‘How did you find me?’ Tim asked. He waved the knife around. ‘Here, I mean.’
Benjamin Tate lifted his eyes. ‘What?’ he managed.
‘How did you get my address?’
‘The surgery. I work there.’
Tim smiled ruefully. ‘As easy as that. I’ve been trying to find you myself. For years I’ve been looking. You’re right. I did have half a mind to kill you. For revenge, in her honour, all that rubbish. I didn’t really want to kill you. I’ve just realised that. I only wanted to want to.’ He threw the knife on the table. It slid across the glass and dropped onto the rug. ‘Where do you live, what road?’
‘Dean Street.’
Tim chuckled softly then, as if to himself. ‘I’ve been nowhere near.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Put the knife away. I don’t hate you. I hate what happened. There’s a difference.’
Tim picked up the phone and dialled. He waited. Eventually she answered and he heard her tone change when she realised it was him. Yes, he knew it was late, yes, he knew her children were asleep, yes, he’d promised after the last time to never call her again.
‘Please, Beth, I have to show you something. You can never see me again after this if you want.’
An hour later she arrived at the church. Soft yellow lights on the outside walls, great depths of blackness all around them, the gentle nattering of nature in the land. She thought, as she always did when she came here, how peaceful a place it was to spend eternity. Even in this eerie light the tranquillity soothed her. She saw him standing by the grave and approached with curiosity and, she realised, caution.
He’s killed him, that was the first thing she thought when he called her. He’d been searching for him for years. She’d never taken it seriously. But perhaps she had misjudged his intent. Perhaps he had finally tracked down the boy – but, no, he’d be a man now – and taken revenge. She had always believed that only death would finally end it. She had assumed she’d meant Tim’s death, but saw now that the boy’s death would have worked just as well.
‘Thank you for coming,’ he said.
‘What did you want to show me?’
‘My face,’ he said, stepping forward into the light. ‘Look. It’s different?’
‘What are you talking about, Tim? You look the same.’
‘No. No, you’re wrong. I’m not the same. Not at all. I’m something completely different now. I can’t believe it.’
He started laughing, manically laughing. Beth stepped back. He was deranged. He’d finally gone mad. She was convinced now he’d killed the boy.
‘I’m going,’ she said, edging back further. ‘Don’t ever call me again.’
‘No, wait.’ He lunged forward and grabbed her shoulder. ‘Don’t you see? It’s over. It’s over, Beth. After all this time.’
‘What is?’
‘All of it.’
‘You’re not making any sense, Tim.’
‘He came to see me. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Tonight. Out of the blue. He turned up on my doorstep. Can you believe it?’
‘I knew it,’ she said. ‘What happened? What did you do to him?’
‘Oh, Beth,’ he said, and suddenly he flung his arms around her and held her so tightly, so tightly that she struggled for breath. He was laughing again. No. He wasn’t laughing, he was crying. His face was buried in her hair and he was sobbing uncontrollably. She realised he’d not cried afterwards. How was that possible? Had he never cried? Had the poor man held onto this for so long? He was saying something now, but it was difficult to make out the words. She put her hands on his shoulders and held him in front of her.
‘Stop,’ she said. ‘Stop and tell me.’
‘He came to see me, Beth. And I forgave him. I forgave him.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Benjamin Tate woke early, before his alarm. The softness of the mattress, the crack-and-whip of the sheets – he hardly noticed any of that; he was already up and out of bed. He strode down the hallway into the kitchen, looked at the coffee in the cup, the kettle filled just so, strode out again. No time. No time now, for that. He showered and dressed, the black shoes – he smiled at himself putting them on – and before eight o’clock, the red wooden door had been closed behind him.
Streaks of cloud in the sky, some yellow all through, some yellow only on the outside with grey middles – soft grey, not rain grey. They hung up there, high and distant and unmoving, but in another moment they’d have vanished. Much nearer, small wispy clouds had been hurrying low over the rooftops, rushing towards something, or from it. He preferred to think the former. He passed the bus stop, the low wall, no cat this time. 749 steps. He was fairly skipping over them.
Maybe it had been as simple a thing as sharing it, maybe that had made this difference. She had told him – how many times? – that it hadn’t been his fault, that he didn’t need to punish himself, that it was over, over, over. Maybe just hearing it. No one, he realised, had said those things to him before. Something had burst. I forgive you. Is this how other people felt?
Yes! There it was! The cat, trotting alongside him on the grass, tail and head in the air, flouncing daintily on the tips of its paws. Hello, old friend. Maybe it was a different cat. It didn’t matter. How loud were the birds in the hedges? Was it just one bird, or many? He stopped to peer in. A dark shape hopped away from him. Why did he notice these things? He had always thought it was borne out of a desire always to escape himself, but what if it was something else, something magical? There was a morning not long ago when Benjamin Tate had resolved to be bright and new; he did so again, and this time he meant it.
The glass front of the café was ablaze in the early sunshine. It glinted at him as he approached. He swung open the door, felt the sudden shift in air. Clare was already staring tilt-headed at him. Why? Was he so different, or rather, was the difference so apparent? He marched forward, over the spot where he’d once frozen. Someone, still seated, shoved their chair backwards. It scraped across the floor and bumped a table. A folded scrap of paper pinned beneath a leg was knocked free. He didn’t stop at the counter, Benjamin Tate – or was he Ben again, on the way to becoming Ben again? – instead, he went directly behind the counter to where she stood, watching him, mouth still agape. He put his two hands on her cheeks and pulled her towards him and kissed her. Not like that, not like that at all, more like a father might kiss his grown-up daughter.
‘When do you finish?’
‘Two.’
‘I’ll be back then.’
And then he was gone, the glass door swinging shut behind him, the café coming back to life. A hand reached down and placed the folded paper back beneath the table leg.
