Say You're Sorry

by Michael Robotham

  “Did she laugh at your first crude attempt to kiss her? Or was the whole date a joke? Maybe her pretty friends put her up to it. Is that why you chose Natasha? She reminded you of those girls who laughed at you. She was provocative, flirtatious, vain, out of your league…”

  His eyes flash open, full of hatred. Violence. “You think I cared about that slut?”

  “I think that answers my question.”

  “She got what she deserved.”

  “That’s why you mutilated Natasha. It was hatred, not love. Your desire had become twisted. Corrupted. Violent. It demanded you step aside. It negated the rights of others. It cleansed. It poisoned. It dictated your beliefs. You must have dragged that hatred around with you for years. It was gnawing away inside you while you watched other lads get the pretty girls, walking them home, getting invited inside, despoiling those sweet young bodies and then boasting about it afterwards.”

  “Keep talking, Professor, it’s her time you’re wasting.”

  I glance at Piper. Her breathing has grown ragged. The sedatives are being absorbed into her bloodstream.

  “Why is it so important that I kill you?” I ask.

  “It’s over for me. There’s nowhere else to go.”

  “Give me Piper and I’ll leave you the gun.”

  He shakes his head. “I want you to pull the trigger.”

  “Why?”

  He smiles. “It’s like I told you that first day I drove you to Bingham—killers and kidnappers know when they cross a line. They can’t expect sympathy or understanding. Gideon Tyler took your wife and child. He did terrible things to them, but you said you wouldn’t have pulled the trigger to stop him.”

  “I lied.”

  “Show me. Shoot me now. Prove you can do it, Professor. Learn how it feels.”

  “I don’t want to know how it feels.”

  He runs his finger along Piper’s cheek. “Maybe if she were your daughter, you’d think differently. Perhaps Piper doesn’t mean enough to you.”

  “That’s not true.”

  He smiles. “You think you can read people, Professor. You pick apart their motives and peer inside their heads, but I wonder if you ever look at yourself. I think you’re a coward. I’m going to make you brave.”

  “I live with a disease that makes me brave.”

  “It gives you an excuse.” He spits the words. “You couldn’t stop the man who kidnapped your wife and daughter and now you’re balking at this. You’re making excuses. Stop me. She’s dying. Just do it!”

  He lifts Piper’s eyelids. Her pupils have rolled back into her head and white foam is leaking from one corner of her mouth. Every minute gives the pills longer to dissolve in her stomach and enter her bloodstream. Five minutes after ingestion she has a 90 per cent chance of survival. By sixty minutes it falls to less than 15 per cent.

  The pistol has grown hot in my hands. I stare along the barrel with a mixture of loathing and awe.

  “Let her go.”

  “Shoot me. It’s not difficult. You walk over here. Point the gun at my head and pull the trigger. Don’t go trying to miss. I don’t want to be left a vegetable. And don’t try shooting me in the leg or shoulder. This knife is very sharp. It won’t take much to slice into her chest.”

  The pistol is growing heavier. I look at Piper and imagine her heartbeat slowing and her organs failing. In the next breath I can picture Charlie lying on a filthy mattress, chained to a radiator with masking tape wrapped around her head, breathing through a hose. I would have pulled a trigger a dozen times over to save her and Julianne. I would have emptied the magazine and reloaded. I would have done anything… given anything… if only…

  “If I hear sirens, I will kill her, Professor. You’re running out of time.” He is rocking Piper in his arms. “Pull the trigger. People take lives all the time. You might even enjoy it. It could be cathartic. I mean, you’re separated, your wife left you, you’re riddled with disease, so much for ‘in sickness and in health.’ ”

  “That’s not why she left me.”

  “You must really hate her.”

  “No.”

  “Liar!”

  I scream at him then. Aiming the gun at his head. Stepping closer.

  “PUT DOWN THE KNIFE!”

  “No.”

  “LET HER GO!”

  “Shoot me.”

  “NO!”

  “Tick tock, tick tock.”

  “LET HER GO!”

  “Pull the trigger.”

  “SHE’S DYING!”

  Grievous begins screaming back at me. “SAVE HER! JUST DO IT! PULL THE TRIGGER! DO IT. SHOOT ME! PULL THE FUCKING TRIG—”

  The gun recoils and a noise seems to detonate directly inside my head. Echoing. Drawn out. Groaning like a turntable on the wrong speed. I stare at the gun and smell the cordite.

  My finger is still on the trigger. I’m locked in place as though turned to stone, while the Earth has turned ten thousand revolutions. Nothing stirs or shifts until Piper slides sideways, her hair plastered to the back of her head, slick with blood.

  For a moment I think I must have shot her. Somehow the bullet must have ricocheted off the wall. I put my hand over the back of her head and discover the blood isn’t hers.

  Grievous is staring at me with his lips peeled back and mouth open, his last sentence cut short. The entry wound in his forehead is smaller than a five pence piece, while the exit wound has sprayed blood and brain matter across the painted wall.

  Fumbling with the key, I remove the handcuffs and reach under Piper, lifting her easily and carrying her to the door and down two flights of stairs.

  Adrenalin is still surging through me like the bass beat at a rock concert. Setting her down in the hallway near the front door, I put my ear to her mouth and nose and my hand on her lower chest. She’s breathing, but her eyes are fixed. Dilated. I turn her on her side, putting her in the recovery position.

  Where are the paramedics? I call 999 again, yelling at the operator, telling them to hurry. The sedative has been in Piper’s system for nearly thirty minutes.

  I have to act now. Gastric lavage. Pump her stomach. I remember my medical training—three years of studying to be a doctor, doing my filial duty because God’s-personal-physician-in-waiting wanted me to carry on the family tradition.

  I rip open kitchen cupboards and grab a container of salt and run the hot tap until the water is warm. Mixing the water and salt in a clean plastic container, I create a saline solution. Next I need a tube: something about the width of my pinkie and three feet long.

  Beneath the sink is a water filter with a flexible blue plastic pipe. I tear it away from the fittings and cut off the ends, hoping it’s long enough. Crouching next to Piper, I turn her head to one side and lubricate the end of the tube with soap, before inserting it through her nose, pushing it gently until it reaches the pharynx. I feel the slight resistance and turn the tube 180 degrees. It continues sliding towards her stomach.

  I put my head on her chest and blow a puff of air through the tube, listening for the telltale bubbles from the fluid in her stomach. Holding the plastic container of saline solution above her head, I punch a hole through the base and insert the tube, letting about 300 ml of the warm fluid flow into her stomach.

  Then I suction, letting the mixture of saline and her stomach contents flow out onto the floor. Repeating the process, I keep going until the liquid runs clearer. My mobile has been ringing. I’ve been too busy to answer it.

  Drury’s name appears on screen.

  “What’s happened in there? Neighbors reported a gunshot.”

  “Where are the paramedics?”

  “Outside. They’re waiting for the all clear.”

  “It’s clear. Tell them to hurry.”

  “Where’s Grievous?”

  “Dead.”

  “Casey?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Moments later the door jerks open and the DCI’s eyes meet mine. He’s wearing a bulletproof ve
st and helmet, like a modern-day warrior. In the dim light the scar on his cheek looks like a birthmark.

  A dozen police officers surge into the house. Behind them I see two ambulances, their lights beating with color, sirens muted. Four paramedics follow. Two of them crouch beside Piper. The younger one has a farm girl face.

  “What did she take?”

  “Diazepam.”

  “How much?”

  “Unknown.”

  “How long has she been unconscious?”

  “Thirty minutes, maybe longer.” I point to the tube. “I’ve done a nasotracheal intubation and a gastric lavage. She needs activated charcoal to absorb the rest.”

  “We can take it from here, sir.”

  Drury appears at the top of the stairs. Ashen-faced. Tortured by what he’s witnessed. Two colleagues are dead. A kidnapped girl is alive. It doesn’t feel like a victory.

  On the night we were taken,

  I left Tash at the church while I went to Emily’s house and told her that we were running away. In the winter Reverend Trevor leaves the small door open at the side of St. Mark’s of a Saturday night so that parishioners who arrive early on Sunday morning don’t have to wait in the cold for the curate to unlock the door. I left Tash lying on a pew, curled up like a kitten.

  It was well after midnight when I got back. The funfair had closed down and the rides were being dismantled or folded up like Transformer toys. Scaffolding pipes were loaded onto trucks and canvas tents rolled into tubes.

  Tash wasn’t where I left her. I thought she must have found somewhere warmer in the choir stalls or under the baptismal font. It was scary walking through the darkened church, but I couldn’t risk turning on the lights, so I lit one of the prayer candles and tried not to spill hot wax on my hands.

  I walked towards the main doors and that’s when I saw George. He was sitting straight-backed in a pew. Tash was asleep with her head on his thigh.

  George held a finger to his lips, not wanting to wake her.

  “Hello, Piper,” he whispered.

  “How do you know who I am?”

  “You’re the runner,” he said, stroking Tash’s hair. “She’s sleeping. She told me what happened. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Why?”

  “We have to go to the police station. We have to tell them what happened.”

  “Tash didn’t want to tell anyone.”

  “I made her change her mind.”

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “I’ve come to help.”

  He was wearing black combat trousers and dark boots laced to his shins. A dark shirt was visible beneath his waterproof jacket. I thought he looked like someone official—like a soldier or a police officer—except for his jacket, which was old and stained.

  Sliding Tash’s head from his lap, he sat her up, leaning her head against his shoulder.

  “My car is outside,” he said. “Here, help me lift her.”

  I reached down and took Tash’s arm, but that’s when his hand slipped over my mouth and nose, stopping me in mid-breath, squeezing. His other arm wrapped around my chest, pinning my arms and lifting my feet from the ground. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t run.

  “Shhhhhh,” he whispered. “Sleep now, Princess. You’ll be home soon.”

  50

  They let me ride in the ambulance with Piper. Although she is unconscious, her vital signs are stronger. They can put her on dialysis and clean her blood. She’ll recover. She’ll see in the New Year and meet her new baby sister.

  Seated on a side bench, my knees touching the stretcher, I sway through every corner of the journey to hospital. I can see a face reflected in the chrome, but it doesn’t look like me. My body is shaking. I don’t know if it’s the Parkinson’s or the cold or something more elemental. I killed a man. I took a life.

  Piper’s eyes flutter open, wide with shock at first. She recognizes me. Relaxes.

  “Hello,” I say, holding her hand.

  She can’t answer because of the oxygen mask.

  “You’re safe. We’re going to the hospital.”

  Her fingers squeeze mine.

  Her other hand reaches for her mask. The paramedic wants her to keep it on. Piper insists. She mouths the word. I lean closer and hear her whisper.

  “Tash?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “Tash didn’t make it home. She died in the blizzard, but she helped us find you.”

  Piper squeezes her eyes shut and a tiny marble-like tear rolls down her cheek and stops at the edge of the mask.

  This was always going to be the hardest news and it will hurt her more than anyone imagines—a survivor’s guilt and a sense that the world has moved on without her. There is nobody left who understands what she’s been through.

  51

  It’s after midnight when I arrive at the cottage. The key is under the third brick beneath the foxglove plant. Letting myself in, I use the glow of the Christmas lights to navigate along the hallway, trying not to make a sound.

  In the sitting room, I slump onto the couch and close my eyes. Too exhausted to get up the stairs, too wired to sleep.

  “Hello.”

  Julianne is standing at the doorway. She’s wearing flannelette pajamas, which she buys a size too large because she says they’re more comfortable. The trousers hang low on her hips and the shirt is unbuttoned to reveal the shadow between her breasts.

  “I heard the news,” she says. “Is she going to be OK?”

  “Yes.”

  “They said a man was shot.”

  I nod.

  My hands are shaking. I look into her eyes and something small and delicate shreds inside me. I feel the tears coming. I try to hold them back, but she sits beside me and presses her face to mine.

  I sob.

  She soothes.

  “I killed a man.”

  “You saved a girl.”

  Her arms are around me now, hugging me like a child.

  “When I was holding that gun, all I could think about was Charlie. I could picture when Gideon Tyler kidnapped her; how helpless I felt, how completely and utterly useless. I remember you standing in this room, unable to look at me. I couldn’t think of anything to say to you. I couldn’t make it better. I couldn’t share your pain because I knew that if I took your sorrow and anger and added it to mine it would fucking bury me… I’d never survive.”

  “Don’t torture yourself, Joe.”

  “That was the beginning of the end for us. I knew it. You knew it.”

  “Charlie is fine. I’m fine. You have to stop punishing yourself.” She strokes my hair. “I think you should talk to someone.”

  “Who?”

  “A professional.”

  “You think I should see a therapist.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you seeing one?”

  She nods. “It’s helping.”

  “Who?”

  “I’m not saying. You’ll tell me there’s someone better.”

  I try to laugh because I know she’s right. We sit like this for a long while, listening to the silence, enjoying each other’s warmth.

  “How was Christmas?” I ask.

  “Postponed.” She points to the Christmas tree, where brightly wrapped gifts lie unopened beneath the lower branches. “We decided that we didn’t want Christmas without you so we put it off until tomorrow… or I should say today.”

  “What about Santa Claus?”

  “Oh, he came.”

  “And Emma didn’t want to open her presents?”

  “Oh, she did. It almost killed her, but she wanted you here.” She lightly kisses my lips. “We all did.”

  Julianne slides her body away from mine and stands, pulling me upwards. “To bed with you.”

  “Let me sleep here.”

  “No.”

  She leads me upstairs, pausing at the open door to Emma’s room where we watch our youngest sleeping, surrounded by stuffed animals and her gloriously imaginative paintings.


  Then we pass Charlie’s room, which has a sign on the door banning entry to little sisters and anyone below a certain height. A height chart is helpfully provided.

  Julianne doesn’t stop outside the guest room. Pulling me onwards, she takes me into the bedroom we once shared and helps me undress. When I try to speak, she puts her finger over my lips and draws me to the bed and wraps my arms around her body, across her breasts.

  I smell her hair. I feel her heart. I listen to her sleeping. I want for nothing.

  My name is Piper Hadley and

  I went missing three years ago on the last Saturday of the summer holidays.

  Today I came home.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Say You’re Sorry is my eighth novel, which is seven more than I ever dreamed was possible. As always, I wish to thank my agents Mark Lucas, Richard Pine, Nicky Kennedy and Sam Edinburgh, as well as my UK and US editors David Shelley and John Schoenfelder. For their hospitality and friendship I thank Mark and Sara Derry, Ursula Mackenzie, Martyn Forrester, Ian Stevenson and the Honey family recently returned to Harare.

  I wish to thank John Leece, who earned the right to name a character in the novel thanks to his generosity in supporting the Dymocks Book Bank project to help “at risk” children learn to read.

  My long-suffering wife, Vivien, deserves special mention (and a medal) for her love and support. She’s my number one fan, my designated reader, my touchstone, my reality check and the person I do this for.

  Finally, I wish to thank my readers in the UK, US, Germany, Australia and the many countries in between. I am humbled by the knowledge that my books are bought, borrowed and downloaded. It is a very intimate thing to share a story with another human being. It is a contract. A pact. A promise.

  “Do you know how many people have taken me to bed,” I tell my wife.