IT TOOK two steps for Darian to reach the window and lean out. She fell through the darkness, a shape twisting in the air. Darian could only see the movement, not the person. She hit the ground hard on her back with a crack. She landed in the small circle of light thrown out by a weak lamppost and Darian thought he saw a spray of red burst out of her mouth and fall back onto her. From above she looked like a broken picture, and he wanted to run to her. He stepped back from the window, awed by the moment. It was all instinct for the next few minutes, no considered thought. He turned and ran past Corey and Gallowglass, out into the corridor of Maeve’s flat. He heard someone shout after him but he couldn’t stop. The front door was still open and he ran, slow and unsteady. He couldn’t remember going down to her. He found a large bruise on his knee the following morning that he thought might have come from falling on the stairs, but he didn’t remember it happening. One second he was looking out the window at Maeve on the ground, the next he was on the pavement beside her.
If it wasn’t for the speckles of blood on her face and the pool forming under her head it would have looked as though she had walked to the lamppost and lay happily down there. Her left arm was by her side, her right arm across her stomach, her legs together. Her eyes were half-shut, and that same smile was still on her lips. She looked like a woman who had achieved what she had set out to, who was content with the ending she had chosen.
Darian dropped to his knees beside her, careful not to touch the blood. Under the shock wasn’t a sense of grief but of embarrassment. Later he would be angry with himself for feeling that way as he knelt beside the body of a person he had been close to, but you can’t suppress your true feelings. He was humiliated. He had been so close to Maeve and she had fooled him absolutely. He wasn’t accustomed to being made to feel stupid, and this moment was crushing. It changed how he saw himself.
He didn’t know about time. He might have been on his knees beside her for ten seconds or ten minutes, he had no idea later. No cars came along Sgàil Drive, nobody approached on the pavement. He snapped back to the real world, and pulled his phone from his pocket. He dialed 999 and gave them the address, told them he needed an ambulance fast because a girl had fallen out of a window and a man had been stabbed. He gave little detail, and, even though they asked him to stay on the line, he hung up. That call served its purpose, making sure Corey couldn’t so completely control the aftermath of this situation in the way he had Moses’ murder.
Next he called Vinny, the first honest cop he could think of. It wasn’t his patch, but Darian couldn’t think of a cop in Earmam he knew and trusted like Vinny.
Vinny answered his phone and said, “Darian, mate, what color of trouble have you got for me tonight?”
“Vinny, I’m sorry, I really am, but you need to get to Sgàil Drive, under the hill in Earmam. A girl’s dead. Maeve Campbell. She jumped, and Corey is here and he’s involved up to his shifty eyes. He’s here, and Gallowglass has been stabbed. Corey’s here and he’ll try to get his cops involved in this to protect him and I need people I can trust.”
There was stunned silence before Vinny said, “Wait, what the hell are you talking about? Is this real?”
“Please, Vinny, I need help here. Sgàil Drive.”
He hung up on his friend, because there was one more call to make. His hand was steady, he was feeling calm now, calling Sholto and expecting to have to wait for an answer. Sholto liked an early bed, and a late-night call would be met with a grumbling, sleepy, delayed answer. Not this time. This call was answered on the second ring and Sholto was talking before Darian had the chance to open his mouth.
“Darian, good, I was about to call you. I’m at the docks, watching Murdoch Shipping. I’ve got them, Darian, I have. I got a hold of all the shipments they’re registered to receive this week and there’s an extra one being made right now. Something coming in without being registered. That alone is enough, but I bet what’s being…”
Darian interrupted him, saying, “Sholto, listen to me, you have to come to Sgàil Drive in Earmam. Maeve’s dead. It was her who killed Moses, and she’s stabbed Gallowglass and killed herself. Corey helped her cover it up, and now he’s here and he’s going to try to save himself again, I know it. I need you here.”
He hadn’t been frantic; his voice sounded calmer than it had when he’d spoken to Vinny. Still, Sholto understood that this was no joke because he didn’t pause before he said, “I’m on my way.”
Darian slipped the phone back into his pocket and looked at Maeve again. Seeing her happy and peaceful, a smile on a pretty face covered in blood. It was hard to look away from her, as it always had been. He forced himself. This long night wasn’t over just because Maeve had left, there was dark work lurking ahead.