The Last Murder at the end of the World

FORTY-FOUR

Putting an arm around Emory’s shoulders, Clara tries to sit her shaking mother at one of the communal tables near the kitchen, but Emory shakes her head vehemently, gesturing towards the gate and the dark sea beyond.

‘I can’t believe he did that,’ says Clara, speaking in a hush. ‘He just … he didn’t even …’ She runs out of words immediately.

Blood is rushing in her ears. Nobody in the village has ever been assaulted before, and she doesn’t know how to react. She feels like she wants to run away, warn everybody, shout and hide, all at the same time.

‘Why didn’t you stop him, Abi?’ Clara demands, finding vent for her anger. ‘I walked past the boundary this morning and you immediately took control of my body to march me back. Hephaestus was hurting my mum and you didn’t do anything.’

‘As I told you earlier, I can’t control humans,’ I explain. ‘I can hear their thoughts, and my words have influence, but that’s all. You’re wrong, though. I asked Thea to intervene and she did. If she hadn’t, your mother would now be dead.’

And humanity would be doomed.

‘It’s okay, Clara,’ croaks Emory, squeezing her daughter’s hand reassuringly. ‘This is good, this had to happen.’

Clara looks across at her, surprised by the fierceness of her tone.

‘I didn’t understand humans before,’ says Emory, her voice still hoarse from being choked. ‘I knew they were different from us, but I didn’t realise how different. I didn’t understand their relationship with violence. How easy it is for them. How casually they can employ it. I was stupid to go in there, like that. Hephaestus has secrets and he’ll hurt us to keep them, whether the island’s in danger or not. That’s valuable information. That helps. We have to assume Thea has the same mindset. We’ll go more carefully now.’

It’s cooler beyond the gate, the sea breeze swirling in the air, salty on the tongue. It will be curfew soon, and the sea is a velvet blanket, under the darkening sky.

Clara’s staring at her mother, dubiously. ‘What are we going to do about Dad’s knife?’ she asks.

The villagers aren’t materialistic and will happily share anything with anybody, but it’s offensive to Clara that Hephaestus possesses something of her father’s. She feels like she’s let him down somehow.

‘Put that aside, for the minute,’ says Emory, wincing as she touches her bruised throat. ‘Thea knows Hephaestus has it, and she’ll know my questions are valid. If nothing else, the knife will make her doubt him. Hopefully, she’ll start asking the questions we can’t.’

Clara looks at her mother admiringly. ‘How are you capable of thinking that way?’

‘It’s not hard,’ she replies, abashed. ‘Whatever comes naturally, you just do the opposite.’

‘So, what’s next? Do you want me to take you out to the lighthouse?’

‘It’s too dangerous to row out there in the dark. I need you to run those soil samples you took from the farms, while I look around Thea’s room.’

Clara tenses, wary of her mother antagonising another elder so soon after running afoul of Hephaestus.

‘I should come with you,’ she says.

‘I need you in the lab, where you can keep an eye on Thea. If she tries to leave, distract her.’

Two minutes later, Emory’s descending the circular staircase into the old munitions silo where Thea’s been living. Electric lights burn in alcoves, but their fierce glow makes Emory uneasy. They’re too bright, too steady. There are no shadows, no softness. If she stays down here too long they’ll strip the flesh from her bones.

Arriving at the bottom of the staircase, she finds the air thick with potpourri, probably to mask the smell of damp, mouldy concrete.

She sniffs. Then again. One of Liska’s concoctions, she thinks.

Everybody in the village has a hobby that they indulge in their free time, whether that’s making candles or carving animals. On Sundays, the villagers take these things from dorm to dorm, laying gifts at their neighbours’ doors as thanks for any help, or kindness, received the last week. Naturally, the elders receive the most tributes, even though they contribute the least to village life. It’s always bothered Emory, but nobody else seems to mind.

The silo’s sparse by the usual colourful standards of the village, with only a handful of decorations to soften the grey walls. For furniture, there’s an old camp bed, undoubtedly salvaged from somewhere in the village, a set of drawers and an architect’s desk covered in sheets of complicated equations.

Hanging on the walls are photographs of Thea in happier times. Here’s one of her getting a piggyback from Hephaestus, while an older woman laughs in the background. In another, she’s lying on the beach, pulling a face at the camera. There’s a roaring fire with seven people clustered around it, heads tipped back in joy. Drinks are being served out of a bathtub.

Emory peers at the photos one after another, seeing an entirely different Thea from the one she’s always known. Though she hasn’t aged much physically, it’s obvious she’s younger in these pictures. She’s laughing for a start, enjoying her life. Emory doesn’t think she’s ever seen that before.

‘What happened to her?’ she asks.

‘Her world burned,’ I say. ‘Her family died, then her friends. She lost too much not to lose herself along the way.’

A great wave of pity overcomes Emory.

‘Hold on to that feeling,’ I say. ‘It will be easy to hate them, but both Thea and Hephaestus have suffered far more than you can ever imagine. Whatever they are today, it wasn’t their choice and they didn’t deserve it.’

Emory starts pulling open the desk drawers one after another. The bodies in the infirmary suggest Niema had a way to get back into Blackheath, even though it was supposedly lost to the fog. If Thea found that out, she’d have a strong motive for murder.

‘Motive,’ she mutters, shaking her head at herself.

She’s read that word so many times in her books, but she’s never said it out loud before. It doesn’t belong in this place, she thinks. It’s something old, and blunt, and dusty. It thuds into the air when spoken.

The first drawer is empty, but the second one contains an ancient camera, its case held together by wire. Thea used to make her apprentices take this on expedition with them, so they could snap any new flora or fauna they found. Unfortunately, it was so fragile that by the time you tried to take a picture of the animal running by, the camera had fallen to pieces in your hands.

Putting the camera back where she found it, she opens the next drawer to find an old diary inside.

She flips through idly, until she comes to the last entry.

Ellie’s gone. She wouldn’t listen, not to me or Hephaestus. She climbed into the last free stasis pod. Said it was either that or she goes two-footed off a cliff.

I don’t know what I’m going to do without my sister. We haven’t spoken much recently, but that’s only because we’ve been here sixty-eight years. What’s left to say?

I don’t know who’s more upset, me or Hephaestus. He loved her more than life itself.

‘Thea’s sister is trapped in Blackheath,’ says Emory out loud. ‘Niema wasn’t just keeping Thea out of Blackheath, she was keeping her from seeing her sister.’

‘Emory, you have to stop your father,’ I interject urgently.

‘Why?’

‘Because he’s about to do something incredibly stupid,’ I say.