Chapter 31

31

I took one last lingering look at Algos House as we left; its perfect Georgian windows glittered back at me in the moonlight, icily indifferent.

"We have to call the police," I had told Nate, hunched over Tony's lifeless body, checking for a nonexistent pulse.

"They'll understand," I said. "It was self-defense. He was going to kill me, or you. He was insane, we both know that. We have the evidence. Our witness statements, the therapy invoice and Eva's journal."

"Eva's journal," he had echoed.

I could see his hands trembling, his fingers raking his hair. When I picked up my phone from the floor, Nate's arm shot out.

"We have to think first about what this looks like, what you and I have done." He had stared at me, his pupils iridescent, his temple meshed in blood and hair. In the past, I would have believed him, done as I was told. But not now. Not after Tony.

Nate took time to convince. Implicating ourselves in another death just as the second inquest was looming and the book was about to be launched in America.

"We have no choice," I said. "It's the right thing to do. He wanted to kill us. He let Eva die too."

He closed his eyes, sunk to the floor, head in hands. "You're right," he said, finally.

It was almost morning by the time the police released us. There would be more questions, an inquest, but for the time being we were free to leave. Nate drove me home. I stared out at the empty London streets flashing past, my mind alive with demons, the stuff of horror floating up before my eyes. The whoosh of the sculpture as it tore the air. The sickening crunch of glass and chrome meeting flesh.

When I saw Tony's hands around Nate's neck, his life seeping away in front of me, I had to act and I needed Nate to help me. I couldn't live in fear that Tony would tell anyone else about that night, why and how my father really died. I was pretty sure that those old inhalers wouldn't count as proof of anything but somehow just the thought of them in his possession haunted me. And anyway it went beyond that. He'd attacked my best friend, I couldn't bear to see that abuse play out again, with Amira or any other woman he met. And there would have been more.

I've been reflecting lately about how anger is an ugly emotion, but in the right circumstances it feels like buried treasure, deep inside me, an energy flowing free, illuminating who I really am. Someone who will go to any lengths to get exactly what I want. Is that such a bad thing? No one truly knows how they'll act until the chips are down, until pure adrenaline and fear exposes our real nature. I've been there and back. Now I know who I really am.

I knew how dangerous Tony could be once he was out of control and that Nate would have lost his life. Tony would have carried on, holding that secret over me if Nate and I ever got together. I couldn't let that happen. I always admired Eva for her strength and spirit. But in the end, she was the victim I refused to be.

We both realized there would be consequences. Another death at Algos House. The publicity. The aftermath. The four of us entangled like knotweed, never able to break free. There are two survivors to this story, two victims we left behind.

I didn't want to go home right away and so Nate kept on driving instead. At one point he turned to me. We could always reframe this, tell another story, he said. I couldn't help smiling into the darkness. The way the words flowed out of him. That clever brain of his, never without a plan.

We began to share our thoughts, words spilling out of us as darkness turned to dawn. It felt like the early days. Side by side. The art of alchemy, when my fingers seemed to fly across the keys, divining memories he never knew he had. Really, it's what we do best, projections on a movie screen.

"You've always underestimated your own potential," he said. "Let's face it, Anna, writing in someone else's voice is your superpower. All those hours in the study. Apart from some very bad thoughts about exactly what I wanted to do to you, most of the time I was in awe. It's a gift, don't you see?"

And, yes, I did see. Eva's self-reflection diary that I had given back to Nate, that we planned to hand over to the police. Wouldn't it be such an easy addition, he suggested, to craft a final damning entry about Tony and erase the fight we had? For the first time all evening, his patrician features had relaxed into a sort of smile.

"I don't really believe in bad publicity, do you?" he said, accelerating hard across Albert Bridge, lights strung across it like milky pearls. A marbled light seeped across the horizon and the sky was stippled pink like the faintest streaks of blood. Nothing stays still. Nothing is quite what it seems.

"So we know what we're doing?" I nodded and glanced in his direction. We didn't kiss, didn't even say goodbye. He surveyed me for a moment, his expression no longer inscrutable or remote. I got out of the car, watched him drive away.

As I walked up my street, let myself into my apartment, my brain was already alight. Thanks to him. Always thanks to him. In my mind, words spun and circled, like lottery balls colliding in the air. All I had to do was write it up just as Eva remembered it; her small neat lettering was easy enough to emulate.