Second Life (45 page)

I know, then. I’m sure. I’ve seen this place before, on my computer. I hadn’t recognized
it at first, not in the dark, but this is the place. I run past Berger to the mouth
of the alleyway. I’m right.

This is where my sister died.

I run into the alleyway. It’s rain-soaked, in almost total darkness. I can’t believe
it. I’m here. This is it. This is where my sister’s body was discovered, where her
life bled out on to the cobblestones. This is where the nightmare that has been the
last few months began.

My mind races. I’ve been a fool. All along. Lukas wasn’t on holiday in Australia,
or at least he wasn’t when Kate was killed. It wasn’t a drug dealer who killed her.

Kate wasn’t mugged for a cheap earring, or attacked while buying drugs, or killed
in a random attack on her way home from a bar. She’d come here to see him, to meet
the father of her son.

I try to picture it. Was he hoping for a reconciliation? I see Kate rejecting him,
telling him she wanted nothing to do with him, that he’d never see Connor again.
They argue, insults are hurled, a fist is raised.

Or maybe it was his plan all along. To bring her here. To punish her for sending
Connor away and then failing to get him back.

I take out my phone. I want Hugh. I need his help, I want to find out how far away
he is, but it’s more than that. I want to tell him he’s wrong, that whatever Kate
said, she lied. Connor’s father is alive, and he killed her. I want to make him understand,
and tell him how I found out, and that it’s my fault and I’m sorry. I want to tell
him I love him.

But his phone goes straight to voicemail. Once again, I’m alone.

I feel curiously calm, like stone, yet underneath it my stomach begins to knot and
I’m aware it’s the first sign of an incoming tidal wave. I have to stay focussed,
remain still. My hand goes to the gun in my bag, yet this time it doesn’t give me
confidence. Instead it reminds me of the impossibility of what I have to do. For
a moment I want to run, not to the police, but away. Away from everything, to a time
when all this had never happened, and Kate is still alive and Connor is happy.

But that’s not possible. Time grinds forward, inexorable. And so I’m stuck; there’s
no escape. I want to sink to the wet ground and let the cold rain wash over me.

All of a sudden there’s a noise, a shriek. I startle. A train is passing, overhead.
It’s come from nowhere. I look up; it’s yellow and white, travelling so quickly it’s
almost a blur. Still I can make out the passengers, all looking downwards, unsmiling.
Reading newspapers, no doubt, working on laptops, using their phones. Had none of
them seen what happened? Did no one happen to glance down to see my sister, fighting
with Lukas?

Or maybe they did, and thought nothing of it. Just a row, an argument. They happen
all the time.

The wheels squeal, the train passes, as quickly as it’d come. I look back to the
end of the alleyway, where it joins the street.

And he’s there. Even though he can’t possibly know that I’m here, that I’ve worked
out where he lives, he’s there. Standing at the end of the alleyway wearing the same
blue parka he’d had on the other day. Lukas.

Something is released inside me. The wave builds and I take a step back. ‘What—?’
I begin, but I already know how he found me.

‘You think it was an accident? Letting you see over my
shoulder? You’re a clever
girl, Julia. I knew you’d work it out. Plus, I knew you wouldn’t want to leave it
until tomorrow—’

‘Where’s Connor? Where’s my son?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Damn him. I begin to move. My hand goes to my bag, then inside it. I feel the weight
of the gun, its hardness. I wonder if the rain will affect it, then remember it doesn’t
matter. I have no intention of using it. I have to scare him. I have to make him
think I’m capable of killing, something I now know he himself has done.

No. I stop the thought dead. Connor’s face comes into view. I can’t afford to think
of Kate. Not now. I have to focus. I have to make him give me my son back, and then
admit what he did, somehow get him to turn himself in.

I raise my face to him. Defiant. The rain hits.

‘I know what you did.’

‘What I did? To Anna? And what’s that, then?’

‘Here. I know what happened here. You were chatting to Kate, online. You . . . you
enticed
her here. You killed her . . .’

He shakes his head.

‘I know you’re Connor’s father. No matter what she told Anna, or me, or Hugh. You’re
Connor’s father.’

His eyes narrow. ‘You’re even crazier than I thought. I didn’t even know Kate.’

‘Liar.’ I try to steady my voice and say it again. ‘You’re a liar.’

‘Don’t be absurd. I didn’t—’

I lift my hand up out of my bag. The sweater drops away. He sees the gun, his eyes
go wide.

‘Fuck!’

I feel it coming. The boiling anger, the rage. The wave is
breaking, but I can’t
give in to it, not yet. I have to keep my head clear.

‘You killed Kate!’ My fury is molten lava; it burns and will not be contained. I
wipe the rain out of my eyes with the back of the hand holding the gun. ‘You killed
my sister!’

He takes a step forward. ‘Julia,’ he says, ‘listen to me . . .’

A look of fear flashes on his face and his swaggering bravado drops away. He’s Lukas
again, the man I once knew. My mind goes to the time I’d been angry with him, told
him I wasn’t sure what was happening between us or whether I wanted it to continue.
He’d looked frightened, then. I thought that was because he loved me, when really
it was because I was close to escape.

I raise the gun. I point it at his chest. I think of pulling the trigger, seeing
the red bloom on his shirt. For an instant I wish I could do it.

‘Stay away from me!’

He freezes. I see him try to work out what to do. He probably thinks he could rush
at me, grab the gun. He probably thinks I wouldn’t pull the trigger.

‘I said stay away!’

He takes a step back. He looks less certain now, he doesn’t know what to do. He glances
back to where he came from, then up to his apartment, as if the answer will be there.

‘This is what’s going to happen.’ I hesitate; I’m trying to calm down. ‘We’re going
to go up to your apartment. We’ll let Anna go, and then—’

‘Listen.’ He looks at me, imploring, and for a moment I want to believe he’s innocent,
that none of this is real. ‘You’ve got this all wrong. I didn’t kill your sister.
I never even met her. Anna said she knew you’d inherited some money and she thought
we could get it . . .’

I stab the gun towards him. ‘You’re lying.’

‘No, listen. Anna’s just a casual thing, you know? I met her online. Just like you.
A few months ago—’

‘Shut up!’

‘—we’re not getting married. She said we should blackmail you.’

I take a step towards him. My finger rests on the trigger. ‘Stop pretending this
is about money!’

I close my eyes, open them again. I want to believe him. I want to believe that this
has nothing to do with Connor.

But it does. My son is missing. Of course it does.

‘Where’s Connor?’

‘It was just part of the game. I don’t know anything about your son. You have to
believe—’

I shout. ‘Where is he?’ My voice echoes off the cold walls of the alleyway. He shakes
his head. ‘My son is missing. My sister was killed right here, right where we’re
standing, and you expect me—’

‘What?’

He looks genuinely confused.

‘She died here.’

He shakes his head. ‘No. No.’

Again, doubt creeps in. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe this is a mistake.

I level the gun. I won’t let him convince me again. Over his shoulder I can see down
the alleyway; there’s a figure, crossing the road, coming slowly towards us. A passer-by?
There haven’t been any of those, not since we got here.

It looks like Anna. I don’t want him to turn and see her.

‘Stop lying to me.’

‘Julia. Believe me. How can I have killed your sister? I was in Australia. You know
that . . .’

I ignore him. The approaching figure is under the street lamp now. I’m right, it
is Anna, and even in the dim light I
can see that she looks awful. Her face is bruised,
there’s a dark patch on her white shirt that might be blood. I gasp, I can’t help
it. ‘Anna!’

Lukas looks round but doesn’t move. She runs past him and joins me.

‘Julia, whatever he’s saying, he’s lying.’ She’s out of breath, but speaks quickly,
furiously. ‘Listen to me . . . he killed Kate . . . I found out . . . it was over
Connor . . . but he made me lie . . . he made me . . .’

My last shred of hope falls away. I look into his eyes and remember that I loved
him – or thought I did at least – and he had killed my sister.

‘It
was
you.’

‘Don’t be absurd. Don’t believe her! Julia! I didn’t kill your sister. I swear—’

‘You killed her.’ I’m almost whispering; my words are swallowed by the rain. ‘And
then you made me fall in love with you.’ I hesitate. The words won’t come. ‘I loved
you and you killed my sister. You used me to get close to Connor.’

‘No!’ He steps forward. The rain has plastered his hair to his forehead; it drips
from him, soaking him. ‘I didn’t kill anyone, I swear.’ He looks from me to Anna.
‘What are you doing?’ He reaches for her but I wave the gun and he backs off. ‘How
can you say you lied for me? I lied for you!’

I lift the gun up.

‘Tell her!’ he says, then. He’s speaking to Anna. ‘Tell her I was abroad that night!’

She shakes her head. ‘I’m not lying for you again.’ She sobs. ‘I lied to the police,
but I’m not doing it again. You told me you were abroad, but you weren’t. You killed
her, Lukas. You did it.’

‘No!’ he says. ‘No!’ But I can barely hear him. All I can hear is Anna.
You did it.

‘Listen,’ he says. ‘I can explain—’

My hand begins to shake. The gun is heavy, slick with rain. ‘Where’s Connor?’

No one speaks.

‘Where is he?’

Anna looks at me. ‘Julia,’ she says, and I can see that she’s crying. ‘Julia. Connor
. . . is upstairs. I tried to protect him . . .’

I look at the blood on her shirt.

‘I couldn’t. We need an ambulance. We have to get him to a hospital—’

Everything collapses. It’s automatic, impulsive. A reflex. I don’t even think. I
look at the gun in my hand and, beyond it, Lukas.

I pull the trigger.

What happens next isn’t supposed to. There’s an instant – an almost imperceptible
moment – of something that resembles stillness. Stasis. I don’t feel as if I’ve made
an irreversible decision; for a moment it’s as if I can still take it all back. Turn
away. Become something else, or follow a path that leads to a different future.

But then the gun fires. My hand leaps up with the kick; there’s a flash and the noise
hits. It’s intense; my whole body reacts as the gun’s blast echoes off the walls
of the alleyway. A second later it’s gone, replaced by a deadening numbness. In the
silence I look in horror at the gun in my hand, as if I can’t believe what I’ve done,
and then I look at Lukas.

He’s spinning, away from me, his hands at his chest. Even as he turns I can see that
he’s wide-eyed, terrified; within a second or two he’s lying on the ground against
the opposite wall of the alley. Stasis returns. There’s a whistling in my ears, but
all else is quiet. I look at the gun. There’s a faint
smell, dry and acrid, like
nothing I’ve known before. Nobody moves. Nothing happens. I can feel my heart beat.

And then a red smudge blooms on his shirt, the world of sound crashes back in, and
everything happens at once.

I step back, feel the cold wall against me. Lukas speaks; it sounds unnaturally loud
now that my hearing has returned, yet still it’s little more than a thin, reedy noise
in his throat. ‘You stupid bitch! You fucking shot me!’

My courage has gone, my bravado has disappeared. My hand goes to my mouth.

He’s panting, looking down at the blood that’s beginning to seep through his fingers.
He cries out. I can’t make out what he’s saying, it’s little more than a rasping
moan, but he looks from his bleeding chest to Anna and there seems to be a name in
there. It sounds like ‘Bella’.

The word seems familiar, vaguely, but I can’t place it. I look over at Anna. Help
me, I want to say. What have I done? But she’s looking at me. Her face is cold. Her
eyes wide, as if in shock, yet at the same time she’s wearing half a smile.

‘Bella,’ he says again.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ she says. She takes a step forward. She moves slowly. She is
utterly calm.

I look at her. I’m incredulous. I don’t know what to say. My mouth opens, closes.
She looks at me.

My world is imploding. I can’t work out what is happening. Everything seems too
bright, as if I’ve been staring into the sun. I can only make out outlines, shadows.
Nothing is solid, nothing seems real.

‘Where’s Connor? Where is he?’

She smiles, but says nothing.

‘Anna? What’s this about? We’re friends . . . ? Aren’t we?’

She laughs. The name begins to float to the surface. I’ve heard it before. I know
I have. Bella.

I just can’t yet place it. I look to the body at my feet, desperate for help. ‘Lukas?’
He looks up at me. He’s gasping, pale. His eyes close, open again. ‘Lukas?’

He tries to take another deep breath, to speak, but the words fracture and fail.

Anna speaks. It’s difficult to tell, but it looks as though she’s begun to cry. ‘The
police will be here soon, Julia.’

I look at the gun in my hand, at the man I’ve just shot. The truth begins to emerge,
yet still it’s distorted, not yet in focus.

‘I didn’t mean to kill him.’

‘You never do—’

‘What—?’

‘Yet people still keep dying . . .’

I don’t know what she means. ‘What? Anna—!’