Cruel Summer (6 page)

Luckily, Erin felt the same. ‘Don’t you bloody dare!’ She barged into Greg, halting him.

‘Watch it, you’ll have my finger off!’ he snapped.

‘Yeah, that’s what’ll go wrong, numb-nuts. Give me that.’ Erin snatched the knife from him and handed it back to Katie.

‘Spoil sport,’ grumbled Greg, and Erin kissed the top of his shorn head.

Ryan let out a long breath. He wasn’t great with blood. Disaster averted. ‘Come on you lot, food’s getting cold.’

The waves breathed in and out in the distance while crickets and cicadas chirruped in the hills. A hideous windchime that Katie’s stepmum had strung up clanged as the breeze whispered
across the terrace, where they had chosen to eat their Spanish feast. Tea lights sputtered on the table and there was laughter. Lots of laughter. Somehow, even though everyone had mostly avoided
the past as a topic of conversation, there was still plenty to talk about. The annoying thing was that, after Erin’s shrewd observation at the poolside, Ryan was dying to talk about Janey. He
knew Katie accepted the suicide theory, but what about the others? Did Ben really believe his girlfriend had killed herself over some stupid fight at a prom?

Although questions perched on the tip of his tongue, Ryan sensed this wasn’t the time to raise them. It was all going so well and he didn’t want to be the bad fairy who turns up and
ruins the party.

After they’d eaten, although their stomachs were bloated, Ben talked them into doing something he’d always wanted to do: build a bonfire on the beach.

The fire was impressive: angry flames roared as kindling cracked within. Even sitting at a safe distance on the sand, Ryan could feel the heat on his face. ‘What is it with men and open
fires?’ he mused.

Ben threw another twig on the fire. ‘It’s in our caveman DNA.’

‘Man make fire,’ Greg agreed, sipping a beer. Erin was nestled in the crook of his arm.

‘Plus it’s pretty and romantic,’ Ben said absent-mindedly. As soon as he’d said it, his face flushed and he looked into the flames. Ryan could tease, but he chose not to.
It
was
romantic. The woody smoke was intoxicating, making his eyelids heavy. If only he had someone to cuddle up to.

The white moon rippled on the ocean and the lights of the villa still glowed but, other than that, there was only darkness. The nearest town twinkled miles down the coast. The firelight was
almost a bubble – they were in their own little cosmos. Ryan felt warm and wine-sleepy.

Towards the surf, Alisha and Katie were practising handstands and cartwheels with glee. If Alisha was drunk, she was in happy-drunk mode and not evil, vindictive-drunk mode, which suited Ryan
fine. The pair eventually ran back to the fire, giddy and out of breath, their amateur gymnastics apparently over.

Erin sipped her wine. ‘So you were all at school together?’

‘Yep,’ Ben replied, giving the fire a prod. ‘I went to a different primary school, but I already knew Ry because our mums are mates.’

Erin nodded. ‘I was worried it’d be like you were all speaking a foreign language or something and I wouldn’t be able to keep up, but you haven’t talked about school all
day.’

Ryan eyed Erin suspiciously. He hadn’t figured her out yet. In a lot of films, she’d be the main character. The new girl, the one who has everything to learn, who is the eyes and
ears of the audience because they start on a blank slate together. Erin
seemed
nice enough – smiley and full of thoughtful questions – but he couldn’t find anything more
to latch on to. Then he noticed that she seemed to be waiting for a response.

‘Ah well, that’s because Greggle actually enjoyed school,’ Ryan told her. ‘As you can imagine, he was quite the celebrity at Longview . . . the rest of us, less so.
Therefore I have no desire to talk about that hellhole!’ He decided to deflect the conversation onto Erin. ‘Where did you grow up?’

‘Hove, actually!’ Erin said, referring to Brighton’s affluent neighbour. Brighton was the nearest city to Telscombe Cliffs, and as soon as they’d been old enough to do
so, they’d spent almost all their weekends there.

‘Oh, very nice!’ Ryan grinned.

‘It was OK. So, you’ve all, like, known each other forever?’

Alisha answered. ‘Except for Ben, we all went to primary school together, yeah.’

Erin waved a finger between Ben and Katie. ‘And, let me guess, you two used to be an item?’

‘Erin, can you stop interrogating my friends, please?’ Greg frowned at her.

‘I’m not.’

‘No, it’s OK,’ Ben looked up at Erin through heavy lashes. ‘Yeah, me and Katie were together for about three years.’

‘I see. Sorry. I just wondered. I guess I have a sixth sense for stuff like that. I thought there was something there.’

Katie brushed sand out of her hair, feigning nonchalance. ‘Not at all. It was a long time ago.’

Erin’s shoulders seemed to drop. ‘It’s so funny. Ever since we got here, I knew there was something going on. Greg, you should have told me, so I didn’t stick my foot in
my mouth!’

Oh, clever girl,
thought Ryan. She’d seen through the veneer of cheesy grins and poolside dance routines. Just under the surface they’d all been scarred by last summer,
something Erin was evidently picking up on. They weren’t fooling strangers, let alone themselves. Ryan took a deep breath. Now was the time. They were all here, they’d all had a drink,
the fire was hypnotic. It was the perfect time to talk about Janey. In a murder mystery, it’s called the ‘drawing room scene’, where the detective gathers all the suspects to
reveal what he or she has learned.

‘Oh, for crying out loud!’ Ryan exploded. ‘Why don’t we just talk about it now and throw the massive sodding elephant in the room onto the fire?’

‘Ryan . . .’ Alisha warned.

‘No.’ He was determined. ‘Erin should know. Greg, I can’t believe you haven’t told her.’

Greg muttered something under his breath that sounded like, ‘He better shut his mouth before I shut it for him.’

Suddenly Erin was the outsider more than ever. Confusion creased her pretty face. ‘Tell me what? I didn’t mean to start an argument.’

‘You haven’t.’ Katie threw Ryan a disapproving glance, motherly as ever.

‘Oh, come on,’ Ryan continued. ‘Did we really think we could hang out for two whole weeks without the subject of Janey coming up? I say we get it out of the way now and enjoy
the rest of the holiday.’

A pause. ‘You know what? He may have a point,’ Greg sighed, folding his arms.

‘Thank you, Greg. You know I’m right.’

‘God, what can there possibly be left to say?’ Alisha’s expression was one of mild disgust.

But the floodgate was open now and all that Ryan had longed to say came gushing out. ‘Everything. After Janey died, I had about a million questions but everyone clammed up. I’ve had
a year of bursting to know, but it’s like someone passed a secret law – the “We Don’t Bloody Talk About Janey” law.’

‘Ryan, you’re being a dick,’ Alisha said.

‘I’m not. Wanting to know what happened does not make me a dick.’

Erin spoke up. ‘Guys, I’m really sorry. I didn’t want to cause this.’

‘You didn’t,’ Ben said. ‘Can we all take it down a notch? Ryan, you’ve gone to the
bad place
again.’ Ryan rolled his eyes, but said no more. Ben
continued. ‘It’s fine to talk about it. It happened. Not talking about it doesn’t change anything.’ As he spoke he kept his gaze fixed on the fire. There was something
robotic about his voice, like he was taking extra care to control it.

‘OK, what is going on?’ Erin’s voice wobbled. ‘You’re all really freaking me out now.’

Ryan looked to Ben, who gave him the slightest of nods, but where to start, and how much to reveal? He wasn’t sure it was right to air all his suspicions at once. ‘We had a friend
called Janey.’ He selected his words precisely. ‘This time last year she killed herself.’

‘Oh, God, that’s awful!’ Erin’s eyes widened.

Ben took a deep breath. ‘I . . . I was dating her at the time.’

Those eyes widened further. ‘Oh. Right. But I thought . . .’

Katie intervened, her coy eyes fixed on the sand, only flashing up for the briefest of moments. ‘We’d broken up the Christmas beforehand.’

‘Oh. OK. I’m so sorry, you guys. I mean . . . about
everything
.’

Ryan continued. ‘It was on the day of the leavers’ ball. Janey jumped off the top of Telscombe Cliffs. Or so goes the official version of events.’

A pause. Then Ben said, ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ The fire made Ben’s skin glow like bronze, but his expression was inscrutable.

Ryan shrugged. ‘Just that there was no note. Only a body.’ More choice word selection.

‘Jesus, Ryan, do we need the gory details?’ snapped Alisha.

‘I’m sorry.’ He paused. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t accuse his friends of murder. It was too dramatic, too high-concept, even for him. Frustration crawled under
his skin. What did he really want to say? ‘It’s just so sad,’ he finally blurted out. ‘So pointless. There’d been . . . a big fight at the ball and she ran away. Janey
was even more dramatic than me, if you can believe that. She was angry, but we never thought she’d do something so stupid. I mean . . . none of us went after her . . .’

Those last six words summed up the problem. She could so easily have been stopped. Any one of them could have talked her out of it. A tear pooled in the corner between his eye and nose. Alisha
hooked her arm through his.

‘It’s not your fault,’ Erin offered. ‘I think once someone’s decided to do something like that . . .’

‘She put us all through hell. You know for
four weeks,
before they found the body, we thought she’d been abducted or something,’ Greg cursed. ‘She wasn’t
thinking straight. It was such a selfish, bullshit thing to do. We all get pissed off; we don’t chuck ourselves off a cliff.’

‘Greg. Don’t,’ Alisha said gravely.

He was only saying what they’d all thought, though. Everyone has an argument from time to time – but they don’t kill themselves.
This
was what had haunted Ryan all
year – it was so
stupid.
So
unlikely.
If it
had
been TV, it would have made far more sense for Alisha to die – with all her recklessness she would have made a
perfect cautionary tale. So many things about that night didn’t make any sense. Janey should have been here, with them, right now, on the beach.

Erin spoke again, her curiosity now bordering on nosy. ‘What was the fight about?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Ben said simply, clearly battling to maintain an even tone.

‘It doesn’t’ Alisha agreed. ‘What matters is that none of us did anything. Not one of us went to see if she was OK – we were all too wrapped up in our own stupid
stuff. I sometimes think it was our fault she jumped.’

Although the fire crackled and spat, the beach was suddenly freezing cold. ‘Do you think—’ Ryan started.

‘Do I think what?’ Greg downed the last of his beer.

Ryan steeled himself. ‘Do you really think Janey killed herself?’

Orange and amber and gold and white danced in all their eyes: Ben, Greg, Katie, Alisha and Erin. At first no one spoke, everyone waiting to hear what everyone else would say. The silence was
deafening.

Katie broke it. ‘Ryan, the only person who truly knows what happened that night is dead.’

SCENE 7 – ALISHA

A
lisha stared at the fire for what felt like hours. Eventually, the roaring flames lost their will to fight, tiring to feeble tongues before dying
to embers. They still glowed scarlet though, and they still gave heat. When she poked them with her stick, they flared up angrily in a shower of sparks. Alisha had no idea how much time she lost to
this pursuit; it was hypnotic.

Most of the others had drifted back to the villa, blaming coldness or tiredness. Maybe it was all too much: the flight, the wine, the sun. Janey. Katie remained on the other side of the ashes, a
pashmina around her shoulders. The pair sat in companionable silence. For years, Alisha had wished she could
be
Katie. Katie seemed perfect to her. Like, now, she was wearing a crisp white
summer dress. Alisha was not the sort of girl who could wear white and not smear ketchup down herself.

It wasn’t just Katie’s dress sense, though, it was everything about her. She was an only child, she lived in a gorgeous house, she had Ben, her grades were flawless. That was before
you even got started on her do. The girl basically had
Little Mermaid
hair. It was a mystery to Alisha, therefore, why Katie had a sadness in her eyes these days. She smiled and chatted
but there was a pain there; Alisha could see it. Perhaps Katie blamed herself for what had happened.

The mood had lightened a little after the talk about Janey, but the elephant, although acknowledged, hadn’t gone anywhere.

‘Hey, Miss Katie. You OK?’ Alisha asked.

Katie nodded and gave her a kind smile. ‘Of course. How are you?’

‘I’m peachy. You looked a million miles away.’

‘I’m fine, I promise – just sleeping with my eyes open,’ Katie said, sweeping her hair off her face. ‘Today’s been a long day.’

As if on cue, the unmistakeable, tall silhouette of Ben ambled over the sand towards them. As much as she’d love to be a fly on the wall of whatever was about to happen, Alisha had no
desire to play the gooseberry.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘I’m gonna get ready for bed.’

Katie took a deep breath, clocking Ben at the same time. ‘I’ll be in in a minute.’

Alisha walked over and kissed her on the head, noticing that Katie still used the same shampoo – it smelled like toffee. It was a reminder of how close they’d been once upon a time.
Alisha wasn’t sure they were any more. The gesture felt awkward. It was as though Janey had been the stitching holding them together. After she jumped, everyone fell to pieces, tumbling miles
apart in different directions.

Alisha turned and left Katie alone with the tide and the embers – and Ben. As she passed Ben, she gave him a smile of encouragement but continued towards the villa. Her flip-flops clacked
on the stone tiles as she climbed the stairs, allowing her fingers to brush the hedgerow that grew along the perimeter.