Bloodline

I could now hear Brendan on the stairs, so I moved quickly away from the door, down the walkway towards the back of the roof, to the spot where I had watched the horses the previous week. I looked down at the now deserted parade ring. Where was a policeman when you needed him most?

The sky above was pitch black but there was enough light spillage from the racecourse floodlights for me to see across the roof quite well.

There was a junction in the walkway and I had to make a decision. Which way was the fire escape?

Surely, I thought, there should have been a sign.

I went right but quickly learned that it was wrong. The walkway came to an abrupt end after about fifteen yards, next to an electrical junction box.

I turned round and came face to face with Brendan.

He was standing about ten or so paces away and looking pretty pleased with himself. Something flashed in his right hand.

‘Is that the same knife you used to kill Toby Woodley?’ I had to shout over the continuous whirr of the air-conditioners.

If he was surprised by the question he didn’t show it.

He took a step towards me.

‘And did you murder Clare too?’ I shouted.

He took another step forward.

I threw my black leather bag at him then ducked under the walkway’s railings and ran over the corrugated steel roof.

Brendan followed.

The grandstand roof wasn’t flat, and I don’t just mean the corrugations.

The whole structure sloped up at the front like a giant ramp. And there was a lighting gantry, an enormous framework that extended some twenty feet outwards and upwards from the front edge, holding several banks of floodlights.

I clambered through the main spar that ran right across the middle of the roof. I was trying to double back to the fire escape, or return to the door, but Brendan cut me off and drove me on towards the front of the grandstand, towards the slope.

Twice he got so close that I could feel him grabbing for the collar of my coat but, each time, I managed to pull myself away.

I was thirty-one and Brendan was nearly ten years older, but I was hampered by my broken ribs that made scrambling over the large steel pipes of the structure exceedingly painful. He, meanwhile, seemed to skip over them with ease.

I reached one of the walkways, rolled myself through the railings, stood up, and ran.

But still it wasn’t the right way for the fire escape.

The walkway ended next to another junction box.

Dammit.

I turned round, kicking something loose on the floor. I looked down. There were several poles, like scaffolding poles but smaller in diameter. They appeared to be the same stuff that the railings round the walkways were made of, probably left behind after construction.

I quickly bent down and picked up one that was about six feet in length.

Brendan was facing me on the walkway.

I jabbed the end of the pole towards him and he stepped back a stride, so I did it again.

We stood like that for what seemed an age, but it was probably only a few seconds.

It was a stand-off — me with the pole and him with a knife.

I advanced a stride, jabbing the pole forward. He retreated slightly.

‘What are you doing?’ I shouted at him. ‘I’m your cousin.’

He didn’t reply. He just stared at me with no emotion visible on his face.

‘Did you kill Toby Woodley?’

No reply.

‘How about Clare?’ I shouted. ‘Did you kill her too?’

‘I loved Clare,’ Brendan said. ‘And she loved me.’

The mystery boyfriend, I thought. The wonderful lover who had made her happy.

Her own cousin.

My cousin.

My married cousin with two teenage children.

‘What happened in that hotel room?’ I shouted at him.

He said nothing.

‘Did you push her off the balcony?’

He continued to stare at me but, in spite of the dimness, I thought I could read some pain in his eyes.

‘Did you know she was pregnant?’ I shouted.

He went on staring at me.

‘She was six or seven weeks pregnant.’

Still nothing. He had known.

‘Was it yours?’

It had to be, but he went on saying nothing.

‘Was that why you killed her? Did she want an abortion?’

His head came up a bit. ‘Shut up.’

‘So was that it?’ I said. ‘You wanted the child and she didn’t?’

He slowly shook his head. ‘It was the other way round.’ He spoke quietly and I had to strain to hear him. ‘She did it on purpose, to trap me.’

It was not an excuse. There can be no excuse for murder.

I thought I could see tears on his face. Crocodile tears.

‘It’s no good crying now,’ I shouted at him. ‘You shouldn’t have killed her.’

‘It was an accident,’ he shouted back.

‘Oh, yeah,’ I said, mocking him. ‘Just like it was an accident in the pub car park on Sunday? You killed Clare, just like you killed Emily, and you nearly killed me, twice. Why don’t you admit it, you bastard?’

‘I told you,’ he screamed at me. ‘It was an accident. I just pushed her away and she...’ He tailed off. ‘She tripped. I didn’t mean her to fall.’

He was mad with anger, and with grief.

That made two of us.

‘Did you make her write the note?’ I shouted.

‘What note?’

‘The suicide note.’

‘There was no note. I told you, it was a bloody accident.’