It was sitting on the table in the kitchen. He’d taken it off when he came downstairs. The light in the hall was enough to illuminate her face for him and since he was standing practically underneath it, it was surely more than enough to illuminate his face for her.
Eve Black had seen him, the real him, clear as day.
But she’d never told anyone that because he’d seen what she’d done.
She had written in her stupid book that she had a list of questions for the Nothing Man. Maybe tonight he’d let her ask them, but only if he could ask her his question first.
He only had one.
Tell me why, Eve. Why did you kill your father?
He checked the living room first, using only the light that spilled into from the hall when he pushed open the door. The curtains were drawn. The TV remotes were lined up neatly on the coffee table, next to a half-drunk cup of stone-cold tea. He pulled off one leather glove and touched a hand to the back of the television, but couldn’t feel any heat through the Latex. No one had been in this room for hours.
Eve had written that she was sleeping in the study. He paused outside the door to replace his glove, to collect himself, to prepare.
But something was missing.
Eighteen years ago, this moment – just before he revealed himself – would’ve felt like the peak. Adrenalin would’ve been surging through his veins, filling him with strength and power. The anticipation would have been palpable. The promise of the night would have felt endless, the hours ripe with infinite possibilities. He would have been excited.
But Jim didn’t feel that way tonight. He was strangely detached, as if he were a spectator at his own crime scene. Maybe things would change when he saw her, when it started for real.
He pulled out the gun. He pushed open the study door.
And knew immediately that there was no one in there.
The light from the hall illuminated the empty bed but it was more than that. He could feel it. The air was too still, too dead. He stepped inside anyway, to double-check. An old, hairy blanket was thrown on the bed. He repeated his glove removal and heat check. Cold. No one had been sleeping in here tonight.
Jim went back out into the hall and paused to listen for the tinkle of urination or the rush of water from a tap. There was nothing. No humming appliances. No settling of the house. No creak of a mattress spring.
He decided then that Eve Black had lied.
Again.
She hadn’t taken to sleeping in the study. She was upstairs, in one of the bedrooms. He could see why she might not want to admit it. Both options were bleak: sleep in the room where her mother died or in the one where her younger sister did.
Jim started up the stairs, ascending with excruciating slowness, careful to test each step with an increasing amount of weight before trusting it to hold him without creaking.
Halfway up, something changed. The air. It suddenly held a presence, like a muted television in an otherwise empty room.
She was here. In one of the bedrooms.
He could feel it.
When Jim reached the landing, he saw both bedroom doors were slightly ajar, offering only darkness in the spaces beyond.
The third door, the bathroom, was standing wide open. He made a cursory check of it. Empty. The cistern was silent and the sink was dry. He went back out on to the landing and moved to the next closest door.
Her door.
The bedroom Eve had once shared with her sister.
He didn’t even have to go inside. Standing on the threshold, he could already hear her. Breathing, steady and regular.
She was in there and she was fast asleep.
Jim pushed open the door. He watched as the light from the landing raced across the carpeted floor and rushed up on to the bed.
She was a shapeless mound beneath the sheets, one bare foot sticking out and over the side.
For a little while, he just watched her.
As he did he felt it like a wave in the distance: the feeling.
Gathering.
Building.
Coming this way.
He stepped into the room. Moved deeper into the dark. He went to the side of Eve’s bed and stood above her sleeping form. She was on her side, head resting on a bare arm.
Still asleep, breaths deep and regular.
It was time, after all this time.
Finally.
He closed his eyes and listened to Eve breathe and braced himself for the impact of the wave as it reached its peak and broke and roared and crashed against him, through him.
Washing away Jim Doyle.
Leaving only the Nothing Man.
He pointed his gun with one hand and reached up on switched on the head torch with the other.
And saw that Eve Black was wide awake, looking up at him.
He shoved the butt of the gun into the side of her neck and whispered, ‘Let’s play a game.’
Eve squinted in the beam of the torch but otherwise barely reacted.
He pushed the gun in further, harder, as far as it would go into the soft flesh just under Eve’s jaw.
She released a painful moan, but didn’t move or squirm.
She’s resigned, he realised.
She knew this day would come and now it’s here and she knows she can’t do anything about it.
‘Jim,’ she said.
He put his mouth to her ear and whispered through the fabric of the mask. ‘I’m not going to tie you up. I’m just going to kill you.’
When he directed the beam of the torch back to her face, he saw that her eyes were wide and her breathing had become shallow and rapid.
Good.
‘Do what you want,’ she said. She sounded breathy, panicky. ‘But please talk to me first. Tell me why. Why did you do it? After all this time, I deserve an answer. And what difference does it make if this is the end anyway?’
Jim considered this.
He was in total control. He should take advantage of it. Press the gun against Eve’s flesh and pull the trigger. He’d be out of the house in less than a minute. Back at his car in two. Home in ten. He’d have disposed of his clothes and covered his tracks before anyone even discovered that the Nothing Man’s most famous survivor was dead.
But he had a question he wanted answered too. And Eve had a point: here, at the end, what difference did it make?
He sat down on the edge of the bed, keeping the gun pressed into Eve’s neck and the beam of light from the head torch focused on her face. With his other hand he cupped her chin and roughly pulled her face towards him.
He leaned close until his mouth was mere inches from hers.
She said something that could have been a desperate, ‘No,’ and shut her eyes tightly against the blinding glare of the light.
He whispered, ‘You first.’
Then in his normal voice – there was no need for performance now, here, in these last few minutes – he said, ‘You answer my question and then I’ll answer yours.’ He sat back, moving the light away from Eve’s face, but staying close enough to keep the gun in place. ‘Why did you do it?’
Eve opened her eyes, blinked at him.
‘Do what?’ she whispered.
‘You know what. If you’re going to lie I’ll just end this now.’
But she still seemed confused.
‘I saw you,’ he said. ‘I saw what you did.’
A beat passed, then Eve’s face changed.
She started shaking her head and saying, ‘No. No. No, I can’t. Please.’