Dark Waters

by Mary-Jane Riley

  If the Fablon-topped units and small teak table under the window were anything to go by, the house hadn’t been updated since the sixties. It smelt of the sea and of mould and cooking fat. It was dark and dingy, not a place she particularly wanted to spend time in. As her eyes got used to the gloom, she saw dirty plates on the side by the sink. A window looked out over the sand dunes. A woodburner full of grey ash was set into a wall recess, the tiled hearth dirty and stained.

  Willem Major had obviously seen the expression on her face, because he took an old Barbour jacket off a chair and motioned back towards the door. ‘Let’s go out. It’s too depressing in here. Your car?’

  Alex drove back down the rutted track she had driven up minutes before.

  ‘I didn’t think you would want to leave the house.’

  ‘Sometimes I like to live dangerously.’

  ‘I know a nice café near here,’ she ventured.

  Willem Major grunted. She took that as an okay.

  She reached the main road again and after about half a mile she stopped by a wooden building standing on its own with tables and benches outside. A couple of families were sitting enjoying the warmth of the sun. ‘The bird café,’ she said.

  ‘Bird café?’ He pointed at the sign above the door. ‘It says “Traveller’s Rest”.’

  Alex smiled and opened the car door. ‘I’ll always know it as the bird café. Let’s have a coffee.’

  She got out of the car and looked around, breathing in the sea-salt air. She hadn’t been here since she was small. Her dad had brought her and Sasha one day when a bird from Africa had landed on the marsh and all the twitchers came to peer at it through their telescopes. It was where the birdwatchers had all come to for fuelling up with tea and more tea and to compare notes. In those days there was even a book on the counter in which they could list their sightings. She remembered the café as quaint with rickety tables inside, blue and white checked cloths and tea in white china teapots and white china cups and saucers. She thought they’d eaten doorstep cheese sandwiches and that the day had been grey and drizzly.

  Her and Sasha and her dad.

  What could she remember about her dad that day? Had he been chatty? Loving? Jokey? No, probably not that. He’d been – Dad. Just Dad.

  ‘I came here with my father,’ she told Willem Major. ‘You knew him as Anthony Devlin.’

  She looked at him, waiting for a reaction.

  Willem Major nodded and sighed. He stared at the wide East Anglian sky that dipped to meet the horizon. ‘I didn’t have him down as a birdwatcher.’

  ‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’

  ‘What else is there?’

  She thought hard. ‘He used to like going to the pub with the newspaper and having a pint.’ How funny, she’d forgotten that until now. Somehow it seemed important to tell Willem Major about her father, what he was like – had been like. ‘He loved white bread toasted with butter and golden syrup. We used to have that on a Friday evening when Mum had gone to bed. It was a bit of a ritual. You know, toast the bread until it was just the right side of brown. Tate & Lyle from the cupboard. And thickly spread Lurpak butter. Then we’d watch the late-night film.’ She stopped, the memories jammed in her throat. Often, she only remembered the bad times. The silences. The rows. The banging of the door as Sasha flounced off. Again. But it was all the little things that made up a life. The good and the bad memories. How odd, she thought, that we edit our memories so that we see them as they are now, not as they actually were in the past. In the past it was just the thing that happened on a Friday night. Now it was a precious memory to hold on to. A memory all of her own.

  Willem Major nodded. ‘That’s good,’ he said.

  Alex gazed over the marshes before going inside the café and ordering them both tea and cake. There were still blue and white checked cloths on the tables.

  The pot of tea – white china – and two slices of carrot cake arrived. Alex licked the frosting. ‘I love that,’ she said, savouring the creamy sweetness. ‘So, you were expecting me?’

  Willem Major nodded. ‘Not exactly expecting you, but I wasn’t surprised to see you either. Ever since I heard about Roger and Derek. But first there was Jen. A speeding driver, they said.’ His face was impassive.

  ‘“They said”? So, you don’t believe it?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘I’ve followed you, you know. Your work, I mean. I came to see your father once, many years ago. You were about ten. He was so proud of you.’

  All at once a memory flickered across her mind, like a ripple across a pool. ‘You gave me some money.’

  ‘Did I?’ Surprise in his voice. ‘Not the sort of thing I usually do.’

  ‘Yes. I remember you visiting, I think. But I definitely remember the money. I decided then I liked you.’ She laughed.

  ‘And now?’ His hands that had been playing with a sugar packet were still. His eyes bored into hers. ‘You’re lucky. He loves you. I could see that when I came.’ He smiled briefly. ‘Anyway, how did you find me? I thought I’d covered all bases. I didn’t want to be tracked by the media, or ghouls or …’ He hesitated. ‘Or anyone else.’

  ‘A friend who knows how to look.’

  ‘Ah.’ He nodded. ‘Someone to hack into the systems. Clever of you.’

  Alex brushed the compliment aside. ‘What was your relationship with my father?’

  Major stretched his legs out. Alex noticed his eyes kept flicking over to the door. He ignored her question.

  ‘And now I’m going to have to move on. Who knows, someone may have recognized me already.’

  Alex gazed around the café. There was only one other table occupied – a family, with mum, dad and two children, sitting having tea and juice.

  ‘I am sorry.’ Was she really sorry that she’d disrupted this man’s life again? Probably; but her need to know more about her father and his involvement with Willem Major was greater. ‘My father. Your relationship with him,’ she prompted.

  ‘Relationship. That’s a difficult one.’

  Alex waited for him to elaborate.

  ‘Does this place sell booze?’ He said, suddenly alert.

  ‘No.’ She pointed to his coffee. ‘Just tea and coffee and soft drinks.’ She wriggled with impatience. She needed to hear about her dad from him, from Willem Major.

  ‘Right.’ He slumped in his seat.

  ‘So, you haven’t been out much, then?’ Alex was beginning to get a bit irritated with him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You haven’t been here before? I mean, this café’s pretty close to your cottage.’

  His mouth twisted. ‘Until I was forced out of my house, I hadn’t been to the cottage for years. And no one knows it belongs to me. Try and trace the owners and you end up at a shell company. Your hacker was good, getting through the walls. Anyway, it’s been a refuge but, as I said, I guess I’m going to have to move on now. If you can find me then …’

  For a moment, Alex felt ashamed. In her desire to solve the puzzle of the deaths on the Broads and the enigma that was her father, she had almost forgotten this man had suffered a tragedy of unimaginable proportions. She put her hand out, then took it back. He didn’t seem the type of man to want that sort of gesture. ‘I’m really sorry about the fire. About the loss of your family.’

  ‘Yeah. Well. Charlotte survived, but she won’t talk to me now. The one thing I can do for her is to make sure she’s safe. As soon as I hear that …’ He shrugged. His expression was hard, but the pain in his eyes was still there.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘The words are inadequate, I know, but I mean them.’

  His face softened. Slightly. ‘I know you’ve suffered too.’ Those eyes looked into her again. She could feel their intense magnetic quality.

  ‘Thank you. And I’m sorry if you feel you’re going to have to leave here. If it’s any consolation, I won’t give it away. Where you’re living.’

  ‘It’s not any consolati
on.’ His eyes flashed dangerously.

  ‘And now you want me to talk about the relationship I had with Tony.’ He took a gulp of his coffee and grimaced. ‘You know I felt something for him. I think he did for me. A little bit. But for him it was more about discovery. Exploring his feelings, if you want to get hippy-dippy about it. Cambridge was an eye-opener for him; he’d come from a sheltered background. I would have liked it if …’ He stopped, rolled his shoulders. ‘But it was not going to happen. I wasn’t very nice to him once. More than once. I think it’s up to you to ask him about it.’

  ‘That’s going to be a bit difficult.’ Alex cut a piece of cake with her fork. ‘He’s got dementia. Oh, it hasn’t completely taken him over, but it’s getting there. He has lucid days and not so lucid days.’

  ‘Ah, that’s crap.’ He rubbed his hand over his face. ‘Dementia. Tony. How we all grow old.’ He looked at her, and she saw what an attractive man he must have been. And the charisma that she doubted would ever fade, a charisma that probably made people do whatever he wanted them to do.

  She had to know. She leaned forward, jabbing her fork at him. ‘So you see, there is only you to tell me about those Cambridge days, and why my father left so suddenly. And why Roger Fleet was a mess. And about this photograph.’ Alex showed him the photo of the four student friends on her phone. ‘Taken by my dad, I guess.’

  ‘Well I’m damned,’ Willem said, taking the phone from her and looking at the picture from all angles. ‘There we all are. We look so … hopeful. Well, drunk and stoned really, I think.’ He grinned. ‘There was a lot of that in those days. Not like today when it’s oh-so-serious and everybody’s got to get a good degree to then go and do fuck-all.’

  ‘Did the partying get out of hand, then?’

  ‘You might say that, yeah.’ He smiled as though he was remembering good times. ‘After that was taken …’ He was still smiling, but there was a flash of cruelty behind it that made Alex shiver.

  ‘After that was taken, what?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Look.’ She sat up straight. ‘I feel there’s a connection between this photograph and the deaths of Roger Fleet and Derek Daley. And most likely Jen Tamsett. And you’re connected, too, somehow. So tell me, was the photo taken by my dad?’

  Willem Major nodded. ‘It was a lovely afternoon: the beginning of the end.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He shrugged. Infuriating.

  ‘And you’re holed up here because you’re frightened that whoever set the fire originally is going to come back for you.’

  Willem Major’s face closed down. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t talk about it. I told you. Not until Charlotte is safe.’

  The back of her neck prickled. She could understand that he didn’t want to talk about it, how painful it must be for him, but she had to know. ‘I read about it. It was deliberate, and the police are still looking for whoever did it. Willem, you’ve got to talk to me. Everyone in that photo has had something awful happen to them. Dad could be next. You have to tell me what went on.’

  ‘Let’s go.’ He threw some money onto the table and strode out of the café.

  Alex found she had to walk very quickly to keep up with Willem. They marched along the road, until he made an abrupt turn down a track that led to the sea.

  ‘The fire was set as a punishment,’ he said eventually, as they made their way onto a shingle path by the shoreline. She could see his cottage in the distance.

  ‘“Punishment”?’ Alex tried not to pant. God, she was unfit. Time to get a personal trainer. Stop it, concentrate, she told herself.

  ‘Apparently, because I would not cooperate.’ He bit out the words. ‘And because I would not cooperate, my family died.’

  Alex stopped dead. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Exactly that. I would not do as I was asked and so they killed my family. And now I have had to hide.’

  ‘What did this person want you to do? And, more importantly, why?’

  Willem Major stopped and looked up into the sky. He filled his lungs with the sea air. ‘Why?’ His mouth twisted in a parody of a smile. ‘Because I was involved in the death of a girl when I was at university, and this person wanted me to kill myself. In retribution. That’s what they said. “Retribution”. Oh, and “atonement”. Bit dramatic, I think. When I refused, they killed my family. So, they took my life away from me anyway.’ He looked at her. ‘Wonderful words, don’t you think? Retribution. Atonement. Biblical. Of course it’s all bollocks.’

  It all clicked into place. Roger Fleet and Derek Daley were blackmailed into killing themselves. Probably by threats to their families. That’s what those words meant. I did it for you. So why the accusations of child porn? Most likely, as she’d surmised, Daley was having second thoughts. Refusing to go through with it. And if he rebelled, ‘they’ might have lost their hold over Fleet, hence the child porn stuff. Jen Tamsett had no family – maybe she’d been blackmailed, maybe not – but she’d been killed by a car and the driver had never been found. Willem Major had lost most of his family. Only her father was left.

  ‘And the girl, the one who died, was it Zoe?’

  Willem Major looked around. ‘It’s beautiful here, isn’t it? I’ve never really noticed. Too busy watching for someone to come and finally finish the job. At least I can see them coming. Got a great view from the house.’ He chuckled mirthlessly. ‘Perhaps I won’t bother moving on. I’m tired of looking over my shoulder all the time.’

  ‘Tell me, was it Zoe who died? And who was she?’

  ‘Zoe was a nobody. Nothing.’ There was no emotion in his voice. ‘Really. Nobody. She had no family. Nobody would have missed her. Nobody did miss her.’ His hands chopped the air, his voice fierce.

  ‘Why did she die? Did you murder her? Was my father involved?’ Alex whispered.

  Willem laughed. ‘It was an accident; I didn’t kill her. Nobody killed her. At least I don’t think so. Yes, your father was there. So were Roger and Derek. Jen too. Stu. And we buried her.’

  ‘Where?’

  Willem smiled. ‘In a churchyard.’

  ‘Where?’ Her heart was thudding.

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘And I don’t believe you.’

  He sighed. ‘It was a long time ago. We were high. Drunk. Out of it. Whatever. I don’t remember where we drove to. I only remember it was a church somewhere in the Fens.’

  ‘And someone close to her wants revenge; is that what this is all about?’

  ‘Have you got a cigarette?’

  Alex took her emergency packet out of her bag and offered him a cigarette. He held it loosely between his fingers.

  ‘He said he was Zoe’s long-lost son.’

  ‘And do you believe him?’

  He laughed harshly. ‘No. Who knows? Maybe he’s an opportunist who found out about what happened and is making some sort of sick capital out of it. To be honest, for once in my life, I think it’s Stu.’ He laughed without mirth.

  ‘Stu.’ She frowned. ‘You mentioned him just now. I haven’t heard his name before.’

  Willem shook his head. ‘Stu was a miserable little worm. Weak. Not part of our set. Wanted to be like us so badly. A light?’ He cupped his hands around the flame before drawing on the cigarette. ‘Besides, he went off into oblivion after university. Never heard from him again.’

  ‘What was his last name?’

  ‘Stu?’ He smiled. ‘Eliot. He was a Barnardo’s Boy.’

  Excitement began to fizz in Alex’s stomach. ‘But don’t you see? He must be involved.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. Why has he waited all this time if it is? I don’t care any more, I just want out.’

  As quickly as the fizz had come, it subsided. Nevertheless, she filed Stu Eliot’s name away.

  ‘Didn’t you care, when Zoe died?’ She was curious about his detachment.

  ‘Not particularly. Why should I have done?’

  Why had her fath
er been friends with this man? ‘Because you’re a human being?’

  ‘I’ve paid for it though,’ he went on. ‘Paid for the accidental death of some girl I—’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He looked sideways at her. ‘Look after your dad, won’t you? He was a good person.’

  ‘He still is.’ Alex’s heart began beating furiously. She was suddenly very afraid for her father. ‘I must go and see him. Now.’

  Willem Major nodded, a sudden breeze ruffling his hair, making him look slightly mad. Which he probably was, thought Alex. If he wasn’t mad before, the loss of his family because of a shocking act forty years ago would be enough to send any sane man crazy.

  She began to run, back towards her car.

  ‘Your father was quite special, you know,’ he called out after her.

  Alex stopped running.

  ‘I know,’ she shouted. ‘I’ve always known.’

  But the wind whipped her words away.

  30

  Cambridge 1976

  Stu reported Willem to the university authorities and the police. Willem spent an uncomfortable twenty-four hours at the police station, but I gathered, due to his father’s influence and the greasing of palms with cash, he got off with a warning. He was humiliated though, and anger flashed in his eyes when I asked him about it.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he spat. ‘Dad gave him a fat cheque, and I had to apologize to the little shit and that was bad enough without having to think about it any more.’

  I left the subject alone.

  Gradually, the memories of the night we spent at the abandoned church receded, became even more dreamlike, almost to the point where I wondered if I had actually dreamed it. By a silent mutual consent, none of us talked to each other about it either and soon it didn’t cross my mind for days at a time. I saw Jen, Derek, and Roger when I was able. They were good friends, and I enjoyed their company, more so now that we seemed to be out of Willem’s orbit. We would go to the cinema, to the bar, maybe a concert, but work was becoming more demanding and exams would soon be looming such that I found myself in my room on my own more often than not. Jen seemed to see me as a friend only, much to my disappointment. Willem did still occasionally flit in and out of our lives – he was usually high on something, often manic.