The Pact: A dark and compulsive thriller about secrets, privilege and revenge

by S J Bolton

  ‘I don’t think visiting them is the plan.’ Xav had made an effort since Amber had last seen him. He’d shaved and looked cleaner; he still looked tired though. ‘Why would we be parking down the road?’ he finished.

  ‘Tal’s here,’ Felix said, as a white Range Rover appeared from around the corner.

  ‘What?’ Tension seemed to be radiating from Talitha as she approached them; as usual, her aggression came Amber’s way.

  ‘I didn’t know you owned such clothes,’ Amber replied. Talitha was wearing cotton cargo pants and a faded T-shirt, on her feet were scuffed hiking boots. It was a bit like seeing the Queen in an apron and Marigolds.

  Felix glanced down at Talitha’s footwear and gave a nervous laugh. ‘What’s up?’ he asked her. ‘What’s going on?’

  Talitha couldn’t seem to look directly at any of them. Saying, ‘You need to come with me,’ she set off towards the mill.

  Puzzled, Amber and the two men followed along a short stretch of road and onto the public footpath that took them across the River Thame. They went so close to Daniel’s parents’ house that, had his mother been at the kitchen window, she would have seen them, and then on past the property and onto another bridge on the opposite side of the small island.

  On the apex of the second bridge, the noise of the weir still loud in their ears, Talitha stopped.

  ‘I spent half my childhood here,’ she said, looking around at the ring of trees, the disappearing footpath, the fields and meadows beyond. ‘I used to wish Dan’s parents were mine because they seemed to love me more than my own did.’

  Amber had never once heard Talitha admit that her life had been less than perfect.

  ‘Dan’s mum told the most amazing stories,’ Talitha leaned out over the water as she spoke. ‘She used to tell us that fairies lived in the trees here and that they’d come out at night and make sailboats out of laurel leaves, with cobwebs for sails, and hold races on this stream. She told us to look for laurel leaves on the bank and that they’d be boats left behind for the fairies to use once night fell. I must have been ten before I realised she’d made it up.’

  Amber saw her own puzzlement reflected on both men’s faces; this wasn’t the Talitha they knew.

  ‘In summer, when I wasn’t in Sicily, I was here,’ Talitha went on. ‘We weren’t allowed to play near the water on our own, but we sneaked out when Dan’s mum was busy. I know every inch of this island.’

  Amber saw Felix glance at his watch. He didn’t say anything, though. Even Felix, not known for his sensitivity, could tell this was important.

  ‘Tal.’ Xav seemed to have lost weight, even in the few days since Amber had seen him. ‘Whatever it is, just tell us.’

  Talitha hadn’t looked up. She said, ‘This bridge is taller than it looks from up here. And directly beneath us there’s an old iron hook.’

  Amber saw Felix’s eyes flash wide.

  ‘We played under this bridge,’ Talitha said. ‘We tied a rope to the hook and used it as a swing. Our parents would have had a fit, even mine, but they never knew.’

  Felix stumbled away, out of Amber’s eyeline, to lean over the other side of the bridge. She glanced at Xav, in time to see him swallow hard.

  What did they know that she—

  ‘He said to me once – ’ Tal went on, ‘I pretended he was joking, but I knew deep down he wasn’t – that if he ever wanted to kill himself, he’d do it here, under the bridge, because no one ever looks under this bridge.’

  Amber was aware of Xav moving closer. ‘No,’ she managed, looking from him to Felix, to Talitha, seeing identical looks of horror on each face.

  ‘So now I have to find him,’ Talitha said. ‘I’m sorry to drag you all out here, I just didn’t think I’d be able to do it by myself.’

  As though sleepwalking, she made for the bank. ‘Wait here,’ she said. ‘Phone the police when I call up.’

  ‘Oh, no you don’t.’ Felix caught up with her. ‘You’re not going under that bridge on your own. Xav, look after Amber.’

  Talitha shook her head. ‘I’m dressed for it, you’re not. What’s the point in ruining a decent suit?’

  ‘Daniel’s worth a decent suit.’ Amber pulled away from Xav and joined the other two on the bank. ‘We’ll all go.’

  The water was colder than Amber expected, and the mud deeper. She’d taken off her shoes, as had the men, and she held onto Xav as she made her way over the uneven, pebble-strewn riverbed. Felix and Talitha were a pace ahead.

  Felix reached the stone abutment of the bridge. A few more steps and he’d be able to see directly underneath. Steadying himself against the stone with one hand, holding onto Talitha with the other, he moved on, the water over his knees. Xav and Amber followed. She saw the swinging shadow and gasped, pulling away from Xav, on the point of fleeing the water. Then the shadow moved, it was Felix’s shadow, not Dan’s. She took Xav’s hand again.

  Amber was the last to see the dark, slime-ridden cavern beneath the old bridge. It was a grim place, and would have been dreadful had it been the last thing that Daniel saw in this life.

  It wasn’t. The iron hook was exactly where Talitha had said it would be, and their childhood swing remained. Daniel was nowhere to be seen.

  49

  It took fifteen minutes of angry sobs, and most of the contents of Felix’s hip flask, but eventually Talitha was calm enough to talk again.

  ‘I’m glad we haven’t found him,’ she said, wiping mascara streaks across her face. ‘But I’m not wrong. Daniel wouldn’t leave us. Not now, not with everything going on. And he couldn’t go anywhere without his wallet.’

  ‘And there’s the passport thing,’ Amber reminded her. ‘The mad monk at his residence told us none of the brothers have passports,’ she explained to the men. ‘He found an old one in Dan’s room, the same one he had when we were students. It hasn’t had a corner cut away, which means he’s never applied for a new one. He has to be in the country somewhere.’

  ‘I can’t believe those idiots haven’t called the police,’ Felix said. ‘Not that it’s in our interests for the police to get involved right now.’

  ‘Talitha made exactly that point,’ Amber said. ‘It didn’t go down too well.’

  Talitha sighed. ‘I simply pointed out that the wallet and phone suggested he hadn’t planned a trip of any length and that their presence in his room was cause for concern. Father Ted replied that when the brothers go on retreat, they take just enough money to cover a return journey. He did not see any reason to invade Daniel’s privacy.’

  ‘Can we track down these retreats?’ Felix asked.

  ‘Not a chance – we’ve already tried,’ Talitha told him. ‘And its pointless – he hasn’t gone on a retreat.’

  Running footsteps sounded a few seconds before a Lycra-clad runner appeared on the path. They stepped aside to let him pass.

  ‘We played Poohsticks here,’ Talitha said, when the runner had gone. ‘Dan would spend ages collecting twigs and as soon as we got within sight of the bridge I’d nick most of them off him. He burst into tears every time, but he never told his mum. So I kept on doing it.’

  ‘You were born to be a blood-sucking lawyer.’ Felix bent to the ground and picked up two twigs. He gave Talitha the longer, thicker one. After a moment, Xav found two sticks, one a little bent, and offered one to Amber. The four friends stood on the apex of the bridge and looked down at the water.

  ‘It’s not exactly fast-flowing,’ Felix said.

  ‘It never is,’ Talitha told him. ‘It’s a backwater.’

  ‘One, two, three, go,’ Felix announced, and four sticks fell into the water. As one, the four of them turned and took the steps that would bring them to the opposite side of the bridge.

  ‘That’s Amber’s,’ Xav said, when a broken twig appeared, followed by three others. ‘Well done, Am, always t
he dark horse.’

  ‘I wish we’d done this before,’ Talitha said in a small voice. ‘When there were six of us.’

  Out of the corner of her eye, Amber saw Felix take a step closer to Talitha and wrap an arm around her waist. A second later, she felt Xav’s arm steal its way around her own shoulders. She leaned into him and let her head fall against his chest. Closing her eyes, smelling the scent of Xav that had never properly left her memory, she allowed herself to dream, only for a second, that life had been so very different.

  If she’d been less drunk that night, she could have pleaded with Xav not to do it; she could have made him change his mind, she knew it, and without him, it wouldn’t have happened. They could be six old friends now, catching up on old times. Tears gathered behind her eyes.

  ‘So where is he then, Tal?’ she heard Felix ask.

  Talitha said, ‘Something’s happened. I was wrong about him being here, but I’m not wrong about that.’

  Amber opened her eyes again. ‘You mean, like an accident?’ she said.

  ‘He’d have been found if it had been an accident.’ Talitha’s voice was tight with emotion and she didn’t look up from the water.

  Felix said, ‘It’s not like you to be coy, Tal.’

  Talitha’s shoulders heaved as she took a deep breath. ‘In the last few days, Megan’s dad has been badly beaten up and Daniel has vanished,’ she said. ‘What, or rather who, do those two men have in common?’

  ‘Megan’s disappeared too,’ Xav pointed out.

  Talitha turned at last, and now she wore what Amber called her court face. ‘We know Megan’s alive and kicking because she was seen at the hospital. We don’t know Dan is.’

  ‘Her car’s still at Blackbird Leys,’ Felix said, ‘but it has been moved from one street to another. She’s alive.’

  ‘Megan wouldn’t hurt Dan,’ Xav said.

  ‘Excuse me, Megan was prepared to have Dan cut open and one of his kidney’s ripped out,’ Talitha replied, ‘so I beg to disagree. She’s also prepared to abduct one of Amber’s children and have me take out a contract kill on her father. I think we can safely say there’s little she isn’t capable of.’

  ‘She’s been in prison a long time,’ Felix said. ‘Nobody comes out of prison unchanged.’

  ‘She still wouldn’t hurt Dan,’ Xav argued. ‘She needs him.’

  Talitha took a deep breath. ‘Well, maybe she’s realised that plan of hers isn’t going to work, that we won’t go along with her favours. Maybe this is plan B.’ She looked around the group. ‘Guys, you saw her last Friday night. She was furious. One way or another, she’s going to get her own back.’

  ‘Then she shops us to the police,’ Felix said. ‘If she wants to screw us all over, that’s the way to do it, surely?’

  Talitha nodded her agreement. ‘It is, if she still has the proof, but what if she doesn’t? What if it got lost or destroyed during those twenty years? Xav, what was that water tower like?’

  ‘Not exactly waterproof,’ Xav admitted. ‘Cold and damp.’

  ‘So, how about this scenario – Megan comes out of prison, determined to get payback for our neglect of her over the years. She hasn’t got the proof any more, but we don’t know that, so she blags it. She demands the favours and keeps her fingers crossed we go along with her. When she realises, or even suspects, we’re not going to, she hatches a different plan.’

  ‘The flaw in that,’ Felix said, ‘is that for all Megan knows, we will go along with it. We haven’t told her otherwise.’

  In a voice that sounded exhausted, Xav said, ‘That may not be strictly true.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Talitha asked.

  ‘I went to see her last Sunday night,’ Xav admitted. ‘At the Travelodge. This was two days after she confronted us. I told her I wasn’t going to divorce Ella.’

  ‘You did what?’ Felix had gone white.

  ‘I told her I was sorry, but that I wasn’t going to be blackmailed and I didn’t think any of you would either. I told her I’d confess before I let that happen.’

  Felix and Talitha exchanged looks of horror, and Amber saw Felix’s fist clench.

  ‘Xav—’ Amber began. He stepped away from her.

  ‘You got Dan killed.’ Talitha’s eyes were wide with horror. For a second she seemed about to rush at Xav. ‘Dan is dead because of you.’

  ‘Take it easy, Tal.’ Felix stepped in between them.

  ‘You think she’ll stop at Dan?’ Talitha yelled at Xav. ‘She went for him first because he’s the easiest to get to, and he’s mild as a lamb.’ Her head shot round to Amber. ‘You’re next, Ex-Junior Minister. You’ll be a sitting duck now you don’t have security. Then, I don’t know, probably me. She’s picking us off one by one.’

  ‘OK, stop. Stop.’ Felix took hold of Talitha by her upper arms and gave her a gentle squeeze. ‘Do you mean it?’ he said, when he’d turned back to Xav. ‘About confessing?’

  ‘I do.’ Xav’s voice was shaking. ‘I’m sorry, guys, I really am, but all this – looking for Dan’s body under a bridge – I can’t do it any more. I won’t drop any of you in it. I’ll say it was just me in the car with Megan, that she agreed to keep quiet because she was in love with me.’

  He took a step backwards, then another, until he’d left the bridge. He was leaving them. The group was breaking apart. First Dan, now Xav.

  ‘She won’t go along with that.’ Talitha sounded desperate.

  Xav kept walking. ‘Probably not,’ he said. ‘But it will be her word against mine. And yours, if you decide you can still live with this.’ He’d reached the path that would take him back to the mill. ‘In fact, that’s what we do: those of us who can’t live with ourselves any more, go to the police and admit to being in the car. Those who can, well, I won’t give you away.’

  ‘Mate, don’t do this,’ Felix said.

  ‘I’ll give you a week,’ Xav called. ‘I’ll do nothing till this time next week. That gives you time to make your minds up and sort out anything that needs sorting. Then I’m going in.’

  ‘Xav, you’re throwing us to the wolves.’ Amber felt tears springing to the back of her eyes as she took a step after Xav. ‘If you reopen the case, the police won’t stop till they’ve got all of us. Felix and I have children.’

  ‘And Talitha and I have lives, even without kids,’ Xav said. ‘Only I can’t live mine any more.’

  He raised one hand in a farewell, a motionless wave that became something akin to a salute, and then he turned and walked away. A second later, he’d gone.

  50

  Xav had spent the previous week cancelling his life: moving assets, updating his will, paying off his mortgage. Ella was hopeless with money, but he’d done the best he could to protect her. On the Friday, he’d resigned from his job, citing personal difficulties that were impossible to surmount.

  Physically clearing out the house, taking clothes and sports equipment to Oxfam, had been harder and he wasn’t entirely surprised when he got home from Waterstock to find Ella, cross-legged on the floor of their living room, red-faced and sobbing as she turned the pages of a photograph album she’d pulled from the outside bin.

  He joined her on the rug, enfolding her with his arms and legs, the way he might have done, one day, to a child of his own, had it not been for that summer.

  ‘I love you so much,’ he whispered into her ear.

  ‘You never even showed me this,’ she mumbled. ‘Why would you throw it away before I had a chance to see it?’

  Pictures of his teenage years that made his heart burn to look at now: a party, high on a hill, a house in one of the most exclusive areas in Oxford, a garden strewn with lanterns and candles; children, almost grown, wild and beautiful with brightly coloured clothes and glitter on their skin. A fire pit, the faces of his friends glowing in the flickering light, Amber’s stra
wberry-blonde hair falling almost to the ground as she dozed on Xav’s shoulder; Felix, tall and golden like a young Nordic god; and Daniel, pale and pretty, almost feminine at seventeen; Talitha, too, a coronet of buttercups on her messy, dark hair; and, slightly apart, silver-haired and slender, Megan.

  ‘I wish I’d met you sooner,’ Xav said, as he got to his feet, the album in his hands now. ‘I wish I’d known you longer.’

  Talitha and Felix called round that evening to try to persuade him to change his mind. The big sacrifice, they argued, would achieve nothing; he’d still live with the guilt, but in a place where he’d be powerless to atone. There was more than one way to find redemption, they urged: he could work for a charity, donate most of his money to the less fortunate. He was an immensely capable man, with so much to offer, and shutting himself away to a life of toilet cleaning and vegetable peeling was the real crime. He told them of the preparations he’d made and advised they do the same.

  An hour after they left, Amber called him. In between sobs, she repeated everything the others had said. He told her he was sorry and put the phone down.

  When darkness had fallen over St John Street, he phoned his parents at their home on the outskirts of Banbury and had the longest chat with them he could remember having in years. He told them he loved them; both asked him what was wrong.

  He woke early on Tuesday morning, some time before the sun came up. As he lay in the half light of his bedroom, his wife breathing softly beside him, he knew, as though someone had whispered it to him in a dream, where Megan had hidden the proof.

  51

  Xav said nothing to the others, because he was a long way from knowing whether or not it would make any difference to him now. All day long he could think of little else but made no move to leave the house. When light was fading, he drove the few miles out of town to a stretch of woodland on the south side of the city. He parked and began the long trek that would take him to his destination.

  Will Markham’s family might not live on Boars Hill any more, but the house would probably be there still and the garden unchanged. If it weren’t, if the land had been sold off, the trees felled and a housing estate sprung up, then he was wrong. But it hadn’t, and he wasn’t.