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‘Is it traceable back to you?’ she asks.
‘I paid cash. Some prepper’s shop on the south coast that was closing down. So no. I don’t think so.’
While Erin goes upstairs to change, Joseph digs out a large sports holdall from the cupboard under the stairs. He fills it with everything he may need – not just the crossbow and tomahawk but the baseball bat and some of the other weapons secreted around the house. He throws in an old birdwatching scope of Claire’s, a daysack. Then he finds the Sainsbury’s bag containing his blood-stained top and throws that in, too.
Erin comes downstairs, wearing black cargo trousers,desert boots, a black vest. She looks grimly determined, like she’s about to go to war.
‘Ready?’ he asks.
She pulls her hair into a knot. ‘Not in the slightest.’
‘Me neither. Let’s go.’
FIFTY-THREE
Joseph drives, despite his injured knee. Erin, beside him, looks deep in thought, as if she’s wrestling with something existential.
‘There were signs,’ she says, eventually. ‘I didn’t miss them. I ignored them.’
Joseph pulls up at a junction, waits for the lights to change.
‘You’ve heard a lot of the school stuff,’ Erin continues, ‘but not all of it. When Tilly was twelve, a group of girls started bullying her. Name-calling, mockery, the usual nonsense. One day something happened between Tilly and the ringleader, a physical clash in the toilets. The other girl was hurt – very badly hurt. She needed corrective surgery, the works. Another pupil came forward as a witness, but only after Tilly went to see her. She said Tilly had defended herself against an unprovoked attack. If it hadn’t been for that, there might well have been charges. We still had to find her a new school.
‘Then there was what happened with Robson. Six months after he won joint custody, his solicitors said he wanted the agreement terminated, along with all his parental rights. They said he’d woken a few times in the night to find Tilly at his bedside, staring down at him – that she’d scared him shitless. That on the last occasion she’d had a knife.
‘Tilly denied it and I believed her. Or at least, I guess I decided not to think too much about it. The main thing was it was over. He was out of our lives for good.’
‘And then you married Mark,’ Joseph says, recalling that relationship’s tragic end. ‘Do you think—’
‘No,’ Erin replies, her tone vehement. ‘Mark had his problems – his gambling debts were crippling us – but he was getting help, and I’d found a job with a higher salary. Tilly knew that I loved him. She’s not a monster, Joe. She’s just …’
Lost?
Joseph studies his wife as he waits for the lights to change, because he’s experienced the same cognitive dissonance and knows the tricks it can pull. ‘Did Tilly and Mark get on?’
Quietly, Erin says, ‘She hated him.’
By the time they’ve skirted Jack-O’-Lantern Woods, the sun is bleeding its last red light through the trees. At this time of day there’s little traffic. As they roll past the big houses on Hocombe Hill, they’re the only vehicle on the road.
‘I’ll slow down as we pass,’ Joseph says, ‘but I won’t stop. Get the best look you can.’
A minute later they reach Thornecroft. Despite their reduced speed, the surrounding trees allow only a brief glimpse down the drive before the house is swallowed up again.
As Joseph accelerates away, Erin turns in her seat. ‘I saw the Honda,’ she says. ‘Plus two cars I know belong to Angus. But not the Mercedes Gabriel was driving yesterday.’
‘I think that was a hire car,’ he replies. ‘Maybe he already returned it. We’ll find somewhere to pull in. Then we’ll double-back on foot. Do you know if the house has a security system?’
‘I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. And if we go through those trees to the back we can avoid the drive.’
Joseph finds a suitable parking spot a few hundred yards from Thornecroft, a grass verge between two huge private residences and their grounds. Grabbing the holdall, he locks the van.
On this side of the road there are no houses, just open woodland. Joseph leads Erin into cover before they flank the road towards Thornecroft.
A minute later he spots the entrance. Dropping the holdall, he transfers the birdwatching scope into the daysack and slips his arms through the straps. Then he takes out the crossbow, the tomahawk and two sheathed knives.
‘Joe?’
The setting sun has turned Erin’s skin golden, in stark contrast to her dark clothes. In this light she looks like an avenging angel, her beauty somehow terrible.