by Rachael Blok
Whoever it is has stopped by the remains of the stage. The figure stands still, looking as though it’s waiting for someone. Is it Lois? Is she meeting someone out here?
And there are sounds nearby. He glances left. There is movement on the ground, beneath the trees, by the hedge. Someone else is out here too.
‘Hello?’ he calls. ‘Police. Is everything OK?’ He keeps his voice low so as not to alert whoever is standing near the stage.
From under the trees comes the sound of crying, and now the sound of someone being sick. He glances back to the figure ahead. His glasses are wet again and it’s hard to see, but he’s sure it’s a woman. These two people are too far apart to be here together. What’s going on? Is the letter writer here? Have they hurt someone? Is that why there’s crying?
He takes a step forward.
‘Hello!’ he calls.
As a cloud uncovers the moon, Maarten sees the woman up by the stage; it really looks like Lois, and he glances left, towards the sound of crying. He’d thought there was only one other person, but he can make out at least two figures beneath the tree, bent, kneeling in the grass. Is someone injured?
What’s going on in the dark?
Stepping carefully down to the next level of grass, he tries to make his way to the sound of crying – his senses alert for a weapon, some danger. His heart races.
Perhaps it is just teenagers?
There’s movement behind him, sudden. Footsteps. He goes to turn, about to spin, to see where the noise comes from. The click of a twig is so close; if he reached his arm out backwards…
The pain in his head is sharp and his eyes roll beneath his lids. Lights flash; he can feel himself begin to topple. He has been felled.
Reaching out, his fingernails catch a splinter on the bark, and he opens his mouth to call, but he can’t make a sound.
He feels himself begin to fall. Then feels nothing at all.
29
LOIS
Lois sees the tail end of the blow. Standing on the stage, she has full view of a figure falling to the ground. Maarten. And above him, standing, arm holding a stick…
No, it can’t be. She blinks. Surely not? For a second, Lois does nothing. The stick falls. The sound of feet, running away.
‘Help!’
The shout into the night is full of fright, and Lois’s heart beats quickly, pounding, rising in her chest. This time, she runs towards it, a woman’s voice.
‘Help!’
It sounds like Marieke.
A man’s voice had called out hello, and there had been sounds of crying from underneath a tree, over near the hedge. And Marieke has received the letter tonight. What’s going on?
Despite the chill in the air and no coat, she is sweat drenched, panicking; a stone snags on her dress, pulls at her.
‘Help!’ The shout again. It sounds like Marieke.
Please no, Lois thinks, please nothing happen to Marieke, not here.
‘Marieke?’ she calls back. Lois runs upwards, tripping over the uneven ground.
‘Lois? Is that you? Come quickly. I followed Maarten down here. But he’s unconscious! I can’t wake him!’
Chasing the voice, Lois finds Marieke up near the steps. She kneels on the grass, bent over what looks like a body.
‘Lois, it’s Maarten! Oh my God.’
Lois can see the long body of the DCI sprawled out on the grass. Her hands are shaking. What is going on? Had it really been…
Maarten is face down and curled, as though he’d been reaching out for something before he fell. His right arm is flung outwards from his body; his other arm flat to the floor by his side.
‘Maarten!’ Marieke screams again, the quiet of the night heightening her call, her fear.
Lois kneels and, putting her fingers to his neck, quickly feels a pulse. At her touch, he stirs. His hands, flat on the wet grass, sink into the ground and he pushes himself up, soaked and soundless, until he pulls out his phone and speaks. ‘Liv…’
‘Oh, thank God,’ Marieke says, sitting back on her heels. She covers her face with her hands. ‘Oh, thank God. I thought…’
What had happened? Lois is confused. She’d seen someone in the trees. It’s so dark. She can’t trust her eyes tonight. Her mind is full of demons, of questions.
Teenagers have been found out here before, smoking, drinking. And it’s Halloween. That’s what it must have been. Maybe one of them was taking drugs, and saw Maarten?
Marieke is crying. The tears, missing about her own threat, begin for Maarten. They soak into the night. He sits up and she reaches for him, taking his hand.
‘I thought you were dead,’ she says. ‘I thought you were dead and it would be my fault.’
‘Maart!’ The call comes from up towards the house. Lois sees Liv running, flat out, in bare feet. She must have kicked off her heels. She’s followed by the PC, beginning to overtake her. They scramble down the steps.
‘Maart!’
‘We’re here,’ Lois says, shouting out in the dark, wishing she had her phone for a torch.
She doesn’t know what to do. Maarten checks the back of his head with his hand, but no blood appears, and he rises with an authority that radiates quickly. He’d been polite at dinner, respectful. Now he’s angry. She shivers in the flimsy light.
Aksel has appeared from nowhere and Lois hears Ebba say, ‘Christ, what now?’ from behind her.
There had been someone in the amphitheatre, Lois thinks. Someone over behind the stage, under a tree, much further away from the steps. Why?
Looking round the stone ruins, there’s no sign of anything now. What’s going on?
Filip and Sophie approach. Filip has thrown up and vomit stains his shirt. He can’t walk without leaning on Sophie’s arm, and his face is wet with tears. Something has happened between them. Sophie is pale, washed out.
Lois climbs a step higher, scanning the ground, so she misses what happens next. Coming in at the end, Lois hears Liv say, her voice angry and hurt, ‘…my husband.’
Marieke says, ‘Sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean…’ Usually so composed, intimidating, Marieke is still crying.
And then Aksel whistles, long and low. Lois looks at him quickly. His profile is shaded under the black sky. She’s sure she hears him say to someone, ‘It’s you. I thought I recognised you. Well, well.’
But she can’t work out to whom or to what he’s referring. The group is tight, slowly loosening, as Liv starts crying. She reaches up to touch Maarten’s face. He takes her hand and speaks to the PC. ‘Check the grounds. Someone attacked me.’
What is going on?
What is happening in their home?
NOW
30
FILIP
The smell of the helicopter crash floods his nostrils, sharp and familiar. Richard’s seat has been thrown part out of the broken door, leaning out of the main body of the helicopter; a stone of a theatre step protrudes where Richard’s seat had been. The seat is upended. Curls of polyester leak from it, and metal protrudes, like a blade.
Filip’s arm is bleeding, and the dull pain is distant. He’s wary as he approaches, shouting, ‘Richard!’
He is face down, his body hanging off the seat. Shit.
‘Richard, can you hear me? Richard, it’s Filip, I’m going to release your seat belt. Richard, can you tell me if it hurts?’ he shouts again, trying to rouse him as he speaks, quickly fumbling with the seat belt catch, which is hot beneath his fingers. The smell of fuel intensifies.
Released, Richard’s body slumps unsupported. Filip knows his neck might be broken, his back…
But the leaking, curling of smoke is even stronger now. Flames dance in his peripheral vision like firecrackers.
The sound of running feet comes fast from behind. Someone is shouting, ‘Step back, sir! Step back!’
There are screams loud from the lawn. Sirens. The smoke, like a curtain, cuts him off from the safety of higher ground.
His head spins.
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He picks up Richard, carrying him, feeling his body limp. Arms rush and lift them both. A watch lies on the ground, bloodied, its face shattered.
Filip’s mind is dense with fumes and thoughts of the crash. Had Aksel seen something? Is that why he’d stood up? Had someone tampered with the helicopter?
None of them had taken Marieke’s death threats seriously. What had they been thinking?
Hands pull him, helping him away from the helicopter and the fuel, dense in the air, like its own oxygen.
Richard is in his arms, and there is a tremendous heat surge from behind him. He is thrown forward, lifted.
The bang is loud as he lands on the soft earth, debris spraying in front of him. His head spins and he knows he will pass out. The flames are dancing now, climbing higher, and the fire is overwhelming.
He can’t remember if everyone got out.
BEFORE
SATURDAY MORNING, HOURS EARLIER
31
LOIS
Lois leans out of the window, sucking in the morning air. It’s laced with mist; the damp is cool, relieving the burn on her cheek, the ache in her head. The fields lie flat and empty. It’s not even 8 a.m. but nausea had woken her. She’s not actually thrown up, but her stomach is ready to overturn at any moment.
They’d got to bed so late last night. Most of the guests had known nothing of the letter. The attack on Maarten had deflated the party atmosphere. There had been a general consensus that it must have been teenagers messing around in the amphitheatre. He was OK. It wasn’t a serious attack – at least, it was an attack without serious consequences. But she is determined to put it behind her. Today she would focus on launching the game. Her beautiful game. She’s never been prouder of anything. The visuals, the sound! Closing her eyes, she imagines the reactions later, after they take the helicopter to the VR studio. They will be stunned. There’s no way they can’t be. The interaction with other players, the detail…
This game will be huge. As will the subject – with the game based on the next big studio release, the audience will be massive.
Lois feels the adrenaline overwhelm her. Dizzy, she can feel tears at the back of her throat. Some moments in life feel too big. Too unreal. In a few hours, with the confidential press conference ahead of Monday’s announcement, every dream she has ever had will be realised.
And as for last night? She shakes her head. Lois had decided the sounds of crying and vomiting under the trees must have come from Filip and Sophie. He’d been red from tears and covered in sick. Sophie had looked raw, too. There’s some tension there.
But the figure she had followed down the steps…
She had no idea who that had been. In the end, they’d all been out there. It had been impossible to tell who’d appeared after the attack, or before.
Once inside, she’d sat with Marieke; Aksel had sat with Liv. Maarten had brought in more officers and the grounds had been checked, but there had been nothing.
And yet, Lois knows that Ebba had started the teenager whispers, worried that people may leave, that the deal might be affected. Nothing is clear.
Maarten had been attacked at their home and something is rotten about this weekend.
This morning she’d taken another test. The blue line is clearer than yesterday. Staring at the trees that fringe the huge lawn, she counts in her head the weeks since her last period.
She’d been at a conference, listed as a speaker, so there it was, in black and white. That was almost nine weeks ago.
Then it had been easy. Working the rest out. She’d been with Helen for a while, and the only other person she’d been with was the fling the day after Helen had broken up with her. Rebound sex. He’d been sexy. Sexy sex. No hint he’d cared, but it had been cathartic. At least, it had felt like it then. Now, regret stirs with the acids in her stomach.
Leaving the windows open, she sits on her bed, pulling her legs up and wrapping her arms around them. He’d not been kind so much as practised. He’d taken his time. She shivers as she thinks of it. He’d been a treat to herself. Like ice cream on a hot day. You know it’s not good for you.
She’d seen him on the beach that morning and, initially, she’d hoped he wouldn’t come over.
The previous day, her presentation had gone down well and then Helen had dumped her. She was on a high and a low, spiralling. But he’d come over, and she hadn’t even bothered getting up from the lounger.
He’d ordered drinks for them, to celebrate, he said. He’d told her how impressed he’d been with her presentation, and she’d seen it in his eyes, the glimmer of interest that hadn’t been there before.
After a cocktail, heady with success from the speech – not her comfort zone at all – she began drinking in his flattery, his praise, which was precise and careful in its detail. It hadn’t taken too long. She’d known about two hours ahead of the actual event. She’d agreed with herself she was allowed a holiday fling.
And also, with the sun on her legs, with the cocktail in her blood and with the presentation behind her, she was due a release. The exchange with Helen had been exhausting the night before. They’d both known. She’d cried. Both had pretended it had meant something.
It had been a cliché almost, their flirtation on the beach. Like seduction by numbers. Tracing her foot with his finger, suggesting lunch at the hotel. Then a pre-lunch drink on his balcony, so he could grab a shirt. She’d almost laughed at how much of a cliché it had been.
He’d asked room service to send up champagne and canapés. She’d only been wearing a bikini and her beach throw, and he’d never bothered putting on the shirt.
It was not the usual kind of thing she did. He wasn’t the usual kind of man she was attracted to. But it had felt like grown-up sex.
She was normally drawn to ideas, to a characteristic, a quality that seemed unique. She liked difference in her partners: artists, gamers.
It had been everything she’d expected, and she’d allowed herself to enjoy it all. He’d done everything right. He’d played her out in full, taking his time.
She’d stayed the whole afternoon. In fact, she’d only slipped away after he’d run her a bath and ordered room service, which they ate, cross-legged on the bed, wearing barely anything at all.
The death knell had come when the quiet arrived, and she’d clammed up, her shyness returning. He already looked bored. The sex over – raw and satisfying – once his flattery had run its course, he didn’t bother saying anything at all.
Borrowing a T-shirt from him, she’d made her way down the thick-carpeted corridor to her room. And that had been that. She pulls the T-shirt round her now. To warm the baby.
Now, there’s magic. There is a spark of life in her belly that will kick and flair, if she keeps her fingers crossed. How much she’ll need to tell everyone else…
There are months to think of that. He is not who she’d have chosen. She’s not sure she wants to tell him. He doesn’t seem the type to care.
She’s always wanted to have children, in a kind of arbitrary way, at some point that seems just ahead of her, but never quite arrives. Now it’s real, she wants this baby. But how will she cope? She’s never been good on her own.
Lois thinks of her parents. How they would have celebrated.
She has time. It’s their secret right now. Hers, and this cluster of cells that cling and feed off her, in her very first act of motherhood.
They just both need to survive this weekend. To avoid the poison that eats into their celebration, seeps into her calm.
32
MAARTEN
Liv is still asleep when he leaves. He’d left a mug of tea by her bed, but it will be cold when she wakes. He hates leaving her after the row. They very rarely row. But she’d been so drunk; he convinced himself there hadn’t been any point in telling her the whole truth, not then.
Trust is solid, until it’s not. And jealousy can spread like a virus.
Luckily, he thinks, she’d been so very drunk, it
had been over quickly. She’d fallen asleep in the car on the way home after the hospital had checked his head, and she’d woken at the house with her contact lenses dry and a raging thirst.
‘I’m sorry,’ he’d said, and he had been. He still is.
‘What were you doing out there with her in the first place, Maart?’
‘I wasn’t outside with her…’
But she’d not been listening. She’d been tired. And raw.
‘And you know what else I heard?’ She’d not finished; she’d looked away. Mute.
‘I’m sorry,’ he’d said again. He’s not really sorry for anything last night. He was doing his job. But he is sorry that he still hasn’t really told her everything. It was all long before her, but it’s leaching into the present now.
‘Marieke has…’ She paused. ‘No. I’m too drunk. Let’s not do this now. We’ll talk in the morning.’ Maarten could hear anger in her voice. Had Aksel said something? But what could he say? What did he know?
*
There’s traffic up ahead and he curses. Adrika is meeting him at the house; Sunny is heading to the station. He’s asked Sunny to bring in the six members of catering staff that had been working last night. They’d taken Alison’s statement, but it will be useful to speak to her again today, see if anything else has occurred.
He’d told Lois to keep the house closed until the serving staff were cleared. The house guests were the only ones on site.
He can’t shake the feeling that it’s one of the guests. No fingerprints were on the letter itself, other than his and Lois’s. It had been the same for each letter – no prints. The super had been clear: No reason to hoist the red flag with any urgency. It could just be another letter with no real consequences. Remember the level of investment in the local area, Maarten. We cannot play this wrong, or jump in too soon.
And why had he gone outside? He’d seen someone standing on the grass, but whoever it was had been knocked clean out of his head. He touches his bruise. Tender.