by Tudor, C. J.
Although the beach is mostly shingle, there’s sand right at the water’s edge. Isabella likes to take off her shoes and socks and walk along the shoreline, letting the waves lap over her feet, feeling the sand suck at her toes.
She can’t bring a towel, so she’ll sit on the wall at the edge of the promenade to let her feet dry. Sometimes she’ll make musical notes in the small pad she keeps in her violin case, melodies inspired by nature. Finally, she will walk along the beach and collect pebbles and pretty shells. She has to be careful to hide these when she gets home, in case her mother realizes she has been here.
At seven o’clock, Isabella knows her time is coming to an end. She glances up. She can just about see her house from here, perched high on the cliffs, in the distance. She knows her mother will be sitting, on her own, in the huge living room, waiting for her. She sighs and traipses slowly back up the beach, treasuring her last few moments of freedom. The seagulls caw goodbye. The waves whisper farewell. Sssssh. Sssssh. She spots something glinting white amidst the brown pebbles. A shell. She crouches down and picks it up.
It’s a beautiful pink-and-white conch shell. You hardly ever saw ones this big and unbroken. Isabella checks that it’s empty inside. Satisfied, she tucks it into the pocket of her hoodie. She glances at her watch. Ten to seven. She needs to hurry.
She trots up the steps to the promenade. Cars line each side. The last of the day-trippers, perhaps enjoying a coffee or fish and chips in one of the cafés that line the other side of the road.
She takes the shell out of her pocket, unable to stop herself admiring it one final time. She remembers something Miriam said: “Hold a shell to your ear and you can always hear the sea.”
Miriam is full of funny sayings like that. Sometimes Miriam can be a bit strict, but Isabella knows there’s a different side to her. When she was little, Miriam would bake with her in the kitchen, creating sweet little fairy cakes and giant, fluffy sponges. Whenever her mother was feeling too tired, it was Miriam who would play hide-and-seek in the gardens or read to her on rainy afternoons. Now she is older, Miriam sometimes lends her the twisty thrillers she keeps in her room (rather than the literary tomes her mother prefers her to read). Their little secret.
Isabella smiles. She raises the shell to her ear and steps into the road. The sea roars inside her head.
Perhaps that’s why she doesn’t hear the roar of the car’s engine.
1996
It all happened so quickly. That’s what people always say, isn’t it? Oh God, it all happened so quickly. But it didn’t. Not for him. He could remember every agonizing second, every sound, every tiny detail. Her final moments indelibly stamped upon his memory, in glass and bone and blood.
He wasn’t even supposed to be driving. It wasn’t his car. But he was more sober than the rest of the gang: Mitch, Jase and Kev. To call them “mates” was stretching it. Really, they were just kids he grew up with. They lived on the same estate, went to the same school. Thrown together by circumstance and postcode.
This particular night, they were sprawled on a bench on a patch of scrubby grass behind the local Spar. Dale, the manager, knew they weren’t eighteen yet but he was happy enough to sell them cheap booze. The road curved up here away from the promenade and the straggly row of fish-and-chip shops, arcades, run-down cafés and tacky souvenir shops. You could just about see the sea and the pier.
They smoked and drank cider, and even though Gabe knew that he should really head home and make a start on his college coursework, he was feeling pleasantly buzzed. And hungry.
Echoing his thought, Jase suddenly said:
“Fuck, I’m starving.”
“Me, too,” Kev slurred.
Mitch jangled his car keys. “Let’s drive down the pier, get some chips, see if there’s any fit birds hanging around the arcade.”
It was about a mile from the estate to the promenade, walkable, but Mitch had an old Fiesta that he drove everywhere. He was the only one of them who had a car. His uncle had got it cheap from some bloke he met in the pub and Mitch had done it up with a stereo, neon lights and all sorts of shit that basically screamed “Pig Me!” to passing police cars.
“C’mon.”
Mitch jumped off the top of the bench and promptly fell flat on his face. Jase and Kev guffawed like wasted hyenas. Mitch rolled over and wiped at his chin. He stared at the blood on his fingers and laughed again.
“Man, I’m soooo fucked.”
“Maybe we should walk,” Gabe said. He could feel his own buzz waning.
“Fuck that,” spat Kev.
Mitch sat up and seemed to consider. For a minute, Gabe thought he might agree, and if Mitch agreed the rest would follow, like stoned sheep.
Instead, he chucked the keys at Gabe. Gabe somehow caught them. “I don’t have a license.”
“So? You know how to drive, dontcha?”
He did. Mitch had shown him the basics.
“Gabe-o, Gabe-o,” Kev chanted. Jase just grinned like a loon.
He wanted to say no. The weed and the alcohol were wearing off, but he was still over the limit. However, if he didn’t drive, Mitch would get behind the wheel, and he was in a far worse state than Gabe.
Not your problem. Walk away. Go home.
But he couldn’t. Because saying no wasn’t just about driving the car. If he walked away now it would be the moment Gabe-o let them down. The moment Gabe-o was a fucking pussy. The moment Gabe-o stopped being one of the gang.
He took the keys, sauntered over to the car and climbed in. Jase and Kev piled in the back. Mitch staggered over and collapsed into the passenger seat next to him. As Gabe started the engine, he leaned over and cranked up the stereo that he’d fitted himself, wires snaking everywhere. The Prodigy pounded out of the speakers, shaking the whole car.
“Fucking yes!” Kev shouted.
Gabe eased the Fiesta out of the Spar car park and pulled out on to the road. He ground the gears, forcing it clunkily into third.
“Man, you drive like my nan,” Jase chortled.
Gabe scowled, face flushing. And actually, he thought, kangaroo-hopping down the road at twenty was probably even more conspicuous than just putting his foot down. He accelerated and whacked the car into fourth, hitting forty, forty-five then fifty as they wound down the cliff road. Despite his initial trepidation, it felt good.
He cruised along the promenade, the bright lights of the pier drawing closer. To his left, the sun was sinking into the sea, drowning the sky in pink and orange. To his right, rows of shabby B&Bs; a blur of fairy lights, neon and plastic chandeliers. The Prodigy screamed about being a firestarter. His foot pressed down a little harder as the chorus came on…
And she was there.
One minute the road was clear; the next, the girl stood in the middle of it.
Blonde hair, almost white, pale skin. No more than fourteen. Dressed in a simple yellow sundress and sandals. She turned. Her blue eyes widened, her mouth made a small “Oh” of surprise, as if shocked by the suddenness and finality of their meeting.
He saw all of this, even though the moment could only have lasted fractions of a second. And then she was gone, flying through the air and up, over the windshield, like a massive gust of wind had lifted her and carried her away. The impact threw him forward, the seatbelt yanked him back, slicing deeply into his chest and shoulder, head slamming against the headrest.
He heard the squeal of the brakes, even though he didn’t remember hitting them, felt the steering wheel fight against his grip as the car bucked, skidded and eventually shuddered to a halt.
I’ve hit her. I’ve killed her. I’ve hit her. I’ve killed her. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck.
He was vaguely aware of screaming and yelling, the car doors opening, Kev and Jase staggering out. He felt someone—Mitch—grab his arm. He remained crouched, frozen over the whee
l, heart trying to escape his bruised chest, breath coming in strange, small gasps. Mitch turned and sprinted away, across the road, disappearing into the side streets.
Gabe raised his eyes to the rearview mirror. The girl lay in the road, several feet behind the car. Motionless, her body oddly contorted.
He could hear shouting. People emerging from the cafés and bars, drawn by the squeal of brakes, the commotion. A portly man, who he recognized as the owner of the sundae shop, had pulled out a chunky mobile phone and was shouting about an ambulance.
For the moment, no one was looking at him. All horrified eyes were on the girl.
C’mon. Run.
He glanced toward the pier. He could do it. He could still get away. He peeled his hands from the wheel and half fell, half staggered out of the car. He took a step forward…and then turned and limped over to the girl.
She lay at odd angles in the road. Her eyes were half open, but her face was a mask of blood and a dark shadow had spread beneath her white-blonde hair. In one hand she held a shell, remarkably unbroken.
He sank to his knees beside her. He could smell rubber, salt and something darker and crueller. He reached for the girl’s hand. The fingernails were broken and torn, the knuckles flayed free of skin.
Her eyes rolled toward his.
“An ambulance is on its way,” he said, not really knowing whether it was or not. “It will all be okay.”
Even though he could already see it wouldn’t. The unnatural angles of her limbs. The blood bubbling at the corners of her mouth. Tears burned at the back of his eyes.
“I’m so sorry.”
Her lips moved. Gabe bent his face closer. Her breath was hot and metallic.
“Lisssten.”
She exhaled the word with a fine spray of blood. And, even though it was impossible because she must be in terrible pain and possibly dying, it looked like she was trying to smile.
“I can hear the sea.”
“It was an accident.”
“You were drunk.”
“I was seventeen. I made a mistake. I paid the price.”
“A suspended sentence, a fine.” Harry snorted.
“It was an accident. She stepped out right in front of me. Besides, you know that’s not what I meant.”
“Maybe it wasn’t enough.”
Gabe shook his head. “It was over twenty years ago. Why? After all this time?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you know?”
“Only what the woman told me.”
“What woman?”
“The woman who has Izzy.”
He couldn’t stop himself. Despite the sharp tug of the stitches in his side, Gabe launched out of his chair and hauled Harry up by his lapels, slamming him against the lock-up’s cinderblock wall. “What’s her name? Where is she? Where’s my daughter?”
Harry was almost Gabe’s height and Gabe was no Adonis, but he could feel the frailty of the man as he lifted him. The wasted muscle beneath the smart clothes. The faint sour smell of fear beneath the expensive aftershave. He felt a tiny spark of guilt. But only a tiny one.
“I don’t know her name. I don’t know where Izzy is.”
“Liar.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Is Izzy in danger?”
“No. It’s not like that.
“Then what is it like? Tell me!”
Harry’s face paled. He started to wheeze. Gabe released his grip. Harry sank back down on the bed. With a sigh like a death rattle, he said:
“After your call that night…Evelyn was hysterical. I persuaded her to take some tablets, to help her sleep. I didn’t sleep much myself. I woke early and went downstairs. There was a brown envelope on the doormat. No postmark, but something bulky inside. I opened it and found a mobile handset and a note: ‘Your granddaughter is alive. Take this phone and go to the park. Wait on the bench by the playground. Do not contact the police.’ ”
“And you just did what the note said?”
“I thought I had just lost my daughter and my granddaughter. Now someone was offering me hope, however insane it sounded.” He looked up at Gabe through red-rimmed eyes. “What else could I do?”
Gabe swallowed. “Go on.”
“So, yes, I went to the park. You know the one?”
Gabe knew. They had taken Izzy to that park on their sporadic visits to “Nan and Grandad.”
“I sat down on the bench and waited. I hadn’t been there long when the mobile started to ring. I answered it. A woman’s voice said: ‘Look toward the swings.’
“I turned. And she was there—Izzy—standing with a woman in the playground. The woman told me if I wanted to see Izzy again, I needed to do exactly what she said. She would call again in one hour with instructions.”
“And you let them walk away?”
“I was hardly going to give chase. At almost eighty? And I was in shock. Izzy was alive. It was impossible, a miracle.”
“So, what did you do?”
“I walked home and told Evelyn. I thought she’d say that I was going mad or demand that I call the police, but she didn’t. She took my hand and said: ‘We must do whatever she says. Anything to get our granddaughter back.’ ”
“Like drugging me, stopping me seeing the body, lying at the identification?”
“The woman told us the only way to protect Izzy was to make sure everyone believed she was dead.”
Gabe stared at him. Something else fell into place with a sickening thud.
“It was her daughter, wasn’t it? The little girl who died? The little girl you identified?”
Harry nodded, face slack.
“Why the hell didn’t she go to the police?!”
“She couldn’t. She said she had made a mistake. Become involved in something beyond her control. She had tried to save Jenny and Izzy, and it had cost her daughter’s life.”
Gabe tried to imagine how terrified someone would have to be to abandon their own daughter’s body, to let her be buried in another little girl’s grave. Terrified, or some kind of psychopath.
“How did she even find you?”
“I presume Izzy must have told her where we lived.”
Perhaps because the woman told Izzy she was taking her back to her family, Gabe thought. He tried to force the anger down.
“What else did this woman say?”
“That what happened was retribution for something terrible you had done. She said that the people responsible would never stop if they knew Izzy was still alive. Because they always settled their debts.”
“Did she say who ‘they’ were?”
“She called them ‘the Other People.’ ”
Gabe felt his spine bristle with ice.
“You believed her?”
“I’m not sure what we believed. We just wanted our granddaughter back. The woman promised that if we did this, when it was safe, she would bring Izzy to us, we could take her away somewhere. Just the three of us.”
“Just the three of you?”
“It was what Jenny would have wanted.”
“How the hell do you know what Jenny would have wanted?”
“I know she wanted a divorce. She told Evelyn.”
Gabe stared at him, stunned. Divorce. The word had hovered in the air between them sometimes, almost spoken but never quite given form, for fear that if it were to materialize, it might turn into reality.
He knew they had come close. It was getting harder and harder to hide his missing Mondays from Jenny. His agency was flexible about hours. It was a creative industry and they were happy for Gabe to work remotely a couple of days a week. But there were still times when Jenny had caught him out, calling his office, only to be told he was working from home.
“Are you having an aff
air?” she had asked him bluntly one evening. He had denied it, furiously, fervently and—thank God—she had seen the truth in his eyes. But she knew he was lying about something. Ultimately, it didn’t matter that it wasn’t an affair. It was his lack of honesty, the lack of trust that was driving an insurmountable wedge between them.
But he’d had no idea that Jenny had told Evelyn. The woman she once described as “about as maternal as Maleficent.”
He shook his head. “She never said anything to me.”
“She wanted to get away from you.” Harry snarled. “If only she had done it sooner, then maybe she would still be alive.”
Gabe wanted to argue, to deny it. But he couldn’t. It was true. If only she had left. If only she had hated him more.
“So, why isn’t Izzy with you right now?”
Harry’s lips thinned.
“Let me guess,” Gabe said bitterly. “It was never safe enough. It was always next week or month or year.”
“It was your fault. You couldn’t let it go. You couldn’t stop searching, stirring things up, looking for the damn car. You ruined it all.”
“Why the hell didn’t you go to the police?”
“We were scared. We thought, if we did, we might never see Izzy again.”
“How do you even know that Izzy is still alive? This woman—this nameless woman—could have been lying to you all along.”
Harry hesitated. His eyes staggered around as if looking for somewhere safe to settle. “Every three months we would receive a photo or a video. So we knew that Izzy was safe, looked after.”
“You have the phone? The one she gave you?”
“Yes.”
“Then show me.”
“They were encrypted. Only available to view for twenty-four hours before they deleted.”
“Then call this woman,” Gabe said. “Tell her you need to meet.”
“It won’t work.”
“Make up some story. Convince her. You’re good at lying.”
“I tried to call her after I received your message. There’s no answer.”