Final Cut : A Novel (2020)

by Watson, S J

  Could she have survived the jump? I imagine her body, hidden in the darkness along with the fish, clinging to the rocks with the limpets and crabs, swimming under the surface.

  But to where? Even if she survived the fall, the currents are strong; it’s a long way to swim alone and at night. Unless …

  I stand and walk to the edge of the cliff. I take a step nearer and look down. Is it possible?

  The water is black, flecked with white foam shining in the moonlight. It broils. And yet, it’s not that far away, not really. Liz is right: it’s not that high. A little way out of the village the coast curves sharply, and beyond that the edge begins to rise, gently at first, but with an increasing slope. She wouldn’t have had to go far to find a cliff much higher, a drop much more precipitous, and on to rocks. Why choose here, right outside David’s place?

  What was it Liz said? Seems there are better ways, if you really want to die. Unless she wanted to make a statement.

  Daisy. You’re a clever girl.

  I fall to my knees and shuffle closer still. I dig my hands into the soil and peer over, shifting my weight as far forward as I dare. The winds shrieks in my ears, the water rages below, and I wonder what would happen if I leapt, too. But it’s no good, it’s too dark. I can see nothing.

  I need to get closer.

  51

  I wait for daylight. It promises a beautiful winter’s day, exactly ten years since Daisy disappeared. It doesn’t feel like a coincidence.

  I worked it out last night. David helped her, like he helped Kat and Ellie. And Zoe. He filmed Kat and Ellie eating chips and smoking a joint to try to let me know something was going on, and he filmed Daisy’s plummet from the cliff in case anyone ever doubted she jumped. And that’s why he wanted to see me, the night I found him by the lighthouse. He wanted to give me the film from his camcorder. The proof.

  So Daisy isn’t dead. The only missing piece is how. How she survived. That, and why she’s back, why she’s skulking in the shadows and why, if she wants to kill me, she doesn’t just get it over with.

  I turn over and look at my phone. It’s eight thirty and I’ve arranged to meet Gavin at ten. I’ve told him we’ll go to the police and tell them what we’ve found, that he’s right, it’s the only way.

  But there’s something else I need to do first.

  I meet Bryan by the slipway. The tide is in, the boat already on the water. It looks smaller than I’d remembered it, more fragile.

  ‘You okay?’ he says as I approach.

  ‘Fine,’ I say, even though I’m not. My hands are shaking, my voice cracked. I’m hoping he’ll think it’s the cold.

  ‘Figured anything out about Daisy yet?’

  I fake a smile. ‘Still working on it,’ I say.

  ‘You wrapped up? It’ll be freezing on the water. You can swim, right?’

  I look up at the feathery clouds that hang over Bluff House. There’s no point in telling the truth.

  ‘I can swim, yes. I just don’t like the water. If I fall in, you’ll just have to jump in and rescue me.’

  He examines me warily; he’s not sure whether I’m joking. But there’s something in his gaze. He’d do it. If it came down to it. He’d haul me to safety; I know he would.

  But how can I be so certain? I stare into his eyes. I recognise their metallic glint. I remember them from way back, from the time before. But if that’s true, then why is every other memory of him lost?

  ‘Shall we?’

  He grabs a rope and heaves the boat closer to the slipway. The sea is flat, almost still. The birds have gone.

  ‘Hop in.’

  I do so, and he follows me. I sit at the back of the boat as he unhooks us and starts the engine. We head out into the open water, and every now and again he glances at me to see how I’m doing. I smile weakly. I’ve begun to shiver, half with the cold, but mostly through fear. I can’t help it. A nameless dread has infused every part of me. All I can see is the water, its hugeness, salty and cold. All I can think of are the endless depths beneath me, waiting to suck me down. The creatures that hide in the dark.

  He accelerates a little and we begin to bounce over the water, faster than I’d thought possible, faster than I’d like. Is he showing off? After a minute I can’t bear it any longer. Nausea stirs in my gut.

  ‘Can we slow down?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  I shout louder, over the noise of the engine. I pat my camera, now in its waterproof case.

  ‘I want to film!’

  He cuts the engine to a dull thrum and I focus the viewfinder. I record The Ship, the slipway, the groynes that cut into the beach. Material that may well prove useful, but that’s a secondary consideration. I’m going through the motions. I look up at Bluff House. It seems further away from down here, the cliffs higher.

  ‘Can we go over that way?’

  ‘Aye,’ he says. He steers us towards the cliff, increasing speed once more. My heart beats as loud as the engine’s roar, I can’t look down at the water as it parts beneath us and neither can I look out at the cliff from which my best friend threw herself. I look up instead, at the blue sky, the thin cloud beneath. Way in the distance a single bird appears, too far away to be identifiable, circling like carrion.

  I think of Daisy, here in the water, looking up at the night sky. What did she glimpse? The moon, perhaps, or the stars of Orion, of Pegasus and Andromeda. Deep, red Betelgeuse, so distant and already dead. The endless black, above and below.

  But then what did she do? Did she swim, after all? Did she find safety?

  Bryan glances back.

  ‘Here okay?’

  ‘Can we get a bit nearer?’

  We leave the shelter of the bay. The water is choppier here; a fine, freezing spray soaks my face. My stomach turns with the cloying stink of petrol. We’re approaching the house now. The cliff is jagged, striated, layered with time. There’s an overhang; I see her fall, straight down into the water.

  ‘Any good?’

  My camera is limp around my neck and I lift it. I film the house, the rocks. I film Malby in the distance, its blinking lights. Why didn’t we go there? Daisy and I? Why didn’t we take off together? What did I do to you that meant you had to jump? Again, I try to work out whether it might’ve been possible to survive the fall, then swim round the bay, to the slipway, perhaps, or in the other direction, to the nearest beach. It looks too far, even for a strong swimmer like Daisy.

  ‘Bit closer?’

  We continue, and then I see a shape, under the surface of the water. Nothing more than a dark shadow carved into the cliff; a jagged, shimmering hole. A cave, just a yard or so across at its widest point, but still it’s a cave. A place to hide. I imagine Daisy there, trapped below the waterline, squirming like a worm caught on the hook. Waiting to be rescued, but by whom?

  Bryan cuts the engine.

  ‘You know,’ he says, ‘it’s been ten years?’

  I look blankly at him, but he’s not stupid, he can see what it is I’m filming, that I’m focused on Bluff House and the cave beneath it. He knows this isn’t about background footage for a film examining the everyday life of Blackwood Bay, a film I no longer think I can finish. He knows exactly what this is.

  ‘Today, I mean. Ten years since she jumped.’

  I look back to where he sits. We’re bobbing in the water in the shadow of the cliff. He’s staring at me. His face is calm, his voice quiet, but there’s something deliberate about it, as if he’s more upset than he’s letting on, having to make an effort to appear this together.

  Suddenly, it makes sense.

  ‘You knew her,’ I say. ‘Better than you told me.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ he says. ‘Do you?’

  I don’t answer, and he makes no move. His eyes are hard, black as pebbles. I feel afraid, though I can’t say why. All I can think of is the water beneath me, still beneath the squall. Déjà vu.

  He shifts his weight and, crouching, moves up the boat.


  ‘You shouldn’t have come back here.’

  Back here. He knows.

  ‘Monica’s told you?’

  My voice is blank, but he ignores me anyway.

  ‘What are you trying to do?’ he says. ‘Make your documentary?’ His tone mocks me.

  ‘No.’ I look him in the eye. ‘Find out the truth.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘You know what.’

  He laughs, quietly, but his voice is black with sarcasm, bitter. I recognise it. I can hear him back then, the same laugh.

  You know what you are, he’s saying. You know what you’ve always been.

  My mind begins to slip, to fall away. I grip the side of the boat.

  ‘Why are you lying?’ he says.

  I knew him, I think. Back then. I knew him.

  ‘You trying to finish what you started?’

  ‘What I started?’

  He laughs.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I say. My mind races. ‘I want to know what happened to my friend.’

  ‘Your friend? The friend you killed?’

  ‘No!’ I say.

  My mind cowers, tries to flee into a dark corner, but now I can’t hide from the memories. I see Daisy then, back as she was in the film. She’s pleading. Help me! Please! You said they wouldn’t hurt me.

  And I’m there. Holding the camera. I’m there now.

  I won’t, I’m saying, but I don’t know if that’s true, because there’s someone standing behind me, watching me and Daisy, and he wants me to hurt her, he wants me to kill her. I’m desperate to turn round, to tell him I’ve changed my mind and that this is sick, he’s crazy, we have to let her go, but I can’t. This is the only way I’m going to get what I need, it’s the only way to make the sickness go away.

  I hear myself sob. I’m not sure if it’s the me – Alex – who’s here on the boat, or Sadie way back then.

  Do it, comes a voice. I’m back there again. I put the camera down, making sure to keep my friend in shot. I take a step towards her. I hear someone laugh, and I jolt: I’m still on the boat and it’s Bryan, here and now, in front of me.

  I’m reeling with the pull of the waves, the violent ebb and flow of the past and the present. I stand, and the boat rocks, spray hits, needles of ice. I almost slip, but catch myself in time. It shocks me back into my body.

  ‘You’d better watch yourself, baby.’

  Baby? Despite his venom, the word lands on my skin as soft as falling snow, as if it’s a word I could once sink into. I remember him calling me that before. I remember him giving me the camcorder. A present, he said, for my special girl. If only I’d known how he’d one day want me to use it.

  Images flicker. I see Daisy; she’s on her knees. The camera is running. But what happened next? The memory won’t come, it’s lost, the data overwritten in the decade since.

  He stands up now, moves towards me. The boat rocks once more and he laughs as I stumble.

  Bryan. It’s Bryan, laughing now, just as it was Bryan who was laughing back then. Bryan who told me my best friend had to die.

  ‘You! You killed her!’

  He shakes his head, but he’s still smiling.

  ‘I remember it now, I know I do. You killed her. And you made me film it.’

  His smile is black. ‘No, baby. You did.’

  I’m falling, I can feel it. Bitten by the salt spray, my mind is corroding, my body eaten away. What balance I had is skewed. My whole being revolts. No! I didn’t kill anyone! it screams. But even as it does, I realise that it’s true.

  I’ve got what I wanted, I think, wryly. I wanted the truth, and here it is.

  I clutch the side of the boat and look beyond him. The sun is up, but it’s clouding over.

  ‘Take me back.’

  ‘And let you tell people what happened?’

  I scuttle away from him, but there’s only so far I can go. My foot connects with something – coiled rope, perhaps – and I stumble once more.

  ‘Careful, now,’ he says, but it’s without concern. He steps closer and pushes me, not hard, but enough that I’m forced to sit heavily on the edge of the boat. The water soaks through my trousers, numbingly cold.

  ‘We don’t want you falling in, now, do we? Such a tragic accident …’

  I remember my friend.

  ‘What did you do to her?’

  ‘We buried her. You know that.’

  I have to ask, even though I already know.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘You know that, too.’

  I try to figure it out. Did she jump, but survive, only to have Bryan kill her anyway? Bastard, I think. Bastard. But somehow I know instinctively not to say it out loud. I see him, standing over me; he has his belt in his hand. He’s wrapped it round my neck. He’s going to teach me a lesson, he says. It’ll be fun. I need to learn how to behave. I need to learn who it is, out of all of them, who loves me the most.

  No, insulting him won’t help. I remember now. The only thing that ever worked with him was me on my knees, pleading, begging. And even that failed towards the end.

  ‘Let me go.’

  ‘Alex,’ he says, spitting my name with a spiteful smirk. ‘You know I can’t do that.’

  ‘Please.’

  He shakes his head. ‘I really thought you were gone for good, you know. We all did. Yet here you are. And we can’t make the same mistake again.’

  ‘No! I’ll keep quiet, I promise I will.’

  ‘I wish I could believe you.’

  He’s standing over me. He has the boathook in his hand. I know what he means to do. Kill me, like he killed Daisy.

  ‘Bryan, please.’

  ‘She fell,’ he says, his voice suddenly low, grief-stricken, mocking. He’s talking about me, imagining the questions he’ll be asked when he reports my death and how he’ll answer them. ‘I tried to save her. But she must’ve hit her head.’

  ‘Bryan, no. Please—’

  ‘I think it was suicide—’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She wanted to go. Guilt, perhaps? No, I had no idea who she really was. None of us did. She’d changed so very much.’

  ‘Bryan, please,’ I whisper, as if it’ll do any good. The hand in which he holds the boat hook twitches.

  ‘It’s for the best,’ he says, lifting the weapon above his head as if it’s a baseball bat. I look into his eyes, and I realise, with utter certainty now, that he means to kill me.

  I have no choice. Better to drown, to die by my own hand, than let him win. I take a deep breath.

  I jump into the cold, black water.

  52

  I go under. My ears fill with a cacophonous roar; it’s so cold my heart stops and I think it’ll never start again. Salt stings my throat and I force myself not to breathe. I must fight, but I don’t know how, I don’t know which way is up, in which direction I might find life. I kick against nothing, thinking of Daisy as I do, wondering if this is what happened to her, how she went from begging for her life in that cellar to stepping off the edge of the cliff. The questions keep circling in my head. Is she alive, or not? How can she be, if it’s true that I killed her?

  I can’t focus for long. I’m too heavy. My jeans and jacket weigh me down, but I’m not sure whether taking them off will help or instead be a waste of energy; crucial time spent sinking rather than trying to rise. I can’t think, I don’t know. I feel both weightless and as heavy as a rock.

  Then something – I don’t know what, survival instinct, perhaps – takes hold and my legs whip kick. I reach out with my hands and scoop the icy water before pulling them back, as if lifting myself on to a ledge. I feel a tiny thrust upwards and begin to move through the darkness. I break the surface of the water and come up, gasping, into the light.

  It takes me a moment to orient myself. The boat is behind me; ahead of me, the cliffs. I need to swim, but I don’t know how, and a second later something thuds in the water next to me. Bryan is leaning over the
edge of the vessel, wild-eyed, the boathook in his hands. He raises it, and I try to move as it crashes down once more, this time glancing off the side of my head. I go under.

  I begin to pull myself through the water, heading vaguely towards the cliffs. Slowly, I make progress. Behind me, the engine starts, sputters then fails. Some luck at last, but for how long? I pull harder, again and again, and it starts to feel more natural, I get into the rhythm of the swim, feeling the kick and glide. It feels almost like I’ve always known how to do it, I’d just forgotten.

  After six or seven strokes I come up for air. The boat is behind me now, a fair distance, but I don’t know how much longer he’ll struggle to get the engine going. And when he does I’m done for, he’ll come for me, finish what he started. The same thought occurs that I had in the car that first night – this is not how it ends, this is not how I die – except this time the conviction feels void and another voice comes in. Daisy’s voice. What if you’re wrong, it says, and this is it? What if this is what you deserve, after what you did to me?

  I pull harder. I stand no chance of making it back to the beach so I aim for the cliff. I feel anaesthetised by the cold, spent. The current is helping a little now but, even if I make it, there’s nothing there. It’s not like I can climb up and reach David’s house.

  I see it then. The cave, a tiny half-submerged scar gouged out of the rock. It feels like my only chance. I kick towards it as behind me the boat’s engine roars into life. One more gulp of air, and I go under. Kick, pull. Kick, pull. The thrum of the boat grows, ferocious, and I think I’m not going to make it, but then it seems to fade, as if he’s given up, decided to set out for the bay instead. Perhaps he thinks I’ve gone under, one last time. Either way, it makes no difference now.

  Kick. Pull. Over and over, and then I’m there. The entrance to the crevice is only a little bigger than I am; I have to dive under the water to make it through. I squeeze into the dark. The blackness is complete, but when I put my feet down they find rock. The cave has a floor. The silence closes over me like the earth in a grave.

  I breathe. In. Out. I’m alive. Cold, but alive. Exhaustion gathers in the distance; sleep prepares to roll over me like a wave. I can’t let that happen.