The safe house

there was excitement coursing under that composed surface. What had he once told me about liking a challenge?

‘A spot of running now, let your jib out, Sam.’

I obediently spooled the rope out and the small sail filled with wind. The boat sat back, lifted its bows; water surged beneath us.

‘And did Danny stumble on it? Is that it? So you killed Danny, staged the suicide? And that note, that awful note.’

Michael gave a modest shrug.

‘Unfortunately a degree of coercion was required to produce that. But you’re failing to appreciate the whole picture, Sam.’

‘And then…’ I didn’t care about anything, I didn’t care about my own life, I just had to know. ‘You and Finn killed her parents together, I suppose.’ The Belladonna was taking us towards the treacherous cross-currents: I saw the way he was measuring distance with his calculating sailor’s gaze. I looked down towards the water. Death by drowning.

‘Something like that,’ he replied casually, and smiled again as if a joke had occurred to him. His teeth and his grey eyes shone, his hair whipped back in the wind and spray: he looked eager, rather beautiful, appalling.

And then I thought of Elsie. I remembered how her body felt against mine; I could almost feel her strong little arms around my neck. I remembered how she’d looked that morning when I’d dropped her off at school, in her purple tights and her spotty dress and her solid legs and her freckles. The shine on her hair. Her concentration, pink tip of tongue sticking out when she painted. I wasn’t going to die out here and leave my daughter an orphan. I idled with the rope between my fingers.

‘Why kill Finn then?’

He laughed then; really threw back his head and guffawed as if I’d made a brilliant joke.

‘For the money, of course. But you’re still not seeing the whole, beautiful picture.’

Then the boat tilted violently, as if the wind had suddenly changed direction. The sails flapped and the boom lurched. Without Michael saying anything, I tightened the jib as he pulled in his mainsail, and the boat raced towards the violent eddy. I could see it now: the shiny patch of sucked-in water. The outcrop of rocks was getting closer, their crags and splinters coming into focus. The wind was suddenly up and I could only shout.

‘Needle Point?’ I asked.

He nodded.

‘You’re going to kill me.’

But I spoke too quietly for him to have heard and he was immersed in the business of sailing. I looked at the bottom of the boat. A bailer. A long metal pole. A spare sail stowed at the bows. A coil of rope. A pair of oars. The boat was like a bucking horse now, thwacking its nose over and over into the trough of the sea. Suddenly it stopped, halted in its tracks, and I could feel no wind at all, although all around me I could see the wild sea. The sails wilted. We were in the eye of the storm. I looked across at Michael, who was looking at me. He shook his head, as if in disappointment.

‘It’s so irritating and unnecessary,’ he said. ‘Like the bloody cleaner.’

‘Like Mrs Ferrer? You…?’

Michael turned away. He was looking from side to side, trying to assess where the wind would come from. He said nothing, and we sat side by side – me and the man who was going to kill me – in the becalmed moment. For an instant Michael seemed almost embarrassed by the awkward hiatus. Then it hit us full from behind and the boat jolted. Its sails smacked loudly, like a gun going off, and it lifted its bow so high out of the water that I was flung to its bottom. For one moment I thought it would do a backward somersault on to us. I looked up, my legs thrashing, and saw Michael’s face looking down at me. It loomed out of the weather, handsome and polite.

‘Sorry, Sam,’ he said, leaning towards me as if he were bowing. He had the pole in his hand.

I rose, bailer in my hand, and hurled myself at the boom. It swung towards Michael but he ducked. I threw the bailer at his head and kicked wildly at him. He grunted and let go of the tiller and mainsheet and pole. Water was pouring in now and the boom was crashing from side to side. Michael dived at my waist and brought me down to the bottom of the boat once again. His face was a few inches from mine; a trickle of blood oozed down his forehead. There was a trace of stubble beneath the sweat and spray. I brought my knee up under the cage of his straining body and kneed him sharply in the groin, then, as he spasmodically jerked, I bit at the nearest lump of flesh. His nose. He shouted and punched at my jaw, my neck, into my breasts, into the bouncy rubber of my stomach. One finger pierced my eye so that for a moment the world was a red ball of pain. I could feel his breath and I could feel the blows rain down on my body, my jaw, my ribs.

Michael heaved himself into position, knees on my outstretched arms, and put his hands around my neck. I spat at him, my blood on his bloody, grimacing face. This was it. I was to be throttled and tossed overboard like a bit of live bait. He started to squeeze, slowly and with concentration. Behind his head I saw the giant shape of Needle Point bearing down on us, blotting out the sky. I bucked under Michael’s body. I needed to live. I needed to live so badly. I thought that if I could say Elsie’s name out loud I would live. I opened my mouth and felt my tongue slide forward, my eyes roll back. If I could say Elsie’s name I would still live, though my world had gone black.

There was a jolt from beneath the hull, a screeching sound of wood on rock. Michael was thrown off me. Black waves; black rocks all around. I knelt up, grasped the pole, and as Michael stood on the breaking boat I thrust it into his body with all the force I could manage and saw him tip. It wasn’t enough. I looked around, desperately, hungrily. The tiller. I pulled it sharply towards me. The wild boom jibed and viciously struck him; his body crashed into the sea.

‘Elsie,’ I said. ‘Elsie, I’m coming home.’ Then the boat broke against the rocks and the water closed around me.

Twenty-Nine

First I was dimly aware of movement. I knew I’d been gone, lost somewhere timeless, dark. My eyelids fluttered. I saw a face. I yielded with relief to the blackness once more. On later attempts – I didn’t know how much later – the light became easier to take and the shapes that sometimes moved around my bed became clearer, but I still couldn’t make sense of them. I started to put imaginary faces on the shapes. Danny, Finn, my father, Michael. It was all too much effort.

One day, the light seemed greyer and more bearable. I heard a footstep and felt a nudge against the bed. I opened my eyes and everything was clear. I was back and Geoff Marsh was standing over me with a quizzical gaze.

‘Fuck,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said, looking uneasily at the door. ‘Your mother went down to the cafeteria. I said I’d stay for a few minutes. I just walked down from the office for a moment. Maybe I should get a doctor. How are you, Sam?’

I murmured something.

‘Eh?’

‘All right.’

Geoff pulled a chair over and sat beside me. He smiled suddenly. Almost laughed. I wrinkled my face in puzzlement. Even that small movement made me flinch in pain.

‘I was thinking of our last meeting,’ he said. ‘Do you remember it?’

I gave a slow, painful shrug.

‘You agreed that you were going to keep a low profile. Avoid publicity.’

It seemed too much of an effort to speak.

‘At least the media aren’t interested in post-traumatic stress any more,’ Geoff continued jovially. ‘Boating accidents, miraculous escapes. I think the unit is safely out of the spotlight.’

I gathered all my resources and grabbed Geoff’s sleeve.