Through the double sash of the window she could see the light beginning to redden as an evening breeze blew across the embers of the day. When she’d arrived a few hours earlier, the wind had been blowing impatiently, stirring the waters of the lake, but now the elements were at peace, rocking gently, like a childhood lullaby bringing the day to its close. Her last day. In the corner of her line of sight she could glimpse the ivy-covered ruins of the Victorian boathouse that stood sharp against the glistening water, brown on mottled silver, its hollowed eyes staring, its open mouth mocking. The sun was sinking behind the distant scribble of hills and by the time it was gone, she realized, she would be dead.
He had poisoned her. Stupid, it was the drink, of course, a final whisky, he’d said, and suddenly she couldn’t feel a thing. She was wiggling her toes, so she told herself, as though buried in the sand of her beloved island, but nothing happened. She was paralysed, couldn’t move, except for her eyes. She felt no sense of panic, not yet, not for a few seconds at least; there was little more than a tremor of incomprehension that she could hear his breathing but not her own. For a moment she wondered whether this was another of his mind games, a test of her devotion, even though she’d never given him cause to doubt, not once, not in all the years since she’d turned up at the lecture rooms off St Giles and found him staring at her from the podium. Two enquiring minds of exceptional talent, two bodies of youthful needs, soon to be thrown at and upon each other.
Theirs hadn’t been much of an affair, not in terms of weeks, little more than a medley of urgent couplings that had trussed her Catholic soul in knots, until he’d declared that he couldn’t both supervise her doctorate and take her to bed, not at the same time. He’d made his choice clear and she had followed it, without ever losing hope that he might change his mind. Ever. Even now.
Strange, she could almost taste it once more, that breathless moment of orgasm when the body locks up, refuses to breathe, a moment that seems to last for ever before it releases everything.
The mounds of her once youthful breasts were barely moving now; she struggled to speak but could find only one final word: ‘What . . .?’ She had meant to ask, ‘What is it? What have you done?’ But the words wouldn’t form. A coldness was stealing through her, she couldn’t feel her feet, no movement in her arms, fingers, no breath. Stuck in that moment.
‘It’s experimental, a derivative of snake venom. Filled with what’s called mambalgins, so no pain,’ he said, as though offering comfort. Then, ‘Forgive me.’
Her lips trembled once more but she couldn’t make sound any longer. The sun was no more than a rim of fire, its light breaking up in anger as it forced a way through the thickening peel of atmosphere. Her eyes seized upon it, trying to drag it back into the sky.
He watched her struggle, knowing what she was thinking; he’d always been able to read her mind. ‘Why?’ he said, posing the question for her.
Her eyes stopped their wild flickering as she concentrated, desperate to hear the answer, to understand.
‘Harry,’ he said.
The word came as a hoarse whisper, like air escaping from a long-sealed box in which so many secrets had been hidden. And now she began to panic, to scream about injustice, but only in the silence of her mind. Harry Jones wasn’t her fault! She’d done nothing she hadn’t been asked to do! This wasn’t right, wasn’t fair!
She tried to drag her heavy eyes back to her killer, in this crowded room of memories, to plead with him, but she couldn’t find him, only greyness, and his picture, in the silvered frame, with his wife, the wife she had always hoped he would put by for her, but never had, not even after the wife had died.
Only then did she understand what a fool she’d been, had always been. There had never been any point. To those years. To her.
And, with a final snatch of air, the panic gave way to appalling fear. It rushed through her body, closing down every synapse, snapping every sinew, until it had consumed her completely.
He sat and watched for a few moments, finishing his drink, until he was sure.
The sun had gone, and had taken her with it.