‘No, listen. Anna’s just a casual thing, you know? I met her online. Just like you. A few months ago—’
‘Shut up!’
‘—we’re not getting married. She said we should blackmail you.’
I take a step towards him. My finger rests on the trigger. ‘Stop pretending this is about money!’
I close my eyes, open them again. I want to believe him. I want to believe that this has nothing to do with Connor.
But it does. My son is missing. Of course it does.
‘Where’s Connor?’
‘It was just part of the game. I don’t know anything about your son. You have to believe—’
I shout. ‘Where is he?’ My voice echoes off the cold walls of the alleyway. He shakes his head. ‘My son is missing. My sister was killed right here, right where we’re standing, and you expect me—’
‘What?’
He looks genuinely confused.
‘She died here.’
He shakes his head. ‘No. No.’
Again, doubt creeps in. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe this is a mistake.
I level the gun. I won’t let him convince me again. Over his shoulder I can see down the alleyway; there’s a figure, crossing the road, coming slowly towards us. A passer-by? There haven’t been any of those, not since we got here.
It looks like Anna. I don’t want him to turn and see her.
‘Stop lying to me.’
‘Julia. Believe me. How can I have killed your sister? I was in Australia. You know that…’
I ignore him. The approaching figure is under the street lamp now. I’m right, it is Anna, and even in the dim light I can see that she looks awful. Her face is bruised, there’s a dark patch on her white shirt that might be blood. I gasp, I can’t help it. ‘Anna!’
Lukas looks round but doesn’t move. She runs past him and joins me.
‘Julia, whatever he’s saying, he’s lying.’ She’s out of breath, but speaks quickly, furiously. ‘Listen to me… he killed Kate… I found out… it was over Connor… but he made me lie… he made me…’
My last shred of hope falls away. I look into his eyes and remember that I loved him – or thought I did at least – and he had killed my sister.
‘It was you.’
‘Don’t be absurd. Don’t believe her! Julia! I didn’t kill your sister. I swear—’
‘You killed her.’ I’m almost whispering; my words are swallowed by the rain. ‘And then you made me fall in love with you.’ I hesitate. The words won’t come. ‘I loved you and you killed my sister. You used me to get close to Connor.’
‘No!’ He steps forward. The rain has plastered his hair to his forehead; it drips from him, soaking him. ‘I didn’t kill anyone, I swear.’ He looks from me to Anna. ‘What are you doing?’ He reaches for her but I wave the gun and he backs off. ‘How can you say you lied for me? I lied for you!’
I lift the gun up.
‘Tell her!’ he says, then. He’s speaking to Anna. ‘Tell her I was abroad that night!’
She shakes her head. ‘I’m not lying for you again.’ She sobs. ‘I lied to the police, but I’m not doing it again. You told me you were abroad, but you weren’t. You killed her, Lukas. You did it.’
‘No!’ he says. ‘No!’ But I can barely hear him. All I can hear is Anna. You did it.
‘Listen,’ he says. ‘I can explain—’
My hand begins to shake. The gun is heavy, slick with rain. ‘Where’s Connor?’
No one speaks.
‘Where is he?’
Anna looks at me. ‘Julia,’ she says, and I can see that she’s crying. ‘Julia. Connor… is upstairs. I tried to protect him…’
I look at the blood on her shirt.
‘I couldn’t. We need an ambulance. We have to get him to a hospital—’
Everything collapses. It’s automatic, impulsive. A reflex. I don’t even think. I look at the gun in my hand and, beyond it, Lukas.
I pull the trigger.
What happens next isn’t supposed to. There’s an instant – an almost imperceptible moment – of something that resembles stillness. Stasis. I don’t feel as if I’ve made an irreversible decision; for a moment it’s as if I can still take it all back. Turn away. Become something else, or follow a path that leads to a different future.
But then the gun fires. My hand leaps up with the kick; there’s a flash and the noise hits. It’s intense; my whole body reacts as the gun’s blast echoes off the walls of the alleyway. A second later it’s gone, replaced by a deadening numbness. In the silence I look in horror at the gun in my hand, as if I can’t believe what I’ve done, and then I look at Lukas.
He’s spinning, away from me, his hands at his chest. Even as he turns I can see that he’s wide-eyed, terrified; within a second or two he’s lying on the ground against the opposite wall of the alley. Stasis returns. There’s a whistling in my ears, but all else is quiet. I look at the gun. There’s a faint smell, dry and acrid, like nothing I’ve known before. Nobody moves. Nothing happens. I can feel my heart beat.
And then a red smudge blooms on his shirt, the world of sound crashes back in, and everything happens at once.
I step back, feel the cold wall against me. Lukas speaks; it sounds unnaturally loud now that my hearing has returned, yet still it’s little more than a thin, reedy noise in his throat. ‘You stupid bitch! You fucking shot me!’
My courage has gone, my bravado has disappeared. My hand goes to my mouth.
He’s panting, looking down at the blood that’s beginning to seep through his fingers. He cries out. I can’t make out what he’s saying, it’s little more than a rasping moan, but he looks from his bleeding chest to Anna and there seems to be a name in there. It sounds like ‘Bella’.
The word seems familiar, vaguely, but I can’t place it. I look over at Anna. Help me, I want to say. What have I done? But she’s looking at me. Her face is cold. Her eyes wide, as if in shock, yet at the same time she’s wearing half a smile.
‘Bella,’ he says again.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ she says. She takes a step forward. She moves slowly. She is utterly calm.
I look at her. I’m incredulous. I don’t know what to say. My mouth opens, closes. She looks at me.
My world is imploding. I can’t work out what is happening. Everything seems too bright, as if I’ve been staring into the sun. I can only make out outlines, shadows. Nothing is solid, nothing seems real.
‘Where’s Connor? Where is he?’
She smiles, but says nothing.
‘Anna? What’s this about? We’re friends…? Aren’t we?’
She laughs. The name begins to float to the surface. I’ve heard it before. I know I have. Bella.
I just can’t yet place it. I look to the body at my feet, desperate for help. ‘Lukas?’ He looks up at me. He’s gasping, pale. His eyes close, open again. ‘Lukas?’
He tries to take another deep breath, to speak, but the words fracture and fail.
Anna speaks. It’s difficult to tell, but it looks as though she’s begun to cry. ‘The police will be here soon, Julia.’
I look at the gun in my hand, at the man I’ve just shot. The truth begins to emerge, yet still it’s distorted, not yet in focus.
‘I didn’t mean to kill him.’
‘You never do—’
‘What—?’
‘Yet people still keep dying…’
I don’t know what she means. ‘What? Anna—!’
‘Oh, Julia. You still haven’t worked it out, have you?’
I begin to sob. ‘It’s your gun. Yours. You’re the one who told me about it.’
‘But I’m not the one who pulled the trigger.’
‘He killed my sister!’
She smiles, then, and steps forward into the light. ‘No, he didn’t.’