He draws her into his arms, exhorting her not to leave. This woman who carries his child and all his hopes for the future. But his words fall on dead ears, and in a sudden flood of light he sees the vivid red of her blood as it spreads across the cold tiles. He inclines his head to look back over his shoulder. A young policewoman, arms extended, points her pistol directly at him. He sees how pale she is, all colour drained from a face like a ghost. He sees how her hands tremble as they struggle to hold her gun steady.
‘Don’t move!’ she shouts at him and he thinks, how absurd! Move? Where would he go? And why? What point would there be now? In anything. Angela is dead. And a sudden anger fills all the empty spaces inside him.
‘You killed her!’ He hears his own voice as if it belongs to someone else. Words shouted in English. In torment. Is it really him? Surely to God none of this is actually happening. Then a second wave of fury consumes him and he screams again at this scrap of a woman who points her gun at him. ‘You fucking killed her!’
Cristina trembles from head to foot, fighting to keep control. She shakes her head in denial. ‘You did it!’ Words in Spanish. ‘You shot her.’ And just like the man on his knees at her feet, she feels as though someone else has spoken.
Her focus is momentarily distracted by Matías hobbling into the hall behind her, pistol pointed unsteadily towards them. An eternity too late.
Now the man is speaking in Spanish, his voice filled no longer simply with pain and anger, but with hatred. ‘You made me do it. You killed her. You!’
CHAPTER ONE
Mackenzie felt the pressure of being late. He hated being late. He built his life around never being late. To the extent that he would set all of his clocks, even his watch, five minutes fast. Despite knowing that his world was five minutes ahead of time, it placed a psychological pressure on him. To go faster. To ensure punctuality.
Although it pained him to admit it, the habit was borrowed – or, perhaps, inherited – from his uncle, who also set every timepiece five minutes in advance of real time, and would punish lateness with a stick. Actually, a cane. An old-fashioned walking cane with a curved onyx handle and knuckles on its shaft at six-inch intervals. Mr Kane, he had called it, emphasizing the K. His idea of a joke, a play on words. It hurt like hell.
Today Mackenzie had been delayed by Thursday traffic. Roadworks on the A4020. Circumstances beyond his control, and although his watch told him he was twenty minutes late, for once he was relieved to know it was just fifteen.
An overactive imagination conjured a picture of Alex waiting at the school gate, a few stragglers pushing past him on to Oaklands Road. Long gone the parental SUVs and people carriers and four-by-fours which ten minutes ago would have choked this narrow street.
Turning off Boston Road, beyond the Hanwell Royal Mail delivery office, he accelerated past rows of terraced houses with mean little front gardens. Already he could see the forlorn figure of his son standing outside the gates of the red-and-yellow-brick Edwardian-era primary school. His blazer was too big for him. Susan’s idea of economy. If it was too big for him this year, it would fit him next. And if he didn’t suddenly sprout, they might also get away with it the year after. Had it been warmer Alex might have taken it off and draped it through the strap of his sports bag. But there was a cool wind from the north-east, and he stood hunched against it, drowned by his blazer. To his already distressed father it made him seem all the more pathetic.
Mackenzie had been wrong about the stragglers. The street was deserted. Amazing how quickly an entire school could empty itself. Motors idling at the kerbside, pulling away each in turn, a well-practised daily choreography. In his day, Mackenzie had been made to walk to school, regardless of weather. Wet wellies chafing at red calves, shorts clinging to stinging thighs, coats draped over radiators to fill classrooms with steamy damp air on wet winter mornings.
Alex would be distressed, he knew, and late for his team’s five-a-side game with the club from Hayes. Although it was just a ten-minute walk to the sports centre, he had been drilled always to wait for one parent or the other. But today his unhappiness went deeper than simply being late for a game of football. Mackenzie saw it the moment he drew up at the gate. Head down, Alex opened the door, threw his sports bag into the back, and slipped into the passenger seat without a word.
Mackenzie stared at him. ‘What’s wrong, son?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I’m sorry, I’m late.’
The boy shrugged and his father frowned.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I told you. Can we go, please? Like you said, you’re late. So I’m late.’ Eyes still turned down towards the footwell.
Mackenzie cupped his hand around the boy’s jaw and turned his face towards him. The salty tracks of dried tears were clearly visible on pale cheeks, eyes red-rimmed. ‘We’re not going until you tell me.’
The boy pulled his head away, but his lips remained pressed tightly together.
‘I’m serious. If you want to play football today . . .’ Just nine years old, and already showing great talent with both feet.
Alex drew a deep breath and released it in a long, tremulous exhalation. He opened his satchel and pulled out a sheaf of three crumpled sheets and thrust it towards his father without looking at him. Mackenzie could see that the pages were filled on both sides with his son’s characteristic scrawl. The top page bore the title of the piece. What I Did In The Holidays. Big red numerals at the head of the page read 0/25, and beneath them in a tight hand, Handwriting too big and untidy!!!
‘She didn’t even read it,’ Alex said.
Mackenzie’s anger was already manifesting itself in a trembling of the papers in his hand. He snatched the key from the ignition and opened his door. ‘Come on.’
Alex looked at him, startled. ‘What are you doing?’
Mackenzie waved the essay at his son. ‘We’re going to see about this.’ He strode around the car and opened the passenger door.
‘No, Dad, please. Just forget it.’
‘I will not.’ He took Alex by the arm, and pulled the reluctant boy from his seat. He had met his son’s teacher once at a parent–teacher’s meeting. A young woman. A girl, really. Miss Willow. Couldn’t have been any more than twenty-five, and he had thought at the time that she was far too preoccupied with her appearance. He grabbed Alex’s hand and pulled him in his wake as he strode through the gates and into the school through the side entrance.
It had the same institutional smell that he remembered from his own schooldays. Perhaps it was the detergent they used to wash the floors.
Alex’s classroom was at the end of a corridor on the second floor. The door stood open, and Miss Willow was still at her desk, wading her way through a pile of children’s essays. She looked up in surprise as Mackenzie dragged his son into the room behind him. Her surprise turned to alarm as he strode up to her desk and banged Alex’s essay down on top of the others.
‘What’s this piece of shit?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You should be. Alex tells me you didn’t read it.’
‘I . . .’
‘Zero out of twenty-five because his handwriting was too big? Are you serious?’
‘Dad, please!’ Alex pulled his hand free of his father’s, his face pink with humiliation.