Close Your Eyes (39 page)

A workman looks up from a circular saw. He lets the machine idle and takes off his mask.

‘We’re looking for Mr Egan,’ yells Monk.

The workman points upstairs. We climb. The saw starts up again. I glance down and see the workman flip open his phone.

On the next level the apartments are nearer to completion. One of them has been decorated and furnished, perhaps for display purposes. There are sheets on the unmade bed and dirty clothes on the floor. I notice a half-empty glass of milk and a ham and lettuce sandwich on the kitchen bench.

A gust of wind makes the scaffolding shudder. It’s not the wind. There’s someone outside. Monk crosses the open-plan living area and opens the sliding door. He discovers Jeremy Egan hanging from the lower edge of the balcony, trying to shimmy sideways so he can drop to the apartment below.

Monk is quicker. He leans over the framed glass screen and snaps one handcuff around Egan’s right wrist, attaching it to the lowest railing, trapping him between floors.

‘I can’t hang on,’ yells Egan.

‘Then let go,’ answers Monk.

‘I’ll break my bloody wrist.’

‘Possibly,’ says Monk, ‘but at least you’re wearing a hard hat.’

Egan’s fingers slip a little further off the edge. He tries to readjust and only makes it worse.

‘Help me.’

‘First tell me why you were trying to run from the police.’

‘I thought you were someone else.’

‘Who?’

‘This build is six months behind because of bad weather. I took out bridging finance, but I stopped making the payments.’

‘And that’s the only reason?’ asks Monk.

‘Yes.’

Egan falls and swings on one cuffed wrist, screaming in pain. Monk bends over the glass and unlocks the cuffs, grabbing the architect and hauling him on to the balcony, where he collapses, breathing hard.

Lightning streaks through the sky and pushes a bony finger into the sea. One. Two. Three. Thunder.

Egan rubs at this wrist, sulking, ‘I’m not talking to you without my lawyer.’

‘You don’t have to talk. You can listen,’ says Monk, who turns to me. ‘It’s your show, Professor.’

I pull up a chair. Egan is still sitting on the ground with his back to the glass.

‘You bought the Regency Hotel three years ago and kept it running,’ I say.’

‘Yeah, so?’ he replies.

‘It took you two years to get planning permission to do the conversion, which is why money became an issue.’

‘What’s that got to do with you?’ asks Egan, taking off his hard hat and smoothing his fringe.

‘Do you know someone called Maggie Dutton?’ I ask.

‘No.’

‘What about Naomi Meredith, or Gabrielle Sallis or Matthew Blair?’

‘I don’t know any of them.’

‘They all stayed at the Regency when it was still a hotel. Some time afterwards they were attacked and choked unconscious, bound with masking tape and had the letter “A” carved into their foreheads by someone who accused them of committing adultery.’

Egan lets out a ragged groan. He rises and walks slowly to the sofa, putting his hard hat on his knees.

‘You think I’m a sadist?’ he asks quietly.

‘I think you’re the link between all the victims – you and this hotel.’

‘You’re right. I am a link, but not because I own this place.’ He pauses rubbing at his wrist. ‘At least you solved one mystery.’

‘What do you mean?’ asks Monk.

Egan lifts his chin and pushes back his fringe, revealing the scar on his forehead. Pink. Puckered. Unmistakable.

Lightning flashes and thunder seems to peel away from the earth and rise into the clouds.

‘When?’ I ask.

‘A year ago.’

‘Is that why you and Elizabeth Crowe stopped seeing each other?’

‘One of the reasons.’ He pats down his fringe, covering his forehead again.

I have more questions, wanting to know when and where, but Monk has already found his feet and is walking towards the door. ‘We’re sorry to trouble you, Mr Egan.’

‘But I have more questions,’ I say.

‘No, we’re done here.’

Every sound is heightened, every emotion magnified. I hear feathery laughter, car doors slamming, sandals being slapped together and the hiss of water washing over shingle. The girls are leaving the beach, walking along the path. They’re twenty yards ahead of me. Alone. Arguing.

Until now the air had been so still that it barely registered against my skin, but now stronger gusts are whipping through the trees, dotting the sea with whitecaps and sending waves thudding against the rocks. Strands of Charlie’s hair flatten and then stand, drawn by the electricity in the air.

The younger girl has run ahead. Charlie is carrying two beach towels and a cloth shoulder bag. The sketchbook peeks from inside.

She turns. ‘Are you following me?’

‘No, I’m looking for you.’

Some girls her age avoid eye contact, but she looks directly at me, confident, yet wary. Perspiration gleams on her top lip.

‘I’ve just come from the nursing home. They said you had some photographs.’

‘I found the old man in the drawing,’ she says. ‘The lady at reception recognised him.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘She remembered a girl coming to sketch him.’

She reaches into the pocket of her denim shorts and produces two photographs. ‘Do you know him?’

‘No,’ I say, without bothering to look.

‘But the lady at the nursing home said he’d gone for a walk.’

‘She made a mistake. He doesn’t live at the nursing home.’

My tone of voice makes her flinch. Her sister has turned back and joined us. She scratches at an insect bite on her leg and eyes me suspiciously.

‘And who might you be?’ I ask, trying to smile.

‘This is Emma,’ answers Charlie.

The light has changed. To the west I have lost sight of the pier, cloaked by the coming storm. Fat drops are beginning to rattle the leaves and dot the dusty path.

‘You’re not going to get back in time,’ I say. ‘I know a place we can shelter.’

‘We’ll be OK,’ says Charlie. ‘I like storms.’

‘You’ll get drenched.’

‘Can I have the photographs back?’ she asks.

‘I think you should leave them with me. Are there any others?’

‘No.’

‘You should also give me Harper’s sketchbook and forget about the old man.’

She’s backing away from me now, holding her sister by the shoulder. ‘You know her name.’

‘What?’

‘You said Harper’s name.’

‘You must have mentioned it.’

‘No.’

‘You shouldn’t have come here. You should have let bygones be bygones.’

‘What is a bygone?’ asks Emma.

‘Something that should be left in the past,’ I say, tearing the Polaroid photographs into pieces and tossing them into the wind like confetti.

Lightning rips opens the sky in a jagged tear and the crack of thunder is almost simultaneous, rattling bones, branches and rocks. Emma screams. Charlie steps in front of her, shielding her from me. She glances from side to side, looking for an escape. I’m blocking the path.

A strange feeling fills me now, excitement rather than fear. This girl could be the architect of my undoing. She could bring my two worlds crashing together and I will be trapped in between.

‘Who are you?’ she asks again.

‘I’m nobody important.’

‘How do you know about Harper?’

‘You’re being foolish. Give me the sketchbook.’

‘No.’

Emma is looking from face to face, rubbing her bare arms as though suddenly cold. She doesn’t understand. If they run I will not be able to hold them both. I’ll take Charlie. No, the younger one! Charlie won’t leave her sister behind.

I take a step towards them. Charlie pushes Emma behind her.

‘Run!’ she cries. ‘Get help!’

Charlie launches her body at me, her fists clenched, but I’m too quick and strong. I knock her aside and reach Emma within a few paces, hoisting her off the ground, carrying her towards the top of the cliff.

I turn to Charlie. ‘Come with me or she dies.’

Monk hasn’t said a word. He walks ahead of me, his large frame seeming to shake with anger.

‘I was wrong about Jeremy Egan, but we found another victim,’ I say.

‘Congratulations,’ he says sarcastically.

‘It helps us fill in the pieces.’

‘Shut up and go home, Professor.’

‘The hotel theory is the right one.’

‘The only correct word in that statement is “theory”. You had a theory, which proved to be wrong, and now Jeremy Egan is likely to sue me for assault and wrongful arrest.’

‘I don’t think he will.’

‘Oh, good, I’m relieved. You’ve been bang on the money so far.’

The temperature has plunged and big drops of rain are beginning to dot the road. Monk pulls up his collar and crosses to the waiting police cars. I pause for an old man pushing a bicycle along the footpath with shopping bags draped on the handlebars.

‘It’s going to blow,’ he says, showing me his brown teeth. His eyes look like watery eggs. ‘Best you find some shelter.’

I’m about to cross, but he grabs my arm, telling me about another storm in which four fishermen died off the coast. I listen to him because it strikes me that nobody else will.

Dragging myself away, I try to call Charlie again. This time she answers, but I can’t hear her voice. Instead there are muffled sounds, as though the phone is still in her pocket. She must have answered it accidentally, unaware that I’m on the line.

I shout, hoping she might hear me.

‘Charlie – pick up your phone.’

Nothing. I listen again. There are faint voices, words, broken sentences, snatches of conversation …

‘Stop pulling her hair! She’s going to cry if you pull her hair.’

‘If you don’t make her shut up…’

‘Please don’t hurt her … We’ve done nothing to you.’

‘Just let us go. Can’t you see she’s frightened … we won’t tell anyone…’

A sinkhole opens up inside me and I struggle to breathe. At the same time I feel a teetering sensation, as if my head were half full of water, sloshing from side to side. A clap of thunder detonates above me and I hear the same sound echoing through the phone. They’re close! Where?

People talk about time speeding up, but it does what it does at moments like these – expanding slowly, creating a space in which every sense pops and fizzes with energy. I can feel my clothes brushing against my skin and the cool air on the edge of my nostrils. I can see the fat drops exploding like miniature atom bombs on the hot asphalt, creating an almost invisible vapour.

One look and Ronnie Cray knows something is wrong. I don’t recognise my own voice. I am someone else. A stranger. A madman.

‘Someone has taken my daughters!’

Lightning arrows against the dark clouds and trees thrash at the air as though furious at being rooted to the ground. I look over my shoulder and see how the distance has vanished in sheets of rain, along with the village and the pier and the rolling hills.

The child is getting heavy. I make them both walk, wrapping a fist around their hair, dragging them across the muddy ground. Whenever they slip, I pull them up and they cry out in pain. Nobody is going to hear them.

We come to an outcrop of rocks and clamber over, buffeted by the wind. Leaving the footpath behind, I push Charlie ahead of me, making her crawl through bushes and brambles, while I drag Emma behind. The sea, wild and woolly, is somewhere to our left and a steep bank to the right.

‘You’re hurting us,’ says Charlie.

I scream at her to shut up. Wind snatches the words away. Emma falls. She has blood on her knees, smeared by the rain. I drag her upright. Charlie beats at my chest with her fists, telling me to stop. I lift her off her feet by her ponytail. She has to grip my forearm to stop her hair being ripped from her scalp.

There is a signal station above Pigeon House Bay. It looks like a truncated lighthouse, painted white, squatting on the cliffs. My father showed me the station years ago. He told me that in the early days it sent messages to the ships at anchor, telling them when to sail onwards to the docks at Avonmouth and Bristol. They communicated using flags and later radios before newer technology made the station obsolete. Unmanned. Abandoned.

It’s half a mile from here … too far. I need to find somewhere closer. Sheltered. I need time to think. Plan.

Clawing our way up the slope, using trees to help us climb, we come to a thick hawthorn bush. It’s growing around the base of a large oak, creating a natural den with a canopy of leaves and walls of green. The bare ground is still relatively dry. Pulling the branches aside, I push the girls through the narrow opening.

Another blast of thunder shakes the world. Charlie is holding her sister in her arms, whispering words of encouragement.

‘Tell her not to be frightened?’ I say, shouting above the noise.

Charlie doesn’t answer. The little one examines her bloody knee.

‘Give me the sketchbook,’ I say.

Charlie tosses me her bag. The pencil and charcoal drawings are starting to buckle and smudge, the faces melting like Munch paintings or leaching into oily stains. I tear the pages into sodden strips and screw them into balls before tossing them outside.

Emma has her head tucked under Charlie’s chin, but her eyes are watching me. There is something unnerving about her stare, as though she’s a caged beast who wants to pounce on me and rip out my throat.

‘Didn’t your parents ever tell you it’s rude to stare?’ I say.

She doesn’t look away.