Lying Beside You (Cyrus Haven #3)(107)

Another exit. More stairs. These ones are clear of rubbish but reek of mould and fetid water rising from the basement. I descend, stopping every few steps to listen and look over the railing for some movement. Glass shatters in a muffled whop. It came from nearby. I follow the direction of the noise and emerge on a different level of the factory, which is darker because the windows are boarded up.

I reach some sort of canteen with a counter and a serving window. There are tables and benches coated in dust. A dented urn is still plugged into a wall socket. An extractor fan hangs from the ceiling by a single wire.

Something on the wall reflects the light. Liquid. Not water. Blood. The stain is shaped like a hand. I hear a gurgling sound, then silence, apart from my heartbeat.

‘Rennie? It’s over,’ I yell. ‘The police are here.’

The words echo and are smothered by the silence.

‘I know about your son and your wife. I understand why you’re hurting. I know what it’s like to lose someone.’

Beside the serving hatch is a door to the kitchen. Inside, there are cabinets with broken or missing doors. Linoleum flooring. An industrial oven. Twin sinks. Blood snakes across the tiles, leading away from me.

I hear someone softly humming. Edging past the ovens and burner rings, I reach the end of a bench. I turn my head and glimpse the outline of someone, crouching in the corner.

‘Rennie?’ I ask.

The humming continues. The figure is sitting with his back to a wall with his arms wrapped around something. I move closer.

‘It’s me. Cyrus.’

The figure half turns, revealing his face. Elias. He cocks his head to one side but doesn’t answer.

‘Where is Rennie?’

Elias seems to be staring past me. I follow his gaze to another corner of the kitchen where I see the dark outline of a body lying crumpled on the floor. The head is resting inside an oven, while the torso lies across the hinged door. I move closer. My foot kicks a lead pipe. It rolls across the tiles.

Crouching next to the figure, I touch hair. Wet. A shoulder. Warm. I search for a pulse. None. I know CPR. I can save him. Rolling him onto his back, I tilt his head and prepare to give him mouth to mouth, but he has no face. Nothing recognisable. The beating did not end when Rennie stopped moving. It did not end when he stopped breathing. It did not end until Elias stopped swinging the lead pipe.

I retreat. Elias is still crouched in the same spot with his arms folded around his chest. He tilts his head like a bird staring through the bars of a wire cage.

‘Where is Evie?’ I ask.

He lowers his chin, and I realise that he’s holding her. Her head is nestled in the crook of his arm, her face wet, her eyes closed. My heart stops. Breaks. I can’t tell if she’s alive or dead.

I moan and stifle a sob.

‘Shhhhhh,’ says Elias, rocking back and forth. ‘You might wake her.’

Evie stirs. Her eyes open. Her head lifts. She reaches her arms towards me like a child swapping one parent for another.

Her head is against my chest. ‘What about Lilah? Daniela?’ she asks.

‘The paramedics are with them.’

‘Will they … ?’ She can’t finish.

‘I hope so.’

Elias makes a noise deep in his throat. Toneless. Mournful. It may be acceptance, or disappointment, or grief.

‘I guess this means I’m going home.’





76


Evie


The waiting room has a signed photograph of Princess Diana on the wall, which was taken on the day she visited Rampton in September 1989. Prince William would have been seven years old and Harry five. Agnesa wasn’t even born then, but she would have married either of them. She wasn’t fussy about her princes, not even the bald ones.

My fingerprints have been taken biometrically, along with my photograph, and proof of my address. Now they’re searching my bag.

‘You can’t take this in,’ says the guard. He’s holding up a box of Coco Pops.

‘It’s only cereal.’

‘There might be something hidden inside.’

Like what? Type 2 diabetes.

Cyrus is at the other security table. He looks at me as if to say, ‘I told you so.’

‘You can pick it up as you’re leaving,’ says the guard, putting the box on a shelf behind him.

Cyrus is waved through. He’s carrying some superhero comics and graphic novels, as well as writing paper and a deck of playing cards.

‘What am I going to give him?’ I ask, as we wait for our escort.

‘You can give him this.’ He hands me a photograph. ‘I found it in the attic.’

It’s a picture of two barefoot boys sitting in the bones of a treehouse made from planks of wood nailed across the branches. A knotted rope hangs down the trunk. The older boy has his hand on the younger boy’s shoulder and the two of them are beaming at the camera.

In a different, parallel universe, those boys grew up and became men together. They were the best man at each other’s wedding, and godparents to their first-born child. They argued about football and Brexit and Scottish independence even though both supported the same side. I would have liked to have lived in that universe, but perhaps Cyrus would be different if Elias hadn’t done what he did. Maybe he wouldn’t have become a psychologist and visited Langford Hall and met me. I wouldn’t be here without him.