Max Hastings.
Max Hastings under arrest.
‘I’m telling you, you’ve made a huge mistake,’ he said to Hawkins. His voice was shaking, and in that moment Pip couldn’t tell whether it was with rage or fear. She hoped it was the latter. ‘I had nothing to do with this, I don’t understand –’
Max cut off, his pale eyes trailing towards the police station, finding Pip standing there, latching on. His breathing grew heavier, his eyes widening, darkening.
Hawkins didn’t notice, gesturing for Soraya and one of the other officers to come over.
They didn’t see it coming. Pip didn’t see it coming. In one quick, shuddering movement, Max wrenched his arm free of Hawkins, shoving him to the ground. He broke away, flying across the car park, too fast she didn’t have time to blink.
Max collided into Pip, cuffed hands against her neck, shoving her backwards into the brick building. Her head connected with a crack.
Shouts and scuffles behind, but Pip could only see one thing, the flash of Max’s eyes inches from hers. His hands tightened around her neck, the points of his fingers burning through her skin.
He bared his teeth and she bared hers back.
‘You did this!’ he screamed in her face, spit flying. ‘You did this somehow!’
He pushed harder, grating Pip’s head against the brick.
She didn’t fight him off; her hands were free but she didn’t push him away. She flashed her eyes back and whispered quietly, so only Max would hear.
‘You’re lucky I didn’t put you in the ground too.’
Max roared at her, the scream of a cornered animal, his face patchy and red, ugly veins sticking out by his eyes. ‘You fucking bitch –’ he screamed, slamming her head just as Hawkins and Daniel caught up behind, dragging him off her. A scuffle, Max down on the ground, kicking out at them as the other officers rushed over.
‘She did this!’ Max screamed. ‘I didn’t do it. I didn’t do anything. I’m innocent!’
Pip felt the back of her head: no blood. No blood on her hands.
‘I didn’t do it!’
They hauled him up to his feet again.
Max threw his head in her direction, and for a fleeting moment he looked just as he should: eyes narrow and violent; mouth gaping open, hideous and wide; face inflamed and misshapen. There he was: the danger, ripped of all pretence, all disguise.
‘She did this somehow!’ he screamed. ‘She did! She’s fucking crazy!’
‘Get him inside!’ DI Hawkins shouted over Max, directing Soraya and the other two officers as they half-dragged, half-carried a writhing Max through the automatic doors into reception. Before he followed them in, Hawkins turned back to Pip, pointing at her. ‘You OK?’ he asked, out of breath.
‘Fine.’ She nodded.
‘OK.’ He nodded too, then hurried inside the building, following the sound of Max’s wild screams.
Someone sniffed behind her and Pip wheeled around, snapping her eyes to them. It was Daniel da Silva, righting his uniform, ruffled and askew where Max had pulled at it.
‘Sorry,’ he said heavily. ‘You all right? Looked like he got you pretty hard there.’
‘Yeah, no, fine,’ she said. ‘Just a bump on the head, it’ll be fine. My dad says I have a few too many brain cells anyway, could afford to lose a few.’
‘Right,’ Dan sniffed again, with a small, sad smile.
‘Max Hastings,’ Pip said quietly, a question hiding behind his name.
‘Yeah,’ Dan said.
‘They charging him?’ she asked, both of them watching the entrance doors, the muffled sounds of Max’s voice filtering through. ‘With murder?’
Daniel nodded.
Something had been pressing down on Pip, a shadow heavy on her shoulders, constricting her chest. But as she watched Daniel’s head move up and down, it finally let her go, it released her. They were charging Max with Jason’s murder. Her heart beat wing-fast against her ribs, but it wasn’t the terror, it was something else, something closer to hope.
It was over, she had won. Four against four and here she was, still standing.
‘Piece of shit,’ Dan hissed, pulling Pip back into the moment, here at the bad, bad place, watching those doors. ‘Don’t tell anyone I said that but… Jason Bell was like a father to me, and he –’ Daniel broke off, staring at the glass doors that had swallowed Max whole. ‘He…’ Daniel wiped at his eyes, coughed into his fist.
‘I’m sorry,’ Pip said, and it wasn’t a lie. She wasn’t sorry that Jason was dead, not one bit, not sorry that she had killed him, but she did feel sorry for Daniel. Pip had thought him capable of violence, three separate times now, convinced beyond doubt he had to have been the DT Killer. He wasn’t, he was just another one of those souls, floating out in that expanse of grey area, in the wrong places at the wrong times. And another realization, hard and cold, as they always seemed to be these days: Jason Bell had used Daniel. He was the reason Dan joined the police force at all; Jason convinced him to do it, supported him through training. Becca had told Pip all this last year and now she saw it for what it really was. It wasn’t because Jason saw Daniel as the son he’d never had. No, it was because he wanted a way to get information on the DT Killer case. An in with the police and the investigation. And all of Daniel’s red-flag questions about DT had really been Jason’s. His interest in the case, through Daniel. That’s what it was, that’s what Andie had meant when she said her dad was ‘practically one of them’。 He’d used him. Jason Bell hadn’t been like a father to Daniel, just as he wasn’t a father to Andie and Becca.