His attacker cocked her head and yanked it out as quickly as it had landed. Her brow furrowed as if trying to read his thoughts. It was only as she turned that he noticed another person in the car with them, a figure sitting in the front passenger seat.
Louie.
Bruno tried to reach out his hand to touch him, only nothing moved but the very tips of his fingers.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I’m sorry your mum and I didn’t do better for you.’
‘It’s okay, Dad,’ Louie smiled. ‘You don’t need to look after me any more. I’ll be all right.’
In their twelve years together, Louie had been virtually mute, not even speaking in Bruno’s dreams. Now, in his dying throes, Bruno was hallucinating that his son had found his voice. It was the only voice he had ever wanted to hear and the comfort it offered was immeasurable.
From the window he caught a glimpse of Echoes gathering beyond the vehicle he was dying inside. They arrived one at a time and then in twos, before groups beganappearing. Eventually, the car park was packed with the faces of people he’d conversed with and others he’d only learned about. Some showed him concern, others were tearful and some angry. Each held the hand of another.
Bruno sensed his assailant watching him, before she placed her lips to his ear. ‘You see them, don’t you?’ she asked.
Bruno wanted to nod, but the wound was too deep for even basic motor functions. He was no longer capable of even a perfunctory motion. ‘What do they want?’ she continued but he couldn’t respond.
Instead, Louie, the Echoes, and the rest of the world living and imagined faded away into darkness at exactly the same moment. Bruno was aware of what was to happen after he breathed his last. He had made his peace with all he’d done wrong. And he was sure that he wasn’t as frightened of the unknown as the woman was who had just killed him.
Chapter 65
FLICK, ALDEBURGH, SUFFOLK
Flick let the plastic stick fall into the sink. Then she unboxed another and followed the same action before placing it face down next to the first three. As she waited a further minute to pass, she sat on the lid of the closed toilet seat and ran her palms across her face.
How is this even possible?she asked herself.How the hell am I pregnant?
Karczewski’s programme did not expect its Minders to refrain from sexual activity during their five-year tenure, but implanted contraception for both sexes was mandatory. Anything that left a Minder vulnerable to decisions based on emotion rather than self-preservation was restricted. And top of the list was falling pregnant.
Her five-yearly STI jabs which ensured her immunity from all known infections were up to date, and she assumed the implant making her temporarily sterile was working because she hadn’t had a period in seven months. She had assumed there was no need for her and Elijah to use contraception. She flipped the fourth test over and its results mirrored the others. She was definitely pregnant.
Flick hurried outside and threw all the tests in the B&B’s incinerator bin, melting them within seconds. If she’d everneeded a cigarette or a friend to confide in, it was now, but she couldn’t have either. This was going to be another segment of her life that she couldn’t reveal. Grace was already bursting with enthusiasm when it came to Flick and Elijah’s relationship, keen to know if Flick saw a long-term future for them. Flick’s answers were vague, not because she didn’t want to commit, but because she couldn’t see beyond the rest of the day let alone the rest of her life. Someone had killed Sinéad and Karczewski and that overshadowed any plans she could make. And she knew Grace would urge her to keep the baby. But Flick had already made her decision.
Back in the kitchen, Flick slathered two slices of toast with Marmite and took a seat at the table. Elijah weighed heavy on her mind. Morally, it was right he should know she was pregnant but she could never tell him. She loved what they had together, but while she continued to hold back so much of herself from him, theirs could never be a genuine relationship. He deserved better.
She caught herself rubbing her stomach and promptly dropped her hands down by her side. She wasn’t going to allow herself to start showing empathy to a cluster of cells she hadn’t asked for.
Motherhood wasn’t something Flick had given much thought to in her teens, twenties or even now. While her friends were moving around the country – and some across the world – to be with their DNA Matches, Flick had made her restaurant her priority. She assumed that children would follow once she met her Match but being linked with a dead serial killer put paid to that. She had long since comes to terms with it never happening for her.
The longer Flick allowed her pregnancy to continue, the more it would slow her down, make her less perceptive and put the programme at risk. The data and intel she was privy to was more important than the man she had feelings for and the baby she didn’t want.
Remaining so hyper-vigilant every waking minute since the killings was already taking its toll. So, for much of the day, she tried losing herself in her mindfulness techniques, of self-hypnosis and of just sitting on the beach and becoming lost in the now. But nothing worked; she was still every bit as anxious as when she had seen the results of the first pregnancy test. Perhaps leaving Aldeburgh, even if only for a weekend, might help to clear her mind?
When Grace appeared, she had an idea.
Chapter 66
EMILIA
A beam of light passing through the car’s passenger window brought the stain to Emilia’s attention. Only when she pulled the wristwatch closer to her face did she realise it was Bruno’s blood. She removed a tissue from the glovebox, dampened it with bottled water and wiped it away.
Next, she examined her fingernails: there were traces of his blood under them too. She wet her fingertips and began scraping the underside of the free edges with a paperclip. Deeper and deeper she probed as she replayed Bruno’s final moments. After plunging the metal instrument into his skull, she became aware that his line of vision had fixed upon someone in the distance. Emilia turned and realised they were looking at the same people. It came as such a relief that he too had seen the four figures that had been following her for all these weeks that she wanted to cry. She hadn’t been imagining them.
‘You see them, don’t you?’ she had asked and he had given an almost imperceptible nod. ‘What do they want?’ she continued but Bruno had already journeyed too far into the other side to answer.
Killing him was born out of fury at his laughter and refusal to tell her what she wanted to know. She likenedher response to that of a demon from her past shaping itself in the present and taking control of her nature.
What kind of person was I back then if I can kill so easily now?she asked herself. But now was not the time to dwell on her actions in the past or present. ‘You must set your conscience to one side in your search for the truth,’ Adrian had advised her and that’s precisely what she was doing.
