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Dawn, and the sky was just beginning to change from an oppressive slate grey to a slightly lighter shade of grey, equally oppressive.
George drew his legs from under the covers and sat up. He eyed the kettle on the dresser suspiciously. A little cup filled with UHT milk pots, tubes of instant coffee and granulated sugar sat beside it on the plastic tray, a depressing reminder of Annie's absence.
Three nights now he had stayed here, at this rather shabby sea-front B&B, but he had not seen her since that first night in the hospital. He thought he had heard her in his room last night, her sobs penetrating his uneasy sleep, but by the time he roused himself enough to switch on the bedside lamp, and peered into the shadowy corners of the room, she had gone. His heart ached for her. Not only was she having to deal with Mitchell's betrayal, but his too.
He had known all along, but said nothing. He had just let her blunder on with her 'investigation', probing the devastation of each victim's murder, the lives unfulfilled, the personal tragedies of the bereaved, the nightmares they suffered. She had wanted to prove Mitchell innocent. The horrible irony of it! And all along, he had known. Not for certain. Not … absolutely…
He was fooling himself. He hadn't wanted to admit to himself what he had known all along.
Hadn't he hoped she'd give it up, get bored with it, move onto something else? He groaned. That wretched policewoman, though, had been like a dog with a bone. How was it she had been so immune to Mitchell's charms, unlike almost every other woman he had ever met?
He felt the bed sink a little and turned his head.
Annie!
She smiled wanly at him but the effort of doing so seemed to pain her and she dropped her curly head to gaze miserably into her lap.
"I'm so sorry, Annie," he said, after a few awkward moments of silence.
"How did you find out?" she said in a low voice, barely more than a whisper. She raised her head with a pitiful sigh. "I mean, did he tell you?"
George shook his head. "We never spoke about it." He winced. Mitchell had wanted to speak about it, hadn't he? He had shut him down, shut him out. He couldn't handle knowing what Mitchell had done, so he had erected a wall of silence between them. He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to open up to her. She deserved to hear this.
"I guessed. Do you remember when we left Windsor Terrace?"
Annie looked at him quizzically, frowning. "Not really…. I forgot a lot of things in... that place. I remember there was someone at the house, a stranger. I was frightened…"
"It was Mitchell, Annie. Not - our - Mitchell. The other Mitchell. I'd seen him like that before – not – quite – like that," he added hastily. "But … I guessed. And then later, when I heard on the news…"
Annie nodded numbly.
"I never asked him and he never told me but …" He couldn't bring himself to look at her as the words faltered on his lips. It sounded so inadequate.
How could he have excused Mitchell the Box Tunnel Twenty? When had he reached the point where he was so desperate for Mitchell's friendship, for the co-dependent self-justification that it offered them both, that he could overlook – even accept – such heinous murders? And imagining that ignoring what Mitchell had done could somehow erase it? How pathetic! How shameful. Like an indelible stain on his conscience. Had he offered Mitchell forgiveness, had he and Mitchell even discussed the murders, borne the full, terrible weight of what he had done together, he might have been able to look Annie in the eyes now. Some friend he had been!
Her icy hand slid over his. Hope swelled his heart. He raised his eyes to meet hers.
"I forgive you," she said, the corners of her mouth twitching into a watery smile.
He smiled broadly, thanking her silently. Those words were like a soothing balm to his tortured mind.
They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes.
"Where have you been?" he asked her, suddenly curious. "I've been worried about you."
She shrugged. "All over." She flicked him a bashful glance. "Bristol," she admitted.
"Bristol?" he repeated, his voice rising. "To – to look for Mitchell?"
She shrugged again and shook her head. "No. Maybe. I don't know! I thought if I could find them, get my hands on Herrick - "She made a throttling gesture with her hands and narrowed her eyes fiercely.
"Oh, Annie!" he groaned, trying to disguise his pity with exasperation.
"I went back to the house," she said, brightening. "The old house. My house."
He stared at her, mouth gaping.
"Only it's not my house any more," she continued. "They've put it up for sale."
"Who has? Owen?"
"No! No… With Owen confessing to my murder, and being locked up in a mental hospital, he can't inherit my share of the property. Not allowed to profit from murder and all that. So, the executors of my estate – my parents – have forced Owen's family to sell it. After all, I put in a large deposit to buy that house; it's only right my parents should get it back. So! That's that!" She grinned. It was a false kind of cheerfulness, but George indulged her.
"Pink house, gone. Owen, gone. Sort of. Mitchell ...Gone." The word seemed to linger on her lips, as if she did not want to release it, as if to do so was to make it true. And the word seemed to fill the silence between them like an unspoken lament.
"Was he ever really our friend, George?" she blurted suddenly. "Ever? I mean, he said he loved me, but how can someone who devours 20 people in a murderous rampage –" she took a steadying breath "- how can they feel love for anyone?"
He had been expecting that question, of course. He knew she must have spent the last three days churning it round and round her mind, twisting her heart in knots over it. But he had no answer. He thought he had understood Mitchell; he thought theirs had been a friendship based on some genuine feeling, on love, the human kind. But had he got it so terribly wrong? Had he – and Annie – expected too much of Mitchell? Was Mitchell even capable of human feeling? Of being human? Had they been wrong to demand it of him?
And yet! He remembered Mitchell's grief over losing Annie. He remembered how Mitchell had covered up for him, had protected him, had seen off the vampires that wanted to beat him to within in inch of his life. He remembered how things had been before Mitchell showed up in his werewolf-life … And he remembered all those times at the pink house in Totterdown… all those times. They had been friends and it had felt real.
But he couldn't square that Mitchell with the Mitchell who had tried to reawaken Herrick's vampire-nature, offering him that policewoman to feed on; the Mitchell who had held a stake to his neck and threatened to kill him …
He looked helplessly at Annie and shook his head. "I don't know, Annie. I don't know."
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