by Mark Ayre
He catches Luke, but awkwardly on the shoulder, rather than chest. He had intended only to knock Luke back, but instead, the bleeding man spins to the side. James rolls out of the way and comes up on his knees. He sees Luke land and thinks he will be okay.
He is wrong. From the chest up, Luke is still on the bank. But his bottom half has dipped into the hungry water, and now the current is dragging him down and across.
In a mad moment, those weak, terrified eyes remind James of Mufasa from The Lion King, and it makes him hesitate. Later he will wonder if this is what did it, or if it was already too late.
Remembering himself, he rushes forward, but Luke is already falling. He slips from the bank and by the time James drops to his knees at the water’s edge it is as though no one but him was ever there. Certainly, there is no sign of Luke in the water, and the blood on the bank is fast being washed away by the rain.
James is alone, staring into his shattered reflection in the roaring current below. He knows what he has done, for the time being, and he begins to cry but, with the downpour from above, and the raging water below, the world does not notice.
He is empty. He is broken.
He is -
Alone.
The room was dim, silent if you discounted the standard hospital chorus of beeps, steps and coughs. Not to mention his ever pounding heart.
Like a postmodern artist, his dream had painted his forehead with sweat, and his entire body felt cold and clammy. Moving to pull the thin, scratchy sheets closer around him, he looked to the chair at his bedside.
Empty now, but hadn’t someone been there?
His mind stretched into the past, but he overshot recent times and landed on the riverside again. Saw Luke slip beneath the bank, watched the blood run with the rain over the edge and into the water. Yanking his mind back he remembered Mohsin at his side. It was a blurred, distorted memory but he pulled snatches of conversation back. And there had been something else. What?
A phone. That was it. There had been a picture and -
Now he remembered. Saw the phone again and the two couples on it. Alex. He had seen that then Mohsin had left, and he had slept.
He closed his eyes. The riverside came, and he opened them before it could reach him. More of the recent past slipped from whatever prison was holding it. Now he saw her, sitting at his side, holding his hand. She had questioned him, and as he slid into sleep he had said -
The door opened, and James almost dived from the bed. Perhaps, if he had been stronger - and if the drugs hadn’t still been working their way through his system, holding him back - he would have. Emma stopped at the door, noticing his skittishness, then kicked it shut and dropped into the chair beside him. In her hands were two paper cups and she held one up.
“I bought coffee. Hopefully better than the crap in that cafe.”
She placed his on the side, and he could smell it, and feel its warmth, but if he had drunk any, it would have come straight back up. He was afraid.
“What are you going to do?”
She didn’t answer right away. Her eyes trailed the equipment around him. As though searching for the plug she could remove to end his life. When her eyes returned to his, they were unsatisfied.
“I’d kill you if I could.”
“I never wanted to hurt him.”
“Bit late for that.”
“Believe me. It’s why I came here. I left home and travelled, but I had this dream every night. I was back at the riverbank, only this time it was him who attacked me, sometimes with the right item, sometimes with a brick or even a lamp or a photo frame. Whatever… no matter what, I would be attacked, and I would fall. He would kick me in the river then -
“I woke. I always woke and, although I knew it was a dream it felt as though I had survived, and if I could, maybe him too.
“Don’t you see? I was desperate. I came here clinging to that hope and what do I find? That Luke is alive. You might think I couldn’t believe that, but I did because I needed to. I needed him to be alive so -“
“Stop.”
The word was firm but held back a tidal wave of grief. James looked at Emma, paused, then nodded. This wasn’t what she needed, and for all of five seconds, he was going to leave it. Then he looked at her again.
“Your turn.”
“What?”
“Confessions. I know I was in a drug-addled state, but I confessed. I opened my soul and let my darkest secret out so… your turn.”
“I’ve done nothing.”
“You have, and I don’t blame you. You loved Luke, and your family conspired to ruin him. With that and what happened to Alex, it’s no wonder you wanted to punish them. You did look a cute couple. I only wish I’d seen that picture sooner. Or if she’d been called Rachel, not Alex, that would have done it, but I didn’t think.”
“Maybe you’re a homophobe.”
“I hope not.”
Her expression was still dark. Her coffee still clutched in her hand, but he didn’t think she had drunk any.
“Where’s Charlie?”
“How should I know?”
“Come on Emma. Like I said. It’s your turn.”
She rose. His hand caught her arm.
“Just listen. I’ll tell you what I think happened and you can correct me if I’m wrong, okay? Come on, sit down.”
He released her hand, still expecting her to walk away. He would have let her go if she did. He didn’t have the strength to stop her. But she didn’t walk. She turned slowly and placed her full coffee next to his. Then sat, and stared at him wordlessly. He took this as consent to go on.
“Okay, so Luke is driven out of town, and you are left hating your family, wanting to punish them and how can you do that? Well, Luke knew all their secrets, and I’m guessing you did too, only, unlike him, you’d never wanted to get involved. Guess it didn’t bother you until it affected the two people you cared about most - Alex and Luke.
“So you start to put together the perfect revenge. You’re going to show the world who your family really are, but you’re not just going to announce it. Too risky. You’ve seen what your mother can do when confronted head-on, so you think, what if you make them do it to themselves? Hey, that would do it, and the plan is born.
“Next up, you seduce Mac. I don’t know if you really loved her, but I’m guessing not. You needed her because she lived next door, and you couldn’t do it alone. You made her fall in love with you, and you got her to agree to kidnap Charlie on the night in question.
“That isn’t enough though. What you need is for the family to be around the area and preferably incriminating themselves as it happens. Some of them take care of themselves - you know, for example, if you do it on the night of a family party, your dad will find an excuse to take Claire home and bed her - or, um, car her - so that’s fine, but what about the rest?
“For Mark, it’s a case of playing on his dealing. You secure tickets to a show you know Sharon, the village babysitter, will love and gift them to her, pretending you won them. Then, when Claire can’t find a babysitter, you suggest Amy.
“Babysitting, I guess, is pretty dull, so you know Amy will want drugs, but you need to ensure Mark will leave when called. That’s achieved by dropping something into conversation with Megan that will cause an argument, and lead to him storming out, and that sorts Mark.
“For Christina, you play on her prejudices. I’m guessing you’d already had her suspect you were seeing Mohsin, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you put him onto your father and Becky. Then on the night of the party, you take him up to your bedroom, knowing your mother, already angry, will flip, and act. In terms of getting them into place, you’ve had Mac seduce Mo, and she asks him to walk her home. Christina follows and where is the obvious place to attack… the alley.”
She didn’t comment. Just sat and watched as their two coffees began to grow cold.
“You took Charlie next door that night, and afterwards everything went off without a hitch.
I’m guessing you didn’t expect me to turn up but you would have pointed someone in the right direction to ensure your family imploded, then you could sit back and watch. Revenge complete. It could have been perfect.
“Problem is, as always, the human variable. In your case it was Mac. She felt guilty, and I’m guessing she began falling apart right away. You got angry, and she tried to make it right by buying you those chocolates. The ones that reminded you of Luke. I’m sure you tried your best to keep her in line, but it wasn’t working and in the end -“
A pause, he tried to catch a hint of emotion in her eyes, but if it was there, she was hiding it well.
“This is why I think you can’t have loved her. You were afraid she would call me, so you turned my phone off while pretending to put my bags on your desk, then slept with me as a distraction.”
“You’re welcome.”
It was the first thing she’d said in a while, and he had to fight to contain the anger so he could go on.
“Before that, I saw you arguing with Christina. I’m guessing you were coming clean. You knew Mac was going to ruin everything, so you told your mum about your latest lover, and warned her what was to transpire, knowing the famous image manager would jump into action. Knowing she would -“
He stopped. Once more the body floated before him, and he felt tears touch his eyes. Such a sweet girl. So kind. She had been manipulated and used and when she tried to do the right thing -
“She didn’t deserve that.”
“I know.”
“But why did it come to that? Why couldn’t you have found another way? I was rushing around trying to find out what I could and getting no closer. You could have helped me push it in your direction. Brought me to the truth of your family sooner but you never did. You stepped out of the way and let it go on and on until Mac couldn’t take it anymore. You drove her to a position where she was running into the woods and -
“No.”
Barely more than a whisper, as it came to him.
“You didn’t help me at all and more than that.”
A memory. He had rushed from the shack note in hand and stopped. A flutter in the trees. There had been someone. He had written it off as more ghosts, but it wasn’t.
“It was you, come to collect the note you had left in the shack before someone found it. Why would you do that?”
More tears in his eyes, although it should have been her ready to cry. He needed to push on, but it was impossible. He was standing in the shop with Mac again, and he spoke the words she had, as though her spirit was speaking through him.
“I saw Mohsin and Emma together, and I was jealous. I knew it didn’t mean anything, but I couldn’t let go of that stupid pathetic jealousy. So we argued, and he ran. That’s why it happened.”
He was so sure he’d understood that, but he hadn’t.
“It was you she was jealous of, wasn’t it? You she argued with back at the house and when she says he ran…”
Finally, it hit him, and he realised he’d been holding it back.
“Charlie died, didn’t he? The plan was to return him safe after your family’s downfall, but you couldn’t do that once he was dead. You didn’t want to bring any more attention to the situation. You just wanted it over. Isn’t that right?”
Emma tried to hold that statue pose, but it was beginning to break. To crack and fall apart like stone under thousands of years of a wave’s constant attack.
Soon she would spill.
“When she went looking for Charlie, to bring him back, she didn’t intend to bring him back alive, did she? She was sick with her part in it and wanted to return the body to his family. To his mother.
“Oh, God.”
And now he was crying. Really crying. He lifted a hand and wiped his eyes, but it would be difficult to stop. It wasn’t just for Charlie, but Mac too, and Luke and his uncle and Toby. All the people who had died because they couldn’t control themselves, or their anger.
“You took a girl who loved you and a little boy who trusted you and killed them both. All as part of some revenge plot? What I did was wrong. It was foul. But at least it was thoughtless. I’m not defending myself but what you did was calculated. Cruel. Vindictive. It was -“
“That’s enough.”
Her voice was quiet but carried enough strength to silence him. There was something in her eyes he found unnerving. He had expected misery, guilt, or even anger, but saw none. Instead, there was cold detachment. The look of a deranged killer.
“Mac was supposed to keep Charlie calm. She failed. She was supposed to hold it together. She failed. She knew I had no interest in Mohsin but wouldn’t let it go. We fought, and Charlie ran. I caught him on the stairs. I tried to stop him, but he fell. Broke his neck. Died.
“It was an accident. Nobody’s fault. I told Mac that but she refused to help deal with the body, so I did it alone. It will never be found.
“All I ever wanted was justice for my brother. Your pathetic, childish anger has robbed me the chance of seeing him again, but those who betrayed him will be punished. I will have to settle for that. I cannot see you in prison for the same reason you cannot tell the police about Charlie. We know too much. I take it you would like to see me killed for doing away with the boy?”
“I would.”
“As I would like to kill you for murdering my brother,” she said, pulling her bag over her shoulder and standing. “I guess we will both be disappointed. You are leaving the village today. I take it?”
“I am.”
“Never to return?”
“Not a chance.”
“Good,” she said and, without another word she swept past the curtain and away, leaving James lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking back over the darkness in his past. Realising he had solved the mystery and every question that had come with it except one.
A question that would likely plague him forever:
Was it worth it?
— END OF BOOK ONE —
Don’t miss the next James Perry mystery
ALL YOUR SECRETS
Available now at https://markay.re/perry2