Frozen (27 page)

I CAME TO. I didn't groan, or do any of the dramatic stuff you see in films. I just was awake, all of a sudden.

I was on what little remained of Verity's calico sofa, lying on exposed springs. A sharp end dug into my ribs, adding to a list of jabs and thumpings that I couldn't begin to catalogue. Apparently Adam hadn't stopped hitting me just because I was unconscious.

Oddly, none of my injuries hurt too badly; that came later. I was extremely uncomfortable, though; I wriggled, and soon discovered why. My arms had been pinioned behind me, like a swan's wings, and tied at the elbows. The difference was that a swan's wings were designed to do that, and my arms weren't.

As my sight and hearing cleared, I realised Adam was still there. He had started on another box, its innards spilled across what was left of the floor. He muttered to himself as he rummaged under the floorboards for stray papers. Then he noticed I was watching. He stopped what he was doing and looked at me. His eyes were expectant, interested.

“Hey, Harry,” he said brightly.

He came over and kicked me in the balls. Mercifully, my position on the sofa meant he couldn't connect really hard—but it was still hard enough. I retched, and gagged for breath between spasms.

“You're something of a problem, Harry,” he said reflectively. Then he turned back to the papers he had been scanning. He talked to me without looking. “See, Harry, it's here somewhere. It has to be. If it was at the office, you and Sam would have found it. And there's nothing at Gabriel's, I took his place apart yesterday.” He glanced up at me, and winked. “Thanks for the messages about him. Very considerate. It let me search the place uninterrupted. Nothing there, though, so it's got to be here, and that cack-handed idiot I hired just missed it.”

He straightened and shook his head mournfully before bending back to his work. “Can you imagine? Buying the key when he was supposed to be faking a break-in... stupid or what?” He shoved his hands under an edge of floorboard and yanked savagely upwards, yelling, “Fuck it!”

The board came half-loose, and his hands slipped and gashed on the nails. He frowned at his wounds, brows clenched, and his lips bulged forward, like a village idiot trying to make sense of why his hand was bleeding. The pain from his kick had subsided just enough for me to be able to grind out a few words between gasps. “Adam, what—what are you—what the hell's going on?”

My head wasn't just spinning from the beating he'd given me. For a start, there was the fact that he was obviously alive and healthy, which meant that all of my suspicions about Sarah had been wrong. I didn't have time to feel guilty about that, though; I was too busy trying to make sense of Adam, in the grip of some strange mania, tearing apart Verity's flat.

“Adam?”

He glanced up at me and then continued, talking to his own ripped palm. “I've got to believe her, you see—haven't I, Harry? She said she had proof, and she did. She had those tapes... now, that was
me
being stupid; I should've watched my mouth while we were talking. But she only ever showed me the copies.”

He chuckled, and then bent back to the floorboard, tugging more gently until it screeched and gave way.

“Clever little Verity, eh, Harry? I got the copies, of course. And the tape-player. Sorry I couldn't give it back to you.”

My ears were ringing. Sounds were remote. Even Adam's voice was distant, as though I was listening to someone else listening to him, not hearing him myself. It felt strange—but it was nowhere near as strange as what he was saying.

“You found my Walkman?”

It was surreal. Why attack me, and then suddenly talk to me about my lost tape-recorder? What was he doing here?

Adam grinned. “Got the tapes, too—but not the originals. She was right, you know. Those tapes could finish me. But they were just copies. The originals”—he hauled on another board—“are somewhere”—he jerked it free savagely—“
here
...”

He peered hopefully into the hole, then turned away and picked his way across the room. He squatted next to the sofa, sharing my view of the destruction. “There's a whole box of stuff, not just the tapes. She told me. Just before... well,
you
know...
evidence
, she called it.” He spat the word out. “But, surprise surprise, she wouldn't say where.”

He looked at me expectantly. My head was spinning. Each breath was still half-choking me. I needed to throw up.

And beyond my obvious physical troubles there was a nauseating series of emotions—confusion, horror, uncertainty. Because, horribly, it was all beginning to make sense.

“Verity,” I gasped. “You—did you—”

He tapped a finger on his lips to silence me. “And then there's you, Harry,” he said. “You're evidence too. See, politics, the law… they're tricky, Harry. They're tricky games. Reputation's the key. Got to be squeaky.” He cordially slapped my cheek twice, and left his hand there. It was slippery with his own blood. “So it's good you came. Because I need your help.”

He slid his hand down my cheek until he had my neck in his grip. He squeezed—experimentally, thoughtfully, pinching on the point just below each ear with a regular beat. My jaw creaked. The pain was excruciating.

“Adam, did you—”

He squeezed harder, cutting off my words. But the thought was impossible to stop.
Evidence
... That gleam in his eyes.

“We need to work out what I've missed, Harry.” He said it so gently.

He let go of my throat and strode across the room, his gaze flicking around wildly. I watched him through the pain. My jaw felt as though it had been popped out of its socket. I couldn't move it properly; every attempt was agony. But I had to talk to him. I had to
know
. I had to hear him say it.

Adam was heaving on another floorboard, grunting ferally, getting nowhere.

I struggled to speak. “It was you, Adam, wasn't it?” My words were slow and uncontrolled. “She... the affair... she was going to go public. Blackmail.”

Adam gave up on the floorboard and stared at me.

“The affair?” he said incredulously. “The
affair
?' He laughed loudly. He bent back to tug at the floorboard, his breath rasping. “There wasn't an affair, Harry—
oufff
—you idiot—
oufff
—you really think I'd—
oufff
—sleep with—” He straightened again, and chuckled. “Get real, Harry. I just had to think of an explanation when Sarah caught me with her. An affair with Verity Hadley? Not if you paid me.”

“But you said—”

“There was no affair, Harry. I just told you.”

I struggled to reply, but he raised a hand to stop me. I fell silent, now utterly confused. He studied me, scratching his head and frowning.

“Did you know, I even thought about killing you? It's true,” he said softly. “If it hadn't been for you...” A shrug. “Ah, well. Life, eh? I kept thinking maybe I could just shove you under a bus and no one would ever know. And that day at Beachy Head, you were a pretty tempting target. I kept hoping you'd just drop it but no, Harry the ace detective just had to keep unearthing the most ridiculous excuses to be suspicious.”

His voice was reflective. We could almost have been friends.

He came over again, and hunkered down next to me. I stiffened, anticipating another attack, but he just squatted and stared at me.

“Why did she have to rake it all up again, Harry?” he said eventually. “It was twenty bloody years ago. I tell you, that psychiatrist has got a lot to answer for. It was all ancient history, no one cared—but go see a psychiatrist, call it a repressed memory, and all of a sudden it's okay to dig everything up again. All of a sudden it's personal, and it's
now
. And there's Verity bloody Hadley swearing she's going to make me suffer, have her pound of flesh.”

I was completely lost, struggling to catch up. There just hadn't been enough time to make sense of the incoherent scraps he was tossing at me. I was also terrified. I was tied up, beaten, and I was listening to a man who had just been discussing the benefits of killing me.

And then there was Verity. The one thing that had filtered through was that it had been Adam. He had thrown her off the cliff. It was him she'd arranged to meet. And the tapes, some kind of a threat to him—but not because of their affair, because that was all a lie; it was because of something that had happened twenty years ago.

She doesn't want to see you, Harry. Not anymore.

And, slowly, the truth crept in. The horror.

Adam watched me put it together, and chuckled warmly. “Hey, Harry, d'you remember what she used to be like at school? She was such a slapper. And you, chasing after her all the time like an abandoned puppy. You had no idea what she was really like. Truth be told, I felt sorry for you.”

He swung his foot. I tensed and closed my eyes—but it was the sofa he kicked, savagely. It was small reassurance. Adam was over the edge. I was in trouble.

With a snarl, he leaped across the room and attacked an already empty cupboard. He ripped off the doors, heaved and stamped at the low shelf that lidded the space. It half-cracked, half-gave. Plaster tumbled from the edges in a soft, hurried shower. He kicked the shelf loose and flung it away.

“WHERE ARE THEY?” His words were only just short of a scream.

I struggled to focus. He must mean the tapes. The
evidence
.

I tested my jaw. It hurt. But I had to keep him talking, to keep at bay the inarticulate savage in front of me now.

“What was it, Ads? Twenty years ago. What happened?”

But I knew. Memories whirled about me. Gabriel closing the door on me all those years ago; Verity at school, so small and afraid; Adam, bruised and bitter. I knew all right. And even through my fear, the pity of it, the horror, crept into my soul.

“Adam—”

I couldn't have known, Verity, how could I have known? Oh, Verity, I —

“She was using you, Harry,” Adam snapped. He was looking at me, his eyes glittering. “She used everybody. She knew what she was doing.” He perked up suddenly. “Hey, that was some beating I got, wasn't it? When I stole that money.” His smile was twisted. His eyes darted round the room. “And there was Verity, batting her eyelids and pouting and showing a bit of leg whenever she needed to.” He grinned, and it contorted his face into something more like a sneer. “She was asking for it, Harry. You'd have done it too, believe me. And a bit of a struggle—well, it's all part of the fun, isn't it?”

He ripped at another board, grunting as his back arched to take the strain. He worked one end free, and yanked the board savagely back and forth until it gave. He threw it convulsively towards the open door. He stood motionless, frowning into the hole he'd made, chewing at the inside of his cheeks. He made to move on—and then stopped, looking suddenly crumpled.

“I didn't mean to hurt her, Harry,” he said slowly. “I was... angry. Or jealous, maybe. Something. I don't remember. I was fourteen. It was twenty years ago.”

He unleashed a wordless howl and kicked the exposed floor joist hard enough to make the whole room shudder. Then he made his way carefully back to the pile of papers he had been hunched over when I arrived. Most of the sheets were charred at the edges: he must have salvaged them from the remains of the sofa. He rummaged through them. Each sheet got a rapid glance, and then he tore it in half and tossed it aside.

Words ground out of him, savagely, with each rip. “So here we are, Harry.”
Rip
.
Rip
.

He looked at me contemplatively, then left the pile and came over, leaned towards me. Glazed eyes, acid breath. “I did my best, Harry. I told you to leave it.” He kicked disconsolately at a rolled-over corner of carpet underlay. “But there's Verity's little box of tricks somewhere. Her
proof
.” He shook his head and laughed at himself. “She was supposed to tell me where she'd hidden it
before
she went over the cliff. She put up quite a struggle. She's stronger than she looks. I couldn't control her—she just slipped.”

“Adam—”

He rested his arm across my neck. And began to lean. “And then,” he murmured, “there's you.”

He watched me intently as he spoke. My eyes bulged. He stared at me for a long few seconds, as my lungs heaved and my back arched and bucked. He released me. He stood and rubbed his forehead absently. It left a sooty smear.

Then he hit me, hard. Dazed, I saw him bound away towards the kitchen.

He hopped through the detritus to the kitchen.

“So now it's you or me, Harry, isn't it?” he called over his shoulder. “Just like old times at the treehouse.”

He emerged from the kitchen with a knife. A sharp one.

“So here's the deal. You're depressed about Verity. You come to her flat again, looking for answers. You turn the place upside-down”—he spread his arms to indicate the chaos around us—“but there's nothing.”

He set the knife down carefully—and then hit me again, on the jaw. While I lolled helplessly, he picked up the knife, bent over me, and sawed me free of whatever he had tied me with. “Now, don't go getting any ideas,” he warned.