Sheldon put his head back and looked up, let the blue sky swirl above him, the view broken only by the occasional wisps of cloud. There was nothing of his life up there, just infinite emptiness. None of the failures, or the obsessions. For a moment, he felt a tight grip around his throat as he realised how his life was turning out. There was no real way forward.
He stepped forward to the wall. He looked ahead and not down, just towards the roofs of distant buildings, and all he had to do was keep on walking. The stones scraped his hands as he lifted his foot and let it settle on the wall, and then the other one, so that he was crouching and the view below opened up in front of him.
The ground was just stone a hundred feet below. As he looked down, he thought he could hear voices telling him to jump, that the ground would end it and bring him peace. But the voices got louder. He looked round again. There was a woman behind him. She was young, with long red hair, her face kind but worried. She looked like Alice.
‘Are you all right?’ she said. She looked scared, a tremble to her voice. ‘I saw you come up. I was at the back of the church.’
He didn’t have the answer to that. He hadn’t seen her. His eyes welled up with tears, or maybe it was just the sharp cut to the breeze.
‘You shouldn’t do what you’re thinking of,’ she said, her voice softer now. She brushed her hair away from her face, the wind sending it into a tangle. ‘Things get better. They always do.’
He swallowed.
‘Why should you care?’ His words came out thick with emotion.
Her hand went to her mouth. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, just to calm herself. When she opened them again, she said, ‘I just don’t want you to do it, not here, not in front of me. Just step down. Please. For me.’
Sheldon looked at her and the young woman reminded him not just of Alice, but also of Hannah, his daughter. He couldn’t let her remember him like this. He wiped his eyes and took a step back so that he was off the wall, level with her again. He looked at the floor for a few seconds and clenched his fists, trying to hold back the tears. But he couldn’t. They rolled down his face, his mouth quivering. He looked at her and said, ‘Thank you.’
His pace was quick as he walked away. She was right. There was so much still to do. He looked back just once, and he saw her watching him leave, her arms folded around her chest.
Sheldon headed swiftly down the stone steps, and when he burst out of the stairway and into the open spaces of the church, it felt like he’d been given another chance.
He ran out of the church and looked towards the town. All he could see were the stone buildings and slate roofs, dark and moody, but they were just facades, because behind those buildings was the rest of the town, and somewhere in there was the killer of Billy Privett. And as Sheldon thought of Billy, he remembered Alice Kenyon – as if he could ever forget her. The thought of the empty days ahead scared him, but of course they didn’t have to be empty. He could fill them. He could keep looking for Alice’s killer. And Billy’s.
As he crossed over the road, he walked with more purpose. He knew where he was going next.
Charlie went straight to his apartment, a long run from Amelia’s house. He was sweating and feeling sick, but speed was more important than appearances. He needed to get in and out quickly without being noticed, knowing that he needed to do something with the knife. Perhaps return it to the knife block and then call the police – provided that the two clients in suits had gone. He knew that was the riskiest option.
He sank to his knees when he got into his apartment, panting hard from the run. All Charlie could hear was the peace and quiet of his home. The hum of his fridge. The sound of the television from the apartment below. He closed his eyes, just to take stock, but his head was filled with the image of Amelia once more. That told him that he had to keep moving.
He went towards the bathroom, but the sight of his living room made him pause when he went past. It was just as he had left it the previous morning, with beer bottles and an empty pizza box. There was just one boozy night between then and now but suddenly it seemed like a different life so that just worrying about some untidiness seemed like bliss.
He went to the bathroom and rinsed his hands and face, not sure what forensic traces he had picked up at Amelia’s, like traces of her blood. He scrambled in the cabinet above the sink for a grooming kit that Julie had bought him a few months earlier, a hint that he had ignored. It had ended up at the back, pushed behind mouthwashes and razor packets. He pulled out the nailbrush and scrubbed his fingers under the hot tap, not sure what he needed to scrape away but feeling that it would be a good idea to do it.
When they were clean, he paused with his hands on the sink, his hair hanging down, sweat dripping onto the porcelain. Once more he thought of Amelia, but he willed himself through it. He didn’t have time for that.
As he looked in the mirror and stroked at his beard, he knew he had to look more respectable, not like a drinker bogged down with worry. Those that look guilty are guilty, experience had taught him that. But guilty of what? That was the problem. He had no idea. He just knew that it would all look bad to an outsider. A shave was a gamble though, because for every second he spent in the bathroom, it was another second with Amelia’s knife in the apartment.
As he held the razor, he thought of the people who might have seen him at Amelia’s house. He needed to look different. It was worth the gamble.
His hand shook, and so he took a few deep breaths to steady the tremble, not wanting to give himself away with nicks and cuts. He watched in the mirror as haggard was slowly replaced by smooth, some remnants of his younger days creeping back as the grey-tinged whiskers ended up in the sink. He couldn’t do anything about the graze though, and it just added to the redness in his cheeks. When he’d finished, he pulled on his other suit, still creased from the weekend, and went to the dishwasher, taking a step back as the steam assaulted him when he opened the door. The knife was there, hot and clean.
He picked it up using a paper towel and dropped it into a plastic bag. It was time to take it back. He paused for a moment, aware of the risk he was about to take, and had a last look around the apartment, wondering when he would return.
As he turned towards the door, Charlie glanced out of the window and down towards the street. He jumped back. The two men were there, getting out of a car, the same ones he had seen outside Amelia’s house and at his office.
Why were they there? Who were they? Had someone spoken to them, one of Amelia’s neighbours? Perhaps they had recognised his car. He had left it just a short distance along her street.
Charlie went behind the curtains and peered around the side. The two men were looking up towards the apartment. He hid behind the curtain again. It was no coincidence. It was time to go.
But where could he go? To the police? Of course not. It would be his last moment of freedom if he did, and he would never come out, protesting his innocence to the grave. He knew exactly how it looked. He could feel the weight of the knife in his hand. He felt a jolt as the words
murder weapon
came into his head for the first time, but he knew that he couldn’t dwell on that. He would have time to mourn Amelia later, but if he didn’t get moving he would have more mourning time than he needed, with just the four walls of a cell to distract him. His avenues of escape were narrowing.
Charlie’s apartment was on the top floor of a four-storey block. He didn’t want to take the lift, because there would be no escape if the door opened to them in the lobby; really just a corridor lined by mailboxes, accessed using a secure key.
He tucked the knife under his left armpit, the blade pointing downwards, and fastened his suit jacket. He switched on the burglar alarm and then left the apartment. If they broke in, he would hear it go off, and then he would know how serious they were.
Charlie thought about his way out of the building. There was CCTV on the landings, fed through to the building manager, so he had to look normal. Charlie jammed his hands into his pockets so that his arm held the knife against his ribs. It looked like he wasn’t carrying anything. He made a play of looking at the lift and then shaking his head, as if he didn’t want to wait around. Every cell in his body screamed at him to run, to get out of there as quickly as possible, but he had to think of the longer view, of how the footage would look in front of a jury. All it would show so far was a man deciding that the stairs, rather than the lift, were the best route. He did his best to make his walk look natural, almost a saunter, and he just hoped that the camera didn’t pick up the sweat on his forehead, or the nervous way he licked at his lips.
He got to the stairs and pushed open the door. He pushed himself against the wall and waited, so that he could make sure they were on his floor before he set off down.
It seemed like an age. The knife was sticking into his side, and he was worried that it would prick the skin too much and just add more of his DNA to its tip. But still he waited, trying to keep his breathing silent. He felt the sting of sweat as it trickled into his eyes. Then he heard the noise of the lift as it went upwards, and voices in the hallway.
Charlie set off down the stairs, trying to keep his footsteps light but moving quickly. There was a knock on his door, and then a pause, before he heard loud bangs and shouts, closely followed by the shriek of his burglar alarm.
It was no courtesy visit.
He bolted down the stairs, not worrying about the noise. It was just about getting out. He was holding the knife in one hand now, still wrapped in the bag, the stair rail sliding through his other hand, his footsteps in time with the fast pant of his breaths all the way to the ground floor.
There was no pretence anymore. The door to the street was made out of glass and Charlie could see the way ahead was clear. He ran at it, feeling it thump against the flat of his hand, and then he was outside, running.
He got some looks as he ran for the pavement, but that wasn’t his concern. He had to get away. He slowed to a fast walk, his chest tight, his heart hammering, ignoring those who gave him strange looks, sweat pouring down his face.
Just as Charlie got to the end of the street, he looked back towards his apartment. There was someone on his balcony, looking out. It was the first man in the suit, and before he turned away, Charlie was sure that the person looked right at him, their eyes connecting even over that distance.
He had to keep moving.
Henry clapped his hands and everyone turned to look. He had been talking to Arni in angry whispers, whilst the rest of the group were discussing how things were changing. The wire mesh. The visitors to the house. They seemed almost palpably nervous. Fingers were chewed, eyes wary.
Henry held out his hands. ‘I need to go out, to see if the authorities are watching us,’ he said, his voice low. ‘I’m going to make myself visible, just to see if I’m followed. The rest of you, prepare up here, be ready, in case I don’t come back.’
‘I’m scared, Henry,’ a woman said. It was Jennifer Elam, the older woman.
‘Just hold your nerve,’ Henry said. He closed his eyes for a moment and his fingers pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Just believe in what we are doing.’ His voice was almost a whisper now. His hand gripped his shirt and he opened his eyes. ‘Feel it. We have something special in this group, and you have made me realise who I am. What I am. Rely on that to get you through, because, all I am doing is thinking of us, of what I can do for the group. People will talk about us in years to come, of how we fought back.’
Henry looked slowly around the group, taking in each one of them. ‘We need more help though, because we have to fight them in their world. Their shallow, pitiful, material world.’ He pointed to John. ‘Do you feel the freedom now?’
‘I do.’
‘How does it feel?’
John smiled. ‘Like whoever doesn’t have what we have is somehow empty.’
Henry’s grin spread slowly. ‘That’s right. They are just magpies. They get excited by shiny things, or they worship false faiths like some fad. We are the future, our movement, and so give up everything you own, John. Whatever property you have, or savings, they just tie you to your past life. Donate it to me, for the group.’
John nodded, encouraged. ‘That will feel good,’ he said, but then he took a deep breath. ‘But there are some things I still find difficult.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, Gemma,’ and he looked towards her. ‘You say we shouldn’t feel bonds, that we should be free to share, but I feel like we have a connection, and I know she feels it too.’ Gemma blushed. ‘I don’t want to share her, but you say that I should, and I don’t know how I feel about that.’
Henry glowered for a few seconds, and no one seemed to be breathing, waiting for his response. When he did speak, his voice was quiet, measured. ‘We do not have possessions in this group. Everything belongs to the group. Even Gemma.’
‘But you make her sound like a thing, not a person.’
Henry’s jaw clenched. ‘What do you want? Marriage? The union of one man and one woman? One more contract with the State?’ He shook his head. ‘You think Gemma is special, but you want to deprive the rest of us of that special thing. You want to keep it all for yourself. That isn’t thinking of the group. I chose her for you, John, because I knew you would like her. You cannot just throw it back in my face and say that you want her all for yourself?’
‘No, it isn’t like that.’
‘So what is it like?’
John looked at Gemma, who was staring at her lap. Her cheeks were red, and John couldn’t work out if she was embarrassed or angry. ‘I just like her, that’s all,’ he said.
Henry paused for a moment, and then he smiled. ‘You are allowed to like her. We all like her.’
John nodded. ‘All right, I’m sorry.’