The Last Murder at the end of the World

FIFTEEN

‘This is a bad idea,’ I warn, as Niema stalks out of the gloomy school into the burning heat, and crosses the rear yard towards Thea’s laboratory. ‘It doesn’t matter what you say, she’s not going to forgive you.’

‘Whether my experiment works or not, Thea will never speak to me again after tonight,’ she says, lowering her eyes against the fierce glare. ‘I need to get this off my chest, while I still have the chance.’

The air’s thick with dust, kicked up by the villagers who’ve just left with the boy. Niema covers her mouth with her sleeve to keep from breathing it in, but she can already feel it coating her skin.

That’s the only problem with living in the village. She never feels clean. Before they left Blackheath, everything was sterile and neat. She showered in the morning and evening. Her clothes were fresh each day, their folds pressed flat. Of everything she’s lost, that’s the only thing she really still misses.

A cheer erupts from the exercise yard, followed by the first notes of a song. The meal will be out soon, she thinks. She’s sorry to miss the celebrations, but she’s much too jittery to join in.

Hephaestus has sent word that he’s chosen a candidate for her experiment, which means she’ll be able to put her plan into motion this evening. By tomorrow morning, she will have achieved something nobody ever thought possible. She will have found a way to strip the thorns from the human race, fundamentally transforming their nature. She will have laid the foundations for a perfect society. An impossible utopia, built atop her patience and guile.

‘Or, alternatively, you’ll have caused their extinction,’ I say.

‘I didn’t realise I’d created such a pessimist,’ she replies, irritated by my refusal to applaud her daydreams.

Niema’s an extraordinary scientist, but she suffers the arrogance of genius. Having never encountered a problem she couldn’t overcome, she can’t imagine anything not going her way. Her entire life has been filled with green lights, and she’s convinced it always will be.

Four steps lead into Thea’s lab, which Niema’s always considered one of the most beautiful spaces in the village. It was formerly a mess hall, and green tiles still cover the walls, while wrought-iron columns support a mezzanine – their ornate design a rare flourish in a place that was built to be feared, rather than admired.

There are thirteen pieces of scientific equipment arranged on old tables and gurneys, their thick black wires trailing across the floor.

Hephaestus built this lab for Thea after they lost Blackheath, fearing what would happen to her if she didn’t have her work. He assembled most of the equipment using parts he salvaged from a derelict hospital on the north coast of the island.

It’s an astonishing effort, one of the few things her son has ever done that made Niema truly proud of him.

Thea is huddled over a microscope, but she raises her head when she hears Niema’s steps.

Niema wrinkles her nose at Thea’s appearance. Her T-shirt and shorts are filthy, her face is grimy and her dark hair is lank. She’s coated in pollen from the cauldron garden, but she doesn’t appear to have noticed.

She’s always been the same way. Far as Niema can tell, Thea cares only for her work and is oblivious to everything else – to the point of amorality. This was the reason she was able to complete her doctorate when she was fourteen, and why Niema felt confident enough to hire somebody who was barely into their teens to work at the world’s most prestigious research laboratory. Only Thea would spend three weeks in the wilderness, then go straight back to work without bathing first.

For a moment, they simply stare at each other, surprise having rendered Thea mute. Neither of them can remember the last time Niema set foot in this lab. They barely speak any more, and when they do it’s through me.

‘Your sample is over there,’ says Thea, flinging an arm towards the table at the metal box she had Hui carry down from the lab.

Niema stands awkwardly on the threshold, wringing her hands. She rehearsed this, but she doesn’t know where to start. The thing about being right most of the time is that you hardly ever need to apologise for it.

‘I’ve come to … I wanted …’ She flushes red, floundering. ‘I know you think I’ve betrayed you and that I –’

‘Don’t,’ mutters Thea, realising where this is going.

Niema doesn’t hear. She’s so determined to get through this, she’s put her mouth on automatic.

‘I should have done more to get Ellie out of Blackheath before we left,’ she staggers on, looking everywhere except at Thea. ‘I know you think I abandoned her down there, and I should have –’

‘Stop talking,’ interrupts Thea, appalled.

‘I just wanted to say –’

‘Stop it!’ yells Thea, swiping a row of test tubes off the table, causing them to shatter against the wall.

The older woman opens her mouth, with the intention of hurling a few more pieces of apology on the bonfire, only for my voice to hold her back.

‘Don’t,’ I say urgently. ‘You’ll only make things worse.’

‘Do you know how hard it is for me to not think about Ellie?’ says Thea, her voice cracked. ‘I can go weeks, and then I remember that my sister …’ She swallows, biting back the pain. ‘I think about her down there surrounded by the fog and I …’

She curls her fists, her fingernails breaking flesh.

‘Why did you come here?’ she demands, struggling to keep herself together. ‘Why put that in my head?’

‘I wanted to clear the air,’ says Niema, spreading her hands. ‘We were friends once. I thought of you like a daughter. I hate what’s happened to us.’

Thea spins, her face bright red with anger.

‘And what happened to us?’ she asks dangerously. ‘Why do you think we barely speak any more?’

Niema studies her, knowing there’s a trap, but unsure what’s going to spring it.

‘You blame me for abandoning Ellie,’ she says slowly.

‘I don’t blame you for abandoning Ellie,’ scoffs Thea incredulously. ‘I blame you for abandoning me.’

Thea walks towards Niema, her eyes blazing.

‘After Blackheath fell, you promised you’d get me back inside as soon as you could. That was forty years ago! You won two Nobel Prizes and built the world’s most valuable company in less time than that.’

‘The lab is flooded by fog,’ replies Niema, her temper growing hot. ‘The emergency doors are sealed. What is it you expect of me?’

‘Effort,’ spits Thea. ‘I want you in your lab, working as hard as I am. Instead, you’re in that school every day. For what? We need the villagers to grow crops and maintain our equipment. They don’t need to understand history, or art.’

‘You take apprentices,’ points out Niema, trying to puncture her rage.

‘They’re means to an end, substitutes for the equipment I don’t have. I don’t waste my nights dancing and singing with them.’ Thea snorts her derision. ‘Under our feet is the most advanced lab the world has ever known. A decade with that equipment, and we’d be able to eradicate the fog and finally get off this island, but you’re up here playing teacher. I know you, Niema. I know when you’re stalling.’

‘There’s nothing to stall,’ hits back Niema, finally succumbing to her anger. ‘Even if we could get rid of the fog, there’s nothing beyond this island except rubble and death. The fog killed every living thing. Why are you so eager to reclaim silence? If you’d just put aside your sense of entitlement, you could have friends here. A life.’

‘A life!’ snorts Thea. ‘Before the world ended, I was surrounded by the greatest minds in history. We could build entire cities out of coral in a few months. We could draw endless power from the sun, and the waves, and make food out of recycled protein. We could skip across the stratosphere, and cross the planet in hours. And, now, I have a lab filled with salvaged equipment hundreds of years old, held together by sticky tape. I’m surrounded by smiling idiots, who go cross-eyed when I explain what an atom is. Why would I settle for any of this?’

‘Because this is better!’ yells Niema, thumping a table so hard she causes the equipment to jump. ‘All those miracles you described, what were they for? Yes, we had all the food and energy we could ever make, but only if you had the money to pay for it. Children were still starving on the streets of those beautiful coral cities. People in poorer countries were still dying of things we’d cured hundreds of years prior. There were still wars being fought. Women still had to worry about walking home by themselves late at night. Children were still snatched off the street. I miss the same things you do, Thea, but I don’t miss who we used to be. I don’t miss the violence that was everywhere. I don’t miss the poverty, or the anger, or being afraid of every hate-peddling psychopath who might win an election.’

‘And what’s the alternative?’ demands Thea, frustrated. ‘Keep everybody trapped on this island forever? When the fog first appeared, you told us that our duty was to save as many people as we could, and protect them for as long as it took to give them the world back. When did you give up on that mission? When did this fraction of a life become enough?’

Niema reels, stunned by the contempt that’s so naked on Thea’s face. For years, she thought they were a conversation away from reconciliation. She knew Thea would object to her experiments and so she kept them from her. She never knew how far apart they’d truly grown. She didn’t understand, until now, how poisoned the ground was between them.

‘I should go,’ she says in a small voice, scooping the metal box off the table and turning for the bright glare of the doorway.

‘What did my apprentice see in the cauldron?’ demands Thea, stopping Niema in her tracks. ‘Hui was terrified, but she won’t say anything and neither will Abi, apparently on your order. The only thing that wretched servant of yours will tell me is that it’s connected to some experiment you’re working on.’

Niema sags, but doesn’t turn around.

‘I’m going to make an announcement when it’s completed,’ she says. ‘Probably around midnight. If you want to know more, come to the exercise yard. I’ll be happy to explain everything.’

‘No,’ says Thea, retreating to her microscope. ‘I’ll not dance for you, Niema. I’m not Hephaestus, forever at your beck and call.’

Niema turns to face her.

‘I’m going to tell the villagers the truth about this island,’ says Niema. ‘No more secrets.’

She rehearsed this line all day, trying to work out how to tell Thea and Hephaestus without rousing their anger. She tried haughty and distant, then pacifying and apologetic, finally settling on imperious, with a touch of concern. She never imagined it would just fall out of her mouth like this, empty of any emotion except exhaustion.

Thea’s eyes widen in shock, her mouth opening and shutting as she searches for some response. ‘The last time one of the villagers found out the truth, they tried to kill you,’ she says, at last.

‘I haven’t forgotten,’ replies Niema, running a hand across the scar on her forearm.

‘The villagers maintain every piece of equipment we depend on,’ says Thea, scrambling for something to change her mind. ‘They provide our food. If we lose control of them, we lose our ability to survive on this island.’

‘They deserve to know the truth.’

‘Deserve?’ repeats Thea hollowly, a red flush rising up her neck. ‘You think I care what they deserve? What do I deserve, Niema?’ She hammers her chest. ‘I’ve been trapped on this island for ninety years, and kept out of Blackheath for the last forty. Now you’re planning to set everybody we depend on against us.’

Thea stares at Niema’s smooth face, struggling to find any reason in it. As usual, the older woman is convinced she’s right and won’t be moved. Thea’s arguing with the tides, trying to convince the moon to change shape.

‘You’re going to kill us all,’ she says, defeated. ‘And you can’t even see it.’