by West, Sam
But Christ, despite the meds, her arsehole still hurt like holy fuck. And now, sitting on a hard bench in the beer garden of ‘The Fox and Hound’ that overlooked the small; working harbour of Treave, wasn’t helping any.
“I haven’t seen you here before,” said a voice with a deep Cornish twang.
“No,” she replied, without even looking up from her G and T. “I don’t suppose you have.”
“You’re American,” the man said. “Whereabouts are you from and how you did get washed up here?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she was aware of his youth and good-looks. He was built, and looked like a surfer-type. Under normal circumstances, she may well have taken him back with her to the neighbouring town of St Ives where she was staying in a hotel.
But these weren’t normal circumstances.
“I’m from here,” she said softly, still refusing to make eye-contact with the stranger. “And I’m meeting some old friends, so if you don’t mind...”
Her voice trailed off when she saw a familiar figure strolling along the harbour-front. There was no mistaking that jaunty walk; she had always loved his swagger. Somehow, he managed to look like a cross between a tramp and a Rockstar, with his pitch-black hair that was worn too long for any respectable job, and the ripped jeans. The rucksack, which was casually slung over one broad shoulder, had seen better days and was the polar-opposite to her carefully coiffed – and outrageously expensive – attire.
Her heart slammed against her ribcage and her breath caught in her throat when the tall, slim man suddenly stopped dead directly opposite the beer-garden, as if sensing that someone was watching.
Then, like in every cliché going in the romance novels she secretly read, their eyes locked across the road.
Wolfhound eyes, she thought absently. That same shade of pale blue that had always haunted her deepest, most secret dreams.
He smiled at her; that very same, charmingly crooked smile she had once loved so dearly. His wonky grin was so different to the perfect, plastic-looking smiles one found in New York City. He was the most real thing she had seen in a long time, and, for the first time in a long time, she felt like she was home.
She smiled back and ever-so-slightly raised a trembling hand. Feeling like this made no sense to her, and she struggled to get her wayward emotions under control.
The meds I’m on must be screwing with my brain.
“So that’s your friend, huh?” the stranger said. “I guess I’ll leave you to it, then.”
“Yeah,” she said, not breaking eye-contact with the man opposite. “It was nice speaking with you.”
Sean ambled gracefully across the street, and she rose to feet as he approached.
“Hi,” she said shakily.
“Hi yourself. You’re looking good, Amber.”
They stood there awkwardly for a moment, before Sean closed the gap between them and engulfed her in a bearhug. He wasn’t that tall, but right then it felt like he was a giant towering over her five-foot-six frame, and a small sob escaped her still-tender throat.
“What a way to have a reunion, huh?” she said, telling herself that the lump in her throat was because of the fact she had almost been strangled to death the other night, and not because she was close to breaking down in tears.
He held her at arm’s length, his big hands gripping her slim shoulders. Looking into his pale eyes caused goose-bumps to break out all over body.
“God, Amber. It’s so good to see you.”
“Yeah. You too, Sean.”
He grinned at her suddenly, and it was like the sun peaking through the rainclouds. “Are you talking American?”
“Yeah, I guess I am,” she drawled, putting it on slightly. “I’ve been living in The Big Apple for the past fifteen years.”
“Well, ain’t that a thing?”
“I wish I’d found you sooner,” she said suddenly.
Not even she was quite sure what she meant by that – it wasn’t like her at all to be anything other than cool and collected.
“I guess we were all running away from the past. You know, away from Him. We didn’t want to dredge Him up, but I guess it found us anyway.”
“Do you think the others will show?”
“Have you even tried looking for them, yet?”
Shamefully, she shook her head, her gaze swivelling to her drink on the wooden table. “Dutch courage.”
“Well, I just knocked on Malcom’s door. Apparently, he’s moved.”
An icy sweat broke out down her back. It hadn’t even occurred to her that Malcom might not live in Treave anymore. He was just so Cornish, unlike the rest of them who had moved here with their families when they were very young. She couldn’t imagine him ever moving away, but then, why wouldn’t he?
Treave is a small place. If the others are here, we’ll find them.
“Don’t look so panicked. The woman in the house told me that he’d bought Brett’s old place a few years back. Says a woman about my age came looking for him earlier today, too.”
“Jane,” she gasped in relief. “I really thought her and Malcom would end up together.”
“Yeah. Me too. So shall we go?”
Her stomach twisted into a tight knot of terror. “Yeah. Let’s do this thing.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sean couldn’t believe how good Amber looked, despite her obvious tiredness and the moderate amount of Botox that had been pumped into her forehead. He also didn’t fail to notice the bruises around her neck which he glimpsed when thin, clinging, and incredibly sexy polo-neck pullover edged downwards as she nervously tugged at her clothes.
As they walked the short distance to Brett’s old place, they exchanged their life stories. He listened in rapt attention as Amber gave him the lowdown – of how she had lived in Scotland with her parents and attended Edinburgh University, before carving out a brilliant career for herself in New York. Her parents had retired to the south of France, and Sean sensed the emotional distance that existed between her and her parents, just like there always had been. When he told her about his mum dying, tears welled in her eyes.
They didn’t speak of Him. Not yet. By the time they reached the cottage, Sean felt like he’d spent his entire life with this woman. Being with her felt right on so many levels. His head was in a tailspin, and the woman he thought he had been in love with for so long was shoved to the back of his mind.
“Are you ready?” he asked when they came to be standing on Brett’s doorstep.
“As I’ll ever be,” she said.
Briefly, she reached out to squeeze his hand, and his stomach did a little backflip.
Oh boy, this is bad.
But he didn’t know if that thought was referring to what they were about to confront, or the avalanche of emotions regarding Amber. Either way, he figured that he was fucked.
Malcom opened the door to them, and even though twenty-seven years had passed, he was still unmistakably him. For a moment, Sean was overcome with emotions, just like he had been on first seeing Amber.
In a second, his gaze swept over his old friend, taking him in. He wasn’t on the plump side as he had been as a kid, but he was a big bloke. Like Sean, he appeared to be a little over six feet, but he was almost twice the width of Sean. He was solid, but without appearing either fat or overly muscled. He took in the greying hair cropped close to his head, the sunburnt neck and face. His face was kind, non-descript, almost puddingy in its softness, and prematurely lined from the sun.
“You came,” he said. “Come in.”
They stepped into the familiar surroundings of Brett’s old living-room. Or Malcom’s living-room. It looked different now – gone was the fussy décor and in its place were clean white lines and simple, brown-leather furniture.
“Hi,” Jane said, getting to her feet from the sofa.
Next to him, Amber let out a strangled sob.
“Jane,” she gasped, stumbling towards her and embracing her.
Sean expe
rienced a momentary flash of jealousy – she hadn’t greeted him quite so warmly – but that was swiftly forgotten when tears of nostalgia welled in his own eyes.
“Aw, fuck it,” he said, going over to Malcom and hugging him tight. “I’m sorry, mate,” he mumbled, patting him on the back. “I was such a twat.”
Malcom cleared his throat, his voice thick. “It wasn’t your fault that you had to leave. This isn’t anyone’s fault.”
Amber, wiping away the tears and still with her arm draped around Jane, spoke up:
“Where’s Brett?”
Sean let Malcom go and sat down on the spot on the sofa that Jane had just vacated, crossing his ankles on the glass coffee-table in front of him and lacing his hands behind his head.
His gaze swept over Jane, not because he was checking her out, but just because it had been such a long since he had seen his old friend. She hadn’t kept her looks in the same way that Amber had, but then, she had arguably never been as classically beautiful as Amber in the first place. She was still very pretty and natural looking, with a sweep of lustrous brown hair and big, brown eyes.
“He hasn’t come yet,” Jane said.
“I don’t know about you lot, but I’m gagging for a fucking drink,” Malcom said, heading for the door that led to the adjoining kitchen.
“Mate, you took the words right out of my mouth,” Sean said.
“You’re not kidding,” Amber said, flopping down on the sofa next to him.
It felt so unbelievably good to be sitting next to Amber like that, and for the first time in a long time, despite all this shit, he felt at ease.
Jane sat down on the two-seater opposite, and when Malcom came back with a bottle of red and four glasses and squeezed in next to her on the tiny sofa, it felt like the most natural thing in the world; like they were two ordinary couples that had been together forever and friends forever. To Sean, the moment was as beautiful as it was sad, and he knew that whatever happened for the rest of his life, he would always treasure this moment.
“So,” Jane said, taking the bottle off Malcom and casually swiping Sean’s feet off the coffee-table before Malcom set down the glasses and she proceeded to pour the wine. “What’s been happening with you two?”
The four of them settled down together on the sofas, and they talked.
When each of them had finished giving a brief summary of their lives and the second bottle of wine was drained, the conversation inevitably turned to Him.
A horrified silence fell over the group when Amber finished explaining what had happened to her.
“Fuck,” Sean muttered, shifting closer to her on the sofa and putting his arm around her. She leaned her head against his chest like they had been doing so for years. He had long since discarded the jacket, and the side of her face mashed against his tight t-shirt depicting a faded Animal from The Muppets banging on his drums. The warmth of her seeped into him, momentarily taking the icy edge off his fear.
“So what do we do now?” Amber mumbled into his chest.
Malcom leaned forward, his big hands cradling his almost-empty glass of wine. “I kept the game.”
“What?” Sean said.
“Yeah, I took it out of Brett’s bin all those years ago. I guess I always knew this day would come.”
My God, you’re a clever fucker, aren’t you?” Sean said with some admiration. “And I suppose you brought this house too, just so that we could play the game in the same place as we did the first time.”
“Maybe. But this place really was a steal,” Malcom said with the faintest of smiles.
“He’s not going to come is he?” Amber said, pulling herself upright once more.
Sean wished that she had stayed there, because now he felt even colder that her heat had left him.
“I don’t know,” Jane said, getting to her feet. “Why don’t we find out?”
Sean knew perfectly well who they were talking about.
Brett. Where the fuck is he?
“How will you do that?” Malcom asked.
“I’m calling in a favour. My cheating shit of a husband was also a social-climbing shit. We were on the dinner-party circuit with Jimmy and his wife.”
“Who the hell’s Jimmy?” Sean asked, not failing to notice the way Malcom’s face had closed angrily over at the mention of her husband.
“James Campbell, The Chief of Police. I’m sure he’ll put in a few calls for me. If anything has happened to him, we’re about to find out.”
“Friends in high places, huh,” Sean said. The only friend he had in a high place was Fred, who worked in the local chippy. Sometimes, if Sean was lucky, he would get a free pickled egg with his fish and chips.
The three of them watched as she wandered into the kitchen, speaking into her mobile as she went: “Hi Jimmy, it’s Jane… I’m fine thanks… Actually, I need a favour… Can you find about someone called Brett Ellison…”
She shut the door behind her and her voice became an indistinct mumble. They sat there in silence, straining their ears to no avail.
Five minutes later, she came back into the room with another bottle of wine.
“Well?” Malcom asked. “Did you find out anything?”
“He said he’ll call me back.”
“Right,” Sean said. “And if he’s okay, then I guess we’ll just have to call him and get him to come. Your mate will have his contact details, right?”
Amber put her hand on his knee, and he realised his leg was jigging up and down. “Sorry. Nervous twitch,” he said with a small smile.
They all stared at Jane’s mobile on the coffee-table, as if it might leap up and bite them. The screen lit up and it buzzed on the glass-top.
Jane snatched it up. “Yes?” Her face drained of all colour as she listened to what the person was saying on the other end of the line. “Okay. Thank you very much.”
They stared at her expectantly.
“Brett’s dead. He was found murdered in a sleazy hotel early yesterday evening. It’s a top priority investigation. Jimmy says they have no leads.”
Amber let out a strangled sob and covered her face with her hands.
“Shit,” Sean muttered under his breath. “He got him, didn’t he?” No one answered him. “Shit,” he muttered again.
“You remember what the old woman, said, don’t you?” Malcom said. “That we can’t play if someone’s missing, but we can play if someone’s dead.”
Jane nodded, her face pale. “Malcom’s right. It’s why we’re here. We have to play the game.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was the same as twenty-seven years ago, minus Brett. The kitchen had been dramatically updated, and the players were that much bigger, but it felt like they had stepped back in time. The table was similar in style to the rickety original, and instinctively they took the same seats that they had all those years ago, leaving an empty chair where Brett had sat.
His empty seat was a knife in the heart to Sean, and, wrenching his gaze away from the vacant seat, he looked at the board laid out in the centre of the table. His stomach curdled like milk in sunshine. It was exactly as he remembered it, and the urge to run away and never look back was strong.
Amber picked up the instructions that were now yellowing and curling at the corners, just like she had twenty-seven years ago. “I can’t believe you kept it. I don’t have to read it out again, do I?”
“I guess not,” Malcom said. “Shall we just each write down the same thing we did when we were twelve?”
This time, there was no laughter or piss-taking, and when Sean accepted the pen off Amber to write down his contribution, his hand shook like he had Parkinson’s. It felt like he was signing away his life.
When they were done, Amber read hers out: “He wears an Undertaker’s hat.”
Just as she said it, there was a creaking sound above them, and for a second the lights flickered.
“Do you feel that?” Jane whispered.
The temperature in the room ha
d dropped a couple of degrees, and outside, it had begun to rain. The fat raindrops pelted the windowpane, and Sean squirmed in his seat, that feeling of dread intensifying with every passing second.
Malcom reached out and squeezed Jane’s shoulder. “We can’t stop now.”
Brett should have been next, with his ‘he has sharp, pointy teeth’ and for a moment everyone was respectfully silent.
Sean cleared his throat and un-scrunched his scrap of paper. “He has knives for fingers.”
A flash of lightening accompanied his words, followed by a loud roll of thunder.
Oh, fuck this shit, he thought.
He glanced at Jane who was sitting to his left; it was her turn now. To his dismay, tears were coursing down her cheeks.
“This doesn’t feel right,” she said in a voice so low that they could barely hear her. “The old lady was wrong, there’s no stopping it. The more we play into it, the more we acknowledge it, the more power we give him.”
“No,” Sean said, more harshly than he had intended. “All we have to do is sign off.”
Fuck. What if she was right? What if we are making it stronger?
“It’s okay, baby, we can do this –”
Malcom’s words were cut dead by the total chaos that ensued.
Amber’s scream rang in his ears as Jane was lifted all the way up to the ceiling. She was yanked out of her seat with such force that Sean felt the rush of air on his face.
His mouth hung open and his eyes bulged as he craned back his neck. He couldn’t even begin to comprehend what he was seeing. It made no sense, yet there it was, happening right before his eyes.
Jane was pinned to the ceiling on her back. Her brown hair hung downwards in two glossy sheets on either side of her terrified face.
“Jane!” Malcom roared, knocking over his chair in his haste to get to his feet. “Let her go!”
For a second, Sean glimpsed Him. He was transparent, his torso straddling her knees, his long arms stretched out so that his hands held her in place by her forearms and elbows.
