That Summer He Died (27 page)

None of them knew what awaited them here. And he couldn’t warn them. He couldn’t exactly say, ‘Hey, guys, I killed someone. Well, not personally, yeah? But I was there. I watched a man shudder in the sand and die. I carried his body. I buried his hand. But it was a long time ago, right? You can forgive me, right? We can still be friends.’ Yeah, right.

He felt sick with worry that they’d find out anyway. He feared them discovering who he really was. There were too many coincidences racking up against him. Alex at the house. Suzie in the graveyard. Hatred everywhere. He could sense it rushing towards him, stretching out to coil around him like a snake; wring the breath from his body.

And it could get worse. It would get worse. He just knew it. So he had to prepare. For the worst-case scenario. Like some crazed Vietnam vet on his final tour. For what he knew was coming. For the end. So he thought. Today was Friday. Lucy and Co. would be staying till Sunday. Three days. Three whole days when someone might recognise him, might come up with a handshake, a ‘Hi’, or – more likely, on current form – a punch. So he’d have to be on his guard; shepherd them through the weekend; keep them safe from the wolves. And protect himself too.

He showered, shaved and dressed, went downstairs and ordered breakfast. His appetite was shot, his stomach full to bursting with butterflies. He pushed his food around his plate and tried to distract himself by planning out his day.

The morning was his. He was up to scratch on the article, which meant he could get down to dealing with Alan’s house. Hopefully have most of the stuff he was planning on keeping packed up by lunchtime. But stash it where? Not in the car. Lucy and Co. would only ask about that. Besides, there probably wasn’t enough room. So rent a lock-up, ditch the gear there and think about moving it on Monday, once the others had gone back to London? Then at the hotel to wait for David’s car to pitch up outside, put on a disingenuous smile and greet them, just like nothing was wrong. Happy James. Carefree James. The James they knew and loved.

As he walked through the small reception area the manageress called him over to the desk.

‘I’ve got a letter for you,’ she said, sifting through the mail.

He looked sceptical. ‘For me? Are you sure?’

‘James Sawday,’ she said, reading his name off the back of the unstamped envelope and handing it over.

He took a seat, opened the envelope, pulled the letter out and read:

Dear James,

We need to talk. I’ll be in Surfers’ Turf all morning. Please come. This is real. Suzie.

Real? What the hell did that mean?

James stared at the piece of paper, reading the words over again. Then quit. It was pointless. He willed his racing pulse to slow. Grow up. You’re acting like it’s your first Valentine card. There’s no love here, no hidden meaning. So what the hell was she playing at? Hadn’t she said enough already? Maybe she only wanted to give him more grief. He’d walk in and she’d lay into him again. What did she take him for – a fool?

He crumpled the piece of paper in his fist and dropped it in the bin on the way to the door. Forget it. There was nothing further to talk about. He was a piece of shit and she knew it. There was no point in even wishing it were otherwise.

He got in his car and headed up the high street. But, before he’d even reached St Donal’s, he was regretting throwing away the note from Suzie. Dream chaser, his pride snapped at him. Then, more stoically, dream chaser. Because wasn’t that what he’d always been when it came to Suzie?

With a squeal of tyres, he turned the car round and headed for the cliffs.

*

James hesitated at the top of the steps leading down to South Beach. How was it possible that he could still retain such deep feelings for this woman? Almost a decade had passed. Other women had entered and exited his life: Don’t call us, we’ll call you. But they’d never truly got past the audition stage. He’d moved on. So Suzie had been his first – so what? Everyone had a first. Most people didn’t care. They were history, pub stories at best. Not fixations. Not like this.

He shivered. It might not even be about her any more. She might just be acting as a focal point. This view and his memories of the search, this whole town. . . Everything here still unresolved for him.

Perhaps that was why these feelings for her wouldn’t dissipate. Because he’d run from her, as he’d run from this town, and as he’d run from himself. Because claiming her back would mean claiming back the part of him he’d left behind.

He turned his jacket collar up against the wind and began the descent.

A hand-written sign on the door of Surfers’ Turf read CLOSED FOR BUSINESS. It was unnecessary. James had been able to tell from a hundred yards away that business wasn’t exactly booming. The blistered paintwork of the sign said it all. The original colour, red – the one that he remembered from when he’d first walked down these steps in pursuit of a caffeine cure for Alan’s hangover – showed beneath a tramp’s coat of green that must have been applied in the intervening years. A crack, like a fork of lightning, ran across one windowpane. James tossed his cigarette away and opened the door.

‘Hello,’ he called, stepping inside.

The door swung closed behind him. There was no reply. He felt like a trespasser. He stared around. Footprints covered the dusty floor. It was like the beach was creeping up, claiming this land as its own once more. James remembered what Suzie had said back then, about business being slow in the winter. But this wasn’t slow, it was stationary.

He wandered over towards the serving counter. The fridges behind it were unplugged. And then the weirdest thing: he smelt cooking. Same as the day of the search. The scent of bacon trailing through the air. He shook his head, beat the ghost back down, and called again, ‘Suzie. It’s James. Are you here?’

This time, there was noise. A clatter of pans. Footsteps came from the kitchen towards him. He leant across the counter, tried to look relaxed and in control. He tried to be everything he wasn’t. Then he saw her, and his act faltered. She stopped in the doorway, and stared. He stared back. Now was the time for silence. He knew this technique from his job. Sometimes silence was the most effective way of getting people to talk.

So let her. Ignore the pounding of your heart. She asked you here. The onus is on her. Let her speak and then reply. Or leave. You don’t need to say anything at all.

Instead he heard himself saying, ‘I’m sorry.’

She exhaled. At first, he mistook it for derision, but her words showed it for what it was: relief.

‘Don’t be. I was wrong yesterday. It was all too quick. Seeing you. . . finding you there in the churchyard. . . I shouldn’t have gone off at you like that. I had no right.’

‘It’s understandable,’ he said. ‘I just wish you’d given me a chance to explain.’

‘Neville called. Neville Forster. He said you two had been out for drink. That you’d mentioned me.’

‘And?’

‘And he’s a good friend. He said you weren’t in this for the same reason as the other hacks, said your editor didn’t even know you used to live here.’ Suzie’s brow knitted. ‘You’ve done well for yourself. I shouldn’t have resented you for coming here to do your job. Neville said he trusted you.’ She glanced down at the floor before addressing James again. ‘I should have trusted you as well. I shouldn’t have judged you like that. I’ve got no right.’

‘Smells good,’ he said, at a loss for anything else. He nodded over her shoulder. ‘I’ve already eaten, but I won’t say no.’

She told him to go and sit down while she got some bacon sandwiches together. He chose a table near the window overlooking the beach, and watched the distant waves breaking on the shore. It would be so easy, he thought, just to be here. That’s how it must be for other people. There was peace in this place. He felt it like an ache. He wished things could be different, that he could relax and enjoy, that this view could just be sand and sky and sea to him. Not death. Not the memory of fear. How it was then. And what this was now. Her and him. With the future and past see-sawing between them.

‘Tuck in,’ she said, joining him and biting into her sandwich.

He took a bite of his and then a swig of coffee from the mug she’d given him.

‘It’s good,’ he said, then looked around the deserted room, unable to hide the expression of pity on his face. ‘It’s over, I guess.’

‘What?’

‘Your dream. This place. Everything it was going to be.’

Suzie shrugged. ‘You can’t have everything.’

‘No, but still, I’m sorry.’

‘None of this means to me what it used to,’ she said. ‘Independence. Freedom. It meant all those things when I was young. But not any more.’

‘You
are
young,’ he said. He had to stop himself from reaching out to take her hand. Instead he picked up his mug instead.

‘You grow up, you know?’ she said. ‘And your dreams, they change as well.’ She studied his face for a few seconds, settling on his eyes. ‘You’ve turned out all right. . . work and that, I mean.’

She half-blushed, making him think that maybe she hadn’t just meant that at all.

‘Thanks.’ He held her stare, even though he knew that this was wrong, even though he had a girlfriend he cared for, and who cared for him. But hope. That olive branch. It was here. Now. He couldn’t pretend it was not.

‘It went well for the first year after you left,’ said Suzie. ‘I made some good money, kept the mortgage payments going. Then the last couple of years – last summer in particular – the tide turned. Alex set up the club on North Beach and the scene moved with it. He opened a kite surf shop there as well. Wake boarding. All there, nice and easy for everyone to find. The whole scene I’d wanted. . . where you had to walk here, you know, to get away from all the commercialisation of the main town. . . it seems people aren’t interested in that any more. Or not enough to keep a business like this going anyway.’ She lit a cigarette. Smoke curled upwards. ‘Times changed and I didn’t change with them.’

‘But you don’t mind?’

‘I did. But now that Dan’s died. . . Dad wants me to take over the Moonraker after Christmas. It was always going to be Dan who did, but no. . . But now Mum and Dad, they’re going to move. Mum doesn’t want to be round here. Hardly leaves the flat any more. Just prowls round up there, packing the boxes over and over again. She wants out.’

‘Where are they going to go?’

‘I don’t think they care. Just away.’

‘And what about you?’

Her eyes fixed on his, resolute. ‘This is my home. If I left. . . I don’t know. . . it would be like someone else was making the decision for me. And no one’s driving me out. Not the killer. Not Alex. Not anybody.’

‘Alex?’

Her bottom lip rolled inward, thinning to a line. ‘I don’t know how much Neville told you yesterday.’

‘He said Alex was scum, that he was up to his neck in all sorts of bad shit. Neville said he wanted the bastard banged up.’

‘So he didn’t tell you about Dan? About what Alex did to him?’

‘No. Just that Dan was a mess towards the end, and what a bloody shame it was.’

‘There’s more to it than that. A lot more.’

‘You going to tell me about it?’ asked James, then watched her face crease worriedly. Again, the impulse was there to touch her, to hold her – anything to let her know that he cared, cared for her more than he was allowed to say.

‘You got out,’ she said. ‘You did the right thing. You got away from Alex.’ She twisted her cigarette violently on the floor with the heel of her boot. ‘Dan never did. Alex just drew him closer and closer, sucked him in till there was nothing left. Then – a couple of weeks before Dan died – he spat him out.’

‘I don’t—’

‘Dan worked for Alex,’ Suzie said. ‘Always did from when they left school. Sure, Dan had plans. Same as Alex. They both said they were going to go away, maybe go to college, maybe leave Grancombe behind.’

‘They were going to go travelling,’ James said, remembering. ‘And then university and college.’

‘Well, they never did. They stayed, carried on dealing, making more money. And Dan . . . Dan just carried on taking what Alex dealt, sinking deeper and deeper.’ Suzie lit another cigarette and stared at its glowing tip, as if the solution to her angst was written there. ‘They made a lot of money. They got the cars. They got the girls. They ended up spending half their time in London, half down here. Dan never talked about it.’ She blinked heavily. ‘We sort of stopped talking altogether. And then there was the club. Alex opened it the year before last. Only it was his name on everything. He owned it all. Dan was too messed up. Said he was joint manager, but he wasn’t anything. Just another one of Alex’s thugs.’ James saw hatred burning in her eyes. ‘Then Alex fired him and he wasn’t anything at all.’

‘Go on,’ he said.

‘Dan was so wrecked all the time.’ The colour was draining from her face. ‘Even after Alex cutting him loose like that . . . even then, Dan couldn’t see the situation for what it was. Right up to the end, he was out there – in the pubs, in Current, getting wasted. He just didn’t get it.’ When Suzie rubbed at her eyes, James saw her knuckles glistening with tears. ‘I saw him the day before he was killed. Christ, James. . . Even then, all he could go on about was that he had it made, that Alex was going to sort him out, that Alex owed him big time. The stupid sod thought he was going to get out, move abroad, get straight. He didn’t realise for a second how much Alex had used him. Not once. Not once before he went for that walk and didn’t come back. . .’

Dan must have been wasted, James thought, to walk those woods alone at night. James himself could never do it. No matter how wasted he was. Not unless there was a gun at the back of his head.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and this time he did take her hand. He gripped it tight, like he was stopping her from falling from a cliff. He held Suzie’s hand as her shoulders trembled and the tears flowed.

All he could say, though, was sorry. He repeated the word over and over, as if it had the ability to shield her from sorrow.

‘Eat,’ he finally said, nudging her plate towards her, ‘before it gets cold.’