Simon Beckett: The Chemistry of Death

I never would.

One morning I woke and knew it was time to move on. I put my house on the market and began setting my things in order. On the evening before the removal van was due to take my things away, there was a knock on the door. When I opened it I was surprised to find Mackenzie outside.

'Can I come in?'

I'd stepped back, led him into the kitchen and begun trying to find a pair of mugs. As the kettle boiled he asked how I was.

'OK, thanks.'

'No ill effects from the drug?'

'Don't seem to be.'

'Sleeping all right?'

I smiled. 'Sometimes.'

I poured the tea, handed him a mug. He blew on it, avoiding looking at me.

'Look, I know you didn't want to get involved in this in the first place.' He shrugged, looking uncomfortable. 'I suppose I feel a bit bad about dragging you into it.'

'No need. I was involved anyway. I just didn't realize it.'

'Even so, given how it turned out… well. You know.'

'That wasn't your fault.'

He nodded, not convinced he couldn't have done more. But then he wasn't the only one who felt that way.

'So what are you going to do now?' he asked.

I shrugged. 'Look for somewhere to live in London. Other than that I'm not sure yet.'

'Do you think you'll do any more forensic work?'

I almost laughed. Almost. 'I doubt it.'

Mackenzie scratched at his neck. 'Don't suppose I can blame you.' He fixed me with a look. 'I know you probably don't want to hear this from me. But don't decide anything yet. There are other people who could use you.'

I looked away. 'They'll have to find someone else.'

'Just think about it,' he said, getting up to leave. We shook hands. As he turned to go I nodded at the mole on his neck.

'I'd still get that looked at if I were you.'

Next day I left Manham for good.

But not before I'd made another kind of farewell. The night before I'd had the dream for what I knew would be the final time. Everything about the house was as familiar and peaceful as it had always been. Yet now there was one crucial difference.

Kara and Alice had gone.

I'd wandered through the untenanted rooms, knowing this was the last time I would visit them. And knowing that was as it should be. Linda Yates had told me you have dreams for a reason, although 'dream' still seems too inadequate a description for what I experienced. But whatever the reason for mine, it no longer held. When I woke up my cheeks were wet, but there was nothing wrong with that.

Nothing at all.

The ringing of my phone brought me back to the present. Breath clouding in the cold air, I reached into my pocket for it. I smiled when I saw who was calling.

'Hi,' I said. 'You OK?'

'Fine. Am I disturbing you?'

I felt the familiar warmth spread through me at the sound of Jenny's voice. 'No, of course not.'

'I got your message that you'd arrived. How was the journey?'

'OK. Warm. It was getting out of the car that was the problem.'

I heard her laugh. 'So how long will you be away?' she asked.

'I don't know yet. But no longer than I have to.'

'Good. The flat seems empty already.'

I grinned. Even now there were times I couldn't believe we'd been given a second chance. But mostly I was simply grateful that we had.

Jenny had almost died. Had died, in fact, though the pronouncement that had so scared me had been about Henry, not her. But another few minutes and it would have been too late for Jenny as well. It was sheer chance that, in the confusion after the abortive raid on the windmill, no-one had thought to stand down the ambulances and paramedics. When I'd made the phone call from Henry's they had only just set off for the city, and been swiftly turned back. If not for that, the stuttering life I'd unknowingly pumped back into Jenny's heart would have snuffed out before help arrived. As it was, her heart had stopped again just after she arrived at the hospital, and again an hour after that. But each time it had been started again. After three days, she'd regained consciousness. After a week she'd been transferred out of intensive care.

The fears of brain and organ damage, of blindness, that I'd known were a possibility and that her doctors thought likely, never materialized. But while her body had begun to mend itself, for a time I'd worried about what deeper, less physical trauma might remain. Gradually, though, I realized there was no need. Jenny had retreated to Manham because she'd been afraid. Now the fear was gone. She'd been face to face with her nightmare and survived it. And, in a different way, so had I.

One way or another, we'd both been brought back to life.

The crow flapped out of the tree as I reluctantly put away my phone. The clatter of its wings was loud in the crystalline silence. I watched it fly across the frozen Scottish moorland. But as bleak as it was, even now there were green shoots starting to push through the frozen earth, forerunners of the spring to come.

I turned as a young policewoman approached, feet crunching on the frost. Above the dark coat, her face was white and shocked.

'Dr Hunter? Sorry to keep you waiting. It's over here.'

I followed her to the waiting group of officers, shook hands as introductions were made. They moved aside to let me approach the reason for the gathering.

The body was lying in a hollow. I felt the familiar detachment start to take over as I took in its position, the texture of skin and blown wisps of hair.

I stepped closer and set to work.