MY OWN COUGHING woke me up. I could barely breathe; it was all I could do not to gag. Wherever I was, it was pitch black. I was groggy and the back of my head was throbbing. I tried to reach behind to see if I was bleeding, but I couldn’t get my right arm back and my left was trapped beneath me. I was curled up in a foetal position with my knees almost touching my chin.
The smell of petrol was overpowering. I felt a rush of panic; I was in the boot of a car, a moving car. I could hear the engine. How long had I been unconscious? By shifting forward slightly, I managed to pull my left arm out from under me to look at my wrist. I pressed the button to light up the screen – 6.45 a.m. I had been unconscious only a matter of minutes. But who the hell was driving the car? And why had they knocked me out?
Tossed from side to side as the road beneath me twisted and turned, I was suddenly thrown back as the car took a sharp left and traveled uphill, the gradient getting steeper all the time. I checked my watch to time the journey. The uphill section continued for about five more minutes before the road levelled off and the car slowed down and came to a stop.
The engine ceased. I held my breath, heart pounding, waiting for footsteps. But after a few seconds the engine started up again and the car turned left, climbing again for some minutes before suddenly veering right and continuing to climb, more steeply this time. The road surface became rough, twisting and climbing continuously for about ten minutes.
Suddenly with sickening certainty, I knew where the car was headed. We were on the road leading to the viewing point at Knockamany Bends, the cliffs high above Lagg Beach. Cliffs with no safety rail, nothing but an old barbed-wire fence between you and infinity. A beautiful, windswept place with a violent sea hundreds of meters below.
The realization terrified me. Oh, why the hell had I decided to wait till eight o’clock to see Molloy? And why had I let my foolish pride prevent me from going to him last night?
The car slowed down, and I was pitched to the right as we turned a sharp left. I heard gravel beneath the wheels. Finally, the car came to a stop and the engine was switched off. The vehicle swayed slightly as the wind battered the lid of the boot.
I heard the driver’s door open and slam shut, followed by footsteps crunching in the gravel coming towards me. I held my breath. A key turned in the lock above me and I shrank back, as slowly the boot was opened. Light blinded me for a second, but my eyes adjusted, and I saw gulls screeching and circling high above. A pale face peered down.
“Still breathing, are we?” The face came into focus.
“David? What the hell …?” I struggled to prop myself up on one elbow.
“Stay where you are. I don’t want you to move.”
“What’s going on? What are you doing?”
David Howard turned away, head in his hands. His voice was muffled. “You’ve ruined it all.”
“What do you mean?” I tried to climb out of the car, but he spun round and pushed me roughly back into the boot. I hit my head painfully against the side.
He glared at me. “Those letters. Why did you have to give the letters to her?”
“You mean Marguerite’s letters?”
“We were all right. We would have been all right. Now everything is falling apart. Everything we’ve worked for.” His face was wet, his eyes reproachful.
“You know Adeline?”
“Abra!” he shouted. “Her name is Abra.”
“Abra.”
“She was groomed all her life to take over; it was her destiny, her birthright, no matter what others said. And I was beside her. We would have done it together.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course, you don’t understand,” he said scornfully. “You have no idea what you’ve done. She read those letters after you left. Everything I did was to prevent her doing that, and then someone like you just gives them to her, hands them over with no care for the consequences.”
“How do you know Abra?”
“Abra is everything to me. The Teacher took me in to the family when I had no one and gave me to her when we came of age.” His voice broke. “She saved me.”
Realization finally dawned. “You’re in the Children of Damascus.”
“He knew I would protect her. And until her whore of a mother decided to return, I succeeded.” David’s voice hardened in disgust. “The second the Teacher died, she crawled out from under her stone. She was a coward – she wouldn’t face her daughter while he was alive – and then suddenly letters, letters every week.”
“She wanted to see her daughter,” I said. “That’s all.”
“She wanted to destroy her, take everything away from her. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
“You were the one who kept the letters from her daughter?”
“After the Teacher died, I was the administrator – I opened all the post. So when I opened the first one and discovered the poison her mother was trying to spread, I had to protect her. But that woman wouldn’t give up. She even tried to see her, but I managed to get Abra away, so they didn’t meet. I knew then she wouldn’t give up.” He shook his head. “Why couldn’t she just stay away? Abra didn’t need her. She was fine without her, happy.”
“Did you kill her?” I said quietly. “Did you kill Marguerite?”
David looked away into the distance. “She finally realized that she needed to return to her home. There was nothing for her here.” His voice trailed off.
“Tell me what happened, David.” I hauled myself up on my elbow again. My voice was shaking. I was terrified of what lay ahead, but I needed to know what had happened. “Did Marguerite know who you were? Did she know you were with Abra?”
He turned to face me. “I told her I’d arrange for her to communicate with Abra if she would just be patient and stop trying to contact her. I said that Abra had refused to accept her letters, but that I might be able to persuade her. The woman was a fool – pathetic, grateful for any attention, believed anything I told her.”
“But you were drugging her though, weren’t you? With clonazepam.”
“Not at first, no. But she became impatient, and I was afraid she would try to harass Abra again. I had epilepsy when I was a child; it wasn’t difficult to pretend the seizures had returned. Clonazepam made it easier to get her to do what I wanted her to.”
“And you were the one who told her to stop seeing Quinn, weren’t you? Because you knew he would be able to tell.”
“I couldn’t have her exposed to any other influence. That fool of a politician saw sense and got rid of her, so when I got her away from that quack, she had no one. Other than me.”
I suppressed the pang of guilt I felt. “What about your father?”
David laughed contemptuously. “My father didn’t care about her. He cares about no one but himself. When my mother was dying of cancer, he was screwing all around him. Thinks he’s Scotland’s answer to Picasso.”
I had a sudden flashback to Simon’s kitchen and a tea bag stuck to a bag of coffee beans. “It was the tea, wasn’t it? Clonazepam tastes like mint. You put the drops into the peppermint tea.” I was beginning to piece it together. I remembered what Phyllis had said about Marguerite’s strange behavior. “And because you couldn’t do it consistently, because you were only here on the weekend, you gave her stronger doses when you could and she suffered withdrawal symptoms.”
“She began to get suspicious, frightened. She knew the effects of Valium.”
“It was you who broke into my house, wasn’t it? You took the box with her belongings. You were looking for the letters.”
“I knew she had kept them, the ones that were returned. It was a mistake marking them Return To Sender, but I thought it might discourage her from writing if she knew they weren’t being accepted. But she kept them, hoping I would give them to Abra someday. They weren’t in her house when we cleared it out, so when I saw that bookseller woman going to your office with a box, I guessed that you must have them.”
“But I thought you were away the night she died?” I said. “Didn’t your father say he had just picked you up from the airport that morning at the office?”
David was dismissive. “I have no idea why he said that. My father is a despicable human being. He lives an utterly selfish life – all he has ever cared about is his art. He broke my mother’s heart and never even noticed. Give him a lump of rock to play with, and I could drown ten women a week and he wouldn’t notice. Even if it is one he’s been screwing.”
He spat the words out and a wave of fear washed over me. I felt sure this time he wasn’t referring to Marguerite.
I shrank back as he reached in, grabbed hold of my arms and lifted me roughly out of the boot – he was a lot stronger than he looked. I tried to struggle, but my legs had been in the same cramped position for too long, and they gave way as David wrenched my hands behind my back and tied them with rope. He began to drag me towards the barbed-wire fence and the edge of the cliff. The wind battered the wire like the string of a kite. I did the only thing I could think of; I tried to keep him talking.
“How did she die?” I shouted into the wind. “How did you kill her?”
“I told you, I didn’t kill her. She was getting suspicious, impatient. She didn’t trust me any more. When I called to her that night, she was writing another letter to Abra – after I had warned her not to. She needed to be taught a lesson.”
He stopped at a break in the wire. We were less than two meters from the edge. I tried desperately not to look down; it was enough that I could hear the waves crashing on to the rocks below.
“I slipped some extra drops into her drink and made her change what she was writing into a goodbye letter. She did what I told her. Then I took her down to the shore. My intention was just to frighten her, but I had given her more than I thought; she was staggering about like a drunk. We got as far as the stones before she passed out.” He peered over the edge of the cliff. The dark patch of stones was visible in the distance.
My throat was dry, my heart pounding in my mouth. “You just left her there?” I twisted my head to look at him, but his face showed only contempt.
“I didn’t expect her to die. I expected her to come round on the beach and know how close she had come to the afterlife. She was terrified of the sea. But somehow she must have found the courage to take the final path.” He tightened his grip on my wrists. I could feel his breath in my ear. “All of the chosen must take it.”
“But why did you want to keep her away from her daughter? I don’t understand.”
His eyes flashed. “You know why. You had the letters.”
“I never read them. They were for Abra.”
“That whore wanted to tell her the Teacher wasn’t her father.”
“What?” I tried to twist around to face him again.
“Abra has a birthright. It doesn’t matter what some bitch who gave birth to her says. She was born to lead the Damascans and I was born to be beside her. But there are those who would have seized on that information and used it against her. Taken away her right to lead. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“Is that what Abra wanted?”
“She knew nothing of it. It was my role to protect her.” He shook his head. “But now it’s too late. She has read the letters and she has told the Children that she does not wish to lead, that she cannot bear false witness. She knows now that I kept the letters from her. She thinks I betrayed her.” His voice was flat. “There is nothing left for me now in this life.”
He took a step towards the cliff. I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out, my voice lost in the wind and the screech of car brakes. And a siren. David spun round, clutching me in front of him like a shield, as Molloy’s car thudded to a halt in front of us, followed by the squad car.
Molloy and Simon leaped out of Molloy’s car simultaneously, McFadden from the squad car behind. Molloy approached first, his hands outstretched, palms down, his face tense, Simon directly behind him.
David pulled the rope tighter. I could feel the skin on my wrists burning, the blood roaring in my ears.
“It’s okay, David,” Molloy said. “Stay calm. There’s nothing to get excited about.”
“Why is he here?” David glared at his father.
“Because he’s worried about you. We all are,” Molloy said.
Simon stepped forward. “Don’t, David. We know what you think you did.”
David’s voice was harsh. “I didn’t kill her, you fool. She took her own life. She chose to move on to the next life, just as I am about to.” He took a step further towards the cliff, taking me with him.
“But why would you want to hurt Miss O’Keeffe here, David?” Molloy spoke to him as if he were speaking to a child. “Do you want to tell me what this is all about? Why are you so upset?”
If I hadn’t been shaking so violently, I would have been impressed.
“Why should I?” said David. “I told you there is nothing left for me now.”
“Of course there is. Just talk to me, calmly, and I’ll listen.”
“I’m not going to be trapped in a prison.”
“Why would you go to prison, David? Your father is right. We know you didn’t do anything. Someone else has confessed to Miss Etienne’s death.”
I felt David stiffen.
“It’s a lie. You are trying to trick me. You’re going to blame me for it.”
“I’m not. We have them at the station right now.”
I felt David’s grip on my wrists loosen. He let out a long slow moan and suddenly he shoved me back towards Molloy. Molloy caught me in his arms and held me.
Simon and McFadden appeared beside us as we turned to face the cliff. David raised his right hand in the air and marked out the sign of the cross. Slowly he took three steps towards the cliff face. Simon ran towards him, calling his son’s name. But he was too late.