“So it was about money.”
“It was about protecting what I love. I love you, Julian.”
The words — words Julian had waited all his life to hear — sliced through the hard, blackened lump that was his heart. “Don’t,” he said, his voice thickening and hoarse. “You’ve got no right to say that to me. Not now.”
“If I’d acknowledged those children, who would it have benefited?” Robert pressed on, sensing his son’s weakness. “Nobody. My marriage would’ve been over. My business ruined. I wouldn’t have been able to give them or you any kind of life. So I made a choice. And every day since, I’ve lived with that choice.”
“Yes, you’ve lived with it. But Deborah Bradshaw couldn’t. She died because of your choice, indirectly or directly.”
“What are you suggesting?” A fresh wave of disbelief swept over Robert’s face. “Christ, are you suggesting I murdered her? Do you really think me capable of such a thing?”
“I don’t know what it’s capable of.”
At the mention of it, Robert lowered his eyes again as if to hide what was behind them. “I may be a fucking bastard, Julian, but I’m not a monster.”
“How can I believe you?”
“Because I’m your father and I’ve never lied to you.”
Julian shook his head, incredulous. “No, you’ve never lied to me, but you’ve never told me the truth either.”
“I know what I’ve done is unforgivable. So I’m not going to ask for your forgiveness, Julian. But I am asking you to spare your mum. She’s been through so much already. This would finish her off.”
“Maybe that’d be for the best.”
Robert shifted his gaze back to Julian, eyes glazed with shock. “How can you say such a thing?”
“You’ve made her life a lie, and I’m not sure I can bear the thought of her living that life any longer.”
“You don’t mean that, Julian. You’re upset. Not thinking straight.”
“I’m thinking perfectly straight, for perhaps the first time in my life. You’re the embodiment of everything she hates.” Julian winced with revulsion. “The thought of you touching her, kissing her, it makes me want to puke.”
Face twitching, Robert wrung his hands. For a second, Julian thought his dad was going to fall apart completely, collapse in a heap. But then he took a steadying breath. “Okay, let’s talk about this, see if we can come to some sort of agreement,” he said, putting on his business-face. “I can’t undo what I’ve done, but I can try to put things right as best I can. I’ll give Jake, and Mia if she turns up alive, the life they deserve. I’ll pay for their schooling, find them jobs, whatever it takes. They wouldn’t have to know where the money was coming from. I could go through a third party. It’d be difficult, but it can be arranged.”
“So why didn’t you arrange it years ago, before Mia was driven to prostitution, before Jake became a junkie thief?”
“I’m offering to do it now, aren’t I? Isn’t that enough?”
“Nowhere near.”
“Well, you tell me what you want from me?”
“This isn’t about what I want.”
Robert’s business-face started to slip. Worms of sweat beaded his forehead. “How about this: I’ll go away permanently. I’ll tell your mum I’ve met someone else. She’ll be devastated, but she’ll survive that. I’ll leave everything to you — my savings, the business, everything.”
“That’d just be another lie to add to the list.”
“Yes, but a lie to protect someone we both love.”
“And you get to walk away from all of this, start a new life. No, I don’t think so.”
“A new life?” Robert let out a ragged, pitiful laugh at the idea. “You and Christine are the only life I’ll ever have. Without you I’m nothing.”
Julian was silent a moment, as if mulling over the offer. “It could work, except-”
“Except fucking what?” exploded Robert, his face changing with the suddenness of a mask falling away. A vein throbbed down the centre of his forehead. His lips twitched. His eyes bulged, the pupils huge and black, the blackness stretching back seemingly deeper than light could penetrate.
Julian tensed, ready to defend himself if necessary. “Except you could do this again to somebody else.”
“It was just one time. One fucking time,” Robert ranted. “And she wasn’t forced into it. She was well paid.”
“And that excuses it?”
“Of course fucking not, but-” Robert broke off, catching his anger. The vein receded, his pupils shrank. His voice quiet with shame, he continued, “Of course not. Nothing excuses it. And I’d rather die than do it to somebody else.” His eyes filmed with tears. “Is that what you want? Do you want me to jump off the bridge too?”
Julian’s voice softened a fraction. “No, I don’t want that. But like I said, it’s not about what I want. It’s about what Mr X wants.”
“Mr X.” Robert spat the name out as if it tasted impossibly disgusting. “What more can he want from me than he’s already taken?”
“It’s not what he wants from you, it’s what he wants from me.”
Robert scrunched his forehead, perplexed. “You? Why should he want anything from you?”
Julian released a breath that seemed to have been bottled up inside him for years. “You know, I used to wonder why you kept your distance, why you never hugged or kissed me. Now I understand. You were afraid — afraid your touch would infect me with what’s inside you. Well you needn’t have worried. It was already in me. Mr X drew it out.”
Robert grimaced as if Julian’s words were pins that pierced deep under his skin. They looked at each other, their eyes like open windows. A shock of connection thrilled between them, instantly followed by a shock of realisation — the soul-rending realisation that the thing which had finally, truly brought them together had also torn them apart.
“What did you do?” The question grated from Robert’s lips.
His voice heavy with shame, Julian started to recount what’d happened with Nikki and at Mr X’s house. “Hang on,” cut in Robert. “So you don’t know for sure that you did anything.”
“No, but what about the blood?”
“The blood proves nothing. It might not even have been human.”
“It was.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because of what’s in here and here.” Julian slammed his fist against his chest and head with bruising force. “You see, Dad, I’m a lot like you, but not exactly the same. I have my own dreams and nightmares.”
“What dreams? What nightmares? What are they about?”
“The same thing they’ve always been about. Only now, instead of being attacked, I’m the one doing the attacking.”
Robert shook his head. “You could never do anything like that to anybody. I know you couldn’t.”
“Really. Then you must know me better than I know myself.” A vein of bitter insincerity ran through Julian’s voice.
His fingers whitening on the window-frame, Robert continued to shake his head with increasing vehemence. “He’s bluffing. The bastard’s bluffing.”
“Maybe. But what if he isn’t?”
Robert jutted his face forward, his eyes like knives trying to slice through the fog of Julian’s mind. “Think! Try to remember what happened.”
Julian tried again, vainly. “It’s no good. It’s as if part of my memory has been cut out.”
“Fuck! This can’t be happening. I won’t let it. I won’t let him do to you what he’s done to me.” Tremors of rage and hate shook Robert as he whirled suddenly to head for his car.
Julian stared after him a moment, uncertain whether he should try to stop him, then a surge of concern jolted him out of his seat. Taken aback by the strength of the emotion, he called, “Dad.” Robert looked at him, his forehead knotted, his eyes hard and haunted. Julian felt something like an electric shock shiver through his frame again. “What are you going to do?”
