The Quiet Girls: An absolutely addictive mystery thriller

by J. M. Hewitt

  Scrambling over the rocky outlet, she paused to peer over the high stone wall. She felt the first, real smile of the last two weeks break out on her face.

  Ben.

  ‘Ben.’ She said his name, softly, too quietly for him to hear over the sound of the water lapping against the wall, but he looked up anyway. Perhaps he sensed her presence.

  ‘You came,’ she said.

  He straightened up. ‘You’re still alive,’ he remarked.

  She was taken aback at his words, moments passed before she realised it was a joke. It confused her, Ben hadn’t seemed the sort to make jokes.

  ‘Are you coming aboard?’

  With a single, fleeting glance behind her, Alice clambered down onto the boat.

  It was cold there, on the deck. Alice sat uncomfortably on the same wooden bench that she’d sat on as they’d sailed over.

  ‘Tea?’ Ben held up a flask, tilted his head in an enquiring manner.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Alice folded her hands in her lap, covered them with her jacket so he wouldn’t see how cold she was. As he disappeared with the flask below deck Alice wondered what she was doing here. She didn’t know this man. He was not someone she would come across in normal life, not unless he was in trouble and in need of a lawyer to represent him. But he was someone from outside, someone who wasn’t part of the new family she’d been thrust into, and that sort of contact was something she craved.

  ‘How is it, then?’ he asked, coming back up from the galley. He passed her a cup, made of tin, and she tried not to make a face at the dark brown liquid.

  ‘Thanks. The island is all right, might have been better in the summer.’ She shrugged, sipped at the tea which was surprisingly good.

  ‘Summer will be hard if it’s a hot one,’ he remarked. ‘Not much shade, the rabbits Harry was talking about catching will be hidden until night time. The streams will be lower, harder to collect from. They might run dry.’

  She blinked at him, hadn’t thought of any of that. To Alice, if the sun shone, everything was easier and better. ‘Oh,’ she said.

  ‘Are you cold?’

  ‘A little,’ she lied; she was freezing.

  ‘You can go in the galley if you want, below deck.’

  The air really was biting now, her hands so cold she knew if she looked at them, they would be red and blotchy. She smiled gratefully, slipped past him and down the rickety stairs below.

  It was a whole different world down there. She stood in the long, narrow room and looked around. A bed, just enough for one person took up the starboard wall. The blankets were homely, hand crocheted, and looked remarkably clean. The tiny stove was on and heated the room considerably. Pots and pans hung above a sink and a small desk was stationed at the end of the room below a small window that looked out on the deck.

  ‘Do you live in here?’ she asked, amazed.

  ‘Sometimes.’

  He was close to her, right behind her, so near that his response made her jump. The tea sloshed, spattering onto her hand.

  ‘It’s very nice.’

  He was trying to move past her, she realised, and she was blocking his way. He came on down the last step anyway, big hands on her shoulders, shifting her gently but firmly. She stumbled and he righted her with a muttered apology.

  She watched as Ben moved down to the stove. He told her to sit down if she wanted.

  She looked around, the only place she could see to sit was the bed. She perched on the edge, gripping the tin mug, watching him as he busied himself around the cabin.

  She relaxed, realising she was warm and safe and feeling that way for the first time since landing on Pomona. The heat in the room settled to a pleasant warmth that blanketed her, everywhere except her shoulders, which burned with an intensity where Ben had laid his hands on her.

  The wood store was complete. Harry stood back and surveyed it before moving back up. He clapped Gabe heartily on his back.

  ‘It’s brilliant,’ he said, genuinely pleased with the man’s work.

  ‘Not bad, hey?’ agreed Gabe. Looking around he leaned closer to Harry. ‘Harry, pal, I brought some contraband over, what do you reckon we crack open a bottle, you and me?’

  Harry regarded him. ‘A bottle of what?’

  Gabe grinned, all white teeth. ‘Come with me.’

  Harry followed him into the cottage. ‘Wait here,’ said Gabe, and disappeared into one of the bedrooms.

  Harry glanced around the room, noticing the difference between Gabe’s cottage and his.

  This cottage, the one that Gabe, Liz and the twins lived in, seemed not to have changed one bit in the two weeks they’d been here. He crouched down, drew his hand across the floor. The dirt was an inch thick, the lines of his fingers making a trail. He stood up, scuffed his shoe over it. What was Liz doing, all that time when she wasn’t with the group, if she wasn’t homemaking?

  ‘You got any plans for this place?’ he called out to Gabe.

  Gabe stuck his head round the door frame. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, Alice and Melanie have made our cottage more… comfortable to live in. Honestly, Gabe, you should see them, tidying, cleaning, moving and shifting stuff.’ He laughed but it sounded hollow to his ears. ‘Personally, I think the two places are fine as they are, but you know what women are like.’

  It was a lie; Harry was meticulous with cleanliness and keeping one’s home nice, he had always been more of a homemaker than Alice. It was a trait that endeared him to the other mothers and Alice’s friends. Equally, it grated on the husbands, who retaliated by pushing Harry firmly out of their groups.

  ‘Liz isn’t bothered much,’ said Gabe, vanishing once more into the bedroom.

  But if she hasn’t been making this place nice, what has she been doing? wondered Harry.

  ‘Ha!’ Gabe emerged, clutching a bottle in his hands. He held it aloft. ‘Bourbon,’ he announced.

  Harry hesitated. He wasn’t supposed to drink at all on the antidepressants, and he had a feeling that Gabe wasn’t a one-glass kind of guy. On the other hand, he had planned to use the island time to wean himself off them. And what better time to start than now?

  ‘Go on, then,’ he said. ‘Why not?’

  Gabe poured in silence and handed a glass to Harry. Harry sipped at it, noted it was a very nice bourbon indeed and threw it back.

  Take that, Fluoxetine, he thought.

  ‘Where’s Liz?’ he asked, settling into one of the wooden chairs by the fireplace.

  Gabe cocked his head towards the bedroom he’d just been in, the door still ajar. ‘Sleeping,’ he said.

  Harry was startled, why was Liz sleeping? Wasn’t she feeling well? ‘Sorry, I didn’t realise,’ he said. ‘We can take that bottle over to mine if you like.’

  Gabe studied Harry over the top of his glass. With a glance at the bedroom he got up, walked over to the door and peered in.

  ‘Sweetheart, are you okay?’ he murmured in a low voice.

  Whispered words in return; Gabe opened the door wider and moved across to the bed. Harry craned his neck, watched as Gabe bent over the figure in the bed, tucked the blanket in around his wife, brushed a hand softly over her hair.

  He backed out of the room, closed the door quietly and made his way back to the table.

  ‘She’s under the weather,’ Gabe said, frowning. ‘Think she’s got a fever.’ He shook his head, forced a smile. ‘Hopefully a day or two in bed and she’ll be right as rain.’

  Harry nodded, cast an anxious glance at the bedroom, thinking of Alice’s worries of what would happen if someone needed medical attention on the island. He forced her thoughts out of his mind, smiled brightly at Gabe.

  ‘She’ll be fine, mate,’ he said.

  Gabe nodded, but Harry could see the lines of concern etched deeply into his face.

  ‘Where were you today?’

  Alice, poking at the logs in the rapidly dying fire looked up at Harry. Ignoring his question, she said, ‘F
ix this, will you?’

  He knelt unsteadily down beside her, reaching for the small twigs they kept on the side of the hearth and shoving them under the larger logs. Finally the flames leapt up.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Some of these logs aren’t dry enough yet.’

  He stood up, using her shoulder as a crutch and dusted off his hands.

  ‘Where were you?’ he asked again.

  She shrugged, kept her face turned towards the fire. ‘Walking, by the water, mostly.’ She chanced a look up at him. ‘Why?’

  He lurched over to the armchair and slumped into it, his hip banging the side table. He shot a hand out to steady it.

  ‘Jesus, Harry.’ Alice trailed him, leaned over him in the chair. ‘You smell like a distillery, you know you’re not supposed to have alcohol on the Fluoxetine!’

  He grinned up at her, a lazy smile. ‘I stopped taking them.’

  Alice fell heavily into the chair next to him. Thoughts rushed at her: Harry, prone in his chair, the curtains pulled across the windows, the room in darkness; her own life, in darkness. As if in answer to her vision, the sun vanished behind a cloud, a gloom settled over the lounge.

  ‘Alice.’ His voice made her jump, he gripped her hand, squeezed it and tenderly lay it on his cheek. ‘I’m all right, here, I’m okay. We all are.’

  She searched his face, reassured herself that here, now, he was the Harry she remembered. The one who was well, who functioned better than anybody she knew.

  ‘If you start to feel bad…’

  He kissed her knuckles. ‘I’ll tell you, I promise.’

  Empty promises. She wrenched her hand from his grasp. Had he told her any of the other times that the cloud began to bite at him?

  ‘Because I can’t cope with it here, alone, on my own.’

  He sat up suddenly. ‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, that Liz, next door. Alice, will you call in on her tomorrow?’

  She blinked at him, thrown by the sudden change in topic.

  ‘I already tried, Harry. She’s… she’s just not interested.’

  He shook his head impatiently. ‘I was over there, earlier, Alice, she was in bed, it was the middle of the day and she was asleep.’

  ‘Maybe she didn’t sleep well last night, maybe she’s not feeling very well,’ said Alice.

  ‘She’s always in bed.’

  Alice turned at the sound of Melanie’s voice. ‘Sweetie, why are you hiding over there?’

  Melanie stepped forward from the shadowy corner. ‘I wasn’t hiding, I was reading.’

  ‘Wait a minute, what do you mean she’s always in bed?’ Harry butted in. ‘Did Willow tell you that?’

  Melanie gazed at her father. ‘No, I see her when I look through her window.’

  An explosion from both of her parents; laughter from Harry, an exclamation of disbelief from Alice.

  ‘Melanie! You can’t go looking through people’s windows!’

  Melanie transferred her glare to her mother. ‘What else are windows for?’

  Harry let off a peal of laughter. ‘She’s got you on that one,’ he said to Alice.

  ‘Shut up, Harry,’ said Alice, unable to keep the laughter from her voice. She turned to Melanie, curiosity getting the better of her. ‘Why is she in her bed all the time, is she sleeping, or just, you know, there?’

  ‘Sleeping.’ Melanie shrugged. ‘Sometimes she’s crying.’

  Harry’s laughter abruptly ended. Alice sank back into her chair.

  ‘Maybe I should try speaking to her again, get her out of the house.’ She looked sharply at Harry. ‘Did Gabe say anything about her when you were over there?’

  ‘He said she was sleeping and she might have a fever.’ He scratched at his head. ‘He seemed a bit worried about her.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll speak to her, check she’s okay. She might be homesick,’ mused Alice.

  Melanie stepped closer to her mother. ‘Are you homesick, Mum?’

  Alice shivered suddenly, in spite of the fire in the grate. She fixed a smile on her face. ‘I’m fine, sweetie. I’m just fine.’

  Melanie knelt beside her father in the mossy grass. She thought about what had been said about Liz, and her parents’ concern for her. It was strange seeing a grown woman crying like that, alone in her bed. It made her feel weird, like the times she’d seen her father crying in the same way. Maybe Liz had depression too. And since her father wasn’t taking his medication any longer, perhaps he could give it to Liz.

  ‘Dad, if Liz is crying because she’s depressed, can’t you give her your pills?’

  Harry glanced up from the wire he was twisting into a loop. ‘It doesn’t work that way, honey. The doctor has to prescribe the medication based on what they think from talking to the patient. Pass me that hammer.’

  She did as he asked. ‘But we have no doctor here on the island,’ she said.

  ‘I’m… sure… she’s… not… depressed.’ He spoke between hammering a stake into the ground. ‘Your mother will sort it out, don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Gabe isn’t helping Liz, though, not like Mum helped you when you felt ill.’ It wasn’t a question, but Harry put the hammer down and shuffled over to her.

  ‘Maybe he doesn’t know what to do. Maybe he’s a bit overwhelmed.’

  ‘And Lenon and Willow, they’re not helping her either.’

  Harry sighed. ‘Sometimes people just don’t know what to do, so it becomes easier to do nothing.’ He went back to the snare trap he was setting, twisted the last length of wire around the thin, grey trunk of a tree.

  Now it was time to wait. Melanie sat on a grassy hillock, pulled a notebook out of her pocket.

  ‘What’s that?’ her father asked.

  ‘I’m recording the birds I see here,’ she said.

  He came to sit beside her. ‘Let’s see what you’ve got then.’

  She opened it, read aloud to him the birds she’d spotted so far. ‘Swift, sparrowhawk, woodpeckers, plovers.’ She closed the book, grinned up at him. ‘I saw a buzzard too.’

  He smiled in return, their eyes locked together. Happiness flooded her; this is how it should be; her and him, sharing the stuff that nobody else was interested in.

  From the corner of her eye Melanie saw movement. Slowly she reached out to lay a hand on Harry’s arm. ‘Rabbit,’ she whispered.

  They moved as one, reversing backwards on their hands and knees into the long grass that surrounded the mossy path. Harry stopped and lowered himself fully to the ground to lie on his front. Melanie copied his position.

  ‘Keep still,’ Harry said quietly.

  The rabbit, fat and brown, zig-zagged in their direction, stopping now and then to nibble at the grass. Sometimes it paused, lifted its head. Its nose twitched as though it could smell them.

  ‘It’s coming!’ Harry’s whisper was hoarse, excitement evident in his voice. Through her chest, Melanie felt her heart banging painfully on the ground beneath her.

  The rabbit was at the snare now; suddenly it darted forwards, the entire head inside the loop that Harry had created. Panic, now, Melanie could see by the whites of its eyes. The rabbit lurched forward, tightening the steel. It thrashed, the wire constricted, pinching the rabbit’s neck harder.

  ‘Yes!’ Harry exclaimed, no longer any need to whisper.

  Melanie remained in the long grass, transfixed by the colours that the rabbit threw off. A scarlet red, like blood, which pulsed into a pale pink, gradually dimming to white as the life drained out of it.

  Melanie closed her eyes and laid her face down on the ground. The grass was cold against her hot cheek.

  21

  ‘How is your mother?’

  Alice, who had been waiting for either Willow or Gabe for what felt like an eternity stood up as Liz’s daughter appeared in the doorway of her cottage.

  Willow, carrying a basket over her arm, stopped. She glanced left and right, seeming to Alice as if she were looking for a way out. Apparently finding none, sh
e walked slowly over to her.

  ‘Getting better,’ said Willow, her strange, blank eyes staring at something unseen in the distance.

  Alice scrutinised the younger girl’s face. It had been two weeks now since anyone had seen Liz. Gabe had told them she had a stomach virus, and she was quarantined for everyone else’s safety. When pressed, Willow and Lenon had verified this.

  ‘I think someone needs to see her,’ Alice had said to Harry, a fortnight prior, talking in hushed tones in their bedroom. Melanie was there, curled up at the end of Harry and Alice’s bed, a place she had taken to falling asleep. More often than not they left her there until morning, Harry covering her with a blanket.

  ‘We don’t want to get sick too, though,’ Harry had replied. ‘I’ve told Gabe to make sure she has plenty of water, fresh water from the stream.’

  ‘But is that safe?’ Alice asked urgently. ‘What if she got the virus from it? Bacteria?’

  ‘Then we’d all be ill, and nobody else is.’ Harry gripped Alice’s leg. ‘She will be fine, they’re taking good care of her.’

  Alice had slapped his hand away and turned to her daughter. ‘Have you looked through their window lately, have you seen her?’

  Melanie shook her head.

  ‘Melanie?’ Alice pressed.

  ‘I haven’t, they’ve put curtains up now anyway,’ she protested.

  Two weeks had passed, a whole month on the island, with one of the group so rarely seen, Alice could hardly remember what she looked like.

  ‘Are you sure, Willow?’ Alice asked now. ‘Because if not, I really think we should contact the mainland and get Liz to a doctor.’

  Willow stared at Alice. ‘We can’t contact the mainland, can we?’

  Alice gritted her teeth. Today was the day that Ben should be visiting. As yet, nobody knew about her liaisons with him, but if one of the group’s health was really at risk, she would get Liz on his boat and take her to the doctor herself. She thought about it briefly, back on dry land, among the lights and the noise and the smells. The vision almost made her mouth water.

  ‘Can I see Liz?’ she asked.