The Last Murder at the end of the World

TWENTY-NINE

‘Abi, you need to get the barriers back up,’ demands Thea, loud enough to startle the vultures, whose hungry eyes have turned to their dying comrade.

‘The deadman’s switch is not a protocol I can bypass,’ I explain. ‘Niema’s orders are clear.’

‘Damn the orders!’ she snaps. ‘Stop the fog!’

‘I cannot disregard an instruction from Niema any more than your arm could disregard your desire to scratch your nose,’ I say. ‘If it’s any consolation, you’ll be able to live in the cauldron garden. The fog cannot penetrate the dome.’

Thea turns her terrified eyes towards the volcano, its summit lost in clouds.

In the decades after the fog first appeared, they’d catch occasional broadcasts from survivors holed up in fallout shelters on the mainland, or underground bunkers. At first, they were normal distress calls, but as time wore on they became pleas for help, people sobbing as they described the cults and cannibalism unfolding in the concrete tombs they’d sealed themselves in. The lucky ones simply starved to death, but they all went silent eventually.

‘There has to be something else we can do.’ She stares at Hephaestus, pleadingly. ‘Can’t you jerry rig the emitters?’

‘I inspected a couple of them on my way here,’ he says, rubbing a hand across his stubbled scalp, sweat fleeing ahead of it. ‘Each one has hundreds of fail-safes, but her death bypassed them completely. It’s the only thing that could have stopped them working. They’re bricks now, the way she intended. Mother didn’t want her killers to have any way of saving themselves.’

He blows out a breath. ‘The thing is, she told me she’d deactivated the deadman’s switch years ago, which means she must have turned it back on last night.’

‘Why would she do that?’

‘The only reason I can come up with is that she thought she was in danger.’ He scratches his nose, staring at the barracks, levelly. ‘She told me she was planning to wake the villagers after curfew and tell them the truth about this island. You remember how Adil reacted when he found out? He stormed the school with a knife and tried to take her head off. I think one of the villagers – maybe all of them – chased her into that warehouse and set it alight. She probably wiped everybody’s memories while hoping to save herself, but the beam fell and killed her before she could get out.’

He nods at this account, obviously satisfied with his own reasoning, but Thea’s more sceptical. Aside from Adil, no villager has ever hurt another. They’ve never had a physical fight. The children don’t even play rough. They’re pacifistic to the point of evolutionary incompetence. The idea they could be responsible for something as brutal as Niema’s death strikes her as wildly implausible.

‘You can’t honestly be suggesting she was murdered?’ she says.

He lifts the sleeve of his T-shirt, showing her the scratches on his arms.

‘These are made by fingers raking the skin,’ he says. ‘It usually happens in fights, and I have dozens of them, all over me. Bruises like those on your upper arms and wrists are made when you’re being restrained and are struggling to get free.’

His voice tightens, thick with memory. ‘I’ve seen them before. Believe me, Thea, there’s no other way we get those injuries. The villagers attacked us last night.’

Thea examines the bruises, then recalls the broken ribs and swollen faces of the villagers. Hephaestus is the only person on the island who’s ever taken a life before. He knows how to fight, and how to kill. If they came for him, it’s possible he could have done that to them.

‘Do you have any poison?’ he asks suddenly.

‘Poison?’

‘Once the villagers have moved all our supplies up to the cauldron, we’ll need to put them all down. Poison would be the quickest way; otherwise I’ll have to slit a hundred and fourteen throats.’ He sighs at the labour ahead. ‘It’s the only way to make sure this doesn’t happen again.’

Thea blinks at the brutality of it, stunned by how reasonable a course of action he believes this to be. He doesn’t sound angry, or afraid, or regretful. He’s talking like they’ve run out of milk.

‘I cannot allow that,’ I interrupt. ‘Niema left instructions that I was to protect the villagers. They’re the future of humanity.’

‘Is that why you sat back and let them kill her?’ he growls, irritated at my interference. ‘It was your job to keep her safe.’

‘I regret I was unable to prevent Niema’s death, but revenge will only exacerbate our current plight. You depend on the villagers for food and water. They maintain your equipment. Killing them is a dreadful survival strategy.’

‘You always know what to say,’ he snorts angrily. ‘Every word is tuned perfectly to elicit the response you want. I don’t trust you, Abi. I never have. I saw how you wormed your way into my mother’s confidence, persuading her to give you more and more autonomy. She forgot that you don’t think the way we do, that you feign emotion rather than feel it.’

Normally, I wouldn’t care about his anger, but it’s igniting pockets of resentment in Thea, stirring up old suspicions I’ve worked hard to bury.

‘I may have a way to stop the fog,’ I say suddenly. ‘The deadman’s switch was created to disincentivise attempts on Niema’s life, but its secondary purpose was to ensure her killer wouldn’t survive the crime. I’m bound by Niema’s orders, but there is a loophole we can exploit. If you can prove she was murdered, and execute her killer, the deadman’s switch will have fulfilled its stated function. I’ll be able to raise the barrier again.’

Thea lets out a low animal growl of frustration. ‘How are we supposed to find her killer if we can’t remember anything that happened last night?’

‘I can’t answer that for you, but I want it understood that this offer is dependent on conducting a thorough investigation. I will require a compelling case to be brought, with a confession if possible. If I feel you’re unnecessarily harming the villagers, I will not raise the barrier – no matter what answers your methods reveal.’

‘Niema’s dead and suddenly you’re making demands,’ explodes Hephaestus. ‘You’re a surveillance system with a bedside manner! When was it decided that you were in charge?’

‘When your mother gave me control of the barrier,’ I say forthrightly. ‘In forty-six hours the fog will reach the coast, and I’m offering you a way to stop it. Rather than standing here arguing, I suggest you get to work.’

‘Where would we even start?’ asks Thea despairingly.

‘With Emory,’ I say.