully into his driveway, watching in the mirror as the red lights reflected on the metal garage door. He didn’t want to get too close. It was an up and under, but he needed enough space to get into the boot if any of this was going to work. The car edged slowly backwards until it was completely hidden from view by the hedges to either side of the garden. The glow from the street light on the road disappeared, leaving the interior of the car in shadow. He pulled on the handbrake and then turned off the engine.
Silence.
For most of the journey, Blythe had been entirely quiet, only speaking when Bunting pulled into a service station. He had parked away from the other vehicles but as close to one of the bins as he could manage.
‘Stay out of sight,’ he’d told Blythe.
‘What are you doing?’
Maintain frame. So Bunting hadn’t replied. He’d just got out of the car, leaving the door open, and gone round to the other side at the back. When he op
ened the door, Blythe’s backpack was there on the seat, but he could hardly see the man lying in the footwell at all. It was amazing how good he was at hiding and remaining unnoticed. But of course he’d had a great deal of practice at that over the years.
Bunting touched the backpack.
‘What are you doing?’ Blythe said, as though he could sense movements he couldn’t see.
‘Stay down. It’s busy here. There are people nearby.’
A lie, but it was enough to keep Blythe from interfering with what he needed to do. The top of the backpack was open, and the inside was mostly empty now. Bunting had found the laptop and Wi-Fi device easily, and was relieved they were there. He’d placed them in the thick carrier bag he’d brought with him, put his own Wi-Fi device in there with them, then walked the short distance to the bin. Making sure nobody was watching, he’d pushed the bag inside. It was a risk, but he had little choice. His plan relied on the laptop not making its way into police hands, and especially not on to his own property. With its constantly changing parade of visitors, this place seemed as good as any. The people who emptied the bins probably went about their job like mindless zombies.
‘What did you do?’ Blythe had asked as they drove away.
‘I needed to get rid of your laptop and Wi-Fi.’ That was true, of course, but it needed to be furnished with a lie. ‘The police know where you’ve been. There’s a danger they could analyse transmissions from the area and trace the signal from them to those devices.’
Transparently bullshit, of course. But he had been hoping that Blythe didn’t understand enough about surveillance technology to contradict him. Not that it made any difference at that point. It was done, and that was all that mattered.
Blythe hadn’t spoken again.
Now, parked up in his driveway, it would have been easy for Bunting to imagine he was completely alone in the vehicle. There was no sound or movement from behind him at all. Except that he could sense Blythe lying there. The car was filled with the presence of him, and the skin on Bunting’s back was squirming. His body was warning him that he was close to something incredibly dangerous. He felt like prey.
Which of course was exactly what he was.
‘We’re here,’ he said.
Blythe didn’t reply.
Bunting fought the urge to crane his neck and look over the seat to see if the man was still there. He tried to keep calm. As far as he had been able to tell, there hadn’t been a weapon in the backpack, but he had no doubt that Blythe was armed in some way. He imagined a knife – a big-bladed hunting thing with a serrated edge – and tried to put the image out of his mind. He was taking a risk, but if everything went according to plan, the knife wouldn’t matter. If anything, in fact, it would make things easier.
He got out of the car, closed the driver’s door and waited.
There was a moment when nothing happened.
And then the shadows in the back of the car began rearranging themselves. Blythe threw the covers off and pulled himself up on to the seat. It was difficult to make him out in the gloom, but Bunting could tell the man was looking around, inspecting his surroundings, scoping out the terrain he’d found himself in. A natural predator – not about to make a move until he knew exactly what that move was going to be. He didn’t appear remotely panicked or nervous. In contrast, Bunting was aware of the sweat slowly trickling down his own spine.
The seconds stretched out.
Finally the back door opened and Blythe stepped out of the car.
The two men stood looking at each other. As well as terrifying, Bunting found it strange being this close to Blythe. He had seen him before many times. Blythe had been a few years older than him at school, but he’d always recognised him when he’d seen him around Moorton. And of course, he’d followed him over the years – but always from a distance. He’d never been this close to him. Never stared into his face the way he was doing right now. The obvious power of him was a shock. With some men, it was only when you got close to them that the air between you began to shimmer and the animal part of you sensed how much physically stronger than you they were. He and Blythe were about the same height, but with his unkempt hair and black stubble and the thick barrel of his body, Blythe was an entirely different kind of animal.
And there was nothing in his eyes at all. Not hate, not anger, not even curiosity. He had already checked out what was around him and knew exactly what he was doing. There was no danger of being seen. Anything could happen right now.
Everything could.
Bunting glanced down. At least the man’s hands were empty.
Blythe turned away, then wandered a little way down the drive towards the road.
‘I thought I’d recognise you,’ he said.
Bunting would have felt a small amount of pride at that – that he’d surreptitiously stalked this man, often literally, without being spotted – but the obvious lack of interest in Blythe’s voice killed that. The hunter wasn’t remotely bothered about having been hunted in turn, and the implication from that was clear: Bunting wasn’t a threat to him. He had never been worth noticing.
‘I was always careful.’
Blythe nodded, then turned around and wandered back, looking at the house.
‘This is yours?’
‘Yes.’
‘You live alone?’
An apparently innocent question, but another chill ran up Bunting’s spine. Blythe’s right hand was in his coat pocket now, and Bunting realised that the wander down the drive had been positional. Blythe was now standing between him and the road: no escape there. And if he tried to run for the house, he’d never make it.
‘Yes,’ Bunting said quietly. ‘It’s just me.’
Blythe took another step towards him, eyes locked on him now.
‘Well then. We should go inside.’
That’s the last thing we should do, Bunting thought.
He was sure that the moment the pair of them stepped through his front door, he was a dead man. Blythe might not have been intelligent in the conventional sense, but he was cunning and he was astute. He would have guessed certain things about Bunting, and for the most part – sad to admit, but true – he would have been completely correct. If Bunting went missing for a few days, few people were going to come looking for him. And now that Blythe was away from Moorton, with access to a house and a car, there was no reason for him to keep Bunting alive at all.
So he needed an advantage. He needed to let Blythe know that he wasn’t quite as in control of the situation as he might think.
‘Not yet,’ he said.
‘We could be seen out here.’
‘We won’t. It’s very private. It’s the main reason I chose this house in the first place.’
‘And because you wanted to be close to me.’
‘I’ve been following your career for a long time,’ Bunting said. ‘You know that. And yes, I wanted to be close to you. But like I said, that’s not the main reason.’
‘Oh?’
‘You need to look in the boot.’ He nodded at the vehicle. ‘Go on. It’s open.’
Blythe glanced at the vehicle, then back at him.
‘Why?’
‘You’ll see.’
With a huge effort of will, Bunting turned his back on Blythe and walked towards the front door of the house. Slowly, though. He didn’t want to put himself out of range and force the man to attack him. Before he reached the step, he stopped and turned round. While he hadn’t heard Blythe move, the man had somehow kept pace with him. Now he was level with the back of the car. The look on his face remained blank and empty.
‘Don’t you want to see?’ Bunting said.
Blythe stared at him for a moment longer, obviously calculating the distance between them, and then made his decision and stepped between the car and the garage door. Once he had done so, it was as though Bunting didn’t exist at all – although he had no doubt that, were he to attempt to run or try to get inside, Blythe would be on him immediat
ely. He did neither, though. Instead, he watched Blythe open the boot of the car. The metal hinges creaked, breaking the intense silence. Bunting found himself holding his breath.
This is where it could all go wrong.
Blythe stared down into the boot for what felt like an age.
This is where it could all go so very wrong. . .
At last he looked up. His expression had changed slightly. It was no longer entirely blank. He was staring at Bunting as though re-evaluating him on some level, his opinion shifting, perhaps no longer seeing the worm he had been expecting. His eyes seemed to be shining in the dark, and Bunting knew that, if nothing else, he’d got the man’s attention. He’d bought himself time to move them both to the next part of the story he was busy creating. Blythe gestured at the contents of the boot and sounded genuinely curious when he spoke next.
‘What is this?’ he said.
Part Four
Thirty-Four
The next morning, Emma and I drove to the department separately.
I had no idea what to expect, beyond the fact that we were in trouble. A call had come through on the radio just after we’d set off: Reeves wanted to see both of us in his office as soon as we arrived. Never good news at the best of times, this morning it felt like a death sentence.
I watched the back of Emma’s car ahead of me and wondered what she was thinking. She had barely spoken to me last night on the drive back from seeing Rob, and she’d gone straight to bed after we’d got back to the house. This morning, she’d engaged in the bare minimum of communication. She was very clearly pissed off with me; I got that. She’d been annoyed with me in the past, though, and I’d never known her as closed off as this. The occasional red lights as she braked in the traffic seemed to be warding me off, keeping me back. The wedge between us now was painful. It felt like a loss.