The Last Murder at the end of the World

FIFTY-ONE

Emory didn’t notice herself falling asleep, so it’s confusing to lurch awake on a bench and find that the village has been dipped in ink. Darkness is dripping through the branches of the trees, and pooling on the ground.

She holds her hand up, barely able to make out her fingers. The only reason she can see anything at all is because there’s a full moon in the sky, surrounded by more stars than she ever thought possible. It’s as if all the light in the world has been swept into a pile, leaving a few crumbs scattered around it.

As her eyes adjust, she realises the exercise yard isn’t as empty as she first thought. Her father is lying on the stage a few paces away, snoring softly.

‘What time is it?’ she asks groggily.

‘10:17 p.m.,’ I say. ‘You fell asleep while everybody finished clearing up. Nobody had the heart to wake you.’

‘What about him?’ she asks, jerking her thumb at Seth.

‘He didn’t want you to be alone,’ I say.

The cable car appears over the barracks roof, gliding up towards the cauldron, reflecting the moon’s light. From this distance it reminds her of a cocoon, being dragged along a web. She shudders, imagining a gigantic spider up there in the darkness.

The rattle of metal draws her attention to the balconies.

Villagers are emerging from their dorms, and walking in single file down the staircase. Relieved, if surprised, to see friendly faces, she calls out to them, but they don’t look up, or acknowledge her in any way.

In fact, they’re completely silent. Normally, the villagers don’t do anything in silence.

She frowns, realising there’s something odd about their gait. Everybody is equally distant from each other, their shoulders perfectly aligned, their arms swinging to the same rhythm. Some of them are heading out of the gate, while others join a long queue that’s stretching around the barracks into the rear yard.

She catches up with Claudia, who’s the nearest to her. Calling her name produces no results, so she steps in front of her, trying to halt her progress. Claudia smoothly steps around her and carries on walking. Her eyes are closed.

‘She’s asleep,’ says Emory, startled.

‘Yes,’ I confirm.

‘You’re controlling them.’

‘The jobs that need accomplishing around the island require an extensive knowledge of electronics, metalwork, underwater repair, construction, welding, horticulture and circuitry. Expertise in any one of these areas would take years to teach. It’s more efficient if I complete these tasks through your people rather than teaching everybody anew each generation.’

Emory thinks back to all those mornings she’s woken up with scratches on her legs, aching muscles and dirt under her fingernails.

‘Everybody will be returned to their dorms when I’m finished,’ I say. ‘They’ll never know this happened.’

‘That doesn’t make it right,’ Emory hits back. ‘You should know that.’

‘I was never asked for “right”, Emory. Niema tasked me with monitoring the village, and ensuring it works at peak efficiency. These errands are necessary to ensure that humanity survives.’

Emory follows the queue into the rear yard, where villagers are being perfectly packed into the cable car. She’s reminded of the puzzles her mother used to give her as a child, when she’d be asked to fit oddly shaped pieces back into the frame they came out of. She loved those puzzles, and would spend hours diligently figuring them out.

‘How do we appear to you, Abi?’ she asks, as the cable car moves smoothly off, filled with sleeping villagers. ‘Like bees in a hive?’

‘More like tools in a box. Every one of you must be maintained in order for me to accomplish my work. Occasionally, you need replacing.’

Emory feels like she’s been slapped. She’s always known that Thea saw them as disposable, but it never occurred to her that I would share that view. From Emory’s perspective, I’ve been kind, compassionate and caring, wishing only the best for her, without ulterior motive. I’ve never raised my voice, or caused her hurt. I’ve cheered during her triumphs and consoled her after losses. I dampened pain-giving nerves after she’s suffered broken bones and encouraged her when she was bereft. It’s only natural she would mistake that for love, and, naturally, she loved me back.

She walks back along the line, searching for Clara’s face.

‘Is my daughter here?’

‘Not tonight,’ I say simply.

Emory rubs her tired eyes, and stifles a yawn, trying to get her bearings. She hates what’s happening to her friends, but this isn’t the time to dwell on it. She can’t curl up in her regret, or make a shield of her anger. The fog is coming closer, and there’s still so much she doesn’t know.

She collects one of the candles stored in the kitchen, and lights it with a striker and flint. They burn a sap grown in the cauldron garden, and the flame gives out a sweet perfume. Pushing past her friends, she makes her way up the staircase into Magdalene’s dorm room. Her friend is sleeping peacefully, while Sherko murmurs, gripping the sheets.

She settles herself in an armchair, tucking her legs underneath herself, then blows out the candle.

Half an hour later, she hears weary steps dragging themselves towards the dorm. Shadows shift outside the window, then somebody coughs uncontrollably.

Emory can’t see who’s coughing, but she knows what it means. It’s a bone-deep jamming of the gears, the sound of something broken inside. Her grandmother died the same way, buckled over in pain, specks of blood flecking her hands.

People who cough like that don’t do it for very long. Their hours are slipping away as loudly as possible.

As the hacking subsides, Adil shuffles through the door, dabbing his lips with a handkerchief. He’s hunched over, silhouetted by moonlight.

‘Hello, Adil,’ says Emory, relighting the candle.

He winces, turning his head away from the unexpected glare. She’s shocked by how frail he’s become. His face is sagging around dim, squinting eyes. His neck is scrawny, and his dark hair has gone grey, retreating up his scalp like the tide. He’s fifty-eight, but he appears much older than that.

‘How did you know I’d come here?’ he asks, looking along the balcony, in case Emory’s brought an elder.

‘Your shack didn’t have a bed, so I figured you weren’t sleeping there,’ she explains. ‘A while back, Mags told me how Sherko had started straightening all the pictures. That’s an old habit of yours, isn’t it? Once I learned you were still alive it occurred to me that maybe you’d decided on a looser interpretation of exile.’

‘The rule was that I couldn’t talk to anybody from my old life or they’d be killed.’ He shrugs those narrow shoulders. ‘As long as I’m gone before dawn, nobody gets hurt.’

He kisses Sherko on the forehead.

‘I’ve never met him, you know?’ he says. ‘I was exiled before Abi gave him to Magdalene.’

His face darkens, as another thought occurs to him.

‘You know in the old world anybody could have a child. You didn’t need permission. You didn’t need to beg for the privilege.’

‘We’re not human, though, are we?’ points out Emory, watching for his reaction, trying to work out how much he knows.

Adil folds his hands in front of him. He’s jittery, she thinks. He’s trying to hide it, but he can’t keep still.

‘You sound sad about it,’ he says, kissing Magdalene on the forehead. This is obviously some sort of tradition for him. Even in exile, he’s still a villager. Cut adrift from the routine he grew up with, he’s created a new one for himself.

‘We were lied to,’ she says, surprised by the surge of bitterness she feels.

‘Our provenance is hardly the worst of it,’ he replies, in that scholarly way she remembers. ‘One of the benefits of being exiled from the flock is that you get to watch the shepherd at work. I’ve kept an eye on the elders for the last five years, and it’s a dreadful existence. Believe me, not being human is a blessing.’

‘We die at sixty!’ she counters.

‘And most of us enjoy every day of it. Niema was over one hundred and seventy when she was murdered, and I bet she was truly happy for less than a decade. Thea and Hephaestus have this entire island at their disposal, with all of its beauty and wonder, and they’re miserable every day. Imagine being so shrivelled up inside, you can’t take joy in this place.’

There’s loathing in his voice.

‘You hate them,’ she says, taken aback.

‘Don’t you?’ he replies, raising an eyebrow. ‘Thea gave the order that damned your husband. Hephaestus nearly killed you a few hours ago, and Niema’s arrogance has unleashed the fog on this island. The elders are selfish, short-sighted and violent. Explain to me what would be lost if Hephaestus and Thea were to meet the same end as Niema?’

‘Are you threatening them?’

‘Would you stand in my way if I did?’

‘Yes,’ replies Emory, without a beat.

He takes a step closer to her chair, cocking his head. She has the feeling of being under a microscope, turned every which way to understand why she’s still wriggling.

‘Why?’ His voice is harsh. It’s not a question. It’s a demand. A challenge.

‘Because we don’t kill.’

‘We’ve never had a reason before.’

Emory’s throat is dry. It’s a struggle to keep his gaze. Nobody in the village has ever talked like this before. Until now, she wouldn’t have believed it was possible for a villager to even understand such depravity.

‘They’re the only ones on the island who know how to grow us,’ she points out reasonably. ‘If one of the pods in the cauldron garden breaks down, they know how to fix it. Like them or not, we can’t survive without them.’

Adil shakes his head, flinging an arm towards her. ‘Abi could teach us. Even if she couldn’t, I’d not accept their control as the price of our existence.’

‘You’d rather kill them?’

‘I would.’

‘And you started with Niema,’ she says, hoping to shock the truth from him. ‘Did you know it would bring down the barrier?’

She can see the lie forming on his lips, but she interrupts before he can get it out. ‘My father saw on you on the jetty last night, waiting for her.’

‘I’ll confess I went there with the intention of killing her,’ he admits. ‘Niema’s the reason I’ve spent the last five years alone, unable to see the people I love the most. I’d been following her for months, watching for an opportunity, and then, out of the blue, Abi told me where Niema would be that evening.’

He shakes his head, obviously perplexed by the entire thing.

‘I was so anxious I arrived an hour early. I was ready to do it, Emory, but then I saw your father in the boat and knew clear as day what the cost would be. If I killed Niema, everybody I loved would die. Hephaestus would make sure of it.’

He stretches a veiny hand towards her, measuring the distance. ‘I was this close, and I couldn’t go through with it. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine all that hate burning inside of you, without release? I wanted to leave, but Niema asked me to walk with her to the lighthouse. Out of the blue, she apologised for my exile, and for the way I’d been treated. She told me she wanted to live the way the villagers did, without lies or secrets between her and the people she loved. She was planning to wake everybody up when she got to the village, and lay all her secrets bare. Every sin revealed to everybody she’d wronged. She was hoping they’d forgive her, and she was starting with me. She told me I could come home that night, if I wanted.’

He slaps his hands together. ‘Five years of misery, then, suddenly, it was over. Just like that.’

He picks up the candle. ‘Do you drink tea?’ he asks, changing the subject.

‘Erm, yes,’ she replies, wrong-footed.

‘Good, I was about to make one, and it’ll be nice to have somebody to talk to for once.’ He’s walking out of the door before she can object, hunched over and shuffling onto the metal balcony. There’s a cool breeze in the air, bullfrogs calling out. Somewhere distant a wolf howls. The night is so beautiful. Emory can’t believe it’s kept for the elders.

‘I saw you outside the gate, didn’t I?’ she asks, following him down the stairs. ‘The night my grandfather died? I recognise your posture.’

‘You’ve keen eyes,’ he says, shielding the candle flame. ‘Yes, that was me. Your grandfather was an old friend of mine, and there were things about your family I thought he should know before he died. Questions that had bothered him, that I had answers to. I didn’t imagine anybody would mind, given that he was dying that night anyway.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘Haven’t you seen his memory gem?’

‘It was missing. Abi said it fell into the sea.’

‘And you believed her?’

‘No.’

‘Good girl,’ he says, smiling. ‘Frankly, it’s safer if you don’t know. The secrets on this island have teeth, and they don’t like being dragged into the light.’

They walk to the kitchen, Adil’s eyes skirting the long queue of sleeping people waiting for the cable car.

‘They go up in shifts,’ he says, waving a finger at them. ‘I’ve been watching them for years. Everybody does one week a month. This lot will be tending the plants in the cauldron garden, or servicing the cable car. The ones heading out the gate will be going to repair the wave generators and solar panels. There’s so many jobs, and barely any of them benefit our people.’

Arriving at the kitchen, he places a palm against the pot hanging above the stove, finding it still hot. From the shelf he takes two wooden mugs, and slices some ginger into them. He ladles the boiled water in, then scrapes in a little honey. Everything’s done with the practised motions of somebody who performs this act every night.

He’s about to hand her a cup when a hacking cough bursts out of him, drops of blood splattering the pot.

He waits for it to pass, then mumbles an embarrassed apology, wiping away the blood with his sleeve.

‘You need a doctor,’ she says.

‘I need a doctor who’ll treat me,’ he corrects her. ‘Unfortunately, there aren’t any of those on the island.’

He gives her the drink and she notices that his fingernails are stained with ash, exactly as hers are. It’s from the warehouse fire.

Emory sips her tea, searching his face through the steam. He’s working at a splinter in his cup, offended at finding something out of place.

His story’s the same, she thinks.

He’s worked on it methodically, going over every sentence until it’s completely smooth. He’s lying about something, she’s sure of it. The truth is bumpier, darker. Far less elegant.

‘What did Niema do after you talked?’ she asks, following him to one of the communal dining tables.

They’re completely empty, but he sits down at the far end of the fourth table, she notices. His old seat. This place is in his bones.

‘She told me I could row back with them, if I was happy to wait. She had something important to do in the lighthouse first,’ he replies.

‘What was that?’

‘I’m not sure, but there was another woman in there,’ he says. ‘I heard her when Niema opened the door to go in. She was talking to Hephaestus. It sounded friendly enough, but then the woman started screaming.’

‘Screaming?’

‘The worst pain you’ve ever heard,’ he says, blanching at the memory. ‘I didn’t want to give Niema any reason to exile me again, so I set off for the village. I got caught in some rough water, which wrecked my boat. I got back just in time to see Niema being murdered.’

He says this in an offhand way, but Emory can hear the eagerness in his voice. He’s been waiting to deliver this information since the conversation started.

Even so, she puts her cup down and leans across the table. Her voice is tight. ‘You saw who did it?’

‘I did.’

‘Who?’

Adil sips his tea, peering at Emory. ‘It was Thea.’