‘What?’ Stanley said.
‘Your phone,’ Charlie said calmly. ‘Slide it over to me, now.’
‘I d-don’t –’ Stanley stuttered.
Charlie’s jacket rustled as he swung one hand behind him, tensing his mouth into one sharp line, his lips disappearing. And when he brought the hand back out, there was something in it.
Something dark and pointed. Something he held up in his trembling grip and pointed at Stanley.
It was a gun.
‘Slide your phone over to me, now.’
Forty-One
The phone scraped against the old floorboards as it skittered past the wrappers and beer bottles, spinning as it came to rest near Charlie’s feet.
The gun was still in his right hand, pointed shakily at Stanley.
He took a step forward, and Pip thought he was going to pick the phone up, but he didn’t. He raised his foot and brought the heel of his boot down hard, shattering the screen. The light inside it blinked out and died as Pip flinched from the sudden sound, her eyes fixed on the gun.
‘Charlie . . . what are you doing?’ she said, her voice shaking like his hand.
‘Come on, Pip,’ he said with a sniff, eyes following the line of the gun. ‘You’ve worked it out by now.’
‘You’re Layla Mead.’
‘I’m Layla Mead,’ he repeated, a look on his face that was either a grimace or a jittery smile, Pip couldn’t tell. ‘Can’t take all the credit, Flora did the voice when I needed her to.’
‘Why?’ Pip said, and her heart was so fast it was like one held note.
Charlie’s mouth twitched with his answer, gaze darting between her and Stanley. But the gun never moved to follow his eyes. ‘The surname is Flora’s too. You want to know what mine used to be? Nowell. Charlie Nowell.’
Pip heard the intake of Stanley’s breath, saw the abject look in his eyes.
‘No,’ he said quietly, barely audible. But Charlie heard him.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Emily Nowell, the final victim of the Monster of Margate and his son. She was my sister, my big sister. Do you remember me now?’ he shouted at Stanley, jerking the gun. ‘Do you remember my face? I never remembered yours, and I hated myself for it.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,’ Stanley said.
‘Don’t give me that,’ Charlie screamed, the tendons sticking up like tree roots on his reddening neck. ‘I was listening to you talking, giving her your sob story.’ He indicated his head at Pip. ‘You want to know what he did?’ he asked her, but it wasn’t a question. ‘I was nine years old, out in the playground. My sister Emily was watching me, teaching me how to use the big swings when this boy comes up to us. And he turns to Emily and he says, his eyes all big and sad, “I’ve lost my mum, please can you help me?”’ Charlie’s hand danced as he spoke, the gun shifting around with it. ‘So Emily, of course she says yes, she was the nicest person in the world. She told me to stay by the slide with my friends while she went with this little boy to help him find his mum. And they left. But Emily never came back. I was waiting there for hours, on my own in the playground. Closing my eyes and counting, “three, two, one” and praying she would appear. But she didn’t. Not until they found her three weeks later, mutilated and burned.’ Charlie blinked, so hard the tears fell from his eyes straight to his collar, leaving his face untouched. ‘I watched you abduct my sister and all I could think about was whether I could go backwards down the slide.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Stanley cried, his hands up, fingers splayed. ‘I’m so sorry. I think about her the most, your sister. She was so kind to me, I –’
‘Don’t you dare!’ Charlie shouted, spit foaming at the edges of his mouth. ‘Get her out of your ugly head! You were the one who chose her, not your dad. It was you! You picked her! You helped abduct seven people knowing exactly what would happen to them, you even helped him do it. But, oh, the government just hands you a brand new shiny life, wipes all of that away. You want to know what my life has been like?’ His breath growled in his throat. ‘Three months after they found Emily’s body, my dad hung himself. I was the one who found him, after school. My mother couldn’t cope and turned to alcohol and drugs to numb everything out. I almost starved. Within a year I’m removed from her care and sent from foster family to foster family. Some were kind to me, some were not. By seventeen, I was living on the streets. But I pulled my life around, and there was only one thing that got me through all that. Neither of you deserved to live after what you did. Someone already got to your father, but they let you walk free. But I knew that one day I would find you and I would be the one to kill you, Child Brunswick.’
‘Charlie, please just put the gun down and we –’ Pip said.
‘No.’ Charlie didn’t look at her. ‘I’ve waited nineteen years for this moment. I bought this gun nine years ago knowing that one day I’d use it to kill you. I’ve been ready, I’ve been waiting. I’ve followed every single tip and rumour about you on the internet. I’ve lived in ten different towns in the last seven years, looking for you. And a new version of Layla Mead came with me to each one, finding the men who fit your age and description, getting close to them until one might confide in me who they really were. But you weren’t in any of those other towns. You were here. And now I’ve found you. I’m glad that Jamie failed. It’s right that I do it. This is how it’s meant to be.’
Pip watched Charlie’s finger, flexing and tensing against the trigger. ‘Wait!’ she shouted. Just buy some time, keep him talking. If the police were at Stanley’s house now, with Ravi and Connor and Jamie, maybe Ravi would send them here. Please Ravi, send them here. ‘What about Jamie?’ she said quickly. ‘Why get him involved?’
Charlie licked his lips. ‘The opportunity presented itself to me. I started talking to Jamie because he fit my Child Brunswick profile. Then I found out he’d lied about his age, and discounted him. But he was so eager. He’d fallen for Layla in a way none of the others have before, kept messaging saying he’d do anything for me. And it got me thinking,’ he sniffed. ‘My whole life, I accepted that I would be the one to kill Child Brunswick and most likely forfeit my life in return, end up with the life sentence
he should have had. But Jamie made me think, if I just wanted Child Brunswick dead, what if I could get someone else to do it for me? And then I could go on and have a life afterwards, me and Flora. She really pushed for that, for a chance for us to stay together. She’s known I’ve had to do this since we met at eighteen, has followed me around the country looking for him, helping me. I owed her to at least try.
‘So I started to test Jamie, see what I could get him to do. Turns out it was a lot,’ he said. ‘Jamie withdrew twelve hundred pounds in cash and left it in a graveyard at night for Layla. He beat up a stranger, though he’d never been in a fight in his life before. For Layla. He broke into my house and stole a watch. For Layla. I was escalating each time, and I think it would have worked, I think I could have got him to the point where he would have killed for Layla. But everything went wrong at the memorial. I guess that’s what happens when you bring an entire town together on one field.