Bitter Edge
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Acknowledgements
Also by Rachel Lynch
Copyright
Chapter 1
Across the expanse of Derwent Water, from the top of Walla Crag, Jenna Fraser could easily make out the muffin-like dome of Crag Hill on the left and the pyramid summit of Grisedale Pike to the right. A steamer chugged gracefully in to Hawes End Pier and dropped off a bunch of hardy visitors to the west of the lake. No doubt they’d be off up Cat Bells to take a photograph to post on Facebook, and then back down in time for a pint near some open fire. The steamer barely seemed to move; only the V-shaped wake behind it gave away its progress. Winter was quiet in the Lakes, and daylight hours short.
Jenna had hiked Cat Bells when she was three years old.
Fell racing was in her blood. Her father was a Bob Graham Round champion. Jenna herself held the junior record for the fastest time to Dale Head, taking in six peaks, a record she’d set two years ago, when she was only fourteen. She’d brought her medals with her today. They clinked around in her bag when she moved, but now they were silent. Only the sound of her panting breath could be heard above the stillness of the fells. At this time of year, close to Christmas, few people ventured along the pretty walks so rammed in the summer, and she knew she’d be alone.
She wasn’t dressed for a winter run, but it didn’t matter. She’d slipped on what was at hand, and that happened to be a pair of comfortable shorts, which she’d slept in, and a vest top. She’d pulled on trainers and pushed a cap onto her head, then filled her bag with the medals. The other stuff she’d packed last night. When she’d left the house, she’d attracted a few stares of disbelief, given the cold, but as she ran out of town towards the Keswick Launch, steam puffing out of her mouth in clouds, she’d seen fewer people, and found the solitude she sought. She’d run past perhaps three cars, but her concentration had been focused on pounding the pavement rather than looking about.
The tears hadn’t started until she’d left the Launch behind and entered Great Wood, curving away towards Derwent Water’s east shore. Now they came in waves and stung her eyes. She didn’t bother rubbing them away as she began the steep climb to the top, and they mingled with the snot running from her nose. The only thing that concerned her was ridding herself of the noise in her head that wouldn’t go away. Her legs should have ached, her heart should have been beating out of her chest, and she should be freezing, hypothermic even, but the obsession with the noise had kept her driving forward until she’d come across this place of isolation, above the lake. Alone and exhausted, she’d stopped and looked out from Walla Crag, beyond the lake and towards the west, where, underneath the cloud, the sea came close to freezing. She’d dropped her bag and scratched her forearms where her veins burned.
Jenna was no longer a champion, but she had one more run to perform. A broken leg last year had seen her racing career crash to a painful end; landing badly on a loose rock had resulted in a broken tibia and fibula and a fractured talus bone. It had taken three weeks for the swelling to subside enough for an operation to be performed, then she’d needed two metal plates to bolt her bones together. Healing was quick, but rehabilitation was excruciating. She’d been prescribed OxyContin for the pain.
Until it ran out.
The steamer drifted out of sight and the sky rapidly changed colour, as it was wont to do at this time of year, when flat light made everything more dramatic. Clouds circled the peaks in the distance, and the fells in front her were like two piles of sand pushed together at the beach. The valley in between looked uneven and changeable.
She closed her eyes, but the drumming in her head kept pummelling her temples. Words formed, but then dissolved into sharp, offensive blasts of sound: drums exploding, percussion clattering and pipes screaming. All had begun as comments made by text or WhatsApp. There were a hundred different ways that one could invite language into one’s life without ever having to speak to someone face to face, and they were all electronic. Now the phrases took on life, as different tones and pitches came together to torment her. She sat down and hugged her legs to her chest, holding her temples and banging her fists against them. But still the noise wouldn’t stop. It was as if there were thousands of unusually heavy tennis balls bashing the inside of her head, thrashing against the sides of her brain, each one making a larger dent than before, until surely they would break out of her skull, sending battered brains, steaming clots of blood, and splinters of bone flying into the air and down onto the wet ground.
Her chest screamed as the physical exertion of the run caught up with her: her heart rate was that of an unfit twenty-year-old smoker compared to the fell-running legend of two years ago. She rummaged in her bag and brought out a small package containing powder, a steel dessert spoon and a lighter. She opened the packet and sprinkled the powder on the spoon, wetting it with a little water from a bottle then heating it from underneath. The greyish powder turned brown and she mixed it with the top of a syringe. Happy with the consistency, she drew the liquid up into the syringe, then rummaged about in her bag once more. She found an elastic strap, which she wrapped around her arm, biting the other end tight.
She looked at her arm. Many of the veins were hard and unfit for purpose, having been destroyed by months of abuse. She tapped one in her wrist and it came alive. Her hand shook slightly as she tried to focus, and she grasped the loaded syringe from which she’d gain peace and quiet. The tiny needle made contact and went in easily: she was an expert. The brown fluid entered her bloodstream and she loosened the strap, dropping the syringe on the ground.
Instantly, her eyes flickered and her head nodded forward. She began crawling away from the edge, turning her back on the stunning view for the last time, leaving the bag containing her medals on the ground. She managed to stand and, with the aid of the surrounding bushes, staggered fifteen paces towards the trees. Then she turned around so that she was facing the edge of the crag, and
the lake, once more.
She felt an overwhelming calm. At last the racket inside her skull had quietened. With her eyes tight shut, she pulled back her right arm, flexed her right knee and stretched her left foot forward into the running stance that had put her name in the history books. She bounced three times, albeit unsteadily, stunned into action by the absurdity, though there was something about it that made sense to her. Then she bent her head and slowed her breathing to that of her race pace. The birds, the breeze and the distant rumble of thunder disappeared into a void. She held her breath.
A force seemingly outside of her body pummelled a mighty release of adrenalin into her and she shot forward, arms pumping, and legs powering. After less than fifteen paces, she ran out of rock and entered the sky. For a lingering moment, her legs still projected her forwards and her arms still thrust back and forth, but then she began to fall, not making a sound, to the treeline below.
She hit the first branch with a loud crack, snapping her neck and breaking both arms and one leg. When at last she came to rest, lodged in between several branches, her body resembled a twisted bauble suspended in the large pine like a Christmas decoration. Blood splatter charted her path, and gouts of the stuff pulsed out of her, until her heart eventually stopped beating. The red-brown liquid travelled downwards across knots and twigs, coating them like melted chocolate and finally dripping onto the hard ground below in perfect round splashes.
Drip. Drip.
Jenna Fraser was finally at peace.
Chapter 2
He watches.
Swarms of hysterical children of all ages run wild, flailing their arms and screaming. They bump into others who are also here for only one thing. The thrill of losing control, the primitive addiction to fantasy, the terror and danger and the risk from extremity: all drive the crowds on.
The air is hot with anticipation and the heady aroma of burnt sugar. Night falls quickly, and soon the heaving mass of bodies is shrouded in darkness, but this only heightens the delight. Shrieks compete with ear-splitting thumps of bass, accompanied by the latest beats, pounding out of huge black speakers set up along the high street. The waft of greasy burger vans sits atop the hordes, and neon lights challenge spatial calculation.
The fun of the fair.
He puffs on a hand-rolled cigarette and cradles his pint of honey-coloured locally brewed beer, surveying the frivolity before him. Girls. Hundreds of them, from three to twenty-three in age, all just as beautiful to gaze upon. But he is fixated by one in particular, who has become separated from her mother. He calculates, in his vast experience, that she is around nine years of age, and, as is common now for the younger ones, she wears provocative clothing that invites attention, at the same time remaining blissfully unaware that it makes her look so enticing.
No one in the crowd knows him. His colleagues on the forty-foot trailers heaving the gigantic rides around the country only know his name. In three days, the fair will be gone, on to another town. Keswick is the next stop after this one.
He watches.
The ancient castle at the top of the hill stands proudly over the townsfolk, revelling in their yearly indulgence, as it has done for eight hundred years. Its mighty walls glow green, then orange, then neon pink, and the girl is immersed in the magic. He notices that her mother has now moved at least twenty feet away, and she still hasn’t noticed that her daughter is not beside her. He sees the girl watching older, taller children being whizzed around high up above her head on the Hurricane, where they experience almost three G of force. It’s one of the most popular rides; they can charge five pounds a pop. Parents haemorrhage an eye-watering amount of cash, grateful that the fair only comes once a year. But for him, it’s a nightly affair.
Transience, like vagrancy, can hide a multitude of misbehaviours.
The life suits him. He’s paid in cash, he sleeps in a decent trailer, he gets a steady stream of women – some more keen than others – and he exists invisibly in a twilight on the fringe of electronic identity. He has his motorbike; though technically it is borrowed, it might as well be his. The machine is his pride and joy, and he can still feel the thrust between his legs after two hours driving around, trying to still the noise in his head. All that as well as a fledgling lucrative business that is doing very well indeed. Only tonight a new contact from Manchester drove all the way to this shitty little backwater known as Dalton-in-Furness to meet him.
The mother looks around her nonchalantly. Nine-year-olds are apt to wander off; he’s seen it many times before. This girl is on the cusp of independence, and her mother, her attention elsewhere, trusts her quasi-grown-up judgement. The woman lazily checks out the immediate area, but when she can’t track the girl at first glance, her face shows only a flicker of concern. She says something to her friend, who stops filling her greedy face with chips, and looks around, shrugging. It will take long minutes more before they become truly anxious.
He knows that the girl has gone round the back of the Hurricane to pet a dog that is tied up there. It’s Old Joe’s dog, Molly May, and he heads over there now. The noise fades to a thudding hum behind the trailer, away from the lights and the crowds. The girl is talking to the mutt sweetly, and Molly May wags her tail.
‘Ah, she’s a good dog, she is,’ he says.
The girl is startled, but she has trusting eyes. He sees a sadness behind them too, and figures there’s some vulnerability there. That’s good.
‘She’s called Molly May.’
He bends down next to the girl and strokes the dog. Their hands almost touch. The trailer next to them shudders as gangs of youngsters are thrown around in the ride’s cages. The girl stands up, as if she has suddenly become aware of her isolation.
‘What’s your name?’ he asks.
She doesn’t answer. He watches as she blushes.
‘I need to go now,’ she says.
‘Don’t you want a sweetie?’ He holds a little tablet in between his thumb and forefinger and smiles slyly, watching her terror. Toying with her innocence is almost as satisfying as taking it would be, but it’s too busy tonight. He stands up and blocks her way back to the safety of the fair. He sees that her heart has begun to pound in her chest, which heaves up and down. He smiles at her, and his eyes wander down to where he can make out the shape of her pre-adolescent breasts.
‘No thank you,’ she says.
He holds the small bright blue pill up and offers it to her again.
‘It’ll make you want to fly,’ he cackles, and the sound turns to a racking cough.
The girl freezes and stares at him with wide eyes. Close up, she might even be younger than nine.
‘You look so grown up! This is what grown-up girls do.’ He nods to the pill. ‘I bet the boys are queuing up for you, eh? Are you a tease?’
The girl’s eyes grow wider, and she closes her coat, covering her naked midriff. His brow creases as his view is denied. Her hands shake and he imagines little beads of sweat forming along the soft skin on the crease of her back.
The game is over; he needs another pill.
He steps aside and allows her room to get past him, should she wish to do so. He can tell that she’s unsure at first, thinking it might be a trap, but she tiptoes forward and he doesn’t move. He imagines he can hear the rapid beat of her heart threatening to jump out of her small chest. She is almost past him, and he takes a deep breath, his eyes never leaving hers. Then her instinct kicks in, and she darts past and away to safety, beyond the darkness behind the trailer.
* * *
The girl sprints away at such a speed that she can’t stop in time when she crashes into somebody. It’s a boy from her class, and his mates gather round and laugh as he rubs his arm. But the girl continues to run.
Finally she spots her mother and races towards her, only now stopping to gain her breath and fling her arms around her. The mother is at first angry that her child has caused a scene, but then she notices her distress. The girl babbles about a man behind the
trailer, and her mother looks at her friend in panic. A small, concerned crowd has gathered around the mother and daughter, and a burly man asks if everything is OK. The mother repeats breathlessly what her daughter has just told her, and the man’s face darkens. He rolls up his sleeves and puffs out his chest and marches towards the Hurricane. But when he storms around the back of the massive structure, there is no one there, just a small, scruffy dog who is very pleased to see him.
Chapter 3
Kelly Porter heaved the freshly felled Norwegian pine into the boot of her Audi Q6. It smelled like Christmas. Johnny shoved it from behind. He’d carried the thing on his shoulder as Kelly watched out for obstacles on the way to the car park. There were others doing the same thing. Families with shrieking children, couples gazing at one another lovingly, and men on their own, ticking off a last-minute job before heading home to surprise their families.
They pushed it in, trunk first, and slid it all the way to the front window. They had to bend the top around in a semicircle to fit it in, and as they slammed the boot down, they both crossed their fingers that they hadn’t chopped it off. The tree seemed secure, and Kelly got into the driving seat, with Johnny having to manoeuvre himself into the back, ducking underneath branches that were contained for the moment by mesh. The journey back to Pooley Bridge was unique, surrounded by the smell and tickle of pine.
Getting the thing into Kelly’s living room was another task altogether. Her house in Pooley Bridge was a small stone cottage, overlooking the River Eamont. The wooden terrace, suspended over the river to the rear of the property, had been its selling point, and Kelly spent most of the year out there, any time of the day, in any weather, contemplating what had gone, what was, and what was to come. Sometimes she found answers and sometimes she did not.
Inside, the house was modest but spacious. Even after almost a year, she still hadn’t filled all the rooms, and the small third bedroom remained a dumping ground. The spare room wasn’t much tidier, but the rooms that were lived in and cherished were tidy and bright. She’d had a new bathroom fitted, getting rid of the dated avocado suite and replacing it with a modern wet room; and she’d bought a huge, luxurious corner sofa for the living room, along with a vast TV. She hardly watched the TV, but Johnny did, and he paid for the Sky Sports subscription. He watched extreme fell races and sailing mostly. He still hadn’t bought the boat he’d promised himself.
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