Her voice is utterly cold, her words sharp enough to sever flesh.
‘What?’
‘It was me she was meeting that night. I said we needed to talk. But not here.’ She looks at Lukas, lying silently on the floor. ‘At his place. He said we could use it.’
‘What?’
‘But she was late. She stayed for one more drink. So I bumped into her here. Right where we’re standing.’
‘Kate?’
She nods. ‘I told her it was time. We’d tried everything, but you still wouldn’t give Connor back. So I said we ought to tell you the truth.’
A wave of dread wraps itself around me, around my throat. I fight for breath.
‘It was you? Persuading her…’
‘Yes. I said we should tell you about Connor’s father. Tell you that he had family, family that would look after him. Not just Kate—’
Again I look at Lukas. ‘Him?’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous. He was just some bloke I was fucking.’ She shakes her head. ‘I mean me.’
I take a step back. The gun drops to my side. I don’t believe what I’m hearing.
‘But—’
‘She wouldn’t listen. She said she wasn’t telling you. It would hurt you too much.’ She shakes her head. ‘As if you getting hurt matters in the slightest, after what you did. We fought.’
‘What…? Who are you?’
‘I didn’t mean to push her over.’
‘You killed her!’
She looks at me. She raises her chin, defiant. Her hate is almost physical; sticky and cloying. It penetrates deep within me. She looks at me and I can see that I disgust her.
‘I pushed her over. She hit her head. I was angry, I wanted to stop, but…’ She shrugs. ‘I didn’t know she was dead when I left her. But yes. I left her here and I went round to his place’ – she looks again at Lukas – ‘and then the next day I found out she was dead. And I was glad. You know that? Glad I left her here, alone.’
My sobs turn into scalding tears. They run down my face. I raise the gun.
‘I’m glad because that’s exactly what you did to my brother.’
‘What…?’ I say, but an image comes. The last time I’d stood over a body, a dying man. And then finally it snaps into focus. I remember the name Marcus had had for his sister.
‘Bella… You’re Bella.’
I see it now, the thing I’ve failed to see all this time. In certain lights, from certain angles. She looks a little like her brother.
Suddenly I’m back there. I see him that night, his face ashen, bloodless, yet filmed with sweat. He looked unreal somehow, made of rubber. Spittle fringed his mouth; there was vomit on the floor. ‘Go!’ said Frosty.
‘No. I can’t.’
She looked up at me. She was crying. ‘You have to. If they find any of us here—’
‘No.’
‘—it’ll be over for all of us.’ She stood up, she held me. ‘There’s nothing we can do for Marky now, honey. He’s gone. He’s gone—’
‘No!’
‘—now you have to go, too.’
And then I’d seen it. The truth. The people’s lives I’d ruin by staying behind with a man it was too late to help.
‘But—’
‘I promise I’ll let them know he’s here.’ She kissed me, the top of my head. ‘Go, go now. And look after yourself.’
And then she went back to Marcus and, with one final glance at his body, I turned away and left him behind.
I look up at the woman I’d thought was my friend Anna. At the woman who’s been pretending to be my son’s girlfriend. ‘You’re Marcus’s sister.’
No response. My hands shake.
‘Look. I don’t know what you think—’
‘Marcus was coming home. You know? We were going to look after him. We loved him. His family. Not you. You weren’t even there. You left him.’
‘He overdosed, Anna! You might not like that, but it’s true. He’d been clean for weeks, he took more than he could cope with. It was nobody’s fault.’
‘Is that right?’ She shakes her head slowly, her eyes narrowed with bitterness. ‘You were selling your photographs, buying him drugs. I know that—’
‘No. No.’
‘And then when he couldn’t take it any more, when he overdosed, you left him to die.’
‘No! I loved him. I loved Marcus…’ I’m sobbing now, my body convulsing, my tears mingling with the rain that runs down my face. ‘I’ve never loved anyone like I loved him.’
Her cold gaze locks with mine.
‘You don’t even know what happened. He was dead already. I had to leave. Marcus had… we were… I just had to go.’
‘You left him there, dying on the floor. You ran away. Back home to start your new life, with your lovely little house and your oh so fucking successful husband. And your son. Darling Connor.’
‘Connor. Where is he?’
‘You took everything from me. My mother hanged herself—’
I point the gun at her. ‘Where is he?’
‘Then my father went, too. You should have gone to prison for what you did.’ She pauses, her head tilted. Over the driving rain I can hear sirens. ‘And now you will. They’re coming for you.’
I scream. ‘What have you done to my son?’
‘Connor? Nothing. I’d never hurt Connor. He’s the only thing I’ve got left.’
It hits me then, finally. ‘Marcus? Marcus was Connor’s father?’
She says nothing, yet as much as I don’t want to believe it, I know it’s true. I see it all. It must’ve been when Kate came to visit. Just before Marcus died.
She nods. ‘I didn’t know he’d had a child. But then last year Kate told me all about Connor. How she’d got pregnant when she visited her sister in Berlin, and her sister still didn’t know. I had no idea she was talking about Marcus, but then she showed me that picture of the two of you. I nearly told her that Marcus was my brother, but I decided not to. You know why? Because, finally, it all made sense. After all these years I now knew who the bitch was who’d left him to die.’ She looks me in the eye. ‘It was you, Julia. And here I was, living with your sister.’ She shakes her head. ‘That photo. I started to see him everywhere…’
‘If you’ve hurt my son—’
‘He’s my nephew, and I want him, Julia. He can’t stay with you. Look at you. Look at what you’ve done. You’re not fit to be his mother. I proved it. I sent the videos to Hugh, to everyone. They’ll all know what a cheap slut you are now.’
So that’s it. It had been about getting Connor back, all along. Not the money.
I look at Lukas. Lukas, who thought he was blackmailing me for money. He’s lying, motionless, his unseeing eyes wide open.
I hear a car pull up, a door open. I daren’t turn round. I look at the gun in my hand. It’s as if it has nothing to do with me.
He’s dead. The man who is the proof of what’s been going on, is dead. And I killed him.
‘A slut,’ says Anna. She takes a step towards me. She’s almost close enough to touch. I can hear footsteps, close by. I risk a quick glance over my shoulder. Two police cars have pulled up and Hugh is getting out of the first, along with three or four officers. They’re all shouting, a mix of French and English. Hugh’s voice is the only one I can make out. ‘Julia!’ he’s saying. ‘Julia! Put the gun down!’
I look at him. In the car behind him I can see another figure and with a jolt of relief I realize it’s Connor. He’s looking at me. He looks lost, bewildered. But he’s alive. Anna was lying. He’s safe. Hugh must’ve found him, wandering Gare du Nord, just as Anna had pretended to. Or perhaps he finally relented and turned his phone on, to call his dad.
‘Julia!’ says Hugh again. He skids to a halt. The police are ahead of him, they’ve crouched on the ground. There are guns pointing at me. I look at Anna.