Secrets of the Dead

She got up. Barefoot, she padded down the hall to the living room. The enormous television played on the wall, filling the room with its diode-blue glow; half a dozen cigarette butts lay stubbed out in a silver ashtray. The leather sofa bore a deep impression where Michael must have been lying.

He wasn’t there now. And the television was muted.

So what did I hear?

A gust of air blew in the smell of the night: jasmine and fig and chlorine. Out in the courtyard, the lights were still on. The door stood open. Through it, she could see Michael standing by the pool smoking another cigarette. The briefcase that had been in the car sat on a metal table beside him, the lid raised. A man in a white shirt and black trousers was examining the contents.

Abby stepped out into the courtyard, still unsteady from the alcohol in her system. Just over the threshold, her bare foot kicked against something unseen in the shadows. She yelped with pain and surprise. The empty champagne bottle rolled across the paving and dropped in the pool with a splash.

Two heads snapped up and stared at her.

‘Am I interrupting something?’

‘Go back inside!’ Michael shouted.

He sounded desperate, but she still didn’t get it. She took two steps forward, into the glow of the pool light. Offering herself up. The man in the white shirt reached behind his back. When his hand reappeared, a black pistol gleamed in his grip.

That was the last thing she remembered clearly. Everything afterwards was blurred and fragmented. Michael knocking the man backwards, so that the shot went wild; the table toppling over; the briefcase spilling its contents across the tiles. If she saw what was inside, it didn’t register. She sprang away, slipped on the smooth tiles and fell.

The water hit her hard. She flailed and went under; she tasted chlorine at the back of her throat and gagged. The sundress wrapped her like a shroud.

She broke the surface and kicked to the side. From the floor of the pool, soft-lit sea nymphs beckoned her to join them. She put her bare arms on the side and hauled herself out.

Sprawled on the poolside, she saw it all from ground level. The scattered briefcase and overturned table; the marble gods looking down on her. And at the far end of the terrace, two men locked in a struggle over the abyss. Michael threw a punch that didn’t connect; his opponent grabbed his arm and jerked it back, spinning him around to face the cliff. They stood there for a second like two lovers staring at a sunset. Then, with a brusque motion, the man kicked out Michael’s feet and pushed him forward. Michael flailed and stumbled. He tried to regain his balance and almost succeeded, teetering on the edge like a broken-winged bird. His impatient assailant moved in for the kill, but it wasn’t necessary. Without a sound, as if the life had already left him, Michael flopped over the edge and vanished.

Abby screamed; she couldn’t help it. The man heard her and turned. All his movements were precise, unhurried. He’d dropped the gun in his struggle with Michael – now he picked it up. He checked the slide and the magazine. He ejected the cartridge in the chamber and reloaded.

Abby pulled herself off the ground The wet dress clung to her body, dragging her down. She had to escape – but where? To the car? She didn’t know where Michael had left the keys. She didn’t even have time to get back to the house. The intruder was walking along the side of the pool, gun raised. She hurled herself into the colonnade as the next shot went off. Stone cracked; something shattered.

She crouched low and ran down the back of the colonnade, ducking between the columns and the statue plinths. It was like being in a shooting gallery – except the man wasn’t shooting. Had he run out of bullets?

She reached the end of the colonnade and paused. A marble Jupiter towered over her, a lightning bolt clenched in his fist. Measured footsteps approached.

With a sickening shock, she realised why he hadn’t bothered shooting. She was trapped in a corner with nowhere to go. She cowered behind the base of the statue. The footsteps stopped.

The silence was worst of all.

‘What do you want?’ she called.

No answer. Water dripped off her sodden dress and pooled around her feet. What was he waiting for?

She had thought she knew what it was like to face death. She’d heard the stories a thousand times and recorded them diligently. But the people who’d lived to bear witness had been survivors. Some had run when the killers came; others lay rigid in the killing fields and played dead, sometimes for hours, while their families and neighbours died around them. They never gave up.

She had one chance. She pushed off on the plinth, jack-knifed up and spun around, throwing her entire weight against the statue. It wobbled, tottered and fell. The god crashed down and smashed into pieces. The gunman leapt back, losing his balance.

Abby was already running. She crossed the last few yards of the terrace and dived back inside the house. On the wall, the giant TV screen played its rote images of war and revenge, oblivious to the real horror in front of it.

Where now?

But the gunman had recovered too fast. The first bullet shattered the window behind her. The second tore into her shoulder, spinning her around. She saw him stepping through the broken window, gun raised.

‘Please,’ she begged. She wanted to run, but her body had failed her. ‘Why are you doing this?’

The man shrugged. He had a black moustache and a mole on his right cheek, sprouting hairs. His eyes were dark and hard.

Her last thought was of a witness she’d interviewed years ago, a grey-haired Hutu woman grinding meal in a jungle camp somewhere between Congo and Rwanda. ‘You never gave up,’ Abby had told her in admiration, and the woman had shaken her head.