Gavin Smith - The Age of Scorpio

‘When you were born, you were too big, odd-looking. You did something to your mother, tore her up inside so she could never have children again, and we’d wanted to have a big family. It was you that killed her in the end, you know? Complications from your birth.’

And there it was , Beth thought, the reason for all the resentment she’d endured growing up. A crime she’d committed while she was being born. She said nothing.

‘And we were left with this strange little girl who didn’t look like other little girls, didn’t want to be like other little girls.’ He put the mask back over his face and took more gasping breaths. Wasn’t treated like other little girls , Beth added silently, wasn’t loved like other children .

‘So you stole a child?’

Her father shook his head and removed the mask from his face.

‘No! We’re not monsters, not kidnappers. We saved that child. Saved Talia. And because we did something good, we got the daughter we deserved.’

He put the mask back on. What Beth realised then was that he wasn’t actually trying to hurt her. He never had been. As far as he was concerned, this was just the way that things happened.

‘It was a friend of your mother’s from school. Not a close one, mind. She picked us because there was little connection between her and us. Beautiful woman, bright too, very intelligent and good at sports.’

Not like us then .

‘She’d heard that we wanted kids but were having trouble. You know how small this town is. Someone had offered her a lot of money to get pregnant with a view to adopting the child when it was born. Rich people. But she found out that wasn’t what they had in mind. They were some kind of cult. They thought she was important somehow – something to do with genealogy, bloodlines, selective breeding, all that nonsense. They had a place high up on the moors. She told us they were breeding children to be sacrificed.’

Beth was shaking her head.

‘No, it’s true! I didn’t believe it at first either, but she was scared, really scared. Not for her – she knew she was dead – but for the baby.’

What was clear was that her father believed this stuff. A week ago she would have dismissed it as nonsense, but it had been a busy week.

‘She had arranged to take the baby out – to Helmsley – and they’d let her, though they’d sent someone with her. We left you with your gran and actually disguised ourselves. We took a carrycot the same as Natalie’s and put a doll in it. Then in a tearoom we made the swap – in the bathroom. Scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life.’

And then you got your proper little girl. But she’d known, somehow she’d always known, and she’d resented us for it. It occurred to Beth that they’d got away with it probably because they were so inconsequential.

‘They killed her, you know,’ he said between rasping gasps of oxygen. ‘Ran her down up on the moors shortly after we got Talia.’

Beth just nodded. She thought about saying all the things that she wanted to say. That it wasn’t her fault her mum couldn’t have children. That it shouldn’t have mattered that she was big. That she wasn’t actually ugly. That she had loved them unconditionally. That she missed her mum as well. That Talia was a horrible person who didn’t care about anyone but herself. But she knew it wouldn’t help. He genuinely wouldn’t understand. He was just a stupid, selfish, dying old man. He might as well have been a stranger. She stood up.

‘Where’s Talia?’ he demanded.

Your perfect little girl’s been doing porn, turning tricks and is very probably dead . Beth very nearly said it.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Where are you going? I need help. Looking after.’

Beth’s laugh was without bitterness, but was devoid of humour as well.

‘I’m going upstairs to get my records and then I’m going back to Portsmouth to find my bitch of a sister and get her out of whatever shit she’s in, and then that’s it for me and this family.’ Beth thought about it for a moment or two. ‘I went to prison because I killed Talia’s boyfriend. I caught him beating her. It looked like he was going to murder her. She testified against me, and none of you even came and saw me, let alone said thank you.’

‘You helped put your mother in the grave!’

‘I don’t think I did. I don’t think this family deserves me.’

Beth turned away from her father for the last time. She went upstairs to get her records. It was so sad that they were the only things left for her in this house.

He heard the front door pulled shut. It was the sound of finality, an end. Tears rolled down his cheeks. It wasn’t that Beth was gone. She had never done anything but bring pain to the family. It was just that she had been the last faint hope he’d had of seeing his little girl Talia again. After all Beth had done, he still found himself surprised by her selfishness.

‘That’s a fine young woman you have there, Mr Luckwicke,’ du Bois said from the corner.

‘I knew you’d come.’ He closed his eyes. From the moment they had taken Talia from the tearoom in Helmsley, he’d been living in fear, waiting for this moment.

Du Bois stepped into view. Twenty years gone, and Natalie’s bodyguard hadn’t aged a day.

‘Oh, how we looked for you,’ the blue-eyed, blond-haired killer told him.

‘Nobody ever thinks to look here. We’re not needed any more.’

Du Bois nodded.

‘Talia?’

‘Is not your daughter. Your daughter just left.’

‘You’re going to kill her?’

‘Beth? I hope not.’

‘Talia.’

‘I’m going to kill you, but I’ve known that for more than twenty years. I’m relieved that you’re not a pervert. I think you probably did the best you could for Natalie, but after the little exchange I just overheard, I don’t think I’m going to feel very bad about it.’

‘You don’t know—’

‘No, you don’t know how hard Beth has been fighting for her sister. Now do you want me to make it look like murder, suicide, natural causes or an accident?’ Du Bois hadn’t asked the question unkindly.

The old man looked at du Bois, appalled. ‘I’m not going to choose!’

‘It’s your last chance for a bit of control in your life.’

The two men stared at each other for a while.

‘Suicide.’

Du Bois nodded. ‘Your guilty conscience does you some credit at the end.’

To Mr Luckwicke’s surprise, in his last moments he thought of Beth. He remembered her smiling and laughing when she was very young.

As du Bois walked across Peel Park to where he had left the Range Rover, he set his phone to checking mobile-phone call logs. When that didn’t work, he started cross-referencing traffic through cellular-phone masts.

He would have to drive quickly if he wanted to see any of Alexia’s concert. Gigs, she calls them gigs , he reminded himself. He had already arranged for her, the band and the gaggle of lackeys, parasites, sycophants and would-be lovers who followed her around to gain entry to Portsea Island through the roadblocks.

The Range Rover unlocked itself as du Bois approached, pulling off his leather gloves.

Du Bois had been right to bring his own whisky. The stuff they had behind the bar on South Parade Pier was horrible. Fortunately the bouncers had left him alone after he had shown them one of the warrant cards he habitually carried with him.

The venue was packed. He had made it back for the second half of the gig, though his driving hadn’t been terribly legal. Clearly Alexia’s band – Light – had something of a following, locally anyway. To du Bois’s eyes the audience all looked like they had gone out of their way to look either grotesque or as if they had next to no moral standards. The dancing looked more like the melee at the base of a castle wall during a siege. He watched as dancer after dancer scrambled onto the stage and then threw themselves back into the crowd, and wondered what the point was.