‘Don’t come back here again, Raker,’ he said, stepping around Healy and going to the table. He stopped, looking down at the mobile phone. ‘As soon as the sun is up, you leave. I don’t want to hear the words “Black Gale” coming out of your mouth – not now, not ever. I don’t want you asking questions about the people who lived there, their lives, their histories, what they used to like, what they didn’t. Nothing. I don’t give a shit what you tell the families, what excuse you make for not carrying on with the search, but you’re going to tell them it’s over, and make it sound convincing, and then you’re going to forget you ever came here. Because if you don’t, I promise you this: I’ll go looking for Bryan Kennedy, and I’ll find out who he really is, and one way or another, I’ll take the freedom from both of you.’

I frowned at him, thrown, misled. ‘Why are you –’

But he shook his head at me.

I stopped, my sentence half-finished.

‘Why am I what?’ he fired back, his voice sharp, but this time I could see it for exactly what it was. Not a game. Not a sickness either.

An act.

An act for whoever was listening to us.

‘How much simpler do I have to make it for you?’ he said. ‘Get rid of what’s left in here, make the phone calls to the family, then go home.’

He watched me for a moment, and then his eyes went to Healy, lying on the floor a few feet from me: still, except for the rasp of his breath.

I glanced down at him myself.

Blood had formed in a pool under his cheek.

When I looked up again, Mills had the phone in his hand and was at the door, opening it up. We were still being listened to, the numbers still ticking over on the display. But now he held up the mobile and gave me a single nod of the head.

He was saying, You’re right.

This whole thing was a performance.

‘Don’t make me come back for you, Raker.’

He lingered in the doorway, his eyes on mine.

And then he headed into the night.

37

I stood there, eyes on the blackness of the doorway, trying to figure out what had just happened. And then Healy moaned softly, barely more than a whimper – as faint as the wind at the windows of the cottage – and I snapped back into focus.