The Killing Circle

“As far as we know.”

“And you were taken into foster care just like your sister.”

“Shared experience can bind people in powerful ways.”

“So you decided to take other people’s lives to replace your own.”

“Too simple. Way too simple.”

Len spits on the floor. The white foam of it on the hardwood holds his attention, and in his stare I can see the emptiness in him, the sterile indifference.

“You’re a good actor.”

“I’m not Len,” he says, taking a predatory step into the room. “If that’s what you mean.”

“Len was somebody. It was a performance, but there was a personality there. You, on the other hand, are nobody.”

“Are you trying to insult me?”

“It wouldn’t work if I was. There’s nothing in you to hurt. Just like your sister.”

“Angela is an artist.”

“And you’re the king of the Kingdom of Not What It Seems.”

“No.”

“The Sandman.”

“No.”

“Who is?”

“Whoever scares you most.”

Len takes his gloves off, stuffs them in his pocket. His big hands creased with black lines.

Dirty hands.

“Where’s my son?”

“That’s a secret.”

“You’re going to hurt him, aren’t you? You already have.”

“Now, now. You’ll only upset yourself.”

“He’s just a child. Doesn’t that make a difference to you?”

“We were all children once.”

I cough back a surge of sick. My throat burning from the inside out.

“It was you,” I say. “You took those girls in Whitley.”

“Before my time.”

“Then who?”

“That was him.”

“Mull? You sure it wasn’t you shadowing your little sister? It wasn’t you who wanted her?”

“I protected her.”

“How?”

“By making Daddy go away.”

“You killed him?”

“We needed to make a new world,” he says, showing the ground stumps of his teeth. “And he couldn’t be in it.”

Len watches the eyes roll back in my head.

“I don’t feel so great,” I say.

“It’s the dehydration.”

“Can I have some water?”

“That’s good. That’s funny.”

He steps over to the fire. Picks up a branch and considers adding it to the flames. After a moment, he puts the branch back on the pile he got it from.

Upstairs, Angela is opening doors, closing them, putting things into a bag. If I’m counting the bedrooms right, she’s almost done.

“Who was it?” I ask. There’s the idea I’m about to throw up but there is little time left now. “The body I thought was you.”

Len comes to stand directly in front of me. He unclasps his hands so that they swing against his hips.

“The National Star should have a job opening pretty soon,” he says.

And then I do throw up. A painful choking that summons a half-cup of bile on to the floor.

Angela appears in the hallway holding a duffel bag. Black stains seeping through the canvas. She shares a look with Len.

“I think it’s time,” she says.

She starts away, then stops. Comes to me and slips her hand into my pocket. Pulls out the dictaphone.

“I made other tapes,” I say.

“We have them all now.”

“There’s copies.”

“No, there aren’t. And we have your journals too. Right up to you arriving here. You left that one in your car’s glove box.”

Angela asks Len if he’s checked the kitchen, and he lowers his head slightly when he admits he hasn’t. She looks at her watch. Gives him two minutes.

He does as he’s told. Leaving Angela leaning against the archway, looking past me out the window. Like I’m not even here. Already dead.

“You got me wrong,” I say, and the unexpected laugh that comes after spills warm spit down my chin.

“Oh?”

“You don’t have my whole story.”

“The voice of desperation.”

“It’s the truth.”

“I know everything I need to know about you.”

“No, you don’t. There’s a secret I’ve kept so long that even I don’t remember it half the time. Something that changes everything.”

“This is sad,” she says. But she’s watching me now.

“I’m the last character in the circle. And without this, something will be missing. Your book will have a hole in it. Because Mr Boring is not who you think he is. He has a twist.”

In the kitchen, Len pulls a cutlery drawer out too far and it falls to the floor. The clatter of knives and forks. A barked profanity as he bends to pick them up.

Angela comes closer.

“Go on then,” she says.

“Promise me. I’ll tell you if you promise Sam will be safe.”

“I told you. I wouldn’t—”

“I know it’s not you. Killing isn’t your department. It’s his.”

“Maybe it’s already been done.”

“Maybe it has. And if it hasn’t, he’s going to. To keep Sam quiet, or to punish me, or just because it’s what he does.”

“You think your little secret might stop him?”

“No. I think you might.”

“Why should I do anything for a dead man’s lie?”

“Because it isn’t a lie.”

“How would I know?”

“You’ll know as soon as you hear it.”

Down the hall, Len slides the drawer back into its slot. Claps his hands together for warmth.

“Fine,” she says, unable to entirely hide her interest. “I’m listening.”

So I tell her. In a rushed whisper of run-on sentences and bullet points, clipped and unadorned. It’s not what I say that proves it’s true. It’s the voice. Breaking as soon as I begin, a thin note that thins even more over the