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‘You can,’ he says. ‘More than anyone else, you can ask me. Billie wasn’t my daughter, but I loved her like one. I still do.’
Listening to him speak, Lucy recallsHuntsman’s Daughter’s cabin: the woollen pompom her daughter once made crowning a brass barometer on the bulkhead; the faint marks from the girl’s colouring pencils still visible on Jake’s chart table. Right now, the tiniest examples of Billie’s impact on the world feel sacred.
‘I don’t believe Daniel’s guilty,’ Jake continues. ‘If I’m right, and I think I am, you’re going to need help with whatever it is you’re facing.’
Is she manipulating him even now? Did she call Jake knowing he’d offer assistance, and knowing she’d accept? Opening her eyes, she begins to talk.
4
Afterwards, she carries the Nokia through to the bar. Ten minutes, now, since she left the house. Grabbing a tumbler,she fills it with sparkling water from the gun. She drinks until it’s empty, checks the phone.
Nothing.
Lucy runs her fingers across the bar top, a single oak slab recovered from a naval sloop. She bought it at auction in Okehampton, driving it here on the bed of Daniel’s truck. She sanded and varnished it herself, just like she sanded and varnished the floorboards beneath her feet.
Sam Cooke stops singing. Amy Winehouse replaces him: ‘You Know I’m No Good’.
Lucy picks up her empty tumbler. This time she jams it under the Herradura Añejo. When the optic refills itself, she hits it for another measure.
She checks the Nokia again: nothing.
Lifting the glass to her lips, she downs the tequila in two large gulps.
The phone buzzes. Lucy snatches it up.
I SAW.
Her hand shakes as she types.
I did what you asked. I’ll do what you ask now.
I KNOW.
Don’t hurt him.
Please.
No response to that. Sixty seconds of pain before the phone buzzes once more. It’s another list of instructions. Quickly, she reads through them.
Katharsis, she thinks.Purification through tragedy.
Or – in this case – purification through self-destruction.
When she lifts her rucksack from the floor, she hears the knives clink and scrape. There are sharper objects in the Drift Net’s kitchen. Perhaps she should find herself one. Instead, she picks up the Nokia and starts to type.
Before I do it, I want proof. A photo of Fin.
A PHOTO PROVES NOTHING.
It’ll prove you’re where you say you are.
She puts down the phone. Just her and Amy Winehouse now. It feels like she’s playing chess, with Fin as her last piece on the board.
The phone buzzes. A photo file, this time. Lucy opens it, fumbles the Nokia and nearly drops it. Her heart slams. If the phone breaks, any chance of saving Fin will be lost.
Gingerly, she turns the screen towards her.
Katharsis, she thinks.Purification through tragedy.