Paul saw Smith move closer to Julia. Instinctively he tightened his grip on the rifle.
- 109 -
‘You look shocked, Julia. What did you think would happen to me when you stuck that fucking pin in my gut?’
‘Where’s Nicky?’ she asked again, in her annoyingly squeaky voice, just when she needed to sound in control.
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Never mind Nicky. She’s fine. First things first, Julia. But before I leave you forever, you and I need to talk.’
‘Where’s Nicky?’ she screamed.
‘Shut the fuck up. I told you. She’s okay. You won’t get nothing till you calm down. And until I get my money.’
He stepped nearer. Julia jumped back. Now would have been his best chance for revenge, but he made no further move towards her. Just stood there, clutching his stomach, and panting.
The surprisingly clean shirt, a military-type khaki with two breast pockets, hung in deep folds from his bony shoulders. He had no jacket on but didn’t seem to feel the cold. In the weird greenish twilight his eyes looked more than ever like two glass marbles. Julia searched the contours of his pain-wracked face for some feature she might have missed. Some characteristic feature that would confirm that the lifetime of love she’d poured into a being created from the vaguest of memories was justified.
But Smith’s face was nothing like it was even two weeks ago, and certainly nothing like her own, she told herself. Though distorted by pain and ravaged by the poison Martin Bedlow said would slowly kill him, she was certain now that it was a face she had never known before.
‘Come closer, Julia. Do you like what you see?’
She was speechless.
‘In Strangeways you told me you used to dream I’d come back to you. Remember? Well, here I am. Feast your eyes. In a few minutes, as soon as I get my cash, I’ll be gone. Into the mist. Over the mountain. Just like in your dreams, eh Julia?’
She stared into his eyes. The doubt crept back. Does he know his real name, she wondered.
‘You don’t know, Julia, do you? Our mother dumped us. No one knew where we were born. When we were born. Who was born first. Who our mother was. And certainly not who our father was. I reckon the social workers at the Touchstone gave us the first names that came into their heads.’
Touchstone. I didn’t even need to ask him. So, is this the final proof?
No, what about the swan birthmark? She wished she could remember exactly where it was. Somewhere on his neck or shoulders, but she wasn’t sure. The swan would be the final proof.
‘Where will you go?’ she asked.
‘What do you care?’ He leaned towards her. She could see the rim of dark blue that surrounded the paler blue in the centre of his eyes. And the little golden flecks in the middle.
Watch my eyes, Julia, and I’ll watch yours. And we’ll see the stars float on the moon . . .
Why hadn’t she noticed this during the months she’d been interviewing him? Her eyes were blue too and Simon used to tell her she had little golden flecks in them . . . like stars . . .
Smith’s knees buckled and his eyes rolled to the back of his head. He grasped the top of the wall. ‘Okay. Just give me the cash and let’s get this over and done with. You’ve fucked me around enough as it is. As you can see, I can’t afford to wait any longer.’
‘Where’s Nicky?’ Julia said. This time, using every ounce of her will-power, she kept the panic out of her voice. And the remorse too, as she remembered what Jessie had told her. “And fresh wounds on you too”, making it clear to her now, even without the swan, that all his ills must surely stem from his brave attempt to rescue her from that monster. He did that for me, she told herself, at the same time convincing herself that his accusation that she had killed Mr Spencer had merely been a fabrication in order to extract from her the money.
She saw the pain mirrored in his twisted face, but in spite of this he pulled himself fully upright, ‘Cash first. Then Nicola.’
‘How do I know you haven’t harmed her? I want her now. And I want that letter you said you’d written.’
He patted the left hand pocket of his shirt and shook his head. ‘You’ll get bugger all if you don’t stop shouting your fucking mouth off. I wouldn’t dream of harming my own niece, now would I Julia?’
Niece.
This was how it had been for months. She no longer knew what was real and what wasn’t. Slowly she reached out and touched the bag.
Fresh wounds on Nicholas. And on me. From the monster.
Why?
Because Nicholas hit him with the lamp, of course . . .
Her fingers found the catch. What should I do first, she asked herself. Stop him looking in the bag. Or let him know I have a gun. Or tell him the truth, that there is no money yet.
‘Go on, Julia.’ He was watching the bag. ‘I know what you’re thinking. Say my name, go on. Like you used to. Let me hear it again. Just one more time.’
Her head began to spin. The dry stone wall waved like a snake wriggling towards her.
Nicholas.
But no way could she say it out loud or even let him think it was in her head, so close to being spoken. Not until she was sure, one way or the other.
She stared at the emaciated figure, so close now that she could smell the decay. For a split second she closed her eyes. All my life I have dreamt of him. Missed him, loved him, craved to be with him . . .
At any moment, weak as he is, he could grab the bag, open it. See there was no money. What a hair-brained idea this was.
I have little time. And no choice at all.
‘Well, haven’t you a tongue in your head . . . bitch?’ He said the word almost as an afterthought, softly, wincing, closing his eyes, as though he didn’t want to say it at all.
She glanced at the bag, wishing now that she’d left the pistol on top of the Readers Digests. She should have thought it out properly. How on earth was she going to get it out of her pocket without it looking exactly like she was reaching for a gun in her pocket? It would be impossible to frighten him without him thinking she was going to shoot him.
‘Give me the fucking money.’
She slid her hand as nonchalantly as she could towards her back pocket, trying to keep her elbow from pointing up like a chicken wing. She could feel her face contorting with disgust and self-loathing.
And on his face she could see the realisation of what she was doing.
With one hand she reached down to open the bag. At the same time she carried on fumbling in her pocket. If only she’d had time to practice.
His hand touched his belt.
She yanked the pistol from her pocket.
A flash, a shot, or maybe it was two. Then something hit her leg. Smith fell forwards, the force of his fall knocking her to the ground.
My gun must have been loaded after all . . .
But I didn’t even pull the trigger . . .
Blood gushed from his chest. Julia sat up, tore off her jacket and covered his shuddering body.
He looked up in surprise, then clawed her down again as his hot sticky blood drenched through to her skin. She held him close, fighting the dizziness, trying to blink away the spots before her eyes.
‘Now it’s your turn, Julia.’ His voice was faint, carried by the wind into the disappearing hills. ‘And when you’re standing in the dock, remember that what I did was to save my life, just as what you did now was to save yours. That’s how things happen. Events catch up with you. Make you do things you never intended to do. Remember, Julia. I did it to save my life . . . And yours . . .’
His full weight was on top of her now. His fingers were like talons digging into her arms as he clung to her. He coughed. Blood spluttered over her face and head. Then he started laughing. It was the most chilling sound she had ever heard. A laugh, a howl, a cry for help -
She turned her face sideways, pressing it into the ground. She smelled the earth, the blood, the grass. She heard his voice from long ago:
&nb
sp; It’s all right, Julia. He won’t hurt you any more. Hurry! Take my hand. Run . . . Hide here, in the long grass . . .
His fingers slackened. His breathing came in short gasps. Fumbling at his neck she quickly loosened his collar.
And then she saw it.
The swan.
The feeling that overwhelmed her was like a big soft blanket you wrap around yourself when you’re really cold. It is more vivid, she thought, and much larger than I imagined it would be when I first remembered it that day in the car park, but unmistakable. It used to be pink but now it’s a deep purple. With the twitching of his neck it seems to flap its wings as though trying to fly away. I remember how jealous I used to be, angry that he had a swan while I did not.
‘Nicholas,’ she said at last.
His eyes were almost closed. ‘My blood mingling with yours. Full circle, eh, Julia?’
She felt the slow beating of his heart against her chest. Felt the trembling of his limbs against hers, heard the slow deep gasps for air.
‘Did you know straightaway?’ she asked. ‘That day at Strangeways?’
‘Yes . . . and so did you . . . but I knew before that . . . at least . . . I thought I did.’
‘How?’
‘I was in the public gallery one day. Watching the trial of a mate. He’d told me he had a shit-hot lawyer who was going to get him off. I saw you. I had the strangest feeling that I knew you. But wasn’t sure. I often used to wonder where you were . . . and what it would be like to see you again. It was a nice thought. To imagine you just might have been my twin. And then later . . . when I needed a solicitor . . . I asked for you. Still only thinking this was a good idea because you were supposed to be the best. But when I saw you in the interview room . . . close up . . . it hit me. That it really was . . . you. But I saw no future in it. We had grown too far apart. I decided I would not let you know I recognised you . . .’
‘But instead you decided to exploit the situation.’
He answered with the slightest movement of his head and Julia had no idea whether this was a yes or a no. Not a coincidence after all, she thought to herself.
‘I wasn’t quite sure,’ she said. ‘Until now. Not until I saw the swan.’
‘Oh yes . . . you were. You knew too.’
She let this pass. And there were things she had to know. ‘Do you remember everything that happened before we ran away?’
Each breath he took was becoming shorter and more shallow. ‘Yes ─ of course I do,’ he said. ‘Remember how he forced us . . . to sleep in separate rooms? I heard. Your screams. Couldn’t understand why Mrs Spencer didn’t come to see what happened. Must have been drugged for her pain. Lucky I came . . . into your room when I did. He was beating the shit out of you like a man crazed with anger. You were covered in blood. So was he. The broken lamp had cut his head. Sometimes . . . we do what we have to do. You should . . . know that, Julia. He deserved . . . to die.’
‘Die? He died?’
Her heart thumped against her ribs as the horror sank in. So it was me. Not Nicholas. I killed Mr Spencer with the lamp but Nicholas took the blame.
Yet at this very moment another tendril of memory was snaking into her brain. Becoming clearer by the second . . .
Blood . . . pain . . . Nicholas putting her nightgown over her head . . . Mr Spencer lying on the carpet . . . a blood stain spreading across his shirt like a flower blooming . . . Nicholas grabbing her hand . . .
His grip loosened.
She held him tight.
His eyes closed. He was still. And Julia felt as though an axe had cleaved her chest in two.
- 110 -
Paul grasped Julia’s trembling shoulders.
‘Relax, Julia. You’re safe now. Smith is dead.’
‘Paul . . . ’ She turned her face away from him, then quickly asked, ‘Where’s Nicky?’ in a voice he didn’t know.
‘She’s safe too,’ he assured her. ‘She was locked in the car. He didn’t harm her at all.’
He prised her fingers open and lifted her away from Smith. He picked up her gun and Smith’s and handed them to the inspector.
‘This one’s unloaded, Sir,’ Jake said, placing Julia’s pistol in a clean plastic bag. He hesitated, then handed it to Paul without further comment.
Paul put the plastic bag in his pocket, then tried to wipe away some of the blood from Julia’s face. ‘An ambulance is on its way to take you to Macclesfield Hospital,’ he said. ‘Don’t talk now. You’re in shock and badly wounded.’
She looked down at the hole in her jeans, and for the first time seemed to register some pain.
‘Where’s Nicky?’ she insisted. ‘What happened?’
‘She’s fine. I’ll tell you later.’
‘Paul ─ ’
‘Don’t try to talk.’
‘Did you hear what he said? About us being . . . ’
‘I did, but his voice became so faint I didn’t hear it all.’
He knelt at Julia’s side while one of the firearms team cut away her bloodstained jeans and applied a dressing to her wound. She kept looking at Smith’s body, then looking away and shaking her head, murmuring her daughter’s name over and over again.
‘I’m afraid I’m not going to let Nicky see you tonight,’ he said when the dressing was complete. ‘She wouldn’t understand all this blood. It would frighten her,’ he added, with more resentment in his voice than he’d intended. ‘She’s absolutely fine. She’s with a policewoman, waiting for me in the helicopter. I’ve promised her a ride home in it and she can’t wait to take off. You can see her tomorrow,’ he said more gently, ‘when this mess has been cleaned up.’
She looked at him with large staring eyes, as though she’d been concussed and he was a perfect stranger. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Tears rolled down her cheeks, mixing with Smith’s blood and the dirt she’d picked up from lying on the ground. Paul tried again to mop it up with his handkerchief, but she ended up looking even worse. Like someone in a horror film.
He wasn’t sure whether she was taking in what he was saying, but decided that she needed to be reassured about what had happened.
‘I rang Wendy right after I’d spoken to you. I had a feeling you might have recorded Smith’s call. She played back the tape of the entire conversation. You also very thoughtfully left the ordnance survey map on your desk. It’s a good thing you pressed that alarm button. If we hadn’t been here he might have killed you with his second shot.’
He saw the ongoing questions in her eyes. ‘We found Nicky in the churchyard. In a white Fiesta we suspected Smith had stolen. I spotted it from the helicopter through a lucky break in the mist. Spotted your car too.’
There was still no response, except an even greater look of fear and confusion, and a widening of her eyes at the mention of the churchyard. ‘Don’t worry, Julia. Your daughter looked bewildered but totally unharmed when I found her. He must have convinced her they were playing a game when he locked her in the car. She even laughed when she saw me, as though I wasn’t supposed to find her. I can’t tell you what a relief it was.’
Just then he heard the yelp of the ambulance as it drew up adjacent to the stile. The older of the two paramedics, a stocky dark-haired man with droopy eyes, attended to Julia. The younger one, who was also the driver, attended to Smith.
After a quick examination of the body the younger one stood up. ‘No point in attempting a resuss,’ he said. ‘Another ambulance will be here shortly to take away the body.’
The older man knelt beside Julia and opened the bright orange box he’d carried from the ambulance. He smiled at her. ‘My name is John,’ he said. ‘What’s your name, lass?’
Paul quickly intervened, supplying Julia’s personal details, what had happened, how long ago, and the calibre of the gun Smith had used.
‘I’ll put a needle in your arm now,’ John said in his soothing voice. ‘Just a little pinprick. Then we’ll run some fluids through you to make you feel more comf
ortable.’
Amazed at how quiet Julia had become, and how calm she now looked, Paul watched them fit an aluminium stretcher underneath her. They elevated her leg, put her on the portable heart monitor and checked her blood pressure and pulse. Finally they put another dressing on her leg and fitted a padded splint with Velcro straps to hold it together. While this was going on she looked alternately from Smith’s body to Paul, moving her head slowly from one to the other, still without speaking.
‘She’s as stable as we can make her now,’ John said. ‘We’ll radio ahead to alert A & E at Macc District General.’
Paul walked alongside Julia as they carried her to the ambulance. He asked himself why she had excluded him from her ordeal when she must have known all this could have been avoided if she’d told him what was happening. Seeing her like this on the stretcher brought into stark relief the reality of the last fifteen minutes: the revelation of Smith being her brother, the obvious rapport between them, his own crime of pulling rank and persuading Jake to illegally issue him with a rifle and then shooting Smith instead of leaving it to the team, the consequences of which did not bear contemplation.
‘I’m taking Nicky home with me,’ he told her. ‘I’ll tell Wendy she can take over tomorrow while I’m at work.’
He watched Julia until the moment the doors were closed. She was watching him too, but never said a word.
Led by the newly arrived police motorbike, the ambulance set off for Macclesfield, emitting a long drawn out wail that echoed round the hills.
I don’t believe it, Paul thought, and ran to the helicopter.
- 111 -
As the ambulance sped through the twisting lanes, Julia wondered if any of this was really happening. For the last twelve days it had become more and more difficult for her to tell whether she was acting sensibly or ridiculously illogically, and where reality had ended and fantasy had taken over. The events of the past hour were still a blur half way between the two. A blur that left her brain numb. A blur that was necessary to blot out what had just happened. Nicholas . . . Nicky . . . Paul . . .
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