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‘You hurt me already.’
‘Am I hurting you now? I bandaged your head, gave you something for the pain. I’m even massaging your foot.’
‘You’re doing a good job. It’s feeling a lot better.’
‘What do you want to tell me? Because now really is the time.’
Tilly takes a deep breath. ‘Max was seeing Drew. They were boyfriend and girlfriend. He really loved her. Then your brother came along.’
She looks through the window at Thornecroft’s landscaped garden before returning her gaze to Gabriel. ‘Who do you think she wanted more? It wasn’t even close. But then Max found out, and he …’ She puffs out her cheeks. ‘He went mad.’
Gabriel falls still. He’d known about his brother and Drew Cullen from Teri Platini, but he’d never guessed that Drew was Max Carver’s girlfriend. If that’s true, he mighthave been looking at this all wrong. He might already have Angus’s killer bound to a chair in Thornecroft’s dining room.
Releasing Tilly’s foot, he stands. He needs a moment, space to think. Leaving the office for the kitchen, he braces his palms against the worktop and lowers his head. He has to bleed off a little adrenalin, compose his thoughts. Now, more than ever, he cannot allow emotion to dictate his actions.
The killing of a twin isn’t one death; it’s two. But it’s far worse than that – an irreversible severing of souls.
Stepping into the boot room, Gabriel takes a set of keys from his pocket. Secured to the far wall are two gun cabinets. He opens the first, revealing Angus’s three shotguns and two hunting rifles. He won’t use any of these; Thornecroft’s grounds might be extensive, but the sound of a discharge will carry far beyond them, and he doesn’t intend to be rushed.
Locking the first cabinet, he opens the second. Inside, among boxes of cartridges and rifle rounds, he finds what he’s looking for: a collapsible police-issue baton.
Returning to the dining room, he stands in front of Max Carver. ‘Your stepsister says Drew Cullen was your girlfriend. Is that true?’
The teenager blinks. He looks dazed, as if he can’t quite believe what’s happening. Or if he’s trying to figure out what Gabriel wants to hear.
‘Is she telling the truth?’
Max blinks faster. ‘I … no.’
‘So she’s lying?’
‘Not … maybe not lying. Just mistaken.’
‘You know what I think?’ Gabriel asks. ‘I thinkyou’rethe liar. But we’ll get to that, don’t worry.’
He leaves the dining room, returns to the office. In hisabsence, Tilly has dislodged her other sandal. When he pulls out a Stanley knife, she shrinks against the couch.
‘Lie still,’ he says, slicing through the zip tie securing her ankles.
Tilly draws up her knees, watches him.
‘You know Drew Cullen is dead?’ he asks.
She’s silent for a while. Then, gasping for air, she says, ‘Drew was my b-best friend. And Max … He … He …’
‘It’s OK. Can you stand?’
Tilly heaves another breath. ‘I’ll try.’
Gently, he helps her up. ‘Did he kill my brother, too? I need you to tell me the truth.’
‘He did,’ she whispers. ‘I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you.’
Gabriel nods. There it is, then. But Tilly is only confirming what his heart had already surmised. The world doesn’t change, because the world was already dark.
‘When you have a twin,’ he says, ‘you sense when something is wrong. I already knew Angus had passed. Not only because he’d never have stayed out of contact this long, but because when I reach out I don’tfeelhim. I realize how strange that must sound – almost a kind of witchcraft – but that’s what our bond was like.’
‘It doesn’t sound strange. It sounds … magical, beautiful. Which makes it even more tragic, more heartbreaking. I can’t imagine what you must be feeling, Gabriel.’