Cruel Summer

by James Dawson

  Thank God for the DJ having the common sense to turn the music back on at that moment. Any further words were drowned out by House of Pain.

  The walls felt like they were crumbling down. Alisha didn’t even notice Greg drag her away. All she could see was Janey swing for Ben. It seemed to happen in slow motion. Ben’s head snapped back as her hand made contact with his cheek. Miss Hoffman tried to pull them apart, but Janey spat in his face, turned and stalked away.

  Janey’s scarlet dress was the only colour in the washed-out, grey room. As Greg practically carried Alisha out of the main exit, Janey pushed through the fire escape and fled into the night.

  It was the last time anyone saw her.

  Unless one of them had seen her again – and killed to keep it a secret.

  SCENE 20 – ALISHA

  ‘When did it happen? You and Ben, I mean,’ Alisha asked Katie as they sat there together on the bed.

  Katie just managed to blink back the tear before it left her eye. She took a pause to compose herself before replying. ‘It was a totally normal day. I think it was a Wednesday. Yep, definitely a Wednesday because we’d had “Enrichment”.’ Enrichment activities were those that were designed to strengthen their personal statements for university. ‘Ben and I had both chosen pottery. How lame is that? We were carrying our crappy little clay jugs home after school and it was a really gorgeous sunny day. We walked along the cliff path. We sat down in the grass and watched the sea, talked about everything we wanted to do this year. We were so excited. I don’t even know how or why, but we started reminiscing about stuff. He said I was still the best kisser he knew. I said I’d remind him sometime. And so I did.’

  Alisha frowned. ‘It was just a kiss?’

  ‘There’s no such thing as just a kiss.’

  ‘I guess you’re right.’

  Katie ran a hand through her auburn hair, looking thoroughly exhausted. ‘It was all those clichés, Lish. It was opening the floodgates, Pandora’s Box, forbidden fruit. It was ridiculous. He was with Janey, we were both leaving in a few months, but we started texting. It was mostly harmless but Janey must have read dozens of messages. It was along the lines of “maybe we made a mistake”, “maybe we should have never split up” – that sort of stuff. God, sometimes I can’t even remember why we did break up.’

  Alisha smiled kindly and said, ‘Because you were fourteen when you got together. What? You were gonna marry your first boyfriend? Be his child bride?’

  Katie laughed. Alisha remembered telling Katie at the time that there were plenty more fish in the sea. As it turned out, all the other fish were cheap fish fingers and Ben was finest caviar.

  Katie continued. ‘Poor Janey. I can’t imagine how she must have felt. She must have thought we were all laughing behind her back.’

  ‘The ball was brutal – everyone laughing in her face,’ Alisha agreed.

  Katie gasped suddenly. ‘Oh, God! What if Ben followed her out and . . . ’

  Alisha frowned, still unable to imagine Ben hurting anyone. Ben, who had always made her feel so safe. When he was around she’d always felt like nothing bad could happen. So many times she’d been wasted, unable to put one foot in front of the other, but he’d been the one who’d made sure she’d got home or got in the taxi. Until she saw Rox’s evidence with her own eyes, she wouldn’t believe that Ben had done anything to hurt Janey. ‘Try not to think about it,’ she told Katie.

  ‘How can I not? You can’t remember anything else about that night? Nothing?’

  ‘After Greg dragged me out, I didn’t even see which way Janey went. He stuck me in a taxi by myself and sent me home. I doubt they’d have let me back into the ball, to be honest.’

  ‘So that means Greg, Ryan and Ben are all unaccounted for.’

  Alisha shrugged. ‘You’re the only one who is accounted for that night. No one saw me get home.’

  Katie gave her hand a squeeze. ‘No one’s accusing you of anything, Lish.’

  There was a tap on the door and both girls jumped. Ben appeared. ‘Hey, are you OK?’

  Neither girl replied, letting their faces say it all. On memory lane, Alisha had momentarily forgotten about Roxanne. Now the thought of Rox was back like a migraine. What were they about to do?

  ‘Yeah, that was a stupid question, sorry,’ Ben said sheepishly. ‘Katie, we need to know where you keep the cleaning stuff – mops, buckets and so on.’

  ‘Why?’ Alisha asked, and then immediately cottoned on. They had to clean away the evidence. ‘Oh. Right.’ It was time to go and face the reality of what she’d signed up for.

  SCENE 21 – RYAN

  In America, four times a year, TV channels do something called ‘sweeps’ where they take ratings for all the big shows. Accordingly, the shows in question go all out to ensure that people will stay home and watch. They’ll write some momentous event like a wedding or natural disaster into the script. In this case, Ryan reflected, the ‘writers’ had opted to kill a villainous character and have the rest of the cast dump her body at sea.

  Thinking about it like that was the only way Ryan could handle it. It was all a ratings-winner. Roxanne was a villain. What she had tried to do was criminal. She had this coming. Don’t think about what really happened. Don’t dwell on the fact that one of them was a killer, and that all of them were now accessories. Don’t acknowledge the truth.

  As darkness fell over the villa, Ryan changed into a plain black T-shirt and jean shorts before tucking his distinctive curls under a baseball cap. He’d worked too bloody hard to end up in jail and if they didn’t carefully dispose of Roxanne’s body he didn’t see how they could avoid it. If no one was going to admit to her murder – and why would they? – they’d all be put under lock and key.

  Plus this made for a much better story.

  The rest of the afternoon had been a macabre affair. While Roxanne lay on the dining-room table, wrapped up like a mummy, they’d cleaned the villa from top to bottom. You could literally eat your dinner off the floor tiles now. They’d all diligently chipped in – all except Katie and Alisha. He sensed they were on thin ice with those two. It was hot, hard, sweaty work. The sun was no longer a friend but an enemy, making every small movement a major undertaking. It beat down on them like an oppressive physical force. Ryan had spent all afternoon on his knees by the pool, scrubbing every inch of the floor. If they were going to do this, they had to do it right. By the time they’d finished there were only three jobs remaining. They’d have to drain the pool. It looked clear blue as ever, but it must be full of Roxanne’s blood. They couldn’t work out how to use the pump, so they decided to leave it until the following day. They needed to burn all Roxanne’s stuff so that no trace of her presence remained. The last job was disposing of Rox herself.

  All day he’d waited for sadness to kick in. It hadn’t. When people die you’re meant to feel sad, but fear of his own incarceration was all Ryan could feel – it was all-consuming. He couldn’t lie to himself, but he had to pretend sadness to fool the others or they’d think he was a monster. That’s the thing with death – he’d noticed it when Janey was finally found – everyone knows how you’re supposed to react; you’re meant to drop to your knees and howl at the sky with clenched fists, but what if it doesn’t come? What if you don’t cry? What if you just feel cold?

  Ryan left the safety of his bedroom. He’d avoided the others for most of the day. What conversation was there to be had beyond ‘did you get all the blood off the tiles?’? He entered the lounge to find them all sitting around in terse, jagged silence as the sky beyond the windows deepened to the colour of a bruise. The villa seemed smaller, more claustrophobic. ‘Is it time?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Greg. Erin hovered at his side, staring blankly at the wall. It was like she’d checked out of reality. God, hadn’t they all? Ryan’s relationship with reality was tenuous at the best of times.

  ‘Please,’ Katie begged, eyes wide and honest. ‘Is there anything I can say to change your minds?’
Next to her, Ryan felt cold, hard and more than a little evil.

  Alisha sat next to Katie on the kitchen counter. ‘Whoever did this, you know you’re taking all of us down with you.’

  Ryan raised an eyebrow. If Alisha was hoping to guilt the murderer into a confession, she was going to be sadly disappointed. He suspected that this was exactly what the killer wanted – to diffuse the guilt among the crowd. When no one responded, Ryan said, ‘Big shock. No takers on the jail sentence.’

  Greg rose to his feet. ‘Come on. We can talk about this forever, but she’ll just start to smell.’

  Katie looked like she might throw up.

  ‘Once we do this, there’s no going back.’ Alisha hopped off the counter. ‘You know that, right? We can’t fish her out and say it was a mistake.’

  ‘Everything’s done.’ Greg slid open the patio doors. ‘Once this is over, all we have to do is burn all her stuff and drain the pool.’

  ‘Wait,’ Ryan said. ‘What about the evidence she said she had?’ He hadn’t forgotten that, somewhere, tucked away in the villa, there was the proof that one of them was wearing a very convincing mask.

  ‘We can search when we get back,’ Greg told him. ‘But this comes first. No body. No crime.’

  That sentiment hung in the air for a moment. ‘Come on,’ Katie sighed. ‘If we have to do this, let’s get it over and done with.’

  ‘She’s right.’ Greg clapped a hand on Katie’s shoulder. ‘Katie, it’ll be fine. We do this and we can carry on as normal.’

  Katie didn’t look at all convinced, but went along with it with a nod of her head. ‘I’ll go start the boat up.’

  ‘Are all the outside lights off?’ Ben asked.

  Ryan hurried to the kitchen and depressed the switches. The terrace and pool lights flashed off. ‘They are now.’

  The five of them hovered around the dining-room table and its gruesome centrepiece. ‘How do we do this?’ Ryan finally asked.

  ‘Same way we got her up,’ Greg sighed. ‘Ben, which end do you want?’

  ‘Dude, I feel sick.’

  ‘Just don’t think about it, mate.’

  ‘For God’s sake, I’ll do it.’ Ryan took the leg end. The quicker they started, the sooner they’d finish. Greg slotted his hands under what-used-to-be-Roxanne’s shoulders but, now that she was wrapped up, he couldn’t hook his hands into her armpits and she was harder to hold.

  ‘It might be easier for me to do it alone,’ Greg suggested.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Ryan asked.

  Greg nodded. In life, Roxanne had been actress-thin. With little effort, Greg hoisted the mummy off the table. The body seemed stiffer than before, the corpse refusing to slump over Greg’s shoulder. Of course – now that she was out of the water, rigor mortis had set in. Ryan winced; it didn’t bear thinking about.

  Greg moved quickly. He swept out of the doors and onto the terrace. Ryan exchanged a guilty glance with Ben before following.

  The jetty was about two hundred metres down the beach from the villa. In the diminishing light, it was just a dark, crooked shape jutting into the sea. A worn stone walkway at the end of the pool terrace led straight to the wooden structure. The jetty itself had seen better days; the wooden slats were uneven and stood on worn skeleton legs which reached down into the water.

  Katie was already climbing into the boat. Ryan’s nautical knowledge was non-existent but he could see that the vessel was white with no sail, so it had to be some sort of motorboat. It was bigger than a speedboat, but smaller than a yacht.

  Greg paused to heave the body back onto his shoulder. The sheets were coming undone and a foot now stuck out at the bottom of the wrap. Ryan scanned the beach, terrified someone would be out with a dog or something. They hadn’t seen another soul in three days, so it figured that now would be the time when someone would show up. Thankfully, it was still deserted.

  The boat started with a stutter, coughing water out of the exhaust vent.

  ‘Hurry up,’ Katie shouted. ‘Before someone sees.’

  Once at the jetty, Greg lowered the body onto the slats. Alisha turned her nose up at her brother, walking straight past him towards the boat.

  ‘Let me help,’ Ben offered. The two of them carried Rox the rest of the way over the creaking catwalk.

  ‘Do you think anyone saw?’ Erin asked Ryan.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Ryan looked back over the silver sand. The interval street lights stretched all the way down the coast, and Zahara de los Atunes twinkled on the horizon, but only the villa windows watched them like eyes. ‘Did you lock up as you left?’

  ‘I just shut the terrace door.’

  ‘It’ll be fine.’ Ryan hurried down the jetty towards the boat. Greg was already aboard, and Ben lowered Roxanne into his arms. There was a ladder into the back of the boat, but it was unsteady. Ryan was reminded of his fear of the sea. Once you’ve seen Jaws . . . Ben grabbed his arm and helped him on deck. He, in turn, offered Erin a hand.

  ‘Are we all aboard?’ Katie asked. ‘Take off the rope.’

  Ryan unhooked the blue rope that tethered them to the jetty.

  ‘I can’t believe we’re actually doing this,’ muttered Alisha.

  ‘Just drive, or sail, or whatever the word is.’ Greg loomed over Katie at the helm. ‘No lights.’

  ‘Greg, I have to. It’s the law.’

  ‘You’re kidding, right? No lights.’

  Katie turned off the lights and they sailed out onto the endless black sea.

  The bow of the boat cut through the water like a fin. Ryan cursed the noise the propeller made – wasn’t there a silent mode? Waves sloshed up against the sides and he felt either seasick or simply sick.

  Now that they were here, it didn’t seem like TV any more. It wasn’t a jolly romp. It wasn’t a teen thriller. It was real. The night air was somehow both humid and cold, clinging to his skin like grease. He didn’t even know what type of crime they were about to commit. Manslaughter? Perverting the course of justice? Murderer-helping? One of them, in all likelihood, was a killer. A chill twisted the base of his spine.

  The beach was still in sight, the villa a dot of light in the distance because they’d left the lights on inside. Ryan kept his eyes fixed on that. He figured they couldn’t let it out of their sight or they’d never find their way back. That thought scared him most of all. But on the other side of tonight, there would be a new day: a new start.

  Why is this taking so long?

  ‘Is this far enough?’ It was like Greg had read Ryan’s thoughts.

  Katie stopped the engine. The boat lurched with the waves, the sea making gulping-glugging noises against the side of the vessel.

  Ryan’s head felt full of fluid, swishing with the water. ‘Far enough for what?’ he asked.

  Ben spoke up. ‘We need to make sure she won’t wash up on the beach.’

  ‘She won’t.’ Greg pointed to a pile of rocks near the door to the boat’s cabin. ‘I put them on earlier. We can weigh her down.’

  ‘But how is that going to work?’ Alisha pointed out. ‘What if the rocks come off? She’s already coming undone.’

  Alisha had a point. The last thing they needed was the body bobbing to the surface in a couple of hours’ time. Ryan started to look around the floor of the boat. ‘Katie, have you got any rope on this thing? We need to secure her better.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Katie sighed with a distant look in her eyes. Ryan got the impression she had switched off. She was refusing to engage with the whole thing. He knew she felt that he’d abandoned her. And, in that moment, he also knew that he’d never get Katie Grant back. She was lost to him. No more Ryan-hugs. It was a price he guessed he’d have to pay for his freedom.

  Ben lifted one of the seats. ‘There’s rope in here. We can use that.’

  Katie peered out from under her fringe, dark shadows circling her usually sweet eyes. Through gritted teeth she muttered, ‘You don’t have to use rope and rocks. In the cabin there’s
all my dad’s diving stuff. You can use his belts and weights.’

  ‘What belts and weights?’ Alisha asked.

  ‘For deep sea diving.’ Greg’s eyes lit up. ‘They stop you floating back to the surface. That’s awesome. Thanks, Katie.’

  She said nothing, but turned away from them and laid her weary head on the steering wheel.

  Greg was already rummaging around in the cabin. He emerged a second later carrying a bag overflowing with diving tackle. ‘This weighs a ton.’ He threw it onto the boat floor. Ryan got stuck in. There were three or four belts tangled together. He pulled at one until it fell away from the others. At the bottom of the bag were square yellow weights of different values.

  ‘Won’t it be a bit suspect if the police find Rox’s body with a diving belt attached?’ Ryan suggested.

  ‘They won’t find her,’ Greg said confidently. ‘Sharks will be able to smell the blood from miles away. In a few days there’ll be nothing left to find.’

  ‘Oh, my days!’ Alisha threw her hands up. ‘Could you at least try not to sound so excited about this?’

  ‘I guess we should unwrap her then,’ Erin said, changing the subject and getting to work with no complaints – as efficient as any surgeon and without a trace of squeamishness. Ryan assumed this wasn’t the first corpse she’d ever seen if she was studying medicine.

  ‘This is sick.’ Alisha twisted her body away, refusing to look.

  In the moonlight, now unwrapped, Roxanne glowed. She was otherworldly, ethereal. Her skin and lips were bleached white, and only her eyelids looked dark. Her face already appeared sunken, her cheekbones more prominent. She belonged to the dead now.

  The first pangs of guilt struck Ryan like lightning bolts. Suddenly, he didn’t want to do it. This was too much. He thought of Rox’s uncle and aunt in Telscombe Cliffs. There were people who’d miss her. He steeled himself, gripping the rim of the seat behind his back.

  Get it together! a harsh voice in his head told him. It was too late to save Roxanne. Guilt wasn’t going to achieve anything. Nothing he did was going to bring Rox back from the dead. It was over for her. It didn’t have to be over for him. He tried to draw strength from Greg, who seemed so cool, so strong.