Absolution (31 page)

She pulled her face into a frown, pain etched in her eyes
as she stared at the ceiling. Her hand went to her breast, feeling for her little lump. ‘Me? An immoral woman? God, I wish I had the energy. Where was that bastard I’m married to when this was going on, why didn’t the killer go after
him?
He’s the immoral one…’

‘That’s the whole point – you’re a woman. Do you feel like making a formal statement?’

Helena tried to sit up and failed. Anderson gently helped her up, feeling the boniness of her shoulders under the hospital robe. ‘I don’t know that I’ve anything useful to say. It was blowing a gale. It was pitch dark down there. I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face, never mind anybody else’s. Anyway, I wasn’t looking.’ Tears started to well in her eyes. ‘I didn’t see anything.’

‘Did he smell of anything? Aftershave? Dettol? Mansion Polish?’

Wet wool. I smelled wet wool. And something – oily. Like linseed oil, almost.’

‘Good. Height?’

‘I had the impression he wasn’t old, he was slim, he moved fast, strong but not bulky, light on his feet. Nothing else. He wasn’t much taller than me.’

‘You’re what – five nine?’

‘Yeah.’

Anderson continued, ‘You don’t recall anything being said? You can’t recall a voice?’

‘Only David next door coming down the stairs, you shouting. I was holding your hand…’ She gazed at him, and his heart turned over. ‘Did that wee girl get anything from me?’

‘Alison the SOCO? We’ll wait and see. You put up a good fight, so there might be some transference, that’s the good news. The bad news is it will be ages before you get
your clothes back.’ He put his hand on her shoulder. Alan’s outside now. He’s in a state. Do you want to see him?’

Helena thought for a moment. ‘Yes, I’m fine. It’s not his fault he’s a copper.’ Her humour ended as her mouth closed in a resolute line. ‘He tried to kill me, just like the others, didn’t he? I felt that knife in my stomach, you know.’

‘Best not to think about that. Those thoughts will pop up in your head, so you just put them away.’ Anderson got to his feet. ‘Before Alan comes in, can I ask you a question, Helena?’

‘That’s your job,’ she reminded him, holding on to her stomach and breathing out through pursed lips.

‘When Alan lost his brother… and his mother… was there somebody else? Somebody who–’ Anderson was ready to expand his theory, but Helena cut him short.

‘Her?’ She closed her eyes, her face defeated. ‘I have no idea who she is, but she occupies his dreams, I know that.’ She took a few deep breaths. ‘She’s buried near my mum. And she was Dutch. That’s all I know. Well, that and that it’s too painful for him to remember.’

‘That’s why I asked you. I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Can I ask why?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Be careful. With Alan, I mean. And her.’

‘I will. I’ll send Alan in, but remember you’re safe here. There’s a guard at the door. Can you sign this? Just so we can take your clothes.’

Mechanically she signed it.
Helena Farrell.

‘How is she? Really, I mean? I know I was getting the brave-girl act when I went in but I could tell she was dreadfully shaken,’ said McAlpine, collapsing on his own sofa.

‘Hardly surprising after what happened,’ said Anderson curtly, closing the door on a couple of uniforms who were sheltering in the hall.

‘But then I always get the brave-girl act.’ McAlpine looked around him. The house felt different somehow, for lack of Helena. ‘How long will they be out there?’

‘It will be taped up for a few hours yet, I think. Littlewood is on the scene, Burns is helping, so we’re in good hands.’ Anderson looked at his watch: it was heading on for half past four. ‘So Helena was still calm when you left her?’

‘She does that stony calm very well.’

‘I think the shock will hit her later. She said she didn’t want to go back to the house, so she wants you to take in some stuff, and Denise will take her home with her tomorrow… although she was going to discharge herself there and then.’

‘Her dad was in the army,’ said McAlpine, as though that explained everything. ‘Batten got it wrong, didn’t he?’

‘No, he got it dead right.’

Anderson looked up as a car door slammed outside, his eyes passing over the coffee table. At McAlpine’s knee was a glass that had contained whisky. He hadn’t even put the top back on the bottle. ‘Did you have a lie down, even for a couple of minutes?’

‘Too much going on in my head.’ McAlpine poured another drink. ‘Have they figured out what happened yet?’

‘I think he was waiting down there. We had a scout about; most of the gates were open, so he could have run either way. He must have thought his luck was in when she came down the stairs to him. But I had a word with O’Hare; he says Helena’s height might have made it difficult for Christopher to get a good grip, so her weight worked for her, against him. He wants to look at her upper arms
tomorrow, see if there’s any sign of bruising coming out. It could be a good indicator of his height.’

‘Leask, McTiernan and O’Keefe are all much of a muchness, height-wise.’

‘And you,’ said Anderson pulling himself up to his six feet. ‘Maybe once this is over, you should take some time off. Spend some quality time with her. I’ll get somebody to make you a cuppa. Christ knows, I could do with one.’ McAlpine, still staring into space, didn’t respond. Anderson reached forward to put the top on the whisky bottle. ‘Don’t even think about it, Alan. Stay there and don’t touch anything.’

Costello appeared at the door in mid sentence, telling a disembodied voice to get back to the station. She looked at McAlpine but addressed Anderson. ‘Scene-of-crime are finished downstairs.’

‘I’d better check what’s happening.’ He got up to leave.

‘Col?’ said McAlpine.

‘Yip?’

‘Thanks.’

‘Any time.’ Anderson walked out, pausing briefly to say to Costello, ‘Keep an eye on him. It hasn’t hit home yet.’

‘He’s too drunk for that,’ Costello sighed.

We’ll have to keep him out of trouble. And keep the press away from the house. You OK?’

She nodded.

‘Good girl.’

McAlpine’s mistrustful gaze flickered round the room and came to rest on the sideboard. And on Anderson’s car keys lying there. He looked away quickly before Costello noticed.

The sky darkened, rain started to pour from the heavens. In the dim light, rain streamed down her face, water mixing with blood, her
cheekbones melting away. Slowly her hand pulled the shawl over the head of the infant, and she turned her back, shielding her from the rain.

Then she turned to him once more, and the hood fell, her beautiful face smiling at him as her features dissolved, all the colours of her running and melting to black. She raised her hands, holding a stick. She lifted it high into the air, her arms spreading like wings. Rain and glass shattered on to him, on to his face, again.

And again.

He woke up, his head leaning on the leather arch of the steering wheel. He rubbed at his eyes, easing the pain.

This time it was a dream. As it had been last time. A different dream. A different car.

Here he was, back on the Heads of Ayr Road at four in the morning, cold and drunk and tired, too drunk to remember driving here. He was in a car he did not know, littered with empty Hula Hoops packets and Ribena cartons, a McDonald’s coffee cup at his feet.

He recognized the dark grey silk of the sea in front of him, the beach laid out below twisting like a ribbon; he recognized the castle up on the cliff.

And he had recognized the blonde angel.

Anna.

He knew now that he was remembering something a little more substantial than a dream.

He held the bottle close to his chest, wondering why his subconscious mind had taken so long to bring him here. He smiled to himself and took a wee drink. Looking out on to the water far below, he sensed the presence of Anna arriving home to comfort him after all the others had turned their backs.

Yet Anna had always been there.

Always
here.

He watched the sea, its constant motion, gentle waves rising and falling on the distant beach. He got out of the car and began to walk. It was dark down the path, truly pitch black, the blackness that the human eye barely adjusts to. Its density seemed to envelop him body and soul as he walked along, a slow lumbering gait, arms folded round the bottle as a drowning man holds on to a rope.

He made his way down the hill, picking up a stick from the hedge, walking towards the welcoming water, past the whitewashed cottage where his good Samaritan lived, the old dear with the ridiculous mole and friends in low places.

‘Shiprids Cottage,’
he read, rolling it round his mouth. Giggling to himself. ‘Oh, fuck,’ he said. ‘To the sea, the sea.’ He stumbled a few times, the stick steadying him, before he reached the beach, the darkness, the drink and the sea air making him dizzy. He was laughing, giggling to himself, trying to sing a John Denver song about Anna filling his senses, but he couldn’t remember how it went beyond the first line.

He stopped laughing, trying to remember, telling himself the tears running down his face were from the sting of salt.

He made slow, unsteady progress along the beach. The roll of the land was severe here; God had moulded it with an angry hand, the cliffs twisting into the contour of the hills and plummeting into the water, flattening on to the beach. Geologically it did not make sense, but it had confounded better men than him. He stood and took a deep breath, the heels of his shoes sinking into the sand. Slowly and deliberately he drew an ampersand in the sand, writing LAN after it. Then he drew another, adding
NNA. You
fill up my senses, he thought. And shivered.

He walked on, noticing another cottage, right down
underneath the cliff. A little white gingerbread house, with a half-built veranda. He turned, looking along the beach. To the left, to the right. This wee house was a long way from anywhere.

‘Hello, hello,’ he said, waving to it vaguely, losing his stick and his footing in the sand and nearly dropping the bottle. He took another few mouthfuls, wiping the top clumsily with the palm of his hand. A strange white house, an ugly house, right on the beach… stupid place to have a house… sitting like a sleepy kitten, coiled in a womb of rock and dune. Through the mist a single light flickered in one of the upstairs rooms.

Or maybe it was the mist in his eyes.

A single light in the darkness. A single flicker against the wall of cliff.

A lone flame.

Alone.

He was alone too.

A painted sign, two swans with necks entwined,
Keeper’s Cottage
written on a diamond of crafted driftwood. He leaned on it, breathing hard, before moving slowly closer to the water’s edge.

Walking unsteadily down the sand, ever closer. The moon was the smallest sliver in the sky; the stars seemed very far away, but their reflections still twinkled in the water.

He felt small.

He shivered in the silence. He was well away from the road now, the only sound the soft rush and fall of the waves, a faint bubbling as the water filtered through seaweed and pebbles. He walked on, slow and clumsy at first in the soft sand, then quicker as the sand grew harder. The tide was running from him, receding when he got there.

Had his mother felt like this before she died, glad to let
go, glad to let herself slip away? Was the minute before death warm and comfortable, with the world slowly going black?

Anna’s death, slipping as the life bled from her – had that been warm, comforting? Certainly more comfortable than whatever faced her alive. Now he understood how it felt to have no reason not to die. Anna… killing herself and setting her daughter free. His mother… killing herself because she could not bear life without her favourite son. And he, with the woman he loved separated from him by some sort of Great Divide of mortality… the woman he loved… Anna… Helena… Anna…

He shook himself sharply awake. Robbie’s death had not been a choice, not warm and comforting at all. His final moments had been cold and lonely, fighting for a life taken before it was ready to go.

To drown in cold lonely stinking water, quiet and infinitely dark…

He could not die the long and painful death his mother had. That Helena might die. He could not injure himself, pick up a knife and cut into his own flesh, like Anna. But he could allow himself to drown.

The only thing really to be scared of was fear.

He bent down, cupping his hands, washing his face, the water cold and gritty, leaving a film of salt on his skin. But it was better than tears. He didn’t want to do it with tears on his face. He stuck the bottle of whisky under his arm, not noticing the contents running into the water that nibbled at the sand beneath his feet, and pulled the photographs from his pocket. Robbie. Robbie… and Alan and the snowman… He ripped them into a dozen little pieces, flinging them into the air, where they fluttered round his head, whispering at him like evil little demons. He stepped
backwards, then forwards, dancing with the waves, following their ebb and flow, his arms holding the Glenlivet out to one side. He twirled, waltzing across the little white horses.

Then he stopped.

He took another slow, determined step into the water. As the longest journey begins with a small step, so does the final one, the big one. He started to laugh. The first few minutes of life were the most dangerous, so he supposed that the last few were pretty tricky as well.

He sank to his knees, then, through the darkness, his eye caught a movement along the beach – a bird maybe, a rush of white on a wave – something moving in the darkness, the colour of the night, moving silently, deadly, too low to be human. Floating, not touching the sand, but moving with purpose. Staring hard into the darkness, a subtle wind ruffling his hair, an unseen breath on his face, he dropped his arms. He was chilled to the bone. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He felt his body collapse, a cold rush of fear, then the water washing over his face, not as cold as he’d thought it would be. Warm, comforting almost, he felt wave after wave come up and kiss his face.