Mark flashed forward, lifted the knife to David’s face, laid it against his left cheek. The coldness of the blade was astonishing; it was all David could do not to flinch. ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me this is an overdue library book?’
David reached up, grabbed Mark’s hand as he started to put pressure onto the knife, felt a cut opening under his eye, and then twisted Mark’s wrist with all his strength. The snap of the bone was audible. It was easy to keep twisting until the point of the knife touched Mark’s throat.
Through the skin, through the fibrous muscle, to the larynx, slipping past the cartilage of the jaw.
Mark hissed on it, a sound like the releasing of steam, and David let go of the knife and took him by the upper arms to steer him into the swivel chair.
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Let it go. It’s time to let it go.’ He took off his coat and wrapped it around Mark’s neck, knife and all, tying the sleeves tight in a double knot. ‘It’s not your fault. It’s the way we were made. Better to be dead.’
He realised he was speaking a deep truth, the deepest, as he patted Mark’s hand and tried to soothe the pleading in his eyes. If a man had no choice but to cause pain, then it was better to be dead, undeniably. Why did Mark have to fight this, try to speak, make faces of agony and fear? David couldn’t bear it any longer. He pinched shut the nose and mouth, and sang over and over, ‘Go to sleep, go to sleep,’ until the desperate eyes finally rolled over, and the story was done.
David pulled the material of his coat over Mark’s face. He walked to the office door and clung to the frame as he called for Sam.
She came, with Geoff running after her, his face shining with excitement. ‘What happened?’ he said.
‘I killed him. Call the police.’
‘You’re bleeding.’ Sam touched his face, traced the path of the blood with one finger, as soft and cool as a raindrop.
‘I’ve got a plaster,’ said Geoff, and pulled a small first aid box from his coat pocket. David found himself laughing, and Sam had to tell him to stop so that she could apply the plaster underneath his eye. Once she was done, she kissed his cheek.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
There was no reply to that. Had he done it for her? He supposed he must have: for her, and Marianne, and for all women everywhere.
‘Call the police,’ he told her.
‘I am the police. Let me deal with this. I’m not going to let you go to prison over that bastard, do you understand? You need rest. A good night’s sleep. Geoff, give me a hand.’
Sam held one arm, and Geoff held the other, and David let them lead him from the library, through the car park, back to the passenger seat of her Mini.
‘Stay here.’ She kissed his lips, like Friday night wine at the end of a long week. She kissed his forehead, and he felt absolved, anointed. Her mouth, her words, her touch – it was enough to send him into sleep without guilt.
He didn’t remember the drive home, or being put to bed. When he woke, it was bright outside. A cold, crisp winter sun penetrated the curtains, and Sam was beside him, naked, her mouth open, her legs splayed in sleep.
And downstairs, on the doormat, waiting for him, was a package from Skein Island.
PART FIVE
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I sit at the tiny kitchen table. The salad I prepared sits in a large glass bowclass="underline" sliced tomatoes, cubes of feta, a local type of ham. It’s looking limp already. Salad is wrong in this weather, late February, and the white archways and tiled floors of the apartment are too cold to bear. I’ve been here for three hours and I haven’t managed to take off my coat yet. It’s sunset, and warmer outside – warmer than Britain, anyway. But I can’t bring myself to sit out on the veranda, with the mountains rising up behind me like a threat.
Both Heathrow and Heraklion airports were a mess of cancelled flights and missing staff. So many men aren’t turning up for work. They have more important things to do, more spectacular stories to be part of. Moira’s power seems to be bursting out, maybe as a reaction against her years of confinement. It’s changing the world.
At least the car rental agent was a woman. She checked my details and gave me the keys with a quiet efficiency, and I tried not to stare at the love bite on her neck, enormous, like a mark of ownership. She has become a man’s property.
At Heathrow, before my flight was called, I sat in the departures lounge and watched people hurrying between the gates, fear on their faces. A male member of staff in a blue uniform, topped with a perfectly tied cravat, walked up and remonstrated with me about the dangers of travelling. He was so earnest, almost evangelical.
At first I didn’t understand what he meant. I thought he was selling sunscreen when he told me I shouldn’t be without protection. I said, ‘But it’s not even that hot out in Crete right now,’ and he looked so confused. That was when I realised he meant I shouldn’t be travelling without a man to protect me.
The apartment is in a complex, all the balconies facing the same way, overlooking a bright blue swimming pool with a dolphin represented in green mosaic at the bottom. The kitchen and the living room is one room, the fridge next to the sofa that doubles as a bed. I can see the pool through the French windows. The loungers are all stacked at the far end, the top ones in each stack covered by tarpaulin, pulled tight with ropes. The semicircular bar shows signs of use – the wooden stools are still out, and one beach umbrella is propped up against the back wall – but it is not open now. Everything seems deserted. I let myself into the apartment with the key, under the mat, just as the emailed instructions advised when I booked the place. I’ve yet to see another person in this complex.
The feeling of being alone is overwhelming.
How ridiculous it is to feel so scared, when, after all, this is just another island. How different is it from Skein Island? In fact, many more thousands of people live here than on Skein Island, and there are safety nets in place here, to catch you if danger pushes you over the edge.
But that is what I’m scared of. The people, the safety nets. The men who think they’ll be helping me, and the men who’ll want to hurt me. Moira’s influence will be so strong here, and I have yet to think of what I’m going to say to her. What story can I possibly tell her that will hold her attention?
There’s a knock at the door. I freeze.
‘Marianne?’
David’s voice, it’s David’s voice, and the feeling that everything is going to be okay is overwhelming. I stand up too quickly, and knock over the chair. It clatters to the tiled floor.
I run to the door and throw it open. He’s there, looking tall and straight and just like a man I used to know, like stepping back in time; yes, he’s still my husband. Somehow he’s taken us back to the first years of our marriage when there was nothing but the delight of being his wife.
‘Marianne,’ says David, and it undoes me. I go to him, feel him put his arms around me, and I forget everything, everyone else. Whatever happens will happen, but I have David again, just for a few hours, and I don’t know how I ever managed without him, the smell of him, the strength of him. He fortifies me. But it also terrifies me – he shouldn’t be here, so close to Moira, in danger from her presence.
‘No, you need to go. It’s not safe—’
‘I’m fine,’ he says, ‘I’m fine, don’t worry. I’ve been close to her before, remember?’
Of course I remember. In the basement, he rescued me, and he touched Moira when he pulled my mother free of her. And yet he’s okay. For now.