Peter May - Runaway

For the first time since his arrival, Dr Robert looked his age. Paler and frailer, the certainties of a lifetime suddenly stripped away, to confront him with a truth which had evaded him all these years.

Maurie said, ‘You really did think you’d killed him, didn’t you? So when Simon looked into your eyes, that’s what he saw there. Guilt, fear. The realization that your life as you knew it was about to change irrevocably because of one stupid, thoughtless act. And that foolish young man sacrificed himself for you. For the man he loved, the man he believed loved him, too.’

Maurie was transported back through fifty years, the little life left in him burning fiercely in his eyes.

‘He didn’t know that his lover was a serial molester of young boys. Or maybe he suspected it, who knows? Who can even begin to guess what was in his mind? But I saw you flinch when he lifted that paperweight, as if you thought he might hit you with it. And I was just as confused as you when he put it down again, standing it upright on the floor next to the body, covered in his fingerprints and began smearing his face and hands with blood. And it dawned on me that he was taking the blame. Taking the fall for you. The stupid man almost knocked me over when he ran out of your study.’

Dr Robert pulled up a chair and sat down heavily, staring at his hands laid flat on the table in front of him. ‘I always thought it was me. My whole life. That I’d killed that man. And it took me all that time to figure out why Simon did what he did.’

‘Because he loved you,’ Luke said.

‘And you killed him for it.’ Maurie fixed the doctor with a look so filled with hate that Jack recoiled from it, as if it were something physical. ‘Half a century later, you killed the man who sacrificed his life for yours.’

Dr Robert looked up, eyes on fire. ‘No! Sy was...’ he searched for the word, ‘... he was an egomaniac. Arrogant. Disruptive on set. He’d been fired from the film he’d been working on that morning. They’d just had enough of him. And his agent had dumped him. So he was in a pretty volatile state of mind. You see, Sy wasn’t an actor, he was a celebrity . All he was interested in was fame. And what he did that night, taking the blame, it didn’t just make him famous. It made him... a legend. The man who simply disappeared off the face of the earth.’

He looked round their faces, as if looking for their sympathy.

‘You think it was love? Really? So how is it he comes back fifty years later threatening to expose me if I don’t stump up? If I don’t get him a little apartment somewhere in London with a monthly stipend, so he can live out the rest of his days in anonymous safety, financially secure.’

‘Why didn’t you just do that?’

‘How could I trust him? How? I mean, who knows how he survived all these years, or where? Or what bitter jealousy it was that brought him back. Seeing me reach the pinnacle of my life and career. Honoured by my country. Arise, Sir Cliff. Who the hell knows? But I wasn’t about to risk it. To let him spoil it all now. Even if no one believed him, the publicity would have tarnished me. I couldn’t allow that.’

He stood up again, suddenly agitated.

‘And anyway, the man was already dead. That’s what everyone thought. No one to miss him, or regret his passing.’

He paused, gazing beyond them all into some personal hell all of his own.

‘I was sure I had removed all possibility of identification when I cut away his tattoo.’ He shook his head in frustration. ‘But I was wrong. Wrong!’

And he thumped his fist on the table. The noise of it reverberated around the room and out into the hall. The blood had flowed back into his face now, coloured red by a cocktail of mixed emotions.

‘I suppose you’re going to go to the police.’

Maurie shook his head. ‘No.’

Dr Robert’s relief was tangible, but it vanished in a moment as Maurie drew a pistol from an inside pocket. Bizarrely, to Jack, it looked like a toy gun he’d had as a kid. But he was under no illusions about it being a toy. It shook so much in Maurie’s hand that he had to steady it with his other, both arms extended in front of him, the gun pointing across the table at Dr Robert.

His three friends were on their feet in a moment, chairs toppling backwards to raise dust in the candlelight.

‘For Christ’s sake, Maurie!’ Dave’s voice was elevated by alarm.

Maurie’s smile was grotesque. ‘Amazing the acquaintances you make during eighteen months behind bars. And the things they can get you when you really need them.’

Luke’s voice was more controlled, but Jack could hear the tension in it.

‘Don’t be stupid, Maurie. Nothing to be gained by this. You barely knew Flet. He meant nothing to you.’

Maurie’s gaze was fixed on Dr Robert. ‘This isn’t for Flet,’ he said, and suddenly the light of all the candles seemed to flicker more brightly in his eyes. ‘This is for Jeff. Poor Jeff who thought he could fly. Poor Jeff, who was my best and only friend all through childhood, who stood up for me against the bullies. Who was always there for me, whatever the problem. Poor Jeff, who never had the life he should have.’ His eyes held Dr Robert helpless in their thrall. ‘Seduced into taking drugs, and God knows what else, by you, you bastard.’

And he pulled the trigger three times, pumping his bullets straight into Dr Robert’s chest, the recoil almost toppling Maurie backwards in his chair.

The noise was deafening in the confined space, and the doctor flew back against the wall, then slowly slid down to the floor leaving a trail of blood glistening on the painted plaster behind him.

The sound of the gunshots seemed to take an eternity to fade, and left them feeling as if their ears had been plugged by cotton wool.

Dr Robert sat on the floor, back against the wall, his eyes wide, mouth hanging open, blood staining his camel coat a dark brown.

Dave gawped at him in horror. ‘Jesus Christ, Maurie, you’ve killed him.’

Maurie lowered his hands to rest them on the table, but still he held the gun. ‘It’s what I came to do. No knighthood for Dr Robert.’

Luke bent down to check the doctor’s pulse. He caught Jack’s eye and shook his head, then stood up again.

Maurie said, ‘You’d better go. These walls probably contained the sound of the shots, but who knows who else might have heard them?’

Jack frowned, panting hard and still in shock. ‘We’re not going without you, Maurie.’

‘Yes, you are.’ Maurie was quite calm now. Even his hands seemed to have stopped shaking. ‘I only have a week or two left in me. Maybe not even that. You boys... well, you might all have a whole wheen of years left among you. So go and live your lives, and make the most of what you have left of them.’

‘Maurie...’ Luke took a step towards him.

‘Go!’ Maurie raised the gun to point it at him.

Luke was startled. ‘You wouldn’t!’

Maurie forced a grin. ‘No, I wouldn’t.’ He turned the gun to press the barrel to his temple. ‘But unless you really want to watch me blow my brains out, I suggest you go now.’

Jack said, ‘You’re really going to do this, aren’t you?’

‘I am, Jack. Quick and easy. And gone. But...’ He reached into his pocket with his free hand and drew out a white envelope, which he placed on the table in front of him and pushed towards Jack. ‘I figure maybe I owe you this, though part of me says you still don’t deserve it. But, well... I never promised Rachel I’d take her secret with me to the grave.’

Jack felt a chill of apprehension as he reached for the envelope.

‘She never had the abortion, Jack.’

Jack’s face stung as if he had been slapped, and he felt Luke and Dave’s eyes on him.