That’s where they were. That’s where they had to be.
‘Rosie’s safe. I’ve hidden her.’ Rory had told her – but could Rory be trusted anymore?
She was only vaguely aware that Delores was still speaking.
‘I’m finished here, after what’s happened. Of course, they know about Moses – the charade with our little fake Moses was just a bit of PR for the clients. His name has a certain power, after all. They didn’t want to lose that.’
She picked up a piece of paper, scanned it and then crumpled it in her hand.
‘I’ve been a fool. This is their chance to get rid of me. I’ll be the perfect scapegoat. All those years! All the work, everything I’ve done – and I’ll be sent off with a handshake and enough money to keep me quiet. If I’m lucky.’
Delores could join the rest of the dead for all Thea cared. The ghosts floating about this place could eat her soul, tear it apart like string cheese and suck it down slowly.
‘I don’t feel very much like keeping quiet, however,’ Delores said bitterly. ‘I don’t see why they should get to keep it all and just push me aside as if I’m nothing! Me! I’m the reason this is all here. So this is where I need you. I think you’ll like it, Thea Mackenzie – my offer. You’ve been trying to play the heroine since day one so now I’m going to give you the chance.’
Thea’s heart beat a little faster. She’d been here before, in Delores’s office, being offered a proposal. It felt so long ago, that day: a different Thea. The same Delores.
‘You see, they think they know everything. They know about you, my little white-crowned sparrow and they know about your potential. That’s why our friend Kyle was so reluctant to leave you earlier.’
Delores scanned another piece of paper and then tossed it aside.
‘But they don’t know me. They think I’m finished, that I’m licking my wounds in a corner somewhere while they clear up. But I have my own plans, as long as I can keep the Aspire watchdogs out of them. You and I, Thea Mackenzie, we’re going to get off this island together. I have a private boat moored at another hidden cove further on from the beach where you landed, have had it there since we set up on the island. No one knows anything about it. I’ve always been a big believer in having a Plan B.’
Voices floated to them from outside the office. Delores tensed briefly, but they drifted away and she snapped her satchel shut.
‘You keep the memory stick and when you get to the mainland, you expose it. Blow the whole thing open. The real reason for using the tech, the side effects … everything. Blow it apart so there’s nothing left for them. Raze it to the sodding ground. I don’t care.’
Whenever Thea wasn’t sure what to say, she said nothing. It made people believe she was thinking something over carefully. Most times though, her brain was actually leaping around like a frightened frog too far from the pond.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Delores. Thea doubted it: she didn’t even know what she was thinking. ‘You’d blow the whole thing apart … and blow me apart at the same time. Why send myself down with the ship? Like I said, I don’t care anymore. If my ship goes down – well – so will theirs. I’ll have the payoff and I’ll be able to afford a good lawyer and a bolt-hole until it all blows over. Aspire will take the brunt of it … After all, as they keep insisting, they own the tech. I’ll get Moses the care he needs. And, meanwhile … I’d have you.’
She tapped her fingernails on the desk.
‘Later, when the dust settles – there’s a lot we could do with you.’
The little white-crowned sparrow. Ranks of sleepless soldiers trooped across Thea’s mind in orderly lines, shiny-eyed and eternally awake.
‘So, let me sum up the choice. Get to play the heroine and bring down the company, or, well … the island is quite a dangerous place at the moment, no? Aspire plan to get rid of any evidence of what’s gone on here. Anything could happen to you, and I’d be quite helpless to prevent it. It would be … regrettable.’
Thea’s frog brain continued to writhe.
‘Oh, and you wouldn’t be able to wriggle out of the latter stage of our agreement either, in case that’s what you were thinking. Getting to work with you in a few years, that’s non-negotiable. Let me be clear as well, your mother will have to be muzzled. And there would be … consequences … for reneging on the deal.’
Every other scenario her brain had whirred through over the last few minutes all ended in the same way: her death. At least with this offer she got the real reason behind the tech out there for everyone to see, and she got herself a few years while Delores stayed low. Anything could happen in those years. But she would get off this island. Right at that moment, that was all she wanted.
‘Under normal circumstances, I would give you some time to mull it over. Unfortunately, these are not normal circumstances.’
Delores had her back to the office door.
So she didn’t see Moses slip in.
Chapter 45
Shuffle, shuffle.
Moses was a horrifying puppet come jerkily to life. With his bald head and the spidery writing all over it, the grids marking off his skull, his gaunt limbs and hook-nailed feet, he shuffled closer and closer. He was something from a nightmare, the kind of thing he might have wanted to fix in someone else, years ago, before he knotted up his own brain so tightly there was no way to pick it apart.
Shuffle, shuffle.
He looked at Thea and put a blood-stained finger to his lips.
Where had the blood come from?
A little game for him and Thea. Creep up on the girlfriend who had drugged him, stolen his technology and then locked him away for all that time – surprise! The shock she’d get, how she’d clutch melodramatically at her chest, but then she’d smile when she saw who it was. They’d laugh together, oh how they’d laugh …
Shuffle, shuffle.
There was a spray of blood on his T-shirt and deeper-coloured blotches on his pyjama bottoms. A biology lesson from a long time ago resurfaced in Thea’s mind: darker coloured blood comes from veins, not from arteries. He smiled and there was blood on his chin.
How had he got free?
In his hand he held a wooden chair leg, weighting it on his shoulder as if it was a baseball bat. The tip of it was matted with something Thea did not want to think about.
Shuffle, shuffle.
Something about Thea’s frozen expression must have alerted Delores who whirled around, one hand indeed going to her chest, just as Thea had imagined.
Surprise!
As if this was a mime exercise at school, they all held their positions. Thea could see Delores’s hand moving carefully over the smooth surface of her desk, searching for something. Did she have a panic button? Even if she did, was there anyone left in the Centre to panic?
Moses followed the direction of Thea’s gaze and darted forward so quickly it took Delores by surprise, not giving her enough time to move her hand and avoid the chair leg Moses smashed into her fingers. Delores’s legs gave way as the pain flooded through her, her mouth an open O of shock and agony, her crushed hand still trembling on the desk as she crouched down on the floor, her forehead resting on the edge of her desk.
Thea nearly screamed with her, springing out of her chair and backing away, hands outstretched as if that could protect her.
‘Max, I don’t want to hurt you, I really don’t, but it’s been pretty difficult finding you.’ Moses wiped his forehead and shot sudden glances about the room as if someone might jump out on him. ‘We need to talk.’
He took a slim tablet out of his pocket and swiped at it with his thumb, scrolling through options, his other hand still gripping the chair leg.
‘You don’t have many people left here, Max. There was a lot of stuff left unattended. Like this. Nifty little thing. Now let me see …’
He scrolled through a couple more times and then stopped.
‘Ah, yes. There we go.’
The office door close
d smoothly.
‘No interruptions. Do you know?’ he said conversationally. ‘I feel better than I’ve felt for … ooh … ages. Less fuzz up here.’
He tapped the side of his head with a grisly finger.
‘Not being sedated helps, I guess, doesn’t it?’
Delores clenched her teeth and got to her knees, steadying her good hand on the desk as she hauled herself back up into a drunken standing position.
‘Look, I know that I don’t want to hurt you, Max.’ He started opening the drawers in her desk. ‘But what I don’t know is if you feel the same way … ah, there it is.’ He held up a slim little handgun and then tucked it into the pocket of his pyjama bottoms.
‘We’ve got a lot to catch up on, yes? Sit.’ He tossed the device he’d been holding into the corner of the room and pressed down hard on Delores’s shoulders, forcing her into her chair as she tried to take deep breaths and cradled her hand. Moses loomed over her, one hand on the armrest.
‘I said sit!’ Moses whipped his head round to Thea.
She clumsily fumbled her way back into the chair.
He started to slowly rock Delores from side to side in her swivel chair.
‘Maxie, Maxie, Maxie, what did you do, Maxie? With my tech?’ He spat out the word “my”. ‘Dream a little dream of me. Of you. And I did. All the time, Maxie, I was drugged up to my eyeballs, I dreamt of you. You were always in my fucking head and I couldn’t get you out of it.’
He started to spin the chair in lazy circles, keeping it moving the whole time he spoke, Delores clutching on with her good hand. He looked alert, aware, manic almost, but not crazed.
‘You did it to yourself!’ Delores managed, paling at every jolt.
Moses slammed his palm against the chair back and it jerked to a halt. He bent over her again, little veins standing out on his head, mistakes on the phrenology tattoo markings.
‘Yes, I did. I did. But then what did you do, Maxie? What did you do? You see, I thought you loved me. You’d left me and we disagreed on the tech but I always knew you loved me—’
‘I did! I do!’
‘You locked me up and took my life’s work. Not a loving gesture, that, is it?’
‘To look after you! I needed money to keep you safe.’ She held her crushed fingers in her good hand, letting her hair swing down and hide half her face. ‘What else could I have done, Moses? Come on, tell me! You left me. You chose. You chose that bloody tech over me!’
Moses bent to sweep her hair back, an oddly affectionate move for someone holding a chair leg as a weapon. Delores moved her face a little so her cheek rested in the palm of his hand, her eyes not gazing into his but flicking down. It was a move Thea was familiar with and, despite the pain she must have been feeling, Delores did it with speed and ferocity. Moses had his legs planted apart in front of her and so she kicked, kicked hard upwards; it would have had more effect if she’d still been wearing her boots but, even using her bare feet, Moses gasped and crumpled at the hips. She clambered out of the chair and went to the door, pressing against it, then thumping it when she found it locked. Meanwhile, Moses was half slumped over her desk, still clutching the chair leg and yes, Thea was quite sure, he was chuckling softly to himself.
‘There’s the woman I loved,’ he said and then took a few quick deep breaths. ‘Never one to miss an opportunity to knee me in the balls.’
Delores paced at a safe distance away from him, Moses blocking her from the corner where he’d thrown the tablet. Thea was rooted to the chair, once again the audience for someone else’s drama.
But then Moses’s laughing turned to crying, huge racking sobs that he almost choked out, one hand over his face, sprawling over the desk.
‘My God, Max – what have you done? Do you even understand?’
Delores slowed her pacing and exchanged a glance with Thea. Moses’s hand kept its grip on the chair leg. Thea looked from one to another, like a child caught between dysfunctional parents. With which monster should she side?
‘What have I done with it?’ Delores kept her voice even and calm, moving nearer to him. ‘If you had really been so worried about that, you would have taken my advice from the start and just stopped. Destroyed the thing.’
Moses’s shoulders slumped and he sat in the chair, leaning over the desk with a hand to his forehead.
‘But it was good tech – wasn’t it?’
He moved the chair leg like a rolling pin on the desk, back and forth, back and forth, hypnotizing himself with it.
‘Yes, Moses, it was good tech,’ Delores said, never taking her eyes off the chair leg.
‘I could have worked it out! I still could! I could fix all of this!’
Back and forth went the chair leg, each roll sending it a little further out of his reach.
‘You could.’ Delores moved nearer still.
‘I could.’ He gripped the chair leg again, not looking up.
But Delores had got hold of something else, the heavy-looking, bruise-coloured sculpture on the desk. She didn’t hesitate but swung it quickly, just as Moses moved to shove the chair leg away from him. It went rolling off the other side of the desk.
The ornament had been aiming for his head. It smashed into his shoulder instead.
With a cry of surprise, Moses threw his arms out, pushing Delores away with such force that she, already imbalanced and still clutching the ornament, teetered, tilted and fell. Hard.
Her head hit the corner of her stone desk with a sickening crack.
Chapter 46
Moses gathered Delores to him, keening as if he were the one in pain.
‘No, no, no, no,’ he cried.
Her body began to slip away from him.
Delores didn’t make a sound. Her mouth moved and her tongue slapped wetly but there were no words. The woman who had been so eloquent over the past few weeks, snagging Thea in clever, sneaking speeches and plans and threats, was all gone in one sudden short burst of violence.
Thea could hear her own ragged breathing, her eyes almost hurting from being so wide and her heart a nauseous thud in her throat. She’d been halfway to picking up the chair leg that had rolled towards her when Delores fell and now she was frozen in a crouch on the floor. She could only think to stay still, make herself as small and unnoticeable as possible, so maybe they’d forget all about her.
Delores’s legs sagged and Moses couldn’t hold her up. They sank to the floor together, Moses smoothing Delores’s hair away from her face and the blood running into her eye. Her head lolled to the side and Thea nearly gagged. She’d seen her share of violent films in her time but the blood and … wrongness … of it had always been safely contained in her television set, comfortably squared off. It wasn’t twitching slightly right in front of her.
Moses struggled to keep her upright, both of them on their knees. He tried to prop her up by gripping her shoulders but then gave up, letting her body sink awkwardly against him. His face was a mess, tears trying to sluice their way past the blood and dirt as he continued to smooth her hair and wail.
‘No, no, no, no …’
Thea crawled a bit closer, bringing the chair leg with her. Delores’s legs were splayed at painful angles, her neck twisted as Moses pushed her head against his chest. She had pretty feet, Thea caught herself thinking, her brain trying to focus on something that wasn’t gore and shreds of flesh. Cute little toes and neat nails.
‘Moses?’ Thea said softly.
He tried to shift Delores’s body a little higher but she slid down even further, one arm dangling, her fingertips brushing the floor. Her hand spasmed.
‘Moses?’ she tried again. ‘Moses? I think maybe she’d be more comfortable if you laid her on the floor.’
He sniffed and took a gulp, his eyes skating over Thea, as if he could hear her voice but didn’t know where it was coming from. Thea gently held Delores’s shoulder, never taking her gaze from Moses, expecting him to lash out at any minute, and together they eased her onto the floo
r.
Kneeling next to her, Moses sniffed and wiped his forearm across his nose, a peculiarly child-like thing to do. Delores kept trying to say something, opening and closing her mouth, her lips moving though she couldn’t force out any sound. Thea had been taught CPR once on a training course years ago; she’d spent a morning bandaging up her colleagues and blowing ferociously into legless plastic torsos, grimy with over-use. She couldn’t remember any of it now.
‘Moses? We need to get her to a hospital. Get her on the boat? I need to open the door.’
Again, he seemed to hear her but didn’t look at her. Thea glanced over to the device Moses had so casually tossed away into the corner earlier. What she really wanted was that. It could give her a way out.
Thea felt something nudge her wrist and she looked down to see Delores’s hand shakily trying to grasp on to hers. Her hand was cold and bloodied hair covered one eye but the other was fixed on Thea as she convulsed a few more times. It was instinct to allow those trembling fingers to clutch hers, but she couldn’t help thinking of Ethan. He hadn’t been given the same comfort. He’d died so suddenly, nobody had stroked his hair, or cried over him – or held his hand. His body was still at the lighthouse, dust settling on his open eyes.
She thought about gently sliding her hand out from under Delores’s chill grasp but, in the end, she couldn’t do it. Her hand was so cold, Thea couldn’t take away the warmth of hers, just when the woman needed it most.
She watched as Delores took a breath and then stilled, a stillness Thea was becoming all too familiar with, the body relaxing into death. Whatever had been Delores dimmed and disappeared from her gaze. Moses howled, still on his knees, bending to bury his face in the dead woman’s stomach.
Pushing herself away from them, away from death, Thea closed her eyes momentarily, leaning her head back against the desk. Almost immediately the black sucked her up and, even though she knew she should be making a grab for that device Moses had thrown aside, even though she had no idea what Moses would do next and Kyle was probably on his way, she allowed the darkness in because it was soft and soothing and she only needed a moment of it, sailing gently on it like it was …
Sleepless Page 18