Cruel Summer (21 page)

Behind them, Erin flopped back onto the sofa, sobbing behind her fingers. Ryan went to her side.

‘Aw . . . don’t cry,’ he said – more for his sake than hers; Ryan found crying people very hard to deal with.

‘I want to go home,’ she wept.

Ryan rubbed her back, unsure of what to say. What
does
one say after someone’s boyfriend has just tried to strangle someone else? This was uncharted conversation territory for all
of them. ‘It’s gonna be fine,’ was the best he could do.

‘I’ve never seen him like that. I . . . I was so scared,’ Erin sobbed.

‘We all were,’ Katie murmured. Typical Katie, allowing Erin to steal her spotlight. Ryan would never stand for that.

‘I want to go home,’ Erin repeated. ‘I hardly know any of you . . . I just want to go back to halls and see my friends and ring my mum.’

Poor thing, thought Ryan. Whoever Erin was, she was now bonded to them for life. This secret would hold them together forever. That was pretty cool, actually.
A dark secret
. They could
all meet up in ten years’ time for a Murder Club reunion. One of them would die then, too, naturally, leading neatly into a sequel.

Ryan shivered, remembering that it was all really happening.

‘It will all seem different in the morning,’ Katie said soothingly. She looked to Ryan for support but he drew a blank. What was this poor girl to think? She’d only known most
of them for a few days and now she was an accessory to murder – or something like that. Greg should never have brought her. What kind of monster brings a girlfriend on a mates’ holiday,
anyway?

‘I’m not staying with Greg tonight,’ Erin said firmly, shaking her dainty head. ‘No way. Not after what he did, total effing psycho.’

‘I don’t think he’s—’ Ryan started, but he’d just seen something he’d never thought possible so he broke off.

‘It’s OK,’ Ben said as he tended to his bleeding foot. ‘Rox won’t be using the sofa-bed, will she?’

Erin nodded and wiped her nose. ‘Fine. I’m leaving first thing in the morning.’

‘You can’t!’ Ryan said, perhaps a little more forcefully than he’d intended. ‘If we go home early, people will know there’s something wrong. They’ll ask
questions. You know I’m right.’

Katie rubbed her eyes. ‘He does have a point . . .’

The silence that followed suggested Alisha and Ben also agreed, albeit reluctantly.

‘And what about Janey? Shouldn’t we find her?’ Alisha said finally.

Oh, God,
Janey
. ‘Do you
really
think it was her?’ Ryan felt his brain jump tracks back to that worry. There were so many in his head, he was struggling to keep
up.

‘You saw her,’ Alisha told him.

‘We all saw
someone
.’ Ben winced as he held a dish cloth to his heel.

Alisha pouted. ‘Are you saying she
didn’t
look like Janey? Ben, it
was
her.’

‘So where is she?’ Ryan snapped. Another silence followed. ‘Let’s get real for a second which, I know, coming from me is pretty rich. But are we
really
saying
that Janey Bradshaw, who wouldn’t go into town by herself because a tramp once touched her leg, has staged her own death and then returned on the one-year anniversary to wreak
revenge?’

‘No!’ Ben said firmly. ‘We were at her funeral. She’s dead.’

‘Wouldn’t it be better if it was Janey, though?’ Alisha demanded. ‘Isn’t it better if
Janey
killed Rox than if it was one of us?’

‘Janey
is
one of us,’ Katie said sadly.

Ben inspected his wound. ‘Maybe the girl we saw was someone else.’

‘What? A clone? An evil twin?’ Ryan asked. ‘And people say I live in fantasy land!’

‘I’m just thinking of all the possibilities. We all assumed one of us killed Roxanne because of the blackmail thing, but what if there is someone else – someone who’s
been watching the villa. Watching us.’

‘Oh, that’s a comforting thought.’ Ryan rolled his eyes. ‘We’re miles from anywhere at the mercy of a beautiful psycho girl. At least it’s original.’ He
walked to the patio doors and gazed out. The sea rolled onto the beach, insects buzzed around the lanterns, the filter whirred in the pool. But, beyond that, in the hills, there was only darkness
and what the darkness contained. Anyone could be waiting for them, watching.

Katie suddenly jumped off the sofa and darted into the kitchen.

‘What’s wrong?’ Alisha asked.

‘I just had an awful thought,’ Katie shouted back at them. ‘We didn’t lock the doors. She could be inside the villa.’

‘Greg checked the bedrooms,’ Ryan reminded her, shrugging it off.

‘But he didn’t check everywhere.’ Katie’s voice was full of apprehension. ‘Nobody looked in the cellar . . .’

SCENE 25 – ALISHA

A
lisha gulped. It felt like there was a lump of apple lodged in her throat, Snow-White style. The door to the cellar was next to the fridge-freezer
in the kitchen. It opened with a fingers-on-blackboard screech and a wave of stale, damp, earthy air hit them as if they’d opened a sealed tomb. Alisha stared down into the void. The others
were right beside her but it brought scant comfort. The kitchen light only illuminated the first three or four stone steps; the rest dissolved into shadows.

‘The lights don’t work down there,’ Katie admitted.

‘Of course they don’t,’ Ryan deadpanned. ‘It wouldn’t be nearly as scary with the lights on, would it?’

‘I’ll get a torch,’ said Katie, turning away to rummage around in the cupboard under the sink.

‘Hello?’ Ben called down into the gloom. ‘Anyone there?’

Predictably there was no response.

‘You didn’t actually think that was going to work, did you?’ Alisha laughed. It was pretty scary, but she figured that as long as they all stuck together they’d be
fine.

‘It was worth a try.’ Ben took the torch from Katie. ‘Come on, Ryan.’

Ryan took a great stride backwards. ‘Are you mad? Why do I have to go?’

‘Cos we’re the guys.’

‘Ben Murdoch, that is pure sexism.’

Alisha chuckled. ‘On this occasion, I fully support the sexism.’

Ryan scowled at her. ‘Women died for equal rights, Alisha.’

‘They died for the right to vote, not for
this
.’ She waved a hand at the obvious gateway to hell that stood before her.

Ben sighed. ‘Ryan, don’t be a wuss. There’s probably nothing down there, anyway.’ He shone the torch down the stairs, which seemed to go on forever.

‘Probably?’ Alisha didn’t care for those odds. Still, they couldn’t stand here all night and here was a chance to prove, for once, that she wasn’t totally useless.
‘Sod it. Let’s get it over with. I’ll go.’

‘We’ll
all
go,’ Katie said. ‘Safety in numbers.’

‘No!’ Erin gripped Katie’s arm. ‘Wait here with me. I’m not going down there. You all think I’m stupid, but I’m not
that
stupid.’ She
glared at them with red, sore eyes. ‘I’ve had enough of this crap. I just wanted a week in the sun with my boyfriend and I ended up trapped with a load of freaks and
murderers.’

Alisha couldn’t face another argument. ‘Fine.’

‘I’ll wait with Katie, too,’ Ryan said. ‘Just in case.’

Ben glared at him. ‘Ryan, you are such a p—’

‘Er – swam with a shark to save your arses!’ Ryan pointed out.

Ben backed down. ‘Whatever. Come on, Lish.’

‘After you,’ she said with an optimistic smile. For the first time since they’d found Roxanne, it felt like it was OK to smile again. Hell, if the tables had been turned, Rox
would have had them all doing commemorative tequila slammers and playing strip poker by now. She might have been a total cow, but she knew how to party. Ben returned the smile and took the
lead.

As soon as Alisha stepped onto the stairs, the air changed. It was cooler, for one thing, and the walls glistened with moisture. The fusty air caught in the back of her nostrils and she was
acutely reminded of her fear of cellars. The odour was so familiar, unlocking some childhood terror she must have repressed.

Without thinking, she grabbed Ben’s free hand in both of hers. She hated being so feeble, but this was almost worse than the boat trip. Ben’s torch was weak, casting only a thin
puddle of light.

‘All right?’ he asked.

She nodded, but wasn’t. They were hunting for a dead girl. What if Janey really was down here? What then? And Janey was probably the best-case scenario. Anyone else, a stranger,
wouldn’t hesitate to hurt them.

Janey’s funeral drifted back into her mind as it had done several times that evening. She recalled sitting outside the chapel, behind the hut where they ran Sunday School for kids.
She’d crouched behind a wheelie bin drinking peach schnapps, the sugary concoction all she’d been able to get her hands on.

The undertakers had been having a cigarette outside the fire escape. The shroud of drizzle had abated for five minutes, but the sky was still a menacing mercury grey. They’d been entirely
unaware of Alisha’s presence.

‘Poor cow,’ a spotty young undertaker with a face like a stoat had said. ‘Four weeks she was in the sea, you know.’

‘Aye,’ his elderly colleague had agreed. ‘By the time she washed up in the marina, there was nothing left of her. Fish food.’

At the time Alisha had been so drunk she’d hardly processed their words beyond mild disgust, but now she wondered. What had been dragged out of the sea was a blob, by all accounts. Between
the fall onto the rocks and the weeks of decay, it was a wonder they’d identified Janey at all. So wondrous, in fact, that perhaps they hadn’t. Who had they buried? What if it
wasn’t Janey?

Janey Bradshaw, back from the grave and out for revenge. Alisha imagined her crawling out of the sea at Telscombe Cliffs, clawing her way over the shingle, that red dress in tatters. Maybe
she’d come out of the sea
wrong
– damaged, somehow. Not Janey, but something else. Something evil enough to kill.

Alisha clung tighter to Ben’s hand and kicked her vivid imagination into touch. She’d been spending too much time around Ryan.

The stone stairs were worn smooth. The light from the kitchen faded as they neared the bottom and the cracked, off-white walls gleamed like bone. The narrow passage opened out into the cellar.
It was more spacious than Alisha would have liked, with far too many hiding places. It was cave-like down here; somewhere water dripped from the ceiling, each drop echoing like they were at the
bottom of a well.

Ben swept the torch around, scanning the room. Light glinted over dozens of bottles of wine stacked neatly in a wooden lattice rack. Junk was piled all around the room:
bought-with-best-intentions gym apparatus, forgotten patio furniture, old tins of paint and a couple of boxes of rat poison. A generator buzzed and Alisha wondered if the pool machinery were down
here, too.

‘What do we do?’ she whispered.

‘I guess we have a look in all the nooks and crannies,’ Ben replied, sounding none too keen.

Alisha gulped. It was pitch black and the torch light seemed to be fading as though the batteries were dying. ‘OK. Let’s definitely not split up.’

Ben gave her hand a squeeze. ‘Best plan of the day.’

They checked behind the first wine rack and found nothing. Cobwebs were strewn over everything and each bottle of wine was caked in a thick white dust.

‘Janey?’ Ben called, the word catching in his throat as if he couldn’t bring himself to say her name. There was no reply.

‘Ben, I’m scared,’ Alisha confessed.

‘You?’ Another hand squeeze. ‘No way. You’re dead hard.’

Alisha snorted but appreciated his attempt to distract her.

‘It’s true. You’ve been pretty cool all day,’ Ben told her.

‘Oh, yeah. Today was our finest hour, I reckon.’ There was a scurry of tiny feet. Alisha hoped it was a mouse.

‘I mean it. I was proud of you, today. You kept your head together the whole time. I didn’t.’

The thought of Ben being proud of her made something light and warm ripple through Alisha’s body. She pushed the sensation away, reminding herself that Murdoch was off limits. There was no
way she could ever compete with Katie for his affections, and nor would she. That was exactly what Roxanne had done to her, so she knew how damaging it was to a friendship.

Ben shook his head, checking under a dust sheet but finding only spare patio chairs. ‘God, today was a nightmare. A total effing nightmare. I wish I’d never come.’

The opposite of the good feeling passed through Alisha. She was disappointed to hear those words. The whole ‘Roxanne’ situation was awful, but she was pleased to be back with her
friends. She’d been alone in Telscombe Cliffs for a year. In some ways, Alisha wondered if she’d always been alone; in her family, Greg had always been the golden child. It felt good to
be a part of something, even if it was a murderous pact. ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ she said quietly. Her voice could not have sounded more pathetic and simpering if
she’d tried.
You are such a tool
, she told herself.

Ben made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. ‘Come here, you nutter.’ He held his arms wide for a hug and she embraced him, drawing strength from his friendship. ‘You
know, you’ve really changed, Lish.’ He released her, and they moved further away from the safety of the staircase.

‘Thanks!’

‘No, I mean in a good way. You’re so chilled out now – like a whole different person.’

‘Ha! I think we’ve all changed, don’t you?’

Ben agreed. ‘Yeah. In Cambridge, I dorm with this guy called Rupert.’

‘Rupert? Figures.’

‘Right. He says there are three stages of human disappointment: the first when you realise your friends are dicks, the second when you realise your parents are dicks and the last when you
finally realise that you’re a dick, too.’

Alisha laughed. ‘I hear that.’ She pointed at a sturdy wooden door towards the back corner of the cellar. ‘What’s in there?’

Ben led the way over and examined the door. ‘I think this brings you out round the side of the house by the pool.’