by Maria Farrer
For Max
Contents
Cover
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
For More Information
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Back Ad
Copyright
27th June
It started with a text from Kelly.
I can’t believe it about Liam. It’s so awful. Call me.
That really upsets me. Liam’s my brother and if he’s told Kelly something before telling me, I’ll never forgive him. I try calling Kelly, but there’s no answer.
Then I text Liam:
What’s going on Bro? What have you told Kelly?
My boss is frowning at me. Phones are supposed to be off when we’re on duty. I smile an apology and slip my phone back into my pocket, then go and take the order from table three.
I doubt I’ll get an answer from Liam. He’ll make me sweat it out. We argued – again – last night. I only wanted to borrow his phone charger, but the way he kicked off, you’d have thought World War Three had broken out. That’s how it is between Liam and me these days. Fair enough, it was my stupid fault for losing my own charger, but there’s no need to overreact. Just because he and his best mate Tyler were in the middle of some manic PlayStation battle and couldn’t be bothered to open the bedroom door. If Liam hadn’t started locking his door all the time, I could have gone in, helped myself to his charger and saved us both the hassle. Instead, I got shouted at by Liam and then by Mum, who told me to leave Liam alone and to learn to look after my things. Later I heard Liam and Tyler arguing and one of them must’ve chucked the charger out the door because it was lying in the corridor. Why didn’t they do that in the first place?
Liam and me have always been close. That’s what makes this so hard. All of a sudden I can nothing right. Even though it’s fifty/fifty Liam and me starting the arguments, it’s always me who gets the blame – ALWAYS. Somehow Liam’s bad mood has become my fault. Dad says I must respect the fact that Liam is now an adult. So you turn eighteen and you change overnight? Stuff that. If becoming an adult means turning into a self-centred, uncommunicative, over-aggressive moron, then kill me now. Which, come to think of it, is probably what Liam is planning to do…
…because this morning. OK, this morning maybe I crossed the line. I stole Liam’s stone. It was a spur of the moment thing. Opportunistic. He only ever takes it off when he’s in the shower and this morning, when I went in after him, he’d left it hanging on the back of the bathroom door. He’s dead superstitious about his lucky stone and I’ve never seen him leave the house without it. The trouble is, this morning I left the house first – with it. I didn’t really have a plan beyond getting him to communicate with me. I don’t want to carry on like we are at the moment; I hate it. So I’m counting on him being so desperate to get it back that he’ll have no option but to talk. And you know what? It seems my plan has worked. As soon as he realized it was missing, he phoned all of us in panic. I wasn’t going to lie to him. He went crazy at first, but I told him if he wanted his stone, he was going to have to listen to me. He put the phone down. A few minutes later he rang back.
“You’re right,” he said. “We do need to talk. Not on the phone. There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you and I’d rather do it face-to-face. Meet outside the library after work?”
I asked him if he was OK and he said he was fine. But he didn’t sound fine.
I finger Liam’s stone around my neck, then check my boss, Cathy, isn’t looking before reading Kelly’s text again. What would Kelly find so hard to believe about Liam? I don’t want to be the last person to know. What could be so awful? And why would he tell Kelly? She’s my friend, not his. And then I start to worry.
So when a policeman strides into the café, just after the lunchtime rush is over, some illogical instinct tells me it has something to do with Liam. My first thought is that he has decided to get revenge and has actually reported me to the police for nicking his stone. But that’s just stupid. I tell myself that a policeman could be here for any reason – I mean, maybe he just wants a cup of coffee. I decide to stay out of sight in the kitchen. And then I start to wonder … what if Liam really is in trouble – like, serious trouble – with the law? I shake my head. Liam’s not like that.
I strain to hear what the policeman is saying as he talks to Simon, who works at the café with me. I watch Simon nod and turn towards the kitchen door. Why is my heart beating so fast?
“He wants to know where your mum is,” Simon whispers to me.
“Mum? She’s in London. Why’s he asking?” Now I start worrying about Mum.
“The police want to talk to her.”
“To Mum? What do the police want with Mum?”
Simon spreads his hands and turns down the corners of his mouth. “You’d better come out.”
I wipe my hands quickly. When I appear, the policeman indicates a recently vacated table and asks if we can sit. I nod. There’s a sense of purposeful urgency to his movements.
“Are you Amber Neville?”
“Yes.”
“And this is your mum’s café?”
“Yes. Why?”
He smiles gently. “I’m PC Marsh.” He flashes me his ID. “I need to speak to her.”
“She’s in London. Is it important?” His mixture of niceness and directness is making me nervous.
“Yes, I’m afraid it is.”
“I can give you her mobile number.” I fumble for my phone.
“We’ve tried that but there’s no answer.”
I let my phone drop to my side. “She might have her phone switched off. She’s visiting a friend in hospital.” I give him a few details and he jots them down.
“That’s very helpful. Thank you. Excuse me one moment. I’ll be back.” He walks towards the door.
I feel both confused and relieved.
“What’s going on?” asks Simon.
“No idea.” I check my phone again. No new messages. I scroll back to Kelly’s text and the knot of uneasiness builds in my stomach. I try ringing her again, and Liam, and Mum.
Nothing.
“Is everything OK?” Cathy asks. I shrug. I have no idea.
There are a few orders left on the serving hatch ready to go out. Customers are waiting. Having a policeman hovering around the café has made people watchful and uncomfortable. PC Marsh is outside the café window, chin dipped towards his collar as he talks into a mouthpiece. Police don’t turn up asking questions for nothing. I try to smile and carry on business as usual, taking orders, clearing tables, but my eyes keep flicking to what is happening outside. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see the familiar figure of Gran rushing towards the café. Except it isn’t familiar. Gran often helps out at the café in the afternoons, but she never rushes because of her dodgy heart. Now she’s almost running.
“Gran?”
I already know, before she opens her mouth, that something is very wrong. She staggers the last few steps towards the nearest table and leans on it heavily, her hand hovering over her chest.
“Are you all right?” I pull a chair round behind her and help her sit down.
“No … not really … my pills.” She pushes her bag towards me and I scrabble through it. It takes me a few moments to find her small blue box. I hand her one of the tiny pills and she slips it under her tongue.
At the same time, PC Marsh walks back in and joins us. Everyone’s eyes are on us now.
“Mrs Turner?” He asks Gran.
She gives him a weak smile and a nod.
“Good, I’m glad you’re here. I think I’d better get you to the hospital as quickly as possible.”
“It’s all right,” I say. “I’ve given her one of her pills already.”
PC Marsh shakes his head.
“It’s Liam,” Gran says, taking my hand. “He’s had an accident.”
The café mists over, vision and sound suddenly grey and indistinct. I watch in slow motion as the policeman moves forward to help Gran up from her chair.
“I’ll need another moment,” she says, “to get my breath back.”
And everything rushes back to full speed, full clarity. “What kind of an accident?” I ask, my voice almost unrecognizable to my own ears.
Gran doesn’t quite meet my eyes. “He collapsed during training.”
I laugh. This is some mistake. They’ve got the wrong person. “Don’t be silly, Liam’s one of the fittest people I know.”
Gran glances at the policeman and then covers her mouth with her hand. I’ll never forget that look.
“Your brother is in intensive care,” says PC Marsh gently. “He has a friend with him and your mum is on her way home. We haven’t managed to get hold of your dad yet. I’m going to take you and your grandmother to the hospital.”
Intensive care? A friend? My hand slips between the buttons of my shirt and my fingers close around Liam’s stone. I have to get to the hospital as fast as possible. I have to give him his lucky stone back. I should never have taken it. We need to leave now. If necessary, I’ll pick Gran up and carry her. I don’t bother to get my bag. I don’t stop to explain to Cathy or Simon.
I link my arm through Gran’s as we walk towards the car park, trying to hurry her along. I so badly want to run, but we have to go at her speed and it feels agonizingly slow. There’s not one calm cell in my body and my mind is on overtime. I need to know exactly what’s happened. I need Liam to tell me everything. I need to be there with him right now.
I’d always thought riding in a police car would be exciting, but not like this. We drive quickly, but not quickly enough, and each time we come up against any traffic, the blue lights flash and we whizz on through. I grip the stone. I know that as soon as I give it back to Liam everything will be all right.
My phone buzzes and my heart stops for a couple of beats. I will it to be Liam. He’ll tell me he’s fine. He’ll say we can all stop worrying. That’s what he always does – when he comes back from one of his long training runs or something.
“I’d leave that if I were you,” says Gran.
“But what if it’s Liam?”
“He’s in intensive care, Amber. He won’t be using his phone.” She prises the phone from my fingers. “Why don’t you let me look after it for you, sweetheart?” she says, putting it in her handbag.
Liam is dead by the time we get to the hospital. Apparently he never regained consciousness. His best friend Tyler was with him.
I was too late.
Almost a year later…
The sky is so dark it could be night; not the towering clouds of a storm but the flat, dark grey that has more water in it than the sea. I up my pace and feel my pulse surge in response. I’ll never get back before the rain, however fast I run. I’m still forty minutes from home.
The first thick, fat drops fall on my face, mixing with sweat and sending salty rivers dribbling from my forehead into my eyes. I wipe them away. The final steep hill is approaching and after that it’s a gentle 5k back to our house. My body angles forwards slightly as I begin the climb. Immediately, I feel the dull pain just below my left kneecap. It’s been bugging me recently, but I try not to mention it. Dad doesn’t do complaining.
My breath comes short and loud and I swear as I hit the steepest pinch of the hill. The rain hammers down, bouncing off the road and turning the pale blue of my shirt uniformly darker, the material clinging to my body.
At the crest of the hill, I know I mustn’t decelerate. I extend my stride and pump my arms. A car passes, its lights cutting through the grey, its tyres sending up great fans of water. I yell after it, but it makes no difference. I couldn’t get any wetter if I tried.
The houses on our road are coming to life; people are getting up for breakfast. It’s 8.30 on a Saturday morning and I’ve already completed 15k – or will have done by the time I reach my front door. Dad’s measured out all my runs. Saturday’s is always a long one.
Relief sets in as I squelch back up our short path and slump forward with my finger on the doorbell. I rest my hands on my knees and watch the water dripping off my hair and the faint steam rising from my body.
The shape of my father looms behind the frosted glass of the door. He opens it and holds out the stopwatch.
“Not your best time,” he says.
I gesture aggressively at the sky as if to say, Well, who’s going to do a good time in conditions like this?
“Over four minutes off your personal best – you won’t win the race with that kind of time.”
I lean against the door frame and listen to my heart beating. I went through extensive tests after Liam died. My heart is fine, apparently. I have no excuse not to run. No excuse not to win. The cold from my saturated clothes seeps into my skin and through my body. I thought it was supposed to be June. It’s more like mid-winter.
“Are you going to let me in? My muscles are seizing up out here.”
Dad stands aside. I put a foot over the door and he puts his hand on my shoulder and holds me back.
“Shoes off!” He stares at my soggy trainers. “You’re not bringing those in here.”
I try to pull them off without undoing the laces but it’s as if they’re attached with suction pads. I have to sit on the doorstep and wrench them from my feet before peeling off my socks and wringing them out.
Finally, Dad lets me in, closes the door on the rain and throws a towel at me. I put it over my head, rub down my hair, then shift the towel to my shoulders for warmth. I head straight towards the bathroom for a shower.
“Come back and have a drink,” shouts Dad, stopping me in my tracks. “You don’t realize how much you sweat when it’s wet.” He’s sitting at the kitchen table, frowning as he records my time on his laptop.
“You don’t know how cold I get when it’s wet,” I mumble. He watches as I pour a glass of water and gulp it down and then he gives me a nod to show he’s done with me. I force my legs up the stairs and into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. For a few seconds, I lean against it, too tired to move. Then I switch on the shower, undress and wait for the water to warm up. I try not to look at myself in the mirror. I hate my reflection – my body hard, lean and muscled and my hair cropped short. I’m growing to look more and more like my brother and it seems unfair.
The heat of the water shocks my skin, turning it blotchy and red. As I readjust to the temperature, I keep turning it hotter and hotter, letting the warmth sink in. I scrub off the mud, stretch each set of muscles and massage the tenderness below my knee. I could stay in here all morning, eyes closed, hot water raining down on the back of my neck.
Liam mad
e Dad put in a good shower last year. He said he wasn’t doing all this training and coming home to a pathetic dribble. I can’t get into the shower without thinking of Liam. I can’t do anything without thinking of Liam.
Sometimes I talk to him in my head. I like to believe he can hear me. I like to think it will make a difference. Sometimes I smile. Usually I cry. Mostly I’m swamped with guilt.
Someone told me it would get easier, but it’s been nearly a year now. Each day, each hour brings us closer to the anniversary of Liam’s death. No one talks about it. It’s just there, looming ahead of us like a huge black hole, sucking us slowly towards it.
As the days pass, it does not get easier. It gets stronger and more dangerous.
It’s just a stone.
I sit on my bed, wrapped in my towel, staring at Liam’s stone in my hand.
We found it when we were on holiday in Dorset; it must be almost ten years ago now. Liam was nine and me six. Mum and Dad had rented a caravan and we spent every day on the beach near Durdle Door. I loved that name – Durdle Door. Dad always said it in funny ways to make us laugh. Durdly, dawdly, diddly door. Diddly, widdly, piddly door. That one always cracked me up. I only remember snippets: Liam teaching me to how to skim pebbles across the flat calm sea; Dad digging an enormous racing car out of sand; Mum decorating it with shells. We used a stick for the gear lever and we played in it for hours. We went back the next day and it was gone – washed away by the tide. I was heartbroken. Mum swinging me round and round by the arms to make me feel better – me laughing – tottering off down the beach, dizzy as a drunk with Liam running after me and making me crawl along with him to search for fossils.
That’s when we found the stone – when he found the stone.
It was perfectly oval in shape, washed smooth by the sea, with a small round hole straight through the centre. It wasn’t much bigger than a penny and when it was wet, it shimmered blue as the water. Liam dipped it in the sea and held it up to the sky so we could see the colour and the sun shining through the hole. He told me a stone with a hole was the luckiest thing you could find. He said it was going to be his secret stone and that I mustn’t tell anyone or the luck would run away. He made me promise. I thought we should share the stone, but he wouldn’t let me, however much I begged. He danced around with it held high above his head, chanting, “Finders keepers”.