The Family

by P. R. Black

  ‘Well… you’re an excellent wingman, I’ll say that for you.’ Rosie sucked down her second pina colada.

  Becky got to her feet. ‘I think I’ll go and catch some waves. Who knows, I might drown, and that’ll be the end of the whole business.’

  ‘It’d make a hell of a twist at this point of my book,’ Rosie said, poker-faced. ‘How about a shark attack? Who would see that coming?’

  34

  Later, with the neoprene ditched in favour of something lighter, Becky and Rosie sat on the beach. Night had fallen, with a blanket of stars hung out to dry high above them.

  They were a fair distance away from the flames, laughter and occasional howls of the beach party, sat close to the Blue Banana café. The shoreline had come alive after dark. Someone had a guitar. An even more daring individual had brought bongos. Beer bottles clinked, and a fug of sweet smoke did its best to linger overhead in the face of the sea breeze.

  Teenagers dotted the shoreline all the way down to the pier and the flashing lights of the seafront a mile or so down the coast – hyenas too young to take part in the feast, but too bold to stay away.

  At the main party round the fire, the South African guy’s blond head flickered around the fringes of the group like a torch. He hadn’t removed his wetsuit; some of his friends had even taken their boards out into the soughing darkness just beyond the shoreline.

  ‘Loons,’ Becky said, sipping at a bottle of water. ‘Some of them will be lucky to come back.’

  Rosie – who was dressed for an evening out somewhere there were lights, music and a roof – sipped at a beer, and shivered. ‘Sharks? I’ve heard you shouldn’t surf after nightfall or early in the morning.’

  ‘I was thinking more of them being pissed, falling in and drowning.’

  Rosie shook her head. ‘I can’t believe that dope earlier on today. The skinny guy who tried to save us in the café. He’d clearly never surfed in his life. Lucky the lifeguards were on hand to get him back to shore.’

  ‘Surfer wannabe. You get them – just like you get military wannabes, police wannabes, cage-fighting wannabes, whatever. They hang around and hope to catch the ambience. Hook up with someone gullible. Maybe tell their friends a tale or two about it later, whether they got lucky or not.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s got any friends. Look at him – I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so stringy in my life.’

  ‘Where is he?’ Becky strained her eyes. There, away from the fire, circling the periphery, on the edge of the group, was the tall, skinny black man. He wore the same stuff he’d worn at the café earlier – which he’d worn in the sea, in fact. He gave the impression of not knowing what to do with his hands, or indeed any of his limbs. The word gangly might have been invented with him in mind.

  He got close enough to the group for the others to notice him. The South African guy piped up: ‘Hey, man!’

  The gangly figure skirted away from the circle of light and its nucleus of bodies like a spooked cat.

  The rest of the crowd called out in dismay. ‘No, wrong way!’ the South African man yelled. ‘Over here – come get a beer, mun!’

  The gangly man changed direction, trying to suppress a smile. Warm applause greeted him as he moved towards the group. And it was here that Becky imagined they would spring on him, hurling him to the sand, then piling in with fists and feet. How many times had she seen it before in life?

  But the eruption never came. Someone handed the gangly man a bottle of beer; as it changed hands the golden liquid caught the light just so, just perfectly, and Becky could almost taste it herself.

  Just one would be all right; just one would get her arse off this sand and into a more sociable frame of mind. Just one.

  ‘I’m confounded, officially,’ she said. ‘They’re being nice.’

  ‘Hey!’ the South African guy called out. ‘The English roses! Yeah – you two, over there!’ He held another bottle of beer out, waving it in the firelight. ‘Come on over! Don’t be shy.’

  Rosie had a look of devilment. ‘What do you reckon? Maybe we could head over. Safety in numbers, and all that.’

  Becky frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, if the guy… your guy… was trying to snuff us out over here, he’d need to be really good at it. Or they’d need to all be in on it. Which is unlikely.’

  ‘I doubt our guy will be here,’ Becky said. ‘I’d imagine he’s busy elsewhere. But I hope he is here. Right now.’

  ‘You what?’

  Becky checked her hip pocket. The knife handle was still there. ‘It’d bring things to a nice finish. Then we can all enjoy a holiday after it.’

  ‘You mean this isn’t a holiday?’

  ‘You have a beer if you want. But we’re up and out tomorrow morning, early. If you’re not early, I’m leaving without you. Your call.’

  The South African guy approached, his barrel shape not quite flattered in silhouette by firelight. ‘I come in peace,’ he said, teeth glinting. He anchored two beer bottles firmly in the sand. ‘Here is an offering in good faith. I’ll even leave the bottle opener for you. If the offering is to your liking, come over and join us. If not, please be so kind to return the bottle opener.’

  ‘Your grandma gave it to you, I presume?’ Rosie said.

  ‘She fashioned it from the bones of my grandfather.’ He held out a hand. Rosie took it. She had been keeping herself topped up all day, growing used to the cosy benevolence of pina coladas and then, after dinner, white Russians. But she wasn’t drunk, or at least not reckless-drunk. All through the late afternoon and evening, Rosie had kept her notebook with her and even looked interested as Becky explained her theory, and what she’d put in place to test it, right here, in this town.

  The seaside was probably too much of a distraction. But then, Rosie didn’t know about the phone call, about Rupert’s dripping head.

  No one could know about Becky’s connection to that, just yet. A connection which felt uncomfortably like complicity.

  Rosie got to her feet and cuffed the sand off the back of her dress. ‘You coming too?’

  ‘In a bit,’ Becky said. ‘You two take the beers.’

  ‘You sure?’ the South African seemed a bit disappointed.

  ‘Absolutely. Have fun. Keep one cold for me.’

  She watched them trail off towards the fire, burning high and hot; watched Rosie exchange greetings with the other men and women sat round it. Then she got up and walked along the beachfront, away from the light, allowing the darkness and the stars to take her. Only the odd beach house lit the way, or the occasional car passing along the main road. The darkness hid the signs of construction all the way along the coast; this resort was beautiful, still a little rough n’ ready, and perhaps another two years away from being totally ruined. Becky enjoyed the feel of the damp sand sucking at her sandals, the white kindling of the surf as it slid along the beach.

  She might come back here, Becky thought, when it was all over.

  She only took a quick scan of the bodies that were pressed into the sand here and there. If I was him, that’s what I’d do to hide, she thought. Might even curl down with a body, as camouflage. A willing one, that is. That would be just his style.

  But the figures pressed together in the sand were mostly teens. Few of them looked up as Becky passed.

  That she was being followed wasn’t a huge surprise. She had got used to it. In its way, it was tiresome.

  A quick movement tipped her off, something as sudden as a shoal of fish changing direction in the water. Someone was up near the sea wall, crouching low as she looked round.

  Becky withdrew the knife blade and then angled away from the beach towards the wall.

  The sand grew hard-packed beneath her feet. Once, she fancied something scuttled away just before she planted a foot down. Her eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness, to the sublime starlight and the crescent moon.

  The figure picked his way along the wall, occasionally crouchi
ng as she glanced over her shoulder.

  Becky reached the wall. It was around six feet high, and the concrete was brittle underneath her fingertips. Once she found purchase she vaulted it, shoulder and back muscles taut, easily absorbing the strain. Her knees scuffed the concrete, painfully, but then she was up and over, landing quietly on the balls of her feet along the narrow pavement on the other side, only a couple of feet beneath.

  Here, she waited for her pursuer to try the same manoeuvre.

  She was close to giggling when his head appeared above the sea wall, followed by one clutching, desperate hand. Then she winced as she heard a crunch which might have been splitting fingernails. After two more aborted attempts, he was finally up and over the wall, breathing hard. The he spotted her and gaped at what she held in her hand.

  ‘Yep – it’s a knife,’ Becky said brightly. ‘And I’ll cut you from nipples to knees with it unless you tell me what you’re up to.’

  He straightened up to his full height, fiddling with his hands. The sweat glistened on his dark skin in the silvery light, his ’fro a dark halo above the thin face. His strangulated Australian accent seemed even more out of place.

  ‘Just, you know… out for a walk.’

  ‘You fancied some rock climbing, too?’

  ‘I’m just making sure you’re all right on your own.’

  ‘Uh huh. Same way you were making sure I was all right out in the water? When you went surfing?’

  ‘You can’t be too careful, can you?’ he mumbled. ‘You especially. Dangerous people out there. I’m sure you know.’

  Becky was utterly still for a moment. ‘Enough of the bullshit. Who are you, and what do you want?’

  He straightened up, shoulders back, and seemed to inhabit his frame to its fullest for the first time. ‘I’m a friend of Rupert’s. I know what happened to him. They said it was a drugs feud, but I know the truth. I did some of his research for him. I think the guy who did it was the same guy who killed your family. And I want the same thing you do.’

  35

  They took their time walking back to the party, with the sea sighing in the background, lost in the dark.

  ‘Rupert was the best in the business,’ her companion said. ‘White knight, you know? Took on good causes, rather than disrupting things.’

  ‘That’s what I wanted,’ Becky said. ‘That’s why I hired him. I’d asked around.’

  ‘He was like a brother to me.’

  ‘And who are you, exactly?’

  ‘Name’s Bernard,’ he mumbled, kicking at a shell in the sand.

  ‘Well, Bernard. You say you’re here to protect me? I think you should protect yourself, first of all. I’m mixed up in something dangerous, here. Rupert knew that.’

  ‘There’s dangerous, and dangerous,’ Bernard said. ‘Rupert knew all about risks. He expected that one day he’d have his door kicked in by the FBI, someone like that. But he didn’t expect to be slaughtered.’

  ‘He knew there were risks. I was upfront about it.’ But had she been? Guilt, that old enemy, loomed and flared like a cobra. Had she been completely upfront? Or was it just one more head to add to the pile – someone else dead on her behalf?

  ‘He was careful, too,’ Bernard said. ‘Rupert’s security was tight. How the guy traced him, I don’t know. He’s got skills, whoever he is. He knows systems, and how to get into them.’

  ‘Our guy could be in the police. Or he knows someone who is in the police. He’s been removing files, messing with evidence.’

  ‘I want to help you. I want to catch him. I can help you with whatever Rupert was doing for you.’

  ‘Didn’t the police investigate?’

  ‘It was reported as a drug dispute. Fair go – Rupert dabbled in that world. Brought in more money than hacking, that was for sure. It was played as if he’d messed with the wrong gang. They do that, you know. Places like Mexico, Eastern Europe. They take the heads.’

  In that moment, she envisioned it again – Rupert’s head. She’d do this as long as she lived. The eyes, with the lights switched off.

  ‘It was recorded, surely,’ Becky said.

  ‘It was… and I believed the official version. At first. But here’s the messed-up bit. The footage recorded showed that he confessed to messing with another dealer’s turf. Then he got offed…’

  ‘If that’s what you saw, then why are you here? How did you find me?’

  ‘Rupert had a kill-switch. If he died, or someone screwed with his files, an alarm would trigger, and I’d be sent a copy of his data, what he was working on. It sent me all your files. Your details.’

  ‘How did you know I’m connected to what happened to Rupert?’

  ‘Everyone who was anyone on Rupert’s turf… they all denied it. Some of them even put out their own reward, to find out what happened. He was well-liked. Some of them even got rich because of Rupert. It didn’t fit. Plus, he didn’t make enemies, not among people from that world. He was a good guy, you know?’

  The sights and sounds of the beach party drew nearer. Fires continued to burn on the shore; silhouettes seemed to flicker in sympathy with the flames.

  ‘When he got broken into, Rupert triggered a kill-switch, with a note, explaining what he was working on. He’d prepared for something like that happening. Whoever killed him deleted Rupert’s files manually, from what I can gather, but didn’t know about the kill-switch. They knew enough to remove all traces of your case… but they still allowed the footage of the drugs confession and the killing to be released. That’s when I knew the official line was bullshit. Rupert was reading from a script. He wasn’t killed by gangsters, though the police seem to think he was. You were the link. I looked into your files… and I think we’re looking for the same man.’

  ‘We are.’

  ‘You’re all right with me tagging along then?’ He looked uncertain, and his body language was all wrong; angled away from her, as if he wanted to take flight.

  ‘You can help,’ she said, ‘if you want to. But I’ll warn you right now – what happened to Rupert could happen to you. You saw what occurred. I can’t take responsibility for another life. That’s on you. So long as you understand that.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘All right then.’

  ‘So,’ Bernard said brightly, ‘when do we start?’

  ‘Tomorrow. Early.’

  *

  Rosie kept her huge sunhat clamped to her head, but this was at the expense of balance. More than once she stumbled up the steep slopes, stirring up a djinn in red dust.

  ‘Hell of a place to put standing stones,’ she wheezed. ‘You’d think they’d fall over.’

  Hat aside, she had at least dressed for a walk in hilly terrain. Beside her, Bernard looked like he was ready for another hapless day at the beach, even down to the mandals clamped to his outsize feet. In emerald green shorts and an ancient Brazil football top with the badge half-peeled off, he looked like the boy who’d deliberately mislaid his PE kit, only to be given the heartbreaking news that there was some old gear in a back cupboard he could use. Despite his ultra-lean frame, he was slick with sweat, and clearly out of condition.

  ‘I’m guessing they’ll be right at the top,’ he said. ‘The hill plateaus up there, right? Nice flat place for standing stones. They probably got them right out of the ground nearby.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Becky said. ‘The stones were so nice they decided to put the monument alongside them.’

  Becky indicated a granite slab perched on a plateau in the hillside. Although they couldn’t quite make it out from that distance, they knew that the word ‘Saludo’ was etched on its pitted face, the letters overlaid with stark white paint. An exclamation mark added to the end was in a slightly different script, somewhat fragmented and leaning to one side, as if reluctant to stand with its embarrassing peers.

  ‘You’re kidding. They put a monument all the way up there?’ Rosie raised her sunglasses, peering towards the plateau. ‘They must have b
een crazy.’

  ‘It looks like a bit of an effort,’ Bernard said. ‘It also doesn’t look like the kind of place that would suit our guy.’

  That was how he was referred to, now. Not something they’d decided consciously, just something they fixed upon. No cute names, no diminutive. Our guy.

  ‘That’s what makes me suspicious,’ Becky replied. ‘It looks like something hidden in plain sight, to me. Come on. We’ve got to get there by 9 a.m. Miguel is coming to us from the other side of the hill.’

  ‘Miguel?’ Rosie bent her back to it and continued up the desert path. ‘You didn’t say anything about a Miguel.’

  They’d started at 6 a.m., none of the three mustering much enthusiasm despite the cool of the morning and the breeze whipped in from the coast. They heard a lot of buzzing, chirruping life, but saw no signs of it in the air bar the occasional flies which harried them at a lower level.

  Rosie had been suspicious of Bernard, at first. Becky hadn’t fully explained their connection, of course, but had mentioned that he might help them with one or two unresolved technical issues. They had quickly fallen into an easy patter; once the shock of human contact was out of the way, the tall man soon became a warm, if not quite sensible conversationalist.

  They reached the summit at a little after 9 a.m., the welcome sign looking a little less preposterous at close-quarters, if a little more guano-splattered. Beneath the sign, situated a dignified space away from it, were the standing stones. In a variety of shapes and sizes, the rocks were planted in the harsh earth, some leaning to one side, others scarred with scratched names and phrases, and a few reclaimed by mother nature, encrusted with lichen and strangled by weeds.

  The menhirs had been planted centuries ago in a rough circle, reckoned to be in harmony with the lunar cycle. By day, and especially at this time of the morning, it was a shady oasis of loose desert scrub and bare rock, shielded from the morning sun by the rockier peaks in the distance. By night, Becky supposed, the place had a very different character. By night – when he had been here. Their guy.