‘No, no, that’s not mine,’ said Sam.
‘Oh right… Only I just found it on the ground over there… What do you think I should do with it? Should I hand it in somewhere?’
‘Leave it on the rail next to the library, maybe?’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Just up—’ David could picture her turning, pointing. Then nothing. Her voice simply stopped. He waited on, expecting something to happen: the sound of a struggle, a scream, anything to galvanise him, send him into action. The silence enveloped him, bringing its own inertia. But then the enormity of the moment stung him, like an injection into the heart, and he leapt up, ignoring aching muscles and doubt, and sprang out of the car.
There was nobody there.
The ground crackled underfoot from the cold, and the air was tight in his lungs. On the bonnet of the Mini rested one red knitted glove, without an owner. No noise, no sound, no sense of proximity to anyone, anything living.
The surreality of it was so strong, he wondered if he’d fallen into a flashback from the cubes. Maybe everything was a lie, a dream. Maybe Marianne had never gone back to the island and all this was a game in his head. He could walk home, now, at this moment, and find her there, curled up in their bed, dreaming of books and beauty.
A flash of movement from the alleyway, the glint of the safety light on glass. Geoff stepped forward, his glasses illuminated into two small, round mirrors, and shook his head. David read his meaning – They didn’t come this way.
Where, then? Through the hedge? Unlikely, without making any noise. To another car? Then Sam was still here. Nobody had pulled away. David jogged around the car park, between the rows, looking into each window, narrowing down that avenue of escape to an impossibility.
There was only one place left.
He walked up to the library door and was unsurprised to find it ajar. He pulled it open, walked into the darkness, used his memory to take him around the displays of paperbacks on circular stands to the front desk.
The door to the back office was closed and a yellow sliver of light crept from under it.
David put his hand to the handle. He took a breath, and opened the door.
The light confused him, made a jumble of the small room, and then the space began to pull into sense, and – Sam. Alive, still clothed, untouched – the relief of it, of being in time, took him over. His eyes held hers, tried to comfort her. She was sitting on the desk, her arms crossed over her stomach, her shoulders hunched. Beside her stood the man he had come to stop.
It wasn’t an ugly face.
The eyes weren’t too close together, the lips weren’t narrowed or cruel, and the hairline wasn’t receding. The nose wasn’t bent. It wasn’t an unremarkable face either; it was a shade beyond that, in the direction of pleasant, amiable, easy to like, with an upward curve to the jaw that suggested a permanent smile. He was the kind of man who could have had a girlfriend, if he wanted to. He could have had friends, a life, nights out down the pub.
David felt a pure white blast of hatred for him, this man who had choices, and had instead decided to hurt, to maim. It might have been possible to pity an ugly man. Instead David felt bloated, pregnant, with rage.
Sam made a sound in her throat, a whine, and he saw the knife at her thigh, level with the crotch of her jeans. It was small, straight, pointed. A paring knife, did they call it? For peeling fruit. There was a pair of handcuffs on the desk beside him.
‘Don’t hurt her,’ he said.
‘I just showed it to her in the car park and she came with me. I didn’t even have to do anything. What’s your name?’
‘David.’
‘I’m Mark.’ He had no sense of urgency. It was one of those slow, relaxed voices, almost like a radio presenter on a show late at night. ‘Listen, they always do as they’re told. I think they like it really, I mean, deep down. I’m not just saying that to try to wriggle out of it. If they said no I would stop, that’s my point. I’m not an animal, here.’
‘Yes, you are,’ said David.
Mark nodded. His smile widened. ‘All right. Let’s be honest. I knew who she was. I knew you’d be coming for me. I’m not scared of you. I’m more scared of myself. Where all this could go. I know it’s not right, but I’m not going to let you just… I bet women throw themselves at you, don’t they? Knight in shining armour.’
‘I’m just a normal man. You could have been that too.’
‘No, I couldn’t. I don’t want to be. Neither do you.’ Mark looked around the room. David followed his gaze – the computer, the swivel chair, the display of thank you cards pinned to a cork board. Thanks for finding that book. I’d given up all hope. ‘I took your wife here. With the camera. Just photos. I only wanted to look.’
David pointed at the handcuffs. ‘Then what are they for?’
‘Protection,’ said Mark.
Sam gulped, such a loud sound, surprising, and Mark looked at her as if he had forgotten she existed.
‘Do you want to go?’ he said. ‘You weren’t really my type, anyway.’ He let the knife drop from her thigh. She didn’t move, for a moment, a long breath, then she took a step towards David, and another, crossing the room in tiny increments, making such slow progress that David felt the urge to grab her and push her through the door. Instead he said, very gently, ‘Go, I’ll meet you outside. Honestly, go.’ She turned her enormous eyes up to his, and then she left.
‘What now?’ said Mark. ‘Now there’s no policewoman, are you going to perform a citizen’s arrest?’
David kept his attention on the knife. There had to be some kind of instinct within him that would tell him what to do.
‘I think it was meant to be like this,’ said Mark. ‘Do you know what I mean?’
‘There’s no excuse.’
‘How do you know? Did you choose to be here?’
‘Yes,’ he said, but it was impossible to believe it. Marianne had told him to be here, and Arnie had told him when to be here, and apparently this was all exactly as it was meant to be. Who was in charge? He was the vessel of other people’s decisions. And maybe Mark was the same.
‘Prove it,’ said Mark. ‘Don’t do what they tell you to do. Do what you want to do. I can see you don’t want to be here. Take my word for it that I’ll never do it again, and you go home, and I go home, and nobody gets hurt, do they? You don’t want to be responsible for this, not really. And I want to stop doing it, I swear. I can stop. I’ll just stop.’
But the terrifying revelation at the heart of his words was that Mark wouldn’t stop. He was right. It was beyond control, not Mark’s decision to make. And that meant David could do only one thing. The inevitability of it was breathtaking. It infused him, filled him with the conviction that the moment had come, all options had been reduced to one, and there was nothing left to do but kill him.
Mark raised the knife. ‘So move out of the way, okay? I’m leaving now. You can just let me go, and we’ll never see each other again.’
‘I can’t let you do that.’
‘Listen, I look at your wife’s insides every night on my computer, in her mouth, up her legs. She’s all soft and pink and ready. You want to go home to that, don’t you?’ He flicked out with the knife. It was a weak movement, without conviction. ‘You’re not going to make a move, are you?’
David felt nothing. He watched the movements of the knife, as Mark talked on, working himself up, trying to pry him from his position in the doorway.
‘You’re really going to take me on? Just walk away, mate, you don’t need it. I’ll cut you, I swear, I’ll cut you.’
‘You take photographs. This isn’t New York. You’re not a gang member. You don’t know what the hell you’re doing with that knife. You’re standing in a small public library in Wootton Bassett.’