Алия Уайтли - Skein Island

David felt a pure white blast of hatred for him, this man who had choices, and had instead decided to hurt, to maim. It might have been possible to pity an ugly man. Instead David felt bloated, pregnant, with rage.

Sam made a sound in her throat, a whine, and he saw the knife at her thigh, level with the crotch of her jeans. It was small, straight, pointed. A paring knife, did they call it? For peeling fruit. There was a pair of handcuffs on the desk beside him.

‘Don’t hurt her,’ he said.

‘I just showed it to her in the car park and she came with me. I didn’t even have to do anything. What’s your name?’

‘David.’

‘I’m Mark.’ He had no sense of urgency. It was one of those slow, relaxed voices, almost like a radio presenter on a show late at night. ‘Listen, they always do as they’re told. I think they like it really, I mean, deep down. I’m not just saying that to try to wriggle out of it. If they said no I would stop, that’s my point. I’m not an animal, here.’

‘Yes, you are,’ said David.

Mark nodded. His smile widened. ‘All right. Let’s be honest. I knew who she was. I knew you’d be coming for me. I’m not scared of you. I’m more scared of myself. Where all this could go. I know it’s not right, but I’m not going to let you just… I bet women throw themselves at you, don’t they? Knight in shining armour.’

‘I’m just a normal man. You could have been that too.’

‘No, I couldn’t. I don’t want to be. Neither do you.’ Mark looked around the room. David followed his gaze – the computer, the swivel chair, the display of thank you cards pinned to a cork board. Thanks for finding that book. I’d given up all hope . ‘I took your wife here. With the camera. Just photos. I only wanted to look.’

David pointed at the handcuffs. ‘Then what are they for?’

‘Protection,’ said Mark.

Sam gulped, such a loud sound, surprising, and Mark looked at her as if he had forgotten she existed.

‘Do you want to go?’ he said. ‘You weren’t really my type, anyway.’ He let the knife drop from her thigh. She didn’t move, for a moment, a long breath, then she took a step towards David, and another, crossing the room in tiny increments, making such slow progress that David felt the urge to grab her and push her through the door. Instead he said, very gently, ‘Go, I’ll meet you outside. Honestly, go.’ She turned her enormous eyes up to his, and then she left.

‘What now?’ said Mark. ‘Now there’s no policewoman, are you going to perform a citizen’s arrest?’

David kept his attention on the knife. There had to be some kind of instinct within him that would tell him what to do.

‘I think it was meant to be like this,’ said Mark. ‘Do you know what I mean?’

‘There’s no excuse.’

‘How do you know? Did you choose to be here?’

‘Yes,’ he said, but it was impossible to believe it. Marianne had told him to be here, and Arnie had told him when to be here, and apparently this was all exactly as it was meant to be. Who was in charge? He was the vessel of other people’s decisions. And maybe Mark was the same.

‘Prove it,’ said Mark. ‘Don’t do what they tell you to do. Do what you want to do. I can see you don’t want to be here. Take my word for it that I’ll never do it again, and you go home, and I go home, and nobody gets hurt, do they? You don’t want to be responsible for this, not really. And I want to stop doing it, I swear. I can stop. I’ll just stop.’

But the terrifying revelation at the heart of his words was that Mark wouldn’t stop. He was right. It was beyond control, not Mark’s decision to make. And that meant David could do only one thing. The inevitability of it was breathtaking. It infused him, filled him with the conviction that the moment had come, all options had been reduced to one, and there was nothing left to do but kill him.

Mark raised the knife. ‘So move out of the way, okay? I’m leaving now. You can just let me go, and we’ll never see each other again.’

‘I can’t let you do that.’

‘Listen, I look at your wife’s insides every night on my computer, in her mouth, up her legs. She’s all soft and pink and ready. You want to go home to that, don’t you?’ He flicked out with the knife. It was a weak movement, without conviction. ‘You’re not going to make a move, are you?’

David felt nothing. He watched the movements of the knife, as Mark talked on, working himself up, trying to pry him from his position in the doorway.

‘You’re really going to take me on? Just walk away, mate, you don’t need it. I’ll cut you, I swear, I’ll cut you.’

‘You take photographs. This isn’t New York. You’re not a gang member. You don’t know what the hell you’re doing with that knife. You’re standing in a small public library in Wootton Bassett.’

Mark flashed forward, lifted the knife to David’s face, laid it against his left cheek. The coldness of the blade was astonishing; it was all David could do not to flinch. ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me this is an overdue library book?’

David reached up, grabbed Mark’s hand as he started to put pressure onto the knife, felt a cut opening under his eye, and then twisted Mark’s wrist with all his strength. The snap of the bone was audible. It was easy to keep twisting until the point of the knife touched Mark’s throat.

Through the skin, through the fibrous muscle, to the larynx, slipping past the cartilage of the jaw.

Mark hissed on it, a sound like the releasing of steam, and David let go of the knife and took him by the upper arms to steer him into the swivel chair.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Let it go. It’s time to let it go.’ He took off his coat and wrapped it around Mark’s neck, knife and all, tying the sleeves tight in a double knot. ‘It’s not your fault. It’s the way we were made. Better to be dead.’

He realised he was speaking a deep truth, the deepest, as he patted Mark’s hand and tried to soothe the pleading in his eyes. If a man had no choice but to cause pain, then it was better to be dead, undeniably. Why did Mark have to fight this, try to speak, make faces of agony and fear? David couldn’t bear it any longer. He pinched shut the nose and mouth, and sang over and over, ‘Go to sleep, go to sleep,’ until the desperate eyes finally rolled over, and the story was done.

David pulled the material of his coat over Mark’s face. He walked to the office door and clung to the frame as he called for Sam.

She came, with Geoff running after her, his face shining with excitement. ‘What happened?’ he said.

‘I killed him. Call the police.’

‘You’re bleeding.’ Sam touched his face, traced the path of the blood with one finger, as soft and cool as a raindrop.

‘I’ve got a plaster,’ said Geoff, and pulled a small first aid box from his coat pocket. David found himself laughing, and Sam had to tell him to stop so that she could apply the plaster underneath his eye. Once she was done, she kissed his cheek.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

There was no reply to that. Had he done it for her? He supposed he must have: for her, and Marianne, and for all women everywhere.

‘Call the police,’ he told her.

‘I am the police. Let me deal with this. I’m not going to let you go to prison over that bastard, do you understand? You need rest. A good night’s sleep. Geoff, give me a hand.’

Sam held one arm, and Geoff held the other, and David let them lead him from the library, through the car park, back to the passenger seat of her Mini.

‘Stay here.’ She kissed his lips, like Friday night wine at the end of a long week. She kissed his forehead, and he felt absolved, anointed. Her mouth, her words, her touch – it was enough to send him into sleep without guilt.