Contents (48)
- PAST LIFE
- David Mark
- PART ONE
- PROLOGUE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- PART TWO
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- PART THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- EPILOGUE
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
‘He’s been in the water a few days. Hard to say whether the injuries were done before or after.’
‘Any early indications?’
‘Head wound, that much is clear. Poor sod, eh? No age to go.’
‘Thanks, Tony,’ says Pharaoh, and hangs up. She sips her coffee, the caffeine starting to make her feel jittery and wired. She checks the phone again. ‘Call me back, you bastard,’ she mutters, grinding her teeth. ‘It’s going to be OK. Whatever she’s done, or you’ve done, we can make it work. I’m on your bloody side …’
The phone bleeps again. Sophia, her daughter.
‘Not the best time, love—’ begins Pharaoh.
‘Mum,’ says Sophia, breathless, urgent. ‘She said not to tell you, and I wouldn’t normally, and I hate being put in these positions, but I know you’d never forgive me if I didn’t, and it looks proper nasty, so I thought …’
Pharaoh changes her posture, her voice: becomes a mum. ‘It’s OK, sweetheart, whatever it is, I’m here for you—’
‘Roisin’s just dropped Lilah off with me. She said she had to get back home – barely spoke. Asked me to watch her and didn’t say when she’d be back or what was going on. She’d been crying. And Lilah’s barely talking. I think she needs a doctor. There’s an awful wound on her hand and I think she’s had a bump to the head as well. I mean, I can take her to the doctor but who do I say I am? And where’s Aector? She seemed really scared, Mum, and I’ve never seen her scared before. She’s like you – she does stuff and you’d never know she wasn’t in control …’
The stool falls with a clatter as Pharaoh jumps up, pulling on her coat.
Out the door and into the rain, heart thudding, thoughts biting like flies.
‘On my way …’
TWENTY-SIX
Twelve years ago
McAvoy winces, holding up a hand in a lazy salute, trying to shield his eye from the glare of the van’s too-bright lights.
‘Sorry about the hour …’
Stops himself. Squints. He can make out the glow of a lit cigarette, the rippling blackness of a figure, motionless by the van door.
‘Excuse me, sir, I’m …’
He stops. Shivers. Feels so far out of his depth that he can’t remember the shore. Stands damp and mute, watching the rain fall in hard diagonal streaks: a surge of silver necklaces plunging through the square of harsh yellow light. He’s had the heater on in the car. He doesn’t normally feel the cold, having grown up in an environment cold as revenge, but he isn’t himself tonight. He’s nervous. Jittery. Can’t seem to get his hands to do what he wants them to. He’s thinking of her. Of Roisin Teague. Of where she might be and what she may have done. His mind is a clutter of disparate images: past, present – even some scraps of things that are yet to come. He feels as though he’s out of his body, looking down. He can’t quite believe he’s here, in this rotting fun fair, surrounded by great towers of rusting metal and fluorescent paints; a Poundland Mount Rushmore of grinning clowns and leering harlequins.