by Heidi Perks
Ange laughs. ‘It’d take a lot more than you could pay me.’ She chews the corner of her lip and I sense she’s deliberating.
‘However things ended between you and your daughter, you must want to know what happened to her,’ I say. ‘There must be a part of you that needs answers.’
‘I have answers.’ Ange stares at me. ‘Some boy killed her. He admitted it.’
‘The police don’t believe that’s the truth,’ I blurt and she cocks her head slightly. ‘So if there was a reason she went …’ I pause, hoping to encourage her to fill the silence. I can see she is weighing it up as she tips her glass back, draining the last dregs of wine.
‘She was looking for someone,’ she says at last. So Dad was right. ‘I told her not to go anywhere near that island, but she was a stubborn bugger.’
‘Why didn’t you want her going?’ Freya asks.
‘Because I knew it wouldn’t end well. We had a row about it. Huge one. Knew for sure I wouldn’t see her again after that. She called me things you don’t call your own mother.’
And I’m sure you said worse, I think as Ange stares down at her empty glass. I’m not sure if there’s any guilt or regret behind her glazed expression, or if the sadness of losing her daughter is nothing compared to what her life has become.
‘Who was she looking for?’ I ask.
Ange pushes her glass across the table towards me.
‘I’ll get you another one,’ Freya says, but she needs me to move before she can get out of the booth and I’m not budging until Ange answers.
‘Her sister,’ she says, looking up as the man she owes money to starts walking over to our table.
‘Her sister?’ I ask sceptically, as Ange speaks to the man. ‘I haven’t got your money today, Frank, but I’ll get it.’
Frank’s muscled arms hang at the sides of his body. Tattoos creep out the top of his sweatshirt, climbing his neck. His eyes roll over both me and Freya as he sums us up, obviously unable to reach a conclusion as to what we’re doing here.
‘A word?’ he says, gesturing to the door then marching towards it.
Ange shuffles across the seat, but Freya reaches out and takes hold of her arm as she stands. ‘Who was her sister?’
Ange pauses. ‘Her name was Scarlet.’
‘I don’t know of any Scarlet,’ Freya says, but Ange has already pulled her arm away to follow Frank to the door. ‘I’ll get you another wine,’ Freya calls after her. ‘Come back in, Ange, and I’ll get you something to eat, too.’ Freya nudges impatiently for me to move so she can get to the bar.
‘There was no one called Scarlet,’ I say when she returns. ‘I knew everyone on the island and there was no one with that name.’
Freya stands by the table, her fingers tapping it impatiently as she watches the door, waiting for Ange to come back in.
I look over my shoulder. ‘She’s been a while. Do you think she’s okay?’
Freya doesn’t acknowledge me as she strides across the pub and disappears outside. When she comes back her eyes are wide with anger. ‘She’s gone.’ Picking up her phone, she scrolls through for what I assume is Ange’s number. ‘No answer. Shit.’
‘Do you think Iona got the wrong place?’ I ask.
‘No,’ Freya says, grabbing her bag, infuriated by Ange’s disappearance. ‘I think Scarlet changed her name.’
Evergreen Island
25 August 1993
Bonnie stood at Stella’s window, watching her mother in the garden below. She was chattering away to Susan, pouring them both glasses of wine like they had no cares in the world. Bonnie’s fingers trembled as she touched the pane of glass, lightly at first because she didn’t want to bring attention to herself.
All she wanted was for Susan to leave. For her mum to tell her friend to go and then to come and find her. Bonnie hadn’t been downstairs in over two hours, yet her mum hadn’t once thought to see if she was okay.
She wasn’t. Not one bit.
Pressing the heel of her hand more firmly against the glass, she watched Susan lean in, sharing some piece of gossip, no doubt.
Gossip made her sick. She didn’t want to hear any more, ever again.
If she pushed harder she could shove her hand right through the window.
The thought intrigued Bonnie. Maybe she should. Maybe then she could jump out with the shattering glass and finally her mum would notice that something was up.
She didn’t miss the fact that the one time her mother wasn’t cooing over her shoulder, Bonnie needed it more than ever.
But then did she really want to talk to her? Maybe it was better to stay hiding upstairs. To keep her hands over her ears and tune out the rest of the world, like she had as soon as Iona had left the house earlier.
She didn’t want to see her best friend again. She didn’t.
But then on the other hand she couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing her again.
She wondered where Iona was right now. Who she was talking to, laughing with. Sharing things that she should be sharing with her. Her body ached at the thought that Iona might be off with Tess again.
How could you hate someone and yet want them so much at the same time?
Maybe she could forget what Iona told her. Blank it out.
Yes. That was what she needed to do. Pretend it had never happened. They would go back to being best friends.
She glanced down at her mum. Fury and rage filled her body and she slammed her fist against the window as hard as she possibly could.
The glass didn’t shatter. No one even looked up.
Danny was happy that day. Some days he just woke up that way. He loaded his rucksack with two packets of cheese and onion crisps and half a pork pie, and in the back compartment he slipped in his drawing pad and pencils.
He was heading into the woods, so he’d tied a fleece around his waist, stretching it into a tight knot at his stomach. In the woods he found a tree and climbed up with ease, skimming up its trunk with the agility of a gymnast. Despite his weight he was an impressive climber. Tucked between the branches, Danny pulled out a packet of crisps and tore into them greedily. Crunching loudly, he didn’t stop until he’d finished, eyeing the other bag before deciding to keep it for when he was hungry.
He took out his pad and scanned the woods, finally settling on a pretty sandpiper fluttering around a nearby trunk. He buried his head in his pad, feeling the wetness of his tongue as it poked out the corner of his mouth in concentration. Every so often he would glance up, searching for the bird, scrutinising its feathers before copying it on to the page.
When he finished, he leant back and stared at the picture. He wasn’t happy with it. Something wasn’t right with his drawing, but he couldn’t work out what. Maybe he wasn’t close enough. He needed to get a better look at the bird. Danny grabbed his stuff and slid down the tree, making his way to the trunk she was still flapping around.
She didn’t look happy, he thought as he strained up to look. She was frantic, her wings beating rapidly. He dropped his things on the ground and continued to stare as she suddenly flew hard into the tree and then landed with a thump beside his boots. Danny crouched down, gazing at the creature, reaching out to touch its broken wing. He pressed a finger gently on her stomach. She wasn’t breathing.
He stood and unknotted his fleece, carefully laying it on the ground, and then gently picked up the bird and wrapped it inside.
‘What are you doing, Dan?’
Her words melted in the air like thick syrup, and he looked over his shoulder to where Iona stood behind him. She knelt beside him, her eyes drifting to the tears he knew were leaking from his eyes. Then she turned to the pad, to the picture of the bird. He quickly shut it before she looked at the drawing on the other page. Before she recognised herself.
‘The bird – it flew into the tree.’
‘I know,’ she smiled. ‘I saw it happen.’
‘I was going to take it to the beach and bury it in the sand. It’s a sandpi
per.’
‘I didn’t know that.’ Iona tilted her head to one side and continued to smile at him. She was talking to him as though he was a child and he didn’t like it, but he stood and walked out of the woods towards the beach.
The bird still cradled in his arms, he turned around to see her still watching him, grinning. He didn’t feel happy now. He never did when she was around any more.
Maria passed Susan the bottle of wine and watched her friend slowly fill her glass. They were both focused on the bottom of the garden where David was fiddling with the broken leg of one of the loungers.
‘I still can’t believe you’re actually going,’ Maria said.
‘I don’t think I have any other choice.’ Susan’s words were definite but tinged with sadness. ‘Graham’s made it that way.’
If there was anything Maria could say to make her stay, she would, but she also knew it was probably best for Susan. It would take something pretty seismic to change her mind now.
Maria watched Stella appear between the trees, kneeling down beside her dad.
‘I used to envy you having three children,’ Susan said. ‘I always wanted more.’
‘I know you did.’
‘Tess—’ Susan started before breaking off.
Maria looked across at her friend who tipped her glass to her mouth, her lips parting as she took a gulp of wine.
‘What about Tess?’ Maria asked.
‘Something’s got into her. She’s coming out with all these weird notions lately, and it isn’t like her. I think – I think getting off the island is the right thing for her, too.’
Maria bristled. She didn’t like change. But she had felt it coming anyway.
‘Do you think you can trust anyone completely?’ Susan asked, and Maria cocked her head as she watched David tossing the chair leg to one side, hands on his hips as he looked at the wreck before him.
She considered the question carefully and eventually said, ‘Yes. I do.’
What a fool she had been. Only two weeks later she would realise she couldn’t even trust the one person closest to her. And if she couldn’t trust him, then she couldn’t trust anyone.
PRESENT
Chapter Twenty-Four
I stand aimlessly outside the pub on the corner of the road while Freya paces back and forth, making calls. ‘Still can’t get hold of her?’ I ask when she finally hangs up.
‘She’s not answering. Probably thinks she’s said too much already.’
‘Maybe someone knows where she might have gone?’ I suggest.
‘Like who?’
‘I don’t know. The barman?’
Freya looks at the closed doors. ‘Wait here,’ she mutters. I can see how irritated she is, and I am too. The fact that Iona had gone to Evergreen looking for a sister has thrown her story wide open.
When she returns, Freya’s shaking her head. ‘He says he doesn’t know where she lives but she comes here most days.’ She glances at her phone again. ‘But that doesn’t help. I have to get home. It’s my grandad’s ninetieth tomorrow.’
‘I could stay,’ I suggest.
Freya looks at me quizzically.
‘I mean, I could find somewhere for the night and try again tomorrow. I’ve got nothing I need to rush back for.’
‘You want to do that?’
I shrug. If I want to find out who Iona was looking for, I have no choice. ‘It can’t be far from where my parents used to live. I could look around the place, see where they grew up.’
‘Okay. Well,’ Freya hesitates. ‘Call me as soon as you talk to her.’
‘I will.’
She nods at the pub. ‘And don’t speak to any strange men.’
It’s nearly six p.m. by the time I’ve collected my car and checked into a Premier Inn near Shirley. I’ve bought essential toiletries and figure that once I’ve eaten I’ll have an early night before looking around the area in the morning, to try and find Gran’s old house. Once alone in my room, I try calling Bonnie. It doesn’t surprise me that I haven’t had one call from her in the last forty-eight hours. She is holding back on me so that I’ll go running to her, and if I leave it much longer, it will only be worse. I’m apprehensive as I tap on her contact, dreading the thought I’ll hear in her voice that she’s had a drink. When her mobile rings out I hang up and try the landline, but still there’s no answer.
Exhausted, I run a bath. Sliding into the hot water, I breathe out a sigh as it begins to release the ache in my muscles. With everything that’s been going on lately, I knew I’d risk Bonnie slipping away from me, and I hate that I’ve allowed her to.
I sit up when my phone begins to ring, then stretch to grab it from beside the basin. ‘Bonnie,’ I answer, clambering out the bath, reaching for a towel and struggling to wrap it around myself with one hand. ‘I was trying to call you.’
‘So I see,’ she says bluntly. ‘Where are you? I saw your car wasn’t outside your flat.’ Her tone sounds measured, which brings me some hope she’s sober.
‘I’ve been out with Freya.’
‘Seriously? So what have Cagney and Lacey discovered this time?’
‘Actually, we came to Birmingham.’
Bonnie is silent. ‘Birmingham?’ she says after a moment, her pitch rising.
‘Freya was in touch with Iona’s mum and she agreed to meet us.’
‘Her mother?’ She is yelling now. Another pause. ‘What the hell are you playing at?’
‘Bonnie,’ I say calmly, trying to defuse her over-reaction. ‘I know that for whatever reason you don’t want to hear this, but I think there’s a chance Danny didn’t—’
‘This isn’t about Danny,’ she says, an odd tone to her words now, and I try to figure out what could possibly be unnerving her. ‘Why did you visit Iona’s mother?’
‘Please, calm down, Bon. Because I want to know more about what Iona was doing on the island. And this is about Danny—’
‘And?’ she interrupts. ‘Did you see her mother?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh …’ Bonnie is laughing, but it isn’t a happy sound that fills the line. ‘You have to be kidding me. When are you ever going to stop, Stella?’
‘Bonnie, I don’t know what—’
‘What did she say?’
I slide down on to the edge of the bed, scooping up the towel which keeps slipping off me. ‘That Iona was on the island looking for a sister.’
Bonnie doesn’t answer.
‘Someone called Scarlet.’
Still she doesn’t answer, and it takes me a moment to realise she’s hung up.
I check my signal to find four healthy bars and soon my phone flashes with a call again.
‘Why are you doing this?’ Bonnie cries.
‘I’m just trying to find out—’
‘Are you coming home now?’
‘No, actually I’m staying in a Premier Inn in Shirley for the night because I want to—’
‘You’re still there?’ she shouts.
‘I am, and Bonnie, will you stop interrupting me.’
The line goes dead again, and I stare at my phone before throwing it on to the bed.
Five minutes later Bonnie is calling again.
‘I don’t want you seeing her,’ she pleads.
‘Bon, are you crying? What are you scared of?’
‘I’m not scared of anything. I just want you to come home.’
I sigh in response.
‘Will you?’
‘Bonnie, I know you don’t like what’s going on but you have to let me do this. Bonnie?’ I say as I check my phone and see she’s hung up on me a third time.
When she doesn’t call back, I go to the restaurant and order a burger. There’s no point in us having the same conversation over and over, but by ten p.m., when I’m ready for bed, I feel the need to try. Her phone goes straight to voicemail and I don’t leave a message.
Half an hour later I’m drifting asleep when a loud knock on my door makes me sit up rapidly,
blood rushing to my head. ‘Who is it?’ I call out as I pull back the covers.
‘Me.’
‘Bonnie?’ I make my way across the room, opening the door as she pushes past me. ‘What are you doing here?’ As I switch on a lamp that fills the room with light, I see she’s unsteady as she plops down on to the bed.
‘Tell me you haven’t been drinking.’
‘I had one.’
‘Bonnie,’ I sigh. ‘Don’t lie.’
‘It isn’t a lie. I have only had one.’ She at least has the presence to look guilty as she avoids my gaze and fiddles with the corner of the duvet.
‘But even one …’ I shake my head. ‘And you’ve driven all the way here. Why did you do it?’
‘You weren’t there,’ she snaps. ‘I needed it.’
‘You didn’t even talk to me first,’ I say, sinking on to the bed next to her. ‘You always promised you’d do that if ever you got to this point.’
‘You don’t have to look quite so disappointed in me,’ she says. ‘I can carry that weight for the two of us.’
I shake my head. ‘I’m so angry with you. After everything—’
‘Don’t you want to know why I had a drink?’ she asks, her eyes filling with tears. ‘Why I had to have one glass of wine?’
‘Of course I do.’
A tear trickles down her cheeks and she dips her head but doesn’t bother wiping it away. ‘I’d been trying so hard,’ she says in a whisper. ‘I didn’t want to. But you haven’t been there, Stella.’
‘I’m always at the end of the phone.’
‘That’s not what I mean. You’re not there in the sense that I want one thing and you want something completely different, and I can’t – I can’t handle it.’ Her hands continue to fiddle with the duvet.
‘What is it you can’t handle?’
‘All of it. The past.’ She holds her head up and stares at the ceiling. She doesn’t seem to care that tears keep sliding down her cheeks and roll off the end of her chin. ‘I was seventeen when I had my first drink. It was three months after we’d left the island. By the end of the night I’d had more than I could count, but it was the first time I’d stopped thinking.