‘It is over,’ Julie shouted, tears running down her cheeks. ‘Jesus Christ, how many more times? How much more pain can you stand? You were looking for the truth and you thought you’d found it. Well, you didn’t.’ She sniffed back more tears. ‘He wasn’t having an affair with Suzanne Regan. He was having an affair with
me.’
Eighty-Three
Silence.
The words Julie had spoken brought only silence from her sister. For dreadful seconds Donna was reminded of her first sight of the policeman on her doorstep bringing her news of her husband’s accident. How long ago was that? A month? It felt like years. Suffering had a way of distorting even time.
Now she looked blankly at her sister, momentarily unsure she’d heard right. The words gradually found their way into her consciousness. They began to take on their full meaning.
She swallowed hard.
‘I don’t believe you,’ she said finally, her voice a hoarse whisper.
Julie sucked in a weary breath.
‘It’s true. Do you want dates, times, places? What do I have to say to convince you?’ Julie answered wearily. She sank back on the sofa, one hand over her eyes.
She waited for the explosion of rage and recrimination.
It never came.
Donna sat at the other end of the sofa, hands clasped around one knee.
‘How long had it been going on?’ she wanted to know.
‘Nine or ten months.’
Donna felt as if she’d been struck by an iron bar. Her head was spinning.
‘Jesus,’ she murmured, trying to recover her wits. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. It just happened, I ... We never intended it to happen.’ She looked at her sister, her own shame intensified by the confession. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘So am I,’ Donna said. Then, more vehemently, ‘Did you love him?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought that was a multiple-choice question, Julie. You either did or you didn’t.’
The younger woman shook her head.
‘Did
he
love
you?’
Donna persisted.
‘No.’
‘You sound very sure. Ten months is a long time; are you telling me you never felt anything, either of you?’
Julie didn’t speak.
‘It was just sex then, was it?’ Donna hissed. ‘No love, just plenty of fucking. Was that it?’
‘Donna, he loved
you.
I knew he’d never leave you, he always made that clear.’
‘Did you want him to leave me? Were you trying to get Chris away from me?’
‘No, I would never have done that. It was
his
decision. Like I said, he loved you.’
‘But you hung around, just in case he changed his mind, right?’
‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘Then tell me what it
was
like, Julie,’ Donna hissed.
‘We were more like friends.’
‘Friends don’t fuck each other.’
‘Sex wasn’t important.’
‘But when you did it, was it good? Did you enjoy it? How did you rate him? Did he do things to you other men hadn’t? Did he make you come? Was he considerate, caring? Tell me, Julie.’
The younger woman had no answers.
‘What attracted you to him in the first place, or did he make the first move?’
‘I had an exhibition of some of my photographs in a gallery in Knightsbridge. Chris came along, we chatted. He took me for a coffee.’
‘And that was when you decided, was it? That was when you thought you’d start fucking your sister’s husband. Well, was it? Come on, I’m curious. Did he suggest going back to your place or did you tell him to come round when he felt like it?’
Julie was about to answer when Donna’s face darkened.
‘Did you ever fuck him in
our
house?’ she demanded, anxious that the betrayal should not have entered her most private domain.
Julie shook her head.
‘It was usually my flat, sometimes my studio,’ she said. ‘Like I said, Donna, it wasn’t that often.’
‘It doesn’t matter if it was once or a hundred times, you still did it.’
‘He was an attractive man, for Christ’s sake,’ Julie said irritably, as if that were some excuse to explain what had happened. ‘He was hard to resist. We’d always got on well, you know that. I admired his attitude to life, perhaps that was what attracted me to him. He didn’t give a fuck about anyone or anything. If he wanted something, he got it. I’d never met a man so ambitious, so determined.’
‘Yes, Chris always got what he wanted. Did that include you?’
‘I know it was wrong and if there was anything I could do to change things I would, Donna.’
‘Would you really? Are you trying to tell me you regret the affair? Or are you sorry Chris is dead because
you
lost him as well as I did?
Do
you regret it?’
‘I regret hurting you.’
‘Then why tell me? Was your conscience pricking you? I find that difficult to believe, after ten months. I would have thought you’d have come to terms with the guilt by now. Pushed it to the back of your mind. Did you ever think about me when you were with him? Did you ever once stop and think what you were doing?’
‘No,’ Julie said flatly.
‘Ever since Chris died my life has been one continual round of suspicion, mistrust and deceit. And now I find out that it extends into my own family. With my own fucking sister.’ Donna looked at the younger woman with an expression that combined rage and bewilderment. ‘How long would it have gone on, Julie, if he hadn’t died? A year? Three years? The rest of our lives? Or just until I found out?’
‘It would have petered out. Like I said, we didn’t love each other.’
‘There must have been something between you to keep it going for ten months. Don’t tell me it was just because Chris was good in bed.’
‘We didn’t love each other.
How many times do I have to say it?’
‘It’s easy to say that now, because it’s over. But if it had gone on you might have. Then you might have tried to get him away from me. But that’s something we’ll never know, isn’t it?’
The two women faced each other for long moments.
‘Did anyone else know what was going on?’ Donna said finally, angered by the fact that the secret might have been shared.
‘Martin Connelly knew,’ Julie confessed. ‘Chris took me out for dinner one night and Connelly was in the same restaurant. He didn’t say much. I don’t know what Chris told him.’
‘I wish you could feel what I’m feeling now,’ Donna said vehemently. ‘Anger, sadness - and I feel like a fool, too. I feel as if you’ve been laughing at me. I feel as if everyone’s been laughing at me. Was it because your own marriage failed, Julie? You couldn’t stand to see anyone else happy after what happened to you? Was that it?’
‘I’ve told you the reasons and I know it’s pointless to say it but I’m sorry, Donna.’ She got to her feet. ‘I’ll go now. You won’t see me again, I promise you.’
‘No. You’re not walking out on this, Julie,’ Donna rasped. ‘You say you’re sorry.’
‘I am. I know you don’t believe me, though. You never will.’
‘Make me believe.’
‘How?’
‘Stay and help me destroy The Sons of Midnight.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You mean you
won’t?’
Donna glared at her sister. ‘It would be so easy for you to walk out, wouldn’t it? Well, if you want to show me you’re sorry then you’ll help me.’
‘That’s emotional blackmail.’
‘Too fucking right it is. Anyway, you’re not giving yourself an opportunity to get over your guilt if you walk away. Stay and help me.’
‘We could both be killed.’
‘Look on it as paying back a debt,’ Donna said, her eyes narrowed. ‘You
owe
me that.’
Eighty-Four
The .357 bucked violently in her fist as the hammer slammed down.
The retort was massive. Even with her protectors on, Donna could still hear the dull ring as the heavy grain slug struck the back wall of the range travelling at over 1,450 feet a second. As another bullet left the barrel she felt a spattering of tiny metal fragments bounce off the wooden wall of the booth and pepper her hand. The smoke from the round cleared. She jabbed the red button on the control panel beside her to retrieve the target. It whirred back up the range towards her. As it drew close she laid the Magnum down and leant forward to inspect the grouping of her shots.
On the man-sized target she had put three shots through the centre, two in the outer ring and one low, in the groin.
Donna shook her head, reached for the roll of sticky white spots and covered each hole, jabbing the red button once more to send the target back up the range.
She pushed six more of the hollow-tipped shells into the cylinder and steadied herself, squinting down the sights.
These next six she fired off quickly and brought the target back, her hand still slightly numb around the base of the thumb where the recoil of the Magnum had slammed the butt repeatedly against her palm.
All six shots were in the central area.
Donna nodded and removed the target, selecting another and pinning it to the black rubber backboard.
She was the only one in the range. She usually was during the day; the clock outside, beyond the double-thickness bullet-proof glass panels, showed that it was just 11.15 a.m.
She had risen early that morning, despite not getting back to the house until almost four. Sleep had eluded her for all but a couple of hours. Despite that, she felt fresh and alert. She turned to look out at Julie and caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the plate glass. There were dark rings beneath her eyes and her skin was pale. She might not
feel
tired but she looked as if she’d been without sleep for days.
Julie.
Donna had given up even trying to suppress her anger towards her sister. They’d exchanged words only briefly that morning, most of them unpleasant.
Now Donna turned back to face the counter where the .357, the .38, the Beretta and the Pathfinder were laid out. She selected the .38 and began thumbing in bullets from the box to her left.
She still felt numb from the revelations of the previous night.
Her own sister involved in an affair with Chris.
Donna shook her head.
Perhaps it
would
have been easier just to let Julie walk away. Walk out of her life. If she did, there would be no one left for her. Better the company of one she hated than complete loneliness.
Donna snapped the cylinder shut.
Did she hate Julie? Hatred was a very strong emotion. Stronger, she was beginning to think, even than love. But did she truly
hate
the younger woman?
She raised the .38 and took aim, firing off the six rounds evenly.
No one is to be trusted.
Christ, how prophetic the words in Chris’s letter had proved to be.
She brought the target back and looked at the damage. Two in the centre, two in the head. Two in the groin. She covered the holes with white spots, sent the target away again and began pushing 9mm shells into the magazine of the Beretta.