by Terry Tyler
"Fucking terrible, it is. We gotta be supportive. That poor bairn. Left withoot a da'. An' Audrey, she was just sitting in a trance, looking at photos. Poor love. An' that poor bairn. Left withoot a da'."
He lights a cigarette and reflects that he likes her better when she's too drunk to talk; he fills a glass from the bottle of Jack beside the bed, and hands it to her.
"That lad Sean, he was canny, he was. An' that poor bairn. What's she going to do? Her mam's dead, and now she's left withoot a da'."
"Yeah, well, shut the fuck up about it, will you, pet?" He doesn't want a row, not this morning, but he cannit be doing with this shite all day.
An hour or so later, as he takes his place around the eight graves, he observes the mournful faces and wonders if anyone else has considered the upside: there are now eight fewer mouths to feed. As he casts his eye over the pretty, weeping chick being supported by Lottie, he does sums in his head. Eight people. Working on Dex's three meals a day theory, that means a hundred and sixty-eight fewer meals to find per week. Six hundred and seventy-two per month.
That's a lot of bait.
He's lost Ash, and it's always bad to lose a brother, but he could've got the virus, like Mick and Stu and all of their families. To have been alive at all was a bonus.
Bette's insistence that he should attend has had no bearing on his presence by the graves, but he lets her think it has because it keeps her happy, and when she's happy she shuts the fuck up. No, Wedge is there for his club, and because keeping King Dex sweet is a good plan.
Heavy clouds loom above, about to burst forth; aye, here come the first few flakes of snow. The air wafts into his nostrils, a miasma of sodden earth and death. The end of the year, the rotting remainder of all that has lived and grown, sinking back into the ground. The colourless faces of Dex's community whimper on, then they start placing random items on the graves. Cleary's stuck Ash's helmet on the mound of earth that contains his body, which is right and proper, but frigging teddy bears? Soft as clarts, the lot of 'em. The poor bairn sobs, holding on to the hand of that lezzer friend of Dex's ex-Mrs. Frigid bitch.
They're taking it in turns, giving speeches about each one of the dead. Teacher fella who's lost his wife stares at the sky and says why, God, why Rachael? Wedge wants to laugh. Next, the four-eyed Jessie from the Hudson steps up and starts whining on about how Marcus founded the community on Lindisfarne and how he will be missed by them all.
He didn't found owt. The Hadrian lads were here first.
Wedge gazes at the clods of earth covering the beardy shitehawk's body, and feels a sense of satisfaction. So frigging easy. What an opportunity. Balaclava on the head, claim to be late turning up at the hotel 'cause he was on the khazi, no one the wiser. And that wife of his—well, she's gone soft in the head now. She'll be saying nowt.
Fuck it, he wished he'd done more. All the fuckers who look at him in the street like he's shite. That teacher wanker, for a start. Should've done Dex, too. Then the whole fucking place would be his. He laughs, inwardly. Nah, mebbies not.
Not yet.
As Luke waffles on, followed by some other daft bint saying her piece, he doesn't realise he's smiling until he looks up, and catches Dex watching him. Just for a second, Wedge wonders if he's guessed. Observed his reactions, and sussed it out.
Wedge looks down, then up again, but Dex has looked away.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Vicky
It was terrible, but it's over. And I sat in the castle while others were defending our home. I need to learn to do my bit. I'm going to, whatever Dex says.
My daughter was out there, my friends, and I hid away.
Not that it seemed like the easy option at the time.
I spent an hour making vague pleas to a god I don't believe in, to keep my daughter safe.
"Dad won't let anything happen to her, honest," Jax kept saying, and I know Lottie is strong, brave and tough, but even if she was a trained sniper she's still my child, and it took every ounce of strength I had to stay.
Travis was wonderful; he found Dex's brandy, and didn't make any of those stupid meaningless reassurances that people come out with. I couldn't deal with listening to everyone, especially not Paul justifying his reasons for not staying to help defend the barricade, for which no one blamed him anyway, so I went into the bedroom. Travis came in and sat with me for a while, and we passed a hefty glass of brandy back and forth between us. It was only when the gunfire had petered out, when we heard the sound of a car and he said, "I think it might be over", that I realised we'd been sitting in total silence.
He's the calmest person I've ever met.
We joined everyone else in the kitchen, and then Heath was at the door.
I fell into his arms, and I was so grateful that Lottie was safe, that he was safe, that I didn't even think about Dex. Or Aria. Yes, I know that's bad, but there it is. As we were driving into Sandy Lane Heath turned and smiled at me, like he used to. The wall between us has come down, at last. He leaned over and kissed my cheek, and for that moment, everything was right in my world.
I needn't have worried about Lottie. She was flushed, exhausted, but so completely okay that I felt silly for having spent the past hour fretting.
"Mum, we totally slayed them! They won't be coming back here! Kara said that only two were left, we took them all out!"
But I wonder who took those lives. I don't ask. I don't think Lottie did. She couldn't have killed someone, surely. It would have affected her. She'd have told me.
Her buoyant mood was quelled by the discovery of the deaths. She's taken Adam's very hard. I wonder how Dex will feel about Stefan being gone; they spent a lot of time together. I know how the Dex I knew back in Shipden would have taken it, but that Dex scarcely exists any more.
Lottie says she should move in with Flora, but I don't want her to because then I'd have no excuse not to move into the castle. I suggest Flora comes to live with us. Our house has four bedrooms, so Phil and Kara move next door with Oz and Scott, leaving me with the three teenagers, one of whom is a psychological car crash.
Ah, well.
Little orphan Rosie will live with Suzanne. It's a good move, especially with Phoenix next door.
Mural painting Steve is inconsolable about losing his wife, but I believe Davina and Avery Lincoln are keeping an eye on him.
We find out who the invaders were. Jez 'persuaded' one of them to tell him where they were from, and it turned out they were part of a group who broke away from the military run camp at Hawes.
Said they'd met a lad who—yes, that's right.
The few who know agree to keep it hushed up. I can see why; that eviction was, in a roundabout way, the cause of eight deaths. Dex doesn't agree. When I start to say that nobody could have foreseen the outcome of Jonas being evicted, he cuts me off.
"Are you assuming I feel responsible? Why would I? You might as well blame the unfortunate woman who gave birth to that waste of oxygen in the first place."
He still wants it kept quiet, though.
Now that the mead shop is a pile of blackened rubble, our first post-attack meeting takes place in the Hudson. It's a bit cosy, to say the least, with fifty-odd people grappling for thirty-odd seats; the rest hover by the door or sit on the floor. Dex takes a high stool at the bar and faces everyone, and there is a new development; Wedge sits on a stool next to him.
"What's that gorilla doing up there?" Paul Lincoln mutters, at my side. "What, is he Dex's bloomin' wingman, now?"
I'm not admitting it worries me, too. "Maybe it's a one-off. He lost one of his club, too."
Paul grunts. "Lose one, slit another's throat, what's the diff?"
Dex delivers a speech about mourning our dead and growing stronger through what has happened; most respond well to it, but I sense it is not all 'him'. He talks about 'healing' and 'wellbeing', both Naomi-isms; he even manages to slip in an 'egregious', which she used about six times last time I spoke to her. She is smiling and noddi
ng at him. I suspect they collaborated on it.
Of course. He wouldn't run it past me. He went to her, because she tells him his words are evocative and inspiring.
A wave of gloom fills my soul, because Adam is dead, and Rachael, Mrs Woolley, Ash, Stefan, Sean and Lewis, even bloody awful Marcus Willmott, who I couldn't stand. I feel melancholy because I don't know what's to become of any of us, and even though we have a good thing here, it could so easily fall apart. I look across the room at Heath, who is sitting at a table holding Aria's hand, with darling Jax on the other side of him, and I wonder what's going through his head.
I look at Travis, who is over by the door talking in a low voice with Martin the journalist (who I imagine could have written a great speech without any 21st century buzzwords at all), and he smiles at me.
He should smile more.
"Who were these bastards, then, does anyone know?" Paul.
"We've no idea." How convincingly Dex lies. "Now, I don't imagine that particular group will be back, but we've had a wake-up call, and defence has to be our priority. We need to build a proper structure that can't be breached. I know we have people here with sound building knowledge—Gareth? Parks? Ray?"
"Count me in," calls out Martin. People look surprised, and he grins. "I trained as a civil engineer before I got paid to slag off politicians."
Others come forward, and ideas fly around the room; it's good, it's all positive, but I still feel the storm cloud hanging over us.
Jez talks about patrols, right the way round the island, because people could come here by boat, too, but Phil says that would take too many off food production and supply runs. We need more people, but if we have the numbers we have to be able to feed them, and we'd probably need to reinstall a council—the problems are endless.
"I'll tell you what we need here," Paul says. "Army. Someone who knows what they're bloody doing."
I join in the horrified rejection of this idea, though I wonder if we've been living in a fool's paradise, thinking we can sustain life here as we have been.
"No fucking way," says Wedge, shooting him down in flames with his black eyes. "No fucking way on earth."
"We don't want to turn this into a military-run camp!" says Myra.
"We might have to, in order to be safe," says Paul, and then everyone is talking to each other, nodding and shaking their heads, shouting things out to Dex and Wedge.
"Okay, everyone, let's calm down, one at a time," Dex says, but he's smiling, he's in control, and the hubbub calms down, the chat peters out, and he's raising his hand, accomplished controller of crowds that he is, and opening his mouth to speak, when suddenly there's a loud thump, thump, thump, the bang of fist on table, over and over.
Audrey Willmott is sitting at the corner of the window seat nearest to the door, and she's looking straight ahead, at Dex and Wedge.
The room falls silent.
Rowan is next to her; she leans forward, touches her on the arm, gently, and says, "Audrey? Would you like me to take you home?"
But Audrey ignores her, and points over to the bar. "It was him. He killed Marcus." We all know she's been out of her mind with grief, but right now she doesn't look crazy at all. She looks completely sure of what she's saying. "I saw him do it! I saw those eyes."
For one terrible moment I think she is pointing at Dex, but then I follow everyone else's gaze and know she means Wedge.
Do I see a moment of fear on his face? No, I just want to think I do, because Wedge is a murderer and I don't think he should be living on this island.
He stands up. "Listen pet, I'm sorry about your husband, but you’ve got it wrong." He doesn't take his eyes off her. He's not scared. He stands with his thumbs in his belt loops, and just stares.
Dex strides over to her; everyone shuffles back, clearing a way through. He crouches down in front of her, and takes her hand.
"Audrey, I am terribly, terribly sorry for what you're going through, I cannot imagine for one moment the pain you're feeling, and it's only normal that you should want to blame someone, but it wasn't Wedge." He smiles, sadly, kindly. "You know what happened that night, don't you? There was a gang of them, all in black, wearing balaclavas, who invaded the island. That was how you described the man who attacked Marcus, wasn't it?"
All eyes turn to Wedge. He is dressed completely in black, as he always is.
"Don't talk to me as if I'm a child." She looks at him with utter scorn. "I know what I saw."
Rowan touches her on the arm. "Why don't I come home with you, and we can talk about it? I'll make us some tea, or we can have a glass of wine if you'd prefer—"
Audrey shakes her arm off. "Stop patronising me! I don't want glasses of wine, I want the man who killed my husband brought to justice!"
The room is silent. Everyone looks from Audrey, to Wedge, and back again. Wedge walks over, and stands next to Dex.
"I didn't have any beef with him, pet. Sorry for what y' goin' through, but I had nowt to do with it."
"Listen to him, Audrey," Dex said. "When the police are investigating a suspicious death, motive is the first thing they look at. This man didn't have one. He was working to protect us; he spent the night making sure the invaders didn't get into the hotel."
"S'right," calls out Mac. "We was there all night, all of us."
"Why don't you let Rowan take you home?" Dex says, standing up.
This time, Audrey doesn't shrug Rowan off, but neither does she look placated.
She stands up. "Oh, I understand. It's his word against mine, and no one's going to believe a silly little woman on her own against a big fella like him, with all his pals behind him." She looks Wedge straight in the eye. "I know it was you. I damn well know it was. Just because there's no one to test the DNA under your fingernails, or whatever it is they used to do, doesn't mean you're innocent." She squares up to him, her face only inches away from his. "It was you. I know it was. I saw you."
Then her shoulders droop, her head falls, and she allows Rowan to escort her out.
I look around. I'd love to know what everyone else thinks. Is Audrey just a grieving woman, temporarily unhinged? We all know how she was found. Humming and rifling through photos. Rowan kept her at the hotel for the whole day after, too, and she never spoke a word.
I find myself believing her. Based on nothing but my own prejudice. I think of how Wedge orchestrated Kai's murder, and I am sure he is capable of anything.
Dex and I discuss it later, back at the castle.
"Of course he didn't bloody do it," he says, when I quiz him. Then he laughs. "I suppose you've made up your mind he did, though."
I shrug. "Well, his track record isn't good, is it? We don't know what he was inside for, or whether he's been inside before; we know nothing about him. He killed one of his own friends—"
"Oh, give it a rest, Vicky. He was in for a minor drug offence, that's all."
"How do you know?"
"Because he told me. And Cleary backed it up, on a separate occasion. Why would they lie?"
I laugh. "Why would they not?"
He gives a long, weary sigh. "Kai was an honour thing, a club thing. I know you can't handle it, but that's because you don't—won't—understand. He looks scary, so you assume he's guilty of a vicious, random murder. He fits the profile. Remember all that demonising of groups that we used to see in the media?" He shakes his head. "I thought you understood. I thought you were more intelligent than that."
I shut up. I can see his point, but I'm not convinced.
Nothing happens about Audrey's accusations; they're written off as the delusions of a temporarily unhinged, grieving woman. She is cared for by Davina and Rowan, and says nothing more about it. Two thirds of the Willmotts' original group of twenty-six are gone now; no one insists that the matter is looked into more thoroughly. Once or twice someone mentions that it wasn't followed up, but the sad truth is that it's low on the list of priorities.
No one fancies accusing Wedge of something he migh
t not have done, and it won't bring Marcus back, anyway. That's the long and the short of it, as they say.
A few days later, we receive a 'flyer' through the door, written in a child's hand, in bright felt pens, with carefully coloured stars and rainbows. It's Rosie's handiwork; Suzanne, Naomi and Myra are now offering reiki healing and 'talking therapy' sessions in their 'studio', an empty cottage in their courtyard.
Indian head massages by Ozzy.
They're calling it 'The Safe Space'. I laugh my two pairs of woolly socks off; is any woman safe alone in a room with Ozzy?
I remember Rowan's words when he first offered his Indian head massage services back in Elmfield, and suggest we add them as a testimonial on the bottom of the flyer:
'I wouldn't let him anywhere near my head with those grubby fingernails':
R. Porter, Holy Island.
I've never been into new age trends or telling virtual strangers my innermost thoughts, but others are enthusiastic. Nicole has an hour-long session with Suzanne, talking through the death of her friend Sean, and says it helped a lot. Lottie and Flora give Naomi's reiki a go ('for a laugh', Lottie says); when they return, Flora waxes lyrical about tapping into her 'life force energy', whereas Lottie says it was just cool to lie down and listen to floaty music with a load of nice smells wafting around. Hey, if it works for Flora, I'm not knocking it. With what she's been through, if she believes it works, then it works.
Others join me in cynicism; Kara and I believe Ozzy is using it as an excuse to get up close and personal with the women he has yet to shag. Apparently he has cushions on the floor, Indian shawls draped on the window, candles and incense. I'd like that, but I'm with Rowan on the grubby fingernails.
Dex applauds this contribution to the “wellbeing” of the island. He says this with a straight face. The Dex I used to know would have screwed the flyer up, said, "Jesus H. Christ", and agreed that their time would be better employed helping with the waste disposal, laundry or baking.
