Cruel Summer (16 page)

‘Yes, it is. If this were a film, you’d have been waiting for Roxanne to die. You’d have been expecting it.’ He pointed at each of them. ‘Nerd, Jock, New Girl, Bad
Girl, Good Girl
and
The Bitch. The bitch always dies. We’ve all seen the bloody films. We know exactly what to do.’

‘We dump the body,’ Ben whispered.

‘They never get away with it,’ Katie said, grasping at straws. ‘In the films, they always get caught.’

‘Well, it’s a bloody good job we’re not in a film then, isn’t it?’ Greg gave her a cold look.

‘So we might just get away with it,’ Ryan finished. ‘Katie, I know this is awful. We are all clearly going to hell, but we don’t have to go to prison. There are six of us
still alive, and Rox is dead. If we call the police, we might as well
all
be dead. It’d be
over
for us. There is nothing we can do to bring Rox back to life now, and I want
to know what happened to Janey, but I’m not risking my life to find out.’

‘He’s right,’ Greg said. ‘We’ll wait until it’s dark.’

‘Wait!’ Ben snapped. ‘We need to vote on this.’

‘We vote?’ Katie was aghast. ‘This isn’t an election for Head Boy, Ben.’

‘We vote. We all agree to go with the majority. It’s the only fair way.’

Ryan could see that Ben was squirming. This row must be torture for him. He’d known Ben since they’d been babies and all Ben ever wanted to do was keep the peace, keep everyone
happy. But drama did seem to have a knack for finding him.

‘I . . . I wish there was another way,’ Ben mumbled.

‘But there isn’t.’ Ryan pulled his old friend into a hug. He looked like he needed it.

‘Thanks, mate. OK. Here we go. Who votes for us to bury Roxanne at sea?’ Ben asked.

‘You can’t make this sound better than it is, Ben.’ Katie looked at her ex with a mixture of disgust and sheer disbelief. ‘We won’t be burying her, we’ll be
dumping
her.
Dumping
her body at sea.’

Greg ignored Katie and turned to Erin. ‘Baby, listen, I am so sorry you had to see all this. You know I love you.’

Ryan knew a lie when he heard one, and he knew Greg didn’t love Erin. She seemed to buy it, though.

She started to cry. ‘Greg, I’ll get kicked off my course. I have worked so hard . . .’

‘Only if we call the police,’ Greg insisted. ‘If we don’t, we can go on as normal. All we have to do is hide Roxanne. She’s
already dead
. Erin, please.
There’s no way I’ll be able to play if I get arrested. My career will be over. So will yours.’ Hard, heavy sobs wracked Erin’s thin frame. ‘Please, baby. For
me,’ Greg finished.

‘OK,’ was all Erin said.

Greg kissed her hard on the lips. ‘Thank you. I promise it’s gonna be OK.’ He hugged her tight.

‘So,’ Ben said. ‘Raise your hand if you agree we hide the body.’

Ryan couldn’t back down now; he raised his arm. Greg and Ben did, too, followed by a reluctant Erin. Katie abstained. Alisha said nothing, but had already made her feelings clear
enough.

‘OK, then. It’s decided,’ Ben said.

‘We’ll wait until it’s dark,’ Greg added.

Ryan realised he was holding his breath. He exhaled shakily, fighting a new wave of nausea. Although glorious sun beat down on them from a cloudless sky, they were in a dark, dark place.

SCENE 19 – ALISHA

N
ot for the first time, Alisha wondered whether this could all be a particularly vivid dream. Rox was dead. Ryan and Greg wanted to dump the body.
A minute ago, she had just agreed to it. It was wrong and she knew it was wrong, but she’d agreed nonetheless. She was most surprised at Ben – she’d always had him down as someone
with an iron-clad moral compass, but he’d gone along with Greg pretty quickly. But then, so had she. As awful as it seemed, it felt
easier
to let Ryan and Greg take control, to be
the bad guys.

Alisha pushed her hair off her face. ‘This is so, so messed up,’ she said, incredulous.

‘If we all stick together,’ Ryan said, ‘it’ll be fine.’

Alisha knew it was over. There were no arguments left. ‘How? How, Ryan? How will this ever be fine?’ Sooner or later, someone would miss Roxanne. She was – had been –
vile, but someone out there cared about her, surely? The thought that no one would even notice she’d gone was too sad to contemplate. No – eventually Rox’s uncle would report her
missing and then they’d have to lie. Forever.

‘Well, obviously, it’s not exactly ideal.’ Ryan threw his hands up. ‘We’re meant to be eating ice-cream and getting drunk, but that’s impossible! After what
happened to Janey it was never going to be fine! We were screwed before we got on the plane. One of us is playing an astoundingly clever game – making sure we’re all implicated in
Rox’s death. I’m almost impressed.’

Alisha looked down the beach. The sun was climbing higher in the sky with each passing minute. The sand was golden, the sea was tropical blue, the villa was dazzling white, the dead girl was
ghost grey. Spot the odd one out. Alisha couldn’t think of anything else to say. Next to her, Katie slipped her hand into Alisha’s. It was good to know one of them sympathised.

Erin spoke, cool and professional again. ‘We need to move the body. We can’t leave her by the pool all day. Someone might walk down the beach and see her.’

The boys sprang into action, suddenly united by a practical task. They took up position around Rox’s body. Katie hid her face in Alisha’s shoulder.

‘Nobody but us has walked down the beach in forty-eight hours,’ Ryan pointed out.

Greg nodded. ‘Yeah, but we can’t risk it.
If
someone sees, we’re dead. We’ll have to take her inside.’

Ryan slapped Greg’s arm. ‘No! Are you mad? Don’t you watch CSI? We’ll get her hair and DNA all over the villa.’

‘You’re right. We’ll have to wrap her in something . . .’

Alisha pulled on Katie’s hand. ‘This is sick. Let’s go inside.’

Katie nodded. The pair started for the stairs.

‘Hey! Where do you think you’re going?’ Greg didn’t miss a trick.

‘Inside,’ Alisha said. ‘I’m not touching a dead body. This was your idea; you deal with it.’

‘Fine,’ Greg caved. ‘Lish, are you OK?’

Alisha thought about that. The irony that she would give anything, literally, anything in the world that she possessed, to have
Roxanne Dent
with them, right now, was not lost on her.
‘I’ll be fine,’ she said eventually.

‘This is for the best, Lish.’ Her brother turned his attention to the dead body, ready to move it.

Alisha led Katie up the stairs to the villa. ‘What about you, Katie? Are you OK, hon?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll get you some water.’ Alisha pushed open the sliding doors and steered Katie straight to the sofa. Katie flopped down onto it, resting her head on her knees.
Alisha’s mouth was bone-dry. This was happening. No going back. Events had taken on a demented momentum; the runaway train was careering downhill.

Alisha decided to focus on looking after Katie. She hurried to the kitchen and grabbed two glasses from the side of the sink. She took some mineral water from the fridge, and, with shaking
hands, managed to fill both glasses without spilling. She carried them through to the lounge, ice rattling against the sides. ‘Here – drink this.’

‘Thank you.’

Alisha sipped the water, her lips like parchment. ‘I’m sorry,’ Alisha whispered, confessing her sins. ‘In a choice between my brother and my best friends in the world on
one side, and Roxanne Dent on the other . . . Well, it’s no contest.’

‘It’s not your fault.’ Katie closed her eyes and held the ice-cold glass to her temple.

‘Janey and now Roxanne. Who could do something so . . .’ Alisha mused.

Her train of thought was interrupted by Ben, who stepped through the sliding doors. ‘Can we talk?’ he asked.

Alisha nodded and perched next to Katie on the sofa, suddenly awkward.

Ben knelt before them. He reached for Katie’s hand, but she recoiled. ‘Katie, I’m sorry.’

‘Who are you?’ she whispered.

He looked at her like it might be a trick question. ‘It’s me.’

‘No, it’s not. The Ben I knew would never agree to this.’

‘The Ben you knew changed when his girlfriend killed herself,’ Ben replied flatly.

Even Alisha flinched at that. Perhaps none of them knew how hard Janey’s death had hit Ben. He’d seemed so strong, so resilient, but perhaps it was all a front. ‘I’m
just,
just
getting my life back on track and then this . . . Roxanne was going to blackmail us all, Katie. I’m not going to feel sorry for her.’

Katie blinked back tears. ‘Answer me one question.’

Ben guessed the question. ‘Did I kill her? No. I swear to you.’ Katie nodded. Ben went on, ‘But we have to do this. I know it’s awful, but we’ve been friends
forever and we have to protect each other.’

Alisha saw Katie’s eyes narrow. For a split second, she really thought Katie might slap him, but then all the fight ebbed away, her shoulders sank and she simply said,
‘OK.’

‘You’ll do it?’

Katie batted a tear from her cheek. ‘Ben, how can you ask that? You know I’d do anything for you.’

Alisha shot off the sofa like it had bitten her. Sorry, but this was all a bit much. It was too intense, too intimate, and she couldn’t sit there and listen. There was something curled up
at the bottom of her stomach – a hard knot that felt a little like jealousy. It didn’t make sense, and the timing was mightily inappropriate, but it would be nice if there was someone
in her life who cared for her the way Ben cared for Katie. ‘I . . . I’m gonna see if Greg needs me.’

She swept out of the lounge and onto the top terrace. A hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun’s fierce glare, Alisha looked on in morbid fascination as Ryan and Greg carried
Roxanne up the stone stairs onto the terrace. It was every inch the car crash you slow down to peer at. Greg held her arms, Ryan her legs, and she swung like a hammock between them – butchers
carrying meat. They laid her down on the patio.

Ryan stepped over the body. ‘Where’s Roxanne’s bedding? We need to wrap her up or we’ll leave evidence everywhere.’

‘I’ll get it.’ Alisha turned away, dumbstruck. It seemed that wherever she went, she walked into a surreal melodrama. She pulled the door open and cannoned straight into
Ben’s broad chest. She couldn’t look him in the eye. God, she might never be able to look anyone in the eye ever again. What was it gonna be like after they’d dumped Rox? Every
time she walked past a policeman she’d get cold sweats and palpitations. This feeling was going to get worse and worse, she just knew it.

The lounge was now empty. ‘Where’s Katie?’

‘She went up to her room,’ Ben replied.

She glowered at him. ‘I’ll go see if she’s OK.’

‘Lish!’ Greg called from outside. ‘Where are the sheets?’

With a sigh, she took the neatly folded pile of sheets, which, of course, Roxanne had never used, and flung them in Greg’s direction. Just because she had agreed to this didn’t mean
she was happy about it. Not by a long stretch.

‘Hey, Lish.’ Ben took hold of her arm. ‘Greg’s right. This
is
for the best.’

Oh, who was he trying to convince? ‘Is it? You really think so?’

He nodded, but there was so much pain in his eyes it made Alisha’s chest ache. He had such a beautiful mouth. How had that never occurred to her until now? Why was it occurring to her
at all
when the corpse of her nemesis festered just behind them? ‘I’m gonna check on Katie,’ she said again and broke away from him, unable to deal with a feeling that
she didn’t fully understand. Not looking back, she hurried across the lounge, leaving Ben to deal with the extreme twistedness on the terrace.

When she entered the bedroom, Katie was just sitting on the end of the bed, a hollow, unblinking stare on her face.

‘Hey, hon,’ Alisha said gently.

‘I told Ben I’d go along with whatever Greg and Ryan are cooking up. Right now, I just want to go home,’ Katie told her.

Alisha nodded. In a weird way she was glad Katie wasn’t trying to stop them. She wanted all this over with as fast as possible. It was like a living, breathing nightmare. ‘Who do you
think . . .’

‘Don’t.’ Katie blinked back tears. ‘It’s too awful to think about. Why would anyone want to kill Roxanne?’

That drew a wry laugh from Alisha. ‘Who
wouldn’t
want to kill Roxanne?’ Then she took Katie’s hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘Too soon?’

Katie managed a little laugh in response. ‘Too soon.’ She went on to answer her own question. ‘She knew something about Janey . . . and it got her killed. One of us killed
Janey
and
Rox.’

‘It
might
be someone else – like someone prowling the beach,’ Alisha pointed out. ‘And maybe Janey
did
jump . . .’ Alisha was often accused of
being naive, but she didn’t care; it was better than being jaded and cynical.

‘Fat chance!’ Katie laughed. ‘Greg’s right. This is all because of Janey. It’s all connected. God, what happened that night? There’s something in there,
Alisha. Something we’re missing. It’s probably really obvious and we’re just not seeing it. What happened at the ball?’

‘I don’t know. I was drunk, Katie. Really drunk,’ Alisha admitted, feeling ashamed.

‘Please, Lish. What do you remember?’

Alisha took a deep breath and folded her legs. ‘OK. We can do the extended disco remix if you want. It’s not like we’re going anywhere, is it? Remember where we’d got to?
We pranked Mrs Finching and then headed for the ball?’

Katie tensed up. ‘Yes. Go on . . .’

FLASHBACK – LAST YEAR (ALISHA)

T
hey were kind of late for the ball; it was already well underway by the time they arrived. Other students were spilling out of the gymnasium, one
girl already tossing her dinner onto the netball court while a friend held her hair back. Without Katie there, Alisha couldn’t help wondering who would hold
her
hair back later. A
group of guys from the rugby team had chosen to dress identically in kilts and were busy flashing each other for a group photo.