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“Paul! Listen to me.”

But Paul wasn’t about to listen to anyone. He flung Sarah off, spun round, leant over the bath, grasped Naylor by the collar and clapped the gun to his head. Naylor winced and squirmed, but was unable to resist. With the tape sealing his mouth, he couldn’t even try to reason with the man who had it in his power to destroy him with one squeeze of his forefinger. The fragility of life-ours as well as his-was suddenly and horribly clear. Sarah and I stood stock still, both of us paralysed by the ease and imminence of the act. Perhaps Sarah hadn’t imagined what it might mean until now; hadn’t envisaged the smashed bone and spattered blood. If so, the images swarming in my head hadn’t entered hers until this moment. It was a harsh awakening that might soon become a gory reality.

“Don’t do it,” she said hoarsely.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Paul looked round at us, his eyes blazing. “I haven’t forgotten Rowena, even if you have.”

“It’s for her sake I’m asking. She wouldn’t want you to do this.”

He hesitated. His grip slackened. The barrel of the gun eased back from Naylor’s temple, leaving its circular imprint on his flesh. Paul began to tremble. He seemed to be holding tears only just at bay. Tears of anger and frustration and grief. “We can’t just… give up,” he sobbed.

“We must,” said Sarah.

“He deserves to die. You said so yourself.”

“Not this way. Not now.”

“It would be murder, Paul,” I said as calmly as I could. “And Sarah would be an accessory. You’d be condemning her to prison along with yourself.” Whether this was legally true or not I had no idea. I could only hope Paul had none either. “Do you want to do that? Do you really want to do that?”

“I want… justice.”

“Then let him live. There can’t be any further doubts about his guilt. He’ll go back to prison and rot there. You’ve made sure of that. You have his confession on tape. And we know the truth. Once that’s out in the open, nobody’s going to lift a finger to help him.”

“Aren’t they?”

“You know they aren’t.”

I could sense him longing to hear us say his efforts hadn’t all been in vain. He’d risked his sanity, his liberty and his future to make amends to Rowena for not saving her. And they were still in the balance. But tilting even as we watched. Towards life. Towards hope. Towards some kind of dignity.

“You’ll have stopped the tongues wagging, Paul. You’ll have nailed the lies. Isn’t that enough?”

It should have been. Paul should have said “I suppose it’ll have to be” and handed me the gun, reluctantly but conclusively. Then it would have been over. Finished. With no permanent damage done. We could all have breathed again. And lived.

But it wasn’t over. And it was far from finished. Because Paul didn’t respond to reason and logic the way I’d expected. I’d made the oldest mistake in the book. I’d calculated what I would do in his shoes. I’d imagined how I could best be talked into surrender and assumed it would work with him. But we never really know what’s going on inside another person’s head. We never have the faintest clue. Which words will douse the flame? Which words will fan it into a blaze that can become in a second a raging conflagration? We have no idea. We can only guess. Right or wrong.

Isn’t that enough?” No. It wasn’t. Not nearly.

Paul stood upright and swung round, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on me. He put his left hand into the hip pocket of his jeans, pulled out a small key and held it in front of him, cupped in his palm. “Take it,” he said quietly.

“What is it?”

“The key to the shackles. You want to let Naylor go, don’t you? Well, do it.”

“Hold on. I’m not sure we should just-”

“Do it!” He raised the gun and pointed it straight at me, his finger still curled around the trigger, just as it had been when he’d held the weapon to Naylor’s head.

“This isn’t necessary, Paul,” put in Sarah. “We can leave him where he is until the police arrive.”

“The police? Yes. I suppose they’ll have to be called. To clear up the mess. That’s about all they’ve ever done.”

“Why don’t we-”

“Take the key and release him, Robin!” Paul’s voice was unsteady and his hands were shaking enough to joggle the key in his palm.

“OK, OK. Whatever you say.” I reached out and took the key. Then Paul moved smartly aside and waved me past. I stepped over to the bath and glanced down into Naylor’s eyes. Fear and pleading were swirling there. He knew how much was hanging by a thread. But he’d also heard me assure Paul that, whatever happened, his guilt was now incontestable.

“Go on,” said Paul from behind me.

I stooped over the bath and saw the twin keyholes on the shackles. I smelt Naylor’s sweat, souring in the chill air. He was trembling too. And so was I. I looked back at Paul. “We don’t have to do this,” I pleaded. “We really don’t have to.”

“I say we do. Release him. Now.” He moved to the end of the bath and raised the gun again.

“All right.” I held up the key for him to see. “I’m not arguing.” I leant into the bath, steadying the wrist manacles with one hand while I slid the key into the slot with the other. One turn and they snapped open. Naylor shuddered and parted his arms, allowing me to reach the other set and release his ankles. The shackles clanged hollowly against the enamel as they swung free at the end of their chain. I stood up and watched Naylor fall against the side of the bath, then straighten slowly out along it, his limbs uncoiling stiffly, his face grimacing as blood surged back into constricted joints and stretched muscles.

“Satisfied?” Paul asked bitterly. He leant forward and ripped off the strip of tape sealing Naylor’s mouth in a single sweep of the arm. Naylor gave a cry of pain and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, rolling over as if to hide from his torturer. “I hope you are. I hope you all are.” Paul’s voice cracked as he spoke. He stood up, holding the gun oddly in front of him, as if he’d never seen it before, glancing quizzically at it and Naylor and us in turn.

“We should call the police,” said Sarah, fear writhing beneath the superficial logic of her words. “Without delay.” She must have sensed by now what I too had sensed. That madness was streaming in around us like wolves into an undefended camp. None of us was going to get out of this unscathed.

“You disconnected the phone,” said Paul with a strange mirthless chuckle.

“We can use a neighbour’s. It won’t take long.”

“No hurry, then, is there?” He took a deep breath. “Plenty of time, in fact.” Another breath, deeper still. “You left and I should have followed. But I didn’t have the courage.” Tears began to stream down his face. He wasn’t talking to us any more. He wasn’t talking to anyone we could see. But he could see her. Clearly and distinctly. “I’ve found it now, though. This is the only way, isn’t it?” He opened his mouth wide, pushed the barrel of the gun between his jaws, hesitated for a fraction of a second, then pulled the trigger.

The force of the shot blew Paul back against the loo door, which flew wide open. He fell onto his back in the doorway and the gun clattered to the floor at his feet. Blood trickled down the panelling of the door as it creaked back from its stop and came to rest against his shoulder. And more blood-much more-pumped out behind him in a spreading pool. Silence and immobility closed around us-a long frozen moment of jarred senses and delayed reactions.

Followed by the sound of Sarah sobbing. Then movement, rustling and gathering like reality breaking into a dream. I saw Naylor levering himself up and over the rim of the bath, head bowed, eyes trained on Paul’s body. Time stretched elastically in my mind. And Naylor’s intention burst into a realization. We’d told him his release from prison was an illusion we had the means to shatter. But Paul had been alive then. Now he was dead. If his conspirator were to die as well, along with the only other first-hand witness to what they’d done and why, then Naylor might-just might-walk free.