Before We Met: A Novel (40 page)

Hannah thought of gentle Elizabeth Reilly, and her guilt. ‘Do you think your mother
was
biased?’ she said.

He rubbed his hand over his head. ‘I don’t know – by the time I was old enough to have any sense of that, it had been going on for years. But even as a small child I remember thinking it was weird, how Mark acted towards her. I used to think about it when I was inside, how fucking terrible it was. He wanted her love so badly,  he craved it, but he only wanted it if it was exclusive. There were times I thought he might kill me to get it. Even when we were kids – small kids – I used to think that.’

Yesterday, Hannah thought, she would have laughed at the idea.

‘I used to be careful on railway platforms,’ Nick said, ‘that sort of thing. It sounds ridiculous but I could see it – I could imagine a day when he’d spot the opportunity and take it. You know, the push on the empty platform, no one there to see.’

‘That’s . . . horrific.’

He shrugged. ‘It’s the story of our lives, Mark’s quest to hurt me. If not actually to kill me, then to fuck me up.’ He pressed the phone to light the screen: nothing. ‘As you’ve probably realised,’ he said, ‘Mark’s a master planner. He runs rings round me, he always has – I’m stupid and impulsive, I screw things up, but he . . . he’s like a spider. He makes a web, a big intricate thing, then he sits on it and waits, legs on all the different threads, waiting for a change in the tension, the sign that his prey’s been snared.’

Hannah wrapped her arms around herself.

‘He’s a genius at it, actually. The long game. That’s why he never pushed me under the 2.10 from Brighton – it would have been over too quickly. More fun for him to see how he could screw me up over years and years. It was him who got me into drugs – he knew my personality, how easy I find it to get hooked. He could do it: smoke a bit of weed, take some E, get hold of the good stuff and make sure I was getting really into it, then stop. Meanwhile, there was I with a brand-new habit. You could count the number of times he did coke on your fingers, probably, but I . . . Well, it really messed me up. It wasn’t just . . . what happened. Before that, for years, I was hopeless. I lost job after job, barely scraped through my degree – there were days I just couldn’t get out of bed. And it wrecked me financially, of course – swallowed every penny I managed to earn.’

‘What about Jim Thomas?’ Hannah said. ‘Your neighbour.’

Nick looked at her. ‘Jim?’

‘What happened to his dog, the one that drowned? The papers said you did it but your mother told me it was a misunderstanding.’

‘No misunderstanding. Mark drowned Molly. He hated Jim, absolutely hated him – Jim was wise to him and he knew it.’

‘Your mother says you – the two of you – found her drowned.’

‘No, I found her drowned. I’d been with this girl after school and I was coming home the back way near the stream. Mark had put her in a bag with stones – when I came along he was cutting her out of it. I waded in but . . .’

‘Then why did people think you did it?’

‘Because I was the one with the wild reputation – the girls, the drugs, bunking off school.’

Hannah frowned. ‘Why didn’t you say something?’

‘Because he told me that if I did, he’d grass me up for selling weed at school, which I
was
doing. You see? This was what he was so good at – he knew everything, calculated everything. And everything could be tied back in to something else. The spider’s web.’

Hannah pointed at his cigarettes. ‘Can I?’

He pushed them across the table with his lighter. ‘He used to make out that I was some sort of wild animal – stupid, uncivilised. A brute.’ He took the packet back and got one out for himself. ‘Of course, the irony is, I am a brute now – ten years in prison brutalised me.’ He lit the cigarette, pulled smoke into his lungs and let it out in a long thin stream. ‘It was . . . if I imagined hell, I’d imagine prison. Wakefield’s where they keep the sex offenders, the rapists. It wasn’t Ford, with Jeffrey Archer knocking out a novel and a load of dodgy MPs playing ping-pong. No one warns you about the noise – all day, all night, the banging and knocking and shouting and singing, metal doors slamming, buzzers. I shared cells with people who were illiterate, disturbed. Ten years without privacy, counting the hours until you could go to bed and say you’d done another day. Not that there was sleep, even then. There was this one time . . .’

He stopped and she saw his whole body stiffen. Echoing through the house came the sound of the doorbell.

Chapter Twenty-six

Hannah worked her fingers between the tie and the leg of her jeans and pulled as hard as she could. The plastic cut her, sending a line of pain through the pads of her fingers, but it didn’t give at all. She tightened her grip. It wouldn’t break but if she could stretch it enough, maybe she could get her foot through. Clenching her jaw, she tried again, leaning back in the chair, pulling with as much of her body weight as she could.
Come on, come on – please.
Nothing. It wouldn’t budge.

He was leaning on the doorbell now and it rang through the house like an alarm, shrill and constant. ‘All right, all right,’ Nick shouted, and then, seconds later, she heard Mark’s voice.

‘If you’ve touched her, you fucking little
germ
. . .’

‘You’ll do what?’ Nick said. ‘Set me up for murder? Have me thrown in jail?’

‘Where is she?’

The sound of quick footsteps down the hallway. Hannah yanked at the tie again, almost tipping herself forward out of the chair, tears of frustration in her eyes. She tried standing again but the ties were too tight: she couldn’t straighten her legs.

‘Hannah.’

Mark stood framed in the doorway, the mouth of the corridor dark behind him. She was seized by terror. He was wearing jeans and his black jumper, the outfit she’d watched him put on in the hotel room that morning, but it was as if she’d never seen him before. Who was he, this stranger?
This rapist. This killer.
She saw him look at the ties round her ankles and then at her hand, and when she followed his glance, she saw that her palm was covered in blood.

‘What’s he done to you? Has he hurt you? He’s hurt you.’ He came towards her, arms out, but she twisted her body away from him, hands out, shielding herself.

‘No. Don’t touch me.’

‘Han . . .’ He reached out but she shoved his arm away, recoiling from the contact.

‘I said, don’t touch me.’

She flailed, trying to keep him off, but he grabbed her head and held her face between his hands, forcing her to look at him. At first she resisted but then she stopped struggling and stared back.

‘I know,’ she told him. ‘Patty, Hermione – I know everything.’

His hands dropped. Slowly, without breaking eye contact, he stepped away from her. His body seemed to sag momentarily, as if she’d knocked the wind out of him. Transfixed, she watched his expression change from shock to regret and then, too quickly, to a kind of resigned acceptance that sent a chill through her. He looked at her with detachment for a second or two, and then, as if coming to himself again, he spun around. Nick was standing near the door, watching them.

‘What have you done?’ Mark said.

‘She needed to know.’

Mark shook his head as if he was actually pained. ‘You’re mad.’ He turned to Hannah. ‘See, I told you – he’s insane, crazy.’

‘I don’t think so,’ she said.

‘Will you kill her, too,’ Nick asked, ‘now that she knows? It would be a shame – you actually love her, don’t you? The first time in your life you’ve ever cared about anyone other than yourself. Except for Mum, obviously.’

Without warning, Mark launched himself across the room. He swung, aiming for Nick’s face, but Nick anticipated him, took a step sideways, then drove his fist into Mark’s stomach. Mark doubled over and Nick grabbed his collar, pulled him back and then hurled him against the wall. A dull thud – the wall was plasterboard, soft.

‘I hope you did better than that inside, pretty boy.’

Nick made a sound, half-groan, half-roar, and threw himself at Mark. He brought his knee up, aiming for his brother’s groin, but he missed and Nick caught hold of him by the hair, pulled his head down and dragged him across the room, feet scuffing against the flagstones. He threw Mark against the wall by the door and there was the crack of skull on stone. Mark started to slump but Nick’s hands went round his throat and pinned him against the wall. ‘You killed Hermione.’

‘You’re mad.’ Mark laughed as much as the hand round his throat allowed. ‘You’ve always been mad. Headcase,’ he said to Hannah, ‘that was what they called him at school.’

Nick took hold of the collar of his jumper and bounced his head off the stone three times, each blow harder than the one before. ‘Admit it: you . . .’
Crack
!
‘. . . Killed . . .’
Crack!
‘. . . Hermione.’
Crack
!

When he raised his eyes, it was a second or two before Mark could focus. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Yes.’

She’d known, she’d already known, but it still hit Hannah like a fist in the stomach.

‘You . . . It was you who threatened her,’ said Hannah. ‘It was you.’

‘I didn’t – I didn’t have to. She was scared of me, anyway. Because she knew,’ he said.

‘Knew what?’

‘That I was there. That afternoon.’

Nick stared at him. ‘How?’

‘Let go of me – I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.’

Nick bounced him backwards a final time then let him go. Mark staggered. When he’d steadied himself, he ran a tentative hand around his neck. Hannah saw the gleam of blood in the hair above his left ear.

‘She saw me leaving your place,’ he said, voice hoarse. ‘She’d heard about you leaving the club with Patty and she’d come to finish things with you. We bumped into each other on the street.’

‘Bullshit,’ said Nick. ‘If she knew then, why didn’t she go to the police?’

‘Because I sorted it out, you fuckwit. Like I’ve always had to sort everything out.’

‘How?’

‘I asked her what Geoffrey Landis and her employers at the hospital would think if they knew about the drugs she’d sold us over the years, all those dodgy prescriptions. What she’d do if she couldn’t be a doctor any more.’

‘You . . .’

‘I had to. All my life you’ve fucked things up for me. You’re a worthless piece of shit.’ He moved his hand to his pocket and then, before Hannah could even shout a warning, Nick gave a horrible cry and doubled over. Mark pushed, driving the knife further in, then twisted his hand and pulled it out. Nick grabbed for it but missed and Mark jabbed it in again, higher this time. Nick staggered backwards. Looking down, he saw the two roses of blood blooming across the lower part of his T-shirt. ‘What . . .?’

Mark lunged forward and grabbed him by the neck of his coat. He drew his arm back and Hannah saw the knife, a long, mean razor of a thing. ‘When are you going to learn?’ he said, shoving it forward again. ‘You should know! You should know not to try to screw with me.’

Nick leaned forward and for a split second Hannah thought he was falling. Then, though, he reared back again, looked Mark in the eye, and head-butted him in the face. Mark gave a cry of pain as blood poured from his nose and Nick grabbed him by the collar and spun him sideways into the table, sending chairs flying.

The knife lay on the floor. Hannah saw Nick look at it and then at her. Hand pressed to his stomach, he stooped, picked it up and came towards her, holding it out. He bent at her feet, and with two quick strokes cut the plastic ties.

‘Get out of here!’

Light-headed, holding on to the arms of the chair, she stood. Mark was on his feet again, too, holding his wrist under his nose, blotting the blood with his cuff. With a shout, he lurched across the kitchen and fell on Nick, bringing him to the ground. Nick fought but the wounds were already making him weaker and Mark quickly pinned him to the floor and smashed his face into the tiles.

‘Run, Hannah,’ Nick said, voice thick with blood. He brought his knee up and smashed it into the small of Mark’s back, making him grunt with pain. ‘Go.’

Mark swiped at her, grabbing the leg of her jeans, but she pulled free of him and ran. Down the corridor and back to the front door, their grunts and cries loud even there. It was a fight to the death: one of them was going to kill the other.

The door was unlocked, Nick had unlocked it for Mark, and she yanked it open and lurched out on to the path. In the dim light, the white van seemed almost to glow. She ran to it and pulled the driver’s door open. Without much hope, she checked the ignition but of course Nick hadn’t left the key. She went to the back door in case he’d left it there by mistake when he’d pulled her out, but it wasn’t there, either. He must have it – it must be in his pocket.

Mark’s Mercedes was parked at the mouth of the drive, facing out, ready to go. With a glance back at the house, she ran to it. She tried the door but it was locked.

She felt a burst of panic that she quickly suppressed: there was no time; she had to concentrate, think clearly.
Come on, Hannah
.