Livingstone watches him dispassionately. ‘Die slowly, you cunt,’ he sneers, but there is no chance of that. The life is pouring out of Harry Sweetwater, spreading in a pool of blood around him. He knows it too; it’s in the mobster’s eyes as he stares up at Martin. ‘The truth,’ he gasps to Martin. And then, with a last effort, he raises his own gun, no longer trying to twist back towards Livingstone. Titus sees him, sees his intent. Before he can speak, before he can beg, Sweetwater’s own gun barks. The noise is a sharp retort, but no less emphatic than Livingstone’s cannon, another punctuation mark, another story ending. Martin hears the splattering collision of the bullet hitting Titus Talbot in the chest. Horror is written on the lawyer’s face, surprise. At his feet, Harry Sweetwater smiles one last beatific smile and dies, the expression easing slowly from his face as life leaves him.
There is nothing angelic about Titus Torbett’s death: he is beginning to convulse, to cough blood, eyes round with fear, reading glasses and pens falling from his pockets as he slumps forward. His father, his bloody ears forgotten, has not so much stood up as fallen forward out of his chair and is crawling across the carpet towards his son, past the corpse of Harry Sweetwater, through the pool of blood. ‘Titus.’ He is weeping, tears streaming, face contorted. ‘My boy.’
At the last, the son hears him, looks up to meet his pleading eye. ‘Forgive me, Pa,’ he manages. ‘Forgive me.’ And he collapses under the weight of impending death and acknowledged guilt. His eyes glaze, there is a final expulsion—air and blood and sputum—and he dies, his father still crawling towards him.
Martin looks up to Livingstone, who stands surveying the impact of his handiwork, devoid of emotion. He’s dressed immaculately: a navy three-piece suit, polished leather shoes, a new white shirt and red silk tie. He has a red carnation in his lapel. He looks like a bridegroom. He regards Martin, acknowledges him. ‘They killed her. The two of them. They killed her.’
‘Who?’ asks Martin.
But Henry Livingstone is already moving away, Martin can see it, not moving physically but in his mind, moving beyond questions and answers, beyond the here and now. ‘Clarity,’ he says. And he puts the gun in his mouth and fires. A large red hole is blown through the ceiling and Livingstone collapses like a rag doll. A red mist fills the air and Martin gags, attempting to hold his breath, not to breathe it in. But, of course, he must. And when he does, he vomits, leaning forward to add to the bestial swamp of the floor. His ears chime with the violence of the gunfire, his mind with the gore.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the ringing in his ears subsides and the room grows silent, save for the quiet sobbing of Sir Talbot Torbett.
‘The knife,’ Martin says to him. ‘Sweetwater’s knife. Cut me free.’
But the old man is not listening. He is beyond hearing, trapped within his own mind, caged by his personal grief and private horror. And so Martin too is trapped, tied to a chair inside an abattoir, eyes closed and struggling to retain some sense of himself among the carnage.
chapter forty-two
Claus Vandenbruk enters the room with his normal bustling energy, anger suppressed, irritated at being summoned. ‘What?’ he says.
‘Clarence O’Toole has been murdered,’ says Montifore.
‘The judge?’
‘The judge.’
‘Where? When?’
‘Early hours. At his home. Nurse called it in.’
Vandenbruk gestures towards Mandy and Winifred. ‘What are they doing here?’
‘Telling us who killed him. Look at this.’
Montifore plays the video Yev has prepared, but Mandy doesn’t watch the screen. Instead she watches the faces of the two police officers. Montifore is grim, knowing what’s coming; Vandenbruk looks on with fascination, eyes wide, alerted to what it will show, but not knowing how or when or by whose hand.
‘Who is it?’ he whispers, watching the masked man enter the house and flick on the lights.
‘Don’t know,’ says Montifore.
But then Montifore shuttles to the section in the study, when the killer puts on his glasses to examine the notebook, and Mandy thinks she sees the spark of something in Vandenbruk’s eyes. Recognition? Consternation?
‘His glasses—green frames,’ she says, hoping for a reaction.
And gets one. ‘Yes,’ says Montifore, still looking at the screen, trying to vacuum up clues, but Claus Vandenbruk turns to look at her.
‘Green frames,’ he says. Nothing more.
Mandy tells them of the delay before the killer gets to the judge’s room, the long period when he searches the house. They spool forward.
‘They talk for quite some time,’ says Mandy. ‘After a while, the killer starts beating the judge. Eventually, he shoots him.’
‘Is there any audio?’ asks Vandenbruk.
‘None,’ says Mandy. ‘We checked.’
Montifore advances the recording, watches the beating, watches the execution. When he eventually stops the vision, he turns to Vandenbruk. ‘He was expecting this. Looked like he almost welcomed it.’
‘You don’t know that,’ says Vandenbruk.
‘Pity about the audio,’ says Montifore.
‘Too right. Can I get a copy of this, please? Is this all of it?’
‘It’s all we’ve got,’ says Montifore. ‘I’ll get you a copy as soon as possible.’
Mandy looks at Winifred, who shakes her head. Mandy interprets it as an injunction to silence.
‘Is now possible?’ asks Vandenbruk.
‘If you supply a drive.’
‘I’ll get one,’ says Vandenbruk and leaves the office.
‘You don’t trust him,’ says Mandy.
Montifore looks annoyed;
