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The tequila burns her stomach. Lucy thinks she’s going to be sick.
The phone’s screen resolution is terrible but the figure in the photo is unmistakeably her boy. He still has his glasses. She’s grateful for that. But he’s lost his trademark smile.
Lucy just wants to hold him. And if she can’t do that, she wants to make sure someone else can. Opening the rucksack, she takes out the notepad and pen. The top sheet is her list of names – pointless, now she knows who’s responsible. She rips it off, starts writing. When she’s finished, she gets to work.
FORTY-THREE
As the Penny Moon campsite disappears from the rear-view mirror, Abraham speed-dials Barnstaple. He gets through to a female DS and barks out a list of instructions. ‘I need a background check, too,’ he adds. ‘Everything you can find in fifteen minutes, no longer.’
‘What’s the name?’
Abraham tells her. Then he tosses the phone on to the passenger seat. He’s already breaking the speed limit. It’s a challenge just keeping the car on the road. Each bend reveals a new hazard: toppled trees or road signs, long patches of standing water.
In his head, a theory is forming. He doesn’t like it much but he thinks it might be true. Itwouldprove Daniel Locke’s been lying to him – Lucy Locke, too. It wouldn’t prove their involvement in Billie’s drowning, nor Fin’s disappearance. Quite the opposite.
Twice, as a child, Daniel escaped his violent home only to be returned there by the very police force charged with his protection. In Portugal, the Polícia Judiciária investigated Lucy for attempted murder before a jury ruled her innocent.
Little wonder, if the couple are in trouble, they haven’t placed their trust in Abraham. Especially considering what’s at stake.
Sweat beads on his forehead, rolls from his armpits. When he breathes, he catches his own reek – like raw chicken past its date. Rolling his tongue around his mouth, he tastes blood.
For the first time, Abraham admits he’s frightened. Frightened of his disease. Frightened, not just of death itself, but the actual mechanics of dying.
He’s seen it often enough. He’s watched people in their last moments, has witnessed that look of existential panic swell and then seize; the body a stopped clock. Never has it failed to shock him. Always, in the past, he’s consoled himself with the knowledge that the deceased has departed for somewhere new.
What if he’s wrong? What if he’s been wrong all this time?
Abraham chokes, coughs. A mist of pink droplets sprays the windscreen. He activates the wipers, but they don’t clear the mess. Checking his speed, he realizes he’s doing eighty.
Rain starts to fall. Slow, fat drops at first, as if the clouds are testing their strength. Through the side window he catches glimpses of sea. The water out there is oily dark, black skin stretched over liquid muscle. It reminds him of the weather front he saw on Friday – the shelf cloud racing in from the Atlantic. Contemplating it, a description of the End Times had rung in his head:
And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world.
He needs a cigarette.
Snagging a pack from the door pocket, he pulls out a smoke with his teeth. He lights it, takes a drag, sprays a lungful of blood and diseased gak over the steering wheel.
It’s a disgusting habit. He wishes he’d never started.
A sign blips past:SKENTEL 2 MILES.
Abraham takes another drag. This one he manages to hold in his chest.
Perhaps he wouldn’t be so afraid of death if he thought someone would remember him. He wonders if Bibi Trixibelle Carter will remember.
The road narrows, winding closer to the sea cliffs. Abraham looks north-west. He frowns, stubs out the cigarette. When his phone starts ringing, he snatches it up.
‘I’m down by the shore,’ Cooper says. ‘You’re not going to believe this, but—’
‘I see it,’ Abraham says. ‘Have you called—’
‘I’ve called everyone.’
‘Good. I’m two minutes away.’
FORTY-FOUR
It’s time.