Lin squeezed her arm. ‘Probably for the best.’
Alex’s stomach churned as she watched Lin hurry to her boat. Somehow, it all seemed very final.
She went over to check on Heath. He was still breathing. She looked up into the sky. Where was that helicopter?
‘Everything all right, Alex?’ Her sister spoke quietly so as not to disturb their dozing father.
Alex smiled grimly. ‘I hope so, Sasha, I really do.’
She took her phone out of her pocket. Mickey had switched it off. She pressed the ‘on’ button.
As it powered up, the screen became full of text messages. She scrolled through them. Gus. They were all from Gus. And one from Heath. All at once she remembered that Heath had said he’d sent her a text, but she’d never got it. There must have been something wrong with her phone – the last message she’d had was from Gus saying he was going to let her know when he was coming home. Always turn it off and back on again if you think something’s wrong, that’s what her son always told her. And she hadn’t done that. But Gus had been in touch with her. Relief swelled in her chest as she scrolled through some of the messages.
Been delayed. Will be home on Friday. Will let you know.
Friday. Today. She was weak with relief. Gus hadn’t let her down. She’d always known he wouldn’t. She must learn to trust him more, not to try and keep him so close.
Definitely Friday. Early morning. Friend picking me up and we’ll drive up to Sole Bay.
You okay Mum?
Message me
Signal weak here. Will phone when I land
Looking forward to seeing you
She was about to dial 999 when she heard the helicopter in the sky, and the gentle chug chug of a boat on the water. The cavalry were coming.
Then her phone rang out in the clear air.
‘Hi Ma, I’ve just landed.’
‘Gus.’ She smiled, shaky with relief.
‘I kept sending you messages, but you didn’t reply. Is everything okay?’ He sounded worried.
‘Everything’s fine. It was a – um – glitch on my phone. Nothing to worry about.’
‘Good. I’ve got a lot to tell you. About Ibiza. About Martha.’
‘Martha?’
‘She’s great, Mum. So grounded. I’m dying for you to meet her. She wants to meet you too. I know you’ll love her as much as I do.’
‘So, she’s bringing you to Sole Bay?’
‘Yeah. We might stop off for some breakfast. Is that okay?’
‘Of course,’ she said, keeping her voice buoyant. ‘Aunty Sasha is looking forward to seeing you.’
‘Aunty Sasha?’ He sounded surprised. ‘She’s home? Great. Anything else been happening? Besides Aunty Sasha coming home?’
‘“Anything else”?’ Alex smiled into the phone. ‘No, not really.’ Then she remembered how she hated that her parents had kept so much from her over the years. ‘As a matter of fact, Gus, quite a lot has been happening, but I’ll tell you all about it when I see you.’
‘Okay, Ma.’ There was laughter in the background, and Alex could tell Gus was only half listening to her.
‘See you soon, love.’
‘Yeah. See ya, Ma.’
Maybe she would tell him later she had been talking to him with a dead body and a badly wounded man nearby.
The noise of the helicopter was much louder now. Thank goodness Heath would be getting the help he needed.
A police cruiser swung in behind Firefly Sister.
Sasha and her father were fully awake as the helicopter landed in a field about fifty metres away. A doctor and a paramedic climbed out.
Two police officers stepped gingerly off the cruiser.
DI Berry and DS Logan. Didn’t they ever sleep?
38
Cambridge 1976
All I could hear was the thumping of my heart, my ragged breathing. Then a keening. Jen, her mouth open, snot and tears streaking her cheeks. Roger, standing there, just standing, shaking. Stu, slumped against the wall, his hands hiding his face. Derek, shock on his face. His fingers on his ever-present camera. Not now, I thought. Please.
And Willem, impassive, holding a once-white handkerchief to his bleeding nose.
I made myself look at Zoe. She lay on the corner of the tiled hearth, motionless. Blood, more black than red, seeping from the back of her head, forming a pool around her.
Sweat trickled down my back.
No one spoke.
Willem was the first to move. ‘She’s dead,’ he said, his voice nasal.
We all looked at him. All of us hoping he had an answer, any answer, as to what we should do.
But I knew what we should do. ‘We must call the police,’ I said. ‘Leave everything here as it is and go and find a phone box. Unless there’s a phone here?’ I looked around, not really seeing anything.
‘And then Dixon of Dock Green will come and pat your shoulder and say “there, there, don’t you worry, lad.” Yeah. Of course. Good call,’ said Willem, tipping his head back, trying to staunch the bleeding.
‘Well, what else?’ I was defiant, but wanting to cry at the same time.
Willem waved the bloodied hanky. ‘What land are you living in? Cloud cuckoo or what?’
Stu was sobbing. Messy tears. He sank to his knees and cradled her head in his arms.
‘Who was she? What was she doing here anyway?’ whispered Roger, who was as pale as snow.
‘Her name was Zoe. She was Stu’s girlfriend.’ My mind flashed back to the Michaelmas term and Willem screwing Rachel. ‘You did it deliberately, didn’t you, Willem? You knew Stu had a girlfriend and you flattered her and seduced her. What did you do then? Spin her a story to get her out here and wait for you? Then you brought Stu here. Why?’
But I knew why. Nausea rose in my throat. He hadn’t forgiven Stu for reporting him to the authorities, for getting one over on him, for having a good-looking girlfriend. He had known Stu would be in the pub. Jealousy and revenge. Again, he had manipulated all of us. I held my hands by my sides, fingers stiff and straight to stop myself from shaking. ‘You shit.’
Willem looked at me. ‘The question now is what are we going to do?’
‘I said, we must call the police.’ Why was no one listening to me?
‘And ruin all our lives? I don’t think so.’
‘What do you mean?’ My head had started to ache.
‘What’s going to happen when PC Plod gets here? He’ll arrest us all. That’s it. Careers over. Life over.’
‘We were trying to stop her falling.’ Jen’s voice was small and faint.
‘The police won’t see it that way,’ Willem said, dabbing at his nose. The bleeding had almost stopped. ‘Think of the publicity. The shame. We have been complicit in a girl’s death.’
‘It was an accident,’ I said.
‘Really? Are you sure about that?’
I rubbed my forehead. What was he trying to say?
‘Look.’ Willem at his most reasonable. ‘Zoe came from Scotland. She had no family as far as I’m aware – like Barnardo’s Boy there.’ He nodded at Stu. ‘She worked hand to mouth – a bar job here, waitressing there.’
‘What’s your point?’
‘No one’s going to miss her. That’s my point.’
‘“No one’s going to miss her”?’ I echoed.
‘Exactly. So, we bury her.’
‘“Bury her”?’
‘Stop sounding like a parrot. Yes, we bury her and that’s it. All done with. We can get on with our lives. Trust me, it’s the best thing. She’s dead. Let’s not ruin all our lives over some chit of a girl.’
‘Willem’s right,’ Derek piped up. ‘My parents will cut off my allowance.’
‘I want to study in America,’ said Jen, biting her lip. ‘I’ve wanted to do that all my life.’
‘Even you, Jen,’ I said, a big stone lodging in my stomach. ‘Roger?’
He blanched. ‘I don’t know.’
‘And
you,’ said Willem to me. ‘You. What are your parents going to say, going to think, when their golden boy is arrested for murder? The press camped out on their doorstep. Pictures in the paper. No one giving you a job because you’ll be tainted. Can you put them through that? Make them pariahs in that parochial place you call home? Can you?’
I knew I should walk out of there, call the police, do the right thing. I couldn’t be sure what had happened. Zoe had fallen. But had one of us pushed her by accident in our attempts to stop Stu from hitting Willem? Was Willem covering himself? It was all muddled in my head. I knew Willem wanted to be in control, to make us waltz to his tune. I knew all that. But his words about my parents had hit home.
‘And so we do it and then we don’t talk about it ever again. Never. We don’t talk to each other. We go our separate ways. Can you do that?’
Do it. Bury a girl like she was nothing.
I nodded my head and said okay and consigned myself to feeling guilty for the rest of my life. A guilt that would soon overwhelm me.
I hadn’t realized how hard it was to bury a human being. How slippery the plastic sheeting would become as the rain that had been threatening finally fell while we tried to carry it – her – to the car. How heavy a bag of gravel was. How difficult it would be to manoeuvre the body into the car in the darkness. The limbs. The torso. Her head. How physical and tiring it was to dig a hole deep enough in the old abandoned churchyard we found.
We all took turns to shovel the soil over her body. I was the first.
39
The sun shone through the window and dust motes danced in its beams. The room was hot, the air heavy. She had to work to catch her breath.
‘So,’ said Alex, addressing Heath, ‘I’m pleading self-defence over Mickey’s killing, and my lawyer says I’ve got a watertight case. Even Logan and Berry seemed impressed – apparently the Met has been trying to get him on all sorts for years: kidnapping, corruption, protection rackets, people smuggling, the lot. And it only took a pair of scissors to get him.’ She wiped away tears that seemed to have sprung from nowhere. ‘Actually, I think the cops are pissed off because he’s dead. No grandstanding trial. And he had absolutely nothing to do with Zoe.’ She leaned in close to him. ‘Can I tell you a secret?’ she breathed in his ear. ‘I didn’t kill him. But don’t tell anyone.’
She drew back and looked at him. How peaceful he seemed, lying there on the hospital bed, his face smooth and untroubled. But then there were the wires, the monitors, the bleeps. The tube down his throat, the antiseptic smell, the curtains around the bed, the quiet chat of nurses and doctors.
She sat back down in the chair and took hold of his hand. Although the wound in his shoulder had not been serious, he had lost a great deal of blood. And then the infections had set in. In the wound. In his chest. His lungs. It had been touch and go for a while, but the doctors said he was over the worst.
But he hadn’t woken up. Not yet.
‘You were trying to tell me something when you were in the Abbey, weren’t you? When I think back, I could see it in your eyes. What was it? Had you found out something? Was that why you disappeared? And why were you there anyway?’ She sighed. ‘Oh, Heath, I wish you could talk to me.’
The monitors bleeped in reply.
‘Willem Major’s dead. Swept out to sea, apparently. It could have been suicide. Or not. They couldn’t tell. He died of head injuries.’ She took a couple of the grapes she had brought and popped them in her mouth. ‘You don’t mind, do you? Only, you’re not eating them and I don’t want them to spoil—’ Her throat closed up again. ‘Sorry, sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry. I’m trying to be normal.’ She swallowed. Hard. ‘Anyway, I gather his daughter’s now doing voluntary work somewhere in Africa, so she’s safe. If it was suicide, I think he was waiting for that.’
There. A twitch. Had she imagined it? She looked at Heath’s hand held in hers. Had he squeezed her fingers slightly? She held her breath, but nothing. She had probably imagined it.
She sighed. ‘I wish I knew what was going on in that head of yours.’ She got up and walked over to the window. The view was over an inner courtyard garden. There were two people sitting on a bench, both hooked up to IV drips. One of them was a young man who didn’t look any older than her son.
She sat down, and stroked the back of his hand again, avoiding the wires and the tubes going into his body. ‘You’ll be glad to know I wrote the feature for Bud. Sent it to him this morning.’
She frowned. ‘A student called Stu was also there the day Zoe died. But I don’t know much more about him. He disappeared not long after leaving university. Willem said he hadn’t been part of their “set”. That sounds awful, doesn’t it? Like schoolboys. Though I suppose they weren’t much more than that at the time, were they?’ She began to chew the skin at the side of her thumb. ‘I don’t know, Heath. Willem thought Stu might have been behind it all, but I can’t find him anywhere. I ran my theory past Bud, but he seemed to agree with the police. That Mickey was some sort of crazed killer with a grudge against Derek and Roger. And Willem. They have found evidence that he had been responsible for the arson at Willem’s house. So, the cops are trying to find out what the grudge might have been. By the way, Bud’s very keen to hear how you’re doing, so perhaps he’ll forgive you for going AWOL. May even get your job back.’ She grinned. ‘That would be good, wouldn’t it?’
Heath’s eyes were open, looking straight at her. She gasped.
At that moment the curtains around Heath’s bed were snatched back and Mimi, Heath’s pregnant girlfriend tottered in.
‘He opened his eyes,’ Alex said, excited, but her heart was sinking slightly at the same time. She and Mimi hadn’t hit it off at all since meeting in the relatives waiting room at the hospital after Heath had been brought in. Mimi blamed Alex for everything that had happened to him.
‘What are you doing here?’ she hissed now. ‘I thought I told you I didn’t want you here?’ She put the pile of magazines she’d been carrying down on the locker by the bed. Men’s Health. GQ. Wallpaper. Very sophisticated.
‘I know,’ said Alex. ‘I had to talk to him. But he opened his eyes. That’s progress, don’t you think?’
‘Well they’re closed now.’
‘But—’
‘Thank you. I’ll let the doctor know. They said this might happen and it would be a good sign. But he’s not out of the woods yet. Thanks to you.’
‘Mimi, I’ve told you how sorry I am, but it was Heath’s choice to help me with the story.’
‘I don’t want to know. Now. If you don’t mind?’ She tapped her foot impatiently, cradling her bump.
‘Of course, of course.’ Alex jumped out of the chair. ‘You sit down. I was about to go anyway.’
‘Good. Heath doesn’t need you. He’s got me.’
And she was going to eat him alive, thought Alex, as she hurried down the corridors of the hospital and out into the sun and fresh air. If he got better, that was. Please, let him get better.
Her phone rang.
‘Is that Alex Devlin? It’s Laurie here. Laurie Cooke. I don’t know if you remember me—?’
‘Of course I do,’ said Alex, walking across the car park to her car. ‘How are things?’
‘Oh, you know.’
And she did know. When the tabloids, and even some of the broadsheets, got hold of a story with any whiff of paedophilia it drained every last drop out of it, and then some.
‘Alex, the reason I phoned is because I found something among Dad’s papers here at the farmhouse that, well, could you come and have a look? I don’t really want to talk on the phone. You know?’
She did know. Despite all the phone hacking scandals and inquiries there were still some unscrupulous journalists around. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
‘So, what have we got?’
Alex was sitting at the table in the large kitchen of Derek Daley’s holiday home, papers spread out in front of her.
‘Look,’ said Laurie, pushing a sheaf of papers towards her. ‘I found these. They go back years.’
Alex picked up the first sheet. Bank statements. ‘I don’t want to pry—’
‘No, no,’ said Laurie, impatiently. ‘It’s okay. It’s an account that neither Mum nor I knew about. I don’t expect you to go through them all, but if you look, at least a thousand pounds a month has been deposited in it in the last few years, sometimes a lot more. It was less before that. It’s been going on for years.’
Alex took a closer look.
‘Can you see?’ said Laurie. ‘I looked it up, and those deposits are from a bank based in the Cayman Islands.’
An offshore bank account – perfect for keeping secrets.
Another entry caught her eye. A hefty sum from Worldwide Listening. She thought for a minute. The Irish radio station that had been bought out a few years earlier by The Lewes Press Group that owned The Post. Was that right? She would have to check. Could be innocuous: Daley could have done some work for them. A hell of a lot of work, which seemed strange as Bud and Daley were not exactly friends. Her interest was growing with the tingling in her fingers. ‘Your mum doesn’t know anything about this?’
‘No, she left all the finances to Dad. Stupid, isn’t it, in this day and age? And then there was this.’ She pushed another piece of paper over to Alex. ‘I found it in his email sent items from a couple of months ago on that hidden iPad I told you about. I printed it out to show you.’
To: Middlemarch
From: Double Dee
Subject: Upping the ante
I hear things are moving. Terms are changing.
‘And that’s it?’
Laurie nodded. ‘Nothing else. No reply. That was the last of the messages.’
‘And this was sent before your dad was booked onto the boat?’
‘Yes,’ said Laurie, ‘I thought it was strange because the police told me that this Mickey character had been responsible for Dad’s death. Then I found these emails. What do you think it means?’
Alex frowned. ‘It certainly looks like your dad was blackmailing this Middlemarch somehow.’ She frowned. ‘I wonder what that was all about?’
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