Why We Die (30 page)

‘He’s coming back.’

‘If you say so.’

‘I just did.’

Playground stuff . . .

She said, ‘Besides.’

‘Besides what?’

‘. . . What if the money’s not there?’

They had eaten and were on the sofa now, and if Tim closed his eyes and threw his mind back to when he and Emma were starting out – to when a whole minefield of nuance and between-the-lines silences had to be negotiated before he braved an arm round her shoulder – he could drum up a soundtrack to match the moment. REM released
Automatic for the People
the same month he first kissed her, and everywhere you went, everybody hurt. He could hear it now: a quiet song, best played loud. When the chorus loomed, he was surprised Katrina couldn’t hear it too.

‘. . . Are you asleep?’

‘Sorry. It’s the vodka.’

‘You’ve done a lot of driving. It’s okay if you sleep.’

‘Has it been an hour?’

‘I’ll call her now.’

She did, and the pair sat listening to the curiously chirpy response:
The number you requested is not available
. . . Not a lot of clues in a verbal cul-de-sac like that. Zoë might be anything – upright, sideways, downright dead – and all they knew was, she wasn’t
available
. Whether this was temporary or permanent, the future would tell; meanwhile, Katrina switched her mobile off.

Then they sat quietly, while ‘Everybody Hurts’ looped through Tim’s head, and the melting ice in his glass fizzed in time.

. . . Katrina said, ‘How do you see the rest of your life?’

‘How do I what?’

‘You think this will change things? What’s happened these past few days?’

He said, ‘I live an ordinary life. I mean . . . When Emma died, it nearly killed me. Went on nearly killing me. But it didn’t, in the end. I’m still here. My life’s pretty boring, you want the truth. Electrical goods aren’t as exciting as they sound.’

That was a joke, but Katrina didn’t laugh.

‘But it’s not a bad life. Until Emma died, it was enough. And would be again, if missing her stopped. And what they say, the things people tell you, they talk about two years or whatever, a specific passage of time, that you get better, that it stops hurting. And maybe that’s true. It’s not, I don’t mean, she wasn’t replaceable . . . Isn’t. Isn’t replaceable. But the gap she left in my life, if that was filled, everything else would work too. It would be enough again.’

‘Yes.’

‘It would need to be something special. Somebody special. Emma . . . I loved Emma so much. I’ve never stopped. I thought I had . . . You hate people when they’re dead. At first. But really you’re hating yourself, for not being there when it mattered. You think you’re the reason why they died. But you’re not. And you always love the ones you love. That’s what love means. It means nothing if you stop.’

‘You’re a nice man, Tim.’

‘No, I’m just me. Everybody’s just themselves, it doesn’t matter how nice they want people to think they are. I’m not making sense. All I mean is . . . All it is, things are what they are, that’s all. Emma’s dead. I’m still here. Life goes on. Will go on, I mean. You’re nice too, Katrina. I’m not just saying that because I’m drunk.’

She kissed him: a light feathery kiss that barely brushed his cheek. But it would have hurt her to kiss him any other way; her cheekbone hadn’t knit together yet. Her face was still the colour of pain. But her lips touched him, and for a moment he forgot the song in his head, because not everybody hurt after all.

‘I think I need another drink,’ she said.

Tim was pretty sure he didn’t, but went and poured two all the same. When he returned, she’d drawn her knees beneath her, and taken the band from her hair. He remembered the first time he’d seen her, with a bruise just a ghost of this present damage, and knew there’d come a time when this hurt too would fade, and he’d have to study her face for signs of its having existed. That was what the future looked like in that moment; a long drawn-out passage of time in which Tim studied Katrina’s face. He was still holding both their glasses, so handed her one, and sat down.

The bag under the table stared up at them.

Katrina said, ‘Do you really think they need the money?’

‘. . . Who?’

‘The insurance companies?’

‘Probably not
need
, no.’

‘It seems . . . idiotic to give it to them. So much good could be done with it.’

‘What sort of good?’

‘Any sort. You could start a whole new life with that much money.’

He laughed. ‘I thought you were going to say you could feed the starving, or fund a cure for something.’

‘It’s a lot. But it’s not enough for that.’

‘It’s not really enough for a new life, either.’ He mushed some syllables there, but he was making sense. ‘It’s a pile, sure. But hardly enough to buy a house with, not most places. Even supposing they let you pay cash.’

‘So the insurance companies won’t miss it.’

‘It’s not a question of them missing it, it’s about whose it is. It’s stolen, is what it comes down to . . . I’m not trying to be all high and moral. But the money’s not a secret. Once Zoë’s safe, we call the police, and they arrest the Dunstans. The money will be mentioned, Katrina. And it’s not like the police’ll call it finders-keepers.’

‘It seems a shame, that’s all.’

‘Worse things happen.’ Than not having a huge lump of untraceable cash dumped on you, he meant. ‘Look, when the police come . . .’

‘They’ll arrest me too.’

‘Will they?’

‘Of course. They’re still deciding what to charge me with for Baxter’s death. And now the journalist who was looking after me’s in a coma, and God only knows what other mayhem Arkle’s caused . . . I’m involved in all that. They’re going to want to know how deep.’ She looked at him. ‘They didn’t know Baxter was a crook,’ she said. ‘But once they get hold of Arkle, it’ll come out.’

‘But you weren’t involved.’

‘Can I prove that?’

‘You don’t have to. They have to prove you did. Were, I mean. Involved.’

She said, ‘Tim, I’m not worried about being found guilty of something I didn’t do. I’m worried about how many years of my life’ll be eaten up before people forget I was suspected.’

Years of her life, thought Tim. She must have been about the same age as Emma – who had died at thirty-four – but he wasn’t the world’s best guesser, and this wasn’t the moment to ask. He wanted her to kiss him again, but that might be out of line too. Years of her life: leaving plenty of years . . . It occurred to him – a thought that came with its own lack-of-sobriety tag – that he could offer himself as a kind of long-life guarantee. Because if she, say, married him, what were the chances of her dying young? Of that happening to him twice? Even allowing for the fact that it wouldn’t be him it was happening to, or not primarily.

Another car passed the cottage. Its headlights briefly probed for breaks in the curtains, then threw bright pools through them, which splashed on the walls and drained away into the corners.

She said, ‘There are places you can go, people you can turn to. Who can help you with identities and such. It only costs money.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Instead of turning the money in. I could just disappear.’ She looked at him. ‘Then I wouldn’t have to worry about being proved innocent.’

Tim said, ‘I’ve got a better idea.’

‘You saying she tricked you?’

‘You think I’d have come with you if I’d known the key wasn’t here?’

‘But the key was here.’

‘Not where she told me.’

‘So you say.’

‘If Arkle comes back without the money, what do you think he’ll do?’

‘. . . He won’t be pleased.’

‘I know he won’t be pleased. I’m wondering what he’ll do.’

After a moment, Trent repeated, ‘But the key was here. So how could the money be gone?’

‘How many keys could there be?’

Trent looked away. ‘You’ll have to tell him where Kay went.’

‘I don’t know where Kay went.’

‘But you were with her. You took her from that house. You saying you just let her go, when she was the only one knew where the key was?’

Zoë said, ‘That’s sort of what “tricked” means, in the circumstances.’

She thought she could hear a clock ticking, but it was some obstruction in the old man’s breathing.

Trent said, ‘I can control him.’

‘You think?’

‘He knows where to draw a line. That’s how come . . .’

How come he’s still walking round free, Trent didn’t finish.

Zoë said, ‘Looking back on our brief acquaintance, I suspect whatever controls Arkle has pretty much rusted away. Did he do that to your face?’

Trent didn’t answer. Didn’t have to.

‘So what do you think he’ll do to me? Or the old man here?’

‘It’s Kay he wants.’

‘Right. And there’s a woman in a coma because she was in his way. It’s not about what he wants, Trent. It’s that he doesn’t care how he gets it.’

‘It’s our money.’

‘Forget the fucking money. Were you there when he beat up Helen Coe?’

Trent said, ‘I don’t know what happened. I was in the van.’

‘Good for you. You planning on waiting outside when he loses his temper today? Because anything that happens here, you’re guilty too, you know that? Whatever he does, you’re doing it too. That’s the law, Trent. They call it collective responsibility.’

‘I won’t let him . . .’

‘Let him what? I’ve watched him take potshots at Tim with a crossbow. I could smell the blood on his teeth. You really think you can stop him?’

‘. . . Did you really send a letter to the police?’

‘Yes,’ she lied. ‘Another thing. The guy he shot in Oxford this morning? He’s a copper.’

‘He didn’t look like a fucking copper.’

‘He’s not supposed to, Trent. He’s undercover. The whole point of being undercover is you don’t look like a fucking copper.’

‘So what was he doing?’

‘Being shot by your brother. That’s the part he’ll remember, anyway. And what happens when policemen get shot, Trent? You think the rest of them throw up their hands in disgust and knock off early?’

‘. . . What’s your point?’

‘You’re already a mess. They’ll say you were shopsoiled when they arrested you. If you’re lucky, they’ll give you a bag to carry your teeth in.’

‘You’re just trying to get me to let you go.’

‘I’m trying to get you to help yourself. Arkle comes with an expiry date. That doesn’t mean you have to spend your life in prison.’

‘He’s my brother.’

‘And how much fun has that been?’

Trent said, ‘You think you know a lot, don’t you? But you don’t know nothing. Baxter’s dead. Arkle’s all I’ve got. You think I’m going to take sides against him?’

The deadness of his tone told Zoë she’d hit a wall.

The things she’d said, the lies and the truths, were volleying around the room now; colliding into each other, spinning off in all directions. She could have sworn old man Blake hadn’t twitched in half an hour. If it weren’t for the odd fractured breath, she’d have thought him dead. And the fact that he wasn’t might merely be intermission, because one of the things she hadn’t been lying about was how much damage she thought Arkle might do when he came home without the money . . . There didn’t seem much hope in his turning up sheepish and rueful. Torch and run was more likely. He must know he had little time left. He was leaving the same trail of clues in his wake as a hurricane.

She said, ‘I’m all out of things to tell you. He’s your brother. Nothing I say can change that.’

‘Right.’

‘So I’ll ask a favour instead. No tricks. I really need to go the bathroom. Could you let me have that much dignity?’

He said, ‘No way am I taking that rope off.’

‘You don’t have to take the rope off. You can leave the damn door open if you want. But let me have that much control for when he gets back, can’t you? Please? You think I want to wet myself when he takes his crossbow out?’

‘. . . You’re trying to trick me.’

‘I watched him put a bolt through somebody this morning, Trent. For being there. He thinks I’ve tricked him out of a couple of hundred grand, you reckon he’ll write that off to bad judgement? Please. All I’m asking is a little human decency, before the bad stuff starts.’

Blake said, ‘Katie?’

They both looked, but it was a momentary lapse, no more. Blake was already back on the other side of nowhere, though there was a pulse throbbing at his temple which hadn’t been there before.

Zoë said, ‘Please. You don’t have to untie me.’

Trent said, ‘If this is a trick, my brother’s the least of your worries.’

Tim stopped talking, and raised his glass to his lips. It was empty. He didn’t remember finishing it, but his mouth felt powerfully dry; a dead giveaway. He wondered if his words had come out right. There had been an awful lot of them, and they had started by trying to explain why disappearing wasn’t a great idea, and ended by saying she should come with him to Oxford instead. Not in that way, he had probably added. He wasn’t trying to suggest. Which wasn’t to say he didn’t think. And so on. By the time he had backtracked out of several verbal dead-ends, only to walk slap-bang into a number of conversational lamp-posts, he couldn’t have found his way back to the subject with a map and a torch.

In the quiet that followed he could hear new weather coming; the noises clouds make when they roll over themselves in the late grey sky.

At last Katrina, ‘I was right, though. You are nice.’

‘Katrina –’

‘You’re worried I’m digging a hole I’ll never get out of.’

‘Yes.’

‘Take the money and run. But if I do that, I’ll never stop running.’

Yes, that’s what Tim had been saying. If her version sounded more coherent, that was because she’d had time to digest it, whereas he’d been improvising. ‘I don’t want you to run,’ he said. He put his glass down. ‘Nothing that’s happened was your fault. He hurt you, he –’ Running out of words again, he touched her face instead. She didn’t flinch. When he put his fingers to her cheek, it felt hot, as if her whole body were still working on the pain problem: converting Baxter’s damage to dischargeable energy. What was washing past him was the by-product of anger, brutality, outrage. All she had to do was stand up in a courtroom and it would come blazing out of her: that was what Tim thought. That a jury wouldn’t just acquit her; they’d dig Baxter up and kill him again. And he heard himself finish, ‘He deserved it,’ which left nothing more to say.