The Marriage Betrayal

by Shalini Boland

  ‘The Grey Dolphin? What’s that?’

  ‘A caravan park,’ Lainy explains.

  ‘Yeah, he’s their maintenance guy. Lives and works there. You can find him in Block C, caravan number forty-two.’

  ‘Will he be there now?’ I ask.

  ‘Maybe. He might be home with his fancy piece – twenty-one she is. It’s pathetic. He’s almost old enough to be her father. Either that, or he’ll be drinking at the club bar.’

  ‘Okay,’ I reply, downing the rest of my vodka, experiencing a swirl in my brain as I stand. ‘Thanks, Cath.’

  ‘No problem.’ She turns to Lainy. ‘You married? Got kids?’

  ‘Yes, I’m married. We’ve got two young daughters – Poppy and Annabel.’

  ‘Lovely,’ Cath says. ‘Well, if you need me to mind your girls during the day while you’re looking for your brother and nephew, just say the word. Where are you staying?’

  ‘Scar Point,’ Lainy replies. ‘Number seventy-one.’

  ‘Very nice. Okay, well, I’ll give you my number and then I better get back to work.’ Cath gives Lainy her mobile phone number before making her way back to the bar.

  Lainy stays seated, holding her phone, her eyes trained on her empty glass.

  ‘So are you coming with me?’ I ask. ‘To this Grey Dolphin place?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she replies dully. ‘I can’t. Not to see Mark.’

  Sixteen

  He parks up and waits the few seconds required for the unit door to open. Scout sits next to him in the passenger seat. ‘Good boy,’ he praises. As soon as the door is high enough, he eases the truck underneath, drives to the far end and kills the engine. Now all he can hear is the soft whirr of the unit door closing behind him, blocking out the sound of birdsong and the sharp rays of the morning sun. Until, finally, there’s the satisfying rattle and click as the door auto-locks, plunging him into an inky darkness.

  Slipping out of the truck, he carefully makes his way over to the wall, where he presses the light switch. The temperamental strip light buzzes, deciding eventually to illuminate the cavernous space. He walks around to the flatbed at the rear of the truck, Scout at his heels, and unzips the bulky canvas bag that lies on top. As the bag falls open, he gazes at the unconscious face of the gagged and bound man.

  He feels no remorse, only regret that he wasn’t able to do this sooner.

  Seventeen

  ‘Look, I really am sorry that I don’t want to see Mark,’ Lainy says as we leave the pub and step back out into the high street. ‘I feel like I’m letting you down.’

  ‘Why don’t you want to see him?’ I ask, stopping on the pavement, turning to her, my eyes narrowing slightly.

  ‘I just can’t. I don’t like being back here, Faye. I don’t want to talk to anyone that I knew back then.’ Lainy’s eyes skirt away from me, her gaze falling to the floor. ‘I mean, Cath seems lovely and friendly, but being back in Swanage… it all just makes me feel—’

  ‘Okay,’ I say gently, guiltily. ‘Don’t worry. Of course you don’t have to come. We’ll go back to the house and I’ll drive to the caravan park myself.’

  ‘No, I don’t think you should go up there on your own.’

  ‘I’ll be fine. This Mark guy is a father of three. What’s he going to do? Although it was a bit strange that Cath seemed to think he might know what’s happened.’

  ‘I don’t think she meant anything by that. I just think she meant that he knows a lot of people so he might be able to put out feelers.’

  ‘Well, either way, it’s worth going up there to see if he knows anything. Or if he’s heard anyone talking about… anything.’

  ‘No! Please, Faye. It’s not a nice place to go. And anyway, I don’t think there’s much point. I mean, do you really think some bloke in a caravan park will have heard about Jake and Dylan going missing? It seems a bit random.’

  ‘Yes, but if there’s the smallest chance he knows anything about this, then of course I have to speak to him.’

  Her shoulders drop. ‘At least take Tom with you. The Grey Dolphin isn’t the nicest place in the world. It’s full of all sorts – at least it used to be. It’s not safe.’

  ‘Okay. Well, if Tom doesn’t mind…’

  ‘He won’t mind. He’ll want to go. Or maybe…’ She chews her lip.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Maybe you should leave it until tomorrow. Or maybe, like I said, you shouldn’t go at all.’

  I bite back a snap of frustration. ‘I have to go now, if there’s any chance he knows anything.’

  ‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘Of course you’re right.’ She twists her fingers. ‘I’m sorry I’m not up to coming. I really do feel like I’m letting you down.’

  ‘Stop saying that. You’re not letting me down.’ I give her a brief hug and we start walking. ‘This Mark guy,’ I begin, ‘did he do or say something to you back then?’

  ‘What? No.’ She exhales. ‘Can we not talk about it right now? Would you mind? I’m feeling a bit… overwhelmed by everything. Coming back here, it’s thrown me.’

  ‘Yes, sure. Don’t worry. Look, we’ll go back to the house, okay?’ Actually, it suits me not to talk. My brain is churning.

  Lainy and I walk the rest of the way in silence. The vodka coupled with the fresh air, stress and lack of food has made me feel quite light-headed and I have to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. The pavement blurs and then clears. I focus on my breathing to stop myself from either breaking down in tears or throwing up. It’s incredible how much a person can keep inside without letting any of the turmoil show. Perhaps someone who was skilled in reading body language could look at me and instantly recognise the signs of traumatic stress – an involuntary fluttering eyelid, a hand tremor. But at this moment, I feel rigid and taut, like a Tupperware container housing a volatile substance that could blow the lid off at any moment.

  Lainy texts as we walk. ‘Tom says that’s fine. He’ll drive you there when we get back.’

  ‘Great. Thank you.’ Although I’m not sure if it is great. I’m not sure if I shouldn’t just be waiting at home while the police continue their search. Is driving up to this caravan park going to be helpful? Or am I just wasting my energy? I feel as though I have no choice. My body is antsy, twitchy. I can’t sit around waiting for the police. I have to keep searching, keep moving. Not allow myself to think.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, Tom and I arrive at the caravan park. He pulls up outside the clubhouse and we exit the car. We walk across to the reception building – a fake log cabin with a faded metal sign swinging from its entrance depicting a smiling, leaping grey dolphin.

  ‘Shall we just go straight to the caravan?’ I ask. ‘Seeing as we have the number and everything.’

  ‘If you like,’ Tom replies. ‘But it might be worth asking about Jake and Dylan at reception too.’

  ‘Good point. Let’s speak to Mark first, and we can drop by reception on our way back.’

  We start walking towards the rows of static caravans, leaving the brightly lit entrance area. I duck and cry out as a black shape flits past my head. Surely it’s too late in the evening for birds to be flying around.

  ‘Bats.’ Tom points up at the inky sky, where the little creatures rise and fall like puppets being pulled about on a piece of string.

  ‘Wow,’ I say, without enthusiasm. Ordinarily, I’d be thrilled to see them. They’re not the kinds of creatures I ever see back home in our London suburb. We regularly glimpse foxes, and occasionally hedgehogs. Once we even spotted a cuckoo on our back fence. At least I thought it was a cuckoo, but Jake said it was a jay. I wish Dylan were with me now. He’d really get a kick out of seeing these bats. But he isn’t here. He’s somewhere out there, without me, in the dark night. My heart twists and I walk a little faster.

  The Grey Dolphin Caravan Park seems mainly given over to holiday lets with a few residential chalets. The place itself is situated on the hills high above Sw
anage, set back from the cliffs on a vast, sprawling plot. I’m assuming it must have been pretty once upon a time – a cheap and cheerful holiday destination – but time and the elements have rusted the fences and flaked the paint, soured the drains and pitted the pathways. Nowadays it’s more prison camp than holiday camp. The whole place retains an air of neglect, and subtle menace. It’s not somewhere I’d willingly pay money to visit.

  The way is intermittently lit with unevenly spaced lamp posts. Tom and I navigate the gravelly road, our feet crunching past rows of evenly spaced caravans. Some are dark shapes bathed in darkness, others are illuminated from within and I spy the various occupants, sitting watching TV, or getting ready for a night out, oblivious to my prying eyes. I briefly wonder which of these people live here permanently, and which of them are here on holiday. I wonder if they’re happy.

  ‘Thanks for coming with me.’ I realise Lainy was right. I wouldn’t have felt safe arriving here on my own at night. Walking along these semi-deserted pathways alone.

  ‘No worries,’ Tom replies. ‘Did you say it was Block C?’ He points to a metal sign up ahead with the letter C and an arrow pointing left, illuminated by a dirty street light. Someone has written three more letters after the C in black permanent marker.

  ‘Yes, Block C, number forty-two.’

  We pause at the sign, double checking which road to take, as the path splits off into four.

  ‘There.’ I point to the furthest path, where caravan number forty sits. We trudge past forty and forty-one, both of which appear to be empty. I give a start as, ahead of us, I make out the dark shape of a man in profile, wearing a baseball cap. He’s standing outside the door to number forty-two. The light from the street lamp doesn’t reach this far down the path, but he’s shining a torch at the caravan door. This must be Mark Tamworth, Cath’s ex-husband. He looks up as we approach, eyes wide beneath the cap, startled, his face illuminated in the torchlight.

  ‘Hi,’ Tom says. ‘Mark?’

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ the man grunts before the torchlight disappears, swallowing him into darkness. There’s a sharp crunch of gravel and then the dull thud of disappearing footsteps.

  ‘Hello?’ I call out, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. ‘Mark!’

  ‘I think he’s just run off,’ Tom says, surprised.

  ‘I think you’re right,’ I cry, my heart thumping. ‘Why did he run away? Why did he say he didn’t do anything? Do you think that means he did do something? We should go after him!’

  ‘It’s too dark to go chasing around here,’ Tom interrupts my worries, putting a restraining hand on my arm. ‘We’ll never find him. We’ve got no torch and we don’t know the layout. And anyway, what would we even do if we caught up to him?’

  ‘Hey!’ I cry out into the dark. ‘Mark! We just want to talk!’ I have a strong urge to run after the man, but Tom is right – I can barely see in front of my hand, so goodness knows how I’d catch up to him. I wish we’d thought to bring torches.

  Tom strides across to the caravan and looks through the window.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I go over to join him.

  ‘Trying to see inside.’ He tuts, and cups his hands around his face as he peers through the glass. ‘It’s too dark. I can’t see a thing.’

  I stand next to my brother-in-law, peering through the adjacent window.

  ‘I wonder why he ran away,’ Tom muses.

  ‘Do you think he could be trying to hide something?’

  ‘What if…’

  ‘What?’ I step back and turn to face him. ‘What if what?’

  ‘Mark saying that he didn’t do anything has got me worried. What if he actually is something to do with Jake and Dylan’s disappearance? Lainy said Mark and Jake used to be best friends. Maybe they had a falling out. What if Jake and Dylan are in the caravan?’

  My pulse begins to race. I peer harder through the window, but I still can’t see anything, so I give up and turn to face Tom. ‘Do you really think they might be?’

  ‘I don’t know. But they’ve been missing for hours. I thought one of them had had an accident. But what if…’

  ‘What if what?’

  ‘I don’t want to alarm you, Faye, but what if they’re being held against their will?’ In the gloom, Tom’s expression is a mixture of horror and sympathy.

  ‘Dylan!’ I yell through the glass. ‘Jake!’

  We both fall silent, cocking our heads to listen. But there’s no sound from within.

  ‘What should we do?’ I cry. ‘Shall we break in?’

  ‘No.’ Tom steps back from the window. ‘I’ve got a better idea.’

  Eighteen

  Then

  Lainy dumps her few sticks of driftwood on the growing pile of kindling and wonders if that’s enough or if she should go off and search for more. Everyone’s spent the past twenty minutes gathering wood from the beach and cliffs under orders from Cath, who thinks she’s in charge.

  ‘Why are we making a fire, anyway?’ Kayla asks.

  ‘It’s a beach party!’ Cath replies with a laugh, tugging at her micro-skirt to stop it riding up her thighs. ‘Everyone knows whenever there’s a beach party, you have to have a fire. It’s tradition. And anyway, it’ll brighten everything up and keep us all warm.’

  ‘Maybe if she wore more clothes, she wouldn’t be so cold,’ Kayla mutters to Lainy, who giggles.

  ‘I heard that, Kayla Smith.’ Cath puts her hands on her hips and shakes her head indulgently. ‘If you’ve got it, flaunt it, that’s what I say. Anyway, fires are romantic.’ She looks across at Mark and smirks. Mark clears his throat, embarrassed by Cath’s forwardness.

  Kayla nudges Lainy. ‘Looks like Cath’s after Mark,’ she whispers.

  ‘She can have him,’ Lainy murmurs with sigh of relief. ‘He’s been stuck to my side all night. It’s doing my head in.’ She doesn’t mention that she wishes it was Owen who was stuck to her side. But she realises that that’s probably never going to happen. Her dreams of Owen are going to stay just that – dreams. He still hasn’t paid her any attention. He probably never will.

  Lainy checks her watch and sees it’s already 10.40. She and Jake promised their parents they’d be back by eleven, and it’ll take them at least fifteen minutes to walk back up the cliff path. She glances down the beach. Jake is still sitting on the rocks with Rose. They’ve been cosied up all night. She knows her brother has a humungous crush on her, but Lainy assumed Rose was way out of Jake’s league. Her brother’s good looking, but he’s also a bit awkward and tends to rub people up the wrong way. Mark’s the only one who puts up with him – and that’s only because they’re both a bit… unsociable.

  Jake will be annoyed if she interrupts him, but Lainy doesn’t want to get into trouble with Mum and Dad. Not right at the start of the holidays. If she’s late home tonight, they’ll ground her forever and her life will be ruined.

  Lainy decides that interrupting Jake and Rose will be better than being grounded, so she starts making her way over to the rocks. The sand is firm and dark beneath her shoes. Her cotton halterneck dress swishes as she walks. She spent so many hours working out what she would wear. So much emotional energy. For what? For someone who doesn’t even realise she exists.

  Rose looks up as she approaches, her freckled face bathed in moonlight. She waves at Lainy and nudges Jake with her elbow.

  ‘Hey, Lainy.’ Her smile is open and friendly.

  ‘Hey,’ Lainy replies, not really knowing what to say to the older girl. ‘Jake, we better go. It’s almost quarter to eleven.’

  ‘You can’t go yet,’ Rose says, turning to Jake and wrinkling her nose. ‘It’s still really early.’

  ‘We’ve got to be back by eleven,’ Lainy says, realising Jake will be cross with her for making them sound like losers.

  ‘That’s because you’re here,’ Jake says. ‘I’d be able to stay later if I didn’t have to get you back home.’

  Rose watches with amusement, and Lainy ca
n tell that this amusement has irritated her brother. He’s trying to act cool for Rose, but his image has been ruined by his little sister coming over and talking about his parents and his curfew. But what else was she supposed to do? She’s not about to get in trouble because her brother wants to impress a girl. Jake scowls at Lainy and shakes his head.

  She shrugs apologetically. ‘So? You coming?’

  ‘I’m gonna say a bit longer,’ Jake says nonchalantly, but Lainy notes the lines of irritation still etched across his forehead.

  ‘Cool,’ Rose says, giving his arm a light punch. ‘We’re having way too much fun for you to go home now, and anyway, there’s something I really want to talk to you about.’ Her cheeks flare red for a moment, the skin on her neck mottling.

  ‘Lainy,’ Jake says, ‘can you stay for another half hour? We’ll head back at quarter past, okay?’

  Lainy shifts from one foot to the other. She feels for Jake, but she pictures her dad’s disappointed features. Her mum’s tight lips, arms folded across her chest. ‘You stay if you like. I’m gonna go back now.’

  ‘Lainy—’

  ‘Sorry, but I’m going.’

  He heaves out a sigh and gets to his feet, but Rose pulls him back down and gives him a meaningful stare. Jake licks his lips and turns back to Lainy. ‘Sorry, Laines, I’m staying. But you can go, as long as you get Mark to walk you back.’

  ‘I don’t need Mark to—’

  ‘Yes you do. You’re not walking back up there on your own.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Lainy, I’m not joking.’ Jake glares at her.

  She drops her shoulders. ‘Fine. I’ll get Mark flipping Tamworth to walk me.’ Lainy turns and walks back towards the others, who start cheering as the fire catches light. The scent of woodsmoke stings her nostrils, and she catches her breath as the flames whoosh upwards, licking around the tinder-dry driftwood and sending showers of sparks up into the night.