‘Right,’ said Marina. ‘You are.’
‘Stuart Milton.’
‘Yes.’
‘Not Sloane.’
‘No. Not Sloane.’ Marina leaned forward once more. ‘Where is Amy now, Stuart? Where is she?’
‘She went home.’
‘Where’s home, Stuart? Where would her home be?’
Stuart stretched, arms up in the air, then yanked down suddenly. ‘I’m tired now. Want to sleep.’
He closed his eyes.
Marina wanted to scream.
100
Amy put the phone down, looked at it. One call made. One more to go.
The house was creaking and groaning; a noise made in one place would be answered by something in another. It was carrying on a conversation with itself that she couldn’t be part of. And she wanted to be, like she used to be. When she was part of it. And it was part of her. She wanted her old life back. But she couldn’t. She knew that.
But she could try.
She pulled the wig off, threw it on the floor. No point in hiding any more. Not here. Not in this house. She could never hide anything from this house. It was the place where she had always been most truthful. She rubbed at her face, wiping away what make-up was left. She wanted to be herself once more. For her own sake. For the house.
But it wasn’t enough.
So, ignoring the cold, the shivering from her body, she began to remove her clothes. She would hide away no longer. She would face herself. Now. Truthfully. Not as she used to be, or as she wanted to be. But as she was. Now.
No more lies, no more hiding. It was the end of that. And the beginning of something else.
She kicked the pile of clothes away. Stood naked in what used to be the living room. Where the bodies had been blown apart by the shotgun blasts. Where a family had ended that day. Where a life had ended. Where it would now be born again.
She picked up the phone. One more call to make. Then everything would be ready.
A new life rising out of the old.
101
‘Stuart? Stuart.’
Stuart Milton opened his eyes. He looked irritated at the intrusion. ‘I’m tired,’ he said, a note of petulance in his voice. ‘I want to go to sleep.’
‘Stuart, we know you’re tired,’ said Franks, ‘and we don’t want to keep you up past your bedtime.’
Marina raised her eyebrows at his choice of words.
Franks ignored her, continued. ‘We’ll let you go to sleep. But first you have to answer some more questions for us. Will you do that, please? We wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.’
‘And then can I sleep?’
‘You can sleep.’
‘Can I go back to prison?’
Franks and Marina exchanged a look. ‘If … ’ Franks shrugged. ‘If you want to. I’m sure we could arrange it. Or something like it.’
Stuart, eyes closed again, nodded. Smiled. The right answer.
‘But you have to answer our questions first.’
Stuart reluctantly opened his eyes. He didn’t look happy. He was drifting. Marina knew they didn’t have long.
‘So Amy’s gone home,’ she said.
Stuart nodded, eyelids fluttering.
‘Where’s home, Stuart? Where’s home for Amy?’
‘The house,’ he said, irritably. ‘The house where she lives.’
‘The house? Which house?’
‘Her house.’ Even more irritable. They were starting to lose him.
Marina reached across the table, took Stuart’s hands in her own. His eyes shot open and he jumped as if he’d been given an electric shock.
‘Come on, Stuart. Just a little bit more. Help us out here.’
‘Oh … OK.’
‘Amy’s house, Stuart. Where is it?’
He looked uncomfortable, wriggled in his chair.
‘Where is it, Stuart? Where can we find it?’
More wriggling.
‘Can you draw me a map?’
He shook his head. ‘No. I don’t … don’t want to go back there.’
‘Go back there? You’ve been before?’
He nodded. Tried to pull his hands away from Marina. She wouldn’t let him go.
‘When were you there, Stuart? With Amy?’
He nodded.
‘When?’
‘When … ’ He shook his head again, closed his eyes. Not to sleep this time, more to dislodge the memories that were there. ‘No … ’
Marina held on to his hands. ‘Please help me, Stuart. Try and think. It’ll help Josephina.’
Stuart looked up at the name. Marina pressed on.
‘When were you there, Stuart? When was Amy there?’
‘When she … my mother … ’
Marina said nothing, waited.
‘When … when Amy was pretending to be my sister.’
‘And when was that? Just recently?’
He shook his head. ‘Time isn’t like that,’ he said. ‘Time bends. It doesn’t go in straight lines. It curves. Bends round back on itself.’
‘It does, yes,’ said Marina, not letting go, ‘but when were you in the house with Amy?’
‘When she … when she was pretending to be my … sister.’
Franks leaned forward. ‘When she was pretending to be your sister,’ he said, voice low and authoritative, ‘was she called Amy?’
Stuart shook his head. ‘No.’
Marina and Franks shared another look. ‘What was she called, Stuart?’ asked Marina. ‘What was she called when she was pretending to be your sister?’
He looked at them both as if the answer was obvious.
‘Dee, of course.’
102
Dee had switched the car’s headlights off as she approached the house and drove slowly down the narrow, isolated lane. She wanted her arrival to be as inconspicuous as possible.
Not that it mattered. Her passenger gave her such a clear advantage in any situation that she could have turned up in an ice cream van with the chimes blaring. She turned to the Golem.
‘You know what to do?’
He nodded. She studied him. His lips had been moving the whole journey, as if in silent dialogue with himself. And she recognised drug-addled eyes when she saw them.
‘Are you up to this?’
He nodded again. Gave a smile as if someone had told a joke only he had heard.
‘Then go. You know where to meet, what to do.’
‘I know what to do,’ he said.
‘Go and do it, then.’
He slipped out of the car and was soon just one more shadow in the night.
She looked up at the house. It was desolate, haunted-looking. She couldn’t imagine how anyone could grow up in it, or call it home. But then she thought of the place she had called home. Unhappy childhoods could happen anywhere.
She got out of the car, left it unlocked in case the beeping of the key alerted anyone to her presence. Anyone. She knew who she meant. The woman she had replaced. The real Dee Sloane.
She had met Michael Sloane in a hotel while she was working as an escort, back when she had another name. Not the one she had been given at birth, but the one she had chosen for herself when she had created her first new identity. She had left her family home in Oldham at the first opportunity, determined to make something of her life. She had got as far as Manchester city centre and an escort agency.
Sloane was away on business, staying in a hotel, and wanted a little excitement. His own kind of excitement. He had called the agency, been specific. What the girl should look like, how much damage he would do to her. How much extra he would pay for doing it. They turned him down. He offered them more. Much more. They set about finding a girl who would do what he wanted.
She volunteered. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t done before. Or had had done to her. Except this time she would be paid for it. Highly paid. The money would help cushion the blows.