Those We Left Behind (27 page)

CIARAN AND THOMAS
stand at the water’s sighing edge. Spray from the sea makes cold points on Ciaran’s cheeks. The wind burns his skin. Grey out there, stretching all the way to touch the sky. Clusters of rocks hem this small beach in, a hundred yards of sand trapped between wet black walls. Orange and yellow buoys dip behind the waves a hundred yards out, reappear with the next swell, and then they’re gone once more. Over and over, coming and going.

‘Is it like you remember?’ Thomas asks.

‘I think so,’ Ciaran says, but he really isn’t sure. This place has been a dream to him for years. A fragment of a memory. Smells and colours.

A question has been hiding behind Ciaran’s lips for hours. Now he asks it.

‘Did Mr Rolston really do those things to you? Did he really touch you?’

Thomas exhales, the sound of it lost in the rushing air around them. ‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes, it does,’ Ciaran says.

‘Well, what do you think?’ Thomas asks.

‘I think you were afraid,’ Ciaran says. ‘But not of Mr Rolston. I think what Daniel told me was right. I think you saw me and Daniel were getting to be friends, and you couldn’t stand it. I think you got me to kill Mr Rolston because you were afraid of losing me.’

Thomas folds his arms across his chest. ‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘Or maybe I just wanted to watch someone die. To see what it felt like.’

Ciaran shivers as he looks out to sea and thinks of the lives he destroyed. His own among them.

‘So all this because you wanted to see what it felt like,’ he says.

‘Maybe,’ Thomas says. ‘I don’t know. I don’t remember any more. I just remember he’d been lecturing me, telling me I needed to work hard at school, you and me didn’t have to be nothing just because we were orphans. He said he was an orphan too, and he’d done all right. He said I didn’t have to be angry all the time. And he kept on and on, every day, nagging at me.’

Thomas makes his hand a claw, drags his fingertips across his scalp and forehead.

‘And every time he sat me down and started talking it got all hot inside my head, all noisy and confused, so I couldn’t even think properly.’

The muscles in Thomas’s jaw bulge, his words squeezing and hissing between his teeth.

‘And I just wanted him to shut up and leave me alone. That’s all. Just to leave me alone.’

He clenches his hands into fists, his shoulders rising and falling, his lips sealed shut now, his nostrils flaring. Then he breathes out, his hands drop loose to his sides, and he laughs once.

‘Not everything has to have a reason. Sometimes stuff just happens.’

Thomas reaches into his jacket pocket. He takes out the envelope that Serena had hidden in her drawer. He goes to open it.

‘Don’t,’ Ciaran says.

Thomas removes the single sheet of file paper from the envelope. He lets go of the envelope, and the wind carries it away. Ciaran sees his own spidery handwriting, the tumble of words, some of them crossed out, some of them underlined.

‘Do you want me to read it to you?’ Thomas asks.

‘Please don’t,’ Ciaran says.

He crosses the few feet of sand to his brother, tries to grab the paper, but Thomas snatches it away from his reach.

‘Dear Serena,’ Thomas says as he backs away, the page held before him.

‘Stop it,’ Ciaran says, following.

‘I want to say thank you for taking care of me in the police station,’ Thomas says.

‘Stop.’

‘I was very scared, but you made me feel better.’

Ciaran dives for the page, but Thomas stumbles. He loses his grip on the paper and it flutters away, up into the wind, higher and higher. Out over the water.

As Thomas laughs, Ciaran walks away.

FLANAGAN REACHED THE
bottom of the stairs in seconds, turned, headed for the back door then ran along the path, kicking her way through the grass and weeds.

‘Ma’am, wait,’ Meehan called from behind.

She ignored him and walked through the gate, her pistol still ready in her hands. She stopped, listened. Only the call of gulls overhead, the rustling of the salty breeze through the thin line of trees. And not far ahead, the rumble and rush of the Irish Sea.

‘Should we go back to the car?’ Meehan asked.

‘No,’ Flanagan said.

She picked her way through the trees and into a field. The ground rose to a crest, a low wall of loose stones at the top. She walked up the slope and rested her hands on the wall as she scanned the rise and fall of the grassy dunes on the other side. Beyond them the sea, dark and angry.

Flanagan threw one leg over the wall, let her body follow. Stonework dug into her bruises and she swallowed a groan. Meehan came behind.

‘You think they’re out here?’ he asked.

‘Quiet,’ Flanagan said. ‘Listen.’

Only the crash of waves on the beach, the screech of the birds. The wind came in strong, carrying spray with it.

She descended into the bowl of the first dune, beckoned Meehan to keep up. At the bottom, her shoes ploughing through loose sand, she lost sight of the sea. She climbed to the next grassy rise, her thighs protesting at the effort of pushing against the soft footing. The sea again, and a few yards of beach. Empty but for washed up seaweed and stones.

The drop revealed a channel on the other side, a small sluggish stream of run-off water that twisted through the dunes towards the tide. Flanagan splashed along it, the sandbanks rising all around, grass leaning away as the wind strengthened.

The stream turned one way, then the other, seeming to take them no closer to the open. The wind funnelled through the channel, gathering speed, bringing water to her eyes. She lifted a hand up to shield them. At last the sea came into view, and something creamy white fluttering across the sand. An envelope, one Flanagan recognised. The envelope the brothers had taken from her drawer.

It drifted past, propelled by another gust of wind, and she turned to follow its trajectory towards the dunes behind her.

She saw Ciaran Devine withdraw the blade from Meehan’s neck and let the policeman fall at his feet.

CIARAN WATCHES HER
raise the gun and point it at him.

Her mouth moves. She shouts something, but he can’t make out the words because the wind is battering against his ears. The blood on his hand goes from hot to cold.

She shouts again, jerks the gun at him.

Ciaran steps over the policeman, his feet splashing in the stream, comes closer to her. He shakes his head, raises his free hand to his ear, tells her he can’t hear what she’s shouting.

She steps back, shouts again, and this time he understands.

‘Drop the knife,’ she says. ‘Stay where you are and drop the knife.’

Ciaran stops, but he keeps the knife in his fingers.

A sadness pierces him. It was always going to be her, wasn’t it? No matter how hard he wished for it to be different, it was always going to be this way.

He takes another step, watches her finger move to the trigger, the wrinkles on her knuckle thinning and fading as she applies pressure. Do it now, he thinks.

No, tell her.

‘Do it now,’ he says, but his words are swept away by the wind. He barely hears them himself. He shouts now, his body bending at the effort. ‘Do it now!’

‘No,’ she shouts back. ‘I won’t. Don’t make me. Drop the knife, Ciaran, please.’

Another step.

‘Shoot me!’

She shakes her head. ‘No, Ciaran. Drop the knife.’

Some absent part of Ciaran’s mind wonders if she will shoot Thomas too, and as if summoned by the idea, Thomas appears behind her.

She notices Ciaran’s gaze has left her, and glances over her shoulder to see what he sees. She swings her gun around, but not fast enough. Thomas drives the hand-sized stone into her temple and she falls down. Her gun tumbles end over end and lands in the stream.

A grin of animal triumph splits Thomas’s face until he looks like a devil in a Halloween picture. He crouches down, leans over her as she blinks the blood away from her eyes. Ciaran can barely hear her groan.

Ciaran crosses the ground between them, stands over Serena and his brother.

Thomas raises the stone to him. Ciaran sees the blood on it, the strand of hair whirling in the wind.

‘Finish her,’ Thomas says.

Ciaran reaches for the stone, as much from instinct to obey his brother as from any desire of his own. He pulls his hand back, empty.

‘No,’ he says.

‘Do it,’ Thomas says. ‘Like you did to Mr Rolston. Do it before she recovers.’

It’s too late. Already she lifts her head, tries to get her arms and legs moving, to get away.

‘No,’ Ciaran says. ‘Not her.’

Thomas tries to push the stone into Ciaran’s hand. ‘Do it or I’ll bite you.’

‘No.’

‘Do it or I’ll bite you hard.’

Ciaran swallows. He takes the stone from Thomas’s hand, feels its weight. He thumbs the bloody patch, sees the red on his skin. Then he throws the stone away, past Thomas, out towards the beach.

Thomas stands, glares at him.

At their feet, Serena turns on to her stomach, gets to her hands and knees, crawls towards the sea. While Thomas stares hard into Ciaran’s eyes, she gets to her feet, staggers a few yards, drops to her knees, climbs up again.

Thomas shakes his head, snatches the knife from Ciaran’s hand, and walks after her. As he closes on her, he raises the knife, ready to bring it down.

‘No!’ Ciaran shouts.

Thomas swings the knife, but she sees him coming, twists away, her arm up. The blade catches on her sleeve. Ciaran hears her cry out as she falls back onto the sand.

He runs, arms and legs whirling.

Thomas raises the knife again. Serena raises her hands. Thomas laughs.

Ciaran’s body collides with his brother’s.

He hears the air driven from Thomas’s lungs. He glimpses metal out of reach. They roll on the sand, arms and legs tangling, the shock of cold as they fall at the lip of the sea. Ciaran comes to rest on his side, his chest against Thomas’s back, his arms wrapped tight around him.

Thomas reaches back, drags his nails down Ciaran’s face. Ciaran snaps at the fingers with his teeth, feels skin and bone between them, hears Thomas squeal.

He climbs on top of his brother, pins his arms with his knees, balls his fists together, lifts them over his head.

‘No more!’ Ciaran screams.

He brings his fists down, feels Thomas’s nose crunch beneath them. The blood sprays outwards like a red angel on Thomas’s face. Then a wave comes, rushes over him, washes the blood away. The cold hits Ciaran’s thighs, almost shakes him loose, but he holds on.

Thomas coughs and gags, spits water and blood. Ciaran raises his hands again, brings them down once more. Thomas turns his head, and the blow skims his cheek.

‘No more!’ Ciaran screams again.

Thomas calls his name, but it’s lost in the crash of another wave.

But Ciaran hears his name anyway.

Not from beneath him, but from the beach. He turns.

Serena stands at the edge of the water.

‘Ciaran, stop,’ she shouts. ‘Please stop.’

THE WATER SWALLOWED
Flanagan’s ankles, the cold making her gasp, trapping her pleas in her chest. Ciaran stared back at her, centuries of pain written on his young face.

She caught her breath, shouted, ‘Ciaran, let him go.’

Thomas’s eyes, mouth and shattered nose broke through the foaming water, and she heard him suck in air. He threw his weight to the side, taking advantage of Ciaran’s distraction, and they both rolled into the surf.

Ciaran cried out at the shock of it. Flanagan struggled further out, her feet disturbing loose sand. The next wave reached her calves, already sending shivers through her back.

Thomas got to his feet, shaking water from his head, his entire body quaking. His breathing hard and ragged.

Flanagan knew the signs. The first stage, hyperventilation, followed soon by a deadening of the limbs as the body conserved heat by pulling blood to the core.

Ciaran up on his knees, Thomas looming over him. Another wave took Ciaran down as Thomas grabbed for him, and they sprawled in the water once more.

The same wave washed around Flanagan’s thighs, so cold, so cold, but she pushed on, they were so close, if she could get between them . . .

Ciaran burst from the water, filled his lungs with air and reached down for his brother. He grabbed one handful of hair, another of collar, and hauled Thomas up.

Flanagan said, ‘Stop,’ but the word was choked in her throat by a wave that submerged her to the groin. She felt her body’s temperature drop, cold to the bones of her. God knew how the brothers felt, in up to their chests now.

Ciaran’s eyes met hers.

‘Stop,’ she said.

Ciaran pulled Thomas back through the tide, further out, each wave taking more and more of them until only his shoulders showed above the water.

Thomas still in his grasp, spitting and coughing.

As Flanagan watched from only feet away, Ciaran wrapped his left arm around Thomas’s neck, kept hold of his hair with his right hand. He pushed Thomas under, held him there.

Thomas’s hands above the water, flailing.

Flanagan reached for them, but her fingers touched something else, something that clung to her hand. Sodden paper, the ink running and smearing. The letter that had remained hidden like the shameful secret it was for seven years.

Then a wave took her, pushed her back to shore. Salt water filled her mouth and nose. Her feet lost contact with the sand, and she prayed to God she would not drown. She prayed to see her children again. And Alistair, poor Alistair.

Her knees ploughed into sand, then her hands, and she pushed up, face out of the water, coughing, hacking, her lungs feeling ready to burst from her chest. She got to her feet, staggered towards the beach, fell again, vomited in the surf.

She turned and looked back out to sea.

Ciaran’s head above water, Thomas’s hands clawing at his face.

CIARAN’S FEET ARE
lifted from the sand, his body weightless.

Thomas’s nails tear at his skin.

Ciaran doesn’t mind.

Thomas kicks, tries to throw his body one way then the other.

Ciaran doesn’t mind.

He is cold deep down to his centre, cold like he has never felt before.

Ciaran doesn’t mind.

He would wish for it to be different, but he knows now that wishes are useless, worth no more than the air expelled in their making.

His feet touch the bottom once more, and he pushes back, further out. A wave rolls over his head, the cold complete and total now, every part of him racked with it.

His mouth is free of the water again and he gulps air, so hard and fast.

Another wave and he breathes salt water. It hurts.

Ciaran doesn’t mind.

Thomas isn’t moving any more, floating like a doll in Ciaran’s arms.

Ciaran doesn’t mind.

The shakes have stopped. Ciaran’s arms and legs are heavy, like stone, dragging him down. It hurts. The cold hurts.

Ciaran doesn’t mind.

Bright sparks inside his head, flashes so brilliant they burn away everything he knows.

Ciaran doesn’t . . .