That Summer He Died (32 page)

James lifted his glass to her in a toast, then downed its contents, cracked it down on the bar and watched her refill it.

‘That’s a lot to decipher. You ever thought of going into the fortune telling business?’

She clinked her glass against his and they drank again.

‘Nah,’ she said, ‘that stuff’s for wankers.’ She smiled briefly at him. ‘Losers who need someone to tell them how to live their lives.’

‘Not like you, then?’

‘Not like me at all.’

She picked up the bottle and her glass and walked over to a table in an alcove at the side of the room. He went over and joined her, accepted another refill and looked around the club. He had to admit it: he was impressed. Even without music and lights, the place had soul. It was easy to imagine caning a night away in here. He ran his tongue around his mouth, breathed out and smelt the scent of vodka rising to his nostrils. Yeah, this club would be just great, if it weren’t for the tosser who owned it.

‘So tell me,’ he said, ‘how long have you been seeing Alex?’

She counted back on her fingers. ‘Eight. . . nine months.’

‘You from Grancombe?’

Her face scrunched up in distaste. ‘Are you kidding me? What – do I look like some country bumpkin?’

‘No,’ James said truthfully, ‘you don’t.’

She sat back in her chair. ‘I’m from Essex. Came down here on holiday. Met Alex . . .’

‘So you stayed?’

‘Yeah. And what about you? How d’you know him?’

‘I used to live here.’

Her head lolled to one side and she stared at him, hard.

‘You don’t sound like it.’

‘It was just for a year. After I left school. A relative of mine lived here.’

‘What was he like?’

‘Who?’

‘Alex,’ she said. ‘I don’t give a fuck about your relatives.’

James smiled despite himself, then frowned when he remembered what Alex had been like then. ‘He was a great guy.’ James forced out the words. ‘The best.’

‘I’ pinched her pale nose. In the dim light, her skin almost glowed. ‘You want some charlie?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘D’you mind if I do?’

‘No. Go ahead.’

She chopped out a line on the table and hoovered it up, then sat back up, saying, ‘That’s better. I get tired, you know?’

He smiled sympathetically. ‘Has Alex got you working here?’

‘Yeah, at the bar. But not for much longer. He reckons. . .’ The rest of her sentence was lost in a mumble as she rubbed the back of one hand across her nose. As she picked up the bottle and poured, he noticed tiny red blood vessels webbing the rims of her nostrils.

‘You must have known Dan then,’ James said, thinking that now, with her half-cut and half-high, was probably as good a time as any to take the plunge. ‘Dan Thompson. He used to work here for Alex, too, didn’t he?’

She looked surprised. ‘You knew Dan as well?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ James said. ‘Me, Alex and Dan were thick as thieves when we were kids.’

‘Right little gang of criminals, I bet.’

‘Yeah, that’s about the sum of it. I heard they fell out after—’

‘Understatement,’ ‘I’ butted in. ‘They hated each other.’ She shrugged apologetically. ‘I’m sorry, you guys being friends and all that when you were younger, but it’s true. Alex fired him,’ she added. ‘A bit before he got wasted up in the woods. Cut his wages off and told him he didn’t want him round here any more.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘Not much of a loss to the business, it has to be said. I never quite worked out what Dan did anyhow. Hired muscle, I suppose.’ She drummed her fingers on the table, then lit a cigarette. ‘Can I trust you?’ she said, leaning forward, staring deep into his eyes.

‘Sure.’

‘I mean, with Alex? If I tell you something, d’you promise not to tell him? It’s no big deal, but I need to know it won’t go any further. Alex gets funny about stuff like that.’

‘Stuff like what?’

‘Disagreeing with him.’ James waited while she inhaled greedily on her cigarette. ‘You see, I liked Dan. I thought he was all right. A giggle, yeah?’ She stared down at the table. ‘OK, so he did too much gear, chased too much dragon too from time to time, but it’s not exactly the end of the world, is it?’

‘No,’ James said.

‘And he helped Alex set this place up, right? I mean, back in the day. . . He once told me it was his money as much as Alex’s that paid for the site. Only it all somehow ended up in Alex’s name. . . I don’t know. . . Alex explained it to me once, but it was kind of complicated.’

I bet it was, thought James, picturing Alex grinning all over again.

‘How did Dan take it,’ he said, ‘when he got fired?’

‘I’ shook her head, like there was a mosquito there that only she could hear, and hummed part of a tune. ‘I dunno, really. It was weird. He didn’t seem to care. Probably too high. Didn’t give a fuck. And that’s what pissed Alex off. Dan didn’t show him any respect, just kept on coming back here, even after Alex had told him to stay away.’ She stubbed out her cigarette, watched the embers glow and die. ‘And that was messed up too, yeah? ’

‘Sure. ’

‘I mean, you know Alex. He’s not exactly the most tolerant guy. Usually, when he tells someone to do something, they’d better bloody do it. Only when Dan didn’t, Alex just put up with it. Apart from the night Dan got killed. . .’

‘Why? What happened then?’

‘I’ looked vague. ‘Some argument. In Alex’s office at the back. Dan walked in there like he owned the place and Alex sort of freaked. Had Pete – he’s one of the bouncers – kick him out the back door. But apart from that, nothing. I tell you, it doesn’t make sense.’

‘I’ shook her head, like that invisible mosquito was back again.

‘I’d better get back to work,’ she said. ‘This bar isn’t gonna clean itself.’

James checked his watch. Lucy would be waiting for him. And then there was Alex. James didn’t want to be seen here. ‘Listen,’ he said, standing up. ‘Thanks for the drink and the chat, but I’ve just remembered something I’ve got to do.’

‘What about Alex? I thought you wanted to see him.’

‘I’ll call back.’

‘And it’s Jimmy, yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Jimmy what?’

‘Cricket.’

She giggled, suddenly beautiful. ‘You’re joking?’

‘No.’ He watched her get to her feet. ‘My parents – weird sense of humour.’

They walked to the front door and ‘I’ opened it. The wind had dropped and James thanked her again as he stepped outside.

‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

The voice came from behind James. He turned and saw Alex walking over from his car. He reached them and said, ‘You gone deaf, or what? I said, what the fuck are you doing here?’

‘Looking round,’ James said, doing just that, checking that Alex’s goons weren’t lurking anywhere nearby. They weren’t.

Alex spun round to face T. ‘You been talking to him?’

‘Well, yeah . . He said he was a friend of yours, so we. . .’ Fear flooded her face. She cringed away from him, suddenly looking terrified. ‘What? What is it, Alex? What have I done?’

‘He’s a journalist, you stupid bitch! Doing a piece on Dan getting killed. You been telling him about Dan working here? You been doing that, you dozy fucking tart?’

‘Sorry. Alex, I didn’t mean. . .’ Her voice faded to a whisper.

‘Get the fuck out of my sight!’ he spat. Then, to James, ‘And you –
you
just keep your fucking nose out of it, all right? You bring me and my club any bad publicity and. . .’ He made a gun shape out of his fingers, pointed it at James’s head and pulled the trigger. ‘Got it?’ he asked, coldly calm.

It was daylight. It was daylight and Alex was on his own. And there was something in his eyes, something James had never witnessed there before: fear. Alex was afraid. Of James. Of James being here.

And of what he might find.

‘I don’t make threats, twat,’ Alex said, those cold blue eyes not blinking. ‘Just promises. And you know I keep them. You’d better remember that.’

James turned and walked. Useless staying here, arguing with Alex when they both knew who held all the cards. Besides, he’d already got the information he wanted. The nagging feeling had subsided. In its place his heart pounded, regular, assured. The night of Dan’s murder. The row between Alex and him. Dan acting as though he owned the place. Against the odds. Because he had something on Alex. Just like Alex had something on James.

He remembered Alex up on the clifftop on that last night in Grancombe. Cold. Assured in everything he was doing. No emotion. No remorse. Just pragmatism, plain and simple. Off with the hands. Copy-cat killing. By the book. The axe cracking down on Trader’s wrists. Just a job. A butcher slicing chops.

He thought back to what he’d typed on the screen, concentrated on the places. Dawes in the woods by his house. Trader by the cliff. Then Dan. Dan by the cliff, too. A copy. Same place. Same mutilations.

Same killer.

Could
that
be it? Was that the reason for the fear he’d seen in Alex’s eyes? It was possible. More than possible. Because he knew Alex. Because he’d seen him lay his hands on Dawes’s corpse. Because he’d been there with Trader. Because he knew what Alex was prepared to put himself through to secure his own future.

If James were a betting man, he’d run with it, stake his life on it. Maybe – he remembered Alex’s threat – he already had.

But he wasn’t a betting man. He was a journalist, trained to rely on facts, not instinct. And there were doubts. No evidence for a start. Nothing, apart from the argument, to link Alex to Dan’s murder. And Alex wasn’t stupid. If he had killed Dan, he’d have an alibi. Some thug who’d stand there and robotically state he’d been with him on the night of the murder.

But above all that there was Dawes. Alex had been out of the country when that had happened, so he couldn’t have done it. And if Alex hadn’t done it, then that meant someone else had. And that led to another theory. Two killers. One for Dawes; Alex for Trader and Dan. No serial killer at all. That would explain the gap. That would explain everything.

Either that, or James was mistaken and Alex was innocent. But Alex had never been innocent, had he? Not from the instant his bloody skull had slid free from his mother’s womb.

*

James sat huddled against the wall of St Donal’s, his coat collar turned up against the cold. It was strange coming here with Lucy, made it seem less personal to him, like he was just a tourist stopping to look at the church. He watched her amongst the gravestones, standing one moment, crouching the next, the shutter of her camera snapping up views of Dan’s gravestone.

Then he heard footsteps and turned.

‘Hello, again.’

It was Suzie. In her hands was a box of spring bulbs and a trowel. He stood and walked over to her, kissed her on the cheek. ‘Hi.’

She looked over at Lucy, watched her for a few seconds, then asked, ‘That her, then? Your girlfriend?’

‘Yeah.’

‘She’s pretty.’

‘Yeah, she is.’

‘And she’s photographing Dan’s gravestone. . .’

‘Do you want me to tell her to stop?’ James said quickly.

Suzie looked at him, her eyes clear. ‘No, it’s all right. She’s just doing her job.’

Lucy waved across at them.

‘Does she know yet that you used to live here?’ Suzie said.

‘No. And nor do my two other friends who came down with her.’ James frowned. ‘I’d like to keep it that way. Everything that happened here that summer. . . Dawes. . . the girl at the party. I’ve never told anyone.’

‘Maybe I’d better go then.’

‘No.’ It was all he could do not to take hold of her hand. He watched Lucy sliding her camera inside its case. Suzie made to leave, but he caught her arm. ‘I want to see you,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow. I want to see you tomorrow.’

‘What about her?’

‘She won’t be here.’

Suzie eyed him sceptically. ‘And that makes it all right, does it?’

‘I mean, I’m going to ask her to leave. I’m going to tell her it’s over.’

‘Because of me?’

‘Yes.’

‘But nothing’s happened.’

‘It has to me.’

‘Nothing might happen.’ She looked imploringly at him. ‘James, we hardly even know each other any more.’

Lucy was walking over towards them now. James released Suzie’s arm.

‘Will you meet me?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she said, unsmiling, and walked away.

‘Who’s that?’ Lucy said

‘A local. I was just asking her a few questions.’

‘Find out anything useful?’

‘I hope so,’ he said, turning to gaze after Suzie as she disappeared from view.

The night of the party, Alex had found James standing by the gates at Eagle’s Point, staring at the ambulance as Victoria Cooper’s body was stretchered inside.

Alex had silently ushered him away from the gathering crowd and out down the lane. Dan had been sitting behind the wheel of a silver Renault, a piece of junk no one would have given a second glance to. Neither of them had asked him where he’d got it from.

‘We’re fucked,’ Dan said as they got inside.

‘Just drive,’ Alex said.

He started the engine. ‘Where? We can’t go home.’

‘Just drive,’ Alex repeated, his tone agitated. ‘I’ll tell you when to stop.’

They pulled into a lay-by about a mile further on, ditched the car next to the deserted picnic tables and litter bins. They left the keys in the ignition, the lights on, the doors open, and walked into the undergrowth.

They followed the line of the cliff, Alex alert as a pointer. It was only when they reached the top of the steps – the same place they’d stopped to rest on the day of the search party – that he broke the silence that had engulfed them and told them both to sit down. He placed the wash bag on the ground beside him. James couldn’t take his eyes off it, couldn’t look Alex in the face.

‘What we gonna do?’ Dan said. He sounded desperate.

‘We’re gonna keep our mouths shut.’

‘But. . . she’s dead,’ James said.

‘You think I don’t fucking know that?’ Alex snapped, turning on him. ‘You think anyone in this town doesn’t fucking know that by now?’

James wasn’t interested in debate. The facts were too big, Alex’s words too small. Just excuses. Pitiful attempts at self-delusion. ‘We can’t just sit here. She’s dead. She’s dead and we killed her.’