The rain stopped and a watery sun broke through the clouds. We watched the waves hitting the pebbles, not wanting time to take us prisoner as it had Mrs Berry.
‘What happened to Phoebe?’ I asked.
Becky had a distant look in her eyes.
‘She and her husband were killed in car crash. Their car burst into flames – burnt up the tarmac. It was so ferocious it left a crater in the road.’
Everything we talked about on that stony beach ended in death. I changed the subject.
‘So – what’s going on with you and Icarus?’ I asked.
‘What do you think of him?’
‘I think maybe he’s not of our world,’ I said. ‘I don’t know. But you didn’t answer my question.’
Becky stared at the white stone. ‘I love him,’ she said.
‘Wait, Becky, no. This is crazy. Think of what Mrs Berry just said about the creep in the pantry. You don’t need to be Sherlock bloody Holmes to work out he is after Icarus. And if – and I can’t believe I’m even thinking this – if Icarus is an alien, the last thing you need is to get muddled up in all that shit. All right, he’s helped you to eat again. Leave it there and –’
Becky interrupted my alien rap.
‘Why don’t you ever listen to me?’
‘I do!’
‘No, you don’t. You’re like all the rest. A smile, a pat on the back, let’s talk about something else. Poor Becky this, poor Becky that. I’ve told you I love Icarus – he’s the one. The numero uno, the main squeeze, whatever you wish to call him, and all you can say is “no” because he is an alien.’ Her voice became louder with every furious word. ‘Are you my friend or not? Those notebooks that he gave me, that no one has been able to decipher – they don’t need a code. The minute I saw his writing I could read it, and he knew it. It’s because he loves me that the words make sense. It’s because I love him that I can read them.’
I’d never seen her this angry, not even when Simon told her he had left Ruth.
‘Sorry,’ was all I could say, and like all sorrys, the word failed to work.
Chapter Twenty
Before we’d left The Beeches, Becky had called for a minicab to pick us up from Shingle Street. I was glad to see it was the woman driver again.
Becky wasn’t speaking to me.
We were nearing Orford when my phone bleeped.
where are you
are you all right
The texts were from Alex. I smiled. Silly how two messages from someone you fancy can make you feel ten feet tall. I noticed they’d been sent at three o’clock and then again at three-fifteen. It was now nearly seven. They’d taken four hours to come through. It was like being in the Dark Ages up there, and talking on tin cans. I should have known then that something was wrong. Alex wasn’t the kind of person who sent the same message twice by accident. I quickly texted back, saying we were nearly home. He didn’t reply.
I’d been thinking I might tell Becky about Alex and me but decided it was too soon and best to leave it. I felt rather awkward and anyway it didn’t strike me that it was the day for that kind of conversation. It also might drag up the subject of Icarus again and that was a topic that could throw our friendship into the abyss for all eternity.
When Orford came into view we could see a plume of smoke rising above it.
‘What’s that?’ I said.
‘Perhaps it’s the smoke house,’ said Becky, not sounding convinced.
By the time we’d reached Pump Street the air stank of acrid smoke – unlike the high-class, perfumed, wood-burning-stove smoke that usually wafted around the village.
I spotted Alex outside the bakery. My heart soared when I saw him – and plummeted when he started speaking.
‘Where have you been?’ he said, his tone cold.
Becky explained that we had been to see Mrs Berry.
‘You were going to her cottage today,’ he said. It was a statement of fact rather than anything to be disputed.
‘Yes,’ said Becky. ‘We went, and I picked up the Doulton figurines she left for me.’
‘You didn’t light anything in the cottage?’ Alex said.
‘No – why would I?’
‘You didn’t turn on the cooker, have a fag, light a candle?’
‘No,’ said Becky. This time she didn’t sound quite so certain. ‘What’s happened?’
Alex’s face softened.
‘I came here on my moped the minute I heard.’
‘Heard what?’ asked Becky.
‘About the fire at Mrs Berry’s cottage. It was on the local news.’
I felt a chill run down my spine.
‘I was worried you might have gone to the cottage this afternoon,’ said Alex. ‘So I went straight there. I spoke to the fire officer – he said it went up as fast as kindling. If anyone had been inside they wouldn’t have stood a chance. Why do you never answer your phone?’
‘How did it catch fire?’ I asked, though I wanted to ask where the fire had started, for I had a terrible feeling that I knew the answer to that one.
‘They don’t know yet, but the fire officer thought it started in the pantry. I didn’t know there was a pantry. I never saw one in all the time I went there, did you, Becks?’
‘No,’ said Becky. It was that ‘no’ that became the lock on the door of a lie.
One lie, two lies, three lies and all truth lies ripped apart. But once Becky had said that ‘no’ and said it so firmly, there was nothing to do but go along with it.
We walked to where the two fire engines were parked, plus police cars and a rescue unit. All the inhabitants of Orford seemed to have gathered to stare at the charred remains of Mrs Berry’s cottage.
We went into the Burnses’ house through the back door. I was glad we’d had the nous to hide the painting before we’d headed off for the retirement home.
‘Tea,’ I said, and filled the kettle while Alex examined the china figurines.
I thought, that’s what all British people do when they don’t understand what’s going on: make a nice cup of tea. I tell you, Mr Jones, when the end of the world comes, Britain will whistle to the sound of all those kettles on the boil.
The doorbell rang; Becky went to answer it. I could hear voices in the hall and then two police officers came in.
One was a woman who looked at me and said, ‘Are you Jazmin Little?’
I nodded. Never been that keen on the police – where I come from they mean trouble, either for you or someone you know.
‘I want to ask you both questions about the fire in Mrs Berry’s cottage this afternoon. You were the last people to be seen there.’
Mrs Sunshine hadn’t wasted a moment in doing her civic duty. Becky did the talking; I just nodded. When asked if we’d gone into the pantry, I couldn’t think why we didn’t just tell the truth. But I suppose if we had done we would have had to hand over the painting. I knew that Becky had no intention of doing that.
By the time the two officers left it was getting dark and I was starving. I started to make supper. I wanted Alex to stay, wanted to have a chance to talk to him alone. But that evening it proved impossible because suddenly Becky went from not talking to me to talking so much affectionate dribble about me that I was embarrassed. I felt it was coded language for ‘Don’t say a word, Jaz, about the pantry or the painting. Don’t say a word.’
I was wondering if Alex had gone off me because he hardly looked in my direction. At ten he stood up and said he should be going.
‘Stay,’ said Becky. ‘We can watch a film. I’ll make popcorn.’
To my surprise he agreed. Horror films are not really up my street. This one was about seven teenagers who spend a weekend in a spooky old house. All but one ends up dead. Becky’s popcorn was good though.
We went to bed about twelve-thirty. Becky was staying in the main bedroom that had this enormous four-poster bed. Six people could sleep in it comfortably.
I went in to ask how she was feeling. She sai
d she still felt a little weird.
‘This red spot really throbs.’ I was by the door when she sat up. ‘Oh, I left my rucksack downstairs.’
‘You stay in bed,’ I said. And I ran down to get it for her.
I had my own bedroom with a big double bed. Alex usually stayed in the guest room but he didn’t stay there for long that night because he came to see me. All I will say is that I was wrong. He hadn’t gone off me. I don’t know what time we fell asleep but I know it was three o’clock when we woke to the sound of Becky screaming. Alex took a towelling dressing gown with huge daisies on it from the back of the door. I pulled on the dress I’d been wearing the day before and we ran downstairs. Becky was in the kitchen with a glass of water in her hand.
‘He’s out there,’ she said, pointing to the picture windows.
‘Who?’ said Alex, as he found a torch. He had his hand on the door handle, ready to go outside.
‘No!’ we both screamed.
‘It isn’t safe,’ said Becky. ‘He’s dangerous.’
‘I can’t see anyone,’ said Alex. ‘It’s that film we watched – it’s given you the freaks.’
I was nearly down on the cinema floor with the popcorn, I was so damned scared at that moment. Alex turned on all the kitchen lights and the security lights in the garden came on automatically.
‘What did he look like?’
‘A punk with a Mohican haircut,’ said Becky. ‘He had red eyes and no shoes,’ she added.
‘That’s a bit prehistoric,’ said Alex.
The mark on Becky’s forehead had begun to bleed.
‘What the fuck is going on?’ I said.
Becky was shaking.
‘Calm down, both of you. Here, Becky,’ he handed her a tissue. ‘It’s only a zit that’s burst.’
‘I don’t know how much more of this weird shit I can take,’ I said.
‘What weird shit?’ asked Alex.
‘It’s nothing,’ said Becky, ‘but perhaps we should all stay together.’
I definitely felt that was a good idea.
‘I’m going to call the police,’ Alex said. He picked up the house phone, then put it down again.
‘What is it?’ I said.
‘It’s dead.’ He tried his mobile without any success. ‘OK,’ said Alex. He sounded a little less confident than he had a moment before. ‘We’ll stay together and deal with it in the morning.’
We all went upstairs to Becky’s bedroom. We didn’t turn off the lights. We did draw the blinds. We lay there listening to our hearts beating, an owl hooting, and that’s when we heard the kitchen door being rattled.
‘It’s just the wind,’ said Alex.
After what we had seen in Mrs Berry’s cottage, I wasn’t that convinced.
‘Breathe, both of you,’ said Alex when all was quiet again. ‘It’s only …’ Alex didn’t finish what he was saying because we could hear someone or something coming slowly up the stairs.
Becky had grabbed her mobile and was desperately tapping. ‘Why doesn’t this sodding thing work?’
Outside in the hall someone walked up and down. Then tried the door knob. Then there was silence again. Then a fist smashed through the wood panelling of the bedroom door.
‘What the fuck!’ shouted Alex.
I think we screamed. Maybe we didn’t. To tell you the truth, I can’t remember. The next thing I was conscious of, it was eleven o’clock in the morning. I never slept that long – usually I was up much earlier. Something to do with the birds and the bees and that blooming cockerel across the way. But it was a battle to stay awake – all of me longed for sleep. Alex was out cold. Becky was lying there with her eyes wide open, staring at the remains of the bedroom door.
‘I’d hoped it was a nightmare,’ she said.
I told her I would make us some tea and climbed out of bed.
I didn’t recognise the kitchen. Everything had been trashed, or rather, everything had been methodically taken to pieces: all the kitchen units were unscrewed from the walls, all the cupboards emptied. It was a combination of a building site and a high-class junkyard. All I could think was that the noise involved in such destruction would surely have woken us. I do remember a sound that seemed to come from me.
Alex told me later that I’d hit my head on the table because I had fallen unconscious to the floor. I gave myself a nasty bruise. It was only when the police arrived shortly afterwards that we realised we’d slept all through Friday and Saturday and it was now Sunday morning.
Chapter Twenty-One
The woman police officer who had questioned us on Thursday turned up again that morning. She was becoming an unpleasant habit that I wished we could break. She said her name was Fisher. She said she’d told me that before. With her came a detective who was called August. At least, I thought that was what he said. My brain was so juggled that names became pictures, and I remember thinking that August was a time for fishing.
Sergeant Fisher wanted to know if we’d taken any drugs. She really had a wasps’ nest in her bonnet about that.
‘Any mind-altering substances?’ she asked for the twentieth time.
I couldn’t see what was wrong with the answer ‘no’. No was the truth.
The detective weighed up Alex and then said he had known cases where even a skinny lad like Alex could cause a great deal of destruction if he’d taken LSD.
‘Why would I want to dismantle my father’s house?’ said Alex.
I don’t know why I became spokesperson but I did.
‘No,’ I said again. ‘All we took was popcorn. We watched a film and had popcorn.’
Detective August wasn’t the sunniest of men. January might have suited him better.
The detective flicked through his notes.
‘You are Alexander Burns?’ he said.
‘Yep. Becky is my sister. Half-sister, if you want to be accurate. Personally, I hate splitting the difference.’
Becky was clinging onto her orange rucksack as people cling onto lifebuoys when shipwrecked. She was the sleepiest of us all.
A doctor arrived to examine us. Then a procession of people in white boiler suits and blue plastic gloves went into the kitchen. I really wish I could remember the order all this happened in, Mr Jones, but that morning was a complete daze.
Nothing made much sense until Mari turned up in a sail of colourful fabric, her hair tied in a scarf, and the sight of her made me feel that everything might be all right. The morning would become the afternoon and the day would anchor itself in Sunday. I’d always had this crazy idea of the perfect mum, one who would be there to make you tea after school, worry about your teeth, that sort of thing. And the minute I saw Mari I thought, this is the woman I would have loved for a mum.
She looked relieved to see her son. He stood and she gave him a hug.
‘I thought you were on the boat.’ Then to me she said, ‘You must be Jazmin.’ And she put out her hand to me. ‘Alex has told me about you.’
I came over all shy, as if I was in the school playground and the secret of the first kiss was all over my face, as if she knew about Alex and me. She saw Becky, staring at nothing, and knelt down beside her.
‘Becky, it’s Mari,’ she said. ‘Remember me?’
Becky nodded.
Mari spoke to the doctor.
‘Becky isn’t well,’ she said. ‘I’ll take her home with me.’
But the doctor insisted that he had to do blood tests, and that they had to be done at the police station. We went in Mari’s car. We kept falling asleep and the time in the police station was punctuated by plastic cups of coffee. Becky wouldn’t let go of the orange rucksack. When the detective asked to see what was inside, Becky woke up.
‘No. Leave it alone,’ she said. ‘It’s private – it’s my work.’
I could see the detective thought that it was her drug stash.
Finally she handed it over and then I realised why she had been clinging to it. Out came her computer, Icarus’s exercise
book, the magic-shop stone, and, wrapped in Mrs Berry’s tea cloth, the painting.
Detective August flicked through the exercise book but, amazingly, didn’t seem to have much interest in art. Something in Mari’s face told me she had seen the painting before.
‘Becky Burns – of course, you’re the writer,’ he said, as Becky put everything back. ‘The Martian Winter.’ A smile nearly formed on his face but at the last minute he had a change of heart.
Mari took us to her home in her beaten-up old Volvo. It smelled of dog. I remember thinking what a comforting smell it was, though I’d never had a dog. She lived not far from the River Dedham in a barn that had been converted into a house. It was the kind of place you see in magazines described with words like ‘shabby chic’. No minimalism there, it was full of bosomy sofas, lots of books, paintings and sculptures. I didn’t know that Alex had twin brothers – Jake and Ben. They were about nine and just asked question after question – not about what had happened to their brother but about the police station and what the detective looked like. I felt really at home and thought, forget Shingle Street, this is my manor.
Becky had hardly said a word.
I sat with her and said, ‘Talk to me, Becks.’
She looked at me as if I was a stranger, then said, ‘Icarus is in danger.’ I was glad that Mari was in the kitchen and hadn’t heard her. ‘The man with the red eyes wants to destroy him, I’m certain of that. Jaz, we did a terrible thing,’ she whispered. ‘We should never have gone in the pantry. We should never have let him out.’
At that moment, the door opened and a Labrador ran in, followed by Mari’s husband, Tom, laden with fishing tackle.
‘Alex,’ he said. ‘Are you OK, son?’
‘Yeah, I’m fine, Dad,’ Alex replied, and you could see by the way he looked at his stepfather that he meant every one of those three letters.
‘You’re Jazmin,’ said Tom to me, with a warm smile.
Becky hardly noticed when Tom greeted her. ‘I have to talk to him,’ she said.
My Side of the Diamond Page 8