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Behind him, he hears muted rustling. It sounds like the thick plastic wrapped around Drew is settling after its bumpy ride here. That is, unless some dark forest magic has reanimated her. Checking the rear-view mirror, he sees that the tonneau cover is still pulled taut across the boot space. There’s no bulge from a plastic-encased head.
‘Did you move the car?’ his father asks.
Max blinks, angles the mirror down. Across the Honda’s rear seats lies Tilly. Plastic ties secure her wrists and ankles. Her head wound has leaked a lot of blood – the seat fabric looks stained beyond repair.
Not that Max or his father could ever have contemplated keeping the car, once this was over. Not that he would have wanted to.
It’s so strange seeing her like this. These last few years, Tilly has become far more than a sister. She’s been his counsellor, his guide; in many ways she’s reinvented him.
She might not have shared his passion for medicine. For Tilly, the innumerable ways a body can fail, and the more numerable ways, with knowledge and with skill, that it can be put back together, hold little interest. Despite her disregard of academia, he’d thought her wise in ways he will never be, sagacious beyond her years. Tilly’s knowledge comes not from books or formal learning but seems entirely empirical, gained through close attention to those around her. In that, she’s similar to her mother.
For three years Tilly has enthralled him, bewitched him. How bizarre, then, that seeing her like this, bound and bleeding, seems to have dissolved the last threads of that enchantment. For the first time in weeks, he almost feels like he can think straight. Tragic that it might have come too late.
She’s not his sister. He mustn’t think of her like that. Tilly’s something else, somethingother. A cuckoo chick that hatched in what was left of his family’s nest. A threat to him and his father – although not the only threat, it seems.
Shaking his head, he tunes back in to his father’s voice. ‘What?’
‘Did you move the car?’
‘That’s what I thought you said. Why would I take it? What’re you talking about?’
‘It’s gone, Max. The car. It’s not there.’
More rustling, then a moan. Checking the rear-view mirror again, he sees that Tilly’s eyes are open. She blinks, lifts her head from the seat, winces. It takes her a moment torealize she’s bound, and a moment longer to realize where she is. When her gaze shifts to the mirror and meets his own, he sees a panoply of emotions: shock, fury, disbelief – and, unmistakeably, fear. He looks at her for as long as he dares. Then he turns to his passenger beside him.
FORTY-SIX
In the aftermath there is only Joseph, and Erin, and the fact of what he has just done. For a while neither of them speak, nor even make eye contact. Blood is inching across the floor, forming a growing pool.
Joseph cannot deal with what he thinks he just witnessed: the light of consciousness disappearing from Enoch’s eyes. It’s simply too immense. ‘I’m …’ he begins, pausing when his head grows light. He puts the hammer on the worktop, tries not to look at it.
The pool of blood is still spreading. Limping to a drawer, he takes out a couple of tablecloths. Then, easing himself down, he slides them under Enoch’s head. When he catches sight of the wound his stomach flops.
‘It’s so red,’ Erin mutters, staring at the blood. ‘There’s so much. What have you done, Joe? Why did you do that?’
Gingerly, Joseph gets to his feet and fetches a first-aid kit from the utility. When he returns to the kitchen, Erin hasn’t moved. He takes out bandages and dressings. Lowering himself once again to Enoch’s side, he presses a dressing to the man’s head wound, binding it tightly.
Erin crouches down, putting her fingers to Enoch’s neck.‘Joe,’ she says, as he’s tying off the bandage. ‘There’s no point. Where you hit him – you only had to look. He’s—’
‘I’m not trying to save him,’ he tells her. ‘I just want to stop the blood.’
Erin grunts, coughs. ‘I don’t understand. Is this real? You just … you literally just ended his life in front of me.’
Joseph’s head feels hollow; a legacy, perhaps, of the two stinging blows Enoch delivered before he died. Maybe he’s simply in shock. One arm of his shirt is soaked with blood. On the floor by his feet lies the knife that did the damage.
‘Take it off,’ Erin says, indicating his shirt. ‘Let me see how bad. And Joe, please – if there’s a reason, tell me why you did this.’
He doesn’t know if she’s being genuine, is trying to deceive him, or, like him, simply cannot process the enormity of what he’s just done. He unbuttons his shirt regardless, his gaze moving around the kitchen. Blood is splattered across the nearest wall units. Shards of ceramic and glass litter the floor, along with splinters of picture frame and olive oil from the broken bottle.
When Erin peels off his shirt, he sees the deep incision in his arm, its red lips.
‘This needs stitches,’ she says. ‘At the hospital.’
‘No.’
‘Joe, you—’
‘I said no.’