Reckoning Point, стр. 80
Erik frowns, where is he going? The old helicopter pad is empty, just a bare patch of old concrete and metal, leading only to the sea, waiting to have something built on it. It is cordoned off, but the fences are broken, damaged and knocked down by youths with nothing better to do. At the end of the space are yet more dismantled railings that lead out to sea, empty, but for … a girl!
Erik can feel his heart pounding now as he takes off after the man. And surely it can’t be the doctor, because this guy has some speed on him, and Erik knows the doctor, he’s getting on in age, but if it is not the doctor then … who?
Lev.
And Erik remembers that guy, and the memory of Joy comes full pelt back at him, and even if Erik is having trouble identifying this man, he knows that the girl in a crouch on the end of the pier is – must be – Alex’s woman.
Erik turns it up a gear, knowing he needs to get to the space at the end of the pier before the guy reaches Alex’s girl, because Erik doesn’t want any more bodies, not in his town. And he couldn’t save Naomi, or any of the other girls, but he is here now, and he is bearing down on the man in the black coat. Just one more push …
But the girl has moved, Erik can see her skittering backwards on her hands and knees, and he wants to shout at her not to go any further, that it’s okay, that Erik is almost there, but of course, she can’t see him, not through the fog, not with the maniac almost upon her. And as Erik darts through the jagged fence, losing precious seconds as his coat snags on the protruding wire, he lets out a shout.
The girl is on the edge now, and she leaps off the side of the pier, her face momentarily turning towards Erik as he lets out a roar.
Erik pushes himself even harder, grunting at the thought of the girl crashing into the cold, black North Sea. There’s no hope for her there, Erik knows that, knows that the tide is in, that the waves will swallow her up and take her forever into a freezing watery grave. And as he reaches the guy, the anger – not just at Elian’s fate, but that of all the girls and his own Naomi – break free from Erik as he launches himself at the back of the man in the black coat.
They crash to the ground, landing awkwardly, Erik rolling over the top of the man and coming to a skidding stop on the edge of the pier. Erik looks up, and his heart jumps as he sees the girl, Elian.
She hasn’t jumped off the side into the sea. She has landed on an old plinth, one of the ancient concrete structures that used to support the pier end. It’s small, slippery with slick sea water, and barely big enough for her to perch on, but she is sitting in a crouch, flinching each time the ocean hits the platform and sprays up and over her.
“Hold on!” he shouts. “Stay there, WAIT THERE!” And even as he screams the words at her he thinks how stupid they sound, for where else is she going to go, except downwards to certain death?
Erik rolls over as he calls to her, is almost to his feet when the tails of the black coat once more swish past his face.
Instinctively, Erik shoots a hand out, grabs a fistful of material. He spins the man around as he scoops his leg into the back of the man’s knees. The guy hits the wood, Erik holds him by his lapels, feels the blood drain from his face as he stares down into the eyes of the doctor.
“You,” Erik murmurs, and his voice is hoarse, grief-stricken that all this time, all these years, just by looking at the man, Erik now knows the murderer he has been seeking.
“I – I didn’t believe it, even when we found her bag, the lists of the other girls, I didn’t believe, until just now.”
The doctor sneers, grins, and Erik, still stunned, loosens his grip. The doctor feels it no doubt, and with a double-handed shove at Erik’s chest, he pushes the policeman backwards. But Erik is solid, and for once his natural stature of his stocky and somewhat squat body works in his favour. The doctor bounces backwards, his feel slipping in his smart, sensible shoes, and the edge of the broken pier jolt his already displaced stance.
There is an almost comedic moment where the doctor teeters, Erik can hear other feet pounding on the boardwalk now and he knows that finally Alex is coming up behind him. Scrabbling forwards, even now in the face of evil remembering his profession as an officer to serve and protect, Erik grabs the doctor’s sleeve.
Alex bursts out of the tunnel, spinning wildly around as he hears the shouts and an unmistakable female scream. He bats at the air as though he can waft the fog away. Disorientated after the narrow confines of the tunnel, Alex turns to face the darkest part of the pier.
“Elian!” he calls, and then, louder, “ELLIE!”
He moves without waiting for a reply, Erik’s gun hanging uselessly by his side. He grips it, remembering it, but knowing he can’t use it because he can’t see a goddamn thing in this mist to shoot at.
Alex feels his legs slow, even though he is urging them onwards, they still of their own accord. He is at the end of the pier now, and he can see it