by Thom Collins
Despite everything, Arnie was determined to be a good father, and when AJ had been born, he’d never been happier.
The marriage had been a disaster on an epic scale. They’d argued all the time and slept around. Arnie had had several male lovers while Tara had fallen back into her old party lifestyle of sex, drugs and alcohol. Her exploits, regularly stumbling out of nightclubs at four a.m., became a favorite for gossip columnists, and paparazzi followed her whenever she left the house.
They had divorced after four years.
Tara’s behavior had become wilder in the aftermath. She didn’t seem to care who she was seen with and what they were photographed doing. When she was pictured taking coke in a supermarket carpark with a four-year-old AJ in the back seat, it was front page news.
Arnie had been dividing his time between work in the UK and America. When the photos of Tara snorting cocaine off her acrylic nails while AJ played with action figures in the background hit the news, he’d canceled all his commitments in the USA and had returned to England to take care of his son full time. AJ was his top priority. Though he continued to work, he chose his roles based on location, ensuring he could stay home and give AJ the stability he needed.
He protected him from the attention of the press as much as he could, sheltering him. Until recently, that had not been difficult. The media had respected those boundaries.
Until Easter this year.
When Tara had gotten involved with Richie Hughes, a hard-drinking, hard-drugging rock star, she’d become front page news again. They were the out-of-control couple the press and public loved to hate. Overnight, Arnie noticed that he too had become a person of interest. Photographers lurked at the end of the street and inundated his agent with requests for interviews. Everyone wanted to know his opinion on his ex-wife’s latest behavior. He turned them all down.
Three weeks ago, Tara and Richie had gotten married in Las Vegas. The wedding photos were everywhere. Both of them high, Richie wore scruffy jeans and a T-shirt, while Tara wore a barely there dress, slit to the waist front and back. An Elvis impersonator conducted the wedding.
Since then, press interest had rocketed. Arnie had known the best thing he could do was to get AJ away from London and the pack of journalists camped outside their house. Family, stability, normality—that was what they both needed.
A return to Nyemouth had seemed like the perfect solution.
No pressure. No stress. AJ could spend time with his grandparents and play with his cousins. He could enjoy the beaches and the landscape. An ideal summer.
The idyll had lasted exactly a day.
After what they had witnessed tonight, Arnie feared nothing would ever be the same again.
Chapter Three
Dominic Melton and Jacob Chisholm were the last to leave the lifeboat station. They locked up just before midnight. The police, having taken statements from all members of the crew involved in the rescue, had gone. So too had the onlookers. Most emergency shouts drew a small crowd of observers, the concerned and the curious, but Dominic couldn’t remember seeing as many people as had come out tonight.
Their interest was no surprise. If what Arnie Walker and his son claimed to have seen were true, he’d never been on a shout quite like this either.
After securing the station, Dominic and Jacob headed along the front of the marina, to the stone steps that led to South Bank Terrace. Dominic’s house, overlooking the bay, was less than five hundred yards from the lifeboat station. When his pager had gone off just before seven that evening, he’d run straight there. It was quicker than getting in the car and navigating the narrow back streets to the marina.
Jacob, the seventy-year-old treasurer of the Nyemouth lifeboat committee, was also Dominic’s neighbor.
“How about a nightcap?” Jacob said as they reached the top of the steps and turned along the terrace toward their houses.
“Good idea, but I need to take the dog out first,” Dominic said. “She’s been shut in all evening. Ten minutes?”
“I’ll have ’em ready,” Jacob said, opening the gate at the bottom of his garden and heading up the path.
Dominic lived in the end house, a three-bedroom sandstone with exceptional views of the harbor and bay. The house, dating back to 1889, was one of the oldest in town, and although he’d only lived here for five years, the property gave him a deep connection to the area and its history.
Brandy, an eight-year-old mongrel, greeted him at the door with an enthusiastic tail wag.
“I know I’m late, girl,” he said, crouching to rub the dog behind her ear. Brandy nutted him affectionately in the chest. Dominic had adopted her from a rescue center eighteen months earlier, when her previous owner, an elderly lady, had passed away. He’d never quite figured out the different breeds that made up her mix, but Alsatian was the most recognizable.
He grabbed the dog’s leash, a torch, a roll of poo bags and his leather jacket before going back out into the night. The wind that had sprung up around five and made the rescue operation so difficult had increased, leading to an unseasonably cold evening. In the distance, he could hear the rough sea breaking on the beach. He hoped there would be no more emergency calls tonight.
He walked the dog up onto the headland and waited for her to do her business in one of her usual spots before cleaning up and turning for home.
Jacob had left his front door unlocked. He was waiting in the living room with a bottle of Haig Club, two lead crystal tumblers and a small jug of water.
“So, we’re drinking the good stuff tonight,” Dominic said, removing his jacket and taking the armchair next to Jacob while Brandy got comfortable at his feet.
“After a shout like that, I figured you deserve a shot of something decent. None of that own-brand firewater.”
“You’ll get no argument from me.” Dominic added a drop of water to the glass of scotch and sipped. The smooth whiskey warmed his throat on its way down. He sighed appreciatively.
Jacob held his own glass in two hands and leaned deep into his chair. They’d been friends since the day Dominic moved to Nyemouth. The widower had knocked on his door as the last of the removal men departed. Within twenty minutes, they’d been sitting in the garden, gazing at the sea and bonding over a glass of scotch. The moment had defined their relationship ever since. Jacob had a thick sweep of white-gray hair and keen blue eyes. When he had welcomed Dominic to the town, he’d known right then that he would like it here.
“What do you make of all this business tonight?” Jacob asked. “Think it was a local fella, or just some random nutcase passing through? A psychopath who spotted an opportunity?”
“Some opportunity,” he said. “I don’t know. It sounds too bizarre to be a random attacker, don’t you think? Maybe it was deliberate. An ex-boyfriend, or someone she turned down who decided to get his own back. Someone who knew where the woman went jogging and at what time.”
“It’s an extreme form of payback,” Jacob said.
“People do extreme things when they’re under pressure. Remember that guy. Terry, something or other. When was that? Two years ago?”
“Terry Sanders,” Jacob said, swallowing his drink and reaching for a refill. “That was different. Terry was depressed.”
Terry Sanders had been a regular summer visitor to Nyemouth with a static caravan on the site outside of town. When his wife of ten years had left him, taking their three children with her, he’d struggled to cope. People who knew him well said they didn’t believe he intended to take his own life, that what he did was an attention-seeking cry for help. They said when Terry had leaped off the pier one Saturday afternoon in late August, he couldn’t have known the strength of the currents. Witnesses reported that he had surfaced once before the sea had taken him for good. The lifeboat and Coastguard helicopter had searched for seven hours that night without success.
Terry’s body had become tangled in fishing nets two days later.
“I just mean people do things that are
completely out of character when they’re stressed,” Dominic said. “It’s possible a jilted ex with a big chip on his shoulder could decide the best thing for their relationship is to shove his beloved off a cliff. Some fucked-up if-I-can’t-have-you-nobody-can way of thinking.”
“You might be right. In an awful way, it will be good if you are. The police will find out soon enough if there’s an inadequate loser in her background and that will be that. They’ll slap the cuffs on and bring him in. But if the woman wasn’t targeted for personal reasons, if it was a random attack and she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, then it could happen again. The woman survived. Tonight’s failure might make him more determined to succeed.”
Dominic exhaled through his teeth. “It sounds far-fetched. Like a plot from a detective show.”
Jacob’s eyes glistened in the soft light. “Excuse me, but who rescued a woman with potential spinal injuries tonight? It wasn’t me. That’s not far-fetched. You did it. It’s a fact.”
“Point taken.” He reached for the square-cut whiskey bottle, poured another measure, and added a dash of water. “I picked up a bottle of Ardmore today, if you’d like to call round through the week and help me drink it.”
“You’re on,” Jacob smiled.
They sat in silence for a few minutes. It was a testament to their friendship that they could enjoy the quiet moments. A framed photo of Jacob’s late wife, Annabelle, smiled at them from the wall above the mantelpiece. She had died the year before Dominic had come to town, but Jacob spoke of her with such love, and with her pictures all over the house, he felt as if he knew her well.
As he sipped the whiskey and allowed it to do its work, Dominic’s mind turned to Arnie Walker. He’d known Martin and Elizabeth Walker almost as long as Jacob, but tonight had been his first encounter with their famous son. He’d heard of him all right. The name Arnie Walker was a big deal in Nyemouth. As its most well-known former resident, it would be. But oddly, no one he’d met had ever had a bad word to say about Arnie. There appeared to be no small-town jealousy or envy where he was concerned. In Dominic’s experience, that was very unusual. There was always some kid of resentment when a local boy made good.
It didn’t appear true in Arnie’s case.
Maybe it was because of his parents and popularity in the town.
Dominic did not watch a lot of television and had had no idea who Arnie was before moving to Nyemouth. Celebrity culture meant nothing to him. If he wasn’t outside enjoying the beach or the moors, he’d rather spend his time with a good book than a TV show. But after getting to know and admire Martin and Elizabeth, he’d become curious about their son and had searched for him online.
The photos he’d found aroused his interest. Arnie was so much like his father. Dominic imagined that was exactly what Martin would have looked like twenty to thirty years ago. Fair-haired and handsome with twinkly blue eyes.
Arnie had starred in a lot of television shows and a handful of movies. Jacob owned many of them on DVD and had loaned them to him. Though Arnie was easy on the eye, most of the films he’d made were not Dominic’s thing. Romantic comedies and period dramas. Nice enough to look at, but Dominic found them a chore to get through.
One thing he had learned tonight—the TV didn’t do justice to Arnie’s looks. On screen he appeared blandly pretty, like any random actor in a million rom-coms. Cute, for sure, but instantly forgettable, just like the movies. In reality, Arnie was a knockout. Despite the peculiar circumstances of their meeting, he’d made a huge impact.
His height, for one. At five-eleven, Dominic seldom felt short, but Arnie towered over him. Strange, considering all he’d ever heard about celebrities was how tiny they were in real life. And his face—so damn handsome, with that wide mouth and strong nose. Just like his dad, only younger and sexier. But it was Arnie’s eyes that had really grabbed him. They weren’t just blue, they were glacial. Startling. He couldn’t remember when a man had last made such a powerful first impression on him.
“Arnie Walker seems like a nice guy,” he said.
“Haven’t you met before?” Jacob asked.
He shook his head. “Tonight was the first time. A bit odd, under the circumstances. It can’t have been easy on him. Seeing that happen, with his boy there too. He looked shaken but holding up well, considering.”
“Arnie’s a good guy. He always has been.”
“You must have known him a long time?” Dominic knew he’d asked the question before, but the answer had been lost in a haze of late nights and alcohol.
“All his life,” Jacob said proudly. “I was at his christening. I remember him as a baby in the cot.”
Jacob and Annabelle hadn’t been able to have children of their own. Dominic wondered if that was one of the reasons he remembered Arnie so fondly.
“What was he like? As a kid, I mean.”
“Never any trouble that I recall. He used to hang around the station in the school holidays. Martin was in the crew back then. Arnie was always there, showing an interest. Helping at the summer fair. If he hadn’t moved away and done so well for himself, I reckon he’d be a member of the crew now.”
The idea of working alongside Arnie gave Dominic a sudden and unexpected thrill. He wondered why the actor had had such a powerful effect on him. He appreciated Arnie’s good looks as much as anyone, but he’d never been a fool for a pretty face. The attraction went deeper than that, and yet he didn’t understand how it could. They’d met each other for such a short time and barely said more than hello. There had been no time to form any serious emotional contact. And he was still thinking about him.
Was he just starstruck? Unlikely, given how little attention he’d paid to Arnie’s career before now.
“When did he move away?” he asked.
Jacob looked thoughtful. “My memory isn’t what it used to be. At a guess, I’d say when he was eighteen. University time. I remember him playing the lead in an amateur production of Saturday Night Fever at the town hall, but he’d have been younger then. Around sixteen. He seemed to get into the drama at secondary school. That’s where he caught the acting bug. He’d still lend a hand at the lifeboat fair, collecting money around the marina or selling raffle tickets, but we saw a lot less of him once he had taken up drama. It was obvious he had real talent, even then. No one else in Night Fever came close to matching him. Martin used to wonder where all his natural ability had come from. Martin’s a great guy but he can’t carry a tune.”
“His folks must have been supportive. To encourage him with the acting.”
“Oh, they sure were,” Jacob said. “No parents could have been prouder. I remember the fuss they made when he got his first TV role. He played a murder victim on a cop show. You know the kind of thing—a body on the mortuary slab and a couple of short flashback scenes to show how he died. He couldn’t have been on screen for more than three minutes or so, but Elizabeth behaved like he was the star of the show. Rightly so, I might add. It didn’t seem like much later when he started taking the lead roles.”
“He always stayed connected to Nyemouth?”
“Absolutely. When Annabelle was alive, she kept a scrapbook of all his interviews. Newspapers and magazines, that kind of stuff. Arnie has always spoken fondly of where he came from. And when he was too busy to get back for the annual lifeboat fair, he’d send on some cracking prizes for the raffle. All sorts of stuff from his movies and TV shows. One prize was an all-expenses-paid trip to New York to visit him on the set of a movie he was making there. It’s strange how you’ve never met him until now. How you could have missed each other for five years, I don’t know. Arnie has never lost sight of the town he grew up in.”
Interesting. Until he came to Nyemouth, Dominic had never felt a connection to anywhere. Born in Cyprus, when his father, an RAF officer, had been stationed there, he’d spent his early years on the move until the family had settled in Yorkshire so he and his two brothers would be able to go to school. He’d joined the Royal
Marines at eighteen and spent the next fourteen years working all around the world. Nyemouth was the only place he’d ever been able to call home.
Despite the glamour and excitement a life in show business must entail, he felt a new admiration for Arnie, for maintaining a strong connection to his family and community. A small part of him was even jealous.
“What about the boy?” he asked. “Does he live with Arnie?”
Jacob looked at him curiously. “Don’t you read the newspapers?”
“Only for the news.” He laughed. “I’m not really up on celebrity gossip. You know that.”
“Seems like Tara Westmoorland is all over them these days. I don’t know how you can avoid it.”
“She’s his ex-wife? The mother of the boy?”
“That’s right. Seems like Tara has got herself in a real pickle of late. She was never the one for Arnie. That was obvious from the start. No one expected their marriage to last as long as it did, least of all Martin and Elizabeth. I don’t think I’ve seen two people so happy about the breakdown of their son’s marriage as they were. Tara and Arnie were all wrong for each other.”
Though his knowledge of celebrity affairs was lacking, there was one thing about Arnie he did know—he was one of the most famous LGBTQ actors in the country. It was a bigger surprise to learn he had a kid from a previous relationship than the news that the golden boy of rom-coms was gay in the first place. There was no reason it should be. People were complicated. He knew that better than anyone.
“When they first separated, Arnie and Tara had joint custody of AJ,” Jacob continued. “Arnie was out of the country a lot and it seemed to suit them both for a while. Only Tara was a wild one and a young child got in the way of her party lifestyle. I don’t know how much Arnie knew already, but there was a big scandal when she threw a wild birthday party for herself at home. Someone thought it was a good idea to photograph AJ, who was around four at the time, with a crack pipe in his hand.”
