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Griffin taps her on the shoulder and gestures for them to move away. She follows him back through the house. Once they are outside the living room, she feels a pull on her hand, and Alan stops her.
He watches Griffin as he walks out of the house, then turns to Jess.
“Listen,” he says. “I don’t know who you are or what you’re doing here. But I’m telling you now, don’t let him drag you into this mission of his. Nate’s so deep he doesn’t know where the surface is anymore. I’m going down with him—and that’s as much my fault as it is his—but you seem new to this. Don’t let him take away everything you have.”
Jess frowns. “It’s pretty much gone already,” she replies, and walks away.
She sees nothing but blood as she leaves the house. Handprints. Smears and smudges. A photographer is capturing evidence on the wall outside the front door, and it catches her eye. Something is written there. Bright red daubs in what she can only assume is blood.
Jess stops and stares at the word.
PIG, it says.
CHAPTER
10
JESS CATCHES UP with Griffin at the Land Rover. He angrily pulls off the crime scene clothes, ripping them in the process and rolling them into a ball. He throws them into the back of the car, then climbs into the driver’s side. She does the same and sits next to him, sighing with relief as she closes her eyes for a second. She’s feeling dizzy again. The added exercise will not have done her head any good.
Griffin starts the engine and they drive in silence. He doesn’t look her way. His displeasure toward her is clear.
Her head is spinning with everything she has seen. The murders seem insane; the sheer amount of blood, the stabbings, the flag. She doesn’t understand how this could possibly be linked to her, to setting fire to her house. Patrick’s murder is nothing like what she saw today.
Thoughts buzz in her head. She sees the blood. The pregnant woman. She thought murderers had a type, one way of killing. Why would someone set fire to a house one day, then kill five people in their home, with knives and rope and guns?
Griffin’s revving the engine hard, charging into every corner. She glances across at the speedometer: it says sixty, then seventy miles an hour. She hangs on to the car as she’s thrown this way and that. He’s taking out his anger on the road, and she can’t blame him.
She has no idea where they’re going until they stop outside a secondhand car garage. It’s one of those locally owned places, with crappy Ford Fiestas and ten-year-old Vauxhalls on the lot. Griffin doesn’t wait for her as he slams out of the car, opening a large side door to the garage and stomping down steep metal stairs to the apartment below. She hurries behind him, but before she gets inside the door, she can hear the noise.
It’s the bang of something thrown, then a crash.
She tentatively opens the door.
The place is no more than one large room and what she assumes to be a bathroom behind the door on the left. It has bare brick walls and wooden floors, but there are rugs and a sofa. A basic kitchen takes up the space on the far wall, with a double bed to the right of it. A large set of dumbbells are stacked in a corner.
Griffin has overturned one of the chairs; a beer bottle is smashed against the wall next to her, splinters of glass across the floor, liquid running down the bricks. He roars and pummels his fists against the wall, then thumps one into the brickwork. He shouts, and she runs up to him, hanging onto his arm to stop him from doing it again.
He turns suddenly, his fist raised, directly in line with her head. She feels the tension in his muscles, the strength in his arms. It’s all she can do not to be thrown to the floor as she hangs on. His face is twisted with anger.
He looks at her. There’s nothing in his eyes. No recognition, no humanity. Just rage. He moves, forcing her against the wall, backed into a corner.
With his other hand he grabs her wrist; she feels his fingers dig into her flesh, and she lets go of his arm. Her body floods with adrenaline, but it’s not fear this time. It’s something else. A wave of energy. She’s angry, like him. He snatches her other wrist and holds her arms either side of her head. She feels the rough brickwork against her skin. She pushes against him as hard as she can to get away, but he holds her still, his face barely inches from hers.
She’s breathing heavily, she can feel her heart racing. She looks into his eyes, but all she can see in her head is the blood. The holes in their bodies, the flood of red. That unborn baby, the unborn baby—
And then her mouth is hard against his. There’s no elegance here, just bumped teeth, his stubble against her chin, her tongue in his mouth. He returns the kiss, pushing his hands into her clothes. They’re cold against her warm skin, and she does the same to him, reaching under his shirt. His body is solid, rough, and she wants him—to help her feel something, anything, to take the thoughts out of her head.
She kicks her shoes off, she feels his hands push down into her trousers. His teeth knock against her lip, and for a second she tastes blood. It reminds her of the bodies … the red … but she pushes her eyes tightly closed and focuses on what he’s doing. One hand down the back of her trousers, the other—
She takes a quick breath in. Oh God. She pushes herself up against him, and she can feel his mouth on her neck, on her collarbone. She pulls his shirt off, then struggles with his belt and his jeans, his fingers still inside her, playing, distracting.
But then, abruptly, he stops. He pulls away, his eyes meeting hers.
Something’s changed. He shakes his head, still out of breath, taking a step backward.
“No. No, we can’t do this,” he mutters, almost to the floor. He turns away, pulling his jeans up, then picks up his shirt and the pack of cigarettes from the table and walks out of the apartment.
She watches the door close. She stands there, against the wall, stunned. She liked it, she wanted it. To feel something other than the bottomless detachment.
