The Holiday (54 page)

The unhinged gaze swivelled back to him. ‘I wanted you to suffer. And I knew that, in a small way, you already were.’

‘You knew about my addiction?’

‘Oh, yes. I knew all about that. I knew everything you were doing. I made it my business to shadow you.’

‘You were stalking me even then?’

‘Every step. I saw what you were doing to your family, how you were making your parents suffer. How you were throwing everything they had given you right back in their faces. You were destroying them as much as you were destroying yourself. If it hadn’t been such sweet justice, I might have felt sorry for them. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to waste a single emotion on people who had looked down their noses at us. They never thought our Niall was good enough to be a friend for their precious son. I was only an employee and what right did my son have to fraternise with the likes of you? Whereas the truth was, Niall was too good for you.’

The mind-deforming bitterness that this man had harboured for all these years was so strong that Mark could feel it coming out of him like a poisonous cloud of evil. It must have consumed him for so long that it was as much a part of him as his legs and arms were. ‘So what was the plan? I assume you had one?’

‘You assume correctly. I decided that I wanted to wait until you had recovered and had something worth taking, a life you enjoyed and would want to preserve. I watched you become a success, making something of yourself at last.’ He paused and swallowed hard. ‘Do you have any idea how painful that was? To see you succeeding and knowing that my son had been denied that right. That all he had was twelve pitifully short years before he was left to rot in the ground.’

‘But surely my miserable life wasn’t ever worth taking?’

‘To an extent, I’d agree with you. Which is why I’ve got something better in mind for you. I knew you’d hand it to me on a plate in the end. And reading about your so-called bravery in the newspapers, how you and your girlfriend had saved that girl’s life, well, I saw then that the moment had come. I’m right, aren’t I?’

It was just as Mark had suspected. ‘Yes,’ he said simply, and seeing the hand tighten its grip on the gun, he knew that time was running out. He had to think of a new direction in which to take Niall’s father; he had to channel his thoughts somewhere different. He thought of Bones - calm, detached Bones - and how he would deal with this situation. Steeling himself, he said, ‘How did you feel when you read about me saving that girl?’

There was a flicker of some new emotion in the crazed face before him. But there was no answer to the question.

He pressed on. ‘Did it make you think about the unfairness of our world? The indiscriminate giving and taking of life? Did it make you want to scream to whoever would listen that it wasn’t fair?’

‘No! It made me hate you even more.’

‘Why? Because I’d proved myself where once I had failed? Don’t you think that I tried my damnedest to save your son? That I would have wanted to save my friend? But you never wanted to believe that, did you? At the mercy of your own guilt for not being there when Niall needed you most, you turned me into your personal scapegoat, didn’t you? Somebody had to take the blame for you failing your son ... and then your wife, so why not me?’

Tears suddenly sprang into the old man’s eyes. ‘That’s a lie! It was you.
You!
You didn’t try hard enough. You didn’t care enough. If you had, you would have saved Niall. But your kind doesn’t care. They don’t care about anyone but themselves.’ His voice was cracking up and the strength of his grip on the gun had lessened; the slim barrel was drooping so low, it was pointing at Mark’s feet. For a split second Mark thought of taking his chance and hurling himself forward to seize the gun. But he knew the gap between them was too great. He would never make it in time. There was nothing else for it but to keep the dialogue going and inch his way forward. He took the smallest of imperceptible steps, but got no further. The gun was back into position and aimed squarely at his chest.

‘I warned you. No nearer. You think I won’t do it, don’t you? You think I’m just a crazy old fool who hasn’t got the guts.’

Tears were streaming down the old man’s cheeks, his hands, mottled and stringy with veins, were shaking. Mark could see that he was dangerously close to the edge, which meant that anything might happen. ‘I don’t think anything of the kind,’ he said soothingly. ‘It’s taken a lot of courage to get this far. A lot of smart planning too.’ He was acting out a classic talk-them-down trick - convince them you thought they were a genius and they loved nothing more than to prove it to you; he had used it several times in his books.

Wiping his face on the back of a hand, Niall’s father pulled himself together, seemed to hold himself firm. ‘Smarter than you’d ever know.’

‘Clever of you to use the sequence of events in
Silent Footsteps.
A nice touch, that.’

‘I thought you’d appreciate it. Just as you’ll appreciate that I have absolutely nothing to lose by what I’m about to do. I’ve lost my son and my wife, I have nothing left. So here’s one more nice touch for you. You have two seconds to choose who I kill. Your closest and oldest friend. Or your girlfriend. Sorry, you weren’t fast enough, time’s up. I’ll choose for you.’ And with an agility that took Mark completely off-guard, he moved so that he now had a clear view of Izzy and was aiming the gun straight at her, his fingers already squeezing the trigger.

It was a scream so loud and violent, Mark felt his jaw snap, and in an explosion of energy he threw himself in front of Izzy.

He heard the shot and the cries, but most of all felt the massive jolt of agonising pain rip through him. From then on he was conscious only of a blurred sense of pandemonium breaking out, and as his legs crumpled beneath him, he dropped to the ground and another jolt of pain hit him.

He heard and felt nothing more.

Theo’s recollection of what had happened was already taking on a vagueness that was the result of acute shock. It was fortunate that he had given his statement to the policemen from Kassiópi several hours ago, because if he was asked now for the details he might not be so lucid. Certain elements of the night were already jumbled in his head.

At the time he had been fully in control, organising everything, the ambulance, the police, and, with Max’s help, trying to stem the flow of blood, of which there had been so much. A pool of it had formed on the terrace, and in the panic one of them had stepped into it and made macabre red footsteps on the stone paving.

Now, as he stood alone at the window, his haunted reflection staring back at him while trying once again to recall the sequence of events, he found that he could not picture that dreadful moment when the gun had gone off. He could not bring himself to focus on what he had seen, knowing only that in those last insane seconds he had been powerless to help his friend.

Before that, he could remember the wind blowing the candles, hot wax splashing on to the table, the sound of the sea breaking on the rocks below and thinking: This can’t go on. We have to stop it. All the talking in the world is not going to stop this man from killing each and every one of us.

And just as he had thought this, the crazy little man had started saying that Mark had to choose whom he was going to kill. It was at this point that his memory was now distorting the picture. He could see and feel himself wanting to move. Wanting to push Izzy out of the way, but he hadn’t been able to. Fear had immobilised him. Just as now the after-shock was immobilising his brain. All it would allow him to remember were the moments before the first shot was fired and everything that happened immediately after the second.

He was on the ground beside Izzy. She was shaking and screaming as she knelt over Mark’s blood-soaked body - his head was covered with it, as was his chest and back. It had taken both Max and Laura to pull her off so that he could see if there was any chance of saving him. ‘He’s dead,’ she kept crying. ‘He’s dead. He’s dead.’ Laura had held her tight, doing her best to soothe and comfort her, but was unable to find the words to deny what they could see for themselves.

But Mark had defied them. He wasn’t dead. And that was when Theo had taken control. If Mark was going to survive, they needed to act immediately: they had to get him to hospital.

By the time the ambulance arrived, Mark still hadn’t regained consciousness and his pulse was faint, barely there at all. The amount of blood he had lost seemed so great that Theo was convinced the long journey to Corfu Town would be futile. He would never make it that far.

He should have had more faith in his friend’s tenacity to live, though. Mark did make it to the clinic that Theo insisted he be taken to and it was here, right now, that he was being operated on. All Theo knew at this point was that Mark had been shot in the chest and that he had cracked his head badly when he had fallen to the ground. He had no idea how critical his injuries were, or what his chances of recovery were.

Max and Laura had stayed behind at the villa, but Izzy had insisted on coming with Theo. Now they could do nothing but wait for someone to come and tell them the news. Although they never actually voiced their fears to each other, Theo knew that Izzy was preparing herself for the worst. Just as he was.

He turned at the sound of a door opening and saw that she was back from the bathroom. White-faced and hollow-eyed, her clothes still stained with Mark’s blood, she said, ‘Any news?’

He shook his head.

She came and stood next to him at the window. ‘Why didn’t he tell me he was being stalked?’

‘He didn’t want to frighten you. Especially when he realised you might be in danger.’ He felt her shiver beside him and put his arm around her.

‘I knew there was something wrong, but he wouldn’t talk to me.’

‘You mustn’t be cross with him. It shows the depth of his feelings for you. He was trying to protect you.’

‘That man ... Niall’s father. He was very ill, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes. He was truly sick at heart. There would have been nothing anyone could have done for him. It’s a hard truth, but I believe it’s best that he killed himself.’

‘Did you explain everything to the police?’

‘Everything. But I expect there will be more questions to answer tomorrow. Or, rather, later today.’ He glanced at his watch, and as he did so, the door behind them opened. They both turned to see who it was, knowing that this was what they had been waiting for. Holding Izzy’s hand, Theo spoke in Greek to the doctor, wanting to protect her for as long as he could, to be the one to break it to her. He could at least do that much for Mark.

But there was no need to protect Izzy. The news was good. Mark was going to be all right. Though his right lung had been punctured by the bullet, which had gone clean through his chest and out of his back, the doctor was matter-of-fact about the operation he had just performed.

‘It’s a routine procedure,’ he assured them. ‘We’ve re-inflated the lung and sewn it up, nothing to worry about, really.’ He went on to say that Mark had one of the toughest skulls he had come across and it had saved him from any damage to his brain when he had collapsed and hit his head. ‘Given the severity of the cut to his head, another skull might have crushed like an egg, but not this one.’ There had been a slight cause for concern at the length of time Mark had been unconscious, as a result of the fall, but all the tests showed so far that he was going to be just fine.

 

It was generally agreed between Izzy and Theo that Mark made a lousy patient. They told him so, three days later during one of his griping sessions about the constant prodding and poking that went on whenever he tried to sleep. ‘It’s like they think I’m a laboratory experiment for them to play with in moments of boredom,’ he complained.

‘An expensive laboratory experiment that I am paying for,’ Theo corrected him over his shoulder, as he left the room to give Izzy and Mark some time alone.

It was a comment that provoked a snarl of such ferocity from Mark that Izzy burst out laughing. ‘You have no idea how good it is to hear you whingeing like this,’ she said.

‘I’m not whingeing,’ he snapped.

‘You are. You’re behaving atrociously.’

‘Then get me out of here.’

She looked at his gaunt face, the blackened arcs beneath his sunken eyes, the dressing that was stuck to the side of his head - and where a large patch of his hair had been shaved off - and at the layers of bandages strapped around his chest. ‘According to the doctor you’re not going anywhere for at least another three days,’ she said firmly.

‘Don’t try bossing me about,’ he scowled, while trying to suppress a yawn, ‘you’re not at school now, Miss Jordan.’

He fell asleep shortly afterwards. He slept a lot, but lightly, and only for brief periods of time. Leaning back in the chair by the side of his bed, Izzy closed her eyes. She wasn’t sleeping properly either; her nights were filled with chaotic, exhausting nightmares. Recurrently she would hear Mark’s cry that fateful night.
‘No!’
It clung to her, a whorl of a scream that went on for ever, wailing its siren of terror and desperation. She frequently dreamed of Mark being shot, of holding him in her arms, watching helplessly as his life ebbed away, taking with it her every hope of happiness. Usually the dreams were a replay of what had really happened - including Niall’s father holding the gun to his own head and ending his life, just as he had on the terrace. But last night she had dreamed that Niall’s father was alive, that they were all back in England, that having killed Mark he was now stalking her. ‘There’s no one to protect you now, Izzy,’ he was saying, as he crept up behind her, ‘no one to die in your place.’

Max, Laura and Theo had commented this morning on how tired and drained she looked. She had tried to make light of it, insisting that she was fine. ‘A few sleepless nights never hurt anyone,’ she had said, keeping to herself the depth of her shock at what had happened. She couldn’t come to terms with the fact that she had come so close to dying, that if it hadn’t been for Mark’s selfless act of courage she would probably be dead.