Sam Bourne - The Last Testament

His face stayed hidden, his head still trembling in a dry sob over the body of his mother. But his hand was moving, reaching without sight for the revolver he had dropped. Maggie stood rigid, as his arm lifted in a smooth, almost mechanical arc until, even without looking, the gun was aimed straight at her face.

She ran.

In an instant, she had yanked the door open and darted into the hallway, making for the front door. Surely he wouldn’t have been crazy enough to fire, would he?

Which is when she heard the whizzing sound, the one she had learned to fear in her very core. It strangely came before the bang of the gun being fired, even though, she would recall later, that made no sense at all. But it was the whizz, the whoosh of air sliced by a bullet, that froze her. There, in the hallway, facing the door, she stopped dead.

‘Turn around.’

She did as she was told. Her mind raced. One thought, almost euphoric, sped fastest. Good: Now I will have a chance to explain everything! But, not far behind, was a gloomier notion. He’s out of his mind with grief! He won’t listen to a word I say!

She tried anyway. Negotiating was a reflex, even, she now discovered, when her own life was on the line. ‘I was trying to see if I could save her.’

He lifted the gun so that it was aimed at her face.

‘I came here to tell your mother something. About your father. The front door was open. And then I found her, in there.’

The gun stayed locked onto her. The man holding it seemed strangely at odds with the weapon, even though he handled it expertly. He certainly had the build for it: he was tall and she could see the muscles of his arms were taut and flexed. But his eyes were not those of a gunman. They were too curious, as if they were meant to scan the pages of a book rather than assess a target. His nose and mouth were substantial enough, but they suggested conversation, inquiry even. She guessed this was a man more prone to talking than shooting. Or not talking, so much as listening.

‘Please,’ Maggie began, gambling that she had assessed him correctly. ‘I came here to help. If I had come here to do harm, do you think I would be just standing here? Wouldn’t I be wearing a mask so that no one could see me? Wouldn’t I have a gun? Wouldn’t I have killed you the moment I saw you?’

The gun wavered, the hand now shaking ever so slightly.

‘I swear to you, someone else did this. Not me.’

Slowly, no faster than the sweep of the second hand on a wristwatch, the arm lowered. The gun steadily arcing downward, away from her. But only once he had stood with his arm at his side for what felt like a full minute did she dare to move.

She inched towards him slowly, her eyes never leaving his. Then she surprised him and herself by extending both her arms, placing them around his shoulders until, still stiff and unmoving, he was wrapped in her embrace. She held him like that for a minute, then another minute and then another, the thump of her heart gradually quietening, while he stood as still as marble.

Eventually she persuaded him to sit down, while she repeated that he had suffered a terrible shock, that he needed to give himself time to absorb what had happened, to think straight. She knew he wasn’t listening but she hoped that he would at least, like other angry men before him, be soothed by the sound of her voice. She wanted to make him a cup of sweet tea, or at least fetch a glass of water. But she knew she could suggest no such thing. That would mean going back into the kitchen.

It was he who decided to go in. ‘I want to see her again,’ he said. He had been gone perhaps five minutes, when Maggie heard an almost animal howl of pain. She ran into the kitchen, where the corpse of Rachel Guttman still lay slumped on the floor. Her son was standing over her, except where he had been pale, his face was now flushed red.

‘What is it?’

He held out his hand. In it was a single sheet of paper. She stepped forward to take it.

Ani kol kach mitsta’eret sh’ani osah l’chem et zeh.

Hebrew, typewritten. ‘I’m afraid I can’t-’

‘It says, “I am so sorry to do this to all of you.”’

‘Right.’

‘Not right. Wrong!’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘This is BULLSHIT!’

Maggie jumped back, shocked by the volume of his voice. ‘This is meant to make us think my mother killed herself. She would never, ever do such a thing. Never.’

Maggie wished they were back in the other room, sitting down. Who knew what he might do here, with his dead mother at his feet? She still hadn’t dared ask his name.

‘She gave her whole life to looking after us. And, since Saturday, she was desperate to do something, to take action. You saw it yourself. Remember how she took hold of you. She wanted your help, to finish off whatever it was my father started. Because she believed something important was at stake.’

‘A matter of life and death, she said.’ As she recalled Rachel Guttman’s words, and the way the old lady had gripped her wrist, Maggie felt a twinge of guilt: this woman had tried to enlist her as an ally and she had done nothing.

‘Yes. Does someone plead for something to be done and then do,’ he gestured down at the body on the ground, unable to look at it, ‘this?’

‘Maybe she had given up. Lost hope. Perhaps she got frustrated that nobody was listening to what she was saying.’

‘So she types a note on a computer. My mother, who does not know how to switch on the TV. And saying sorry to “all” of us. Not calling me and my sister by name, or at least leaving a note to “both” of us. Believe me, I know my mother. She did not do this.’

‘So who did?’

‘I don’t know, but someone very, very wicked-’ He stopped himself before he choked. He was standing close now, almost looming over Maggie. His head of thick dark hair was scruffier than when she had seen him here yesterday, as if he had spent the intervening twenty-four hours running his hands through it over and over again. She pictured him, hunched over, bent double with grief, his head cradled in his hands. And that was before this terrible thing had happened to his mother.

He gathered himself. ‘Wicked, but also very stupid. Imagine it: a typewritten suicide note.’

‘Why would anyone want to kill your mother?’

‘For the same reason my mother wanted to talk to you. Remember, she said that my father knew something very important, something that would change everything. Remember?’

‘I remember.’

‘So someone thought she knew this thing too. And they wanted to kill her before she told anyone else.’

‘But she insisted she didn’t know what it was. She said your father wouldn’t tell her. For her own safety.’

‘I know that. But whoever did this was not so sure.’

‘I see.’ She looked down at the floor, without meaning to. ‘Look, do you think perhaps we ought to call the police, get an ambulance maybe?’

‘First, you tell me why you came here.’

‘It…it seems ridiculous now. It’s not urgent. Really, you have so much to deal-’

‘I don’t believe someone working for the American government drives to a private home late at night unless there is a good reason. So you just tell me what business you had with my mother, OK?’

‘Perhaps I ought to go, leave you some time to be alone.’

He reached for her arm, yanking her back. The same spot on her wrist where his mother had grabbed her a day earlier. ‘You have to tell me what you know. I, I-’

Ordinarily, Maggie would have slapped a man who had dared grab her that way. But she could see this was not an act of aggression, but one of desperation. The composure, the haughtiness even, she had seen at the house yesterday had gone now. For the first time, Maggie saw the eyes of this grieving son glisten.