Soul Storm (32 page)

‘I will send a nurse in to have them dressed,’ the doctor says.

The detective says something in Thai to the doctor.

‘Oh, and the officer will take some photographs as possible evidence. In a short while, some of his colleagues and an interpreter will arrive to take a statement. I trust you are prepared
to co-operate.’

‘Yes. Yes.’ Saying no doesn’t sound like an option.

The doctor leans in. ‘Am I correct in understanding that you are not yet eighteen?’

‘I’m seventeen.’

‘In which case the detectives will need the written permission of your parents to conduct an interview. We can do this by fax.’

My parents
. The thought of what they’re going through is the final straw: tears fall rapidly down my cheeks. ‘Do they know I’m OK?’

‘I understand the message has been passed to them via the police forces here and in the UK. However, they wish to speak to you urgently.’

‘Yes. Please. They’ve gone through a lot.’ Perhaps I should explain some more, to stop the detective judging me, but where would I start? ‘I need to hear their voices.
And they need to hear mine.’

‘Mum?’

The delay on the line seems to last for hours but then I hear a sob. No, I hear
sobs
. Mum and Dad, crying together.

I imagine them at home, on the sofa, the phone in Mum’s lap in loudspeaker mode.

I’ve put them through
so much
.

‘Alice. Oh, Alice. It
is
you.’

The relief in my father’s voice hits me like a tidal wave and I realise how close I came to dying again. What if Ade had killed me, then staged my suicide?

It would have broken their hearts.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I say, my own voice beginning to break. ‘I was so desperate for justice that I lost sight of how dangerous it was. Of what was at stake.’

‘But you’re all right?’ Dad says. ‘That bastard didn’t harm you?’

I look at my wrists, now wrapped in bandages. They smart like acid but I’ll live. ‘I’m absolutely fine.’

‘Thank God,’ Mum says.

Have they told them everything? The police here are playing it by the book, not questioning me till I’ve had a rest, though a female officer is now with me in the office, keeping guard.
Mum and Dad must know Ade is dead but surely they can’t know how.

You did the right thing, Ali. It was the only way
.

Lewis was right. Perhaps now I can stop apologising and always feeling guilty over so many things that were caused by
Ade’
s choices,
Ade’
s crimes.

Not mine. Not Lewis’s either.

For a few seconds, I do nothing but listen to my parents’ breathing. Over the last year, I’ve grown away from them, isolated by the secrets I’ve had to keep. Now that Ade has
gone, we can grow close again.

‘I . . . want to apologise, Alice,’ Mum says. ‘For doubting you. For thinking you were crazy to keep fighting for justice. Without you, maybe we’d never have known it was
Adrian. And there could have been other girls. Other victims.’

I picture his victims. My sister, Tim, Zoe. Now Sahara. ‘What did he do to Sahara?’

‘A car,’ my father says. ‘Carbon monoxide.’

I should be sad, and I am, in a way. Another pointless death. Yet if only Sahara had acted on her suspicions. Ade himself said he thought she knew something was wrong. If she’d spoken out
sooner . . .

‘It was a million-to-one chance that someone heard the engine running,’ Mum is saying. ‘The lock-up garages are normally deserted. She was incredibly lucky.’

‘She’s
alive
?’

‘Oh, Alice,’ Mum whispers. ‘You thought he’d killed her too?’

‘Because
he
thought he had,’ I say. ‘He told me so.’ Despite my doubts about Sahara, I’m relieved. Maybe Ade was the one who exploited her emotions,
moulded her into the strange person she became.

‘Did he tell you about the letter?’ Dad says.

‘What letter?’

‘Glen, it can wait.’

‘No. Tell me. Please,’ I insist.

Dad continues. ‘He left a letter with her in the car. That’s how the police realised you were in danger. Once Cara understood we needed to know where you were, she told us everything
and we called Lewis. The local Thai police were on their way, too, but there wasn’t much time. Ade could have done anything . . .’

I see Ade when I close my eyes. Remember how close I came, how lucky I’ve been.

‘The letter was to his own parents,’ Dad says. The police read parts of it to us down the phone, though we won’t be allowed to see it. It’s evidence for the
inquiry.’

The murder inquiry
. Will I be prosecuted?

‘The note was rambling,’ Dad says. ‘Part justification of all the things he’s done. Part blaming his parents for making him want to do bad things. But mainly it sounded
boastful
. He was gloating about how clever he’d been – right down to ordering those flowers the day you passed your test.’

Mum begins to speak. ‘We should have known—’

‘It sounds like a confession,’ I say before she can speak. ‘Which must mean he’d already decided . . .’

‘To kill himself.’ Dad’s voice is low with anger. ‘I don’t think that bastard ever planned to come back from Thailand, sweetheart. I think it was always going to
end with him and you. He wanted to take
both
my daughters from me.’

So Ade lied when he said the two of us could go off together. What was it he said? ‘
Walk away from the humdrum.’
But all the time, he knew he could never let me escape. Of
course, I suspected that, but knowing it for certain makes me so dizzy that I’m glad I’m sitting down. Without Lewis, it would have ended the way Ade intended.

Without Lewis, I wouldn’t be here
. He protected me as he couldn’t protect Meggie. He put things right.

‘And how is Lewis?’ Dad asks.

I look at the office door, wishing Lewis would walk through it right now. ‘I haven’t seen him since we were brought here but the doctor told me his head injury doesn’t seem too
severe.’

‘We were so angry when we realised he’d taken you away,’ Mum says. ‘Put you in danger.’

‘I made him do it,’ I say. ‘And Cara, too. I wouldn’t take no for an answer.’

‘Even so, Alice. He’s a grown man. He should have—’

‘Alice can be very determined,’ Dad reminds her. ‘And Lewis did make a difference when it mattered, Bea. I don’t think she would have been any safer from that animal at
home.’

‘No, well, we’ll never know, but we want you home on the next flight, Alice, OK?’ Mum says. ‘No arguments. We’ll book the ticket and there’s a consular
official on his way. He’ll get you to the airport and—’

‘No. The police want to talk to me,’ I say.

‘They’ve already spoken to the British police. They won’t hold you.’

Relief floods through me, but it doesn’t change my mind. ‘I’m waiting for Lewis.’

I hear Mum take a deep breath, about to argue, but instead I hear my father say, ‘Let her wait for him, Bea. They’ve been through so much already. I’d actually be happier to
have them travel together.’

I smile. ‘We’ll look after each other, Mum, I promise. And I won’t do anything dangerous ever again.’

‘Ah, Alice, you’re seventeen. You’re going to do a lot to scare me over the next few years. But if you could try to stick to all-night parties and dyeing your hair strange
colours, we’d be very, very grateful.’

And we all laugh, because it is funny. But also because, despite the distance between us, we’re strong together.

A family. Not the same without Meggie at the centre of it, but still a place I can feel safe.

When the police finally come to talk to me, just before five in the morning, they seem much less interested than they were.

Someone senior here has spoken to someone senior in London and they realise this is a case that has nothing to do with Thailand. The only thing they seem fixated by is how I lifted the lamp so
high and brought it down with such force when I hardly seem able to lift a glass of water to my lips now.

‘Because I knew it was us or him,’ I say. ‘Because it was the only option.’

Eventually, I sign a statement that I can’t read because it’s written in Thai, and they allow me to wait for Lewis in the office. On my own, at last. A nurse brings me a pillow and a
sheet and I’ve cobbled together a bed for myself by moving the two leather chairs together. Lewis must stay under observation for one more hour till they’re sure he’s OK to
leave.

I need to get some rest first, so I can be strong for both of us. Get us home.

But even though I am exhausted, I can’t sleep. How could I, with everything I’ve discovered in the last few hours?

It’s the end. Or at least, the beginning of the end.

I get up, pace the tiny office.

A kind of justice has been done. Tonight, Meggie must be leaving the Beach – or wherever she fled to after the storm came. And Danny? I wonder whether I will still be able to visit the
Beach once my sister has gone. Whether I can go back and say one long, last goodbye.

But then I remember. I can’t do that. The invitation had disappeared last time. Expired.

I try to imagine what’s left of the Beach, if anything. Is Danny still there? Perhaps it’s better I can’t go back, because I’d have to tell him about Lewis.

My thoughts drift back to the perfect evening with Lewis before everything went murderously wrong: to the dinner and the rainy journey back to the villa and the kisses. My skin tingles at the
memory, but I’m afraid he’ll always remind me of my sister, and I’ll always remind him of how he failed her.

And yet . . . hasn’t everything that happened with Danny taught me about the importance of letting go of the things you can’t change?

There’s a clock on the wall: five fifty-five a.m. Less than half an hour before Lewis is ready to leave.

Is Meggie on
her
last journey yet, now that justice has been done? Will she find a sense of complete peace and rest, in contrast to the endless partying on the Beach? Or a reunion with
relatives she hardly knew?

Or is it simply a letting go?

I can’t bear it.

A burst of energy comes from nowhere. I have to try to say goodbye one final time. I’m in the most high-tech hospital I’ve ever seen. There must be a thousand places to get online.
I’ll start in here.

The desktop is clear except for a phone, but there’s a power lead that looks like it should connect to a laptop. There’s a drawer in the desk and, sure enough, behind a lipstick, a
box of headache pills and a collection of uncapped pens, there’s a small, prehistoric-looking black laptop.

I open it, press the power button and it starts. The familiar Windows tune is faint but the lights flash and then, finally, the desktop appears, the green hospital logo in the centre and an IE
icon among lots I don’t recognise. I lean over the keyboard, my heart beating fast but my hands surprisingly steady.

I can’t mess this up.

The connection is faster than I expected. I enter my password into my email program and I wait.
Hoping,
even though I have no real reason to hope. The Management aren’t exactly
known for their compassion.

As my inbox loads, I scan for messages in bold.
New
messages.

I ignore the spam ones, the money-off-free-next-day-delivery-buy-new-stuff-now messages that clog up my account.

There’s one that stands out – sent yesterday, and pushed right to the top of the priority list, with a red exclamation mark next to it to make sure I don’t miss it.

Danny’s father.

He must have read my letter. Why else would he email? Did he believe me?

I’m about to open the message when I see the one immediately below. Sent at two a.m. today: that must be in Thai time, because in England it’s still yesterday.

I’m racing back in time, to the moment the first email from my sister arrived.

It was the morning of her funeral and the email was blank. A hoax; it had to be. A week later, when everything that made my life seem certain and bright had been buried too, the invitation
arrived.

Despite everything, I
believed
. The love I felt for Meggie was strong enough to make me hope, and that extra eleven months with her has been reward enough. But perhaps
this invitation is my bonus for pushing and challenging in her memory. For getting justice.

The time on the computer reads 06:03. I only just made it online in time. What if I hadn’t logged in till later – would this email still have been here?

I lean across to lock the office door from the inside. Then I double-click: