The Likeness: A Novel (70 page)

“It’s true,” Abby said. She sounded terribly tired. “I knew, before any of this even happened.”
Daniel’s head tipped back, just a fraction. His lips parted and he let out a long breath, soft and immensely sad.
Rafe said softly, almost gently, “You bastard fuck.” He was standing up, in slow motion, with his hands curled in front of him as if they were frozen there.
For a second, taking in what that meant—my money had been on Daniel, no matter what he claimed to Abby—used up all my mind. It was only when Rafe said again, louder, “You fuck,” that I realized he wasn’t talking to Daniel. Daniel, still framed in the doorway, was behind Justin’s chair. Rafe was talking to Justin.
“Rafe,” Daniel said, very sharply. “Shut up.
Now.
Sit down and pull yourself together.”
It was the worst possible thing he could have done. Rafe’s fists snapped closed; he was bone white and his top lip was pulled back in a snarl, and his eyes were gold and mindless as a lynx’s. “Don’t you ever,” he said, low. “Don’t you
ever
tell me what to do again.
Look
at us. Look at what you’ve done. Are you pleased with yourself? Are you happy now? If it hadn’t been for you—”
“Rafe,”
Abby said. “Listen to me. I know you’re upset—”
“My—Oh, God. That was my
child.
Dead. Because of him.”
“I told you to be quiet,” Daniel said, and there was something dangerous growing in his voice.
Abby’s eyes flicked to me, intent and urgent. I was the only one Rafe would listen to. If I had gone to him then, put my arms around him, made this into his and Lexie’s private grief instead of a public war, I could have ended it there. He would have had no choice. For a second I could feel it, strong as reality: his shoulders slackening against me, his hands coming up to circle me tight, his shirt warm and clean-smelling against my face.
I didn’t move. “You,” Rafe said, to Daniel or to Justin, I couldn’t tell which. “You.”
In my memory it happened so neatly, clean distinct steps, as if it had been choreographed to perfection. Maybe that’s just because I had to tell the story so many times, to Frank, Sam, O’Kelly, over and over to the Internal Affairs investigators; maybe it wasn’t like that at all. But the way I remember it, this is what happened.
Rafe went for Justin or Daniel or both, a straight headlong charge like a fighting stag’s. His leg hit the table and it toppled, high arcs of liquid glittering through the air, bottles and glasses rolling everywhere. Rafe caught himself with a hand on the floor and kept going. I got in front of him and grabbed his wrist, but he threw me off with one huge fling of his arm. My feet slid on spilled vodka and I went down hard. Justin was up and out of his chair, hands outstretched to keep Rafe off, but Rafe slammed into him full force and they both crashed back onto the chair, skidding backwards, Justin letting out a terrified moan, Rafe on top and scrabbling for traction. Abby got one hand twisted in his hair and the other in his shirt collar and tried to haul him off; Rafe shouted and heaved her away. He had his fist pulled back to punch Justin in the face, I was coming up off the floor and somehow Abby had a bottle in her hand.
Then I was on my feet and Rafe had leapt backwards off Justin and Abby was pressed against the wall, as if we had been blown apart by a bomb blast. The house was frozen, stunned into silence; the only sound was all of us breathing, hard fast gasps.
“There,” Daniel said. “That’s better.”
He had moved forwards, into the sitting room. There was a dark gash in the ceiling above him; a trickle of plaster fell onto the floorboards, with a light pattering sound. He was holding the World War I Webley in both hands, easily, like someone who knew how to use it. He had it trained on me.
“Drop that
now,
” I said. My voice came out loud enough that Justin let out a wild little whimper.
Daniel’s eyes met mine and he shrugged, one eyebrow going up ruefully. He looked lighter and looser than I had ever seen him; he almost looked relieved. We both knew: that bang had flown down the mike straight to Frank and Sam, inside five minutes the house would be surrounded by cops with guns that made Uncle Simon’s banjaxed revolver look like a kid’s toy. There was nothing left to hold onto. Daniel’s hair was falling in his eyes and I swear he was smiling.
“Lexie?” said Justin, a high incredulous breath. I followed his eyes, down to my side. My sweater was rucked up, showing the bandage and the girdle, and I had my gun in my hands. I didn’t remember pulling it out.
“What the
hell
?” said Rafe, panting and wild-eyed. “Lexie, what the hell?”
Abby said,
“Daniel.”
“Shh,” he said gently. “It’s all right, Abby.”
“Where the hell did you
get
that? Lexie!”
“Daniel,
listen.
”
Sirens, somewhere far off in the lanes; more than one.
“The
cops,
” Abby said. “Daniel, the cops followed you.”
Daniel pushed his hair out of his face with the back of a wrist. “I doubt it’s that simple,” he said. “But yes, they’re on their way. We don’t have long.”
“You need to put that away,” Abby said. “
Right now.
You too, Lexie. If they see those—”
“Again,” Daniel said, “it’s not that simple.”
He was right behind Justin’s chair, the high-backed armchair. It and Justin—petrified, staring, hands clamped on the armrests—shielded him to chest height. Above them was the barrel of the gun, small and dark and wicked, pointed straight at me. The only clear shot I had was a head shot.
“She’s right, Daniel,” I said. I couldn’t even try to take cover behind a chair, not with all these civilians in the room. As long as he had the gun on me, it wasn’t on them. “Put it away. How do you think this is going to end best? If the police find us all sitting here peacefully waiting for them, or if they have to bring in a full SWAT team?”
Justin tried to get up, feet scrabbling limply at the floorboards. Daniel took a hand off the gun and shoved him down, hard, into the chair. “Stay there,” he said. “You’re not going to get hurt. I got you into this; I’ll get you out.”
"What do you think you’re
doing
?” Rafe demanded. “If you have some idea about all of us going down in a blaze of glory, you can stick it—”
“Be quiet,” said Daniel.
“Put down yours,” I said, “and I’ll put down mine. OK?”
In the second when Daniel’s attention went to me, Rafe made a grab at his arm. Daniel sidestepped, fast and neatly, and elbowed him in the ribs without ever taking the gun off me. Rafe doubled over with a rough whoosh of breath. “If you do that again,” Daniel said, “I’ll have to shoot you in the leg. I need to get this done and I don’t have time to deal with your distractions. Sit down.”
Rafe collapsed on the sofa. “You’re insane,” he said, between painful wheezes. “You have to know you’re insane.”
“Please,” Abby said. “They’re coming. Daniel, Lexie,
please.
”
The sirens were getting closer. A dull clang of metal, booming off the hillsides: Daniel had closed the gates, and someone’s car had just rammed them open.
“Lexie,” Daniel said, very clearly, for the mike. His glasses were slipping down his nose, but he didn’t seem to notice. “I was the one who stabbed you. As the others will have told you, it wasn’t premeditated—”
“Daniel,” Abby said, high and twisted and breathless. “Don’t do this.”
I don’t think he heard her. “The argument broke out,” he told me, “it turned into a fight, and . . . honestly, I don’t remember exactly how it happened. I had been doing the washing up, I had a knife in my hand, I was terribly upset at the thought that you wanted to sell your share of the house; I’m sure you can understand that. I wanted to hit you, and I did—with consequences that none of us ever, for one moment, could have foreseen. I’m sorry for any and every wrong I did you. All of you.”
Screech of brakes, rush of pebbles scattering; the sirens, howling and mindless outside.
“Put it down, Daniel,” I said. He had to know: that I only had a head shot, that I couldn’t miss. “It’ll be OK. We’ll sort everything out, I swear we will. Just put it down.”
Daniel looked around at the others: Abby poised ready and helpless, Rafe hunched glaring on the sofa, Justin twisted round to stare up at him with huge frightened eyes. “Shh,” he said to them, and put a finger to his lips. I had never seen that much love and tenderness and incredible urgency in anyone’s face, ever. “Not one word. No matter what.”
They stared at him. “It’ll be all right,” he said. “Really, it will. It’s going to be fine.” He was smiling.
Then he turned to me and his head moved, a tiny private nod I’d seen a thousand times before. Me and Rob, eyes catching across a door that wouldn’t open, an interview-room table, and that almost invisible nod passing between us:
Go.
It took so long. Daniel’s free hand coming up in slow motion, a long fluid arc, to brace the gun. An immense underwater silence filling the room, all the sirens had fallen away, Justin’s mouth was stretched wide but I couldn’t hear anything coming out; the only sound in the world was the flat click of Daniel cocking the revolver. Abby’s hands going out to him, starfished, her hair swinging up. I had so much time, time to see Justin’s head going towards his knees and to swing my gun down to the chest shot opening up, time to watch Daniel’s hands tightening around the Webley and to remember what they had felt like on my shoulders, those hands, big and warm and capable. I had time to recognize this feeling from so long ago, remember the acrid smell of panic off Dealer Boy, the steady rush of blood between my fingers; the realization of how easy it was, bleeding to death, how simple, how effortless. Then the world exploded.
I read somewhere that the last word on every crashed airplane’s black box, the last thing the pilot says when he knows he’s about to die, is “Mammy.” When all the world and all your life are ripping away from you at the speed of light, that’s the one thing that stays yours. It terrified me, the thought that if someday a suspect got a knife to my throat, if my life shrank to one split second, there might be nothing left inside me to say, no one to call. But what I said, small in the hair-thin silence between Daniel’s shot and mine, was “Sam.”
Daniel didn’t say a word. The impact sent him staggering backwards and the gun dropped from his hand, hit the floor with an ugly thud. Somewhere broken glass was falling, a sweet impervious tinkle. I thought I saw a hole like a cigarette burn, in his white shirt, but I was looking at his face. There was no pain on it, no fear, nothing like that; he didn’t even look startled. His eyes were focused on something—I’ll never know what—behind my shoulder. He looked like a steeplechaser or a gymnast, landing perfectly out of the final death-defying leap: intent, tranquil, gone past every limit, holding back nothing; certain.
“No,” Abby said, flat and final as an order. Her skirt fluttered, gay in the sunlight, as she leaped for him. Then Daniel blinked and crumpled sideways, slowly, and there was nothing behind Justin except a clean white wall.

25

T
he next few minutes are shreds of nightmare spliced together with great blank patches. I know I ran, slid on fallen glass and kept running, trying to get to Daniel. I know Abby, crouched over him, fought like a cat to keep me off, wild-eyed, clawing. I remember blood smeared down her T-shirt, the boom echoing through the house as someone broke the front door open, men’s voices shouting, feet pounding. Hands under my arms, pulling me back; I twisted and kicked till they gave me a hard shake and my eyes cleared and I recognized Frank’s face close to mine,
Cassie it’s me stop relax it’s over.
Sam shoving him away, his hands rough with panic all over me, checking for bullet holes, fingers coming away bloody
Is that yours is that yours?
I didn’t know. Sam turning me, grabbing at me, his voice finally sagging with relief:
You’re grand, you’re OK, he missed . . .
Someone said something about the window. Someone sobbing. Too much light, colors so bright you could cut yourself, too many voices,
ambulance, get an—
Finally someone steered me out front and into a marked car, slammed the door. I sat there for a long time, looking at the cherry trees, at the quiet sky slowly dimming, at the distant dark curves of the hills. I didn’t think about anything at all.

* * *

There are procedures for this, for officer-involved shootings. There are procedures for everything, in the force, going carefully unmentioned till the day they’re needed at last and the keeper turns the rusty key, blows dust off the file. I had never met a cop who had shot anyone. There was no one who could have told me what to expect, or how to do this, or that it was all going to be OK.
Byrne and Doherty got stuck taking me to headquarters, in Phoenix Park, where Internal Affairs work in showroom offices and a thick puffy cloud of defensiveness. Byrne drove; the slump of his shoulders said, clear as a voice balloon coming out of his head,
I knew something like this would happen.
I sat in the back like a suspect and Doherty tried to be surreptitious about watching me in the rearview mirror. He was practically drooling: this was probably the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him, plus gossip is good currency in our world and he had just won the lottery. My legs were so cold I could barely move them; I was cold right down to my bones, as if I’d fallen into a freezing lake. At every traffic light Byrne stalled the car and swore morosely.
Everyone hates IA—the Rat Squad, people call them, the quislings, various other less flattering things—but they were good to me, that day at least. They were detached and professional and very gentle, like nurses going through their expert rituals around some patient who had been in a terrible, disfiguring accident. They took my badge—“for the duration of the investigation,” someone said soothingly; it felt like they had shaved my head. They peeled off the bandage and unclipped the mike. They took my gun like evidence, which of course it was, careful latex fingers dropping it into an evidence bag, sealing it, labeling it with neat marker strokes. A Bureau tech with her hair in a smooth brown bun like a Victorian maid’s stuck a needle in my arm, deftly, and took a blood sample to test for alcohol and drugs; I remembered, vaguely, Rafe pouring and the smooth cool of the glass, but I couldn’t remember taking even one sip, and I thought this had to be a good thing. She swabbed my hands for gunshot residue and I noticed, as if I were watching someone else from a long way away, that my hands weren’t shaking, they were rock steady, and that a month of Whitethorn House cooking had softened the hollows by my wrist bones. “There,” the tech said comfortingly, “quick and painless,” but I was busy staring at my hands and it wasn’t till hours later, when I was sitting on a neutral-colored lobby sofa under innocuous art waiting for someone to come take me somewhere else, that I realized where I’d heard that tone before: out of my own mouth. Not to victims, not to families; to the others. To men who’d left their wives half blinded, to women who’d scalded their toddlers with boiling water, to killers, in the light-headed disbelieving moments after everything came pouring out, I had said in that infinitely gentle voice,