The Siren (2 page)

She took another towel and wrapped her wet hair in it, then returned to the bedroom just as the theme song began. Thomas the Tank Engine was chuffing along the track with the credits flying up
the screen, but Riley had climbed under the covers and was sleeping too deeply to care. Kimberly curled up beside him, wrapping her arms around him, and he shifted a little, resettling with his
head closer to hers. His hair tickled her cheek. He smelt of baby wipes and jacket potato, and his proximity soothed her more than any amount of showering could have done.

It was a tranquil moment, broken only by the main-menu loop on the DVD, then a few seconds of cheery music that had already been repeated too many times. Kimberly stretched herself towards the
remote, aiming to scoop it near enough to reach the mute button. She touched one of the channel buttons instead, and the image that flickered on to the screen seemed as familiar as Thomas the Tank
Engine.

She recognized that skyline, the rocky outcrop, the barren coastline. But she took a second or two to understand this was no DVD, no fictional footage. It was the news.

A fragment of her life was appearing on the television and, as sure as the carving on Alicia Campion’s grave, its details were now set in stone.

She felt realization burn through her chest, dropping like a molten leaden weight into the pit of her stomach. She saw the winch, and the wreck of Nick’s car that now hung from its hook.
The car that she’d last seen when that same stretch of the Mediterranean sea had swallowed it.

The reporter’s voice began to penetrate her shock. ‘The vehicle was recovered last week after some divers reported that it appeared to contain human remains. It wasn’t until
today that the Spanish authorities have been able to confirm the identity of the occupant. The victim is named as former Cambridge man Nicholas Lewton, who had been living and working in Cartagena
until his disappearance almost three years ago. Police are now appealing for information, and a spokesman has confirmed that this death is being treated as suspicious.’

The phone sat on the bedside table nearest to the window. It rang just as she was reaching for it. She looked out across the cemetery, towards the rear of another row of houses. Because they
were built on higher ground, her bedroom directly faced the rear windows of their ground floors. One of them had been sandblasted, leaving its brickwork paler than that of its neighbours. Trees
rose in-between, but she could see its upper floor catch the last of the sunshine and glow a fireball orange.

The ground floor of the same house was partly obscured in summer, but Kimberly knew that her caller was standing just inside its patio door. Probably squinting into the sun, staring over at
Kimberly’s house, waiting for her to answer the phone.

Kimberly pressed the ‘answer’ button. ‘I saw it,’ she said. ‘Let me get dressed. I’ll meet you outside.’

TWO

Kimberly grabbed some clean knickers and a bra from her chest of drawers, then pulled a dress from her wardrobe. Tugging them on quickly, she scooped up Riley, draping him over
her shoulder, hoping he wouldn’t stir, then managed to transfer him into his pushchair without waking him. She left her house by the front door, and hurried to the nearest entrance leading
into the cemetery, a narrow gateway at the top of the guitar’s neck. The path ran in an arc that curved like a broken string towards the other side of the green enclosure. She and Rachel
always met at the midpoint, a circle that had once been the site of the chapel of St Mary the Less.

Kimberly arrived first. There were four benches, spaced around the outside of the circle, and she chose the one which would give her the best view of Rachel’s approach.

It was a few minutes later before she saw Rachel’s figure appear briefly, then disappear, between the trees and shrubs further along.

She could easily have cut across and made it in half the time, since Rachel knew her way round here almost as well as Kimberly did. This was a good sign, Kimberly decided: a sign that Rachel
didn’t feel the same panic as she herself felt.

She watched Rachel reappear from behind a yew tree and disappear behind an overgrown buddleia, noticing that her friend’s stride, though brisk, was not rushed.
Measured
, that was
the word. Rachel was always the calm one, weighing up the options, measuring her response. It was a joke between them: Kimberly gets them both into trouble, Rachel gets them out.

The sun was at the back of her neck, reaching its still warm fingers around on to one cheek. It was a slow, burning heat that made her feel impatient to get out of it.

When Rachel emerged into view again, she was still about a hundred feet away, but Kimberly sensed there had been a change in her friend. In the few seconds she’d been out of sight,
she’d been overtaken by a shadow. There was now a slowing of her usually lively stride, a new gravity dragging at her limbs, like hesitancy and indecision were both pulling at her hem. There
was maybe eighty feet between them now, and Rachel’s features appeared as nothing more than shadows and indistinct shapes, but they were composed differently today.

Riley moved one arm out into the sun, and Kimberly used this movement as a reason to turn her attention to him and fold it back inside the shade of the canopy. She knew she was kidding herself;
in truth she felt like she’d been staring at Rachel, in some kind of bad way. She waited until Rachel was about twenty feet away before looking up at her again, hoping to find comfort
there.

Rachel’s toe caught in a small ruck in the grass and, momentarily, she stumbled. It was nothing, just a tiny break in her stride, but it seemed to be a further sign of the way her
previously graceful gait had become self-conscious and unsure. She stopped ten feet off, and managed a small smile: one that flickered on to her face and was gone in the next instant. Kimberly had
painted Rachel’s portrait many times, but never like this. Not ever. Something fragile but significant had deserted her friend.

Kimberly felt her stomach lurch.

She glanced around her, taking in everything as if it was the first time they’d come back to this spot in ten years. If the grass that lay between them looked the same as it ever had, it
was the only thing that did. The graves were older, some had crumbled, others had toppled. The surrounding houses were filled with new families. The drugs were harder, and year on year the rain
fell ever heavier. And neither of them were children anymore.

Kimberly stood up and stepped a little closer.

Rachel frowned. ‘I was as quick as possible,’ she said. And spoke as if answering a question. Making a defence.

‘I know. It’s OK.’

‘Is it?’

‘Shit, Rach, it’s got to be.’ Kimberly heard the tautness in her own voice.

In response, Rachel closed her eyes and pressed her hands over her ears. Kimberly had never noticed the frown lines on Rachel’s forehead until now.

‘Rach, what is it?’

‘We should go.’

Kimberly glanced around.

‘No, Kim, I mean
go
go,’ Rachel corrected her, ‘leave the area until it’s sorted.’

‘We already did that, remember?’ Kimberly’s thoughts were suddenly overtaken by the idea that she’d seen some fundamental part of the picture through the wrong lens, or
from the wrong angle. She couldn’t decide what exactly, just that her view had somehow become distorted.

Rachel shook her head and turned away, but not before Kimberly had spotted the tears welling in her friend’s eyes.

She found herself at Rachel’s side, wrapping her arm around her shoulder. ‘This isn’t like you at all. I’m relying on you to bail me out.’ Kimberly gently turned
Rachel’s face towards her. ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’

Kimberly guessed she knew Rachel better than anyone, and she could only remember Rachel crying twice before, once at her mother’s funeral and once at school on the day they’d met.
Kimberly was the emotional, volatile one, while Rachel was the thinker, the planner. Never the crying type.

Rachel blinked and tears fell from both eyes, making identical trails down each side of her symmetrical face. She didn’t meet Kimberly’s gaze, but instead stared past her and into
the pushchair. She tried to speak but the sentence churned into a sob. There was definitely something odd about the way Rachel stared at Riley, and the unease twisted tighter in Kimberly’s
gut.

Rachel’s breathing steadied for a moment. ‘I didn’t know you’d have Riley,’ she blurted.

‘I wasn’t going to leave him indoors, was I?’

‘I don’t mean now. I meant . . .’ Rachel held out her hands in an expansive gesture, a gesture that said
Think bigger.

‘You meant what?’ Kimberly demanded, but she could already see she’d been naïve. She felt a familiar anger rising, and she tried to restrain it, grabbing at its tail and
willing it to go quietly back into its cage.

Kimberly asked her again, knowing that her voice sounded hard and unforgiving. ‘What was it you meant?’

This was the wrong tactic with Rachel, and Kimberly knew it. Rachel stiffened, then pulled away and began walking the more direct route back to her house.

By the time Kimberly had manoeuvred the pram across the bumps and heavy clumps of grass, Rachel had almost reached the low wall before her back garden.

Kimberly spoke again as soon as she thought she was close enough to be heard. ‘Please, Rachel, I don’t understand.’ Parking the pushchair, she caught up with her finally and
reached out for the woman’s arm. ‘What’s scaring you, Rach?’

The next moment Rachel was hugging her, constantly repeating her name. Kimberly held her close at first, gripping her as tight as she was being gripped. Then the seconds began to stretch on too
long. This wasn’t just an expression of close friendship, and Kimberly didn’t understand it. It began to feel claustrophobic. She needed to know what Rachel was now feeling, needed to
catch her breath and assess this new pitch of emotion.
Is this love or fear, or something else? Regret perhaps?

But, in their relationship, Kimberly believed she was the sole custodian of all the regret. She’d held on to it for so long now.

She eased herself free.

‘I know how much I owe you. I’ll never forget that, and I’d never want you in any danger because of me.’

Rachel turned to her, her eyes already puffy and her nose running. Her words sounded thick and heavy. ‘Everything’s scaring me. You, Stefan . . . the whole fucking, miserable
mess.’

Then, Rachel began backing up as she continued, ‘Go away. Take Riley and go. I’m not going to tell you anything you don’t already know, so don’t ask me any more. Just get
away from Cambridge.’

‘I don’t know
everything
, do I? What’s it got to do with Riley?’

‘Kim, there’s nothing else I can say.’

‘There is. Just tell me what’s happened.’

Rachel hesitated and, when she finally spoke, her voice was barely audible: ‘You saw the news?’

Kimberly couldn’t let it go so easily and followed her right up to the low wall. ‘Spain’s a thousand miles away, probably more. It has nothing to do with Cambridge.’

Rachel shook her head and stepped right over the wall. They were only thirty feet from the pushchair but Kimberly wasn’t prepared to be any further from her son. She hurried back to
collect it, and pushed the buggy towards Rachel. ‘Wait, there’s something else, isn’t there?’

‘You really must go away from here.’

‘I can’t just vanish.’

‘You have to. I’m going early tomorrow.’

‘Without Stefan?’

‘No.’ It was Rachel’s instant answer, then she checked herself. ‘Maybe. Look, the less you know the better.’

‘You’ve had it all planned.’

Rachel shrugged, but seemed increasingly uncomfortable.

‘Why didn’t you warn me earlier?’

Rachel shook her head. ‘It was an old plan – one we never thought we’d need.’ Again her gaze alighted on Riley.

‘Is he in danger, too?’ Kimberly whispered.

She guessed Rachel wished she could deny it, but instead she gave her a small nod. It did nothing to soften the sense of betrayal: Rachel had let her down but more than that she’d let
Riley down.

The truth of the situation seemed to strike Rachel only then. She paused, then said, ‘OK, how long do you need?’

Kimberly couldn’t help the sarcasm. ‘To arrange a new life?’ she snorted.

Rachel didn’t visibly react. ‘To collect some cash and a car and go,’ she said quietly.

That sobered Kimberly. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I’m all ready. Why don’t I take Riley for a few hours? Pick him up when you’re sorted.’

‘I don’t know . . .’

‘It’s all I can offer.’

And Kimberly could tell then that there was no half-truth or selfishness in the suggestion. ‘Help me get the pram over the wall.’

Rachel nodded reassuringly. ‘You know I’ll look after him. I’ve always tried, you realize. And, Kim, please don’t tell anyone else what I’m doing.’

Kimberly nodded silently, then hung back until both of them were out of sight. She finally made her decision and turned – but not towards home. Instead she left the cemetery at the
south-west exit, then broke into a run.

Change was in the air, and it smelt sour. Maybe there was something bad coming, or perhaps it was already blowing in and opening up gangrenous wounds in her current life. One thing was certain;
it was stirring up the one memory that she never wanted to revisit: hot pavements and the sound of her own footsteps echoing on them as she ran for help.

THREE

Rachel was in the habit of deliberately studying her own house each time she approached it, no matter how short a time she’d been away or which elevation she was facing.
It was a habit she had developed as a form of motivation, a reminder of how far their hard work had brought them and what they could accomplish when they remembered to work together. She had
finally realized that such achievements had been brought about by nothing but her own determination. And, although her motivations subsequently changed, her habit of staring at the house
remained.