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His gaze drops to her calves. It climbs to the backs of her thighs disappearing into those high-cut jersey shorts. It settles on her bare shoulder.
He can smell her, now; a scent that calls out to him.
The right-side door swings wide. Gabriel sees the gravel driveway, the grey rain cover protecting Angus’s Morgan.
His face contorted, he closes his hand on Teri’s shoulder. She gasps, twists around. And then he’s dragging her aside – urgently, not savagely – and striding out into summer sunshine. He pants for breath, doesn’t look back. Gravel crunches like broken bones beneath his feet. Behind him, the door to Thornecroft slams shut. He keeps moving, keeps walking, one foot in front of the other.
He needs to find Angus. But first he has to get away from Teri Platini.
Gabriel hears the crunch of gravel no longer. When helooks down, he sees he’s standing motionless. Another few steps and he’ll have crossed Thornecroft’s boundary. From there it’s only a few hundred yards to his car.
He’s so close.
From the canopy of one of the elm trees comes a crow’s harsh call. Like a weathervane, Gabriel pivots. He stares at his brother’s house, at the place Angus built to hoard and protect his treasures.
Gabriel finds he’s walking again. He climbs Thornecroft’s porch steps and rings the bell. A minute passes before the door reopens. Teri blinks at him from the hall.
They stare at each other for long seconds. When Gabriel speaks, his voice is low. ‘I love my brother,’ he says, ‘but I’m not blind to his flaws. We might be twins but we’re not the same.’
She raises herself on to her toes again, her face waxy with fear.
‘Angus likes to dominate,’ Gabriel says. ‘He also likes to humiliate. And the women he selects – women like you, Teri – are so infatuated they let it happen. Then, once he’s broken them down completely and they’ve lost their self-respect, he moves on to someone new.’
A pulse beats in her throat. ‘Gabe,’ she begins.
‘You’ll struggle to put him behind you, Teri. I know because I’ve seen it happen. After you leave this house, you’ll go into mourning for what you lost. It’s going to be lonely. Difficult.’
His gaze travels over her small frame, her perfect hair and nails. He wonders if she knows that desire is a natural consequence of grief, a repudiation of it.
‘I’d like to see that picture,’ he says. ‘The one you framed for your bedroom. Will you show me?’
Her expression is of glazed horror. ‘Angus wouldn’t … I’m sorry, Gabe, but that’s private. It wouldn’t be right.’
‘Angus has moved on,’ Gabriel says. ‘He no longer has any interest in you – nor in what you might choose to share with me. I’d like to see it.’
Teri’s lungs fill. Gabriel’s lungs fill, too. When she shakes her head and starts to close the door, he puts out a hand and stops it.
SIXTEEN
An hour later, Erin returns from town. In the downstairs office, she packs an overnight bag with work files and printouts. Then she throws in a few clothes. ‘I bought a couple of ready meals for this evening. Or there’s food in the freezer if you feel like cooking. Try not to get up to any mischief while I’m gone.’
‘I’m sure it’ll be a quiet one.’
He drops her at the train station in Crompton. On the way home, he detours through Jack-O’-Lantern Woods, taking the main road north to south. He passes no police vehicles, spots no evidence of anything amiss.
Pulling into a rest spot, Joseph climbs out of the car, retrieves the wallet from his pocket and flips it open. This time, he fully removes the driving licence from its slot. When he sees the photo he leans against the doorframe – because, despite the cranial injuries he observed on Friday night, and the washed-out colours of the licence, this is, indisputably, an image of Max’s victim.
The dead man’s face bears all the hallmarks of a high-testosterone individual: hollow cheeks, square jaw, strong chin. His eyes are set wide apart, his stare unsettlingly intense.
According to the licence, Angus Roth is thirty-eight years old. His home address is on Hocombe Hill, a few miles from Jack-O’-Lantern Woods.
Joseph checks the banknote pocket and counts ten fresh twenties. In the left-hand slip pocket he finds a couple of petrol receipts. In the right-hand pocket he finds a heart-shaped pink Post-it. Written on it in pencil are the words,If you dare. Below them, a mobile number.
Joseph removes the remaining cards and cycles through them: an Amex Platinum card, a British Airways Executive Club card, two First Direct debit cards.
He returns the cards to their slots and gets back in the car. Then he programmes his satnav with the postcode from the licence.
The journey from Jack-O’-Lantern Woods takes ten minutes. Hocombe Hill is one of Crompton’s most affluent roads, lined with huge properties screened by mature trees. Joseph passes Thornecroft, Angus Roth’s place, too fast to get a proper look. At the top of the hill, he turns around and drives back. This time, slowing to a crawl as he reaches Thornecroft’s entrance, he sees a grand mock Tudor residence designed to radiate power. The place must be worth a couple of million.