Czytaj książkę: «The Blame Game»

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Part One

1. Helen

2. Helen

3. Michael

4. Helen

5. Michael

6. Helen

7. Michael

8. Helen

9. Michael

10. Helen

11. Michael

12. Michael

13. Helen

14. Reuben

15. Helen

16. Helen

17. Helen

18. Michael

19. Helen

20. Helen

21. Michael

22. Helen

23. Reuben

Part Two

24. Helen

25. Reuben

26. Michael

27. Helen

28. Michael

29. Michael

30. Helen

31. Reuben

32. Michael

33. Helen

34. Helen

35. Helen

36. Helen

37. Michael

38. Helen

39. Michael

40. Michael

41. Helen

Part Three

42. Helen

43. Reuben

44. Helen

45. Helen

46. Helen

47. Reuben

48. Helen

49. Helen

50. Reuben

51. Michael

52. Helen

Part Four

53. Michael

54. Helen

Acknowledgements

A Q&A with C. J. Cooke

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by C. J. Cooke

About the Publisher

K. Haden

Haden, Morris & Laurence Law Practice

4 Martin Place

London, EN9 1AS

25th June 2006

Michael King

101 Oxford Lane

Cardiff

CF10 1FY

Sir,

We write again regarding the death of Luke Aucoin. The time to meet about this tragedy is long overdue. Please do not delay in writing to us at the above address to arrange a meeting.

Sincerely,

K. Haden

K. Haden

Haden, Morris & Laurence Law Practice

4 Martin Place

London, EN9 1AS

25th June 2010

Michael King

101 Oxford Lane

Cardiff

CF10 1FY

Sir,

We write again on behalf of our clients regarding the death of Luke Aucoin.

We request that you contact us immediately to avoid further consequences.

Sincerely,

K. Haden

28th January 2017

MURDERER

PART ONE

1
Helen
30th August 2017

I think I might be dead.

The scene in front of me looks like sea fret creeping over wasteland, closing in like a fist. A smell, too – sewage and sweat. There’s a flickering light, like someone bringing a torch towards the mist, and it grows so bright that I realise it’s my eyelids beginning to creak open, like two slabs of concrete breaking apart. Wake up! I shout in my head. Wake up!

Painful brightness. I can make out a ceiling with yellow stains and broken plasterboard, and a ceiling fan that spins limply. I try to lift my head. It takes enormous effort just to raise it an inch, as though an anvil is strapped to it. Where am I? My denim shorts and T-shirt are torn and caked in mud. I’m on a bed wearing one sandal. My other foot is twice its normal size, the blue nail polish that Saskia applied to my toes peeking through dried blood. I wiggle my toes, then my fingers.

I can feel my limbs. Good.

A nurse is busy replacing something at the foot of the bed. A urine drainage bag. A sharp tug at my side alerts me to the fact that the bag belongs to me.

‘Excuse me?’ I say. My voice is hoarse, no more than a croak.

The foreign chatter elsewhere in the room makes me think that the nurse might not speak English.

‘Sorry, but …? Excuse me? Can you tell me why I’m here?’

Even now, when I’ve no clue where I am or why, I’m apologising. Michael always said I apologise too much. I apologised all the way through both labours for screaming the place down.

A man arrives and consults with the nurse, both of them giving me worried looks as I try to sit up. He’s a doctor in plain clothes: a black polo shirt and jeans, a stethoscope and lanyard announcing his purpose. To my left is a window with a ripped insect net, and for some reason I want to go to it. I need to find something, or someone. ‘You must be careful,’ the doctor warns me in a thick Belizean accent. ‘Your head is very damaged.’

I reach a hand to my head and feel the padding of a dressing on my left temple. The skin around my left eye feels swollen and sore to the touch. I remember now. I remember what I was searching for.

‘Do you know where my children are?’ I ask him, the realisation that they’re nowhere to be seen making my heartbeat start to gallop.

The room lists like we’re rolling on high seas. The doctor insists that I lie down but I’m nauseous with fear. Where are Saskia and Reuben? Why aren’t they here?

‘This is you?’ The doctor holds a shape in front of me. My passport. I stare at it through tears. My face stares back blankly and my name is there. Helen Rachel Pengilly.

‘Yes. Look, I have two children, a son and daughter. Where are they?’

The doctor gives the nurse another deep look instead of answering me. Please don’t say they’re dead, I beg you. Don’t say it.

I begin to hyperventilate, my heart clanging like an alarm in my ears. And right as blackness reaches up to claim me, a sharp odour tugs me back into the room. Smelling salts. A cup of water materialises in front of me. The water’s got bits of dirt in it. Someone tells me to drink, and I do, because instinct tells me that perhaps if I obey they’ll tell me Saskia and Reuben are alive. Give me arsenic, a pint of oil. I’ll drink it. Just say they’re OK.

Another nurse brings a rickety wheelchair. She and the doctor help me off the bed and manoeuvre the drip-stand as I lower, my muscles trembling, on to the roasting hot seat-pad. Then we squeak through the ward towards a narrow, dimly lit corridor.

2
Helen
16th August 2017

It’s paradise here. Picture a narrow curve of white sand that arcs into the twinkling Caribbean. Six beach huts stood on stilts at a comfortable distance from one another along the strip, each with its own patch of ivory sand and acidic-blue ocean. No one around for about twenty miles, with the exception of the other two groups of people staying in the beach huts. A group of five from Mexico – I can’t tell if they’re family or just friends; their English is minimal and my Spanish is limited to ‘hello and ‘thanks’ – and at the very far end, the McAdam family from Alabama. Michael was suspicious of them at first when the husband asked a lot of questions about us, and I felt that familiar sting of panic, voices arguing in my head. ‘We’ll keep to ourselves,’ Michael announced cheerily as we made our way back to our hut, but I knew what he meant, and for one horrible afternoon I was wrenched back over two decades, into another century and another skin.

I make coffee and clear away the bowls left on the kitchen table. Saskia and Reuben are playing on the beach outside, their laughter drifting through the warm air. I pull two boxes of pills marked Cilest and Citalopram from my handbag and pop one of each out of the blister packs, knocking them back with a chug of water at the sink. Usually a glimpse of sunlight is enough to turn me into a lobster but my reflection shows I’ve caught my first actual tan in I don’t know how long, a deep bronze that knocks years off my face. Bright golden streaks have started to flash amongst my natural blonde, concealing the grey strands that have started to show. The sadness in my eyes, though – that’s always there.

We’ve been running for twenty-two years and I’m tired. I want to stop, lay down roots. It’s not in my make-up to live a peripatetic existence but we’ve had eight different addresses in Scotland, England, Wales, and even Northern Ireland. We tried to move to Australia but in the end it was too difficult to get visas. We don’t vote, don’t have social media accounts. Most of the time, we’re as normal as any other family. We’re content. Four years ago we made the huge decision not to rent any more and bought our first home, a pretty cottage in Northumberland. We have a dog and a guinea pig and Saskia and Reuben are thriving at their schools. But every now and then, I’m reminded of Luke. My first love. Especially at moments like this, when I’m happy and I remember I have no right to be.

Luke is dead because of me.

I’m putting on my sarong when Saskia comes screaming into the beach hut.

‘Mum, you have to come and see,’ she shouts, both hands splayed in front of her like a mime navigating invisible glass. When I don’t move she wraps her hands around my arm and yanks me with surprising force to my feet.

‘Starfish!’ she yells, skipping down the steps to the beach. ‘Careful,’ Michael says as we kneel on the sand to inspect them. A dozen orange starfish, bigger than Michael’s hand, studded with intricate patterns. He scoops one up, but instead of staying flat it begins to squirm.

Saskia bounces on the balls of her feet and points at something in the water. ‘Look! Right there!’ Reuben and I get to our feet and look out at the silky jade-green water. About twenty feet ahead is a pod of dolphins arcing through the waves, sunlight bouncing off their silvery backs. We all gasp. None of us have ever seen a dolphin in real life.

Saskia is weepy with excitement. ‘I have to go swim with them, Mum! Please, please, please!’

‘Here,’ Michael says, squatting in front of her. ‘Climb on.’

She jumps on his back and Michael quickly wades out to them while I hold my breath. Michael is capable, a strong swimmer. Dolphins are amazing creatures but the water is deep and there are endless dangers out there.

They’ll be fine, don’t spoil it.

I can’t watch. I busy myself by helping Reuben with his sand sculpture until Michael and Saskia emerge from the waves laughing and the dolphins have moved further down the bay.

We’ve been here two weeks, and by ‘here’ I mean the coast of Belize. Our original plan was to spend the school holidays travelling around Mexico. At Mexico City we joined a tour bus to the Yucatán via some jaw-dropping (and knee-wrecking) sights, such as the pyramids at the City of the Gods, where Reuben delighted in telling Saskia about mass human sacrifices. We saw the soaring white peak of the Popocatépetl volcano, the Temple of Inscriptions at Palenque, the pretty pastel-coloured streets of Campeche, and finally Cancún.

Reuben has adapted to the foreign setting more easily than I expected. The tour group was mostly older couples, so the bus was quiet and the air conditioning during long journeys helped to keep him comfortable. We had a problem at first with the lack of pizza – which is all he will eat – but we learned to improvise with tortillas laid flat and covered with salsa and cheese.

We went to Mexico for Reuben’s benefit. At least, that’s what we told everyone, including each other. Reuben did a stunning Year 9 project on the Mayans, involving a hand-crafted scale model Mayan temple and a 3D digital sketch that he projected on to black card surrounding the temple. We’d no idea he was capable of something like that and Michael said we should reward him. A trip to the real Chichén Itzá seemed the perfect way to do this, and as we’d not had a proper family holiday in a long time we figured a bit of a splurge was well overdue. But I also sensed that Michael was on edge, eager to run again. We’ve lived in Northumberland for four years now. Far longer than any other place.

When we arrived at Chichén Itzá Reuben sat in the tour bus for a long time, his face turned to the grey pyramid visible through the trees. Michael, Saskia and I all held our breaths, wondering whether he was going to start screaming or banging his head off the window.

‘Should I do the feet thing?’ Michael asked me nervously. The ‘feet thing’ is how we calm Reuben when he gets really worked up. I discovered it by accident when he was just a baby, and it grew out of the nights that I bathed him and then laid him on his mat to dry his little body. He’d lift his feet up towards my lips and I’d grab his ankles and blurt on the soles of his feet. It tickled him, made him laugh. As he got older and more sensitive to sound and chaos we tried everything to calm him. One night, when he’d worn himself out from screaming and lay down in bed on top of my legs, I ran my fingers up and down his shins. He started to calm down, then lifted his bare feet to my lips. I blurted them. He stopped crying altogether.

Ever since then, we do ‘the feet thing’ when he seems to be building up to a paroxysm – kissing a teenager’s smelly size tens and stroking his hairy shins somehow doesn’t have the same appeal as when he was a baby, but whatever works.

‘I think he’s OK,’ I told Michael, studying Reuben, reading the air around him. The trick is to approach him as you might approach a wild horse. No questions, no fuss – even when he strips naked in public places. We’d somehow convinced him to wear shorts in Mexico and he complied (we made sure to buy blue shorts), but he was still ignoring Michael at that point. I tried to tell myself that this was progress. After the thing between Michael and Josh’s dad, Reuben had gone ballistic, crying, screaming, smashing up his bedroom. I managed to get him to stop being so violent, but he withdrew and wouldn’t speak. Instead, he took to writing ‘Dad’ on his iPad and then vigorously crossing it out, signalling that Michael was dead to him.

At Chichén Itzá, though, I hoped that we could put everything behind us. Reuben looked from me to the pyramid – El Castillo – as though he couldn’t quite believe it was real; that he was here. I glanced at Michael, signalling that now was his chance to make amends. He turned around in the driver’s seat and grinned at Reuben.

‘We’re here, son. We’re actually at Chichén Itzá.’

Reuben kept his head turned away. Definitely not a sign that he wanted his feet to be stroked.

‘Do you want to climb to the top with me, Reuben?’ Michael asked gently.

He reached out to take Reuben’s hand, but Reuben sprang up from his seat and raced up the bus aisle, his long limbs moving in fast strides towards the clearing.

‘I’ll go,’ I said, and I reached down for my bag and followed after. Once I caught up with him I put my arm around his waist. We fell into step. He’s already six foot, even though he’s only fourteen. I wish he wasn’t so tall. It would make the sight of him clambering on to my knee for a cuddle or breaking down in tears when we’re out in public far less likely to draw stares.

‘You OK, sweetheart?’

He nodded but kept his head down. I handed him his iPad and followed at a comfortable distance while he raced off and began to film the site. We spent the day with the rest of the tour group exploring, giving Reuben hourly countdowns, as promised, so that he could anticipate leaving and manage his feelings of sadness a little better. Even so, when we got back into the bus at dusk I saw that his lip was trembling, and my heart broke for him.

We headed to the hotel at Cancún, and that’s where things started to go wrong. It was just too busy. Reuben’s noise-cancelling headphones usually keep him calm but the crowds and heat were overwhelming for him. Saskia and I were worn out by the searing temperatures and squabbling couples amongst our tour group too, and the guide seemed intent on traipsing around tourist-tat stalls instead of taking us to more ancient ruins. At one point Saskia lost her teddy, Jack-Jack, in a market and we had to spend an entire day trawling through souvenirs to find it. She’s had Jack-Jack since birth – a gift from my sister, Jeannie – and wouldn’t be consoled until we found him.

Luckily, we did, but we were all agreed – noise and crowds weren’t for us. So Michael went online and changed our booking to a small resort in Belize, within driving distance of a Mayan site even bigger than Chichén Itzá. Reuben was elated. We hired a car, broke free of the tour group and drove to this place.

I go back inside and pull laundry out of the washing machine, then take it out to the side garden to hang on the line. Michael comes into the garden, soaking wet from his swim. He’s in the best shape of his life, his arms broad and sculpted from deadlifts, his legs strong and muscular from cycling most nights to counter long days at the bookshop. His deep tan suits him, though I’m not sure about the beard he’s grown. He likes to say he’s ‘an auld git’ (he’s forty-one) but to me, he’s never looked better.

‘Where’s Saskia?’ I say, looking past him at the tide that has begun to creep up the beach, devouring Reuben’s sand sculpture.

He slicks his dark wet hair off his face. ‘Oh, I just left her to swim on her own.’

‘You what?’ I take a step forward and scan the part of the beach further to the left. In a moment, Sas comes into view, wrapping a strand of seaweed around her waist to make a mermaid tutu.

‘Honestly, Helen,’ Michael says, grinning. ‘You think I’d leave her to swim out in open water on her own?’

I slap his arm lightly for winding me up. ‘I wouldn’t put anything past you.’

‘Ouch,’ he says, flinching at my slap. ‘Oh, I found something in this shed here. Come have a look.’

He steps towards the plastic bunker that I’d assumed was the cistern and flings open the doors to reveal a storage cupboard chock-full of beach boards, wet suits, snorkels, windsurfing sails, inflatables, rockpool nets, and surfboards. He takes out a rolled up piece of thick cotton and inspects it.

‘Doesn’t look very waterproof. What do you think it’s for?’

We unravel it, each taking an end, until it’s clear that it’s a hammock. Michael nods at the palm trees behind me and suggests I tie one end to the fattest trunk while he fastens the other to a tree about eight foot in the opposite direction. Both trunks conveniently have metal hooks where other guests have secured the hammock.

‘Climb in,’ he says once we’ve set it up. I shake my head. I worry that I’m too heavy for it. I haven’t weighed myself in almost a year but last time I did – under protest – I was thirteen stone, an unfortunate side effect of long-term antidepressant use. I’m five foot nine so can carry it, but most of the weight has settled around my waist.

‘This is the life,’ Michael says, climbing into the hammock. Then, when he spots me tidying up the storage cupboard: ‘Helen. Get. In.’

The hammock stretches as I lie beside him, almost touching the ground, but it holds.

‘See?’ Michael says, slipping an arm under my neck and holding me close to his wet skin. For a moment there is nothing but the rustle of palm trees and Saskia’s singing on the back of the wind. I try to resist sitting up to check she’s OK and that Reuben is still on his iPad on the deck.

‘That’s better,’ Michael says, kissing the top of my head. He has his hands clasped around me and I can feel his chest rise and fall with breaths that grow gradually slower and deeper. How long has it been since we lay like this? It feels nice.

‘Maybe we should move out here,’ he says.

‘Definitely.’

‘Serious. You could home-school the kids.’

‘Mmmm, way to sell it to me. And what would you do? Build a book shack?’

‘Not a bad idea. I could be our designated hunter-gatherer. I reckon I’d make a good Caribbean Bear Grylls. I’ve got the beard for it, now.’

‘Bear Grylls doesn’t have a beard, idiot.’

‘Robinson Crusoe, then.’

I stroke the side of his foot with my toe. ‘I wish we could.’

‘Why can’t we?’

‘Blimey, if we’d the money, I’d move out here in a shot.’

‘Cheaper to live out here than England. We could make money by taking tourists out on boat trips.’

‘Stop winding me up,’ I say.

‘I’m not winding you up …’

‘Neither of us speak a word of Spanish, Michael.’

‘Buenos días. Adiós, per favor. See? Practically fluent.’

‘You wally.’

‘Anyway, they speak Kriol here.’

‘We don’t speak that either …’

‘Belize is a British colony. We probably wouldn’t even need a visa.’

‘What about our house? And, you know, my job?’

‘You’re always whinging about how much you hate teaching.’

I feel a bit hurt by this. I enjoy teaching and I care deeply about my pupils … but no, this was not my dream. I sort of fell into it, and once I realised that the hours suited family life it was a no-brainer. I could argue that Michael’s book shop is the same – not his dream, but a reasonable attempt at fulfilment that pays the bills and fits around our children’s lifestyles.

‘A holiday is one thing, living here is another,’ I say, and I remind him of the conversation we had with the tour operator about Central America. Got to be careful out there. Lots of dangers in the rainforest. Jaguars, snakes, pumas aplenty.

‘What do you think I’m here for?’ he says. ‘I’m your protector.’

I roll my eyes. ‘I’d like to see you try and walk away from your bookshop. Even if it is burnt to a crisp.’

The words are out before I’ve a chance to haul them back into my mouth and lock them into the box of unmentionable things. The bookshop. We’ve not spoken about it the whole time we’ve been on holiday. Not a single mention of the fire that gutted Michael’s beautiful bookshop which he has single-handedly built up from scratch to become one of the best independents in the region. A three-storey Mecca for bookworms, the jewel of our town, now in ruins: black, cooked. For one awful moment I’m wrenched back into that night when we saw the flames dancing high into the night sky.

The phone woke us in the middle of the night. It was Mr Dickinson who owned the pet store a few shops along. He’d spotted smoke from the street, then drove down to check his own shop. He said he was about to call the fire brigade, but he wanted to let us know, too. We raced down there, both of us betting on a manageable fire, one that we could tackle ourselves with a couple of fire extinguishers that Michael had tossed into the boot of the car. When we arrived, smoke was already curling out from beneath the front door, orange flames dancing in the first-floor windows. Michael started to unlock the front door but I grabbed his arm.

‘Don’t go in,’ I said. He ignored me and pushed open the door, determined to damp down the flames. I watched, helpless, as he ran inside with the fire extinguishers and took to the stairs. Thick black smoke was funnelling down the stairs and beating across the ground floor, and I could hear the crackling sounds of the fire upstairs destroying the new café, chewing up the beautiful sofas and coffee tables that had only recently been installed. Sirens of fire engines screamed in the distance. I covered my mouth with my hand and tried not to breathe in the smoke, but with every second that went by it seemed to grow thicker, and my lungs ached for fresh air. I couldn’t call out to Michael. He was still on the first floor, and to my horror I could see flames at the top of the stairs.

Just when I thought I would have to go up there to drag Michael out he appeared, an armful of books pressed to his chest, struggling to breathe. He stumbled down the stairs, dropping the books and falling into my arms.

The shop was destroyed, our livelihood annihilated. Some kind stranger set up a JustGiving fund and within a few weeks we had raised eleven thousand pounds. Possibly enough money to recoup some stock, pay some creditors. But there’s the mortgage, the loss of income … The insurance company are still determining the cause of the fire.

The mood has dipped. I try to think of something to say that will swing it back again to the blissed-out vibe we’d enjoyed here since our arrival. It strikes me why we’ve avoided talking about the fire out here: the contrast between this heavenly place and drab, icicled Northumberland make it feel as though we’ve stepped into another realm. There are no reminders here. But silence doesn’t lie. We both know we have to go back and face it all.

‘I should have installed CCTV,’ he says in a low voice. ‘Everyone said to do it and I got lazy.’

‘There’s no guarantee that cameras would have picked up anything,’ I say, recalling how we sat in shock at the fire station, covered head to toe in black soot like two Victorian chimney sweeps. The deputy station chief educated us brusquely about the many causes of accidental blazes: sunlight bouncing off a mirror and hitting newspaper reduced a sixteenth century Scottish castle to embers. Hair straighteners left too close to a notebook on a teenager’s dressing table took out a row of houses. Our fire could have been down to a faulty storage heater or a loose wire.

‘They’d have caught who started the fire,’ Michael cuts in, swinging his legs over the side of the hammock to sit upright. I reach forward and stroke his back.

I recall with a shudder the police calling both of us in for separate interviews. They asked whether someone had a grudge against us. If we had upset a customer or laid off an employee. Just weeks before I’d persuaded Michael to sack one of our part-timers, Matilda. She doesn’t do anything, I protested. You’re barely paying yourself a salary as it is. The bookshop isn’t a charity for lazy eighteen-year-olds who sit around all day reading Tolkien.

Michael pointed out that she was Arnold’s daughter, and Arnold had been the first to help him out when he set up the shop, but I won in the end. Matilda was sketchy about her whereabouts at the time of the fire – her parents confirmed she’d been out of the house, and it turned out she’d been with a boy. But for a horrible few days it seemed that perhaps Matilda could have been responsible for the blaze.

‘We never ruled out arson,’ Michael says when I remind him that Matilda was found to be innocent. ‘Until the investigation closes, every possibility is on the table.’

‘Maybe it was a group of kids messing around,’ I say to his back. I desperately want him to lie back down with me, to recapture the idyllic mood.

‘We both know kids didn’t start that fire, Helen,’ Michael snaps, getting out of the hammock.

‘Michael?’

I’m taken aback by the sharpness of his tone. As I watch him head back into the hut I sense he’s exhausted, worn thin by worry. But I wish we could discuss this. Every time we start to talk about something that cuts deep he just walks away.

3
Michael
28th August 2017

We’ve got a mutiny on our hands right now.

‘Pleeease can we stay here, Dad?’ Saskia howls in the kitchen as I make breakfast. This morning our butler (yes, an actual butler – I feel like a Kardashian) dropped off our food parcel, containing waffles (round, so we can tell Reuben they’re pizzas), maple syrup, coconuts, dragon fruit, freshly baked bread, eggs, salad, blueberry pancakes, pineapple, the most mouth-watering bacon I’ve ever tasted in my entire life, and a bottle of wine.

‘I’m sorry, my love,’ I say, hugging Sas to my side as I heat the waffles on the hob. She smells of sunlight and the ocean. ‘I’m afraid we can’t change our flight. We’ve got today and tomorrow and then we have to head off to Mexico City to fly home.’

‘But Daa-aad, I don’t want to go home. Jack-Jack doesn’t want to go, either.’

‘Hmmm,’ I say, tipping waffles on to a plate. ‘So, nobody wants to go home? What do you suggest we do then?’

She does the same thing as Helen when she thinks. Screws up her nose like there’s a bad smell. Face just her like mother’s, too. Same twinkling blue eyes that show every emotion and absorb every last detail. Same dimple in her left cheek and buttery curls to her shoulders.

‘Can’t we just buy a house here?’

‘You’d miss everyone, I think. So would Jack-Jack.’

She gives a dramatic sigh, seven going on seventeen. ‘Like who, exactly?’

‘Well, Amber and Holly would miss you. And I bet Oreo can’t wait to see you …’

‘But they could come here …’

‘What about your ballet recital?’ I ask. She has no answer to that and I know she’s excited for it. I set her plate of waffles on the coffee table and squat down to face as her as she begins to do a couple of ballet moves.

‘To tell you the truth, my love, I don’t want to go home either.’

She widens her eyes. ‘You don’t?’

I press my lips together, shake my head. ‘But don’t tell Mummy.’

‘Is it because you don’t like flying?’

‘Nope.’

‘Is it because you love this house and the sea and you’d like to live here?’

‘Exactly. I like spending my days on the beach instead of having to go to work. I’d like to do it for ever. Wouldn’t you?’

She nods eagerly, her face all lit up with hope. I wish I could give her everything. I wish I could make the world as perfect as she deserves it to be.

‘Here, come and help me put all this food away.’

She does a little ballet twirl across the floor, arms crooked like she’s holding an invisible beach ball between them, and looks into the box of food that I’m unloading.

‘Bacon?’ she says, holding up the packet like it’s a dead rat.

‘Not for you, love. Reuben and I will enjoy that.’

‘Bacon isn’t even nice, Daddy,’ Saskia says. She’s decided to become vegetarian, like Helen, so all I’ve heard about for the last three months is how meat is Satan. ‘I tried some once and it tasted not very nice. Plus, it’s from pigs and they’re more smarter than dogs and you wouldn’t eat our dog, would you?’

‘Hmmm. You know, if he tasted like bacon, I’d consider it.’

‘Daddy!’

I lean over and give her a kiss. She still kisses me on the lips, a quick peck with a big ‘mwah’ at the end, just as she did as a baby. When the day comes that she tells me she’s too old to kiss me anymore I think my heart will break.

‘Do the thing,’ she says when I plop one of the blueberry pancakes into a pan on the stove. ‘Do the flip, Dad. Do it!’

I wait until the pan is nice and hot before planting my feet wide, gripping the pan handle tightly and tossing the pancake as high as I can. It flips into the air, smacks the ceiling, then lands splat in the pan.

‘You did it, Dad!’ she squeals, high-fiving me. ‘Five points for Gryffindor!’

Reuben comes in through the front door, his dark hair and shorts dripping wet. I’m careful to be calm around him. No eye contact. I’m still in his bad books. He dumps a plastic bucket on the floor.

‘We can’t go home,’ he announces flatly.

‘Daddy pancaked the ceiling,’ Saskia says.

‘Five points for Gryffindor,’ Reuben says, deadpan. ‘Look what I found.’

Saskia peers into his bucket and squeals. I tell her to shush, she’ll upset Reuben, but his focus is on the baby turtle, its head no bigger than the tip of my thumb, its shell covered in zigzag patterns. It sweeps its flippers back and forth as though it wants to swim.

‘We should take it back to the water,’ I say as Saskia plucks it out of the bucket and cuddles it to her chest. ‘His mum must be looking for him.’

‘Like Finding Nemo?’ Saskia says.

‘That was a clown fish,’ Reuben replies.

‘Dude,’ I say, imitating the turtles in Finding Nemo. ‘What up, squirt?’

Reuben falls silent, and I freeze, expecting one of two reactions: he’ll either storm out of the room or he’ll slug me across the face. Reuben isn’t often violent but when he is it’s ugly, given that he has the strength and height of an adult. He looks like he’s thinking really hard about something. Maybe he’s trying to control his anger.

‘Righteous!’ he says suddenly, a big grin lighting up his face.

‘Curl away, my son,’ I say, suddenly glad that I watched Finding Nemo ten million times.

I raise my eyebrows at Helen who is standing there with her eyes like saucers and her jaw on the ground, stunned that Reuben has actually spoken to me. He’s deeply forgiving, full of love, but I could hardly expect him to react any other way after what happened at Josh’s birthday party.

I was only trying to protect him. That’s my job. My whole reason for existing.

I wake to find Helen sitting at the end of the bed wrapped in a yellow towel. She’s on the other side of the mosquito curtain but I can make out her gold hair, braided down her back, the web of the Celtic tattoo on her shoulder just visible in the dim light. I sit up quickly, amazed that I actually slept, and she tells me to relax, it’s OK, but I’m covered in sweat and my heart is racing. I was dreaming. Bright images pitch and mulch in my head like a soup. When Helen comes into focus I see her face is filled with worry.

‘Are you alright?’ she says. ‘Bad dreams again?’

I push my fingertips into my eyes, trying to blot out the disturbing images in my head. For years, the same dream. A door made of fire. I’m standing in front of it with the knowledge that I have to open it, because on the other side is paradise, a land of pure, endless happiness. Sometimes I’m alone. Sometimes I’m with Helen and the kids, and I have to take them through the door, but I worry about them getting hurt. I always wake in a sweat. Sleeping pills washed it away and now it’s back, as vivid as ever.

‘I went for a swim,’ she whispers. I take her hand, wondering what’s wrong. She looks shaken.

‘You OK?’

‘I saw something weird. It was probably nothing. I don’t know.’

‘You saw something weird where? Out in the water?’

She nods and holds a finger to her lips, urging me to keep my voice down. ‘In the beach hut next to ours. They had a telescope just like the one we have in the living room.’

A telescope? Ah yes, I remember. The scope on the tripod we moved into a corner so the kids wouldn’t knock it over. We presumed it was for spotting sharks and rays in the water outside.

‘And?’

‘It was pointed at our hut.’

‘What was?’

‘The telescope.’ She gives a shudder. ‘It was creepy …’

‘But … didn’t the butler say all the other huts were empty as of yesterday?’

She bites her lip. ‘That’s the other thing. When I looked in the window of one of the rooms the bed was unmade. There were clothes on the floor. It looked like someone was staying there.’

‘Maybe one of the groups stayed on? Or a late booking?’

‘But why would they point the telescope at our beach hut?’ She looks on the verge of tears now, terrified. ‘It felt like someone was watching us.’

I tell her I’ll check it out myself. But if I’m honest this has me worried. The fire at the bookshop was no accident, I know that, but I can’t say too much about it to Helen. We were being watched at home, before we left. I saw a guy watching the shop right before the fire. Same car outside every day for a week, and then he followed me home. Couldn’t say anything about this to the police, of course. They’d ask questions. Why would someone be watching you? It was the reason I pushed for us to go abroad for an extended holiday, to buy some time to think.

I can’t change what happened to Luke. I can’t stop them from hunting our family. But I can definitely work out a way to protect us.

I don’t go back to sleep. Nothing unusual about that, though tonight I’m wired, all my senses on high alert. I’ve learned to manage on about four hours a night, with the occasional catnap during the day to keep me going. Four nights a week I’ll set my alarm for 3am and get up to work out. Arms and abs on Mondays and Thursdays, a ten-mile run on Tuesdays and Fridays. Then I read, answer work emails, maybe tidy the house or go for a walk. We live near a beautiful tow path in England and at sunrise you see all kinds of wildlife: otters, foxes, hedgehogs. I’ve tried to persuade the kids to come out with me but they’re not morning people.

Here, though, the wildlife is something else. We’re about a mile from the rainforest but even so, I spot a monkey in one of the trees at the side of our hut. He helps himself to the coconuts, then spies a half-empty packet of crisps left out by one of the kids on the decking. I film it all on my mobile. He’s right in front of me, so close I can touch him. Completely unafraid. I set down my can of Coke to reach out and stroke him. Amazingly, he lets me, then reaches out and snatches my Coke before running off. Little git.

I put my hands in my pockets and take a walk up the bank to the road that links all the beach huts. The family from Alabama are gone, and good riddance. Too many questions about where we were from, why we were here. One of the kids screwed up her face at Reuben and said loudly, ‘Why are you so weird?’ Yeah, so she’s only a kid but the parents didn’t correct her, didn’t tell her gently not to be rude. They just laughed.

The road is clear of cars, meaning that there aren’t any guests in the huts. So why would Helen have seen clothes in one of the bedrooms? There’s nothing but rainforest for about twenty miles. Someone could have been dropped off at one of the huts, or the guests could have gone out for the day. Holiday season’s virtually over, though. That’s what Kyle said.

I walk on the sand, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. The moon is bright tonight, a long causeway of silver light tossed over a slate of ocean. I walk carefully around the hut and when I glance into the living room window I make out the shape of the telescope pointed not at the sea but towards our hut, just like Helen said. It could just be pointed at the north end of the bay, though. Hard to tell. The dolphins like that end of the bay so it’s feasible that they were watching the pod … The other windows are at the back of the hut, too dark to make out what’s inside. No lights on. The palm trees sway in the breeze and the sea sweeps forward and back, exhaling. No movement, no sign of anyone around.

After ten minutes or so I turn back.

The butler comes just after dawn. Helen and the kids are still sound asleep, so I press a finger to my lips as he passes over the food box for today.

‘I found pizza,’ he whispers. ‘For your son. I can’t promise that it won’t taste different but at least it’s the next best thing.’

‘That’s kind of you.’ I find a $10 note in my pocket and slip it to him. ‘Reuben will be thrilled.’

He grins, pockets the cash, then turns to leave, but I set down the box quickly and skip after him.

‘I don’t suppose you can tell me if someone has checked into that hut?’ I say, nodding at the one next to ours.

He thinks, shakes his head. ‘Just you and one other family staying for now.’

‘Another family? Which hut are they staying at?’

He turns and points down the bay. ‘The very last hut, right on the edge of the strand. Has there been some trouble?’

‘No, no. No trouble. Thanks anyway.’

Around eight I find Helen in the bathroom plaiting her hair and present her with breakfast on a tray and a kiss. Then I wake the kids. ‘Get dressed,’ I tell them. ‘It’s our sea safari today.’

‘Sea safari?’ Sas asks, her hair sticking out like she’s rammed her finger in a socket. She leaps out of bed and pulls off her nightie. ‘You’ll need to bring your poncho,’ I tell her.

‘Is it going to rain?’

‘No, but the dolphins might splash water over the boat. You know, when they jump through the water?’

She gives a squeal and wraps her arms around my waist.

‘Sooo excited, Daddy!’

The ride out to sea takes an hour on a twenty-foot sailing boat. I tell Reuben and Saskia to stay in the cabin downstairs where they can sit comfortably and eat snacks, though I have to promise that I’ll shout the second I spot anything with a fin.

After half an hour Helen comes out to join me. She rubs my back and lays her head against my shoulder.

‘You were up again all night, weren’t you?’ she says with a sigh.

‘No.’

‘Don’t lie …’

‘I just thought I heard something, that’s all.’

She leans back, maps my face with a look of concern. ‘You don’t have to worry about us, you know. I shouldn’t have said anything about the telescope. I was probably just being paranoid after …’

She trails off.

‘After what?’

She looks down. When she meets my gaze again there’s hardness in her eyes. And something else. Frustration.

‘I need to ask something,’ she says, folding her arms. ‘And I need you for once not to avoid the question.’

‘OK.’

She takes a deep breath, readies herself. ‘The day you attacked Josh’s dad …’

‘I didn’t attack him,’ I start to say. ‘It was a disagreement …’

She raises a hand, signalling that I’m to shut up. ‘When you attacked him, you said you were looking out for Reuben. I still don’t know what you meant by that.’

I don’t want to talk about this. I look around, searching for an exit, a distraction. Unless I’m prepared to swim back to land there’s nowhere for me to go. We’re at least fifteen miles from land and even I’m not that strong.

‘I was protecting him,’ I say at last.

‘Protecting him from what, exactly?’

‘Look, the birthday party wasn’t at a climbing centre,’ I say, anxious to close this up once and for all. ‘Josh’s dad was taking the boys climbing up the Simonside Hills …’

‘And?’

I’m starting to feel angry. What has this got to do with what happened at the birthday party? ‘And I could see Reuben was nervous about it. Look, I told you. It was wrong of Josh’s father to …’

‘To what?’

I look up, catch her eyes. She’s challenging me.

‘To … to put Reuben in a position where he had to choose between his friend and feeling safe.’

She screws up her face. ‘But why …’

‘… and trust me, I did everything to stop it from becoming a scene. You weren’t there. Reuben was freaking out, I could see it in his eyes. And the guy kept talking over him. Even made him start to gear up.’

I see her wince.

‘Josh’s dad wasn’t taking no for an answer. OK, so maybe slugging him was a bit over the mark but I did what I had to …’

She lifts her eyes to mine, an eyebrow cocked. ‘A little over the mark? You knocked him unconscious.’

‘It was an unlucky punch,’ I say, and I can feel a hot ripple of fire in my stomach. I try to swallow it down but it’s insistent. ‘I’ve said I’m sorry. What more do you want?’

She looks hurt, which wasn’t my intention, so I reach out and put my hand on hers.

We stand together in mutually wounded silence. We want the same thing, but we go about it in completely different ways. I’m the head of the home, the bad cop. Helen’s still pissed off because it’s meant Reuben losing his one and only friend, Josh. Nice lad. Like Reuben, Josh is autistic. We’ve waited years for Reuben to make friends. Years without a single birthday party invitation or play date. Finally, he goes out and gets a pal and I wreck it all by busting his dad’s face.

But I did what I had to do. And everything has a price, doesn’t it?

And then, there they are, about ten feet from the boat. Whales, as long as buses. Helen spots them and runs to the cabin to alert the kids. By the time they emerge the captain has cut the engine. Sas squeals and jumps up and down at the sight of them while Reuben claps his hands and shouts ‘Magic!’ The captain tells me in concerned tones that humpbacks out here, especially at this time of year, is a bad sign. They could be sick or dying. Of course I don’t mention any of this to the kids. We are close enough to see the barnacles studding their backs, long white lines etched along their bellies, their mouths scissoring the water. A way out to sea another whale bursts out of the water, landing with a huge splash and the peace sign of his tail as he dives below.

‘Look how happy they are, Dad!’ Saskia shouts, and I agree with her, because sometimes love means telling lies.

‘Michael. Michael! Wake up!’

‘What? What’s wrong?’

I sit upright, my head buzzing. I can’t believe I fell asleep. The window squares off a lapis lazuli sky speckled with a million stars and a silvery moon. Helen is out of bed, bending over me as I pull back the sheet.

‘I think someone’s outside,’ she says. ‘I heard footsteps in the back garden and when I went to …’

I’m already up on my feet, pulling on a pair of shorts.

‘I thought it was an animal, at first,’ Helen says. ‘But I saw a man.’

‘How sure are you?’

She bites her lip. ‘Pretty sure.’

‘Stay here,’ I whisper quickly. ‘Keep everything locked behind me.’

In the kitchen I search quickly for something weapon-like – a baseball bat, ideally – but the cupboards yield only a rolling pin and a meat knife. I plumb for the latter and open the side door. Suddenly Helen is there, holding my arm, tears wobbling in her eyes.

‘Why don’t we phone Kyle?’ she says. ‘Or I can look for the tour operator …’

‘And what are they going to do? It’s two in the morning …’

‘I know, but … I shouldn’t … I shouldn’t have woken you …’

I peck her on the forehead. ‘Stay here. I won’t be long.’

I step outside and wait until I hear the click of the door locking behind me. The dark is impenetrable, the only light coming from the moon and the stars. The garden is swallowed by night. No Coke-thieving monkeys to be seen.

I hear a noise to my right. Quick, stealthy strides headed towards the road. I move towards the sound, squinting. I can’t see anything. The footsteps stop, and I hold my breath.

But then, movement on the hill that leads up to the road where our rental car is parked. It’s difficult to see, but I can just make out someone or something moving briskly up the bank.

‘Hey!’ I shout, and the figure moves quickly. My heart is racing. I hold the knife in front of me and go after him.

4
Helen
30th August 2017

I’m wool-headed this morning after last night’s escapades. Not nearly as sexy as it sounds. I woke up to use the loo around two in the morning and heard noises outside. I went to check and saw a man moving around in the garden. At least, I think I did. I was so sure last night and now I’m not. I feel so guilty. I woke Michael and he went after him. He was gone for over an hour. The longest hour of my life. When I saw him coming in through the door I almost collapsed with relief. He was sweaty and out of breath, but not injured.

‘Did you find him?’ I said, my voice trembling. I found myself looking him over for signs of blood.

He set the torch back in the block on the kitchen bench. ‘No. It was too dark.’

‘Didn’t you take a knife? Where is it?’

He sank into a chair by the table and wiped his face. ‘Dropped it.’

I waited for something more – where he’d been, details of a confrontation with an intruder, a fight. A narrative of any sort to put all the questions whirring through my head to bed. Michael wouldn’t make eye contact.

‘But … you were gone for ages. I was out of my mind … I was absolutely beside myself, Michael. Did you catch up with him?’

He rubbed his eyes, stifled a yawn. ‘I followed him into the trees and then I turned back. I got a bit lost, though. Luckily I saw the lights from the bay through the trees and followed them home.’

I gasped. ‘You were in the rainforest?’

He was tired, keen to shrug off the memory of it. ‘It was pitch black. Couldn’t see a thing. One minute I was on the road and the next I was surrounded by trees and frigging monkeys.’

I studied his face. He looked amused by the memory of being surrounded by monkeys, not bothered at all by the fact that he went racing out after a suspected intruder.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, deciding that I had somehow got it all wrong. I’d let my paranoia get to me. ‘But … you really didn’t see who it was?’

He gulped back a glass of water. ‘That’s what I said.’

‘But who could it have been?’ I said. ‘Why would someone have been outside?’

‘Are you sure it was someone?’ Michael said, and I did a double take.

‘You saw him, Michael. You went after him …’

‘I was half asleep. I spent an hour walking in circles in the bloody jungle.’

And there it was again, the edge of guilt against my skin. I looked down, ashamed. ‘Sorry. I think we were both possibly being paranoid.’

‘Both of us?’ he sniped back.

I fell silent. I had been absolutely sure that I had seen a dark figure, a man moving through the garden and up the bank, but just then doubt slipped in, like a lie sliding inside a truth.

‘Let’s just go to bed,’ he said, rubbing his face. ‘We’ve got a long drive back to the airport tomorrow.’

No one is happy when we shut the door on the beach hut for the last time. Reuben has his headphones on but is clicking his fingers and stamping his feet in the way he does when he’s particularly stressed. Saskia is long-faced and holds Jack-Jack extra tight.

‘Maybe we can come back next year,’ Michael says cheerily, though I catch his eye and give a small shake of my head as if to say, let’s not make promises we can’t keep. I have no idea how we’ve afforded this trip, never mind how we could possibly afford round two in a year’s time. We’re still paying off Reuben’s iPad, for crying out loud.

We spend the first hour of the drive to the airport in a gloomy silence. In reflection of our mood it starts to rain, and before long it’s coming down in great sweeping chains. The air feels cooler, which is no bad thing. Grey cloud spreads out across the sky. It’s been blue skies and belting heat for six weeks straight. Saskia decides she needs to wee every four minutes, so we pull over for the dozenth time and let her go at the side of the road.

‘I’ll drive for a bit,’ I tell Michael as he heads back to the driver’s side. ‘You have a nap.’ I’m not completely comfortable driving on the wrong side of the road but I feel guilty at the dark circles under his eyes.

The kids settle down in the backseat, Saskia holding Jack-Jack tightly and looking mournfully out the window, Reuben plugged into his iPad. Michael folds his arms and leans his head against the window. I find a British radio channel and turn the volume just enough to hear. Enjoy the lack of traffic, I tell myself, forcing optimism. It’ll be bumper-to-bumper when you get back home.

About an hour into the journey a white van appears as we approach a bend, moving at high speed along the road towards us. Instinctively I press the brake as I reach the curve of the road. The van draws closer. It appears to be speeding up. Odd, I think. And dangerous. Why speed up on a bend, especially when the road is wet?

At the very last moment, the van veers sharply into our lane, two tyres lifting off the tarmac as it swerves and plunges straight into us.

There is no time to react.

An explosion of metal slamming into metal, the sound of tyres screeching like a wounded animal, the air slashed by screams. An airbag explodes in my face and the car careens wildly, glass shards whipping through the air.