He knew he would do anything for them. Theirs was the only uncomplicated relationship in his life and he’d relished every moment of it. They always seemed so pleased to see him, always wanted to talk, always wanted to play. Everything seemed so unconditional. He suspected that that would change and he had, as a result, always dreaded them getting older. Now he dreaded never seeing them again.
He would manage without the photo.
On the other side of the room, the sweating man was silent. Still bandaged and sedated again, he had fallen asleep an hour ago. The student assumed he was the only one awake. The house was quiet. They talked late, got up late.
His mind still swam with the events of Friday evening. The self-crit. The leader’s incredible assault. The damage had been less severe than the student had feared – the knife had ‘only’ taken the corner of an ear – but the effect on the group had been profound. The woman had produced the bandages, and he had leapt up to speak to the leader. ‘We should throw him out? You want him out?’ He had been amazed at himself; his instinct for self-preservation extended to undermining the sweating man even further. He could chastise himself later. If there was a later.
He was trapped. He could walk out, of course. The nearest police station was only ten minutes away. But the murders in London had shown how threats were dealt with. Violently. Ruthlessly. The images of the blood-stained zebra crossing came again and he shuddered. His sisters were vulnerable. His family was just too big and sprawling; they couldn’t all just disappear into protective police custody. There were too many cells, too many citizens. He was the problem. Somehow he had to be the solution.
He pulled on some shorts and eased his way downstairs.
It was, as ever, immaculate. The house’s exterior was in as much need of repair as the rest of the street – subsidence cracks, rotting window frames, peeling paint – but its interior was more or less pristine. The narrow hall was swept and clutter-free, there was no post or junk mail on the mat. The two day rooms were comfortably furnished, dusted and well lit. The sofas had cushions, the tables had books. In the kitchen, an old gas cooker was newly cleaned; plates and mugs had been either put away or arranged in neat rows on a small Victorian dresser. There was an order here that the student had, in his early days, found encouraging. Now he knew whose order it was, it just seemed sinister.
Beyond the back door was a small paved yard. It was warm already. The student poured himself a glass of cold water. Shoeless, he paced the slabs. It was his prison-style recreation. In the early sunshine he circled the square hundreds of times. There was a freshness to the early morning, a brief respite from the stale summer soup of smells, but lately he hadn’t noticed. His mind was in turmoil. He knew his plan was too slow. He couldn’t rely on the IPS woman piecing his life together – she might never do it anyway. There was a cliff-edge approaching and unless he did something drastic and soon, it would take him and his family to destruction.
The student had finished his water a while ago but still he held the glass, still he paced. As the yard continued to warm up in the first sunlight of the day, he recalled the leader’s glittering certainty as he held the knife. There had been a different tone to his voice, a thrilled, almost ecstatic tightness to his words.
He suddenly stopped his pacing. His eyes were rooted on the freshly illuminated fence opposite him but he still saw nothing. He replayed the leader’s words. What had he said? ‘The closer we get to the enemy, the more likely their attacks on us.’
He raised a hand to his mouth. ‘Oh. OK.’ He looked around, as if noticing his surroundings for the first time. ‘That might work,’ he whispered to the yard. ‘That might just work.’
On his next lap, he paused at the far corner. The high garden fence here sheltered two exhausted-looking rose bushes, and behind them two purple flowering plants barely half a metre high. He crouched down. Fighting the rose bushes for sunlight had stunted the foxgloves – he couldn’t remember seeing them before. But he did remember the furious telling-off his mother had given him as a child when he had played with one. That they were poisonous. That he must never touch the velvety flowers. And that he should absolutely never put one in or even near his mouth.
He tried to remember the science. He thought three might kill him. One might do. With some leaves. He glanced back once. All curtains drawn, no one watching. He chose one of the tubular blooms, held it between his fingers, then used a fingernail to cut the stem. He placed it in his pocket, went inside the house and waited.
29
8.40 a.m.
FAMIE AND SOPHIE walked back to their room. The buildings alternated between suburbia and industrial trading estate. The roads were busy and the pedestrians hurried. No one looked at anyone else.
‘Kind of easy to feel anonymous here,’ said Sophie. ‘I like it.’
‘Welcome to Southgate,’ said Famie.
They walked a couple of blocks. The morning
