We both jump. I start to shake uncontrollably. The doorbell. The police. ‘Hello? Kit? Connie? Are you in there? Open up.’
Not DS Laskey. Simon Waterhouse.
Kit picks up the knife and points it at my throat. The tip presses against my skin. ‘Don’t say anything,’ he whispers.
‘Mr Bowskill, can you open the door, please?’ That’s Sam Kombothekra.
‘We’re coming in anyway,’ Simon Waterhouse yells. ‘You might as well let us in yourself.’
Hearing their voices sharpens my mind. There are still things I don’t understand, things I want to understand while Kit and I are alone together. I don’t know what’s going to happen to either of us, but I know for certain that we won’t be in a room together, just the two of us, ever again.
‘Grint asked Jackie if I was the one who pretended to be Selina Gane and put 11 Bentley Grove up for sale.’ My words tumble out too fast. ‘She said no.’
‘If she’d said yes, you’d have known she was lying. Grint had no reason to doubt Jackie when she came forward to say she’d seen the body, but if you’d told him she was a liar, he might have taken a closer look at her.’
‘And found the connection to you.’ Yes. That makes sense.
‘Bowskill! Open up! Don’t do anything stupid. Connie, are you all right in there?’
The knife cuts the bottom of my neck. It makes me realise my lips are still bleeding. I wonder how much blood I’ve lost. Thinking about it makes me feel weak.
‘What about the dress?’ I ask Kit.
‘Dress?’ He enunciates the word oddly, as if it doesn’t belong in our conversation. He’s beyond lying now; I don’t think he knows what I’m talking about.
‘My birthday present.’
‘That was nothing. I told you it was nothing,’ he says impatiently. ‘I had to buy you a birthday present, and I bought Jackie a present at the same time – I liked that dress, that’s all. I bought one for you and one for her.’ He sniffs, wipes his nose with the back of his hand. ‘All I wanted was for all this . . . shit to end well – for all three of us. All the shit that wasn’t my fault, or yours, or Jackie’s. None of us deserved any of this – they’re the ones who deserve it.’ He jerks his head towards the bed. ‘Do you want to see them? Do you want to see their smug faces?’ He takes hold of me, pulls me to my feet.
‘No!’ I scream, thinking he’s going to show me the bodies. Instead, he drags me down the stairs and into the lounge. There’s a lock on the door. Kit slides it across. He puts down the knife, walks over to a cupboard and opens it. He pulls out a photograph, throws it at me. It lands on Jackie, face up. It lands on Jackie, dead. Dead Jackie. A man, a woman, a boy and a girl. On a bridge, eating ice creams. Laughing.
I know the woman’s face. Elise Gilpatrick’s face. How can I know it? It makes no sense.
What makes sense? Jackie’s body lying here like rubbish – does that make sense?
Kit walks slowly towards me, holding the knife in front of him. Where’s Simon Waterhouse? Where’s Sam? Why can’t I hear them any more? I try to send a message to them, knowing it’s useless: Please come. Please. There’s nowhere for me to go, no way of getting away from Kit. He’s fire, a tidal wave, a cloud of toxic air – he’s everything bad there’s ever been, coming for me. He’s not looking at me any more; his eyes are on the photograph, on his victims’ faces. Nothing is their fault – I know that perfectly well – but they are the reason.
I’m going to be killed because of a family called the Gilpatricks.
There are four of them: mother, father, son and daughter. ‘Elise, Donal, Riordan and Tilly.’ Kit tells me their first names, as if I’m keen to dispense with the formalities and get to know them better, when all I want is to run screaming from the room. ‘Riordan’s seven,’ he says. ‘Tilly’s five.’
Shut up, I want to yell in his face, but I’m too scared to open my mouth. It’s as if someone’s clamped and locked it; no more words will come out, not ever.
This is it. This is where and how and when and why I’m going to die. At least I understand the why, finally.
Kit’s as frightened