The Storm

by Amanda Jennings

  ‘Alex,’ I say into Alex’s hair. ‘Listen to me. I’m sorry—’

  Nathan erupts. ‘You’re sorry to him? What about me? Where’s my sorry? You lied to me. You told me you were pregnant with my child.’

  ‘No,’ I say sharply. ‘I told you I was pregnant and you assumed the rest.’

  There’s a sweetness to spinning history like this, sweet though perhaps not edifying. I’m not proud of what I did. I’m not proud of concealing the truth from him. But I’m not ashamed either. I wanted a home for my son and I wanted Cam safe, and that’s what I got.

  I think back to ten years ago to when Nathan must have worked out Alex wasn’t his. Pieces of the jigsaw are slotting into place. The sharpness. The impatient snapping and the filthy moods. The start of his affairs. The hours he spent locked away in his study with the ghost of his drog-polat father. I should have guessed. But perhaps it was wilful ignorance. Not wanting to question anything. Not wanting to risk being thrown on to the streets or sending Nathan to the police. I’m shocked to discover how angry I am. I want to scream and shout. Punch walls. Smash windows. But because of Alex I hold it in. ‘You should have told me you knew.’

  Nathan scoffs and my fist balls. ‘Why would I do that? Unlike you, I’m loyal to a fault. I’d taken you both on. I was stupid enough to be duped and I would live with the consequences of that. I am a good man. I’ve always been a good man. You were my wife and he is your son. So instead of doing what most men would have done and running away—’ He glances at Cam here, one corner of his mouth raised in a sneer. ‘—I stayed and continued to provide for you, and, in spite of your malicious and heinous manipulation, love you.’

  He’s standing only a few paces from the top of the stairs and I have a vivid image of running at him and slamming my weight into his chest. I imagine his arms windmilling as he struggles to keep his balance. Falling backwards. The sound of him hitting the tiles below, his head cracking like a coconut and blood collecting in the channels of grout between the flagstones.

  ‘Why did you lie to me? Both of you did.’ Alex looks from me to Cam. ‘I came to you,’ he says to Cam. ‘But you denied it. Why?’

  Cam’s face knots in anguish. ‘I didn’t lie. I wish – more than anything – I was your father, but I’m not.’

  ‘Why are you still saying that?’ Alex cries.

  My heart bleeds that he still doesn’t understand. That there is more for him to have to hear. I wish more than anything I could shield him from the truth, but my web of lies is unravelling and it’s inevitable.

  ‘He’s lying,’ Nathan spits. ‘She was pregnant before we got together. Pregnant before she sent him away. But, like an idiot, I was blind to her mendacity. She is no more than a manipulative cuckoo.’

  Alex is wide-eyed with bewilderment. He looks from me to Nathan to Cam and back to me, as if being threatened from every direction with no idea which way to run.

  Tears spill down my cheeks. I should say something – anything – but words won’t form.

  ‘And while we’re all being honest, there’s something you should know about the man who fathered you—’

  ‘Nathan!’ The word comes out in a screech.

  The look he gives me is a mixture of pleasure and triumph. This is his finale. The moment the audience has been waiting for. The moment he gets to deliver his lethal blow.

  ‘He’s a murderer. A cold-blooded killer. He killed a man and dumped his body, and then he ran away like the coward he is so he wouldn’t get caught.’

  Alex’s face registers confusion and he turns to me for reassurance. Cam drops his head, his hands push through his hair, raking his scalp. My mind races, still desperate to find a way out of this, to keep the cotton wool casing I’ve wrapped him in all these years intact. But I know I can’t.

  The lies end here.

  Cam raises his head and looks at my son with red-rimmed eyes, a film of tears across them, lips drawn tight. ‘Alex, listen I—’

  I interrupt him. ‘He didn’t kill anybody.’ Cam starts to protest, but I silence him and repeat myself. ‘He didn’t kill anybody.’

  ‘Stop lying!’ Nathan’s face is ablaze. ‘I saw him. That man.’ He jabs the air aggressively in Cam’s direction. ‘He attacked me the same night. He’s a lunatic. I saw him with the body in his boat. I watched him take it out to sea and come back empty-handed. I saw him kill the man and dump the body. He’s a murderer, Hannah, and you know it. You can’t cover for him any longer. You know the truth. Cameron Stewart is a murderer.’

  My eyes bore into his and I speak clearly and calmly. ‘Cam didn’t kill anybody. I did.’

  Chapter Forty-One

  Hannah, 1998

  The side of her head throbbed and there was a burning pain between her legs. Her skin stung where his stubble grated. The thick smell of him invaded her, so unfamiliar, catching in her nose and throat as the sea lapped at the sides of the boat.

  He lifted off her. Stepped back. Pulled his trousers up and stumbled with the sway of the boat. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  She snatched at her skirt. Her heart banged violently against the bars of her chest. She noticed her underwear, ripped, on the deck beside her. She grabbed it and reached for her bag and pulled in on to her lap. She held it close, as if it might offer her some sort of protection, and tucked the offending slip of torn cotton inside. As she did, her fingers brushed against something cool and metallic in her bag. Slim’s knife. Her fingers clasped the scrimshaw handle.

  He was zipping his fly. Running a hand through his hair to smooth it. ‘Maybe see you around?’

  She tensed. Was he smiling? He was. He was fucking smiling. A rage she didn’t know she was capable of feeling welled in the pit of her stomach.

  ‘Fuck you,’ she whispered. ‘You’re an animal.’

  Another smile?

  ‘Hey,’ he said, and took a step towards her. ‘Don’t be like that.’

  ‘Stay away from me.’ Her hand tightened around the whalebone handle of the knife.

  But he didn’t stay away. He came closer. Bent down. Reached his hand out to touch her cheek as she drew herself back from him.

  ‘You really are very pretty,’ he said softly. ‘Maybe we should do this again? I’m sure Cam won’t mind.’

  ‘Stay away.’

  His face loomed near hers.

  It happened in a flash. Her hand flexed around the knife. Jerked from the bag towards him.

  ‘Get away from me,’ she said. ‘Get away!’

  The knife made contact. There was a resistance. His eyes widened. He fell back and looked down. Touched his fingers to the inside of his thigh. When he pulled them away they were shining, wet and black like oil.

  ‘What the fuck?’

  ‘I said stay away from me.’

  ‘I’m bleeding, you bitch.’ He tried to press both his hands to his inner thigh. But even in the muted light she could see how much blood was coming out of him. ‘My artery. You got my fucking artery.’ He threw his head back and swore, his head circling slowly, eyes rolled back in their sockets. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘What do I do?’ she whispered.

  ‘Put your hands on it for fuck’s sake. Press.’ His voice was fading. ‘Press… hard.’

  Hannah’s body was rigid, as if all her muscles and fibres had been frozen solid, but she forced herself to kneel. Crept closer to him. Reached out and pressed against his thigh. She glanced down and in the scant light saw blood pumping through her fingers like a burst water main.

  Davy Garnett fell back against the side of the boat. He tried to speak, but his voice was too quiet, no more than a guttural rasp, any words he was trying to say indefinable. His head swayed and tipped over to one side. There was a heavy thud as he hit the deck. Then stillness. She stayed rooted to the spot. Eyes on him. Hands pressed against the wetness of his leg.

  ‘Davy?’ she whispered. She held her breath and waited for him to answer.

  But he didn’t.

  He lay there still and
silent, and all she could hear were the waves breaking against the harbour wall and the distant sounds of laughter and music coming from inside the pub as she drew herself away and huddled, trembling, against the back of the boat.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Cam, 1998

  How long had he sat there? He had no idea. Half an hour? An hour? Maybe even longer. When he finally uncurled his back and stood, he felt better, lighter. The sea, its expanse and clocklike rhythm, had calmed him. His mind had some clarity now his heart rate had slowed and the fog of alcohol had faded. As he turned away from the water, he recalled the impact of his fist against the pasty cheek of Nathan Cardew and winced.

  What was wrong with him?

  It was as if he were walking a tightrope. Teetering on the edge with every step. People wouldn’t describe him as a violent man. The opposite. Most people gave him credit for being steady and cool-headed. His moments of lost control in the last few days made him uneasy. Especially when it came to Nathan Cardew. Rational thought told him Hannah – the Hannah he knew and loved – could never love a man like Cardew. Cam had seen the look she’d given him in the pub. It bordered on repulsion. But still Cam had let him wheedle his way into his head. The guy was an idiot. Cam could have leant into his face and said ‘boo’ and the prick would have collapsed. He had no interest in hurting Nathan Cardew. So why had he? Was it his breathtaking sense of entitlement and superiority? Or the demeaning way he’d talked about Hannah as if he owned her? Maybe it was all down to the stress of the fishing trip and knowing they all could have died out there. Whatever the reasons, he’d been an idiot and he needed to say sorry to Hannah. Nathan was wrong. Cam was worthy of her. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. He loved her and that was all that mattered.

  He headed back down the road to Newlyn. His watch told him it was nearing one. The Packhorse would do a lock-in tonight. He prayed she’d still be there as he pushed forward down the hill. The wind blew in frozen gusts off the sea and he drew his coat tighter around himself and kept his head low as he picked up pace and began to jog. At the harbour car park, he came to a halt and paused for a few moments to catch his breath and, as he did, he heard a faint noise. A mewling cry from the direction of the pier. He held his breath and listened again.

  Nothing.

  Must have been the wind.

  He started to cross the road, but then heard it again. A woman’s voice. A small sob. Talking. One voice or two? He turned and followed the direction of the noise. He stopped and listened again. Then another noise. It was coming from the water, from the boats moored at the bottom of the jetty.

  ‘Hello?’ he called.

  The noise stopped.

  ‘Who’s there?’ he said as he stepped on to the jetty. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Cam?’ The voice was faint but unmistakably Hannah’s.

  He hurried down the slippery jetty and went to his boat. He could see the outline of her visible in the muted light from the distant streetlamps, huddled in a corner of the small deck.

  ‘Hannah? What are you doing here?’ He began to climb into the boat.

  ‘You need to leave.’ Her voice was cracked and broken.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘You need to go. Just go!’

  ‘What’s happened? Is everything—’ He stopped speaking when he caught sight of the dark shape lying in the shadows at the side of the deck.

  He jumped down and realised the deck was wet, a pool of liquid surrounding the shadowy figure, which glinted in the snatches of moonlight.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Hannah, 1998

  A band grew tight around her chest. Her fingers and toes were numb and hot bile stung the back of her throat. Cam knelt down beside her. Hand on her upper arm. She flinched. She couldn’t let him touch her. She was dirty. Unclean. That man’s smell clung to her. Inside and out. Her lungs kept constricting until every molecule of air was squeezed out of her.

  In the dim light she saw his face was deformed by panic. Her fear thickened and her breaths grew shorter, coming in taut snatches as she started to shake uncontrollably. Cam glanced back at the motionless figure of Davy Garnett, his eyes staring, unseeing, up towards the cloudy night sky, and pressed two fingers against his neck. When his fingers fell away, he dropped his head and groaned.

  ‘What happened, Hannah? It’s going to be OK. But you have to tell me.’ His voice was soft and gentle and she wanted to wrap herself up in it.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said.

  She hesitated. ‘He…’ Her voice stuck in her throat. ‘Hurt me.’

  The words sounded faint and detached as if spoken by another person. Her body thrummed with the cold. The backs of her legs stung where they’d rubbed against the rough deck.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He came out of nowhere. He was hurting me. I… I didn’t mean to. The knife. I… You left it in the pub…’ Her voice faded. It had started to rain again, light drops, which turned razor-sharp in the wind. The waves beyond the walls seemed to be crashing harder and louder, angry perhaps, with what she’d done, with what she’d let happen. Was this her fault? She had flashes of Davy in the pub. Her hand on his. Her lips against his cheek. Her smiling as he handed her a drink. Then a violent image of her torn underwear. She clutched her bag tight to her. Cam couldn’t see. He couldn’t know. She pulled on her hem to draw her skirt as low as possible and winced at the flash of pain between her legs. She didn’t want him to see her like this. She wished the sea would suck her under and swallow her whole.

  ‘He hit me.’

  Cam touched her shoulder. She flinched again then looked down to see what he was reaching for and noticed her top was torn at the neck and her bra-strap exposed. She inhaled sharply and threw up her arm to cover herself.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Cam whispered.

  Had he guessed what Davy had done? She didn’t want him to know. She didn’t want to be tainted and ruined. She didn’t want to be this new version of her. She wanted to turn back time and have it like it was before.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Cam, 1998

  Cam rocked back on his heels, head in his hands, as the full implication of what he was looking at set in: the dead body of Davy Garnett lying on the deck of his boat in a swimming pool of blood. He leant forward. Looked closely. Checked the body with the flats of his hands until he found the tear in his trousers and a deep wound in his thigh. An artery, Cam guessed. It would have taken no more than a few minutes before he bled out.

  Cam glanced again at Hannah. Her eyes were tightly closed and her body trembled uncontrollably as if a low electrical charge was pulsing through her. Cam took his sleeping bag from the chest and wrapped it around her shoulders. As he did he noticed her hands were glistening with what he knew to be blood.

  He had to think.

  ‘Hannah,’ he said after a moment or two, the calm to his voice belying a mushrooming fear. ‘I need you to listen to me.’

  ‘I did it.’

  ‘Hannah.’

  ‘I killed him, didn’t I?’

  Cam looked back at Davy, half expecting him to sit up, for Geren to appear and both of them to start laughing, point at Cam and call him a gullible twat. But Davy didn’t move and there was no Geren. Cam’s thoughts were jumbled. He had to get a grip of the situation. The moon came out from behind a cloud and in the faint light it threw out, he noticed a smear of blood on the soft white skin of her thigh and felt a thump to his solar plexus.

  ‘The knife was in my bag,’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t want him to touch me. I was looking for you.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I thought you might be here. On your boat. He…’ Her words came in sobs. ‘He tried… I said no. I did… I promise you. But he was too strong. He kept on and on… He said I… I couldn’t tell… you…’

  Cam stared at Davy wishing he could kill him all over again.

  ‘I didn’t mean to. He came at me… again. He…’ Her voice trailed off and her eyes unfocused, and she began to rock gen
tly as if soothing a baby. ‘I tried to help. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t stop the bleeding. He—’

  ‘Where’s the knife?’

  She didn’t answer him.

  He put his hand on her knee and squeezed gently. ‘Hannah? Where’s the knife?’

  She shrugged vaguely, but offered nothing else.

  Cam went back to Davy’s body and searched the deck with the flats of his hands, desperation growing until at last he found it, lying in the corner of the deck, up against the side of the boat. He grabbed it and instinctively touched the blade. When his fingers came away they were dark with blood.

  ‘We need to call the police,’ she said faintly.

  Think, Cam. Think.

  The incongruous sound of muted merriment, music and laughter floated through the chilled air surrounding them. It sounded like a distant land.

  ‘Cam? The police.’

  Yes. The police. But was that the right thing to do? Should they call the police? His head felt fuzzy as if it was stuffed with fabric. There was an ache behind his eyes. If they called the police, then what? She’d say he attacked her. It was self-defence in an unprovoked assault. What else could she do?

  But would they believe her?

  Half the town had seen her drinking and dancing, flirting, doing shots with Davy and Geren, even kissing them. They saw Cam storm out of the pub. They would hear about how he punched Nathan Cardew? Would they think she went with Davy to punish Cam? Would they believe Martin Garnett’s son attacked her? If they did, would she go to prison anyway? He was dead, after all. He had no idea how the law worked, but he couldn’t take the risk. Then Cam thought of Martin, lying in hospital, arm gone and in its place a sewn-up stump. He saw a flash of bone and flesh ground into yellow oilskin. He thought of Sheila. Lovely, soft Sheila, floury from baking pasties with their initials etched into them, humming a song only vaguely recognisable. How would she cope? How would she deal with discovering her son was a monster? Sitting through a court trial where his name would be mud. A funeral soured by salacious whispers. What would it do to her? What would it do to Martin?