Page 99

‘I think you’re probably right.’
‘So that’s where we go. Once we’re there, we do whatever’s necessary to bring Max and Tilly home.’
Erin glances at Enoch. Then she looks at Joseph, ashen-faced. ‘Not that. I can’t do that, Joe.’
‘If it comes to it, I think you can. Because I’ll be honest with you, Erin. That’s where I think this is going. He believes I killed his brother. And instead of calling the police, he walked into our house and snatched our kids.’
‘So what are you thinking? We can’t just turn up and ring the bell.’
‘As I said, right now he doesn’t know we know. That’s to our advantage, but it might not last long. We need to surprise him there – and soon.’
Erin looks at him in silence. Eventually, she says, ‘How did we get here, Joe? How did all this creep up on us, unawares? How could Tilly …’
Her words falter. He opens his arms and pulls her close.
‘What kind of mother am I to let this happen?’ she sobs. ‘What kind of wife?’
‘This didn’t happen because of some mistake you made. It didn’t happen because of Angus Roth. You saw the way Tilly was on that clip. That was something else.’
‘I should have seen it coming. I should have seen the signs, picked up on them.’
‘Then I should have picked up on them as well. I’ve lived with her long enough.’
‘It’s not the same, Joe. You know it isn’t.’
He releases her, steps back. ‘As I said, there’ll be a time to talk about all this, but first we’ve got to get them back.’
He looks around the kitchen – at Enoch, at the debris from their fight, at the blood streaked across the cabinets and the floor. ‘We have to move him, too. Clean up in here. If a forensics team goes over the place we’re screwed, but that’s another thing for later. For now we just need to make this look like it never happened.’
‘How’s your knee? Tell me the truth. Could you run?’
‘It’ll hold up,’ he says, knowing he can promise no such thing.
Erin nods. ‘I’ll get started down here.’
Joseph limps upstairs. In his bedroom he retrieves his crossbow box from the wardrobe. Removing the user guide, he flicks through it to the English-language section. A few minutes later he’s attached the fibreglass cross-piece to the barrel. Next, he attaches a stringing aid and uses the cocking system to pull it into the latch. With the limb under tension he strings the bow. Finally, he loads five carbon-fibre arrows, each with a razored-steel broadhead point, into a speedloader and drops it into the magazine.
The weapon feels cold in his hands. Brutally capable. Catching his reflection in the mirror, he hardly recognizes the person he sees. His skin appears bloodless. His eyes look like they’ve already glimpsed his own death.
He returns the empty box to the wardrobe and retrieves his tomahawk, his torch and his police-issue cuffs. From its hiding place in the ensuite, he grabs Angus Roth’s wallet.
He carries everything downstairs and puts it on the kitchen table. In his absence, Erin has swept up the broken glass and the shards of broken ceramic. Now she’s scrubbing the cabinets with stain remover.
Joseph fetches his baseball bat from the utility. Then he helps with the rest of the clean-up.
‘What do we do with Enoch?’ Erin asks. ‘I can’t lift him on my own. I doubt you could either, with that knee. If something happens to one of us …’
‘You want to take him along?’
‘I don’t think it’s wise to leave him in the house.’
‘I guess if we can get him into the van, we can drive that to Thornecroft. At least Gabriel won’t recognize it. Afterwards …’ He shrugs, casts about. ‘Honestly, right now I’ve no idea about afterwards.’
After locating Enoch’s keys, Joseph opens the garage door and reverses the van right up to it. Even with Erin’s help, the task of lifting the man inside proves far more difficult than he’d anticipated. By the time they’ve completed the job, they’re both sweating.
In the kitchen, Erin points at the crossbow. ‘You want to show me how to use that thing?’
Picking it up, he gives her a quick tutorial, demonstrating how to cock it after each shot and how to replace the speedloader.