He has already determined the back route they will take through an industrial lot and a broken fence to where his car sits waiting. By then the boaters and the people at the encampment will be too distracted by the fire to pay them any mind. With any luck, they will be across the bridge and at the cliff on the other side in twenty minutes. Cullen has marked the spot where Nevis will fall. He will make her remove her shoes and her jacket and leave them stacked tidily by the cliff edge. There will be no skid marks or broken branches or signs of struggle. In a matter of seconds it will all be over. They will think that she set fire to the boat and went to be with Natasha and Jessica. There will be no evidence that her death was anything but one in a regrettable and tragic series of suicides. Honor will find out the truth eventually. And with any luck the truth will kill her. Not quickly and easily, the way Nevis will die, or the way that later he too will leave the world, but slowly and painfully, week by week, year by year until all that is left of her is an agony of regret and guilt. By the time they find Nevis he will have reached St Olaf’s. He will jump from the same bridge as Zoe two decades ago. He will enter the water where she entered it, will feel its cold embrace just as she did. He will rejoice in the brilliance of his revenge. His death will make the papers. Honor will find out, he will make sure of that. He will leave a note and sign himself Christopher Mulholland. He will take Honor’s daughter from her. Honor will never be able to visit the places where her daughter and her best friend died without thinking of him.

Chapter 54

Honor

For a few moments after the explosion everything is a blur. A fiery ash rains down and pricks her skin. She blinks dust from her eyes but still she cannot see Alex. People dart by but she does not hear them. The world is a confusing rush of lights and dust and movement. As her head begins to clear a single word surfaces. Nevis. She hears herself scream, ‘My daughter! Where’s my daughter?’ And then her legs are carrying her fast towards the bridge. Her body collides with another. Arms clamp around her shoulders, holding her back. She struggles and kicks out wildly but the arms are too strong. A voice says, ‘Calm down. You have to stay behind the cordon.’

‘My daughter Nevis is on that boat,’ she says, coughing up ash.

The arms do not let up. A voice says, ‘The fire crew are doing all they can.’

‘My daughter!’ She can feel the heat of the fire in her lungs. Her voice is a scream now.