Chapter 47

47

Grace helps Becker on to the sofa. He is confused and embarrassed – he has been sick all over himself. Gently, she coaxes his arms up over his head so that she can remove his jumper and t-shirt to put into the wash.

‘There you go,' she says, as she lies him back on the couch, propping his head up with a pillow. She pops some cushions behind him and rolls him on to his side, just in case it happens again, and then she covers him with a blanket.

‘Wh-wh-wh—?' He is shivering, his eyes are wide, their whites luminous in the windowless room.

‘I'll get you some water,' she says.

Standing at the sink, running the water to get it properly cold, she catches sight of her reflection in the window, disconcertingly doubled, and she flinches.

Grace thinks of herself in a lot of different ways. Like anyone, she could describe herself with any number of adjectives: conscientious, hardworking, loyal, strange, lonely, unhappy, good. She is a doctor, a friend, a carer. She is a killer. She says the word quietly to herself, sounding it out. It sounds absurd, melodramatic. Protector, she thinks. Mercy killer. But kill three, she has heard, and that makes you a serial killer. She almost wants to laugh. It's ridiculous, it's like saying you're a unicorn. Three strikes and you're in.

She picks up a mixing bowl and carries it, with the glass of water, back to the living room, arriving just as Becker retches again. She kneels, placing the mixing bowl on the floor in front of him.

‘Don't worry,' she says, ‘it's quite normal. Nausea is a common side effect of morphine.' Tears are running down his cheeks.

‘I am sorry,' she says, touching the side of his face. ‘I honestly didn't think it would be Nick. I knew he was in the wood, but I was so sure he was safe.'

He was buried deep, down in the pit the fallen tree had made. Grace covered him with dirt and branches, with as much debris as she could find. She had no plan, she was sure he'd be found by a dog walker within days, but she was lucky. It was a brutal winter, and the next week there was another storm, worse even than the first. It washed away a section of the causeway and, for a time, Eris became a real island, not just a tidal one. When eventually Grace was able to return to the island in spring, she found that more trees had fallen, completely covering the place where Nick's body lay, and so felt certain that nothing would get to him.

Becker struggles to a sitting position. His head is hanging, his chin almost touching his chest. His breathing is fast and shallow. He wipes tears from his face, wipes a bubble of vomit from his lower lip. He raises his head, looks at Grace, bewildered. He looks like a child with a fever, helpless.

She places her hand on his leg. ‘When you first came here, when you told me about the bone, I was convinced it would be an old one, I was so certain I had nothing to fear. The silly thing is that you're the only person who would make a connection between me and Nick. All because of that photograph! I wasn't sure you'd even remember the name, but you do, don't you?' She looks into his eyes and sees that she is right. She's done the right thing. ‘It's just bad luck. His parents never knew me, and we are forty years and hundreds of miles removed from our student days.'

She sighs, reaching out and pressing the back of her hand against Becker's forehead. He's clammy and cool, his breathing is slow. ‘Marguerite knows. Marguerite has always known. She was at her window, like always, waiting for her brute, she saw me out there, on the causeway. She asked me about it, that first time I met her in the surgery. Where did your friend go? I got such a fright. You go to the island , she said, and you come back alone. Alone, before the sunrise. ' Grace shakes her head. ‘I was young, and so afraid, but in fact it wasn't difficult to persuade her that she was mistaken. She was completely isolated, and far from home and very frightened, too – all I needed to do was talk about calling the police, about getting them involved in her own domestic situation, and she would do or say whatever I wanted.'

Becker shakes his head, he opens his mouth but no sound comes out. He closes his mouth, closes his eyes and then he leans forward. With great effort and concentration, he tries to get to his feet. Halfway up, he topples, collapsing backwards on to the sofa.

‘Come now.' Grace places her hands on his shoulders and presses him down. ‘You're only making yourself feel worse. Here.' She adjusts the angle of his body, scooping his legs back up on to the sofa so that he is lying down again. He struggles against her, but weakly, and only for a few moments. ‘Don't think badly of me,' Grace says. ‘You mustn't think badly of me. I never meant to do it.'

‘It was an accident?' he asks. His voice is touchingly hopeful.

‘Well,' Grace says, ‘no. I don't think I could say that .'

It's difficult for her to explain, because for so long the moment of the killing has existed outside words, the memory of it elusive as smoke, all but irretrievable. If she did try to recall it – something she rarely allowed herself to do – it seemed dreamlike in its absurdity. It made no sense at all: they were walking, it was a beautiful day, they stood on a hill, they looked at a house, they ate sandwiches, held hands, talked about lying low, starting over. Then it was dark, the wind tearing at the trees, the sea raging, and she was freezing, filthy, frightened. Alone. In between those two states of being there seemed to be nothing at all, no bridge, no causeway.

The tide was out and they were together, the tide came in and he was dead.

Connections between these two situations came to her only rarely and in brief snatches: the sound of his voice, mocking and relentless, the sensation of soft, tender fingers crunched beneath her boot. Such a small thing, that stamp: petulant, ludicrous, deserved . Small and momentous at the same time: once done, there was no taking it back; once done, the story wrote itself, the ending was clear: there was no possibility Nick could ever leave the island.

She only understood this much later, when she realized that what she had done had been self-defence. He was threatening her, wasn't he? Didn't he say that he would make her pay? And there was a physical threat too, wasn't there? He was down the hole and she was on the edge of it, but surely there was menace when he said, Do you want me to fuck you?

What choice did she have?

And once it was over, what else could she do but cover him up and leave him there and never speak of it? What good would it have done to turn herself in? No one would have understood. It would have given no comfort to his parents to learn of their son's final moments, though it would have given them closure, and for denying them that, Grace has always been sorry.

But what good does sorry do? Who does sorry help?

‘You have to think of all the good I have done,' she says quietly to Becker. ‘There is so much more on that side of the scale.'

Becker coughs, shaking his head. ‘That's not how it works, you can't weigh one life against another.'

‘You can,' Grace insists. ‘I've helped countless people, I've saved lives. I saved Vanessa's life, Marguerite's, too.' She slips the belt from the top of her trousers and loops it around his upper arm; she slips one end through the buckle and pulls it taut. ‘I killed Julian for her,' she says. ‘I did it to keep her safe.' She would like to tell him about the art, too, not because she is proud, but because she wants to confess to someone . After all, Vanessa's forgiveness was granted without knowing the enormity of what Grace had done, and so if she's honest with herself, it wasn't really forgiveness at all.

Becker starts to struggle again, so she places her forearm across his throat to subdue him. ‘I'm sorry,' she says, ‘please don't struggle. Please don't make this harder than it already is.' She can see that he doesn't forgive her, he hates her. She presses harder. ‘It's all right now,' she says. ‘It's all right.' He looks so frightened. She doesn't want him to be frightened. She removes her arm, kisses him on the forehead, and slips the needle under his skin. ‘Rest now. You can stay here with me.'