‘What happens next? Good question.’ Foley’s smile was still in place.
‘You still think I’ve taken your money?’
Foley studied him before answering. ‘No. I don’t. Not if everything you’ve just said is true about who you were, or thought you were, back then. But to be honest, I don’t care. If you took it, for whatever reason, keep it. I’ve got plenty of money stashed in other places. It would be nice to have, but I don’t need it.’
No one had moved. Blake had come round, was cradling Baz’s broken body with her own. Her face was now bloodied and ruined. She sobbed silently to herself. Tom and Foley still faced each other, ignoring the storm. Their world only as big as the two of them. Tom didn’t think he was in any danger. But he still wouldn’t let his guard down. He imagined Foley was doing the same thing.
‘So what are you going to do now?’ asked Tom. ‘Go back to Blackmoor? Serve the rest of your sentence?’
Foley laughed. ‘Are you?’
‘I wasn’t—’
‘Whatever.’ Foley looked round, took in the landscape as if seeing it for the first time. He put his head back, closed his eyes. Opened his mouth. Let the rain in. He licked his lips, his expression approaching ecstasy. His head dropped forwards. He opened his eyes. ‘I don’t think so.’
Tom waited. Knew there was more to come.
‘Dean Foley’s dead. He died the minute he set foot on this blasted heath.’ Smiled at his own words. ‘He might have stepped on to this moor but there’ll be a new man walking away.’
‘And what about me?’
‘What about you? Are you going to walk away a new man?’
‘I meant are you still digging more graves?’
Foley thought before answering. ‘I reckon there’s more ways than one to suffer for your actions. You’ve got enough going on with your guilt and everything. You’ve suffered as well. Maybe not as much as me or not in the same ways, but you’ve not been left unaffected.’ Another smile. Less pleasant this time. ‘And I’ve taken away the one thing you wanted. Closure on your niece’s death. Answers. You’ll never get that now. You’ll only be able to guess. Crossfire’ll have to do. And that might even make things worse for you to bear. So I suppose that makes us even. Or even enough.’
‘So I’m safe from you? In this new identity?’
‘You’re safe. Until I decide you’re not.’
Before Tom could reply, or respond in any way, Foley turned, walked towards the Duster and got behind the wheel. He put the engine into gear, turned it round.
Tom just watched him drive away.
For how long, he didn’t know. Eventually he became aware of the sky beginning to lighten, the clouds parting. The rain easing. He looked around. Blake still cradled Baz, talking to him, stroking his face. He walked up the hill, got the bike out from under the overhang. Mounted it, ready to set off.
‘What about me?’ Blake had looked up, been watching him. ‘What’s going to happen to me?’
‘Get on the back of the bike. I’ll drop you off at the police station where you can turn yourself in.’
‘I was going to get the money and run away. Start a new life.’
‘I’m sure you were.’
‘Just like Foley’s done. Just like you did.’ She reached her hands up to her face. ‘Now look at me. At what he’s done to me. I’m ruined.’ She looked down at Baz once more. ‘Maybe I should have stayed with him. Maybe we belonged together . . .’
Part of Tom thought he should have been more sympathetic to her words, her situation but the main part of him knew that she had tried to have him banged up in prison permanently. She had tried to hurt him.
‘Ambition can be a fucker, can’t it? Especially if you go after the wrong things.’
She didn’t reply.
‘You coming, then?’
She gestured to Baz. ‘What about him?’
‘Someone’ll come back for the body. He won’t be left behind.’
She shook her head. ‘He was always getting left behind.’ She gave a sound that may have been a laugh or a sob or maybe both. ‘I spent years hating him. For what he’d done to me. How he’d hurt me. For the way he was. He didn’t start out like that. I don’t suppose any of us do, really.’ She looked up at Tom. ‘Six and two threes, isn’t it? It’s not just the things you do. It’s the things that are done to you . . .’
‘Suppose it is,’ said Tom. ‘You coming, then?’
Blake shook her head. ‘I’ll stay here with him. Make sure he’s looked after.’
‘Your call,’ said Tom.
He was too tired to argue. He turned on the engine.