There Is More Light Than Dark

Chapter Ninety One

Monday August 22

Harper Lewis pushed the door open quickly as the lock dropped to the ground. She didn't have time to look back and make sure McCoy saw her go in but she saw the flashing reflections of the blue and red on the white walls as she stepped carefully inside the lighthouse. The sirens wailed over the chopper blades and then stopped as the wut-wut-wut of the chopper changed pitch and sped up. She pushed the heavy iron door closed and waited to make sure no one was in the room with her. All of the sounds from outside were quickly distant and low, the thick walls of the lighthouse doing their job. She checked her Smith and Wesson .40 calibre and took a deep breath.

Harper Lewis had to trust that her training would do its job as far as confronting an assailant goes. She had to remember what Dr. Uebergang had told her about defusing Mason and getting through to Vincent. And she had to trust that Roger Lewis would smile on her doing what she was about to do and know everything he had wanted for her was happening right now.

She looked around the room she had entered. The thick iron that formed the shell of the lighthouse was plain and white, painted recently and hung with various photos that depicted its history. It was smaller than she had anticipated but lighter, despite the morning being grey and dull. She looked at the stairs, wrought iron painted red against the white walls, and moved carefully towards them. The noise outside had abated to no more than the gusts of wind and the helicopter distant and waning. The painted bricks under her feet did nothing to help her hide her footsteps. At the base of the stairs she stopped and looked up the inside of the spire to the upper floor where Vincent waited with Lola. She heard nothing but could see the door that gave access to that room was closed.

She took her shoes off to be quieter and left them next to the upright, grabbing the cold rail with her right hand and having to carry her pistol in her left for now. She could feel the cold hardness of the stairs as she placed her foot carefully on each. Halfway up there was a porthole window cut into the iron, giving a myopic view of the world to the south. She paused for a few seconds, wondering how many eyes have peered out of the same place in all kinds of weather. When the greatest danger to them was staying warm or ensuring a ship stayed off the rocks below. The view was narrow, as was the corresponding view from the same window cut on the other side, out towards the northern sky that would sometimes capture the low winter sun and the green that surrounded it. Ignorant of the cold grey water that lashed the other side. In here though, no one got to look out of that window for lack of stairs or other access.

But it was still there.

By the time Lewis got to the landing with the closed door, behind which Vincent stood and the beacon of light had always shone to protect passers-by, she had her plan set.

'Vincent.' She called strongly but calmly, hoping to get the same. 'Vincent, it is Detective Lewis out here. I'm here to help you.' She heard Lola call out and then she was muffled. Heavy footsteps came over towards the door from the other side.

'You gonna help me? How are you gonna that, Detective? And what makes you think I need help anyway?'

'Vincent you've got to listen to me. We.... I know that Peter hurt you. Just like he hurt your Mumma.' She heard the silence begin to wrestle the wind outside, coating them heavily even with the door in between. 'And you needed someone. Someone strong to protect you and keep you safe.'

'You have no fucking idea what happened, Detective.'

She heard his voice begin to splinter, tiny shards of memory and hurt creeping into space left behind by his retreat towards the window facing the ocean. She heard him grunt and breathe in through his nose, trying to give oxygen only to what Mason wanted him to hear and feel.

'I know Mason was the best friend you ever had, Vincent.'

The silence broadened and now even the breath slowed on the other side of the iron door. She heard his hand scrape along it, maybe tracing, maybe clambering to get away. And she knew he would be looking to the ocean, where the horizon framed the blue water. Where no one else was. She knew neither Vincent nor Mason would ever look to the north where the mere possibility of the warmth of the sun was too much to bear.

To truly hope.

'I know he protected you.' Lewis spoke as if he was in front of her and she had her hand on his shoulder. 'You needed someone Vincent and he was there, when nobody else was.'

She heard Lola talking from close to the door. A gentle child's enquiry. Vincent sniffed.

'He saved me.'

Lewis gave him space but he didn't fill it.

'I know, Vincent. Peter was never going to leave you alone. He was never going to.... let you be happy, Vincent. We know he hurt you.'

'YOU DON"T KNOW ANYTHING! You don't know anything.... You don't know.....'

'He made you different, Vincent. He made you feel things.' Lewis made sure he was hearing her. 'He made you do things, Vincent.'

Lewis jumped as something slammed into the door and for a moment she pictured Lola's limp body at the foot of it.

'He didn't make me do anything.'

'But Vincent – we found Peter's body. We found the place, the damage on the car.' She knew he would know exactly what she was saying. Dr. Uebergang had encouraged her to push him when he was calm if it helped him realise they understood but wouldn't excuse. She'd said they needed to make the ledge he was on wider before he'd come down. Lewis thought she knew where the ledge was now.

'But that wasn't me, you see – that was Avery.'

Lewis was surprised at the confidence in his voice. It was sure of itself, like he had been waiting. She knew Mason was back again, close if not here.

'And Detective, you sure are beautiful, you know. I'm going to suggest you walk away now before something happens to that face of yours.'

Lewis felt her heartrate rise. She looked down the steel stairs, hoping McCoy might be on his way in but nothing was moving. She noticed the wind had died down and the window on the north side was letting in a beam of brilliant sun, coning in the slowly swirling dust that they were disturbing. She heard a gun cock.

'OK, OK Vincent I hear you. I am going to move away from here and leave you alone.' She started to step carefully down the stairs, keeping her face and eyes firmly on the door now above her. She gave it another shot. 'You know, Vincent, that Lola is all you have now. And you are all she has.'

'Fuck off Detective!'

'The only connection back to your mother you have left.'

'I said fuck off Detective!'

'And Vincent, you know Mason won't let her live.'

The door flung open and she saw Vincent flash out of the room, aiming at her as he got to the edge of the metal landing she had been on moments before. The bang echoed around the chamber they were in and she tumbled to the floor, half diving and half falling down the spiral staircase. Lewis' ears whistled and rang in the aftermath and she saw light open on the floor next to her as she felt herself moving without trying and she relaxed, seeing the spiral staircase looking pretty in the shaft of light that stayed there above her, as if its beauty was there for her alone.

As she was dragged outside, the door upstairs banged shut again and she felt herself sinking into the soft wet grass, McCoy shouting at her and pulling her towards him by her vest and jacket. Her eyes were heavy and her ears held peeling bells within them.

She knew she had been out on the ledge with him, just like Uebergang had said she might. As she lay there and let her head adjust though, she knew she had seen what she should have seen all along. And it wasn't the view from up there, it was when she looked directly at him and it could have been anywhere – the ledge was a green screen; a prop.

She knew if only she could get back out there with him on the ledge he created that she could end it the only way it could ever end without Lola getting hurt.

And now she knew that was all that mattered.

That was the only way it could ever end.