Page 84 of The Memory Wood

I step outside. In the front garden, pounded by rain and a flattening wind, Kyle faces me, fists upon his hips.

‘Getback!’ I yell.

‘Why the axe, Eli? What’re you planning now?’

‘I’m going to set her free.’

Kyle’s teeth glint as he bares them, bright and feral. ‘That’s not what you’re planning,’ he hisses. ‘That’s not what you’re planning at all.’

My mouth falls open. I can hardly believe what I’m hearing. ‘You think I’m going to kill her?’

‘Iknowyou, Eli. I know you like no one else.’

I look at the axe, at the keen edge of its blade. Rain hisses and pings off the metal. Water runs down the shaft. I grip it tighter, heartened by its weight, and for a moment – just one – I think about swinging it at Kyle, burying it in his face and ending his stream of bile.

I couldn’t kill Gretel.

I couldn’t kill anyone.

‘Yes, you could,’ he whispers. ‘You already have.’

Kyle lifts his finger. When I follow where it points, west past Fallow Field, I see the eastern edge of the Memory Wood; and, rising above it, a dense cloud of black smoke.

Mairéad

Day 7

I

Mairéad is in the Mirzoyan living room for her fourth visit when Lena Mirzoyan’s phone starts ringing. Grabbing it from the sofa, the woman answers straight away. Hope, briefly stirred to life, fades from her expression. ‘Lasse … Yeah. Look …’ She pauses, listening.

Mairéad glances at Judy Pauletto and sees they’re thinking the same thing:Lasse Haagensen, the chess teacher. Single white male, thirty-four years old.

‘You’re where? … You’re … Lasse, hold on. I don’t understand … Yes … OK … shewhat?’

Lena leaps up, racing to the window. ‘Right now … Of course I will! Stay where you are. Don’t you move.’

Mairéad’s already on her feet. ‘The chess teacher?’

‘He’s outside. Says he can’t get past your officer on the gate. Says he has urgent information and needs to speak to us.’

II

Lasse Haagensen is dressed more like a rock star than a Danish chess Grandmaster: black boots, leather biker’s jacket, tight black jeans. He reminds Mairéad of Jeff Goldblum, playing Dr Ian Malcolm inJurassic Park.

Haagensen twitches involuntarily as he talks, as if his brain is discharging excess electricity through his limbs. ‘Which one of you is in charge?’

‘I’m Detective Super—’ Mairéad begins, but Haagensen waves away her introduction.

‘No time,’ he says, brandishing a piece of paper. ‘I have her. I have Elissa.’

Lena Mirzoyan’s spine snaps straight. She puts her hands to her mouth. ‘What do you —’

‘Sir, if you—’

‘Listento me,’ Haagensen says, clutching the paper like it’s a weapon. ‘I know where she is. I know where to find her.’

Suddenly, the room is full of competing voices. ‘You have her, or you know where she is?’ Mairéad demands.

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