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‘How long have you known?’
‘Since … a few days, maybe. I’ve been so scared.’
Plum blossom on slow-moving water. The art of Dong Yuan and Juran.
‘I want to thank you,’ he says. ‘Telling the truth was the right thing to do. Hold out your wrists.’
She complies. He severs the plastic tie and puts away his knife. ‘What kind of man do you think I am, Tilly?’
‘I’m … I don’t know you.’
‘Do you think I’m the kind to hurt a young woman with bound hands and feet?’
Tilly blinks. Her gaze moves from her freed wrists to the collapsible baton Gabriel just extended at his side.
She steps backwards, which helps, because it gives him more room to swing.
The blow lands hard into her side. She doubles up, collapses on to all fours.
Gabriel leans over her. ‘You stayed silent about my brother’s death for two days,’ he says. ‘I can’t excuse that. Because it’s inexcusable.’
Lifting the baton, he goes to work.
FIFTY-TWO
Seconds after leaving Ralph Erikson’s house, Joseph is back at home. The air inside the kitchen churns his stomach; Enoch’s blood smells like old pennies and something vaguely sweet. Erin is still sitting at the table, clasping her phone like it’s a religious icon. She looks stricken, desolate.
Joseph goes to the bifold doors. Finding no damage, he steps into the utility. The back door looks intact, too, but when he opens it, he sees pieces of handle and lock mechanism on the step.
‘Gabriel Roth,’ he says, returning to the kitchen. ‘I think he has them. I just saw him on Ralph’s camera. He drove the car over here while we were out, broke in.’
Erin’s hand moves to her chest. She looks even worse than before. ‘Did you see Tilly?’
‘Just Max, but he didn’t look injured. Scared shitless but not hurt. Gabriel turned up before he did. I think Tilly must have been here alone when he arrived.’
Thinking of the blood he found upstairs, Joseph lets that sink in. He knows Erin’s love for her daughter won’t have been extinguished because of what she watched on that phone, however diabolical it had been.
‘This is bad, Joe. Really bad.’
She stares at him, her eyes lost, and Joseph tries to ignore his growing belief that no good endings to this nightmare remain possible. He’s endured four days and four nights of horror – all in the service, perhaps, of delaying the inevitable, of refusing to accept that life has thrown him another tragedy. And now, at the last, the battle he thought he’d been fighting has morphed into something unrecognizable.
It feels like there’s so little of him left – but he can’t stop until he’s exhausted every possible means to save his boy. He may have damned himself by taking Enoch’s life, but he’s going to see this through.
‘Listen,’ he says. ‘Right now, we’ve got one thing in our favour: we know what’s going on, and he doesn’t know we know. Tell me everything you can about Gabriel Roth.’
Erin doesn’t have much insight. Angus, she says, hadn’t talked about Gabriel often. Not because he was dismissive of his twin – the brothers’ relationship had seemed so incredibly tight that Angus refused to grant outsiders access.
She does know they were brought up in care, that they have no blood family other than each other – and that while Angus, in adulthood, pursued property and wealth, his twin chose a life of travel. Gabriel has no permanent address, moving from place to place and living largely off-the-grid.
The more Joseph hears, the more disquieted he grows. Because it sounds like they’re dealing with a man who could slip out of sight as quickly as he appeared. A man who doesn’t fear any consequences for his actions.
‘Angus’s house on Hocombe Hill,’ he says. ‘Did you ever visit?’
‘Just once,’ Erin says. ‘A few weeks ago.’
The thought of her at Thornecroft is a knife in his gut. She must see his pain because she grasps his hand, squeezes it.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ he tells her. ‘That’s for later, if we ever get there. Look, I think Gabriel is mostly likely at his brother’s. It’s a big place, private, and he probably knows it well. I don’t know about Angus’s girlfriend – I think I saw her there yesterday, but if Gabriel’s moved in, I doubt she’d have stuck around.’