There was a time of curious calm when he'd gone. The two women standing in the midst of the bower, dwarfed by sunflowers and banks of hydrangeas, bees in the rampant roses, and blackbirds in the sycamore. It was, for a moment, a haven; and they felt quite safe from harm.
'I wonder...' Rosa said.
Frannie looked round at her. She was staring at the sun, unblinking. 'What?'
... if it wouldn't be better to just lie down here and die.' There was a smile on her face. 'Better not to know ... better not to ask even ...' Her hands had gone to the bandages, and were pulling at them. 'Better to flow...' she said.
'Don't!' Frannie said. 'For goodness' sake!' She pulled Rosa's hands away from the bandaging. 'You mustn't do that.'
Rosa kept staring at the sun. 'No?' she said.
'No,' Frannie replied.
Rosa shrugged, as though the notion had merely been a passing fancy, and let the bandaging alone.
'Promise me you won't do that again,' Frannie said.
Rosa nodded, the directness of her stare almost childlike. Lord, but she was a strange creature, Frannie thought. One moment something to be feared, wrapped in thunder; then a bitter woman talking of the brotherhood of Jacob and Will; now this wide-eyed innocent, gently compliant when she was chastised. All of these were true Rosas, she suspected, in their way: all part of who the woman had been down the years; though perhaps the truest self lay under the bandages, aching to flow
Only now, with this minor crisis managed, did Frannie's thoughts return to Sherwood. What the hell was he doing in there? Telling Rosa to stay put she went back into the house, calling for Sherwood as she went. There was no reply. She crossed the kitchen and stepped into the hallway. The front door was still open. There was no sound from either above or below.
And then he was there, in front of her, reeling out of Rosa's room with his eyes wide and his mouth wide, a low moan escaping him. And rightbehind him came Steep, his hand clasped to the nape of Sherwood's neck. They appeared so quickly Frannie stumbled backwards in shock.
'Let him go!' she screamed at Steep.
At the shrill din she uttered, Jacob's glacial expression broke, and much to her astonishment he did as she'd demanded. Sherwood's moan stopped and he fell forward, unable to bear himself up. She couldn't support him either. Down he went, sprawling, carrying her down to her knees beside him.
Only now did Steep speak. 'This isn't him,' he said quietly.
Frannie looked up at him, guiltily thinking - even in the terror and confusion of this moment -that she'd misremembered him. He wasn't the forbidding fiend she'd pictured whenever she recalled handing over the journal. He was beautiful.
'Who are you?' he said, staring down at brother and sister.
'Will isn't here,' Frannie said. 'He's gone.'
'Oh Jesus...' Steep murmured, retreating down the hallway. He'd got maybe three yards when Rosa said:
'Another mistake?'
Frannie didn't look around. She turned her attention to Sherwood, who was still gasping on the ground. Sliding her hand beneath his head, she lifted him up a little way. 'How are you doing?' she said.
He stared up at her, his mouth working to make a reply, but failing. He licked his lips, over and over, then tried again; still no sound emerged.
'It's all right,' she said, 'You're going to be all right. We'll get you out into the fresh air.'
Even now she assumed he'd been saved by her intervention. There was no blood on him; no sign of assault. He simply needed to be taken out of this awful place, out amongst the sunflowers and the roses. Steep wouldn't stop them. He'd made an error in the shadowy room, thinking he'd caught Will. Now he'd realized his mistake, he'd let them go.
'Come on,' she told Sherwood, 'let's get you up.'
She unknitted her hand from her brother's, and put both beneath him so that he could hoist himself into a sitting position. But he just lay there, staring up at her face, licking his lips, licking his lips.
'Sherwood,' she said, trying again.
This time she felt a tremor pass through his body; nothing significant. But at the same moment he simply stopped breathing.
'Sherwood,' she began to shake him. 'Don't do this.' She pulled her hands out from under his body and head, and opened his mouth to apply the kiss of life. Rosa was saying something behind her, but she didn't hear what. Didn't care, right now. She breathed into his mouth. Inflated his lungs. Put pressure on his chest to expel the air, then breathed into him again. Repeated the procedure; and again; and again. But there was no sign of life. Not even a flicker. His poor body had simply ceased.
'This can't be happening,' she said, raising her head. Her eyes were stinging but her tears weren't coming yet. She could see Sherwood's killer perfectly clearly, standing in the hallway on the spot to which he had retreated. If she'd had a gun in her hand she would have shot him through the heart right there and then. 'You bastard,' she said, her voice coming out like a growl. 'You killed him. You killed him.'
Steep didn't respond. He simply stared at her, blank-eyed, which only enraged her more. She started to step over Sherwood's body towards him, but before she could do so Rosa caught hold of her arm. 'Don't-'she said, pulling her back towards the kitchen.
'He killed him-
-and he'll kill you,' Rosa said. 'Then you'll both be dead, and what will that prove?' Frannie didn't want to hear reason right now. She tried to wrench herself free of Rosa's grip, but despite the woman's wound she remained strong, and would not let Frannie go. There was a moment of uncanny silence, when nobody moved. Then came the sound of footsteps on the gravel pathway, and a moment later Will was at the doorstep. Steep looked round at him, his motion lazy.
'Stay away,' Frannie yelled to Will. 'He's-'she could hardly get the words out '-killed Sherwood.' Will's gaze went from Steep's face down to Sherwood's body, then back up to Steep again. As he did so he reached into his jacket and pulled the knife into view.
'We're leaving,' Rosa said to Frannie, very quietly. 'We can't do anything here. Let's just ... leave it to the boys, shall we?'
Frannie didn't want to leave. Not with Sherwood lying there on the dusty ground, glassy-eyed. She wanted to close his lids, and put him somewhere comfortable; at very least cover him up. But she knew in her gut Rosa was right: she had no place in what was unfolding down the hall. Will had already made it plain to her how private his business with Steep was; even if it was fatal business. Reluctantly, she allowed Rosa to take her arm and coax her to the back door and out into the lush green.
Of course the bees were still droning in the overgrown flower beds. Of course the blackbirds were still raising a sweet chorus in the sycamore. And of course nothing was as it had been three minutes before, nor could ever be again.
CHAPTER XV
It was very simple. Sherwood, poor Sherwood, was dead, sprawled there on the floor, and his murderer was standing here right in front of Will, and there was a knife in Will's hand, trembling to be put to its purpose. It didn't care that Steep had once been its owner; it only wanted to be used. Now; quickly! Never mind that the flesh it would be butchering belonged to the man who'd treated it like a holy relic. All that mattered was to glint and glitter in the deed; to rise and fall and rise again red.
'Have you come to give that back to me?' Steep said.
Will could barely fumble a reply, his mind was so filled with the knife's advertisements for its skills. How it would lop off Steep's ears and nose; reduce his beauty to a wound. He sees you still? Scoop out his eyes! His screams distress you? Cut out his tongue!
They were terrible thoughts; sickening thoughts. Will didn't want them. But they kept coming.
Steep on his back now, naked. And the knife opening his chest - one, two - exposing his beating heart. You want his nipples for souvenirs? Here! Something more intimate perhaps? Meat for the fox