by Rachael Blok
A tattoo peeps from beneath his heavy watch strap, shiny with loose links. It lies over his wrist in the shape of a bird. But Ana knows that underneath the wings lies the word Ana. He had it done after she had left him. He had greeted her one morning with it raised in a salute. Because if she was inked into his skin, surely she couldn’t leave? A retrospective claim. Ownership by nomenclature.
But looking at him now, she’s also surprised, taken aback. She would say he has no idea why Maisie is shouting at him, why he’s the target. Two red patches are burning in his cheeks, like hot pennies.
‘Why Jam? Not content with oppression? With quiet whisperings that she shouldn’t go on that girls’ night out? That weekend away with friends? That she was starting to put on weight! A year of using her diminishing confidence to bolster yours? You have to kill her dog? Our dog?’
‘Maisie.’ His hands lower and are held up, like a white flag. ‘Maisie, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Is Jam dead? Why would anyone kill a dog? Maybe she’s just—’
‘You killed her! You did it. Someone has poisoned her, and I know it was you!’
Ana slides to a stop. Her trainers are slipping on her feet. She hadn’t quite got them on properly before sprinting. She hadn’t had time to put on a bra and her chest aches from running – she’s suddenly aware she too has just pulled on last night’s dress, and she has no underwear on, she hasn’t brushed her hair and she feels part naked. Not the ideal outfit for this first meeting, after a year of feeling bruised and haunted.
‘Maisie,’ she says, touching her sister’s elbow. It stands out at an angle, and it’s shaking too. But it’s not dropping.
‘Ana.’ His eyes glide to her and she refuses to look away. Like a child’s staring competition, she won’t blink. Her stomach rolls like she’s at sea; she holds his look.
Finally, he shrugs. ‘I didn’t kill your dog, Ana. It’s good to see you.’ His tone is bored, but his eyes are hard, like flint.
Sirens sound behind them, and from behind the door, Fabian’s mum appears and looks sheepish.
‘Ana, it’s you. I had no idea – I heard shouting and I was scared. After the body this week… but if I’d known.’ Valerie Irvine pulls her dressing gown around herself tightly. She hasn’t quite come out of the house, but the door is ajar. They all stand, slightly unhinged.
There’s a pause as footsteps come running up behind them.
Maisie is quiet now. She is still standing up against Fabian, unrelenting, but she has said her piece.
‘Hello? What’s going on?’
‘I’m sorry, Officer. I think there’s been a misunderstanding,’ Valerie begins. Ana admires her stepping up to it, wanting to calm the situation down. But then she’s had years of dealing with his moods. If Valerie has seen Fabian at his worst, she must be a master at the role of pacifist, apologist. Ana has always liked Valerie, but also feels a bite of pity. What it must be like, to have to live with that ego. To love it unconditionally. Love and fear.
There are more steps behind, and Ana recognises one of the police officers who had been to her house. The short, dark one. Today she pushes through the gate with her head up, and the uniformed officer defers quickly to her by stepping aside, turning towards her to report the situation. She nods at him, but doesn’t turn full round. Her eyes are looking at the four of them, and despite Maisie’s stance, her gaze lands on Ana, and is appraising.
‘Ms Seabrook. Would you like to tell me what this is all about?’
Ana steps forward and opens her palms, like she’s holding wool that is being wound. ‘Our dog, and we saw that…’ She doesn’t dare accuse Fabian. It might have everything to do with Fabian Irvine. Or it might not.
‘There’s something new, after yesterday?’ She takes a step forward and nods to Valerie, to Fabian, to Maisie. ‘I’m DI Verma.’ She smiles warmly at Valerie, who Ana can see is frightened at the formality of this officer, so obviously a step up from the uniformed PC.
‘Would you like to come inside?’ Valerie says. Her eyes peep up the road. Ana knows she will not like dirty laundry aired in public. They live in a big house, and have a biggish reputation in this small village. Dirty laundry should be kept firmly behind closed doors.
There is a crowd now. And it is for them, Ana is convinced, that Fabian shakes his head, and exclaims, ‘Whatever,’ and steps back, disappearing into the house.
Maisie looks at her, raising her eyebrows, and Ana nods. She takes her hand. ‘Come on,’ she whispers.
DI Verma follows them in, and the door closes. They are locked in the room now. The air, already stifling, thickens still. Ana glances at the door, claustrophobia crushing her chest. She wants to cry for Jam. She will not run from him. For Jam she will stay and face him.
Now that she has seen Fabian, he doesn’t seem to fit the figure in the cap. The profile is wrong, somehow.
If so, it means there is someone else. That there’s someone out there, lurking in the hot darkness after the sun goes down. Creeping around her house. Can it really be Leo? Back from the dead? Would he want her to feel so afraid?
The thick heat of the sun has raised something. It’s killing the roots of the trees, the grass, the flowers. It slaughters life all around it. But something beneath it is thriving. Something rotten. Something coarse.
Evil lies festering.
Unearthed. Unknown.
26
Monday 18th June
MAARTEN
‘How was the weekend?’ Adrika asks, coming into Maarten’s office for the morning briefing.
‘Good!’ He stretches back in his chair. ‘Liv is really on the mend. In between hospital visits we managed a walk, took the girls swimming in the river. Voortreffelijk!’
Adrika laughs at his good mood.
Maarten knows he is usually not the most effusive, but Liv is doing so well and the girls are sleeping much better; he is sleeping much better. Even the heat has not soured his mood. It lies heavy over the country, hanging in the air with its power to flatten. He’d caught a discussion on the radio on his way in about global warming, field fires; even then his mood had held.
‘Morning.’ Sunny arrives with coffee for the team. His face, Maarten notices, has darkened to a tan, rather than a burn.
‘Thanks,’ Maarten says. ‘Good weekend?’
Sunny nods and says, ‘Yes, and I’ve got good news for you.’ He and Adrika exchange a look.
‘I was in the pub with some friends at the weekend. You know I went to a comp in St Albans, different one to Ana Seabrook and Leo and Ben Fenton, but there aren’t more than a few years between us. One of my mates from the cricket team was at school with them, and he said that Leo and Ana were thick as thieves when they were young. Ben didn’t get together with Ana until much later, but Ana and Leo always had a special bond. Said he wasn’t surprised to hear there’d been trouble over the older brother getting together with her. I obviously didn’t comment, but they’re all talking about the case. It’s made local news.’
‘Now that,’ Maarten says, ‘could be nothing, or it could be very interesting.’
‘Ana Seabrook didn’t talk about their childhood at all. I guess it was fairly tangential to the case,’ Adrika says. ‘There’s not much in the original file.’
‘Something else we can talk to Fenton about. Good work, Sunny,’ Maarten says, scribbling notes.
‘No problem.’ Sunny smiles.
‘And on the subject of weekend work, we have a newly entered Fabian Irvine in the mix,’ Adrika says. ‘The Seabrooks, or more specifically Maisie Seabrook, the younger sister of Ana, has accused him of killing their dog.’
‘Who?’
‘Ana and he were in a relationship a few years ago. Abusive, as far as I can tell from what was being shouted in the street. The PC got there before me and heard quite a bit. Nothing physical, but emotional abuse, wearing her down, veiled threats et cetera. Anyway, he usually lives in New York, but was seen in Ayot on Saturday morning. We checke
d flights, and he actually landed in England over a week ago – before the body was buried – but he claims to have attended a music festival when he got here, and said he only got to Ayot late on Friday night. Maisie Seabrook believes killing the dog is within character.’
‘What does Ana say?’
‘Very little, to be honest. I get the impression she’s holding something back, but it’s nothing I can put my finger on. She’s got a lot to cope with at the moment, I suppose. The dog’s blood test suggests she died from the pills – I think we can presume poison, either accidental or intentional.’
‘Well, if Irvine is involved, it will be more than killing the dog. Was he ever a suspect in the original killing?’
Adrika shakes her head. ‘No, but Maisie Seabrook has accused him of jumping on the back of the news of the body and planting some pills and a knife as a way of harassing Ana Seabrook. She said he wants “to crush her”.’
Maarten tips his head to the side, making notes. ‘That’s quite a claim.’
Adrika shrugs. ‘Maisie shouted at Irvine, but nothing else. There’s nowhere to go with it. I’ve sent some PCs out to take statements, CCTV, any witness reports et cetera. I’ll leave it to them. It’s not really part of our investigation at the moment so I’m leaving it to uniform. Nothing to connect it to the body other than an accusation. Nevertheless, we’d be fools to dismiss it entirely.’
Maarten drinks his coffee. His mind is filled with the act of killing a dog. Who would do that? And how do you do it in the night?
‘Do we have anything new from SOCO?’ he asks.
‘Nothing other than the confirmation on the pills,’ Adrika says, drinking from the coffee she’d brought in. ‘But we’ll know more later. Still waiting on the knife.’
Maarten taps his pen, underlining a couple of notes. ‘Let’s follow up with this Fabian Irvine. You’re right to leave it to uniform, but keep me updated. How long has he been in Ayot?’
‘He got back the afternoon before the body was buried,’ Adrika says. ‘What time did his flight land, Sunny?’
‘Two p.m., and the rental car was picked up at 2.45 p.m.’
‘And no word on our body yet?’
‘Not yet,’ Adrika says, shaking her head.
Maarten sketches out his list of suspects. It’s too vague. There’s something they’re not seeing. ‘I think we need to go backwards a bit. It feels like we’re starting at the end of the puzzle, not the beginning. There’s something else, I’m certain. Can you call and get an appointment to drive up and see Ben Fenton?’
Sunny notes it down. ‘Of course. He’s not too far from here. Try for later this afternoon, is that OK?’
Maarten nods. He draws a black circle around the name Fenton on his list. ‘Fenton is doing his time for this murder. Whoever has buried this skeleton could be working with him. The burial implies Fenton’s innocence, no? If Fenton was inside when the body was discovered, then it hasn’t been him hiding it. Unless he’s paid someone to do this. And the same for the murder weapon.’
‘Someone wants the two acts linked, they must do,’ Adrika says. ‘Does that draw a link between Fenton and Seabrook?’
‘It would seem to show both of them as innocent, or guilty. What about if they’re in it together? If Fenton did kill his brother, and did time for it; and then the body comes along two years later, and he gets let out, then he gets away with it… What if Seabrook’s been hiding the body the whole time?’
‘That works,’ Adrika says.
‘Best double bluff there is, innit,’ Sunny says. ‘Clever as.’
Maarten gazes at his list: Fenton, Seabrook, Irvine, the mysterious cyclist.
‘It’s still too short. This has been planned for a while. No fingerprints, no evidence, somewhere to keep the body… someone is invested in this. And why the graveyard? Why that graveyard? Let’s try to start from the beginning. Let’s rework the case. Who’s got Harper’s file?’
‘I have,’ Adrika says.
‘Great. Go over it again. From the start. Go over interviews. See if Irvine comes up in there. If it’s not Seabrook behind this, then she’s certainly on the receiving end of a lot of it at the moment.’
Something’s buried. It needs digging out.
27
Monday 18th June
BEN
Still nothing of any use. He chucks the letter on the bed. Useless solicitor. No plans to visit him. Just writing expensive, complicated letters.
He’s thought long and hard about who could have killed Leo. And he’s never come up with anything. Played that night over and over.
He thinks of Leo’s smile as he handed over the last beer. The sun had set behind him like the sky was on fire: the clouds violet, the light over the sea all the shades of yellow and orange. They had crossed the necks of the bottles, like they’d always done. The anger from earlier gone – the air still and warm. He had loved Leo; waves of love sun-warmed, sitting where they sat every year. The camping ground held their history. Even as boys, when the house behind them had been theirs, they would sneak down to this spot, drink beers stolen from the fridge; they’d tried their first cigarette there.
Ben wipes the tears away, pleased Kiz is out on duties. In the same way he has banished Ana, he daren’t let himself dwell on Leo. The grief is a hole inside of him and also one that threatens to swallow him. Who could have done this?
Leo was all the goodness in the world.
It must have been some random attack – as unlikely as the court had seemed to find it. They had no enemies. Unless you counted… Well, that was ages ago. Surely that can’t have had anything to do with it? They’re all grown-ups now, concerned with being grown-ups. They owed no one money.
He squeezes out a blob of toothpaste and sticks the letter to the wall. He’s got the other stuck up there, and he’d cut out the newspaper article the librarian had saved for him. His file notes.
Reading again, he circles the church.
Why there? Why did they bury the body there? Ana is from Ayot, but he and Leo grew up in St Albans. Why kill Leo in Norfolk and bring the body back here two years later?
He scribbles notes quickly, then there’s a bang on the cell.
Lunch.
The food tastes fake. Fake food. Play food. He talks himself into eating it. One day at a time. One hour at a time. One minute at a time. Oblivion, for many of them, was the goal.
Kiz enters, jittery. ‘Alright, mate? Just been for a bit of exercise, like.’
There’s a gleam in his eye. He flicks on the TV and jumps up on the top bunk.
They don’t normally share a cell. The one Kiz is usually in had been wrecked. Kiz had been in a fight that had got out of control. They were sorting it out. Ben has come to know Kiz’s ways quickly. He is not a complicated animal.
From the gleam in his eye, Ben would guess Kiz is going to take spice. Where he’s found the money Ben has no idea – he’s subbed him from his canteen already this week.
But Kiz is as blatant as a kid stealing sweets; Ben knows his patterns, his routines, and he’s been fidgety for a few days. He’s been doing something to earn a supply. Since the dogs there’s been a quick trade. They reckon they’ve got a few weeks.
The first sign is quiet. Kiz is never quiet. Usually when people are excited, they babble. But babble is Kiz’s status quo. His quiet is louder than someone else’s shout. Ben hears it all the way down from the top bunk.
‘Turn it up, mate?’ Kiz shouts down. Ben flicks the TV and lies against the wall on his bed.
It’s none of Ben’s business. He will call a guard if it looks like it’s going bad. Sometimes they just fall flat. Sometimes they fit. Then they need medical assistance, which comes running.
But Ben doesn’t want Kiz to die. And that’s the end product of it going bad.
Kiz is putting down his plate. Ben listens, decodes the signs.
There, he’s unwrapping the paper. There’s a gasp of excitement, like a puff of smoke.
&n
bsp; Kiz’s vape lights. Spice can be smoked, but not in here, not without detection. Vaped is much easier.
Ben counts out a full three minutes. That was how long it took last time for it to kick in. He stands and glances at the top bunk, making as if to turn off the TV. It’s second nature not to engage Kiz. If Kiz is quiet, you leave him be. Unless, of course, you think he’s dying.
There’s no sign of anything. Ben leans in and whispers, ‘Kiz, you still with me, mate?’
Kiz’s gaze back is zombie-like. His colour is still there and he’s still breathing. He’s closed for business.
Ben flicks over the TV. He gets to watch what he wants. He tries the news. There’s been nothing since that first news report and he’s been scouring every chance he gets. He flicks around and finds a local channel, but nothing. It’s taking too long. Why is it taking them so long? His solicitor had said to wait a few days.
Flopping back on the bed, he lies and watches the world unfold before his eyes. A lot of it is about the weather. Would there be a hosepipe ban? Advice on sun cream. Not going out between 1 and 3. It finishes with a montage of photos of the country surviving in the heat. Sunbathers stripped down in Hyde Park, and on any scrap of grass in London. Old building foundations rising out of the scorched ground, visible for the first time in centuries.
And out had risen Leo’s body. Leo’s poor bloodied, battered body. The image of it has plagued Ben’s dreams for the last two years. He thinks of the smell. It had been the smell of blood. Here’s the smell of blood still.
And now unearthed. Arisen.
How long will it be? How long until they unlock the door and let him out? Surely it must be clear to them all he couldn’t have done this? Surely he will be allowed home soon?
To Ana. Ana. Ana.
He just wants to hold her hand, sit and watch TV as she lies against him and falls asleep before the end of the film, so he has to go through the final fifteen minutes again. Even pull her hair from the plug in the shower, listen to her moan at him because he’s left his wet towel on the bed again…