‘Who knows?’ says Donna. ‘Mitch Maxwell and Luca Buttaci have both been to the lock-up and come away empty-handed, so perhaps they paid her a visit? And Garth hasn’t been to the lock-up, so maybe he has it?’
‘Mmm,’ says Bogdan. ‘I don’t think Elizabeth will have the heart to carry on looking.’
‘She needs a lot of time,’ says Donna. ‘Do you think she had anything to do with Stephen’s death? Do you think she … you know?’
‘No,’ says Bogdan. ‘Is illegal.’
‘But come on,’ says Donna. ‘It’s Elizabeth, and I’m not blaming her, you’d understand if she had. Illegal would mean nothing to her.’
‘It would be illegal for her to help Stephen,’ says Bogdan. ‘And it would be illegal for anybody else to know she had helped. Would be illegal for me to know, would be illegal for you to know.’
‘I’m with you,’ says Donna. ‘Hypothetically, though, would you have helped her?’
‘I would have helped Elizabeth, and I would have helped Stephen,’ says Bogdan.
‘I know you would,’ says Donna.
‘So you think maybe Garth has the heroin? He’s found it somehow you think?’
‘I think it’s worth looking at,’ says Donna. ‘I think you’re right, Elizabeth is done for now. So wouldn’t it be nice to wrap this up by ourselves? Our little gift to her?’
‘Is an unusual gift,’ says Bogdan.
‘She’s an unusual woman,’ says Donna.
‘You really think you can f–’
Bogdan’s phone starts vibrating on the bedside table. It is three fifteen in the morning. He looks at Donna, who nods at him to take the call. His phone screen tells him it is Elizabeth.
‘Elizabeth,’ says Bogdan. ‘You OK? You need me?’
‘I need you,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Is Donna with you?’
‘She is,’ says Bogdan.
‘Bring her too,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I know where the heroin is.’
Will she ever sleep again? Elizabeth lies on the bed and wonders how a broken heart can beat so fast.
It is five to three in the morning. Anyone who has ever worked nights or been kept awake night after night will tell you that three a.m. to four a.m. is always the longest hour. The hour when brutal loneliness takes total control. Where every tick of the clock is agony.
It had needed to be done, she has to keep telling herself that. Stephen had given his orders, and Elizabeth knows how to follow orders. It had been right, it had been painless, Stephen had been in charge and in control, and that gave a final dignity to a man who had prized it and deserved it.
After Viktor had spoken to Stephen, he had reported back. We are agreed. Stephen knows what he wants.
Viktor had given her a little box of tricks. Where he had got them from she hadn’t cared to ask. All she had wanted to know is that it would be quick, and painless. And, yes, undetectable. That was the one final practicality. Stephen wouldn’t want her in prison and, truth be told, most of the law courts in the land wouldn’t want her in prison either, but they would have no choice. To stand by and do nothing makes you an accomplice. Thou shalt not kill.
The GP was an old friend from the Service. She had given him a time and a place, and there he was. His credentials were impeccable, should anyone care to look. They might, you never know. Time of death, cause of death, a hug and words of reassurance for the widow, and he was on his way. No need for a visit to Switzerland, no need to take Stephen away from his home.
So Stephen’s pain is over. He is no longer trapped in the static of his mind. Tormented by stabs of clarity, like a drowning man surfacing above the waves before being engulfed again. There will be no further decline. From here on the decline will be all hers. The pain all hers. She is glad of it, deserves to endure it. It feels like penance.
Penance for helping to kill Stephen? Is that right? No. Elizabeth doesn’t feel guilt at the act. She knows in her heart that it was an act of love. Joyce will know it was an act of love. Why does she worry what Joyce will think?
It is penance for everything else she has done in her life. Everything that she did in her long career, without question. Everything she signed off, everything she nodded through. She is paying a tax on her sins. Stephen was sent to her, and then taken away, as a punishment. She will speak to Viktor about it; he will feel the same. However noble the causes of her career were, they weren’t noble enough to excuse the disregard for life. Day after day, mission after mission, ridding the world of evil? Waiting for the last devil to die? What a joke. New devils will always spring up, like daffodils in springtime.
So what was it all for? All that blood?
Stephen was too good for her tainted soul, and the world knew it, so the world took him away.
But Stephen had known her, hadn’t he? Had seen her for what she was and who she was? And Stephen had still chosen her? Stephen had made her, that was the truth. Had glued her together.
And here she lies. Unmade. Unglued.
