Harrigan and Grace - 01 - Blood Redemption by Alex Palmer

can’t see how it’s any different. What that woman did and what I just did. It’s the same thing when you come down to it. It’s murder.’
    ‘Are you sure about that?’
    ‘Oh, I’m sure.’
    She was sitting upright, her arms tight about her midriff, when he came back into the room carrying a tray of sandwiches. He put them in front of her on the desk and then poured a mug of coffee for himself. ‘Do you want another?’ he asked, and she shook her head.
    On the wall behind him was another poster, this one of the sun glowing through clouds over the sea with the legend: You must be reborn in the spirit. At the sight of this, she felt equal amounts of anger and revulsion.
    ‘Eat,’ he said.
    She took a tiny bite out of a sandwich, chewed and swallowed it with difficulty, then put the sandwich back down on the plate.
    ‘Can’t eat. My throat — it’s really tight. I don’t want it, Graeme.
    I’m so tired all of a sudden.’
    ‘Lucy, you ask so much of yourself. Did you sleep at all last night?
    I told you you’d need to. You can’t do these things without being at your fullest strength.’
    She smiled grimly before replying. ‘No, I didn’t sleep much. I tried to but…’ She shrugged. ‘I was so scared and I just kept thinking about her. I kept seeing her in my head. It was weird. She looked so real somehow, she was so powerful. And when I saw her today, I thought — is that really her? She doesn’t look like anybody. She didn’t look real.’ Lucy closed her eyes, shaking her head. ‘That man — the one who was there — I thought you said it was only ever her. I don’t even know why I fired at him. I must have just kept firing. Why?’
    ‘I said you should be prepared for anything. This man, he was her accomplice. He was as guilty as she is. What difference does it make if you did shoot him?’
    ‘It makes a big difference to me.’
    ‘Why? He knew who and what his wife was. He watched her go off to do what she did every day. He lived on her money. Why is he any less guilty than she is? You tell me that, Lucy.’
    ‘It isn’t them, Graeme. It’s me. I’m the one who did this. It isn’t who they are. It’s what I did that’s in my mind.’
    They faced each other, angry, stubborn.
    ‘This was an execution, Lucy, clean and merciful. That’s the only way you need to see it.’ He sounded irritated.
    ‘No, it wasn’t, it wasn’t anything like that. It wasn’t clean, that’s for sure.’
    She shook her head and opened her mouth to say something else, but as she did, she felt the grip of some kind of drug travelling her veins, a numbing sensation growing stronger by the second. She stared at his expressionless face opposite her.
    ‘You … Did you … Is that … ’
    Her voice seemed to dry up. She leaned forward on the desk to support herself, shaking her head.
    ‘Why did you do that — you didn’t need to…’ she managed to say before falling back in her chair.
    He put his mug down and stood up. He was businesslike. Nothing unusual was happening, this was just the daily round.
    ‘We’ll take you upstairs, Lucy. You need to rest. You’ve overdone it, as usual. You can use my room, no one will bother you up there.
    However, there is just one thing I need from you first … ’
    He searched her pockets for her keys to the building. Finding them, he smiled at her. He dropped them into his own pocket before pulling her upright to take her upstairs. She tried to fight him but could only flop about like a landed fish.
    His room was on the mezzanine level behind the auditorium, just above the office. Its louvred windows, covered by steel security grilles, looked over the patch of ground where the two houses had been demolished and to the street the beyond. He sat her on the bed and pulled back the blankets for her.
    ‘Graeme,’ she forced out, ‘you didn’t have to … ’
    ‘It’s all right, Lucy. Just rest easy.’
    He took off her shoes, put them neatly to the side, and