‘Uh-huh, and what about the meantime?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If you're right, then Frasier is still living this nightmare,’ he said softly. ‘Do you think it will ever seem like a bad dream to him?’
*
The flat was cold. York hadn’t bothered to put the heating on. In the sparse kitchen he sat alone at the bare table staring resolutely at the single item in the centre of the wooden surface.
His arm tingled.
He didn’t move.
His hands shook.
He didn’t move.
Tick tock.
The tiny brown stone in the table’s centre stared back at him. He tried to concentrate and images of the quarry began to solidify in his head. For the first time since he was a child, he started to remember.
‘You’re finally beginning to see.’
York nodded.
‘I knew it would come back. With enough patience, anything can be retrieved.’
York’s eyes never wavered from the brown stone. ‘It was you, Daniel,’ York whispered. ‘I told you not to go into that mineshaft. I pleaded with you. But I was just your geeky little brother. You wouldn’t listen.’
‘Did you forget, Nicky? I never listened to anyone.’
‘Everything was so perfect before you died,’ he said quietly. ‘And then it was just me. Mum became good friends with Johnnie Walker, and dad…’
‘Dad?’
‘You know what happened, Daniel. You were his rising star, his favourite. When you never came back out of that mineshaft he died inside. Six weeks after that, well…’
‘He took the easy way out is what he did, Nicky. He left his distraught wife and one remaining son to fend for themselves. He was a coward.’
‘He worshipped you.’
‘He worshipped us both. You just chose not to see it.’
York reached into his jacket and brought out the syringe kit, laid it gently on the table next to the rock of heroin.
‘So you’re still going down this route.’
York didn’t answer.
‘Robert Faulkner was right, wasn’t he? You need him. Without him you have no purpose. Without him, you need drugs to get you by.’
‘You’re wrong,’ York said firmly. ‘I don’t need him.’
‘You still haven’t figured it out, have you? The demon inside you is crumbling. You know the truth now. You tried to stop me going into that mineshaft and I didn’t listen. I was to blame for my demise, no one else, and especially not you. You don’t need me anymore, Nicky. I am to become obsolete, nothing but a memory.’
York reached forwards and plucked the brown stone from the table, held it close to his face. Daniel said nothing more.
This was the moment.
This was the milestone.
Slowly, he climbed to his feet and stepped away from the table. He stood calmly at the sink and turned on the tap. His mind was a race of colours, memories, each one better, worse than the last. Robert Faulkner had been right, he had needed him, needed purpose. And now that purpose had transformed into something else, something purer.
Slowly he began to crumble the brown stone in the sink, piece by piece. He watched as the water snared the grains and carried them into the plughole in a vortex of purification. It was over.
This was the moment.
This was the milestone.
Frasier.
61
The Indian Ocean, 2011
Stacking full length over a fallen branch, Abbey scrambled to her feet and charged on. She was dizzying, the heat dragging at her heels.
Praying her head-start would be enough she chanced a gasping peek over her shoulder, relieved to see only vegetation in her wake. She had little doubt that Anthony…Julian was smarter than she, quicker, more agile. But he was injured, if that counted for anything.
At the north of the island, she was totally alone. Over two miles away, James would be leading Oli and Danielle back to camp. Everybody else was out of commission. She could not afford to fall again.
Then she fell, her arm buckling beneath her as she broke through the green and onto the beach. Crashing through the jungle behind her she could hear the thudding footsteps of her pursuer bounding through the bush. And then he was on her, shirt drenched in blood on one side, bursting through the undergrowth like a possessed predator. His face a mask of rage, she screamed as he pressed the knife slowly into her shoulder, his weight pinning her to the sand. Her flailing arms did little to tip the scales, his bulging eyes bearing over her.
Deliberately he withdrew the knife from the wound, twisting as he pulled.
‘I gave you everything!’ he raged, spittling her face. ‘And you throw it back at me! You’re no better than the rest of them, just fucking cattle!’
Open palmed he cracked her across the face, the splintering slap echoing across the bay. She yelped in pain, the second slap harder still. She could feel his taught body pressing down on her, the sheer solidity of his frame.
Before the third swing she reached up and dug her thumb into his open wound, watched as he arched his back in pulsing agony. With his back raised she crunched her knee into his groin, and before she knew what was happening, Julian was rolling off her and she was back on her feet.
She took off again, the sand hindering her speed. She made it to the rocks at the end of the bay, hurling herself at them, Julian no more than fifteen feet back along the sand.
Unimpeded she made it to the top of the crest, her heart sinking at the sight below. She was back at the chasm,
