Second Life (46 page)

‘Oh, Julia. You still haven’t worked it out, have you?’

I begin to sob. ‘It’s your gun. Yours. You’re the one who told me about it.’

‘But I’m not the one who pulled the trigger.’

‘He killed my sister!’

She smiles, then, and steps forward into the light. ‘No, he didn’t.’

Her voice is utterly cold, her words sharp enough to sever flesh.

‘What?’

‘It was me she was meeting that night. I said we needed to talk. But not here.’ She
looks at Lukas, lying silently on the floor. ‘At his place. He said we could use
it.’

‘What?’

‘But she was late. She stayed for one more drink. So I bumped into her here. Right
where we’re standing.’

‘Kate?’

She nods. ‘I told her it was time. We’d tried everything, but
you still wouldn’t
give Connor back. So I said we ought to tell you the truth.’

A wave of dread wraps itself around me, around my throat. I fight for breath.

‘It
was
you? Persuading her . . .’

‘Yes. I said we should tell you about Connor’s father. Tell you that he had family,
family that would look after him. Not just Kate—’

Again I look at Lukas. ‘Him?’

‘Don’t be so ridiculous. He was just some bloke I was fucking.’ She shakes her head.
‘I mean me.’

I take a step back. The gun drops to my side. I don’t believe what I’m hearing.

‘But—’

‘She wouldn’t listen. She said she wasn’t telling you. It would hurt you too much.’
She shakes her head. ‘As if you getting hurt matters in the slightest, after what
you did. We fought.’

‘What . . . ? Who
are
you?’

‘I didn’t mean to push her over.’

‘
You
killed her!’

She looks at me. She raises her chin, defiant. Her hate is almost physical; sticky
and cloying. It penetrates deep within me. She looks at me and I can see that I disgust
her.

‘I pushed her over. She hit her head. I was angry, I wanted to stop, but . . .’ She
shrugs. ‘I didn’t know she was dead when I left her. But yes. I left her here and
I went round to his place’ – she looks again at Lukas – ‘and then the next day I
found out she was dead. And I was glad. You know that? Glad I left her here, alone.’

My sobs turn into scalding tears. They run down my face. I raise the gun.

‘I’m glad because that’s exactly what you did to my brother.’

‘What . . . ?’ I say, but an image comes. The last time I’d stood over a body, a
dying man. And then finally it snaps into focus. I remember the name Marcus had had
for his sister.

‘Bella . . . You’re Bella.’

I see it now, the thing I’ve failed to see all this time. In certain lights, from
certain angles. She looks a little like her brother.

Suddenly I’m back there. I see him that night, his face ashen, bloodless, yet filmed
with sweat. He looked unreal somehow, made of rubber. Spittle fringed his mouth;
there was vomit on the floor. ‘Go!’ said Frosty.

‘No. I can’t.’

She looked up at me. She was crying. ‘You have to. If they find any of us here—’

‘No.’

‘—it’ll be over for all of us.’ She stood up, she held me. ‘There’s nothing we can
do for Marky now, honey. He’s gone. He’s gone—’

‘No!’

‘—now you have to go, too.’

And then I’d seen it. The truth. The people’s lives I’d ruin by staying behind with
a man it was too late to help.

‘But—’

‘I promise I’ll let them know he’s here.’ She kissed me, the top of my head. ‘Go,
go now. And look after yourself.’

And then she went back to Marcus and, with one final glance at his body, I turned
away and left him behind.

I look up at the woman I’d thought was my friend Anna. At the woman who’s been pretending
to be my son’s girlfriend. ‘You’re Marcus’s sister.’

No response. My hands shake.

‘Look. I don’t know what you think—’

‘Marcus was coming home. You know? We were going to look after him.
We
loved him.
His family. Not you. You weren’t even
there
. You left him.’

‘He overdosed, Anna! You might not like that, but it’s true. He’d been clean for
weeks, he took more than he could cope with. It was nobody’s fault.’

‘Is that right?’ She shakes her head slowly, her eyes narrowed with bitterness. ‘You
were selling your photographs, buying him drugs. I know that—’

‘No. No.’

‘And then when he couldn’t take it any more, when he overdosed, you left him to die.’

‘No! I loved him. I loved Marcus . . .’ I’m sobbing now, my body convulsing, my tears
mingling with the rain that runs down my face. ‘I’ve never loved anyone like I loved
him.’

Her cold gaze locks with mine.

‘You don’t even know what happened. He was dead already. I had to leave. Marcus had
. . . we were . . . I just had to go.’

‘You left him there, dying on the floor. You ran away. Back home to start your new
life, with your lovely little house and your oh so fucking successful husband. And
your son. Darling Connor.’

‘Connor. Where is he?’

‘You took everything from me. My mother hanged herself—’

I point the gun at her. ‘Where is he?’

‘Then my father went, too. You should have gone to prison for what you did.’ She
pauses, her head tilted. Over the driving rain I can hear sirens. ‘And now you will.
They’re coming for you.’

I scream. ‘
What have you done to my son?
’

‘Connor? Nothing. I’d never hurt Connor. He’s the only thing I’ve got left.’

It hits me then, finally. ‘Marcus? Marcus was Connor’s father?’

She says nothing, yet as much as I don’t want to believe it, I know it’s true. I
see it all. It must’ve been when Kate came to visit. Just before Marcus died.

She nods. ‘I didn’t know he’d had a child. But then last year Kate told me all about
Connor. How she’d got pregnant when she visited her sister in Berlin, and her sister
still didn’t know. I had no idea she was talking about Marcus, but then she showed
me that picture of the two of you. I nearly told her that Marcus was my brother,
but I decided not to. You know why? Because, finally, it all made sense. After all
these years I now knew who the bitch was who’d left him to die.’ She looks me in
the eye. ‘It was you, Julia. And here I was, living with your sister.’ She shakes
her head. ‘That photo. I started to see him everywhere . . .’

‘If you’ve hurt my son—’

‘He’s my nephew, and I want him, Julia. He can’t stay with you. Look at you. Look
at what you’ve done. You’re not fit to be his mother. I proved it. I sent the videos
to Hugh, to everyone. They’ll all know what a cheap slut you are now.’

So that’s it. It had been about getting Connor back, all along. Not the money.

I look at Lukas. Lukas, who thought he was blackmailing me for money. He’s lying,
motionless, his unseeing eyes wide open.

I hear a car pull up, a door open. I daren’t turn round. I look at the gun in my
hand. It’s as if it has nothing to do with me.

He’s dead. The man who is the proof of what’s been going on, is dead. And I killed
him.

‘A slut,’ says Anna. She takes a step towards me. She’s
almost close enough to touch.
I can hear footsteps, close by. I risk a quick glance over my shoulder. Two police
cars have pulled up and Hugh is getting out of the first, along with three or four
officers. They’re all shouting, a mix of French and English. Hugh’s voice is the
only one I can make out. ‘Julia!’ he’s saying. ‘Julia! Put the gun down!’

I look at him. In the car behind him I can see another figure and with a jolt of
relief I realize it’s Connor. He’s looking at me. He looks lost, bewildered. But
he’s alive. Anna was lying. He’s safe. Hugh must’ve found him, wandering Gare du
Nord, just as Anna had pretended to. Or perhaps he finally relented and turned his
phone on, to call his dad.

‘Julia!’ says Hugh again. He skids to a halt. The police are ahead of him, they’ve
crouched on the ground. There are guns pointing at me. I look at Anna.

‘She killed Kate!’ I say.

Anna speaks, too quietly for anyone but me to hear. ‘You’re a junkie and a slut and
a murderer.’

I’m still looking at my husband. I remember what he’d said, on the phone on the way
here.
Connor’s father is dead
.

He’d known. Kate must have told him. And he’d kept it to himself.

I look back at Anna. I know she’s telling the truth. She’s sent the pictures to Hugh.

She smiles.

‘I took it all. I’ve ruined your life, Julia, and now you’ll lose your son.’

‘No—’ I begin, but she silences me.

‘It’s over, Julia.’

I raise the gun. The police shout, Hugh says something, but I can’t make it out.
I know she’s right. Whatever happens, it’s over now. There’s no way back. I’ve loved
someone, someone who isn’t my husband. I’ve loved someone and I’ve
shot him. I can’t
go back from this. My life – my second life, the one I escaped into when I ran from
Berlin – is over.

‘I should kill you,’ I say.

‘Then do it.’

I close my eyes. It’s what she wants. I know it is. And if I do she’s won. But I
don’t care, now. I’ve lost Hugh, I’ll lose Connor. It’s irrelevant.

My hand is shaking, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I want to fire the gun, and
at the same time I don’t. Maybe it’s not too late, maybe I can still prove it was
Bella who killed my sister, that she tricked me into shooting Lukas. But I can’t
work out what difference it will make; Lukas may have been many things, but he was
no murderer. I’ve killed an innocent man; whether deliberately or not hardly seems
to matter. I can’t live with myself either way.

I open my eyes. Whatever happens next, whether I shoot or not, it’s over.

Acknowledgements

Very special thanks to Clare Conville, Richard Skinner and Miffa Salter. For practical
advice on the world of photography, my thanks go to Annabel Staff and to Stuart Sandford.
Thanks to my editors around the world, in particular Larry Finlay, Claire Wachtel,
Michael Heyward and Iris Tupholme. Thanks to my family and friends, in particular
to Nicholas Ib.

The character name ‘Paddy Renouf’ was supplied by its original owner, who won the
right to have his name featured in this book during a charity auction to raise funds
for Kelling Hospital, Norfolk. The character is entirely fictional.