Cruel Summer (24 page)

The ugly words had been scrawled in huge letters by someone using manic, frenzied brushstrokes. It was the the handwriting of a madman in what could only be blood: a dirty reddish-brown shade.
On the coffee table lay the dagger from the galleon, daubed in the same sticky fluid.

‘Oh, my God!’ Ryan exclaimed. ‘Who did that?’

Ben’s face registered disbelief. ‘This can’t be happening.’

Alisha rushed over to hug Katie, who was shaking.

‘I just found it,’ Katie gasped. ‘I came down to put the kettle on and it was
there
!’ She reached out towards the letters, her fingers hovering in front of the
writing. ‘What does it mean?’

Greg appeared at the foot of the stairs, red-eyed. He stared at the wall in shock. ‘No way. You are having a laugh. Who did this?’

‘Janey!’ Alisha cried, feeling suddenly sure. ‘It
was
her last night. She must have seen what we were doing. She knows everything.
Think on thy sins . .
.
like the sin of dumping someone’s dead body at sea!’

Greg looked doubtful. He glowered at Katie. ‘Did you do this? Is this to get me back cos we didn’t call the police?’

‘Oh, of course, I’m full of tricks like that. Would you care to strangle me again, just in case, Greg?’

Alisha hid a smirk, thinking,
You go, girl!

Greg drew a measured breath, trying to regain his poise. ‘I’m sorry, Katie. I’m properly sorry.’

Katie backed down too. They had bigger things to worry about. ‘It’s OK. Well, it’s not OK at all, but, right now, we need to work out who did this.’

‘Someone must have broken in last night.’ Ryan poked at the letters with a finger. He sniffed experimentally.

‘Wait.’ Greg had frozen in the centre of the room, his face draining from its usual brown to grey to green. ‘Where the bloody hell is Erin?’

SCENE 28 (CONT.)

T
he sofa-bed was empty, with the sheets crumpled in a heap at its centre.

‘Wasn’t she with you?’ Alisha’s eyes widened.

‘No. She never came up. Ryan said she was sleeping in here, so I left her to it. I figured everyone would have calmed down if I waited until morning. But where is she?’ His voice
became shrill at the end of the sentence. ‘Who saw her last?’

Alisha’s stomach churned. She’d been awake for five minutes and it felt like she was being bombarded. The message on the wall, Erin missing . . . she couldn’t take anything
else. At least not until she’d had a coffee. A BIG one. ‘Erin?’ she screamed up the stairs. There was no response.

Ben was lost in thought. ‘I don’t know, man. I
think
she was there when I got a glass of water at about one a.m.’

‘You think?’

‘I didn’t turn the lights on . . .’

‘Erin!’ Greg ran upstairs. ‘ERIN!’

‘I’ll check the cellar.’ Katie hurried off to search.

Panic flapped in Alisha’s chest. If someone had broken into the villa last night, Erin would have been right there on the sofa – and the message was written in blood. Whose? Dizzy,
she staggered to the patio doors and flung them open. ‘Erin!’ she called. ‘Erin, are you out here?’ The pool was empty and the beach was a pure white page, entirely
unwritten on. ‘I can’t see her. The blood . . . .’ Alisha grimaced. ‘What if it’s . . .’

‘Don’t even say it!’ Ben snapped.

Greg tramped back down the stairs. ‘She’s not up there and her mobile went straight to voicemail. Is she outside?’

‘I . . . I don’t think so.’ Alisha gripped the back of a chair at the dining table. Time was moving too fast again, just as it had when they’d found Rox. That had only
been yesterday, but it felt like a hundred years ago.

Katie’s footsteps slapped up the cellar steps and she burst back into the kitchen. ‘Nothing down there.’

‘Erin was upset,’ Ben said, trying for a soothing tone. It soothed no one. ‘Maybe she went for a walk, or into town or something.’

‘The cars are both still outside. I checked.’ Greg fell onto the sofa before springing straight up again. Nervous energy crackled around him. ‘We have to call the
police.’ He strode towards the stairs, aiming for the phone in the upstairs bedroom.

‘Oh,
now
you wanna call the police!’ Katie couldn’t hold that one in.

It was Ryan, however, who stepped into his path. With a hand to Greg’s chest, he said firmly, ‘No way, man. You’re kidding, right? Are you forgetting last night’s
entertainment?’

Ben blocked his way, too. ‘He’s right, Greg. Think about it. We can’t call the cops. This doesn’t change anything. We haven’t even got rid of Rox’s
stuff.’

‘I don’t care. We’ll tell them it’s ours. Get out of my way!’ Greg snapped.

‘No.’ There was a cool determination to Ryan that Alisha hadn’t seen before. This was a coup. He was taking over from Greg as alpha male. ‘You’re not thinking
straight
.’ The final word was emphasised. ‘Everything you said yesterday is still true. We are never, ever telling anyone about what we did. If we bring the police here, we
might as well show them where we dropped Rox.’

Greg’s eyes glazed over. ‘But . . . Erin . . .’

‘Roxanne was left for us to find. But there’s no sign of Erin. If she was dead, I think we’d know about it. I’m pretty sure this isn’t even blood.’ Ryan
gestured at the writing on the wall. ‘I mean, smell it. It smells like paint. Someone is messing with us and we have to find out why. We’ll search for Erin, but, believe me, we are
not
calling the police. Not after everything I did for you,’ he paused, ‘yesterday.’

This was spiralling out of control. All this testosterone in the room was making Alisha gag. She stepped between them. ‘Cool off, both of you. Ryan’s right. We need to look for Erin.
Last night she kept saying that she wanted to leave—’

‘All her stuff’s still up in our bedroom, Lish.’ Greg rubbed his temples. ‘We start searching now. And we don’t stop until we find—’

The doorbell rang. At least, Alisha assumed it was the doorbell – it hadn’t rung once in the time they’d been at the villa so she wasn’t entirely sure.

‘What is that?’ Ryan asked.

‘The front door,’ Katie replied, looking as baffled as the rest of them.

The bell rang again.

‘Who is it?’ Alisha couldn’t keep the panic out of her voice, but wondered, wildly optimistically, if Erin had somehow locked herself out.

‘I’m not psychic!’ Katie breathed. She pointed at the huge red words on the wall. ‘We can’t let them in. Whoever it is. They’ll see all this.’

The chime sounded a third time, followed by a sharp knock.

‘Is there such a thing as Spanish Jehovah’s Witnesses?’ Ryan asked.

‘Just ignore them,’ whispered Greg. ‘They’ll give up and go away.’

The group fell silent. Alisha didn’t even breathe in case it made a noise. About ten seconds passed, maybe more – her muddled head kept forgetting the numbers. She was just beginning
to think that their ruse had worked and whoever it was had gone . . .

No such luck. There was another, louder knock. And then a woman shouted through the letterbox in a strong Spanish accent, ‘Hello? Is anyone home? It’s the police.’

SCENE 29 – RYAN

B
oom!
The room seemed to shift under his feet. For a second, Ryan thought he might pass out. Silver stars swam in his field of vision as
though he had kaleidoscope eyes.

The police officer shouted again, ‘Hello?’

Ryan panicked; they were all going to prison. Maybe if he was lucky he could charm some half-decent daddy-type into protecting him in the showers. ‘What do we do?’ Ryan hissed.

‘We can’t let her in!’ Ben was aghast. ‘She’ll see . . . the writing. And Rox’s stuff is everywhere. And the dagger—’

‘Shut up!’ commanded Greg. ‘She’ll go away.’

Katie shook her head with vigour. ‘No. What if she comes around the back?’ She pointed at the bloody message. ‘If she comes to the patio doors she’ll see the
writing.’

Greg curled his hands into fists. ‘Then just get rid of her. We need to find Erin.’

‘
I’m
not doing it!’ Katie protested.

‘It’s your house!’

Ryan took her hand. ‘Come on, we’ll both go.’ He threw Greg an evil look. He’d wondered whether, after opening up last night, Greg might be different this morning, but
no. Leopards and spots, et cetera, et cetera.

He led Katie upstairs. ‘Coming!’ he called towards the front door.

‘Ryan, I’m a terrible liar,’ Katie whispered. ‘Remember when we went shopping during double maths . . . I got us both detention.’

‘Just let me do the talking.’ Ryan was in his boxer shorts. Katie was in her dad’s old shirt. This was going to look really, really dodgy. Undeterred, he opened the door.

Ryan gasped. A genuine, mouth-falling-open gasp. Katie’s hand flew to her collarbone, like she, too, was trying to prevent her heart from leaping out of her chest.

Janey stood on the doorstep.

Except that it wasn’t Janey. The woman in front of them was so like their old friend that it was uncanny. Anyone would do a double-take. She was a fraction older than the friends, in her
early twenties, but with Janey’s chestnut hair falling over her shoulders and the same ocean-blue eyes. On closer scrutiny, the differences become more apparent. This woman’s lips were
fuller than Janey’s had been, her eyebrows and tan a little darker.

The police officer took a step back, reacting to
their
reaction. ‘Hello,’ she said, looking confused. ‘Is this your house?’ At least Ryan thought that was what
she’d said. Her accent was almost impenetrable.

Ryan couldn’t speak – so much for him doing all the talking! But it was so
weird.
She was a true doppelgänger. The penny dropped.
This
was the girl who had
been outside the villa last night. Her police uniform was little more than an aertex T-shirt and shorts. No wonder she hadn’t stood out as a cop.

‘You were here last night,’ Katie muttered.

‘Yes.’ The ‘s’ sounded like a ‘th’. ‘My name is called Luisa Batada. I am responding to an emergency call made yesterday morning at
eight-fifty.’

Ryan’s brain finally kicked into gear. Alisha had made the call in the middle of the madness. ‘Oh! But we hung up. We didn’t need an ambulance, after all.’

‘Yes. Even a joke call is investigated.’

‘You took your time,’ Ryan mumbled under his breath.

‘Sorry?’

‘Nothing.’ He smiled brightly. ‘We’re OK.’ If this woman
hadn’t
seen anything last night some neat lying might get them off the hook. Ryan could lie
for England. ‘My friend . . . stepped on some glass. We thought we needed an ambulance, but we didn’t.’

Luisa was even more beautiful than Janey had been. She brushed her thick hair back over her shoulder and frowned. ‘You know, it is very serious to call one, one, two.’

‘We know. We’re
really
sorry.’
Ooh, that was a bit much,
Ryan thought. Perhaps he was laying it on a bit thick with the sweetness and light. He caught himself
doing that awful thing British people do, talking slowly and loudly for the benefit of foreigners.

‘May I come in, please? It is normal to check.’ Luisa didn’t give anything away. Her face was impassive, her tone polite but firm.

‘No!’ Katie squeaked and bit her tongue.

Ryan gave her a look that could easily kill.

‘Is there a problem?’ The first trace of suspicion flickered across Luisa’s face.

‘Not at all,’ Ryan said, buying time while his brain cooked up some more lies. ‘It’s just that you can’t come in the lounge, right now.’

‘The lounge?’

‘You know, like . . . the living room.’ His mind was drawing a blank. He needed a
really
good reason not to let her into the lounge and he needed one
now.

‘Ah, OK. Why?’ The police officer fixed him in a vice-like stare. Ryan got the distinct impression this woman didn’t stand for any crap.

Ryan panicked and an idea came to him. It seemed plausible so he went with it. ‘Well, it’s just that there are people having sex in there.’

Katie’s mouth fell open.

‘They are having sex?’ repeated Luisa.

‘Yeah!’ Ryan laughed. He was stuck with it now. ‘Us kids! What are we like?’

Luisa was unimpressed. ‘Listen. I check and then I go.’

Ryan stepped out of the door, dragging Katie with him, and closed it behind them. ‘Why don’t we go sit on the terrace—’

‘No!’ Katie squeaked.

Oh, yeah, you’d see the writing from the terrace!
Ryan realised. ‘It’s such a nice morning,’ he said instead. ‘Why don’t you go sit by the pool and
I’ll make sure everyone . . . has . . . finished so you can look around.’

‘Finished the sex?’ said Luisa.

‘Yes.’

‘It’s just this way.’ Katie led the policewoman down the steps at the side of the villa. Ryan fell into step alongside his friend. ‘Everyone’s having
sex
?’ she breathed.

‘I’m sorry, I panicked.’

‘Is this your house?’ the officer asked.

‘It’s my dad’s,’ Katie replied. ‘We’re just on holiday.’

‘OK. How many people?’

‘Six,’ Katie said.

‘Five!’ Ryan almost screamed. ‘Just five!’

Katie had apparently forgotten about Erin. ‘Oh, yeah, five! I can’t count!
Cinco
!’

Luisa was becoming more suspicious by the second. Hopefully, she thought they were just stoned or something; the truth was so much worse. Ryan and Katie formed a human shield blocking her from
the top terrace and sending her down another flight of stairs to the pool level. She seemed put out at having to take a sun lounger over a proper chair.

Above them, the terrace door slid open and Ben emerged.

‘Who is he?’ Luisa asked.

‘That’s Ben and I’m Ryan and this is Katie.’ Ryan handled the introductions.

The police officer narrowed her eyes. ‘He isn’t having sex.’

‘No. He doesn’t like sex.’ Ryan threw Ben an apologetic glance.