Page 103 of The Taskmaster
We sat down on a wooden bench just outside the playground. And on that bench, while we watched children squeal with happiness, shouting, running around, playing without a care in the world, I told her about my childhood. I told her the story of my mother being tricked by Q, and then killed, something which even now, as I said it out loud, didn’t quite feel real to me. I didn’t know how I was supposed to mourn something like that. Maybe I never would.
I told her about the Dalton’s deaths and how I came to live at Clivesdon House. And then I spilled it all, like I was cutting myself open and bleeding out every last sordid detail about what they did to me, and how I got my revenge. By the time I’d finished speaking, I felt drained. The playground was empty, and the sky had turned dark. But I felt alive. Free for the first time ever. The shackles of my former life had been shed. Taken from me and placed onto the shoulders of the man who deserved to carry the shame. Doctor Charles Quinn.
When Dan Walters had refused to cuff me back in the station, I told him he couldn’t avoid it. The bones had been taken and fragments sent off for analysis. They needed a killer to close the case, and I was standing right in front of him.
I know what he did next wasn’t for me. It was for Abigail, and maybe a little of it was for that boy he found in the cupboard all those years ago.
He told me he’d go on record to say one of the other men in that building, Q’s henchmen, had ripped Quinn’s body apart. He said he’d tell them he chased them outside, and shot them in self-defence. All three men were already dead, they couldn’t argue, and I knew that if he needed to, Walters could make things disappear or alter them to suit his narrative.
It wasn’t ideal.
It would be a tough narrative to get others to believe. The forensic evidence in that warehouse was damning. But he was determined he could make it work. I know, if his daughter wasn’t so heavily involved, he’d have charged me in a heartbeat, locked me up and thrown away the key. But life wasn’t black and white. Sometimes, you have to play the hand you’re given and make the best of a bad deal.
He tied every murder to Q, and told me he’d link the Halliwell House deaths to him, too. That story would be easier to manipulate. Quinn had fed children to both homes, probably more when the police looked into his movements and contacts. Walters hoped that victims might come forward now, after they saw the press conference he’d called. He was confident that this was just the tip of the iceberg. He also said he’d prefer to never see me again for as long as I lived, and prayed I’d stay away from Abigail, and let her get on with her life. We’d both gotten lucky today, but his luck ran out when he said that.
It wasn’t going to happen.
“That’s a hell of a lot to take in,” Abigail said, giving my hand a reassuring squeeze to let me know she was on my side.
“Try living it,” I mused, and then I sighed, watching a little boy on a swing as his mum pushed him. The two of them making the most of the last hours of the day, playing in the dark. “I neverwent to a playground as a child. I saw them on TV and read about them in books, but I never went to one. I don’t know how to use a swing.”
She turned to face me. “Do you want to go on there now?”
I laughed. “And freak that mother out when a grown man sits on the swing and asks you to push me? I don’t think so.”
“One day, you might get to take your own child to a playground. You can be the one pushing them.”
I didn’t reply.
I couldn’t.
The thought of a future like that seemed so far away from what my life had been, so unobtainable that I didn’t even want to respond. I didn’t hope for better, ever. I lived in the now and took each day as it came. Each hour or minute sometimes. Breathing life into dreams like that were a sure-fire way to set myself up for a fall, and I didn’t do falls. Not anymore.
I reached out, taking her face in my hands, and stroked her cheeks.
“I don’t know what the future holds. The future isn’t something I’ve ever thought of. But I need you to know that I love what we’re building here. This thing between us. It feels fragile, and I won’t lie, sometimes it scares me. I’ve lived my life relying on me, no one else, and I don’t think that’ll ever change. But I like the idea of you relying on me, of being there for you. If that’s something you’d want too, I’d like to keep working on this, whatever this is.”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the lock of hair I’d kept on my mantlepiece.
“Do I have a choice?” She passed the lock of hair to me. “How long have you been watching me?”
“Longer than I should’ve. I’m not a good man, Abigail. I won’t lie. But with you, it’s different.”
“Why did you start following me? I know roughly when this was taken, and I hadn’t met you then.”
This was the last secret I had to tell. I didn’t want any secrets between us, so I was happy for her to know everything. To explain how I’d wanted to get to her father through her, but after seeing her, it all changed. But first, I had to tell her why.
“Do you remember the story of the little boy in the cupboard? The one your dad told you about when you were younger. That little boy was me.”
Epilogue
ISAIAH
Two Years Later
“Shall we write something in the sand for Mummy?” I held my baby son in my arms as we sat on the beach with all the other families, enjoying the sunshine. Something I never imagined I’d ever do.
Enzo was only six months old, so he couldn’t answer, but I answered for him, using his chubby little hands to help me score the letters into the sand.
