in her head. He gathered the little girl next to him. Looked round for a way out. There was forest on all sides. He could just pick her up and run. Any direction, didn’t matter. The woman was probably too far gone inside her own head to notice.
‘Mummy … ’ Josephina was looking upset again. He hated to see her looking upset.
‘Yes, Josephina. I’ll take you to see your mummy.’
And he was ready to go.
But something stopped him. Something nagged at him about Amy. She had looked familiar when she got close up to him. He still didn’t know who she was or how he knew her, but there was definitely something familiar about her.
The eyes. That was what did it. The eyes.
He knew them but he didn’t. Couldn’t explain why. Or how. Her eyes. And something else. When she had got mad with him before, got angry. That was familiar too.
He couldn’t place it. The memory was just out of reach in his mind. When he tried to grab it, it slipped away like smoke.
He watched her some more. Tried to see her eyes, but her head was down.
It was like watching a ghost. He remembered a comic he used to read when he was little. An American comic that he wasn’t supposed to have because it belonged to the boy he’d been told to call brother. Deadman. That was the name of the character. Deadman. He had a bald head, a white face, black eyes and a red acrobat’s costume, and there was something about him that Tyrell had loved. Deadman was, as his name suggested, dead. But he could make his spirit live by putting it into other people’s bodies. And then he would have adventures. When Tyrell looked at Amy now, that was what he saw. Deadman. A spirit living in someone else’s body.
He just didn’t know whose spirit it was.
He glanced at Josephina, looked back at Amy. This was it. Run for it.
But he couldn’t.
He looked at Amy again. It wasn’t just her being Deadman. She was troubled. She was behaving the way she was, doing the things she was doing because she was unhappy. Not right inside. And he couldn’t just walk away and leave her. Not without trying to help her.
So instead of running away, he walked towards her.
‘Amy … ’
She didn’t look up, didn’t even acknowledge that she had heard him. Just kept walking round, talking to the invisible person she was having a conversation with.
Tyrell got nearer. ‘Amy … ’
She looked up then. Her eyes were wild, pinwheeling, struggling to focus on him, to recognise where she was.
‘Are you … are you OK?’
She turned away from him. But before she did, he saw a flash of … something … in her eyes. More madness? Sadness? He didn’t know what.
‘Leave me alone.’
He stayed where he was. ‘I just thought … ’ Then stopped. He didn’t know what he just thought.
She turned back to him. There was no mistaking what was in her eyes now. Hatred. Pure, unmistakable hatred.
‘I said leave me alone.’ She was spitting, hissing at him. ‘I wish … I wish I had never met you, wish you’d never come into my life … you freak, you retard … you … Everything that’s wrong, everything that’s been wrong, it’s all because of you … ’
He stared at her, didn’t know what to say.
‘You ruined everything. You ruined my life.’
Conflicting emotions ran through Tyrell. He didn’t know what to say, what to do. He didn’t know who she was, why she was saying these things. He knew he recognised her, or at least there was something familiar about her, but …
‘I never … ’ he said.
‘What.’
‘I never ruined your life.’
She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Really?’
‘Yes. Really. I’d have remembered.’
And that was when she pulled the gun on him again.
He stared down the barrel once more, not knowing whether he was going to live or die. This time, though, it felt different. Like it was happening to someone else and not him. Like it didn’t matter either way. Like he didn’t care.
Amy screamed and turned away from him, lowering her shaking arm as she did so.
‘No … you have to live … I hate it, but you have to live … ’
He stared at her. Knowing she was too far gone, unreachable by anyone.
He glanced at Josephina, who was looking confused as to why he hadn’t taken her to see her mummy.
He sighed.
Wished he had just taken the girl and run when he had the chance.
72
‘So how are you feeling? Sorry. Bet you’re sick of people asking you that.’
Phil Brennan smiled at the nurse. ‘Not yet,’ he said.
She smiled back. ‘Good.’
The nurses and the consultant had been in and drips had been checked, monitors studied, tests carried out. Everything from near-forensic scrutiny of charts to fingers before his eyes and gauging reactions. The consultant eventually declared herself satisfied and left him alone. Phil had asked questions, but the only answer he had been given was to rest.
He had never been good at resting or at doing what he was told.
‘Need to … get up … ’ He tried to sit up, put the weight of his body on his arms, pull himself upright. Pain tracked his every move. He slumped slowly back.
The nurse was checking his notes. ‘I wouldn’t try to move if I were you. Not yet.’
‘Can’t … lie here … ’ he said, trying again.
She turned her attention to him. ‘No. You need to rest.’
He shook his head. It felt like his brain was in sloshing about in a bowl of water. ‘Can’t … I … What happened? Will somebody tell me … what happened?’
‘I will.’
DCI Gary Franks was standing in the doorway. The nurse turned to him. ‘I’m sorry, but Mr Brennan isn’t allowed visitors until—’
He held up his warrant card. ‘It’s all right, love. It’s work.’
The nurse reluctantly didn’t argue any more. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’ She left the room.
Franks took a seat next to the bed, pulled it up close to Phil. ‘How you feeling?’
Phil tried to shrug. ‘Felt better … I suppose. Just … hurt all over.’
‘They giving you enough drugs?’
Phil managed the ghost of a smile. ‘Can’t … complain there.’
‘Good.’ Franks looked around, as though checking they were alone. His voice dropped. ‘What have they told you? About what happened?’
‘Nothing. No one says … anything. Where’s … Marina?’
‘We’ll come to that in a minute. Just got to talk to you first.’
Phil frowned, trying to process Franks’s words through his drug- and pain-fogged brain. ‘What …?’
‘First of all, they say you’re going to be OK. No brain damage. Well, no more than you had already.’ Franks
