went on for a long time. Years. Higher risks, more excitement. Our game.” His face had changed. It was as though he was describing a religion. Perhaps he was.
“But you didn’t let Liza play?
He snorted. “She was never in our league. It was just Kate and me. Just the two of us. Since I first saw her.”
“So you went on playing the game, hoping it would lead to what? Fucking your sister Kate?”
His face twisted. “Shut your filthy mouth! You don’t understand. I didn’t know.
I didn’t know who I was until it was too late! I wanted her. Thought I could have her. Only Liza knew.” He fought for control. He wiped both sides of his moustache with his left hand. His right stayed in his pocket.
“And you bought Liza off with sex.”
“It wasn’t like that! It made her happy.”
I laughed. “Charitable of you. And it let you go on playing the game. Then you got to the big ones. Life and death. You started murdering people because she dared you?” I wanted to hear this story and I was gambling that he wanted to tell it. Murderers always want to justify themselves.
“She never thought I’d do it. It was the ultimate dare. The one she thought I’d stop at. I came back from France and told her. Told her what I’d done. She should have…”
“Should have let you fuck her, Tony? Liza wasn’t enough for you? Was that the deal?”
“Stop it, stop it, you bastard! Don’t talk of her like that! You don’t know what it was like! She was so lovely, so beautiful. I worshipped her. I almost had her.”
The control was slipping. His face was the face of a man whose dreams had been shot to pieces. All those years, keeping him dangling, teasing, leading him on.
Pretending he was married to her. What a bitch. Enough to drive anyone out of his mind. For a moment I almost felt sorry for him. Then I remembered how he’d used Liza, the surrogate. And how he’d slaughtered the others.
“And Kate became a whore in return?” That really got home. He blinked and his jaw hardened. I drove it home. “You dared her to become a prostitute?”
His face was twisting, shifting from distress to anger. He stepped closer. His eyes were bleak.
“It didn’t matter by then. She hated me. She hated herself. For making me kill the French girl. The game was all we had left.”
“What exactly was Kate’s dare? Twenty men? A hundred? Six months? A thousand pounds?” He flinched at every cut.
“I thought she wouldn’t do it. But she did. Like me. I thought it would teach her, but she said… she said…
The man was crying. The poor sod was crying. Tears dribbled down his red face.
He looked pathetic. But I was convinced he had a gun in his right pocket. Sad or mad, he could put a bullet in me. So why was I still needling him? Because I felt the disgust in my mouth, like vomit.
“She liked it? And you couldn’t stand that, could you. She did it for others, for strangers, for money. But she wouldn’t do it for you. So you wanted to hurt her.”
“I couldn’t hurt her, don’t you see?” Pain was wrenching his features out of shape. “Don’t you see?!” He pulled his hand out of his pocket. It held the gun I was expecting. It was almost a relief to see it. Almost. It looked like a cannon alongside what I was holding. He levelled it at me and for a second I thought he was going to pull the trigger. I shouted at him to keep up the flow.
“Is that why you killed all these poor creatures, Tony? Five of them, after the French girl.” I gentled my voice, coaxing, encouraging him to let it all come out. “If you couldn’t hurt Kate, you could hurt her kind?”
“It showed her.” His eyes were wide. He was twisting his moustache with his free hand as though he’d rip it off. I’d seen other faces like his, other eyes. Not in the mirror. At the hospital.
I was nearly whispering. “Showed her what, Tony? What did it show her?”
“That she could be next. She should have been afraid. She just laughed.”
“So you sent for Wilson?”
He nodded his head. He was snivelling like a child but the gun was still wavering at my chest. I carefully cocked my own wee pistol in my pocket. I wasn’t going to do anything heroic like try to outdraw him. I’d just shoot him through my coat. It could be mended. I couldn’t.
“It was to teach her. He wasn’t meant to hurt her. I loved her. I love her…”
I should have shut up there. I had to stop needling him before I took a.45. But I plunged on, reckless with revulsion at the pair of them.
“So you killed for love? Those poor lassies? I think you enjoyed it, Tony. I think you got a thrill out of it. You got the taste for it in France and began to kill for kicks.”
His eyes were agony. He was rolling his head from side to side. “She could have stopped it, you know. She should have loved me. That’s all. It’s her fault.” He stopped and drew himself up and took a deep breath. He wiped his face on his sleeve.
“But it doesn’t matter, McRae. She’s too involved. She can’t leave me. Not now.
And we can get away with it. Scot free, McRae, as it were.” He grimaced and placed his left hand round his gun hand to steady it. I clasped my pistol and pointed it at his chest. Then I realised he was staring behind me. I thought it was a trick but he kept on staring.
I half turned. I saw a face in the fog. It looked like Val’s.
“No, Val! Go back! Don’t come near.” I moved a little to one side and turned half to her so I could see them both. Caldwell looked terror-stricken.
“What are you doing here?” he shrieked.
Val stepped closer. She had a wild look on her face. I scarcely recognised her.
She seemed to have lost her coat. It was too cold to be here in just a blouse and skirt.
“Stop! Stop or I fire!” Caldwell was pointing the gun at her, away from me.
“Valerie, get down!”
She came on. We formed a triangle, with six feet between us. Mist drifted and coated us, one after the other. Valerie said nothing. Her long dark hair was pulled forward over her shoulder. She did a slow pirouette, so that her back was to us. The neck and top of her blouse were soaked dark. The dark hair above was matted and glistening. In the back of her head, just where the skull joins the neck, was an entry wound. I knew her now.
She turned round to face him. There was blood on her skirt and running down her thin legs. She stepped closer to him.
“Stop or I fire!” Caldwell was demented.
She didn’t stop. He fired once and must have missed. He fired again. And still she came on. I heard a car door slamming and running feet. A cry went up. “No, Tony, no!”
Caldwell dropped to one knee, then the other. He was sobbing. Sobbing and firing. The gunshots echoed round and round in this limbo we’d created.
Valerie stood in front of him, an arm’s length away, a thin smile on her lips.
She leaned forward and carefully touched the barrel of the gun. Slowly she tilted it up. The gun barrel rested under his chin. His sobbing stopped. He looked straight into her remorseless eyes. And pulled the trigger one last time.
I walked slowly over to him and knelt by his side. Blood was pooling round his skull. His legs and body twitched, then stilled. His chest fell, but his eyes stared up in endless horror.
“Oh, no. Oh no.” Kate skidded to her knees and touched his hand. It still held the gun.
“Don’t touch it. The police will want to see what happened. Though god knows what we’ll tell them.” I turned to look for Valerie but she’d vanished into the mist. I wasn’t surprised.
“What did you see, Kate?”
She looked up at me, shocked but dry-eyed. She had no tears left. “I thought he was going to kill you. He shot at you and kept missing. Then he shot himself.
What did you say to him, to do this?”
I gazed down at his lifeless body, then up at her lifeless face. “I dared him, Kate. I double-dared him.”
