The Power(66)

‘Yeah,’ she says.

‘Please,’ he says, and she sends him a hard jolt, so much that his teeth start chattering and his body goes rigid and he shits himself right into the water, a brown-yellow cloud of particles jetting out like it’s shot from a hose.

‘Rox,’ says Darrell softly. He’s sitting behind her, on one of the sun-loungers, his hand on the butt of the rifle.

She stops it. Newland collapses, sobbing, into the water.

‘Don’t say “please”,’ she says. ‘That’s what my mum said.’

He rubs his forearms, trying to get some life back into them.

‘There’s no way out of this for you, Newland. You told Primrose where to find my mum. You got her killed, and I’m going to kill you.’

Newland tries to make a break for the edge of the pool. She shocks him again. His knees collapse under him and he falls forward, and then he’s just lying there, face down in the water.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ says Roxy.

Darrell gets the hook and pulls him to the edge, and they haul him up.

When Newland opens his eyes again, Roxy’s sitting on his chest.

‘You’re going to die here now, Newland,’ says Darrell, very calmly. ‘This is it, mate. This is all the life you got. This is your last day, and there’s nothing you can tell us that’ll make it different, all right? But if we make it look like an accident, your life insurance will still pay out. To your mum, yeah? And your brother? We can do that for you, make it look like an accident. Not a suicide. All right?’

Newland coughs up a lungful of murky water.

‘You got my mum killed, Newland,’ says Roxy. ‘That’s strike one. And you’ve made me sit in your shitty water. That’s strike two. If we get to strike three, there will be pain you just can’t believe. I only want to know one thing from you.’

He’s listening to her now.

‘What did Primrose give you, Newland, to tip him off about my mum? What would have made you bring the Monkes down on you? What seemed worth that to you, Newland?’

He blinks at them, first at her, then at Darrell, like they’re having a laugh with him.

She holds his face in her hand and sends a pickaxe of pain along the jaw.

He screams.

‘Just tell me, Newland,’ she says.

He’s panting. ‘You know, don’t you?’ he says. ‘You’re kidding me.’

She brings her hand close to his face.

‘No!’ he says. ‘No! No, you know what happened, you fucking bitch, it was your dad. It was never Primrose who paid me, it was Bernie – Bernie Monke told me to do it. I only ever worked for Bernie, only ever did jobs for Bernie; it was Bernie who told me that I should pretend to sell Primrose information, tell him when to find your mum alone. You was never supposed to see it. Bernie wanted your mum dead and I don’t ask questions. I helped him out. It was fucking Bernie. Your dad. Bernie.’

He keeps on muttering the name, like it’s the secret that will make her set him free.

They don’t get much more from him. He knew Roxy’s mum was Bernie’s woman; yeah, of course he did. They told him that she’d cheated on Bernie, and that was enough to get her killed – well, it would be.

When they’re finished, they tip him back in the pool, and she lights it up, just the once. It’ll look like he had a heart attack, fell in, shat himself and drowned. So they kept their promise. They change their clothes and take the rental car back to the airport. They haven’t even left a hole in the fence.

On the plane, Roxy says, ‘What now?’

And Darrell says, ‘What do you want, Rox?’

She sits there for a bit, feeling the power in her, crystalline and complete. It felt like something, killing Newland. To see him go rigid and then stop.

She thinks about what Eve’s said to her, that she knew Roxy was coming. That she’s seen her destiny. That she’s the one who’s going to bring in the new world. That the power will be in her hands to change everything.

She feels the power in her fingertips, as if she could punch a hole right through the world.

‘I want justice,’ she says. ‘And then I want everything. You wanna stand with me? Or you wanna stand against me?’

Bernie’s in his office, looking through his books, when they get there. He looks old to her. He hasn’t shaved properly; there’s tufts sticking out of his neck and his chin. There’s a smell on him these days, too; smells like hard cheese. She never thought before that he’s old. They’re his youngest ones. Ricky’s thirty-five.

He knew they were coming. Barbara must have told him she’d given Roxy the notebooks. He smiles when they walk in the door. Darrell’s behind her, holding a loaded gun.

‘You’ve got to understand, Rox,’ says Bernie. ‘I loved your mum. She never loved me – I don’t think so. She was just using me for what she could get.’

‘That why you killed her?’

He inhales through his nose, like it surprises him to hear it, even so. ‘I’m not going to beg,’ he says. He’s looking at Roxy’s hands, at her fingers. ‘I know how this goes, and I’ll take it, but you’ve got to understand, it wasn’t personal, it was business.’

‘It was family, Dad,’ says Darrell, very softly. ‘Family’s always personal.’