‘You mean a gun?’ Stern shook his head. ‘No, wait a minute. I’ve got an old shotgun in the barn. Used to do a bit of duck hunting in my younger days.’ Lydia started to speak, but he cut her off. ‘It’s in a locked gun safe and there’s no ammunition anywhere on the property. But I’ll get rid of it, if you think that’s best.’
Erin’s mind was on the photo. Could the blond guy be Graham? He’d liked to hunt and fish. Though how Stern would have known him was a mystery. Through Vivien, perhaps?
She had a dozen more questions, but he herded them downstairs and towards the front door, clearly wanting this intrusion to be over. Out on the front steps, they made an awkward threesome as Lydia thanked Stern again and they said their goodbyes. The cicada buzzed as thunderclouds gathered above the mountains to the west. Erin hoped the storm would hold off until they were on the motorway.
‘If there’s anything I can do to help Tim get back home, you’ll be sure to let me know, won’t you?’ Stern said. He kept his back turned to Erin, freezing her out, as he spoke to Lydia. Apparently, he’d told them all he was willing to say. Not just about the recent events that put Tim back in the psych ward, but anything to do with the original crime. Her conviction they were connected had only increased. She would have to get her answers from someone else.
Though the thought filled her with dread, it was time to pay a visit to the Viking.
40
Concord, New Hampshire
August, Present Day
The row of red-brick apartment buildings, darkened with age, squatted under a turbulent sky. Rain lashed the trees and pummelled the streets. Hugging the kerb, Erin inched her car forward, keeping a look out for 98 Morrison Avenue. If she’d ever wondered where former budding psychopaths ended up, drug kingpins or indicted hedge fund managers, it might have been a place like this.
She parked opposite the two-storey building, half-hidden by a row of sycamores, and contemplated her next move.
Her fingers sought the amulet, warm against her skin, though it was ridiculous to be afraid. He couldn’t hurt her now.
She waited another few minutes, but the rain showed no sign of letting up. Erin opened the door and ran across the street, soaked by the time she reached the covered area by the entrance. The dingy white paint on the door was cracked and peeling, and the brass nameplates, green and pitted with age, were smeared with fingerprints. Why would Graham live in a place like this? Mr Golden Hair. The bloody Viking, with the world at his feet.
Perhaps her online sleuthing had led her astray. But there was his name, G. Marston, taped on the letter box to apartment 2A. It could be another Graham Marston, but to find out, she’d have to go inside.
Her hand shook as she pressed the bell, but the solid weight of the quetzal against her skin give her courage. I can do this.
A moment later, she was buzzed into a gloomy foyer, ripe with the smell of kitchen grease and mildewed carpets.
As she climbed the stairs, dread pooled in her stomach. But before she could even knock on the door to 2A, it swung open to reveal a balding man in stained tracksuit bottoms and a grubby T-shirt, stretched tight across a roll of flab. Sausage fingers ferreted a couple of bills from a battered wallet. He pulled out two tens and raised his head.
‘Who the hell are you?’
For a moment, Erin was struck dumb. This man, with his thinning hair and dirty fingernails, could not possibly be her brother. Whatever she imagined he’d become in the intervening years, it wasn’t this.
She looked past him to the living room, with its porridge-coloured carpet and saggy sofa. Ratty venetian blinds were drawn against the outside world. The rancid smell of a rubbish bin filled the air.
‘Wrong apartment.’ He started to close the door, when the street-door buzzer rang again. ‘What the hell?’
A skinny kid bounded up the stairs, balancing a box of pizza and a paper bag on his arm. ‘Here you go. Still under thirty minutes, even with the rain pissing down.’ The boy smiled.
As soon as he’d handed over the money, he started to close the door in her face.
‘Graham.’
He squinted at her in the dim light.
‘It’s Mimi.’ She cringed at the sound.
‘Mimi?’ His eyes roamed her face. A nest of broken capillaries were spread across his nose and cheeks.
‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’
He snorted. ‘Well sure, why the hell not. What kind of person would I be if I shut the door in my own sister’s face?’
He stood aside to let her pass, hugging the pizza box and six-pack of beer in the crook of his arm. It was a tight squeeze, and she panicked at the thought of him reaching out to grab her. Unnerved at the prospect of being in the same room with him after all these years, she’d tossed a steak knife into her handbag before leaving Lansford. No protection at all against this hippo of a man, but it gave her a sense of security. This time she was armed.
He dumped his food on the table. ‘Don’t mind the mess. It’s the maid’s day off. Hardy-har, just joshing.’ He wiped his hand on his shirt. ‘Doesn’t hurt to pretend though, right? The lord in his castle, and all that.’ He swept a pile of newspapers off the couch. ‘Have a seat.’
With her eye on the door, Erin lowered herself onto the edge of the sofa, jumpy as a fox.
A decaying stack of newspapers teetered on the floor by the couch. The air smelled of dirty bed linens.
Not missing a beat, he pried open the lid of the cardboard box and grabbed a slice of pizza, paved with salami and glistening with oil. ‘I gotta tell ya,’ he
