by Terry Tyler
"I agree. Lottie won't."
"Jax is going to moan like hell. Especially now he's an apprentice Hadrian’s Angel."
"Don't mention it yet. He's bound to be a bit behind Lottie, maturity-wise."
I pull her to me and poke her in the chest with my finger. "Oy! That's my son you're talking about!"
"You know what I mean." She pushes me away and rolls on top of me, dragging my attention from anything but the moment. "A boy of seventeen doesn't understand stuff the way a girl does. It's good that you've told him about us, but don't mention the rest yet. He'll be so pissed off he won't be able to help having a good moan to someone, and word will get back to Dex. It will." She bends to kiss me, and for the next half hour I couldn't give a stuff about anything except me and her. When we're getting dressed, though, she turns to me.
"Are you absolutely sure you want to leave?"
"Hell, yes!" The look on her face worries me. "Don't you?"
She puts her arms around me. "Yes. Of course I do."
"You're not just saying that because I do?"
"No. I don't have to do that with you, because you actually give a shit about what I think."
I kiss her. "Always. I love you."
"I love you, too." Her eyes are a bit teary. "That's always, as well."
"Me too." We hold each other so tightly. Nothing in the world is better than this. "Aren't we lucky?"
She kisses me. "I wouldn't want to be anyone but me, and I don't want to be anywhere but here with you, wherever here is or turns out to be."
I feel my eyes water up, too, and I hold her head close to me, stroking her hair. "When I was riding down to the barricade for my shift yesterday, I got this feeling. It was like release; I thought, I won't be here for much longer. Like I've already got one foot out of the door."
"I know what you mean." She looks sad through her smile. "That's like in Shipden, after the power went off. Like we were just waiting for the 'everybody out' call." She gives a big sigh. "Which came, of course."
"Don't feel too sad about Shipden. I'll make you happier than you ever were there. I promise."
"Ah, but you can't rely on another person to make you happy, it has to come from inside you." She pulls away from me, and laughs. "Or so Flora keeps telling me, since her crash course in self-help from Suzanne."
"It's kind of true, though, isn't it?"
"Yes. Trouble is that she's read one book and preaches its contents like she's found the secret to life." She shakes her head and gives a little laugh. "Of course you're more likely to build good relationships if you're not too fucked in the head; that's common sense. Happiness isn't a right, anyway, it's just a lucky bonus." She puts her arms around me. "I've got this fantasy I only allow myself to think about once a week, only for five minutes at a time, and only if I remind myself to get real, straight away afterwards. It's you, me and a little Suffolk farmhouse. Making bread. Chickens and ducks."
"Lottie striding across fields massacring rabbits, and Jax dancing round the maypole to Slayer?"
We fall back on the bed, laughing and kissing.
"I love you so much," I tell her. The way she looks back at me fills my heart. I feel sorry for everyone else in the world because they're not us.
She touches my face. "Why did we waste all that time? I'm so sorry, it's all my fault—"
"Ssh. It doesn't matter. We're together now." I hold her tight.
"Scares the life out of me—we could so easily never have met, if Kara hadn't bumped into you, if she'd walked into that shop half an hour later—"
"Don't." I wipe a tear from her cheek. "Don't cry."
"They're happy tears. I love you so much it keeps seeping out!"
I laugh. "Soon. Soon it'll be like this all the time."
Soon this will be every morning, every day, not just snatched hours. Aria's already asking why my shifts are getting longer, and, the other day, Dex went down to the hotel to find Vicky, and she wasn't there. Then Rowan started asking questions, too; Vicky says she's being a bit off with her, generally. We need to do this, soon. I don't want to wait. I think we should just pack up and go, and not tell anyone. Leave notes. I'd go tomorrow. Lottie and Jax will be better off away from this place, in the end. I know they will.
I just want to go.
Chapter Thirty
Lottie
Five Days Later
They say things come in threes, don't they?
Wish I knew who 'they' were, and how they know fucking everything about fucking everything.
This is the main problem: you don't spot what the 'thing' is that's going to come in a three, because it's no biggie when it's only happened twice. Otherwise, you could say, we'd better watch out, 'cause there'll be another one soon.
It's even more difficult to spot when you don't know it's happened a second time.
It's a blustery night—the third day of March, apparently; I never know the date now, but Phil keeps track for crop growing purposes—and our gang is snuggled into one living room, to save firewood and candles. Phil's wearing one of those miner's lamp head torches to read a book about agriculture, Kara's plotting her supply run schedules on the dining table by lantern light, Mum's reading a book about Suffolk villages, Scott's drawing, and Flora is teaching Jax and me how to play this card game called Kalooki (complex, but awesome). Dex isn't here; he needs solitude to work on his poxy book, so he's up at the castle.
It's late, and Mum is just talking hot chocolate when there's a knock on the door.
"Probably Jamie with the planting schedules," says Phil. "He said he'd work on them this evening." He gets up.
It's not Jamie. It's Nicole and Clay.
I hear her voice first, then his.
She's crying.
Jax makes a smug remark about all the pairs in his hand, but I shush him up.
"It's Nicole. Sshh, I can't hear."
I stand up as Phil brings them into the room. Nicole isn't just crying, she looks like she's in deep shock. So does Clay, for that matter. He's pale, anyway, but he looks like he's just seen a ghost. I mean, really.
I'm scared.
Phil's looking at Jax with this weird expression on his face. Then he kneels down on the floor, where we're playing cards.
Shit. Now I'm really scared.
"Jax, I need to tell you something." Phil puts his hand on his shoulder. We all fall totally silent, like we know this is something not good. Like, seriously not good.
"What?" Jax's voice is little, like a kid's.
Phil looks like he's going to cry. This is something bad. This is something really fucking terrible.
"Nicole and Clay were walking out by the priory, down below The Heugh." He sits down, and puts an arm around Jax's shoulder. "They found your dad." He puts a hand to his forehead. "Shit, there's no easy way to say this. They think he must have fallen."
And?
"What?"
Nicole bursts into tears. "He's dead. Jax, he's dead."
They think he must have fallen.
Heath. Dead.
He's dead. Jax, he's dead.
I fall back.
No.
No. Not Heath.
This can't be—
Mum's mouth falls open and then she's gulping for air and going no, no, no, Jax clutches Phil's shoulders, he's crying and croaking, "My dad?", then he stands up and yells, and he's charging out of the door, Kara's shoving Mum's coat and boots on her because she's like a wailing zombie, Flora is wailing too (dunno why, she hardly knew Heath, but wailing is kind of her default setting), the whole room is just one big blur of tears, panic, disbelief, and then we speed out into the night after Jax, torches flashing, up the road towards The Heugh. Mum streams ahead, running after Jax, not listening to Kara calling her back.
"I'm pretty sure he's dead," Nicole tells me, in between pants. "We felt his pulse but we didn't know what to feel for, and we put our heads on his chest but couldn't hear a heartbeat."
"So he might not be dead?"
/> "I think he is, babe," says Clay. "He was totally cold and still, and there definitely wasn't a heartbeat."
I can't get my fucking head round this at all. "So you think he fell?"
"I don't know, unless he was pissed, but he didn't smell of drink. You know where the wall ends, right at the top? There's a slope going downwards, dead steep."
"I know." I remember looking at it the day Mum told me about her and Heath, and having vague, subconscious thoughts about it being somewhere you could fall down. Shit. Premonition, or what?
"Don't say anything just yet," says Clay, "but we think someone might've pushed him off. 'Cause of the way he was lying. All weird angles, like a ragdoll, you know?"
"But there was no blood?"
"A bit. Nic thought he could've broke his neck on the way down. Or banged his head; there's blood on his forehead."
We splodge our way over the field to where they found Heath and I can just make out Mum and Jax holding him up with their arms around him, sobbing their hearts out. Mum keeps shouting out "No!", like she just can't handle it. The noise she's making is scaring me, it's like she's gone demented.
Jax keeps crying, "Dad, Dad," like a little kid, it's fucking heartbreaking.
"Who the fuck did this?" That's Kara.
Phil beckons Clay, who peels Jax off his dad, very gently, and then he takes Mum by the shoulders. "Let me have a look at him, darling."
Mum lets Kara take her, and Phil gets me and Nicole to shine our torches down on Heath. Oh Jesus, he's all white. Yeah, there's blood on his forehead. I'm shaking, I can't stop crying. Phil leans forward and listens to his heart, checks his pulse, then he just sits back on his heels, dead quiet.
"He's gone." He puts his hand over his face; his shoulders are shaking.
Mum falls to the ground, holding her stomach like she's in pain, making these scary noises. I go to put my arms around her but I don't think she even knows I'm there. Jax is in a similar state, and Clay can't do anything for him, either. I hold Mum to me, dead tight, like I remember Kara doing after she freaked out when Joel's dad held a knife to her, but this time it doesn't help.
I don't expect it to.
I've never seen, felt or heard anyone cry like this. And poor Jax is sitting there, weeping, still saying "Dad", over and over.
Mum pushes me off and stumbles back over to Heath; she's lying by him in all that wet, muddy, long grass, holding him and kissing him and saying, "Don't leave me". I can hardly see for crying.
Kara tries to move her away.
"No!" Mum kicks out at her, shoves her off.
"Come on, love," Kara murmurs. "We can't do anything for him."
Jax is beside her then, and they're sobbing into each other's arms. Kara holds her torch close to Heath, and Phil examines him further.
"There are marks on his neck," he says, eventually. He beckons to us to move out of Mum and Jax's earshot. "He's been strangled. There's a bump on his head, so perhaps he was hit first to knock him out or make him disorientated." He lifts his hands and shrugs. "That's all I can say, I'm no bloody forensic expert." He looks up, in despair. "Who would do this?"
Then I remember. Aria. She doesn't know. No one's thought about her, because we think of Heath as ours. "Someone's got to tell Aria."
The others look at me in the dark.
"Oh, shit," says Kara, and gets up. "I'll go."
We take him to the Pilgrim pub, and lay him out on a table.
Kara returns with Aria, who looks totally mad and dazed. It's weird. She's weird. She keeps saying stuff I'm sure I wouldn't be saying if my boyfriend had just been murdered.
"But he was on watch. What was he doing? I don't understand. Why didn't he come home? Why was he up there?"
Then she does the lying over him crying thing, like Mum did, except it doesn't break my heart this time, because he didn't love her.
He loved my mum.
He and Mum were supposed to be together and super happy, forever.
Others are called: Dex, Suzanne and Myra, who both have medical know-how, but no one can tell us any more than Phil did. Heath was banged on the head, and strangled, and that's all we know.
Not who did it.
People are murmuring. Talking about Travis.
Surely not, after all this time? And he's so nice—
Kara wants me to take Mum home, but neither she or Jax will leave Heath. They just sit, by the table where he lies, crying, kissing him and hold his hand. Cleary and Parks turn up and find brandy; we all need it. Mac's here, too. He puts his arms around me, strokes my hair and says nice things, but I'm too numb to be pleased.
As soon as it starts to get light, Dex sends Nicole and Clay out to tell everyone in the village, and that the funeral will be held in the churchyard at ten a.m., after which the investigation will begin. Gareth and Paul go out to dig the grave, and I go too, because I want to find something to mark it.
Round the back of the church I find wild crocuses and primroses. I cry all the time I'm digging them up. It's fucking cold out here in the misty morning light, and I haven't got any gloves on, or a fucking spade, so the earth sticks in my fucking fingernails, and makes my fucking sleeves all dirty as I plunge my hands in and tear up fucking roots, but I don't care, I don't think I could get it together to find a spade, and I can't stop fucking crying.
Heath's my friend, he's more family than any aunts and uncles I've ever had, more than Dex, even, and the more I think about this, the more I cry.
I'm more upset about him than I am about Gran and Grandad, and that's weird, but they were old and had enjoyed most of their lives together. Heath was still young, he looked like a rock star and he loved my mum and she loved him and it's just not right.
One thing has only just dawned on me. When Dex arrived he was dead nice to Mum, but didn't seem surprised about how distraught she was. He knows we were all close back in the old house, and Mum and Heath especially so, but does he know more than that?
It's hard to say.
'Cause we're all broken up, it's not just Mum. Ozzy came to the pub, and he was in pieces. He said, "Jesus, I loved this guy, I can't get my head round this," and stroked his hair and kissed him on the forehead, which made me start crying again.
Rowan turned up shortly after, and she was gutted, too. Dex was dead comforting to her. He knows we all loved Heath. I bet he feels left out, because he didn't live at Elmfield with us. His fault, his loss.
Aria was in another part of the pub, being consoled with brandy by Ian and Nish.
I stand up, and my legs feel shaky. I hold the flowers carefully and walk back round the graveyard in the morning chill, where I see Gareth and Paul digging. I stand still and look about me. Heath won't see this morning. He loved the new world, the freedom it gave him, and he loved Mum. They were going to be together for the rest of their lives, but now he's just gone. He won't see any more mornings.
I double over, like someone's kicked me in the guts. I hear myself shout out, and Gareth looks up, then I'm vaguely aware of Paul rushing over and taking the flowers from me, putting his arm around me and leading me over to the grave.
The funeral is fucking awful. Phil and Kara do the speech bit because Mum, Jax and Aria can't. They talk about losing a dear friend, and the good days in the old house. Nine becomes eight. Aria looks glassy-eyed, like a robot. I stand between Mum and Jax, and hold their hands. Most people have turned out. The bikers, with Wedge in front, looking dead respectful. Not Bette, though; suppose she's too hungover. Travis is missing. Probably doesn't care too much about the death of the guy who nicked his girlfriend.
Perhaps he'll get her back now.
Shit.
Perhaps the murmurings were right. Out of everyone, he's got the biggest motive.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Our gang is at our house all day. Kara says to me, quietly, that Jax will need a lot of support from me. She doesn't say anything about the fact that Mum stays in her room, alone, for most of the day. Dex is w
ith us; he doesn't mention it, either. That no one says anything, is odd.
Like, why is she acting as if the love of her life just died?
In the afternoon Dex goes up, and I hear raised voices. When he comes downstairs he looks highly pissed off.
"What was that about?"
He gives a big sigh and sits down. "She wants me to find out who did it and get rid of them, immediately. Haul them over the causeway in the clothes they're standing up in. No car, no supplies, no discussion."
"I think we're all agreed on that," Kara said. "Get it done, Dex. We've not interfered with your decisions up to now—"
"No?"
"Well, Wedge is still here."
Dex leans forward, elbows on knees, and stares at the floor. "For Christ's sake, we're not rehashing that one, are we?"
"Why not? You never did investigate Audrey's accusation, did you?"
I look at Jax, leaning against the windowsill picking his nails, obviously trying hard not to cry, and I get angry. "Kara, we need to find the person who killed Heath, not discuss stuff that's done with."
"Could be it's related," puts in Scott, quietly.
"I think it has to be Travis." Kara puts her hand up. "Sorry, Phil, I know we all like him, but the woman he loved left him for Heath; the jealous spurned lover is the oldest crime story in the book."
"I think so, too," Dex says. "It's no secret that he took the business with Aria very, very badly indeed."
"Hmm," Phil says. "To be honest, he seems to go into himself more and more all the time. Like he's obsessing over it."
"Or it could be Aria herself—" I stop. Ah. How can I explain this theory without giving away that Heath was in love with Mum?
Dex frowns at me. "Why Aria?"
I feel myself colour up. "Oh, well, she's a bit unpredictable, isn't she? And—" I think quickly "—she's been depressed, drinking too much—"
Dex shakes his head. "Sounds a bit far-fetched, love."
Kara sighs and flops back. "I wonder, what was Heath doing up there? I've checked; he'd just finished his shift, so he should have been going home."