Without taking her eyes off Mulholland, she moves her body and out of the corner of her eye sees her daughter, struggling to catch her breath, a haunted expression on her face.

‘What he said, just now, I want you to know it’s not true.’

Nevis compresses her lips and turns her head to the sky, watching for the helicopter. Confused and in a state of shock, Honor thinks, and who can blame her for that. For herself, though, there has never been a time when her mind was more clear, more settled, more determined on its course.

To Mulholland she says, ‘We’re going for a stroll.’

The man lets out a groan and shakes his head, his hand going to his twisted, hopeless leg. She watches him panting from the pain.

Her voice strangely calm now, she says, ‘Get up.’

Chapter 56

Honor

He staggers onto his one good leg, hand grasping the air for the support that isn’t there, skin slick, eyes rolling wildly in his head. He knows he is defeated now, she thinks, but he’ll not go down cleanly. He cannot physically destroy her now but he will do everything to deprive her of her reason to live. She must be alert to his tricks, that keen intelligence which once, many years ago, she almost admired. She holds the rifle to his back and directs him to the far side of the railway track near the lip of the cliff, Nevis following on behind and crying out, ‘Where are we going?’

Her daughter’s voice sounds very distant, as though it were reaching her from the past, the way a star’s light beams down from centuries ago.

‘Not far.’

The voice again, more insistent this time. An edge to it. ‘I don’t think we should go any further. We should wait for the police.’

They come to a standstill, Mulholland quiet now, his shoulders shaking, his breathing laboured. She is surprised by how little pity she has for him.

‘Move to the edge,’ she says. ‘Take a good look over.’ She waits for him to comply. ‘It’s a long drop into the night. You’re going to feel it.’

He grimaces, a small, strangled laugh escaping from his lips. ‘I stopped feeling a long time ago. It didn’t agree with me.’

‘Then you won’t mind.’

‘Not really, though I would have preferred to do it on my own terms.’ From under hooded lids his eyes go to Nevis. ‘Your daughter might, though. Only she’s not really your daughter, is she?’ His eyes close and his body slumps like an emptied sack. ‘If she belongs to anyone it’s to me, her father.’