A Lovely Way to Burn

Epilogue

Hope’s Jaguar was parked by the truck, where Stevie had left it. She turned the key in the ignition and steered out on to the main road. It was still dark, but there was a glow on the horizon that might have been the city burning, or a promise of dawn. Stevie drove away from it into the blackness, glancing occasionally at the blaze of light in her rear-view mirror. Dr Ahumibe had been right. Killing people made you feel bad.

Stevie wished Joanie was in the passenger seat and wondered that she hadn’t thought of Simon first. She had shot a man and left another to die. And killing people made you feel bad. The streetlights were dead. It was hard to see the road ahead, but Stevie kept her headlamps off. She leant forward and pressed her foot to the accelerator. She knew now why killers ended massacres with a bullet to the head or a noose in their prison cell.

The speedometer climbed. Stevie closed her eyes, saw the blackness deepen, and then opened them again. She let the speed drop to a steady forty and drove on, into the dark. Breathed in and breathed out. Breathed in and breathed out. Breathed in and breathed out.