Cruel Summer (10 page)

Ryan had come in from the sun to find the horrid thing gone from the dining table and, even worse, he was unable to recall if it had been there over breakfast. The missing mask bugged him and he
couldn’t resist raising it with the group. No one had seen it and, once again, Ben denied bringing it, even though it had been in his bag.

Ryan spent the rest of the afternoon looking under plates and magazines with no success. Now, at sunset, Ryan gazed out of his bedroom window as the sea reflected the purple and tangerine
stripes of the sky. It was beautiful. You didn’t get views like that in Manchester.

When Erin called them all for dinner, he gave up looking with a sigh and joined the others. After the second day of uninterrupted sunshine, Greg and Alisha were more tanned than ever,
Ben’s forehead looked a little red while Katie, of course, was still pale and interesting. Ryan was quietly satisfied with his bronze glow. It suited him – he could easily audition for
an Australian soap, now, with his gold skin and surfer’s curls. They noisily settled themselves at the table, Ryan choosing to sit next to Katie.

Roxanne made a late entrance. Ryan swallowed his anger and battled to maintain a poker face. Tonight she wore a distressed grey dress that, on anyone else, would have looked like it had come out
of the bin, but on Roxanne looked rock and roll. She’d managed to pull off the same look with her hair too: effortless pillow-damaged waves.

That was the thing with Rox. Ryan had never known someone to be so self-consciously sexy, including himself (and he thought he was mighty fine). Boys ate it up with a spoon. She knew full well
she was sexy, but always followed it with a chaser of
Who, little ol’ me?
It was impressive. If
he
tried that with guys, he’d get a black eye for his efforts. Ryan
decided if straight boys were dumb enough to fall for it, it was their problem.

Roxanne’s wrist caught Ryan’s eye. She was wearing a charm bracelet he recognised at once. It was Katie’s – the one Ben had got her on their first anniversary. Ryan had
helped Ben design it, although, he had to hand it to his friend, he had great taste. Ben Murdoch made a devastatingly thoughtful boyfriend. The charms were a K, A, T, I and E (obviously); a tiny
silver copy of
Jane Eyre
; a pair of sneakers to reflect their first date at Foot Locker; a heart made out of her birthstone and a spaniel (apparently he was like the puppy she’d
never had).

Katie had noticed, too. She looked embarrassed, but said nothing. Ryan wondered how bold you’d have to be to wear someone else’s charm bracelet. Why had Rox
really
come
here? To humiliate him? Why bother – he hadn’t crossed Roxanne as far as he knew. No. He sensed there was something bigger brewing just out of sight and, not for the first time, he felt
entirely at the whim of the great executive producers in the sky.

Roxanne picked up on Katie’s awkwardness. ‘Oh, you don’t mind, do you? I saw it on your dresser.’

‘No, of course not,’ Katie replied, but it looked very much as though she did mind.

‘Thanks. I thought it went well with my ensemble!’

Ryan looked at Alisha, certain a ‘you’re used to taking things that aren’t yours’ comment was about to be forthcoming, but, although she glowered, Alisha kept her mouth
shut. Her self-control had improved.

Dinner was less successful under Greg and Erin’s watch. Perhaps they really did eat at Nando’s every night. If the fish was a little soggy, the vegetables were sponge-like. Still,
they were all ravenous and plates were cleared.

Small talk ping-ponged across the table. Tonight was cooler, so they ate inside but kept the patio doors wide open. Thankfully, Roxanne mostly looked on in silence, allowing Ryan to take centre
stage. He was determined to show her that her spiteful little game on the beach hadn’t scared him. Tonight’s topic of conversation was how crazy actors are, and the lengths they go to
for roles.

‘It’s insane!’ Ryan concluded. ‘I mean, this one girl, Freya, she eats one cracker a day. And don’t even get me started on my roommate. He has chicken and cabbage
every single night of the week. I mean, he looks great . . . but the smell . . .’

‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels!’ Erin giggled.

‘That’s utter rubbish,’ Alisha said. ‘Only some cotton-wool-eating psychopath could think that.’

‘I know a ballet dancer who actually does eat cotton wool,’ Ryan said, nodding like the oracle of gossip.

‘You can’t live like that.’ Greg played with the rim of his beer bottle. ‘You gotta put the fuel in if you want the machine to go.’

Ben chuckled next to him. ‘Dude, the fact you just called your body a machine is as depressing as eating cotton wool.’

The table laughed. Ryan was finally feeling relaxed.

A knife tapped on the side of a wine glass. It was Roxanne. She was making a snatch for his microphone. What an attention whore! The table went quiet.

‘I’d like to say something . . .’

‘There’s a surprise,’ Alisha muttered.

Roxanne pretended not to hear. She smiled a saccharine smile. ‘I just want to say, thank you for having me. Thank you, Katie, for inviting me.’

Katie tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled demurely. ‘That’s OK.’

The penny dropped in Ryan’s head. Roxanne hadn’t been sitting quietly. She’d been
waiting for her moment.
His heart started to pound.

‘You all obviously hate my guts,’ Roxanne continued, ‘but they say your school friends are the ones you keep for the rest of your life, and I just think you guys are the
best.
It’s so lovely to see you all laughing and joking like nothing happened.’ Her voice was drenched in sarcasm.

‘Rox, is this going somewhere?’ Greg asked as politely as he could.

‘I just thought it would be nice to raise a toast to Janey Bradshaw.’

A groan ran around the table.

‘You’re too late, Rox.’ Ryan shot her a dirty look. ‘We did the big Janey talk last night.’

Roxanne laughed. A proper, she-found-all-this-hysterical laugh. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘Yes,’ Katie said with some conviction. ‘Everything’s out in the open.’

‘Oh, really? So you admitted it then?’

‘Admitted what?’ Alisha spat. ‘There’s nothing to admit.’

‘Oh, Alisha, honey, don’t tell me you believed that whole “suicide” story? I thought even you had more common sense than that.’

The table became a merry-go-round, spinning around Ryan. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Roxanne was airing his innermost thoughts. At once he felt validated that he wasn’t
alone in his suspicions, and gutted that Roxanne was ruining the party just as he had been starting to enjoy himself.

This was the last straw for Ben. ‘You know, I’ve bitten my tongue all day, but I’ve had enough of your sh—’

But Roxanne cut him off mid-sentence. ‘Didn’t they tell you, Erin? One of them killed Janey.’

SCENE 13 (CONT.)

Y
ou’d have to have a break there,
Ryan thought. If it was TV, that’d be the end of the episode, or, at the very least, a
commercial break. He didn’t know whether to kill Roxanne or shake her hand. This was kind of what he’d been planning to say at the beginning of the week, so she’d saved him the
embarrassment, but she’d also stolen his limelight. Again.

There was a chorus of disapproval but, before that, almost undetectable to an outsider but noticeable to Ryan, was a split second of horror. It flashed across every one of their faces. That,
thought Ryan, could be interpreted in two ways: most of them were probably simply appalled at what Rox had said, but maybe one of them was terrified that they’d just been outed as a killer.
What if Ryan’s suspicions had been right all along? What if one of them had . . .

‘You know what, Rox,’ Greg laughed it off, interrupting Ryan’s thoughts. ‘You’re such an attention seeker!’

‘It’s all shock tactics with you,’ Ben agreed, glaring up at her from under his heavy brows.

‘It is a bit mental, Rox,’ Ryan said almost pityingly. Her speech, while nicely dramatic, did verge on cringeworthy. His confrontation would have had much more finesse.

‘Like, seriously? Do people not look at you enough, Roxanne? Do you want your own reality show or something?’ Alisha asked. She seemed to be finding this quite funny.

Roxanne didn’t even flinch. She repelled the comments like oil on water. ‘Did I want to shock? Absolutely. I wanted an honest reaction. I wanted to see your guilty little
faces.’

Katie closed her eyes for a moment like she was counting to five to temper her thoughts. ‘Rox,’ she said, ever the voice of reason. ‘This is insane. We didn’t kill Janey.
We didn’t.’

‘Actually, one of you did,’ Rox told her emphatically.

‘Give it a rest!’ Ben slammed his knife onto the table. Plates jumped. Ryan had never seen Ben like this. It unnerved him – but it was kinda sexy. Ben did brooding well.

Roxanne tucked her hair behind her ear. ‘Let’s talk about that night, shall we?’

‘I’m not listening to this.’ Greg pushed his chair away from the table.

‘You’ll sit down, Greg.’ Roxanne’s tone didn’t give the option of refusal. ‘I’ve got a few more
I Have Nevers
that you don’t wanna
miss.’

Greg shot her a venomous glance but did as instructed. Ryan had forgotten how fiery Greg’s temper could be; now he noticed how he balled his fists until the knuckles were white before
lowering himself back into his chair.

Roxanne reclined in her seat, making sure her audience was ready for the show. Ryan hadn’t seen her like this before, and he had to admit he was impressed. This took some guts.
‘Don’t any of you think it’s a little odd that there was no suicide note?’ Rox asked.

It was super odd, no doubt about it. The question hung over the table. Ben finally answered as he peeled the label off his bottle of beer, trying to look uninterested. ‘Rox, we
know
why there wasn’t a note. Janey went to the cliff angry and drunk. I don’t think she was thinking straight, do you?’

Roxanne paused, making the most of her
coup de théâtre.
‘Yes, she was drunk. Yes, she was angry. But this is
Janey Bradshaw
we’re talking about.
Let’s say for a second that she did want to kill herself . . . it would have been to make you feel guilty and she would have had the last word. She’d have wanted
you
to suffer
that for eternity.’ Rox pointed an elegant finger at Ben. ‘But, more than that, what about her poor mum and dad? What about her place at Warwick? What about her little brother? Janey
had a lot to live for. In fact, I don’t think Janey would have jumped at all. I think she’d have totally bottled it.’

‘Well, obviously, she didn’t.’ Alisha rolled her eyes.

‘It’s not obvious to me,’ said Rox. ‘I think she was pushed.’

‘What?’ Ben tried to laugh it off, but didn’t quite convince. ‘Roxanne, this is a new kind of crazy. Are you on meth or something?’

‘I have proof.’

That shut everyone up. In fact, it felt as though everything was on pause. It was so quiet, Ryan could hear the clock ticking out the seconds on the upstairs landing. It ticked in time with the
cogs in his brain. He’d been right. He’d been right this whole year. Someone
had
killed Janey.
One of them.

‘Well, who did it then?’ It was Erin. It was the first time she’d volunteered to speak since Rox had started her little announcement. Her face was grim, her eyes determined.
‘You know, I don’t even know you but, where I come from, you don’t turn up at other people’s homes and start accusing people of murder.’

Roxanne rolled her eyes. ‘Lighten up, honey. You wanna hear the way they talk about me. That’s what always pissed me off.’ She glared round at them all. ‘When I first
moved to Telscombe Cliffs, I wondered how I was ever going to be as good as you lot. You were like these perfect, gorgeous
Abercrombie & Fitch
people. Then I realised you were as bad
as everyone else – just with bigger, faker smiles.’

‘Tell us, then, if you know. Who did it?’ Erin demanded.

Roxanne grinned. ‘That’s the thing,
Erin
.’ She said the name as if it were a punchline. ‘You think you know this lot? You don’t. There are some pretty big
secrets flying around. You’re only seeing what they want you to see, and here’s a bombshell – Janey wasn’t by herself on the cliffs. One of them was with her.’

‘For God’s sake, Rox, who was it?’ Katie snapped, her voice high-pitched and strangled.

‘What’s wrong, Katie? Guilty conscience?’ Roxanne asked.

‘Leave her out of this,’ Ben warned.

‘She’s full of crap,’ Ryan observed. There was a key problem with her claim to have evidence. He sat back, a triumphant look on his face. ‘If you really had proof that
one of us had pushed Janey off a cliff, you’d have gone to the police last year.’

‘Oh, very good, detective, you found me out. Actually, Ryan, I’ve been doing my own digging this year. At first I thought Janey had jumped, but there was this little niggle at the
back of my head that wouldn’t go away, so I did some research. I discovered a few things and I wasn’t so sure any more.’

Ryan knew all about that little niggle. ‘What things?’ he prompted.

‘Well, that’s the problem – if I tell you, you won’t pay me.’

The table exploded. There were some expletives, but mostly laughter. In that moment, Ryan realised that this was all scripted. Roxanne must have been working on it for months. He was almost in
awe, it was so audacious. Every subtle pout and raised eyebrow had been practised in front of the mirror. He wasn’t the only one living life in a TV show. Alongside
Ryan: Acting Up
,
Rox had her own spin-off:
Roxanne’s Revenge.
Tragically, hers probably got higher ratings.

‘I must be dreaming,’ Katie muttered, downing her wine.

‘You are out of your tree!’ Greg laughed.

‘Are you actually going to try to blackmail
students
?’ Erin shook her head. ‘We’re skint!’