‘I didn’t ask for payment,’ the woman said, but Anne heard the change in tone from irritation to sheepishness.
‘No, you didn’t, but we’re so grateful to you for giving us this precious time and this chance to fulfil my husband’s dream,’ she’d lied. ‘We want to thank you properly.’
‘Alright,’ the woman said, melting. ‘Thank you — just put the key under the door when you leave. That’s fine.’
With the kiosk owner maintaining the secret of their presence on the pier, no one would bother them now. She watched the slightly stooped figure approaching up the makeshift ladder in the murky light and steeled her will to do this right.
Jack had put the flashing light on top of the car but refrained from using the police siren. He needed other motorists to move out of his path as he sped towards West Pier, but he didn’t want to alert Anne to his arrival.
He had no idea what he was going to do but hoped his mere presence would derail whatever plan she had in mind for Flynn. He agreed with Kate that Anne McEvoy wouldn’t harm the son she had borne near on thirty years ago, but her intentions towards Garvan Flynn were far from peaceful. And he wanted Flynn alive and in a position to face the justice he was long overdue.
Anne had dragged her sleeping son gently to the back of the concert hall, leaving a wide space between him and Garvan’s arrival at the northern entrance.
‘Stop there!’ she ordered. Flynn blinked into the powerful torchlight she trained on his face as he stepped fully into the hall. ‘Welcome back, Pierrot.’
She looked at the paunchy, middle-aged man who had once terrified the daylights out of her. His hair was cropped close to his head these days and she imagined it was white now. She had never seen his face clearly before and realised now how nonedescript and plain it was. Peter’s good looks obviously derived from her genes then, and her son simply echoed some of his father’s features. She felt nothing for Garvan other than revulsion. Power rushed through her as she realised she was no longer scared by him.
‘Where’s my son?’ he demanded, the reedy voice filled with anxiety.
‘Right here,’ she said, switching off the torch and lighting the single candle she had prepared nearby. She held her ugly blade close to Peter’s throat, thanking her lucky stars that he would never know she had done this.
Flynn sank to his knees, fear overwhelming him. ‘Don’t hurt him, I beg you.’
‘You beg me?’ she taunted. ‘You have the nerve to beg anything of me!’
‘Please, I’ll do whatever you want. Give you anything,’ he blubbered. ‘Just don’t hurt my son.’
She nodded, her smile cynical. ‘Your son. What about our son, Pierrot? Tell me why you called him Peter.’
Peter began to stir, his eyes flickering open. She snapped the blade away.
‘What?’ Flynn said, confused.
‘You heard. Wake up, Peter, listen to your father.’
Peter’s eyes opened fully. He struggled against his bonds, made angry sounds behind his gag.
‘Be still!’ she ordered.
‘I . . . I think you murmured it after . . .’ Flynn’s voice trailed off.
‘After you’d finished jumping on my belly and punching me, all the time knowing I was in labour, trying to deliver my son. Do you hear that, Peter? Tell him, Garvan. Tell him what you did to me, or so help me, I’ll do what you fear most. Don’t push me. You know how many have already died by my hand. Tell him!’
And Garvan Flynn did, in halting, weeping tones. He confessed to his son what he had inflicted on teenage Anne McEvoy when he began stalking her from school. He told his son of his impotence, his inability to impregnate his wife, and the unimaginable pressure his mother-in-law in particular had visited upon him. How she had ridiculed him and made him feel worthless in their family. He told his son of the separation from Clare during the winter of 1974, when everything had boiled over and his world had turned dark. How he had befriended the boys and brought them under his spell and finally gone ahead with his hideous plan to rape Anne and prove that he could sustain an erection. He told of his shock upon realising that Anne McEvoy had become pregnant.
‘I doubted myself so much. By the time your mother and I separated, son, I couldn’t even get it up. I don’t know half of what your grandmother was whispering to her, but she was poisoning her against me and all because she was the only one in the family without grandchildren.’ He gave a helpless sound of disgust. ‘I hated her.’
‘Tell him everything,’ Anne said coldly.
‘I knew I was the father,’ he wept, ‘because none of the others had raped her. Only me. I wanted to kill her when I saw her huge belly and your mother so grief-stricken.’ The old anger slowly emerged through his tears. ‘I wanted this woman dead. I couldn’t believe she was going to have my baby, the child I couldn’t give your mother. I couldn’t let your mother know, son. I couldn’t disgrace her any further than I already had. I tried to hide behind the teenagers — I thought things might escalate if I got them drunk. I hoped they might do something stupid, but they didn’t. Fools. I had to do it.’
‘Tell Peter that you planned to kill him too,’ Anne said. ‘Let him hear it from your lips.’
Flynn’s voice was ragged now. ‘I didn’t know what was going to happen. I just felt such rage that this woman was pregnant by me, and the one who should be remained barren. I was hoping you’d both die somehow. Until you arrived, that is. You were so perfect, so beautiful, so helpless. And suddenly it hit me that you were mine. I wanted to keep you. I saw how it could be if I took you home and gave you to your mother, how happy everyone would be.’
Peter shook his head in despair and loathing at what he was hearing.
‘I told this woman that you were dead,’ Flynn went on. ‘She was near enough dead herself, and I figured she wouldn’t last through the night as she was bleeding heavily. I knew to wait for the afterbirth, and once I’d tossed that in the sea I let you have a few minutes at her breast, and then I took you. I was already in love with you.’ He shook his head helplessly. ‘By the time I picked you up, I thought she was dead and I was relieved.’
‘Tell him about his name!’ Anne screamed. The blade cut into her palm, she held it so tightly. Blood dripped to the ground.
‘Peter was her chosen name for you. She murmured it, and I thought she died with that as her last breath. It seemed right to call you by that name.’
‘And you’re too stupid to know that the hideous clown name you chose when you attacked me — the French “Pierrot” you were so proud of — translates to Peter in English,’ Anne said. ‘The stench of your crime has followed your son throughout his whole life.’
Garvan broke into deep sobs. ‘It was nearly thirty years ago. I was a different person then. I’m an old man, Anne. The anger has gone. I’ve been a good father to your son — our son. I’ve raised him well. I want to say I’m sorry, but I can see it won’t be enough. I want to make amends but I don’t know what to do. What do you want me to do?’ he begged.
Anne gathered her composure. Night had fallen. It was time.
‘I want you to do the honourable thing. It’s the only way to make amends to me. Do you see that can next to you?’
Flynn looked, nodded dumbly.
‘Tip the contents over yourself.’
Peter began to panic, shaking his head, screaming behind the duct tape.
‘Hurry, Garvan, or I will slash his throat. I should tell you that I feel nothing for Peter,’ she lied. ‘I hate him as much as I hate you.’
As she said those terrible words, she felt something die inside her. She couldn’t care less what happened now to her, but she intended to see Garvan pay with his blood.
‘Do it!’ she screamed at the haggard man who suddenly looked a century old.
He reached for the can and splashed a sizeable portion of the petrol over himself, the potent-smelling fumes filling the concert hall.
Anne picked up a lighter and a glass bottle. Petrol slosh
ed around inside it and a dampened cloth formed a wick to help fashion a rudimentary bomb.
‘And now we’ll cleanse your father of his sins,’ she said softly to Peter, who was whimpering on the floor, helpless.
‘Any last words for your son?’ she taunted Flynn. ‘At least I have the grace to grant you that, which is more than you offered me.’
46
Jack finally reached the seafront. He drove the car up onto the pavement outside the kiosk and switched off the police light. He hit the stairs by The Rock Shop at a full run and was on the beach in moments, searching for the temporary ladder and walkway that would give him access to whatever was waiting for him on West Pier.
He could hear pigeons cooing in their roosts beneath the decking as he climbed and the odd haunting squawk of a gull. The starlings were all mercifully silent for the night beneath the damaged roof of the concert hall. He prayed that their earlier cries had given him sufficient warning to stop the insanity that was surely unfolding inside. He tiptoed across the old and precarious timber strutting that, on other piers, he remembered gazing between when he was a small child, marvelling at the sea below. There was no wonderment now, only fear for what was taking place in the concert hall where he could now see the thin guttering light from what he presumed was a candle.
Jack thought of the array of haunting photos that Sophie had framed and put up in her apartment. He recalled how he had admired them and she had admitted that they were her favourite artworks amongst what even a layman could see was a quality line-up of art on her walls. Jack remembered how sad her voice had sounded when she had agreed with him that, West Pier’s pedigree and loneliness aside, it was beautiful because of its strength — battling against the elements, still standing after all these years. He realised now that she saw herself reflected in West Pier. Her connection to it was obvious because of the abduction, the horrific attack and her son being born and, she thought, killed here. But it was more than that. Bittersweet, he thought. She sees herself as wrecked and battered like the pier, but still standing, still being strong.
He turned off his pen light and continued his stealthy approach in darkness, praying he didn’t step into a gaping hole or on rotten wood that gave way beneath him. He could hear a voice. It was Sophie, he thought sadly.
‘At least I have the grace to grant you that much, which is more than you offered me.’
And now he could smell petrol. Jack’s mind made the instant connection and he forgot about being silent and barged through the concert hall doors, taking in the scene of a man on his knees and two people at the end of the once grand Victorian concert hall. The starlings once again took flight.
‘Ah, Jack, they gave me away the first time, didn’t they?’ she said in welcome.
Jack nodded, saddened to see her golden hair dyed a deep brown. The petrol fumes were overwhelming. ‘Your lovely art and the sound of birds,’ he said, moving forward slowly. ‘Two beautiful things connected with such ugliness.’ He arrived by the side of the kneeling Flynn. ‘Look at him. He’s a pathetic little man, he’s not worth it. Don’t do this.’
‘Darling Jack. You can’t save me and the world,’ she said sadly. ‘This is my son, Peter, by the way. He was ripped from my body and stolen from me.’ She turned to Peter. ‘I’m sorry you’ve only known me like this. DCI Hawksworth here can give you a different picture of me. I would have been a great mum to you, and you should know that I loved you and wanted you with all my heart, even though you were conceived in such pain and brutality.’
She pushed him away, expertly slashing at the bonds that tied his legs and hands.
Then she stood up, brandishing the lighter and the Molotov cocktail. ‘Step away, Jack. This isn’t your fight.’
‘It is! I’m going to convict this man. I’m going to ensure justice is done. Not your way, Anne, but the right way.’
‘This is the right way! He deserves nothing less.’
She flicked on the lighter’s flame. Peter, who was leaning groggily against the wall, gave a yell and fell to his knees as he tried to get back to Anne to stop her.
‘Peter, wait!’ It was Garvan Flynn. ‘Let it be, son. This is my lot.’
‘Oh, very gallant,’ Anne mocked. She glanced at her watch. ‘Peter, can I suggest you run, because we’re out of time. Please don’t try and do anything heroic because I can smash this bottle and toss this lighter quicker than you can reach me and we’ll all go up. The thing is, I don’t care about living but you’ve got a reason to live, Peter, okay? You probably have many reasons. Someone you love, perhaps?’
She saw that she’d said the right thing, noticed the fear for someone register in his eyes.
‘Go, Peter, that’s right,’ she said, watching him edge away along the wall. ‘Run, my son, run away from all of this. Go to the person you call Mother and tell her what happened and that it is good riddance. Your father is bad, Peter, don’t mourn him too hard.’ She could see Peter was in shock, and confused too, the drug still affecting him, but he was moving and in the right direction, away from her.
‘I won’t warn you again,’ she said, turning to Jack. ‘Step away from him and get my son away from here.’
The sound of men shouting came out of the darkness and torches flickered in the near distance. Jack recognised Brodie’s voice. There was nothing else for it; he grabbed the petrol can and tipped the contents over himself.
‘What are you doing?’ Anne shrieked.
‘Brodie?’ Jack yelled, for once glad that his team had disobeyed his orders.
Cam arrived, another two policemen behind him, all crowding through the small doorway. ‘Hawk!’
‘Get Peter Flynn out of here and then back off.’ Cam began to say something. ‘That’s an order!’ Jack barked. He leaned down and grabbed Flynn’s arm. ‘Stand up, Mr Flynn.’
‘Jack!’ Anne said, her eyes wide with fear at last. ‘Don’t do this. Don’t make me sacrifice you.’ She watched a plainclothes officer pull a struggling Peter Flynn away. ‘Get him away from here,’ she screamed. ‘We’re going up, I warn you. Everything you see around you has been doused with petrol.’
‘You’ll have my death on your conscience as well,’ Jack said, his eyes stinging from the petrol. ‘I don’t think you want that.’
She shook her head ruefully. ‘You still think I’m Sophie and that I have a conscience. Goodbye, Jack.’
Jack watched in horror as she lit the soaked bundle of rag that acted as a makeshift wick. It ignited instantly and as she pulled her arm back, he saw the despair etched on her face.
‘Sophie!’ he screamed, before he grabbed Flynn and blindly ran, just seeing out of the corner of his eye that Anne McEvoy had hurled the bottle in their direction. Jack heard the glass shatter and the dull explosion, but he was running, dragging a terrified Garvan Flynn alongside him. He chanced a glance over his shoulder as flames erupted all around the concert hall and then, without allowing himself to wonder if it was possible, he ran them both straight at the larger French windows on the south-eastern side of the hall.
His prayers were answered as the windows splintered on impact. He and Flynn were through, the flames arcing after their petrol-soaked bodies. It was four long strides to the edge of the pier. Jack had barely a moment to notice the serpent-entwined lamppost before he hit the rotten railing.
Flynn hesitated.
‘Jump or burn,’ Jack yelled into the terrified man’s face and suddenly they were falling, the roar of burning timber and exploding glass surrounding them.
The two bodies fell the six or so metres towards the churning seawater in a tangle of limbs and yells. Jack had a second to notice that Flynn’s head was on fire but didn’t register his own left arm was also ablaze.
They hit the water hard, their shapes backlit by the burning concert hall, as if they were two spent fireworks descending into oblivion. Jack felt something give and thought it was in his leg but couldn’t be sure, and then mercifully everything went dark.
4
7
He heard whispering voices from far away long before he realised he had regained consciousness. His throat was parched and yet he could taste saltwater, smell burning timber and flesh, hear the roar of flames over the whispering. Jack opened his eyes to slits but was assaulted by the painfully bright light that greeted him and instantly shut them again. He groaned as a new sensation of agony, sharp and deep, emanated from somewhere he couldn’t pinpoint — his foot perhaps?
‘He’s awake. Can you tell them, please,’ someone said softly nearby and he was aware of a door opening, the whirr of a machine around him and then footsteps.
A cool hand touched his own lightly and he turned his head gingerly towards that small comfort. His neck ached.
‘Jack,’ the person whispered and he risked opening his eyes again.
‘Kate?’
‘Hello, you.’ He could see her eyes were watering. ‘It’s good to have you back.’ She tried to smile away the tears. ‘The gang’s all here.’
‘Chief,’ Swamp said, flicking his finger in a salute.
‘Hey, Hawk — that was some leap but I don’t think our Olympic dive team want you,’ Brodie said, grinning wryly.
‘Hi, Sarah,’ Jack said for her. She looked too anxious to give any salutation. He glanced around at them all. ‘I am alive, aren’t I? You all look so worried.’
Everyone gave less awkward smiles now.
‘You’ve been unconscious since Brodie hauled you from the sea on Sunday night, Hawk,’ Swamp said. ‘It’s Tuesday, midday.’
‘You’ve smashed an ankle and done a fairly decent job of burning your left hand,’ Kate explained.
‘You have a great bedside manner,’ he croaked. ‘You’d make a good nurse.’
‘The uniforms itch,’ she replied archly. ‘You’ve cracked a rib or two as well, so no dancing for you for a while.’
Bye Bye Baby Page 45