Adam would do anything to have that life back now. It wasn’t so bad, was it? Even the bickering was low-level sniping, fuelled by nothing more than parental tiredness. He loves Tania more than ever, the life they had together. Freddie and Tilly too. And he got back for bath time when he could, didn’t he? Left work early? He knows he’s trying to distract himself, desperate to not dwell on Louis’ repeated references to his soul and the online bidding.

  ‘Why is my body bound so tightly?’ he asks.

  ‘Apologies,’ Louis says. ‘MacDougall chose patients who were at death’s door, unconscious and with little or no muscular movement. The weighing scales he used were sensitive – not as good as these, of course, but pretty accurate – and he didn’t want people to thrash about, convulse, skew the readings. You’re still very much of this world, which is why we’ve had to restrain you.’ Louis comes over, his white mask close to Adam’s face. ‘You’ll need to stay very calm. Can you do that for me?’

  ‘What about Freddie?’ Adam asks.

  He can’t turn away from Louis. He could spit on his mask, but he doesn’t want to do anything to antagonise him, not while there’s still a possibility that Freddie is here. Instead, he closes his eyes.

  ‘Freddie? Your love for him is almost affecting – or must be, I imagine, if you like children. It was actually the audience’s decision to abduct him, not mine. One of the hazards of an interactive medium. But it was Clio’s idea to use a puppy. Which is uncanny. MacDougall didn’t believe animals had souls, so he repeated his weight experiment with canines. Sure enough, there was no loss of weight when they died. I’m tempted to replicate the experiment with Freddie’s puppy, but I’m not a monster. I love animals, despise all cruelty to our fellow creatures, particularly experiments on dogs. It’s humans I have a problem with.’

  ‘You’re crazy,’ Adam says.

  He thinks again of Freddie. What has his precious son done in his short life to deserve this? Adam pushes the thought away, tries to hold on to what he believes to be the truth. That Clio disobeyed instructions to abduct Freddie, who is safe with Tania and her parents. But what if Clio went back for Freddie and the puppy, after his car crash, and brought them to Cornwall? Is Freddie up there in the car park with her?

  He can’t go there. He needs to think. Keep a clear head. What would Ji do in this position? What would Sun Tzu do? And whose side is Ji really on? Someone must have seen the car crash, rung the police. Unless the traffic was briefly kept away from the roundabout by the temporary lights.

  ‘Can I have a drink of water?’ Adam asks.

  ‘I was going to offer you something stronger, given the circumstances.’

  Louis looks up the cliffside again and shouts above the roar of the waves. ‘Clio? Come down and give this man a drink.’

  Clio. Adam hasn’t seen her since she came to their house and tried to destroy his marriage. Now she could be his only hope. He thinks of the feather she left on Freddie’s pillow, the one she gave him at Cambridge.

  ‘The bidding is truly remarkable,’ Louis says, looking down at his laptop and then at the clock. ‘And still ten minutes to go. People are prepared to bid to watch the most extraordinary things on the dark web. There was a lot of disappointment when you resisted Clio’s advances at your house. A lot of disappointment.’ Louis leans down closer to look at the laptop, the glow from the screen illuminating his white mask. ‘But maybe we can put that right tonight,’ he adds, starting to type. ‘Someone calling themselves @SunTzu544 has just made an irresistible offer to watch you two get it together. How sweet. Sometimes I think the internet was invented for sex. A little light distraction before the final act.’

  @SunTzu544. It’s Ji, has to be. His friend has betrayed him. The one person who could help him. Why else would he pay money to see Adam with Clio? Adam should have gone with his gut instinct, challenged Ji when he first began to suspect him on the hillside in Wiltshire. He must be in league with Clio. Did she drive back to Tania’s parents and take Freddie? Last time Adam spoke with Tania, Ji had come down off the hill and was with her and the children in the house. What if Clio has kidnapped Freddie at Ji’s request? He said he couldn’t have children. Stop. He must stay focused.

  ‘Ah, Clio,’ Louis says, gazing up at the steep banks of seating, ‘how is the little brat?’

  Adam wants to tell Louis that his son’s never once been a brat in his short life, but he bites his lip, waiting for Clio to appear. And when she does, near the top of the cliff, where the bench seats are covered in grass, his heart misses a beat. All he can see in the dark is the occasional flash of a white mask zigzagging down towards them through the ghostly seating.

  68

  It’s as if time has stood still and Adam is back at uni, playing the part of Faustus again. Clio is dressed in the same black leather outfit she wore as a punkish, menacing Mephistopheles twenty-four years ago. Her mask, which is identical to Louis’, seems to amplify her sexual power, the frozen, tragic face a warning to all men, like a siren call.

  ‘Freddie’s asleep in the van – with the puppy,’ Clio says in her familiar husky drawl.

  Is Ji in the van too with Freddie? Adam spots a silver hip flask in Clio’s hand.

  ‘How cute,’ Louis says. ‘We’ve just received an offer we can’t refuse – for you and Adam here to do what you should have done at his house. What he’s wanted to do his whole life. We haven’t got long – eight minutes – but you wouldn’t deny a condemned man his final wish, would you?’

  Adam flinches at the words and looks across at Clio. It’s impossible to gauge her reaction behind the mask. Seconds later it becomes clear. She walks over to Adam and runs her hand through his hair, above the bandage. And then she sits astride him on his lap, forces his legs apart and slides a hand down between them. His last hope has gone. She must have gone back for Freddie, who will be up there in the car park now, smacking his small hands against the side of the van, pleading to be let out. Her loyalty is to Louis, to Ji. They are all in this together, united against him.

  ‘How am I going to fuck him if he’s wrapped up like a silver mummy?’ she says, calling out to Louis.

  There’s no tenderness in her actions, the way she’s kneading him, and he feels nothing in return. She’s just going through the motions, acting for the camera like she’s always done. Unblinking. He’s been such a fool.

  ‘You’ll find a way,’ Louis says. ‘Think of it as unwrapping a present. And you know what they say about a hanged man. Angel lust, they call it.’

  Still sitting on his lap, Clio pushes her mask up on her head, takes a swig from the hip flask and kisses his mouth, filling it with warm whisky.

  ‘He’s only got one bullet,’ she whispers in his ear as he swallows the burning drink.

  At the same time, he feels something cold and smooth placed in his left hand, behind his back. She swings off him, tousling his hair again before she replaces her mask and sashays away to the far side of the plinth like the whore Louis wants her to be.

  She’s given him a knife. A knife to cut himself free. He can hardly breathe. Clio wants to help him. He tries not to sob with relief. Does that also mean Freddie is safe and not in the van? He’s wrong about Ji too. He must have known that Clio represented Adam’s only chance to escape. By bidding online as @SunTzu544 – 544, the date of the Chinese tactician’s birth – Ji engineered a way for Clio to get close to Adam and slip him a knife. His weird, wise, dear friend Ji. In the midst of chaos, there’s always opportunity. How could Adam have ever doubted him?

  ‘I think @SunTzu544 was expecting more than a half-hearted handjob,’ Louis says.

  ‘They’ll have to bid a bit higher then, won’t they?’ Clio replies, looking at the laptop on the plinth. She rests a hand on Louis’ shoulder as she leans closer to the screen. Christ, what hideous hold must he have on her? Adam starts to cut away at the tape on his left wrist with the knife as Clio and Louis peer at the laptop together to his left. Below them, another surge of water fights its way into the zawn, sending a thunderous shudder through the very foundations of the headland.

  ‘One moment,’ Louis says, turning to take a call on his mobile, a hand pressed to his other ear to shield out the noise of the sea.

  Adam and Clio both watch as Louis turns away from them. Clio glances over at Adam, but he’s unable to read her expression through the mask. Is it fear? Something’s wrong. Louis’ body language changes as he checks the handset. Maybe the signal’s dropped.

  A gust of wind brings snatches of Louis’ conversation. ‘Are you sure?… They can’t have gone far… Keep looking.’

  Adam glances again at Clio, still to his left. He can’t nod, but he moves his eyes from her to the plinth next to her. To the gun. Clio looks at it too. Is she about to reach out and take it?

  Louis comes off the phone and turns to Clio.

  ‘Freddie and the puppy appear to have gone walkabout,’ he shouts above another blast of wind.

  ‘But I left them sleeping in the van,’ Clio says.

  Adam wishes he could see her face, read her emotions. He prays that she’s lying. She glances across at Adam, who keeps working at the tape binding his wrist. He’s nearly released his left hand. What if she did have Freddie and the puppy in the van and has set them free? They could be out there now, wandering through the darkness on the treacherous, windblown cliffs.

  ‘Damon says the van’s unlocked,’ Louis says to Clio, who backs away from him. ‘Did you leave it unlocked?’

  Who’s Damon? Louis must have had help to arrange tonight. He couldn’t have done all this on his own. Maybe Damon was the driver of the red pickup, the go-to man for whenever there’s an online bid for a life-changing car accident.

  ‘Of course I didn’t,’ Clio says.

  Louis’ phone rings again and he turns away to take it, protecting himself from the wind. The conversation is brief. Clio looks at Adam. Even with the mask, he can see her eyes widening with terror.

  Louis is still to Adam’s left, on the far side of the plinth with Clio, close to the cliff edge and just within Adam’s sightline. ‘He’s been back to the van, says there’s no sign of anyone having been in there,’ he says to Clio.

  ‘That’s impossible,’ Clio says, her voice faltering. She can no longer act the part. She stares at Louis, holding his gaze. Adam’s left hand is finally free.

  Louis shakes his head in disappointment. ‘I gave you a second chance,’ he says. ‘After you failed to take the kid from the park. My mistake, obviously. It’s quite touching, in a way – your loyalty to him.’ He gestures across at Adam. ‘I always suspected that there was a connection, that he was different from the others. That you weren’t playing to the cameras that day when you romped in Grantchester Meadows like young lovers. And when you had the chance twenty-four years later, you tellingly failed to seduce him at his house, didn’t consummate your relationship.’

  ‘Because I respect him,’ Clio says. ‘His marriage, his family.’

  ‘Is that what it is between you? Respect? Doesn’t sound like much fun. I thought it might have been something more interesting. Kinky sex perhaps or maybe even love.’

  ‘You wouldn’t know what love is,’ Clio says, almost spitting the words out.

  ‘But I thought that’s what we had.’ Louis’ voice is dripping with sarcasm.

  ‘Love? Us?’ Clio laughs, shaking her head. ‘Sure, I wanted to love him at Cambridge, but you never let me.’ She nods at Adam. ‘You were jealous of him, his innate goodness, his desire to help others as a medic. His innocence. Traits you’ve never possessed.’

  ‘You could have left me,’ Louis says.

  Adam blinks. I wanted to love him at Cambridge. Does that mean she did? Was he right to have believed that they had something? For years, he’s told himself that he was deluded, a naive first-year medical student who was punching way above his weight with a sophisticated third-year from France.

  Clio stares at the ground and then back at Louis. ‘Could I?’

  Louis turns to Adam. ‘Did she ever explain how she killed her father?’

  Adam flinches. He looks across at Clio, wishing he could see her face beneath the mask. He’s always wanted to know more about the circumstances of her father’s death, whether she really did murder him, as Louis had once claimed.

  ‘She locked him in the sauna,’ Louis continues, almost laughing.

  Adam stops, transfixed. He needs to concentrate on the knife – it’s easier to use with one hand free – but he can’t take his eyes off Clio.

  ‘Please,’ she says.

  ‘Do you know what happens to the human body at 110 degrees Celsius?’ Louis asks. ‘It’s not pretty. Your skin starts to slough off in great chunks, your internal organs begin to cook. If you’re lucky, you’ve already died of a heart attack, or dehydration, but Clio’s father was still alive as his body bled from the inside out. And she watched it all through the sauna window as he begged for his life. Then she watched him die. The smell must have been horrendous.’

  ‘He made my mother’s life a living hell,’ Clio says, shouting now. ‘But I didn’t mean to kill him. And I didn’t watch him die. The door jammed––’

  ‘And she could have tried harder to let him out,’ Louis continues, interrupting her. ‘No one else was around to help him – her mother was away. Fortunately, the police believed it was an accident. Indeed the door was found to be faulty. They also believed Clio’s story that she wasn’t present at the family home in France at the time. That she was with her new boyfriend from Cambridge, who was happy to verify her alibi. No prizes for guessing who that was.’

  Adam turns away. It’s all beginning to make sense.

  ‘He abused her day and night,’ Clio says, her voice raging with passion now. ‘Day and night for twenty years! For the “crime” of being a mother who loved her daughter.’

  Adam has almost released his other hand, but his mind is spinning. No wonder Clio did Louis’ bidding, helped him to blackmail people like Adam, just as he’d suspected. He had the ultimate kompromat on her.

  Another few seconds and both hands will be free.

  Adam remembers his conversation with Clio about children, all those years ago in Grantchester Meadows. I never, ever want to be a mother. Now he knows why. Her life suddenly strikes him as so sad. Has she been doing Louis’ bidding ever since? Have they been living together all this time?

  ‘Of course you could have left me,’ Louis says, arms outstretched in mock innocence. ‘Any time you liked. And I wouldn’t have told anyone that you took revenge on your own father.’

  ‘And you know all about family revenge.’

  Adam glances across at Louis. What does she mean?

  ‘At least I serve it cold,’ Louis says, checking on Adam. ‘Rather than at 110 degrees.’ And then his tone changes, the first hint of panic in his voice, a hitch in his carefully laid plan. ‘Now tell me what the fuck you’ve done with the child. People have paid good money. Money that was to have been shared between us.’

  But Clio doesn’t answer. Instead, she lunges towards the plinth. Adam braces himself, wide eyed, as he watches her pick up the gun and throw it to him.

  ‘Screw you, Louis!’ she shouts. ‘Screw fucking you!’

  Louis pulls out a second handgun from his jacket and fires at her, just as she jumps off the cliff into the darkness. The gun she threw seems to hover in the air for an eternity before Adam reaches out with his hands, both now free, and catches it.

  The wind pauses – the whole world takes a breath – as Adam and Louis point their guns at each other. Clio has gone, lost into the raging sea far below. Was she shot? It’s immaterial now. She will never survive the fall. Even if she avoided the cliff edge and landed in the zawn, the waves will lift and throw her onto the rocks like a rag doll.

  ‘Well this wasn’t in the script, but I like it,’ Louis says. They are still pointing their guns at each other. ‘In a Tarantino sort of way.’

  He’s only got one bullet. Did Clio mean the gun in Adam’s hand? Or the one Louis is holding? If it’s Louis’ gun, then Louis is bluffing, knows he’s out of bullets.

  ‘Who are you?’ Adam says, trying to stop his arms from shaking, to stop thinking about Clio, her selfless bravery. What had she meant about family revenge? He’s holding the gun in both hands, but it’s surprisingly heavy.

  ‘Me? You know who I am. Deep down.’ Louis pauses. ‘I’m the older brother.’

  ‘The older brother?’ Adam doesn’t understand.

  ‘Newlyn, North Pier. Where Gabe’s life changed forever. Where you changed it forever.’

  Adam’s stomach tightens.

  ‘Someone smashed his head against the cobbles. A bright young local boy, apparently, off to Cambridge to study medicine. Pride of the town. Toast of the Swordfish.’

  69

  Adam tries to process what Louis has just told him, the magnitude of his words. All the old fears about that night on the North Pier come tumbling back. Clio did once mention that Louis had a younger brother called Gabe, the prodigal son, who was unwell. Depression, she thought. And now it transpires that Gabe was the person who’d slipped and fallen. It couldn’t be any worse.

  ‘I thought he was fine,’ Adam says, remembering how he’d watched him being helped to the car.

  ‘He was – for a while,’ Louis says. ‘But the brain’s a funny thing, as you will know, particularly when it’s suffered a traumatic injury. And my brother’s brain started to do funny things. Not at first, but it gradually became obvious that all was not well. A week later he had his first seizure. Other symptoms followed: loss of balance, slurred words, blurred vision, irritability. And a deep, dark depression that enveloped him like a sea fog.’