Last Seen

by Lucy Clarke

  It’s an odd question – when the answer is so obvious. ‘He was ten. He got dragged by the current. Panicked. Tried to save himself by holding on to Marley. It was a tragic accident.’

  Surprise registers in Isaac’s features.

  A beat later, he has adjusted his expression and nods lightly. Yet as I watch him, I catch a flicker in his eye, a light creasing around his brow. It’s the same look I’ve seen flit across Jacob’s face when he’s hiding something. ‘What is it, Isaac?’

  ‘Is that what Jacob told you? It was an accident?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He lifts a hand, scratching at his scalp.

  ‘Isaac?’ I repeat, my voice rising. ‘What aren’t you saying?’

  He considers me for a long moment, his lips pulled to one side. He shakes his head, as if to close the subject.

  I’m afraid now. ‘Please! What did you see?’

  He won’t look at me. Won’t speak.

  I step forward, my hand fastening around his arm, making him look up. ‘Please, Isaac,’ I beg.

  ‘It’s true that the boys were caught in a current,’ he begins slowly. ‘But that’s not why Marley drowned.’

  ‘I don’t understand …’

  ‘They were arguing.’ He pauses, swallowing hard. ‘Jacob hit Marley. Held him under.’

  ‘No,’ I say, instantly. ‘You’re wrong!’ Yet somehow, my heart goes cold.

  ‘I was right there in the boat,’ Isaac says quietly, yet firmly. ‘He drowned Marley.’

  My head is shaking back and forth. Absolutely not. There’s no way he’d have hit Marley. ‘He loved Marley. They were like brothers …’ I counter, but my voice comes out as a whisper.

  Jacob cried when Marley went on a school trip to the Isle of Wight because they wouldn’t see each other for five nights.

  Marley spent an entire term in woodwork building a driftwood clock – and gave it to Jacob the moment it was finished.

  Jacob asked for walkie-talkies for his eighth birthday so the two of them could speak to each other before bed.

  Marley wrote a short story about being washed up on a desert island, illustrating it with beautiful images of two boys – one blond, one dark-haired, both heroes and best friends.

  ‘You’ve got it wrong! Jacob was panicking and Marley came to help him. He held on to him.’

  Isaac’s head shakes slowly. ‘Jacob was shouting at Marley. That’s what made me look over, grab the binoculars. I couldn’t hear what they were saying – but I saw it all. He punched Marley – then he held him down.’ He swallows. ‘I couldn’t get to them – not in time.’

  My head spins as Isaac’s words whirl and twist, a raging current dragging me out of my depth. I am thinking, No, no, no! Yet something seems to slot into place, an aligning of sorts.

  ‘But why?’ I ask. ‘Why would Jacob do that?’

  Epilogue

  JACOB

  I sit hunched between the rocks, a winter coat buttoned to my chin. Light clouds of breath disappear into the chilled air. My scalp itches beneath the woollen hat that’s pulled low to my brow. I’m anonymous. I could be anyone beneath these layers of clothes, sitting alone on the beach.

  Except, I know. I know exactly who I am.

  What I’ve done.

  I shift slightly, angling my gaze towards our beach hut where my mother stands, a mug cupped in her hands. I should have guessed she’d be here, making her goodbyes before the keys are handed over this afternoon. Just like I’ve got mine to make.

  She looks smaller, lonelier these days. I feel a tug of something deep in my chest as I watch her, and have to drag my gaze away.

  Slipping a hand inside my coat pocket, my fingers meet the smooth curved surface of a jar. I know precisely what’s sealed within it: a page torn from a book showing two shorebirds in faded watercolour – Oystercatchers, Male 1. Female 2; an oak leaf, crisp brown but perfectly shaped; a sprinkling of sand from this bay; a packet of fiery bubble gum balls bought in an old-fashioned sweet shop. Tucked at the centre of these things is a slip of paper, a single word written for Marley: Sorry.

  I can’t look at the sea without remembering.

  I’ve been over and over that moment – the way Marley’s head snapped back as my wet fist connected with his face. Blood poured from his nose, hideous red rivulets of it that dripped from his chin, swirling into the water. I didn’t mean to do it – I’m almost sure I didn’t – I just needed him to stop!

  My teeth grind together, but I won’t let myself flinch from the memory. I hold it still in my mind. Force the full beam of my thoughts to centre on it.

  It’d been my idea to swim out to the yellow buoy marker; I told Marley that I’d checked with Mum and that she’d keep an eye on us. We reached it with ease, but Marley seemed preoccupied. He wore this odd expression he gets when there’s something worrying him. I asked what was up, dragged it out of him. Secrets were safe between us – we shared them, never kept them from each other.

  We trod water as he told me he’d found a letter to his mum pressed into the back of a book in the beach hut. A love letter. ‘It’s from your daddy.’

  I shook my head, told him he was making it up, but we both knew Marley never lied. He started quoting bits: Isla Berry, I’ll always love you. Always. You’re what makes my world spin. Whatever happens, you are it for me. Everything.

  There was this buzz about him, as if he was … I don’t know … part shocked by the discovery, part elated. When I looked up, I saw how far we’d drifted from the buoy marker. I could feel panic starting to rise; I wanted to be out of the sea, away from Marley. In my silence he just kept on talking and talking, telling me more details of the letter. Marley had never met his father and I could see the idea of him sharing mine – my daddy – taking shape in his thoughts.

  I needed him to stop. Just stop talking! I felt the cartilage of his nose against my knuckles, saw the blood spurt from his nostrils.

  He was coughing, crying, grabbing for me. I knocked his arm away, slipped beneath the water myself. I remember the thrashing of legs and arms, wild eyes, shouting. I grasped his shoulders, used my weight to push him under. I didn’t want to see his face, bloody and scared, or hear him saying those words any more. But when I let go, Marley didn’t come up. I was treading water, spinning round, searching, desperate … but he … he wasn’t anywhere. I looked. I know I did. I couldn’t catch my breath. Kept slipping under. And then there was a boat … a rope in the water I couldn’t quite reach … someone shouting for me. Then a hand around my arm, the sensation of being hauled upwards, away from the sea.

  What I remember is sitting at the back of that boat, staring at the lobsters in their dark pots, certain it must all be a mistake. Marley had to be okay. He was my best friend. I blinked and looked down, noticing the red swelling rising across the back of my knuckles. I slid my hands beneath my thighs. No! No!

  Now my fingertips push down into the solid, freezing grit of the rocks where I am sitting. I’ll never get it out of my head – the shock and horror in Marley’s eyes as I gripped his shoulders, pushing him under.

  Something inside me took over; something I didn’t even know lived in me.

  But it does, I understand that now.

  It’s a shadow I can’t outrun.

  In a sick twist of irony, I found out years later that Dad and Isla had been lovers in their teens. For all I know, that letter could’ve been written during their relationship, Isla slipping it into the back of a forgotten book.

  Now I watch as Mum climbs down from the beach hut deck, stepping on to the sand, moving towards the shoreline. I’m more like her than she knows.

  Suddenly she glances up, looking this way. My skin flares hot. I could be anyone – a fisherman setting up camp for the morning, a walker pausing to rest – but for a moment I think she recognizes me and my chest swells with hope. I want her to. I want her to come towards me, put her arms around me, tell me I’ll be okay.

  She smiles lightly, fleetingly,
then slides her hands into her coat pockets. My chest constricts as I watch her move along the shoreline in the opposite direction.

  Once she’s out of sight, I push myself from the rocks and walk towards the sea, my breathing uneven. At the shore I remove my trainers, setting them neatly together. Next I take off my coat, a note folded carefully inside the breast pocket, and place it on top of my trainers.

  The wet creeps into the fabric of my socks, biting at my skin as I take the first step into the sea. I wade forward, eyes on the horizon, the glass jar gripped in white fingertips. My skin flinches and contracts as the sea climbs up my jeans, clings to my calves, my waist.

  I pause, drawing back my arm, my whole body shivering. Then I launch the jar high into the air, watching it twist towards the waiting sea.

  I take a breath. The sandbank lies behind me, the winter horizon ahead. As the sea bed shifts beneath my sinking feet, I wait to feel the shadow falling away.

  Acknowledgements

  Firstly, thank you to my editor, Kimberley Young, who has an extraordinary knack for reading a manuscript and posing revealing questions that always push the story – and me – further than I thought possible. Thank you also to the rest of the HarperFiction team, who are a truly gorgeous bunch to work with – with particular thanks to Charlotte Brabbin, Jaime Frost, Claire Palmer, Katie Moss and Heike Schüssler.

  Huge thanks to my incredible agent Judith Murray at Greene & Heaton. Your advice is always pitch-perfect and I feel very lucky to have you at my side.

  A big hug of gratitude to my friends who have read and offered feedback on the manuscript during various stages of the drafting – it’s proved invaluable. Thanks also to Andy King for his expert help on the policing front, particularly missing persons procedures. Any mistakes are, of course, my own.

  Heartfelt thanks to my parents, Jane and Tony, for their continued support and championing, AND for buying a beach hut twenty-five years ago. None of us knew how that little wooden hut would shape our lives, but it has, hasn’t it?

  Finally, thank you to my husband, James, who will always be the boy in the beach hut next door.

  The character name of ‘Lorrain’ in this book was a winner of the Get In Character charity auction raising funds for www.clicsargent.org.uk – the UK’s leading cancer charity for children and young people, and their families. The prize winner was Claire Russell, who won the prize for her lovely niece, Lorrain. I do hope you enjoyed your fictional turn as a beach hutter, Lorrain!

  Author’s Note

  Longstone Sandbank is based on a stretch of coastline on the south coast of England where I spend much of my time. I’ve chosen not to name the real location because it allows me to take a few artistic liberties.

  A Q&A with Lucy Clarke

  What was the inspiration for Last Seen?

  I had an image of two women standing on a shoreline, hands gripped, scanning the water for their young sons. When I tried to zoom in more closely on this image, I could tell from the clasp of the women’s hands that they were best friends, and I began to wonder what would happen if only one of their boys was brought back to shore alive. What then? Could their friendship survive? How would it shift and change over the coming years? That was my starting point.

  Why did you choose to set your novel in a series of beach huts?

  I’ve grown up spending my summers in a beach hut, so it’s a lifestyle I love and know intimately. The stretch of beach where our family hut stands became the inspiration behind the fictional setting of Longstone Sandbank. I liked the idea of exploring how this idyllic, peaceful setting could hold a darker edge. There’s an intensity to summers when you’re living in such close quarters – particularly as most beach hutters have owned their huts for years, so there are layers of history locked within the community.

  In Last Seen a toxic female friendship lies at the centre of the story. Why does this relationship interest you?

  I’ve always been intrigued by the bonds between women – mothers and daughters, sisters, best friends – and particularly how the shape of those relationships can change over time. In the novel, Sarah and Isla have been best friends since childhood, but I wanted to explore what happens when that bond is pushed to the edge of its limits.

  What is your typical writing process? Do you have any writing rituals?

  My husband and I co-parent, so we split each day in half: I write from 8am – 12.30pm, and then spend the rest of the day with our two young children. Because writing time is limited, I *try* to be very focused, so I turn off my phone and the internet and get my head down. I can write anywhere as long as I’ve got a pair of headphones and a good playlist, but my favourite writing spot is definitely the beach hut. I don’t set myself a daily word count, I just do what I can. Some days are productive and the words seem to flow. Other days – many, many other days! – are a battle of coaxing and teasing the words onto the page. Tea helps. As does chocolate. Or a blast of sea air.

  When you start writing a novel, do you know how the story is going to end?

  When working on a new book idea, I typically spend the first few weeks brainstorming the plot and fleshing out my characters. So yes, in theory, I will have a loose idea of how the story will end. However, the reality is that the ending usually turns out to be completely different to my original plotline! Once I’m truly immersed in the story, and begin to live and breathe my characters, they tend to direct things in ways I hadn’t imagined. The last two chapters of Last Seen only came to me in the final month or two of writing.

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  About the Author

  Novelist, t
raveller and fresh air enthusiast, Lucy Clarke, is the author of four novels, including the Richard & Judy Book Club pick, The Sea Sisters. Lucy is married to a professional windsurfer and, together with their two young children, they spend their winters travelling and their summers at home on the south coast of England. Lucy writes from a beach hut.

  Keep in touch with Lucy:

  www.lucyclarke.com

  @lucyclarke_author

  @lucyclarkebooks

  /lucyclarkeauthor

  Also by Lucy Clarke

  The Sea Sisters

  A Single Breath

  The Blue

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