The Scorched Earth

by Rachael Blok

  The door opens and the dogs run in, barking. There’s shouting from Kiz, about allergies to animals.

  Ben allows it all to wash over him. He can see Tabs walking past, escorted out. Fresh blood pours down his face.

  There are shouts from further down the wing.

  ‘Aye, aye, seems like Macca’s been caught. Someone’ll pay for that,’ Kiz says, peering to see as much as he can from the door screen. ‘Someone’s getting him fresh supplies in. Wish I knew who. I reckon it’s one of the guards. Maybe Mr Shaw, whatcha think?’

  Ben shrugs. He knows it is the young one, with the black hair. But it doesn’t do to know things.

  ‘Macca’s being pulled out.’ They’re on their own again, and Kiz is glued to the barred window in the door. ‘Reckon he’ll get The Seg, and they’ll nick him for this if they can prove it’s his. Someone will pay; he’ll want to lash out,’ Kiz says again.

  And Ben worries about the blood on Tabs’s face. Whether someone is already paying.

  He needs to summon Ana. Thinking of what he told Tabs earlier, of their bunking off, he drifts back. They’d bike down to the park, sit by the lake and smoke roll-ups. In school, summer couldn’t be too long and the sun always shone. He thinks of the tang of the first roll-up hitting the back of his throat, of cheap white cider in glass bottles that used to bash his front teeth after a few, the fake ID he’d used. Ana had given him sideways glances, and he’d known she’d had a crush on him. But she’d been a kid. His little brother’s sidekick. It had been when he’d met her again at Leo’s birthday. She had been in her first job and she’d gone from a kid to a woman he shrank before. She’d walked in, all her childish awkwardness morphed to grace, and that had been it.

  When Leo had visited from New York, they’d still fitted together; Leo dropped in like water, absorbed seamlessly, no fractures.

  But when he’d died, they’d frozen like ice, and shattered. There’s a shard in him now, lodged in his core. Leo dying had driven it in and it hurts him to even think of it. Of the blood… what had happened.

  To go back to those long summers, to sit with Leo, to be with his brother again…

  He wills Ana. She arrives like a breeze.

  20

  Friday 15th June

  ANA

  ‘I thought you might want a lift?’

  Ana walks out of the station, the humidity close, sultry and sticky. Her mum is sitting on the low wall that runs down the edge of the station. Anna had left the car at home for Maisie today. She feels her hair starting to curl, her feet hot in her work shoes. Her smile seeing her mum is wide, and she shakes her head, pulling her hair out of its hold; the week has ended.

  She has checked over her shoulder all the way back. When she closes her eyes, Jam lies flat, mouth laughingly wide.

  ‘Yes, please. Want to get nails done first?’ She kisses her mum on her cheek, links her arm. She doesn’t want to go straight back to Ayot. She thinks of bodies, knives: creeping. Something is coming and she doesn’t know from where.

  Her mum laughs. Ana has talked her mum into getting her nails done twice before. Each time a success, but she comes from a generation where nail bars were unheard of.

  ‘You know I can just paint them myself?’ says her mum.

  ‘You can, but they never quite shine in the same way. And now you’re not doing the cleaning, you can’t say there’s no point, that they’ll chip off in two days.’

  The chatter in the salon is quick. They slip into the chairs, and Ana relaxes as the lady massages her hands, wipes with cotton wool. The dark red slides away. She chooses an orange for the weekend. Burnt, like the ground.

  ‘How was it? The meeting?’ her mum asks, then follows up in a rush with, ‘I’m so sorry about Jam.’

  Tipping her head quickly one way and then the other, Ana says, ‘So-so. And I know. We’ll all miss her. And you know they found… Well, you know they think she might have died because of some pills that were buried?’ She doesn’t talk about the knife. They hadn’t really talked that through. Hadn’t even touched the sides. She tries to keep things easy for her mum. Gentle.

  Her mum had left quickly after the police had said she was free to go. Watching them walk round her garden had been too much. She’d gone to meet a friend in St Albans for lunch. She hadn’t heard all the details.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘They were the same pills they found in Ben’s system, after Leo was killed. I think there’ll be some repercussions, but I don’t know what. We should be ready for a bit of upheaval. I’m sorry, Mum.’

  ‘Ana.’ She breathes it out, shocked. ‘Surely no one would bury something like that in our garden! Who would do such a thing?’

  ‘I’m guessing it was whoever buried that body, Mum. Someone has started it all back up again. I just hope it means that Ben is free. I hope it means Ben is almost out.’

  The paint goes on in long, slick strokes. The chatter all around them is of Friday night, of the weather: ‘too hot for me’, ‘when will this break?’, ‘state of our garden’. It’s a gentle hum, but Ana’s mum is quiet next to her. She wishes she could take it all away, just leave here with shiny nails, with a relaxed weekend ahead of her. Instead of bodies, bloodied burials, and a grief so deep and wide that there’s no climbing out.

  ‘You know, when your father died, I lost the plot a bit.’

  Ana glances sideways; her mum is studying the colour on her nails, wet and bright.

  ‘You probably remember, or maybe I hid it, I don’t know. But I drank a lot of gin. I used to have a glass when I woke up sometimes. I knew I was heading in a direction I didn’t want to go, but I missed him, Ana. I missed him with my heart, with my teeth and hair and nails. Every inch of me. Every inch of me hurt with missing him. The idea that I’d never see him again. That his side of the bed would be empty… I tried sleeping on his side for a while, and it helped. I slept in his clothes. I chatted to him when I cleaned, when I was in the car.’

  Tea is brought over. ‘Feet now?’ the woman asks, and Ana nods. They place their feet in bowls and sit with their fingers outstretched, splayed for the drying. They drink iced tea, holding the glasses with their fingertips.

  ‘I know what it’s like, to miss someone. I’ve been so proud of you. I know it’s been hard. You coming home. But you did the right thing. That huge flat you shared in London, you would have rattled around. Rattled off the rails… who knows.’

  Ana thinks of it. Of how she had tried to carry on. But she had been so alone. And she tried a flat-share with a friend, but they would open wine, head out to cocktail bars. She just couldn’t. Ben being sliced away had left a wound; sometimes she’s so angry with him for not seeing her, her future looks hazy and unreal, like the mirage of the heat on the roads. She has no idea what the future holds.

  Going home had felt like the only option. The easy commute, the bed still waiting. Ayot knew about the trial, but it had happened in Norfolk, it hadn’t really soiled their doorstep or asked them to take sides. Ben and Leo had grown up in St Albans, so the village had Ana’s back.

  ‘The moment I knew I had to stop was one Christmas. I had drunk so much gin by ten that morning, I couldn’t read the numbers on the oven to put the turkey in. Do you remember? I told you both I had the flu. You made scrambled eggs. I went to bed, and I cried. Sobbed so hard. I could hear you both downstairs, watching the TV for the whole day.’ She shakes her head. ‘That was it. I stopped. I kept a firm hand on it. Until I could cope. Until I could face the day on my own. As raw as I might feel.’

  Ana does remember that Christmas. She and Maisie had sat under the blanket on the sofa and huddled together, watching movie after movie. Ana had drunk, too. Not Maisie, she hadn’t let Maisie. But she had seen her mum drink. She had known where the bottles were stashed; she missed her dad as well. She had got into the habit after that of finding her mother’s drink and downing some before nights out with friends. She’d carried on for months, drinking before she went out, looking for excuses
to drink, to pretend she was having a good time. The night she’d turned sixteen she’d been out of it. The knowledge that her dad wasn’t there to see was a hole inside her. That was the night she had kissed Andy Miller. Slept with Andy Miller. When Andy Miller had had sex with her. She still couldn’t straighten it in her mind, work out the correct syntax.

  She didn’t need to tell her mum that. The next day her birthday present had arrived. A tiny puppy they had decided to call Jam, and Ana had stopped stealing drinks from her mum’s supply. In fact, she thinks, her mum’s supply had slowly disappeared. They had all worked their way through, round, up and down, zigzagging and reversing at times, but all worked their way through the loss.

  ‘All done. You have flip-flops?’

  As they walk out, the air is still sticky, the sun bright, and the streets of St Albans are filled with an early evening buzz. Tables line the huge broad street outside of cafés; the big museum in the centre is new, bright and white, almost finished. The cobbles that lead down to the cathedral gleam in the balm of the pinking sky.

  ‘Come on, love. Let’s head home.’

  Ana slips her arm through her mum’s.

  21

  Two Years Earlier

  June

  LEO

  ‘Another beer?’ Leo heads to the bar. The release from earlier has vanished. His head has begun caving in, locked in a turning vice.

  The White Horse isn’t too busy. It sits on the tiny high street that runs down to Blakeney Harbour. A family sit round a bar table playing a game of cards, and there’s a couple nearby having dinner.

  They’ve covered the rings – what Ana’s mum will say, where to go on honeymoon – albeit briefly, not too much depth. They’ve covered the deal in New York and Leo’s new-found wealth. They’ve talked about Fleeta leaving. They’ve planned their next trip. They’ve moved on to the disastrous end of season for Arsenal.

  But it’s June, and they’re no closer to talking about it.

  The thing is, Leo thinks, men are just supposed to get over things. Carry on. If he were a woman, he could rock up to a friend’s house with a bottle of wine and have a good cry. Would that help?

  It’s been years. Years and years, and therefore he should have moved on. But he can feel it crashing in. Every June.

  Ordering two more pints, he gets himself a shot and knocks it back before heading to the table. They’re sitting down the few steps at the bottom end of the bar. He knows the barmaid by sight, and he cracks a joke before carrying the beers back down. Something banal about the weather. He barely even registers what he says as he laughs to follow it through. If he were looking at himself, he would see nothing wrong. He could throw up right now.

  As he takes the first step down, he looks at Ben, on his phone, probably texting Ana. His brother is all he has left in the world. And yet anger floods his veins like fire. Why does he get off so lightly?

  When it comes down to it, he blames Ben. He had told Ben immediately. His big brother had finished his A levels and almost been out of school – surely he would know what to do? And it had been on his brother’s advice that he’d fled. Those terrible three days – no sleep, cursing himself. He had locked himself in a room and turned off his phone. But he had come out to do the right thing. He had looked himself in the mirror and known who he was. What he had to do.

  It had been too late.

  Each step down to Ben cranks up the tearing in his head. The pressure is too much. Every June. Every single year.

  It doesn’t get easier. He had talked to a therapist once. Fleeta had made him. He hadn’t told her what it was about, but she had guessed there must be something. She had seen his mood change with the season. He had managed three sessions and had even said aloud that it hadn’t been his fault. He had said he needed to forgive himself. But he can’t. It’s just not that easy. He’s swallowed by guilt the size of Jonah’s whale, and it won’t let him go.

  The grief of it. The loss.

  Ben looks up and smiles. ‘Here, let me take those. Look at this! I took a film with the GoPro and this bit is sick!’ He holds out the screen and as Leo looks down at the blue of the waves, the speed of the boat, he knows that he is about to tip it all over. He can’t bear Ben smiling on this day of all days. He’s going to burn it all down.

  22

  Friday 15th June

  MAARTEN

  ‘DI Carroll has asked if she can sit in on this last meeting and I’ve agreed. She’s heading back to Norfolk later today.’ Maarten glances at the three of them. Adrika and Sunny sit quietly, notepads out. Harper smiles up at him, leaning forward, and she swings her phone up, glances at it, pursing her mouth. She’s checking her lipstick, Maarten thinks. She looks like she’s checking her teeth, her lipstick. Then she turns it face down on the edge of his desk.

  He’s anxious to get back to Liv. The girls are at a friend’s house. The families at the school have been brilliant. Even just collecting the girls: the fast turnaround of tea from school to hospital had been baked beans, toast with cream cheese; but there had been green mould on the top of one of the cheeses where the lid hadn’t gone back on properly. He’d insisted he didn’t want Jane overworked, but had quietly stepped back, grateful that she had found the rhythm of the girls’ lives quickly.

  The kindness of people has moved him. Liv had always been the one who’d known most of their names, but they’ve introduced themselves: ‘I’m Gill, Alfie’s mum’, ‘I’m Josh, Phoebe’s dad’…

  ‘I think we have to look at the possibility that Ben Fenton is innocent, or at least if he is guilty, there is someone else involved, someone else we’re hunting for: an accomplice, possibly. If so, then who does that leave us with?’ Maarten settles back, tired eyes heavy. He picks up his coffee to take off the edge.

  Adrika stands and picks up the pen for the large whiteboard. ‘Well, I think we have to put Ana Seabrook up there. The presence of the zolpidem and the potential murder weapon buried in her garden is either persuasive evidence or a glaring red herring. And I have the feeling she’s hiding something. I think we need to take her phone in and search the house. The presence of the weapon should make that easy. No other fingerprints are on the knife, but Forensics are working on blood traces. We only have her word that they must be newly buried; that’s what opposing counsel would say. She’s certainly on our list.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘Well, we looked at this at the time. If you’ve had a chance to read the file, then—’

  Harper takes the pen from Adrika, tugging gently as she does so. It’s the first time he has seen them look at each other directly, and Adrika flushes a pale rose underneath the brown of her skin. She doesn’t let go of the pen immediately. Maarten exchanges a look with Sunny, who shrugs his shoulders.

  ‘The other suspects at the time were limited. One of the leads we never managed to follow up was the cyclist who had run into them around sunset. Fenton reported that he’d come off his bike, not badly, but that Leo had brought him up to the tent for a beer. Fenton said he stayed for about half an hour, then went on his way.’

  ‘Was he a suspect?’ Maarten asks.

  ‘He was a person of interest, not really a suspect. There was no other DNA found in the tent. Just Ben and Leo’s. But it would have been useful to have spoken to the cyclist, to get a report on the mood of the two men. All we’ve really got is Fenton’s word on things. The idea of there being a mysterious cyclist was dismissed quickly in court – too easy to say and impossible to prove.’

  ‘There wasn’t any acrimony between the two?’ Sunny asks.

  ‘There was a report of an argument in a pub. They’d been out for dinner in a pub in Blakeney, and one of them stormed off. We checked CCTV and it was Ben who left. Leo finished the drinks and then paid the bill, following an hour later. The pub is a quiet family place. They stood out. They’re known by sight by some in Blakeney, and their behaviour was unusual. They argued about something that night.’

  ‘And no idea
what the row was about? Ana Seabrook didn’t know?’ Maarten asks.

  Harper Carroll shakes her head. ‘She was a mess in her interview but no, she said she hadn’t a clue. Nothing reported from any of the others. And we interviewed widely.’

  ‘And you never found the murder weapon?’ This time Adrika asks the question, and Maarten sees her writing in her notebook as she does.

  ‘No. No body, no murder weapon. But it was Leo Fenton’s blood alright. He gave regularly as a donor and we were able to match it exactly. And so much of it. And traces found leading to the edge of the coastal path. They found an item of clothing beached up, still with traces of blood, and his watch was recovered from the seabed. His body was presumed lost at sea. He has never been heard of again.’

  ‘They were quick to convict, with Fenton? There must have been some kind of motive made clear.’

  Carroll crosses her legs, tilts her head to the right. ‘Well, apart from the row, it was the sheer volume of blood – the fingerprints of Ben and Leo everywhere and nothing else. Plus, as discussed, there was an inheritance of roughly a million dollars, and Ben Fenton’s finances were not strong, certainly not compared to Ana’s. And that’s a problem for some men – their partners out-earning them. Usually, as you know, they have to wait a certain period of time to declare a death without a body, but these were unusual circumstances. There was so much blood. He was dead and Ben was the only other person there. Apart from the cyclist, but as I said, we’ve never traced him.’

  ‘That’s strange, don’t you think?’

  ‘It depends. Ben Fenton said he thought he sounded South African. If he exists, then he possibly went home from his holiday and never checked an English paper. That coastal path is a popular place to cycle. It’s so remote – come and see it. Why don’t you visit?’

  Maarten nods. He should. This case needs a few leads stretching somewhere.