Gwilym turned. The voice had come from the doorway to the living room. Ben was standing there, leaning against the door frame. He smiled. Maddy thought she should have been glad to see him, but she didn’t feel that way. She thought this would have gone better if he hadn’t been there. Or even if Marina had been here.
‘Hand over… what?’
Ben detached himself from the frame, walked into the room. ‘Every copy. Every note. Every laptop, every memory stick. All of it. The whole lot. So you’re not left with the slightest trace.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I want it,’ said Ben.
Gwilym’s expression changed. ‘Who are you, anyway?’
Ben smiled. It wasn’t pleasant. ‘Who am I? Don’t you recognise me?’
‘Should I?’
‘Evidently not. Let’s just say I’m with her.’
Gwilym looked between the two of them. ‘Well,’ he said, getting angry now, ‘you’re not having it. Definitely not. No. You’re not going to pass my work off as your own. Not after all the effort I’ve put into that. No way.’
‘Work? Effort? Your effort?’ Ben moved nearer to him. ‘My effort, you mean.’
Gwilym frowned. Confused.
‘Yes, my effort. If you’d recognised me, you’d remember. I was one of your unpaid researchers. Though it was more than that, wasn’t it? We did all the work for you. Everything. Then you stepped in, gathered it all up, took the credit. We don’t even get a mention. And you, I don’t know, get another best-seller, win another award.’ He looked over at the mantelpiece. A heavy black obelisk, inscribed with gold lettering, sat on one corner. ‘Awards like this one.’ He picked it up, read it. ‘Popular Science Book of the Year. I didn’t even know there was an award for that.’
‘There’s an award for everything now,’ Gwilym said, weakly.
‘Clearly. But d’you think that’s fair? We do all the work, you get…’ he held the award up, ‘this.’
‘That’s… that’s not how it is.’
‘Oh yes it is,’ said Ben. ‘And we can’t have that. Can we?’
‘So that’s… that’s what this is all about? You want… you want my book.’
Ben laughed. ‘Oh no. It’s about so much more than that. Now hand everything over, or we go to the police. Right now.’
Maddy looked at Ben, confused. Surely that was the idea all along? That was what they had agreed. And all this bit about the book, that was just a side issue, not important. This wasn’t going the way they had planned it.
She looked at Ben, tried to catch his eye. He ignored her.
‘Go get it,’ he said to Gwilym.
Gwilym, seeing he had no choice, left the room.
Ben stood by the mantelpiece, admiring the award. Maddy crossed over to him. ‘What’s going on? This wasn’t what we agreed.’
‘Slight change of plan,’ he said without looking up. ‘This way’s better.’
‘But Ben, we —’
He turned to her. ‘Shut up. Just shut up.’ His eyes were blazing, mouth snarling. Maddy stepped back. She wished she had never listened to him. Never met him. Either of them.
Gwilym returned to the room, a briefcase under one arm. He put it down on a chair. ‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘Everything. Notes, laptop, the lot.’ He stared at it, eyes full of sadness, like he was saying goodbye to his only child.
‘Good,’ said Ben. Then he strode across the floor, lifted up the award he was holding and brought it down heavily on Gwilym’s head.
Maddy stared, too shocked to scream. Gwilym hit the floor hard, blood haloing out around his head. Maddy looked at Ben. Open-mouthed, in shock.
‘What… what did you do that for? That wasn’t —’
‘Here,’ he said, ‘catch.’
He threw the award at her. She caught it instinctively. Then, realising what she had done, let it drop to the floor. She looked back at him. And noticed for the first time that he was wearing latex gloves.
‘What’s going on, Ben? I want to go home.’ She could feel herself starting to panic. ‘This isn’t what we planned…’
Ben advanced towards her. As he did so, he pulled out a knife from his jacket pocket. That smile again.
‘On the contrary,’ he said, ‘this is exactly what I planned…’