Death Wish (The Ceruleans: Book 1) (21 page)

‘Scarlett, darling!’ slurred Mother. ‘Come and join me.’ She
patted the rug, sending another cascade of red wine down from her teetering
glass.

In my relief, I sank to my knees beside her. For a moment
there, I’d thought…

‘Lovely to see you, darling.’

‘Mother, what are you doing?’

‘Drinking.’

‘I can see that. But on the floor? In Sienna’s room?’

Her brow furrowed. ‘The house is so big. I can’t find her.’

She was really drunk. I closed my eyes and took a deep
breath.

‘Mother, where’s Marnie, and the rest of the staff?’

‘Ah. I gave them a holiday. Tickets to Majorca all round!
Wasn’t that kind of me?’

‘Yes – but you can’t be here all alone.’

‘Why not? You’re all alone at the cottage.’

She had a point.

I reached over, prised the wine glass from her hand and put
it on the stone hearth. ‘Come on, Mother. Let’s get you to bed.’

‘Noooooooo. You only just got here. We must catch up!’

I put my hands in her armpits and hauled her up. ‘Come on,
this way.’

‘How is that nice young driving instructor boy?’ she slurred
as I propelled her out of the room and towards the west wing.

‘Luke? He’s okay.’

‘Are you seeing him?’

Apparently, my silence was enough answer for her.

‘Hooray! Someone should have some goddam happiness around
here – and not just Hugo with Ms Bottomly-Wider or whatever that hag of a PA is
called.’

I was beginning to get a glimpse of what Luke had gone
through with me the night before, and shame heated my stomach. To get this
drunk, to lose yourself like this; it wasn’t a pleasant sight.

We reached her bedroom and I guided her over to the bed.
Like a docile child, she let me slip off her shoes and tuck her under the
covers.

‘That wretched man,’ she muttered.

‘Mother,’ I said tiredly, sitting down on the bed beside
her. ‘This has to stop. Look at you! You have to look after yourself – take
responsibility. No one else can do it.’

She humphed and pulled the covers over her head. I tugged
them back down.

‘Father’s gone,’ I continued. ‘It hurts, I know. But you
were miserable with him – you’ve always been unhappy. Don’t you see, this is
your chance to make a change. You can do whatever you want now, be whoever you
want to be!’

She looked at me with big, doe-like eyes. ‘But I don’t know
what to do, Scarlett. I lost
him
, and I lost her – now all I have is
you.’

‘But you have to have more than me. I can’t be your
everything. You deserve a life of your own.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t. I made my choice. And now I
don’t know who I am any more past all the pain.’ She started sobbing. ‘If I
could just find her!’

‘I know, Mother.’ I grabbed her hand and squeezed it tight.
‘I know you want to be close to her – at the cottage, in her room here, at the
graveyard. You won’t find her in any of those places, though. She’s with us.
She’s everywhere.’

‘You don’t understand. That’s not it. I just can’t bear that
she’s lost.’

‘I know.’

She rubbed her eyes, smearing mascara all down her face. I
pulled a tissue from the dispenser by the bed and began wiping it away. She
caught my arm, stopped me. Her tone was quieter now, calmer, as she spoke:

‘I’m sorry. Sorry for being emotional. It’s just been a hard
week, you know? Glad you’re here.’ She lay back on the pillow and closed her
eyes. I leaned over and kissed her forehead. ‘It should be the other way round.
I should mother you.’

‘It’s okay, Mother.’

‘Don’t call me that,’ she said, her voice thickening with
sleep. ‘Hate it. Was Hugo who insisted. Mother and Father. Like a fairy tale.
Some fairy tale…’

‘Shhhhhh.’ I smoothed back her hair onto the pillow. ‘Go to
sleep.’

Her eyes flew open and she grabbed at me. ‘You’ll stay,
won’t you? You’ll be here when I wake up?’

‘I’ll stay until the morning,’ I promised.

I’d barely finished the sentence when her eyelids drifted
shut and her grasp on me relaxed.

*

The evening stretched ahead. So many hours to kill alone in
this soulless place.

Beyond Mother’s room the house was dim and draughty and
silent. I moved from room to room, switching on lights, until I’d vanquished
every shadow.

In Sienna’s room, I rolled up the stained rug. Then I hauled
it along the corridor, down the stairs, into the kitchen and out the scullery
door. Not knowing quite where to leave it, I dumped it on an empty flower bed
beside the house.

The en-suite to my bedroom was fully stocked as always, and
I took a long shower, pushing the control round from hot to scalding. Then I
put on a pair of pyjamas and some thick wool socks from the wardrobe and sat at
the dressing table, combing out my hair slowly and drying it carefully with the
hairdryer.

Downstairs, in the front sitting room, I built a fire,
taking my time arranging the logs just so in the grate, fiddling about with the
poker until the flames danced merrily. In the kitchen, I found the fridge full
of food as usual, and I made a sandwich, layering up every conceivable
ingredient to hand. I took it into the sitting room to eat it before the fire
on a cold and creaky Chesterfield sofa.

The drinks cabinet caught my eye – vast and rammed with all
kinds of spirits and liqueurs. I got up and went back to the kitchen. Leading
off was the scullery, and within, under a pile of linens, I found what I was
looking for: an old-fashioned brass hostess trolley. I pushed it back across
the ground floor to the sitting room, loaded it up with drinks from the
cabinet, pushed it back to the kitchen and emptied the contents of each bottle
down the sink. It was a pointless act, I knew – the cellar was chockfull of
wine, and the dining rooms and the kitchen each contained a cupboard full of
booze – but it was a statement that I hoped Mother would make some effort to
interpret.

Job done, I sat back down. I found the controller for the
wooden panels that concealed the fifty-two-inch plasma and booted up the TiVo
box. At the cottage, reception was patchy and I had the basic digital channels.
Here, there was a choice of every channel imaginable and I found it daunting. I
selected an old
Friends
episode and settled down to watch it, but it was
the one in Vegas where Ross and Rachel get married, and their drunkenness was a
little close to the bone. I switched the television off.

Father’s study led off from the sitting room, and I found my
gaze drawn to the closed door. I walked over and opened it and flicked the
light switch. I expected to be greeted by an empty room – upstairs, on the hunt
for Mother, I’d found Father’s suite stripped bare. But it seemed Mother
sending the staff away had hindered the packing, and the study was as it had
ever been: large leather-topped desk, high-backed chair, filing cabinets, book
shelves and dreary-but-priceless artworks.

As children, Sienna and I had been banned from the room, and
even in my teens Father’s frown had deepened if I’d so much as knocked and
poked my head around the door. Now I took a bold step inside, and then another.
Over by the window was an antique globe – the world laid out in faded, yellowed
detail. I walked over to it. Trailed a finger along the papery, cracked
surface. Thought of Father. Gave the sphere an almighty shove, and another, and
another, and watched it spin wildly around. Only when the world had stopped
turning did I walk away, shutting the door firmly behind me.

I returned to sit on the sofa. The clock on the mantelpiece
ticked loudly. A memory surfaced. The grandfather clock at the cottage. Jude’s
voice, soft and tortured:
‘I couldn’t save her. But I will save you.’
I
shook my head. I was muddled –
‘I saved you’
; that’s what he’d have
said. I sighed. All this melodrama: Luke finding me collapsed on the road; Jude
finding me collapsed on the island. It wasn’t me. I didn’t want to be some
damsel in distress, feeble and delicate. I didn’t want to require saving.

I looked up at the clock. Eight. Surely Luke would be back
by now.

He answered on the second ring.

‘Hey.’

‘Hey.’

‘How are you?’

‘Fine.’

‘Really? How’s the hangover?’

‘I’m managing.’

‘Where are you?’

‘At Hollythwaite.’

‘Still? How’s your mum?’

I couldn’t find the words.

‘Is everything all right?’

‘Yes. Fine. Mother’s just… struggling a bit.’

I hadn’t told him about my parents’ split. I’d wanted to
keep things light and easy between us.

‘Maybe…’

‘Maybe what?’

‘It’s none of my business, but maybe she needs to talk to
someone?’

‘She talks to me. Endlessly. Emails. Texts. Phone messages…’

‘I meant a professional?’

I thought of Father’s postscript – the psychiatrist’s
number. I’d never convince Mother to go to Harley Street, though. The only
doctor she’d allow near her was the family doctor, Dr McNesby, who was free and
easy with tranquilliser prescriptions. But perhaps something a little more her
style…

‘Maybe,’ I said.

‘Are you driving back in a bit?’

‘No, I’m staying the night. I’ll drive back in the morning
once I’ve had a chance to speak to her.’

‘Okay. Drive safely.’

‘’Course. Listen, I just wanted to say…’ I thought of the
state of Mother, of having to put her to bed, of how uncomfortable it had been
to see her like that. ‘About last night – I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.’

Luke’s voice was warm. ‘Hey, I said we were good.’ He paused
and then added, ‘Besides, remember what I said when I dropped you off at the
harbour?’

‘That my little white dress was having a little-black-dress
effect on you?’

He laughed. ‘Actually, I mean, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t
do.” Kind of unfair of me to stay mad at you for last night when I made an arse
of myself at one of Si’s dos a couple of years back.’

‘Spill it.’

‘Trust me, you don’t want to know. It was an ugly episode
involving a kipper, a traffic cone and a tutu. I haven’t touched vodka since.’

‘Tell me!’

He refused, I pleaded – eventually, he caved. And the empty
sitting room was soon echoing with laughter. By the time I put the phone down
on Luke, I felt lighter again, and as I made my way up to bed, the house seemed
a little less oppressive.

*

I waited impatiently for Mother to get up in the morning. At
eight o’clock I took her a coffee and she grunted. At half-eight I slid open
the curtains a crack and she squinted. At nine I went in and put a hand on her
shoulder and she turned over, away from me.

I called Bert, to explain that I’d likely not manage walking
Chester today, but I’d do double at the weekend to make up. I was keen to do it
– not least because I remembered what Big Ben had said on the island about it
being an old man with a dog who’d seen Sienna go into the water, and I wanted
to ask him: was he there?

Then I passed the time in Father’s study, on the computer. I
surfed rehab clinics, and made a shortlist of the three most exclusive ones in
the southwest of England – the kinds of places where ‘exhausted’ celebrities
check in that are more like spas, set in extensive gardens with beauty
therapists, masseurs and Michelin-starred chefs. One in particular stood out –
The Harmony Centre in Somerset. As well as a large pool, sauna, steam room and solarium,
the counsellors had impressive credentials. I printed out the key pages of the
websites, and put The Harmony Centre’s at the top of the pile.

I was searching around for a stapler among the scattered
papers on the desk when the name
Sienna
caught my eye. I picked up the
paper and scanned it quickly. It was an invoice for her gravestone. Only the
product description box didn’t contain the word gravestone, but
cenotaph
.
I had no idea what that meant. A fancy word for inscription, perhaps? I sounded
the word aloud. I realised I had heard it before – at the graveside that
morning I’d hidden from my parents. Mother had said something about not feeling
Sienna there, and what was it my father had said?
‘It’s a cenotaph; what do
you expect?’

I opened up the search engine on the computer and typed in
the word. In seconds the definition was up on the screen.

The world began spinning, only this time it wasn’t me
pushing the sphere around and around and around.

I didn’t walk to my mother’s room, I ran; and I didn’t open
the curtains, I ripped them right off the rail; and I didn’t nudge her gently,
I shook her roughly, screaming, ‘Where is my sister? WHERE IS MY SISTER!’ and I
threw onto her chest the definition I had printed off the computer:

Cenotaph: A monument erected to honour a dead
person whose remains lie elsewhere.

I left the radio off on the drive home. I did not feel like
singing. Or thinking. Or feeling. I focused on the car in front.

I drove straight to Luke and Cara’s. Parked. Got out.
Knocked on the door. No one came. I sank onto the front step, put my forehead
to my knees, closed my eyes.

Luke found me there sometime later. He’d barely uttered a
‘Hey’ before the dam broke.

He sat down beside me and pulled me onto his lap, rubbing my
back and murmuring ‘It’s okay, it’s okay’ into my hair as sobs wracked through
me. I tried to pull back, tried to quieten the primal noises of anguish coming
out of me, but I’d lost all control.

Finally, sobs turned to hiccups. Still I clung on. He let me
for a time and then he gently pulled back and looked into my eyes. His face
creased with what he saw there, but he said nothing more than ‘Come’ and then
tugged me up and into the house and pushed me down onto the sofa in the living
room.

He disappeared for a couple of minutes and came back with a
steaming mug. ‘Drink.’

I did. It was tea, sweet.

He sat on the coffee table opposite, his knees enclosing
mine, his hands on my thighs, watching me, waiting.

When all that was left in the mug was sugary dregs, he said,
‘Now talk.’

I took a deep, shuddering breath and out it all tumbled:

‘My parents lied to me. They told me my sister was pulled
out of the sea. They told me they found her. She wasn’t. They didn’t. They
never found her.

‘They lied to me. For
me
, Mother said – they did it
for me, to make it easier on me. Like lying ever makes anything easier.

‘She blames my father. Said he pushed her into it. It was
him who laid it down, that day they came to my school and told me. He said the
coastguard found Sienna. That the paramedics tried to save her. And the
hospital staff. He let me think he’d gone to the hospital, identified her
.
He said she looked peaceful.

‘He was a pallbearer at the funeral. He carried the coffin.
An empty coffin! It’s insane – all those people standing around the grave,
crying over an empty box. And my mother knew – she knew, and she just handed me
lilies to drop into the grave.
She knew Sienna wasn’t in there
.

‘All a lie. And for what? Not for me. For them. So they
could draw a line under it, make the whole ugly mess neater for the outside
world.’

I was rambling, I knew, but Luke said nothing; he just let
me get it all out, stroking his thumbs along my legs, all the while watching me
with tortured eyes.

‘They told my parents they couldn’t find her in the water.
They said the currents were strong. That she may wash up in days, or weeks, or
months along the coast. Mother’s been waiting. But my sister’s not there.
There’s no body…’

He pulled me to him, murmuring, ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’

But those words – my last words – were rolling about in my
mind. A memory: carrot cake;
Murder She Wrote
; Bert laying down the
formulaic rules of a murder mystery:
‘And if there’s no body to be found,
the victim’ll be alive and well someplace.’

I shot upright. ‘Luke! Do you think – do you think there’s a
chance? They never found Sienna…’

‘No, Scarlett, you can’t go there.’

‘But maybe she swam around to the next cove? Or climbed out?
Faking her own death – that’s so Sienna! She could be alive!’

Luke touched his forehead to mine. ‘Oh, Scarlett. I want to
say yes. But I can’t.’

I pulled back, shaking my head. ‘How can you tell? The man
who saw her on the beach that night, going into the water – the man who raised
the alarm. Maybe he had it all wrong…’

‘He didn’t,’ said Luke quietly.

‘It was dark, my father said, and stormy. How could he be
sure what he saw? And he went for help – maybe she got out while he was gone!’

‘No, Scarlett. That’s not what happened. I’m sorry, I’m
sorry to say it, but she drowned.’

‘But don’t you see, how can you know that for a fact?’

‘Because I was the man on the beach who saw your sister
die.’

*

It would take more than sweet tea to calm me down this time.
Frankly, I could have done some serious damage with the china mug. The
intensity of the anger that rose up inside me so frightened me that I did the
only thing that felt safe – I ran.

I ran down the streets leading to the village, across the
square, across the promenade. I heard Luke following me, shouting to me, but I
ignored him. I didn’t stop until I reached the beach. Then, panting, I
collapsed onto the sand. Moments later, Luke dropped down onto his knees beside
me.

He had betrayed me. My sister, my
sister
, dying
before him, and me grieving and desperate to understand, and he knew that, he’d
known that all the way along, and he’d said nothing. Like my parents, he’d
hidden the truth from me. I fisted my hands and prepared to let rip.

But when I turned to him, the look on his face stopped me.
Raw emotion stood out in every line. Whatever pain I was feeling was reflected
back at me tenfold. He had hurt me, and that was tearing him apart.

I looked at him, really
looked
at him. His jaw,
clenched. His dark brows pulled together. His eyes brimming with regret. How
this burden had cost him. But he’d carried it. To protect me.

As quickly as my rage had come, it left me. This was Luke.
My gentle giant.

He was talking now, desperately apologising.

‘… I wanted to tell you. I’ve wanted to tell you since the
first day on the beach when I pulled you out. But it was never the right time –
how do you say the words? I didn’t want to hurt you. I hate to see you hurt.’

I smoothed a palm down his cheek. ‘Tell me now,’ I told him.

He swallowed. ‘I don’t know where to start.’

‘Start here. On the beach. Start on the beach.’

He sank back on the sand beside me. ‘I don’t – I don’t want
to upset you.’

I reached over and laced my fingers with his. Then I looked
away, out to sea. ‘Time to face the fear,’ I said softly. ‘Tell me.’

He was silent for a moment, and then he began.

‘I was on the beach. It was cold that night, so everyone was
inside, in Si’s house. But someone had lit a bong and the fumes were
suffocating, so I went out the back for some air. It was dark out. I thought I
saw someone moving on the beach, but I couldn’t make them out. Then a cloud
blew away and I recognised her – her spiky hair, her white dress picking up the
moonlight. The tide was out, and she was walking to the waterline.’

‘Dress?’ I interrupted.

‘Yeah. It was, er, really short, so kind of memorable.’

‘But she was surfing – why wasn’t she in a wetsuit?’

‘Surfing?’ Luke shook his head. ‘No one could have surfed in
those conditions.’

‘But Father said… I thought… that’s why I learnt to…
why
did he tell me that?
’

‘I’m sorry. I don’t know. Perhaps he thought her surfing was
less upsetting.’

‘Than what?’

He looked stricken.

‘Please, Luke.’

I touched his hand. He grabbed mine. Squeezed. Continued.

‘I saw her walking to the sea. I don’t know why I went after
her. I barely knew her. Maybe it was the way she was walking. Like she had a
goal in sight; purposeful, you know. Something about it bothered me. Then… then
she started running. And I ran too. But she was fast, and by the time I was
halfway across the sand she was in the water. She just ran right in. I shouted
to her, but she kept on. Maybe she couldn’t hear me – it was wild out there in
the wind.

‘I tried to tell myself she was just messing about. It would
hardly be the first time a drunk partygoer took a midnight dip. But it was so
cold, and the waves were high, and she was fully dressed. So I ran.

‘A cloud blocked the moon. It was dark. I damn near ran into
the ocean myself, that’s how much I could see. I shouted for her again.

‘When the moonlight came back, I looked all through the
water. I saw her head – she was in so deep – near those rocks, there.’ He
pointed to the west side of the cove. ‘I thought about going in, but in those
conditions it would have been… it would have been suicide.’ He hung his head.

‘Go on,’ I said in a choked voice.

His voice was barely a whisper now. ‘I ran to Si’s for help.
By the time I got back with them all, she was gone. I’m so sorry, Scarlett. I
didn’t save your sister.’

‘She couldn’t have survived? You’re sure?’

‘Scarlett, no one could have survived out there. I’m sorry.’

I leaned my head on his shoulder and stared out to sea. The
little candle of hope that had lit inside of me had blown out, and that was
sad, but I was surprised to realise that my overriding feeling was relief. All
this time I had wondered how it had been. The question of whether Sienna could
have been saved had haunted me. But I trusted Luke. If he said it was
impossible, I believed him.

‘Can you ever forgive me?’

I sat up and turned to face him, meeting his gaze for the
first time since he’d begun to talk. ‘For what?’

‘For not going in there – not trying to pull her out.’

‘There’s nothing to forgive, Luke. If you’d have gone in,
you’d have been lost too.’ I shuddered. Then a thought struck me. ‘But you did
go in – for me.’

He smiled. ‘Because I could save you.’

‘And you did.’

I leaned in then, to kiss him, but Luke held up a hand.

‘There’s more. I have to tell you now. I don’t want any more
secrets between us.’

My stomach plunged. More? How could there be more?

‘Okay,’ I said in as calm a tone as I could muster. ‘Hit me
with it.’

He smiled a little at that, then his face grew serious. ‘You
told me to start with the beach. But before then, at the party, I saw Sienna…’

‘Yes?’

‘She was with Jude. They were out on the decking together. I
saw them through the doors.’

‘They were friends,’ I said.

‘But they didn’t look too friendly. They were rowing,
Scarlett. Shouting at each other. Hands waving. Sienna shoved him. She was
crying.’

He stopped and looked at me expectantly.

‘That’s it? Jude and Sienna rowed? Luke, my sister was
always rowing with friends, boyfriends, me. She loved a good drama…’

But still Luke was worried. ‘It looked serious.’

I thought for a moment. ‘Okay, let’s say for a moment it
was
serious. Luke, we never talked about it, because I didn’t want to talk about
it, but at the hospital, what Dr Morris let slip about Sienna…’

‘She was ill,’ he finished for me. ‘She was ill, and she
wasn’t going to get better. And that’s why she took her own life.’

I nodded. ‘And if she and Jude were good friends, maybe she
told him what she planned to do. And maybe that upset him.’

As I said the words, something in me relaxed. The way Jude
was with me, the things he said; it all fit. He took an interest in me because
of her. Because he’d lost her. Perhaps, even, because he thought he’d let her
down – after all, he hadn’t managed to talk my headstrong sister out of her
death.

‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ said Luke. ‘I just thought…
well, I don’t like the guy.’

‘All this time you’ve had a thing about him, been avoiding
the other surfers if he’s with them, because you thought what – Jude upset
Sienna and drove her to kill herself?’

‘No. I don’t know. It’s all a jumble. I thought I saw… Oh
hell, forget it. I don’t know. I got it all wrong.’

‘What did you see?’

‘Nothing, I guess. But I thought I did. In the water, when I
saw her out there, I thought I saw another head in the waves, right by hers. I
was so convinced, I raised the alert for two people in the water. When everyone
came out of Si’s and ran to the beach, there was only one person missing
besides Sienna: Jude. So I thought he’d been in there with her. I thought he’d
drowned too – I told everyone so. The coastguard searched for two bodies that
night.

‘But then, the next morning, he was there on the beach. And
when I confronted him, all he would say is, “You couldn’t have saved her, Luke.
Neither could I.”’ Luke shook his head. ‘I thought, if he was out there in the
sea with her that night…’

‘Hey.’ I put my hand on his arm. ‘What is this? You thought
Jude was out there in the ocean that night and failed to save Sienna but saved
himself?’

He grunted in a way that told me that wasn’t what he’d
thought at all.

My hand on his arm gripped him. Hard. ‘Tell me you haven’t
been going about all these months thinking he
killed
her? Luke, my
sister
killed herself
. Sienna entered the sea of her own free will, and
you said yourself no one could have survived out there – she knew she would
die. Jude didn’t make her do that. And even if Jude was in the sea – which you
admit is impossible, because he couldn’t have survived – what do you think he
did? Drown her? Bit pointless if she was already out there planning to die?’

Speaking in such stark terms of my sister’s death was
painful, but I had to get through to Luke.

‘I know. I realise that now. I just…’

‘… don’t like the guy, I get it. But think about it, Luke.
If Jude cared about Sienna, and he knew she was ill, and he knew she was
planning to die, just think what he’s been going through. He’s grieving. Just
like me.’

Luke was quiet, clearly wrestling with the idea that he’d
got Jude’s actions and motives all wrong.

‘I’ll talk to Jude,’ I said. ‘I’ll find him and I’ll ask
him. He’ll tell me the truth.’

Finally, Luke nodded. ‘Are we good?’ he asked quietly.

‘We’re good.’

‘Can I…?’

‘Always.’

So he kissed me, and I kissed him, and we fell back onto the
sand and into each other.

*

Later, when the sun was dancing on the horizon and the sky
was streaked with pink, we walked down to the water and kicked off our shoes and
stood in the surf.