Better Left Buried (16 page)

He looks past me, towards the climbing frame, and some kind of shutter comes down over his face. “Sarah, look, you don't need to know…”

“Just tell me, Jack.” His name tastes sour in my mouth, like something that's curdled.

His head turns back to me. I hear him suck in his breath. “Okay…that night…when I met your friend Lizzie… We'd all gone to this gig in town, then on to a party at some student house. Max and Rob, Lizzie and Anna.”

“Anna?” I cut in. “Who's Anna?”

He frowns at me, surprised. “Your brother's girlfriend.”

Max had a
girlfriend
? He never said anything about her. Didn't even mention having met anyone. I cast my mind back to the people he introduced me to that time in London, but can't recall anyone in particular. Certainly not an Anna.

But I must have seen her. She would have been at the funeral.

“Anyway, Max had some of his gear,” Jack says. “Gave it to a few of his friends, people he knew. Then…well…Anna…she collapsed.”

I feel the blood drain from my face as I sense what's coming. “Collapsed? You mean from taking the drug?”

Jack sighs. “Possibly. Probably. No one was sure. They did all these tests but they couldn't say exactly what had caused it, but…”

“You mean she
died
?”

Jack's hands lift to his hair. I hear a slight catch in his breathing and my stomach starts to hurt before he even says the words. “In the ambulance. On the way to hospital. Heart failure.”

Heart failure. My skin chills at the coincidence. Max died of heart failure too. Though there'd been no mention of any drug.

Jack flashes me a brief, anxious look. “We did everything we could, Sarah. Tried to resuscitate her and all that, but it didn't help. Her heart just stopped and even the paramedics couldn't get it going again.”

“Oh Christ…” I bend forward, trying to breathe. “Oh Jesus…that poor girl.”

I feel a wrench of dread for Max. Did he love her? How terrible that must have been, seeing her die. No wonder he was so miserable when he came home.

And Lizzie… I'm starting to understand why she's been acting so oddly since then. And why she hasn't been able to say anything. She witnessed a girl's death…at the hands of my brother. Oh Jesus, how could she tell me that? There we were, me and Mum and Dad, racked with grief at Max's death, and all the time Lizzie was nursing this terrible secret.

“It was a bloody mess.” Jack leans his elbows on the table and lowers his forehead into the heel of his hands. “The police talked to everyone who was there, but luckily no one pointed the finger at your brother. Not that he cared by then.”

Suddenly he looks up and his pale eyes lock on mine. They look hungry, almost wolf-like, as if hunting for something in me. Forgiveness? Absolution?

“He completely freaked out, was practically ready to hand himself in. I told him it wasn't his fault, that he wasn't to know. Told him over and over again. That Anna could have had a weak heart, whatever. It didn't have to be the drug. As it was, they found nothing at the post mortem, so the police assumed it was natural causes and didn't take it any further.”

“But Max still thought it was his super-E that was responsible? Even though they found no trace of it in her system?”

“He reckoned maybe you metabolize it really fast or something. Said just because they didn't find any, that didn't mean it wasn't what killed her.”

Jack sighs, takes another breath, as if steadying himself to continue. “He was a wreck. It happened right before his final exams too. He sat them, but according to Rob they went badly.”

I remember that last week. The evening Mum made lasagne, Max's favourite, and he actually ventured out of his room, though still looking pale and subdued. Remember Dad cracking a joke about how he must have had his heart broken, and Max getting up and walking out without a word.

Just leave me alone, Sarah.

Oh god. I feel a lurch of pain for my brother that radiates right through me, leaving my head reeling and my breath ragged. Jack doesn't speak for a while, only watches me for a moment or two, then looks away.

Giving me a little privacy.

“I still don't understand,” I whisper eventually, my voice somehow lost to me. “I still don't get why you're here.”

Jack's jaw tightens and he looks back down at the cigarette packet. He's gripping it so hard the edges are caving under the pressure. When he speaks, his voice is quiet. I strain to catch it over the traffic noise from the nearby road.

“The gang. I went back and told them to forget it. Told them what had happened and that Max and Rob weren't going to make any more. But…let's say they're not the kind of people who take no for an answer.”

I look up at him, a heavy feeling forming in my chest. Slowly I am beginning to understand. And at the same time wishing I were anywhere but here, not having to hear any of this.

“They came after Rob and Max. Paid them a visit. And not the sort you'd welcome, Sarah, if you see what I mean.”

I think I do. I remember that pressure around my neck – the brute force of it – and have to swallow before I can speak. “Do you know what happened?”

Jack shakes his head again. “But I can guess. These people can be very persuasive.”

“So Max told them how to make the drug?”

“I don't think so. Because the next thing, he and Rob both disappeared.”

Disappeared.

Finally I get it. Why Max was in Sweden when he died. He'd gone there to get away…to
hide
.

Oh god. I'm nearly choking on my own breath. Did
they
find Max? Did
they
kill my brother and somehow cover it up?

Indeterminate cause. That's what the pathologist said. They knew Max's heart had stopped but they couldn't say why; especially as the farmer who keeps an eye on our cottage didn't find him for a week. We assumed his death was natural, something Max was born with. A defect, ticking away like a time bomb.

Stupid, I think now, looking back. We should have guessed something was up, given how Max behaved when he came home. We just thought he was exhausted from all the stress of his exams.

I close my eyes, imagining the hell my brother went through that week with us. His girlfriend dead, the threat of the police discovering his involvement, the knowledge that this gang weren't going to let it go.

And flunking his final exams too – the university told Dad he hadn't done well, but Max must have known that already. Knew he'd screwed up his degree. His whole future.

I turn to face Jack. “That gang…Max…do you reckon they…?”

Jack gazes back, his pale eyes softer now. “I doubt it. If they'd found him, things would be different. He might still have wound up dead, but they'd have got what they wanted. They wouldn't still be trying to get their hands on that formula.”

“So they haven't got it? The method for making this drug?”

Jack turns down the sides of his mouth. “Not yet.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Jack stays silent and then I understand.
Not yet
. The implication of his words slowly dawns on me.

The burglary. The man who snatched my bag. Oh Christ…
they're still after it.

A chill seeps through my limbs as Jack leans across the table and rests his hand on mine. “You understand, don't you, Sarah, how much this is worth to them? How they're going to keep on until they get what they want.”

“But how do they know?” I ask, withdrawing my hand. “That there's anything to find? Maybe Max destroyed all trace of it, you know, after that girl…” I can't even bring myself to say it.

Jack leans back in his seat. “He kept notes. On how to make it.”

“How can you be sure?”

He sighs. Sweeps his gaze away from mine. “I was round their house once. He popped out, to get a few beers. I had a poke around. Found a notebook with stuff written down; I'm no chemist, but I recognized some of the ingredients. The basic process.”

“So?” I shrug. “What makes you think he didn't burn it or something.”

Jack looks at me. “Do you believe Max would? Something that big?”

I gaze back at him. He's right. I'm not sure either that Max could have brought himself to get rid of it. It was too big, too important. Perhaps, in the right hands, it might even have led to something good.

“So you told them? The gang?”

His eyes dart away again. “Only in passing. I didn't mean…I never thought…” He inhales. Fiddles with his pack of cigarettes. “You're right. A lot of this is my fault.”

I bite my lip, look back at the pub, the scrap of lawn, the houses beyond. Anywhere but at Jack. I don't feel angry exactly. Just exhausted.

And scared.

“Do you get it now, Sarah? Why I'm here? Why I believe it'd be safer if you went away?”

I exhale. Force myself to speak. “You mean like Lizzie? I don't get that. Why would they go after her?”

Jack sits back and shrugs. “They might reckon she knows how to make it. Or more likely they'd use her to bargain with her boyfriend.”

Rob. Now I understand why he didn't show up at my brother's funeral. He must have thought they'd killed Max. He must have been scared shitless.

“But I still don't see how they could use Lizzie to get to Rob,” I say.

Jack looks at me as if I'm totally clueless. “Threaten to hurt her unless he hands it over. Flush him out. I didn't see much of them together but it looked as if Rob was pretty serious about your friend. I'm guessing he's been trying to get her away for a while.”

Hence Spain, I realize. Far enough for them both to be out of harm's way.

I hope.

A worm of pure fear unfurls in my stomach. “Is that why you think I'm in danger? I mean, Max is already dead. What would they gain by hurting me?”

“You're their last resort, Sarah.” Jack pinches the bridge of his nose. “If there's any chance Max might have involved you, given you those notes to hide, for instance, they'll stop at nothing. They'll assume you know something even if you don't – or at least that you might have some idea where to look.”

I shut my eyes for a second or two. When I open them, Jack is watching me carefully. “But you don't know anything, right? About the drug?”

I stare back. “Why, exactly, are you asking?”

“No reason.” He holds up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I simply want to be sure where we stand.”

I picture Lizzie's words unravelling on my laptop screen.
Stay away from Jack. He's bad news.

“So tell me, Jack,” I narrow my eyes at him, my expression icy, “why would Lizzie warn me away from you?”

His face squirms and he leans back in his seat. “I guess she's angry with me. Holds me responsible for getting everyone in so much trouble.”

Only that doesn't explain why she left so suddenly, does it? Why she chose that precise moment to run away. I go over our last meeting in the cafe. I mean, everything he's just told me happened back in June – why did Lizzie wait till mid August to disappear?

Because she saw him. Jack.

I flash back to her face as she stared out the cafe window. Her expression. It wasn't anger, it was fear. She saw Jack and she panicked.

I lift my gaze to check him out. He's looking past me, into the pub, making sure of something. I study the line of his jaw, that small hairline scar, like the faint mark on the underside of a leaf.

What does Lizzie know about Jack? I wonder. Why does he scare her so much?

“So tell me,” I ask, clearing my throat. He turns back to me. “How come you know all this?”

“What do you mean?”

“How do you know so much about this gang?”

Jack stretches out his legs and examines his feet. His black boots are damp around the toe, as if he's been walking across wet grass. His voice is quiet when he answers. “I used to be a member of the organization, if you see what I mean.”

“You
worked
for them?”

He presses his lips together. “Only briefly. But long enough to understand that these are very bad people.” His eyes meet mine. “That they'll do whatever it takes.”

“Bad people? Like how?”

Jack rubs his nose. “The whole operation is run by an ex-con called Tommy Crace,” he says, glancing around. “A petty thief and thug who did time for GBH. And a lot else besides. But rumour has it he's done worse than that, you know, since he got into the business – only the police have never been able to pin anything else on him. And that's just Tommy – some of the people who work for him are almost as bad.”

I close my eyes briefly, then fix them on his. “You said you worked for this gang. So how do I know you still don't?”

“I left,” he says simply.

“And they let you?” Somehow I'm thinking it isn't that easy.

“Nah,” Jack sniffs, picking up the cigarette pack again and twirling it in his fingers. “Not exactly. I had to trade…offer them something in return.”

“What?” I ask, before realizing I don't need a reply.

Jack gazes at me with an uncomfortable expression.

“So what were you planning to do?” My voice rises. “Steal those notes? Blackmail my brother? And Rob?”

He shakes his head again. “I was hoping, given time, I could persuade them. And I'd have made sure they did all right out of it. But then…”

“Then that girl died.”

He nods. “I told them, the gang, our deal was off. That the stuff was dodgy.”

“And?”

“Like I said. They don't take no for an answer.”

I pause for a moment. “So where does that leave you?”

Jack swallows again. Takes a deep breath and peers at me with those ash-grey eyes.