Paul was flattened against Daniel’s attic wall, listening hard, his heart thrashing. Someone, presumably Daniel, was wandering around downstairs, doors creaking and closing. His movements seemed unhurried, as if he was as yet oblivious to the intruder.
Paul eyed the rear attic window. It was still open a crack where he’d gasped for air, and would probably open further, but how would he get down the back of the house? He peered out and glimpsed the woods again, the furthest trees now silhouetted in a spiky curve along the horizon. Creeping back across the attic, he stared instead down the narrow staircase, his brain fritzing with options.
His muscles tightened when the footsteps grew louder. Daniel was directly below now, on the first floor. Paul held his breath and pressed himself into the wall again. A toilet flushed and a vibration of pipes enveloped the attic. Then the swing of a door, a brief pause, the sound of receding footsteps.
Paul edged his way down the stairs to the first-floor landing. There was a burning in his chest. He could hear the hum of a television, and when he risked a peek over the banister he saw the living-room door was closed. Could he make it out of the front door while Daniel was in there? He snuck down the final flight of stairs, two groaning beneath his feet, but froze when he heard the squeak of sofa springs and a cough.
He was three or four paces from the front door now. His eyes did a speedy assessment of its latches and locks. It looked a simple case of twisting the top latch upward and pushing the handle down.
So why wasn’t he diving toward it?
He knew from past experience that wavering over a decision could mean the difference between escape and discovery. You had to keep your head, make rational choices, then act on them swiftly and confidently. It wasn’t fear of failure holding him back this time. It was a much greater force, Freya’s voice again in his ringing ears. Why had he broken into Daniel Sanderson’s house if only to slink out?
Then a shout came from the living room, leapfrogging across decades: “Who’s there?”
For a second, the years seemed to concertina. Paul almost called back as Paul Jacobs, as if strolling into Daniel and Nathalie’s flat: Only me! Picked up some beers for us all.
As time bounced back, his fists balled tight. A cold draft emanated from the front door as if to remind him how close it was.
“Who’s there?”
Paul threw up his hands as Daniel crashed into the hall brandishing a cricket bat. He stopped dead when he saw Paul. A bubble of shock seemed to form around him, fixing him in place, like a bronze batsman on a trophy.
“What the . . .” For a moment his defenses seemed weakened. That would have been the time to rush at him, disarm him, but Paul’s composure was blown too. He took in the face he used to study endlessly for signs of untruth. The face he used to catch staring at Nathalie sometimes, with a look that was somehow both tender and cold, intimate and calculating. Now Daniel must have been fifty-three but the shadows beneath his eyes had a look of permanence, as if he was tired of being himself. He was still broad, though, and strong-looking, dressed in gray overalls with some kind of logo on the breast pocket.
Daniel’s face twisted with prolonged shock, then settled into an expression of dark loathing. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Paul kept his hands up. “Drop the bat.”
Daniel stepped forward, holding it over Paul’s head. Paul tried to gauge whether he could grab it, block it, but it didn’t swing down, only hovered. “I should knock you out. I should kill you.”
“But you won’t.”
You won’t if you’ve got my daughter, because you won’t want a scene. Equally, maybe you won’t if you haven’t touched Freya, because you must wonder why I’m here, after all this time, after everything.
“We’ve an agreement,” Daniel said. “I’m not under investigation anymore. You spying bastards admitted you were in the wrong.”
“I’m not here for that.”
“What, then? Not done enough damage?”
“My daughter.” Paul watched for a reaction, but there was only a flicker: possibly surprise, possibly knowledge, possibly imagined. He was long out of practice at reading what Daniel was thinking.
“We could talk calmly,” he ventured as Daniel stayed silent, “or you could hit me and see what happens. Either way, I’m not leaving till you’ve answered my questions.”
Daniel lunged forward and pushed the bat against Paul’s throat. Their bodies lined up squarely as he pinned him to the wall. There had been a competitive edge to their past “friendship,” which had seemed to come from their similar builds, and perhaps from the fact that Paul had made an effort to mirror Daniel’s body language and way of speaking. It was something they taught you in training, how to make someone take to you, but it could work the other way, too, could set you up as a rival.
Their gazes met, almost exactly level. The wood bit into Paul’s neck.
“Where’s my daughter?” he wheezed. “What have you done?”
Daniel slammed his weight behind the bat. “You’re the bad guy here. I can’t believe you’ve shown your face.”
Paul’s vision slipped in and out of blackness. He closed his eyes, sucked in shallow breaths.
“You don’t even feel bad about my sister,” Daniel said, “do you?”
Paul blinked open his eyes. “Every day,” he choked. “I loved her.”
The fist took him by surprise, punching him in the stomach before he’d registered that the bat had lifted from his Adam’s apple. Air shot into his throat just as it was thumped out of his abdomen, a mix of heady relief and deep, low pain.
“Don’t disrespect her even further by lying,” Daniel said.
“I’m not lying. I loved Nathalie.”
“I loved her.”
By controlling her. By using her grief to your advantage. But hadn’t Paul done the same? Hadn’t he thought he was so smart, using her as his way in? Nathalie hadn’t shared Daniel’s guardedness, that was the thing. You could tell just by observing her that she’d suffered a loss and was desperate to plug the void. So, when Paul had been dropped into his new life on the Chainwell Estate, trained and prepped, ambitious and naïve, he’d set out to befriend her first. To keep “bumping into her” when her brother wasn’t around, and patiently to gain her trust. He’d been the odd-job man who’d turned up to fix the fridge in the café where she’d worked; the fellow smoker ready with a light outside the tower block; the cheeky chappie making her laugh even when her eyes were still so sad. Then Paul had used everything in his skill set to overcome Daniel’s wariness of his little sister’s new boyfriend. Painstakingly, he’d established himself in their lives, their flat, their family, watching and listening for any clue as to what had really happened to Billie. He hadn’t noticed the growth of his feelings for Nathalie until it was too late. He’d been blinkered, fixated on his task . . . and he’d never been in love before. Didn’t know how it could coil itself around you while you were looking the other way.
Paul saw the next punch coming but didn’t duck. Let it smash him full in the face. This was the kind of punishment he could take: an attack on himself, not Freya, not Nathalie. He stood firm as Daniel hit again and pain splintered across his cheekbones.
“She was my sister,” Daniel roared. “And you were nothing. Nobody. A pig. A liar. A murderer.”
The final word made a fist around Paul’s heart. There was another second of dizzy reprieve, before the cricket bat struck his knees and he folded to the floor. Daniel kicked him in the ribs and Paul let himself go limp. His head spun with voices, mingling with Daniel’s stream of accusations.
Nathalie saying, Who the hell are you?
Steph saying, Did you kill someone?
Freya saying, Dad, you’re not giving up?
And he was so close to giving up. Closing his eyes and accepting what he deserved. But what about what Freya and Steph deserved? What about everything Yvette had tried to do for him, to help him see that he had made mistakes but he wasn’t evil?
The next time Daniel came at him, Paul hauled his torso up and head-butted him in the face. The agony of the movement brought bile into his mouth. He’d managed to unbalance Daniel, though, so he jerked his leg into his shin, making him stagger against the wall. Paul swayed to his feet. His ribs felt shattered. He lurched toward the door, but Daniel was back upright, blocking the way. Paul flailed toward the kitchen instead. Daniel followed, his face purple, brandishing the cricket bat streaked with Paul’s blood.
Paul felt as if he was moving through water as he strained for the back door. The bat thudded between his shoulder blades, doubling him over. He grasped a kitchen worktop, twisting around to find himself once again cornered, Daniel’s face blurrily close, further accusations forming beads of saliva at the corners of his mouth. Liar. Traitor. Failure. Killer.
Something inside Paul gave way. He couldn’t take one more blow, one more shouted declaration of his crimes versus Daniel’s self-proclaimed innocence. Old instincts had already caused him to do a lightning-quick check as he’d stumbled through to the kitchen. He knew where his exits were, but he’d also clocked the set of knives clinging to a magnetic holder on the wall. As Daniel swung the bat again, Paul reached sideways and his fingertips brushed metal.