After that, I really didn’t feel like Griff-sitting, and thought about crying off from my appointment that evening. But it wouldn’t be fair on Muriel: and anyway, I reflected, an hour or two with Griff would keep me away from Russell’s embittered and vengeful eye.
However, as my scooter buzzed up the steep road in Ambleside, I felt some guilt at leaving Raven How. What about Ruby and Delilah, alone in the house with Russell? I realised that for Delilah’s sake, I really did need to work out what to tell the police – and soon.
That would make Selena happier, too. Though had she really been so worried at the thought of being attacked? Or was it merely an excuse to hang on to the gun? A nasty feeling nibbled at my mind: that she’d fired it to bring me running to her door – she’d sacrificed the dog to summon me.
When she welcomed me into her flat, Muriel looked like I felt: harassed and jittery. Like me, she was unwillingly resigned to spending the evening reassuring an anxious man.
“I’ve got to go and see poor Freddie,” she said as soon as she let me in. “He’s in bits. He was practically crying on the phone. It seems that Matt found out about his other, you know, boyfriend.”
“Oh, crikey. How?”
“I don’t know. But Matt wants to leave, and Freddie’s desperate. He doesn’t know what to do.”
“Surely sleeping with someone else isn’t such an enormous crime?”
“It’s the deception, though, isn’t it? The betrayal.” She hung up my coat, and took hers off the peg, her fingers fumbling. “This is very good of you, Eden. I’ll try to make it quick.”
“I doubt if that’ll be easy,” I said. “Take Freddie to the pub. Don’t feel you have to rush back.”
“Thank you.” She glanced towards the kitchen whence came the faint sounds of washing up and humming. “I’m so grateful you can help out at short notice. I really couldn’t leave Griff on his own, not after the last couple of occasions.”
“Well, I’ll make sure he doesn’t set off over Loughrigg,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “What was the other occasion? Was that when he never saw the note you left, and panicked?”
“What note? Oh… I’d forgotten I told you that. The truth is, I never left a note.” Muriel scrunched her gloves up in her fists. “We had a ridiculous argument, over nothing at all – well, not nothing, actually, it was over that picture of Selena. It was so stupid; Griff wouldn’t let me put it away and I just had enough. I couldn’t take it any more. I flipped. I walked out of the house and left him here, with no note, nothing.”
“Where did you go?”
She faltered. “Where... I hardly know. I got in the car and drove, and then I got out and walked. Round and round in the middle of nowhere. But I had to come back. I was terrified he’d have gone, and yet you know, in one way I almost wished he had.” She shook her head. “That sounds dreadful, doesn’t it? So callous. But I was at the end of my tether.”
“But Griff was here when you got back?”
“Yes, thank God. He was in a terrible state, crying and shaking. There was bedding all over the floor, and blood in the bathroom: he’d cut his hand, but he couldn’t explain how. He thought he’d lost me. He thought I was dead. He was terrified. I can’t forgive myself,” said Muriel. She was truly distressed. There was no way she was faking this. “Although of course he’s totally forgotten it now. As far as he’s concerned, there’s nothing to forgive.”
“Still no improvement in his memory, then?”
Muriel gave a twisted smile. “Oh, he still remembers her,” she said. “The Lady of the Lake. Like a catchphrase that he can’t forget. I wish he would, now, sometimes.”
“Oh.”
“Well, anyway.” She picked up her bag, and her accustomed briskness with it. She squared her shoulders. “Griff?” she called. “I’m popping out to post a letter. I’ll only be five minutes. Make Eden a cup of tea, will you?”
Griff appeared at the archway to the kitchen, drying his hands on a tea-towel.
“Eden?” he said doubtfully.
“You remember Eden? The young artist we met recently, at Waterhead. She’s just called round.”
“Ah, yes, of course,” said Griff. “Milk and sugar, Eden?” He was busy, polite, slightly bewildered by my presence. “An artist, eh?”
“Watercolour,” I said. “I like that one that’s on your mantelpiece.”
“Yes, it’s a shame it’s not hung properly,” said Griff. “I don’t think the landlord’s ever going to sort it out.”
“Muriel tells me you’re an artist yourself, after the style of Wainwright.”
“Well, yes, indeed! Not as good as him, of course, but I like to take notes and sketches on our walks. I’m building up quite a portfolio.”
“How lovely. Could I see it, do you think?”
“Good idea,” said Muriel. “Show it to Eden while I pop out.” She waved a glove at us and slipped away.
“Yes, certainly! I’d be delighted! Not that you’ll think much of them. Now, I wonder where...”
“Muriel told me they were under the bed in a plastic box,” I said. I thought I was doing pretty well. Griff disappeared into the bedroom, and didn’t come back. After a minute, I stuck my head around the door. He was standing in front of the mirror inspecting himself with bemusement.
“Grey hairs, grey hairs,” he muttered.
“Did you find the box with your drawings in, Griff? The one under the bed?”
“Oh! Right, right, let me see…” The room was spare and restful in pastel green. As in the lounge, the cupboards were dotted with post-it notes: socks, ties, t-shirts. One, saying simply MURIEL, adorned a pack of tablets on the bedside table. They were tranquillisers. A brand the girls in prison had sworn by.
Retrieving the box from underneath the bed, Griff carried it to the dining area, where he set it down on the table and opened it.
“My word,” he said joyfully. “Happy hours! I’d forgotten some of these entirely. Now this one’s Helvellyn, the long route, as I remember. Look at all those notes I wrote! And Scafell Pike, my goodness. That was in September. A glorious day but so breezy I thought we were going to get blown right off the hill!”
He leafed excitedly through the pages, arranging them across the table. When I asked, he could recall events along each walk, striding confidently back into the past.
“These are very good,” I said.
“Well, thank you, um...”
“Eden.”
“Eden?”
“I’m a friend of Muriel’s. She’s just popped out for five minutes.”
“A friend of Muriel’s?”
“We met at Waterhead when I was painting there. A girl fell into the lake and we had to fish her out, all dripping wet. Do you remember the Lady of the Lake?”
“The Lady of the Lake!” he said eagerly. “I do, I do! In that long red–” He waved his arms about. “Whatever happened to her?”
“She’s fine. She made a full recovery.” I turned back to the pseudo-Wainwrights, which seemed a safe, anchored subject, and asked him to pick out his favourite drawings, which he did with modesty.
“Not as good as the real thing, of course,” he said. “Sometimes it’s frustrating, coming up against your limits.”
“I know that feeling all right.”
“But you have to do the best you can regardless, don’t you?”
“I suppose,” I said. “Why did you stop doing these drawings, Griff?”
“Well...” He looked puzzled. “Who knows? I just stopped.”
“Maybe you should start again.” I picked up the Helvellyn sketch. “Did you make a bird’s eye map for this one?”
“That was the Wainwright route, you know. He drew a map. I wouldn’t want to copy.”
“But his is about fifty years old: there are bound to be differences. Have you got his Eastern Fells, and an OS map? Let’s just compare.”
Griff looked around and discovered both on the bookshelf. We spread the map out over the sketches, d
iscussing how Wainwright did it, and with my prompting Griff set to work on his own version of a bird’s eye plan, carefully etching in crags and walls in miniature.
He was absorbed. With the work in front of him he didn’t lose his place: it was easy for him to see what came next, the route leading him on up the hill and across the paper. He hummed as he drew. I was pleased with myself. A small triumph to tell Muriel.
When my phone rang, he glanced up, startled.
“It’s just my brother,” I said reassuringly, checking the screen. “Don’t mind me. You go on with your drawing.” I moved away to talk to Allen.
“I spoke to my ex-colleague,” Allen said. “About that guy you were asking after, the former finance officer?”
“Uh-huh.” I kept my eyes on Griff, trying to retrace his steps across the map.
“Your source may have been right,” said Allen. “Something was going on. A couple of policemen turned up at the offices two years ago, he said, conducting interviews, and took various computers away, but he didn’t know what it was all about. They kept it hush hush. He was new there at the time. Not high up enough in the echelons to get the full gen.”
“But he thought it concerned the person I mentioned?”
“Possibly. The guy got ill and had to leave, right? Nothing happened after that. Whatever it was, it died a death.”
“Okay. Thanks, Allen.”
I studied Griff. He’d lost his thread: the spell was broken. He shuffled through his batch of pages, unsure of what he was doing. I peered over his shoulder.
“You’re up to Dollywagon Pike,” I told him. “See it? There you go.”
I drank my tea while he drew on. Whatever Griff had been involved in back then – if anything – he was no longer, that was certain, and I had no way of pursuing it right now. It didn’t really matter.
A more important worry claimed my attention, taking me back to Raven How to feel my way around the studio with its stormy, ominous paintings. I imagined Russell raging through the house while Ruby did her best to ignore him.
And then Delilah. With a lurch of my stomach I reflected that Russell had no fatherly feelings for Delilah. If he got angry again...
I cradled my phone. I ought to ring the police, now.
And say what, exactly? Russell’s a moody bugger who might have killed Isaac because of his wife’s affair?... That’s right, the wife who gave him an alibi. No, that didn’t work. Why would she do that? Or maybe he managed to slip out past her unseen. But surely, even so, Ruby would suspect?
I was out of my depth. I had the sense that there was always something I was missing, like a shadow that slid around the corner the closer to it I got.
I wanted to ring Hunter. He would work it out for me. But I didn’t have his number, and even as I contemplated trying to track him down, his face flashed before me, scornful and severe. Bloody sanctimonious holier-than-thou copper… I closed my eyes for a second against the memory.
No, I couldn’t ring Hunter. However, 999 seemed too extreme. It would have to be Kendal police station. I could at least tell them about Selena and the unlicensed gun: and then I could lead on to my suspicions about Russell.
So I said to Griff, “Muriel will be back from the shops soon. How about a refill of tea while we’re waiting? I’ll go and put the kettle on.” I carried our mugs away into the little kitchen where a whole post-it forest appeared to have shed its leaves across the units. I filled the kettle and while it was purring into life took out my phone again. I rang directory enquiries and to the bored voice at the other end said,
“Kendal police station, please. What? Well, Cumbria police then. Whatever.”
With the phone pressed to my ear I looked up and saw Griff standing in the archway.
“Who are you ringing?” he said.
“Nobody.” I closed the call and put the phone on the worktop behind my back.
He moved forward into the kitchen with two long strides. “You were ringing the police! I heard you!” He began to reach forward for the phone.
“No I wasn’t,” I said, and spun round to snatch the phone away. It shot off the worktop onto the floor, while the half-mug of cold tea next to it went leaping all down my front.
“Wah!” I jumped back, dripping tea. Griff jumped back too. He looked alarmed. Not just alarmed: horrified.
“Sorry, Griff,” I said. “I’m Eden, remember? A friend of Muriel’s. I came round to see your pictures. Muriel’s just popped out. I was going to phone the police about my scooter that got stolen. But I’ll do it later. You go on with your map. I’ll clean up in here, and make us a fresh brew.” I tried to keep my voice normal and easy, hoping to calm him. I wasn’t sure if it was working. He still hovered in front of me.
“You came to see my pictures?”
“Excuse me,” I said. I reached round him for a tea-towel and dabbed myself in vain; the tea had splatted like cowpats across my nice cream jumper.
“Who are you?”
“Nobody. Just a friend, Griff. Don’t worry, everything’s all right.”
“But you were ringing the police! Why were you ringing the police? It was accidental!” he said. His eyes stared, straining as if trying to make out something in the dark.
“I know,” I said. “Don’t worry, Griff.”
“How do you know my name? What are you doing here?” He looked round wildly. “Where’s Muriel?”
Before I could answer, the doorbell rang. “That might be her now,” I said with relief. Even if it wasn’t, any distraction would be welcome. “You sit down, Griff. I’ll get the door.”
He didn’t move. I slid past him as quickly as I could, and put on my coat before answering the door, to cover the evidence of tea-flinging from Muriel. But it wasn’t her.
“Hallo, Matt!” I said warmly. “How nice to see you! Come in. Muriel’s just popped out...” It was only as I said this that I began to think, damn, he’s come here looking for Freddie. Griff was staring at us both in something close to panic.
“I’m sure you remember Matt, from Freddie’s bookshop,” I said cajolingly.
“Do you remember me, Griff?” said Matt pleasantly. “Georgy, Porgy, Pudding and Pie, kissed the girls and made them cry. Only I didn’t make her cry, did I?”
“Who?” I said. “Do you want a cup of tea, Matt?”
“No, I won’t be staying long enough for that, thanks,” said Matt, and he lunged out with his right fist, clad in a black glove, and hit Griff, throwing him back so that he sprawled against the wall.
“What are you doing?” I cried. “It’s not his fault!” for I thought that somehow he must blame Griff for Freddie’s indiscretion.
Matt didn’t answer. He hit Griff again, in the face, before I caught hold of his arm. Then he stood quite still with his arm raised. I couldn’t move it. It was as rigid as an iron bar.
“Matt? Calm down! What was that for?”
Griff was staggering to his feet, holding his face. One eye was already closing.
“Okay,” said Matt, breathless and intent. He reached out suddenly to seize Griff’s hand, and pulling it towards me, raked it through my hair.
“What are you doing?” I tried to yell again, but my voice came out faint and squeaky. I felt Griff’s nails dig into my scalp. Griff cried out wordlessly, wrenching his arm free and taking quite a clump of my hair with it. Matt punched him one more time, on the chin, and this time Griff went right down on the floor. I tried to get between them but Matt pushed me hard through the archway to the kitchen and sent me crashing into the fridge. I clutched at its handle.
“Matt! Stop it! Is this about Freddie?”
“Freddie? You think I care about Freddie and his pretty boys? I know what he’s been up to. It’ll give me a good out when I need it.” It was said in a low voice, between clenched teeth. Matt strode back into the living area.
“But it’s not Griff’s fault!” I cried. Scrambling unsteadily to my feet, I lurched after him. Griff was lying by the sofa, gro
aning. “What’s Griff done wrong?”
“He’s hit you, that’s what,” said Matt. “Don’t worry, Griff. It was self-defence. She attacked you first. She nicked your wallet and smashed things up a bit.”
As he spoke, he bent down and took Griff’s wallet from his pocket. Griff seemed barely able to flap a hand at him, let alone protest.
Matt glanced around: scooped Griff’s mobile phone off the mantelpiece, then whisked the pair of china swans off it and sent them crashing into the dead hearth. Lifting the newly purchased watercolour, he surveyed it for a second with tilted head, before punching his fist through it. Its rags joined the shattered shards of swan.
“That’ll do,” he said, nodding. My portrait of Selena, underneath the watercolour, was exposed. Matt took it up, smiled, and looked over at me as he kissed it.
“Georgy Porgy,” he said. “Yes, I kissed her, nice and brotherly, no tongues. The way she likes. But I never fucked her. That would have made her cry.”
I tried to ask something, but it came out incoherent. I no longer knew what to ask.
“Now then,” he said, his hand diving into his pocket. It came out again with a sharp click, and was suddenly holding a knife. He advanced towards Griff, who was struggling to sit up, his mouth open, staring at us with his undamaged eye.
“No,” I said. I tried to grab Matt. He whipped his arm sideways: the blade missed me narrowly, and I was sent flying against the table. The OS map slithered off on top of me in a noisy waterfall of folds. I cowered by the table leg.
“Matt! What’s going on?” I appealed. “Is this about Freddie?”
His eyelids half-lowered in derision. “Haven’t you got it yet? This is about you.” The knife slashed downwards at the leather sofa, ripping the cushions which burst open to vomit yellowed foam. Matt flung the Wainwright and Griff’s sketches in the air: the maps fluttered desperately before fainting on the floor. By now the room was a burglarised mess.
Matt turned and gave me a considered, measuring look.
“But you know that, don’t you?” he said. “Playing the dumb innocent.”
“Know what?” I croaked. “I don’t know what you mean.” That knife blade hypnotised me like a snake. I dared not take my eyes from it.
“Selena told me that you’d worked it out. And here I was thinking I was doing a nice job of nudging your suspicious little mind Freddie’s way. Selena was in quite a panic when she rang me. It’s turned out convenient, though. Turned out very nicely.”
“Matt?” His words made no sense. I couldn’t fit anything together.
Griff was dazedly getting to his feet, his hand pressed, trembling, to his face. Matt leant against the mantelpiece and watched him with a smile.
My slow, bewildered brain began to think. My phone was still on the kitchen worktop, along with lots of knives and large hard metal objects. So when Matt’s head turned to study Griff, I jumped up and dived into the kitchen.
Matt moved faster. He grabbed me by my coat, twisting me round painfully and slamming me against the kitchen units. Then he seized my phone and pocketed it.
“Leave the girl alone! You won’t get away with this, you thief!” cried Griff hoarsely.
“Oh, I think I will.”
Griff stumbled towards us: the knife lashed out to draw a swift, vicious line across his jumper. Griff flinched back.
“Like that, is it?” said Matt, with hot anticipation in his voice. “You want a fight? That’s fine by me. The worse state you’re in, the better.” He began to move in on Griff, the knife glinting.
I hurled myself at him. The knife, knocked sideways, slashed Griff’s sleeve. Then I kicked Matt in the legs until he hit me. As I began to fall over, he dragged me upright and gripped me tight, my back against his chest. I could feel his heart thumping, wild and fast. No, that must be mine.
“Enough,” he said, breathing heavily. “Time we were going.” The knife was fondling my cheek, horribly close to my right eye. I had to lean back against Matt’s shoulder. His other hand closed on my breast. He laughed.
He began to drag me backwards, towards the door. Griff touched his sleeve with bewilderment and looked down, dazed, at the smear of blood on his hand.
“Don’t forget to tell them what happened, will you, Griff?” called Matt. “How she robbed you and stabbed you before she ran? Think you can remember all that? Never mind. I think the scene speaks for itself.”
We were nearly at the door. I yelled out,
“Write down what happened, Griff! Write it down!”
Then the door slammed closed behind us and Matt was hustling me down the concrete stairwell with the taste of blood in my mouth and the blade whispering in my ear.
“Don’t scream,” he said quietly.
“I won’t. Matt, you don’t have to do this!” I said, for I was still hoping that somehow I’d got this all wrong, that Matt was still a friend. He’d just made a mistake. He’d stop and realise in a minute. “Think of Freddie,” I gasped.
“Fuck Freddie.” The gloved hand under my jacket squeezed. “You too, if I had time. You think I give a toss about Freddie? I’m not gay. Shut up! You make another sound, you’re dead.”
We clattered down the last of the stairs and out into the darkness.
There was no-one in the car park. Only three cars. One of them was a hatchback, a black shadow in the blotchy, inadequate streetlights.
“Open the boot,” said Matt. I didn’t want to. Cold was creeping into me inexorably, making me shake, freezing me right through: the cold not of the night air, but of the truth, that Matt meant this, that Matt had hit me, that Matt was not my friend at all but my potential killer.
I was afraid of that knife. I used to be contemptuous of girls who let themselves be raped, men who gave up their wallets at knifepoint without a murmur. Now I knew better. That knife was one second from an artery, from my eyes, my heart. I opened the boot.
“Hands behind your back,” said Matt. I felt a cold click, click against my wrists. Handcuffs. “Now get in.”
“What?”
He slapped me, hard, and while I was off-balance up-ended me and heaved me into the car boot. The parcel shelf closed on my head: the door slammed shut.
I heard the driver’s door open. The car swayed as he got in.
“Matt!”
“Shut up.” He started the engine and put the radio on loud. Dubstep filled the car like a huge, heavy, restless animal. I was lying on my side, curled up, my shoulders achingly cramped. With my arms handcuffed behind me, I couldn’t budge. My feet were jammed against the edge of the boot: my head knocked painfully on its other side.
We were on the move. Going downhill: I slid. I tried to block the music out and concentrate on the direction we were taking, visualising roads. A left turn. Then straight for a while. Heading southwards out of Ambleside? I couldn’t judge the speed, so I couldn’t guess the distance. It probably seemed further than it was. The road swung left, then right again.
It didn’t take us long. I thought it must be barely two or three miles when he turned the music down and the car swung sharp right, grinding me against my metal wall. A little further on, we stopped.
I didn’t want to stop. I hadn’t wanted to climb into this car, but while it was being driven round I was at least safe. Sort of.
I heard him get out and walk to the back of the car. When he opened the boot, it was dark. I couldn’t sit up: he hauled me roughly upright and jammed a woolly hat right down over my eyes and nose, blinding me. A scarf was rammed into my mouth and tied behind my head.
“All right,” said Matt, “let’s go.”
He lifted me out and stood me on the ground. Stones underfoot. Distant traffic. Otherwise, it was very still. A duck quacked somewhere: there was the faint lapping of water. Windermere. I guessed, from the likely distance, we must be somewhere around Brockhole.
“Walk,” he said. So I walked, his hand gripping my arm, that knife a wasp’s sting in the back of my head. He made me
step up onto something wooden that gave slightly. The lapping of water was louder. It was beneath us. After a few more steps, he picked me up under the arms and swung me down onto another surface a couple of feet lower: a surface that rocked and slapped against the water smartly with disapproving tuts. A boat.
“Sit down,” said Matt savagely, pressing me onto a narrow seat. The boat rocked again as he moved round. A motor started up: a small outboard. There was a faint breeze on my neck as the boat began to chug away from the jetty.
“Ng,” I said through my woolly gag. I wanted to get off. Matt didn’t answer. I sat frozen to the cold bench, gripping the back of it with my fingers, afraid of moving lest I should fall in.
My mind flew back to Griff, bleeding and bewildered, alone in the flat. Write it down, I’d said. A fat lot of use that advice was, when he couldn’t remember my name, or Matt’s. And by the time Muriel arrived home he would have long forgotten everything that happened. It would have been slipping from his memory even as Matt drove me away.
But the clues would be clear to read. The knife wound, the wrecked room, the missing wallet. My skin and hair under Griff’s nails. And my fingerprints everywhere. None of Matt’s.
Well, no surprise there, Inspector Irlam would say, shaking his jowls. That Eden Shirer: a dodgy character. What can you expect? And Hunter–
“Ng!” I said again, in protest and anguish. Matt laughed.
“Don’t worry,” he answered over the rough purr of the engine. “Not long now.”
Not long to where? Which way was he taking me: down Windermere or straight across?
I guessed across, perhaps to somewhere inaccessible by road. What lay across the water from Brockhole? I tried to visualise the map. Watbarrow Point, Wray Castle, wooded slopes, all sorts of possible hideaways for a boat.
The engine cut out. We stopped, gently rocking. It was a nearly windless evening, the water almost as calm as it had been by the jetty.
“Here we are,” said Matt. Where were we? The boathouse at Wray? Surely we hadn’t been moving long enough to get that far? With the idiocy of fear, I told myself we were just pausing, waiting for something, for the right time, before chugging on to find another jetty.
“You screwed me up,” said Matt softly. “You and your fucking paintings. I thought it would be a nice little revenge to pin Isaac’s murder on you. But you couldn’t even get that right. Can’t even ride a fucking scooter without falling off.”
My brain was tripping over itself. Revenge? For what?
“Call yourself a con-artist,” said Matt, “you stupid arrogant interfering shit-for-brains, you don’t know what it means.” His voice was full of whispered scorn. “That’s twice I’ve had to start again from scratch. It was bad enough the first time when Luke fucked me over on the motor business. He shouldn’t have gone dobbing in his mates like that. He was weak. He shouldn’t have listened to his dad. He should have listened to me.”
“Ng?”
“They never caught me, though. It takes more than that to keep me down. I began again in Liverpool, in the import line, ran a carousel fraud till they clamped down on it. Had to pull out, started up again in fake antiques. I’d built up a whole network when you went and wrecked it all. You and your useless half-arsed poxy paintings. Fucking moron. It wasn’t just Lionel you took down with you.”
“Ng!”
“I lost all my stock, my money, everything. I had to go to ground,” said Matt, in that bitter, quiet tone. “Lucky that Freddie was besotted and gave me a bolt-hole. I was just getting a good little number going in signed editions, easy money for a few scribbles on a fly-leaf. And then you had to fucking well turn up again, didn’t you?”
The boat lurched. I felt the knife blade cold against my cheek again. His voice came close.
“Pity they couldn’t pin it on you after all. I was so looking forward to seeing you in court. But then you had to stick your big nose in, didn’t you? Sniffing round that letter. All those questions about me and Luke and how he met Selena. She said you were worse than the police. Going on and on.”
“Ng!”
“You asked too many questions.” Matt’s voice grated. “I thought I’d thrown you a false trail, but you’re a sneaky little bitch, aren’t you? You worked it out. Selena rang me. You knew that I killed Isaac, she said, and you were going to blab to the police. But you left it too late.”
The knife slashed: and the scarf that gagged me was cut through. I felt it slacken: but though I tried to spit it out, I couldn’t get rid of it. Cloth still filled my mouth. Matt pulled the hat up so that I could see.
“Know where you are?” he said. “There’s no point shouting. No-one’ll hear.”
He was a dark shadow, a silhouette against the far lights of the shore that clustered away up to my left. That was Bowness. I turned my head and saw only a couple of distant lights twinkling faintly. Black hills massed against the inky sky. I couldn’t tell where the shore was. But it didn’t look like it was anywhere close.
“Ng?” The aching chill of fear was creeping over me again.
“Turn around,” said Matt. He sounded ordinary. “I’m taking the cuffs off.”
The fear relaxed a little. First the gag, now the cuffs. It wasn’t as bad as I had thought. I managed to twist round, kneeling on the seat, and felt his hands by mine. Two clicks: the cuffs were loose and dangling from one wrist.
“Throw these in,” said Matt. He handed me Griff’s wallet; his phone; my phone. One by one I threw them into the darkness and heard them splash.
I don’t know if I heard, or felt, the faint swish of air behind my head. As I jerked instinctively, the blow glanced off my temple and landed on my ear.
I keeled over. Couldn’t help it. Once down, I decided to stay there, my head slumped against the side. If I played dead, Matt wouldn’t hit me again. I just wanted him to start the engine and get us moving across this black, cold emptiness.
So I let myself go limp as he wrenched the handcuffs from my wrist. I heard them plop into the water.
“Don’t want them finding those,” said Matt, “if they ever find you, that is.”
And with that he seized me by the legs and tipped me headfirst into the lake.
Chapter Twenty-eight