Page 4

Four

We sat at a table all the way at the back of the bar.

“I’m sorry about your dad,” Sarah said. “So sorry.”

“Thank you.”

“He was a good man. He was always very kind to me.”

I nodded. I remembered the way he had made a point of including her. And also all the good times we’d had together as kids. She had been my best friend back then. Looking at her now, there was a little gray in her hair, and some crow’s-feet emerging at the corners of her eyes, but she hadn’t changed all that much. She was still beautiful, and it was easy to see the excited girl she had been back then.

Want to go on an adventure?

Before everything went to shit.

“He was,” I said quickly. “He was a good man.”

Which made me frown to myself. It was odd to be talking about my father in the past tense. But those were probably not words I would ever have spoken out loud in the present. I wasn’t sure if the alcohol was hitting me more quickly than usual, but that air of calm and detachment I prided myself on felt a little looser around me right now.

“Maybe I should have told him that,” I said.

“I’m sure he knew what you felt. ”

“I didn’t see him enough. I didn’t call as often as I should have done.”

Sarah smiled sadly at me.

“Oh, Dan. You can’t think like that.”

“I can,” I said. “I’m doing it right now.”

“Yeah, okay. It really doesn’t help, though. Believe me.”

I nodded again. I’d repeated that same sentiment— it doesn’t help to blame yourself —to clients outside the prison system countless times, or even just attempted to steer them toward recognizing the truth of it for themselves. But it was easy to offer advice from the outside. Right now, I found it difficult to take any comfort in the tentative relationship my father and I had built up in recent years. My mind kept returning to times when we were both younger and angrier, and letting each other down every day. When every disagreement between us had to be someone’s fault.

I took another sip of my drink.

“Anyway,” I said quietly. “What about you. Your mother?”

“She passed away last year. Cancer.”

“I’m—”

“Sorry?” Sarah smiled sadly again. “You know what? Maybe we should both stop saying that and just take it for granted?”

“That might be an idea.”

“And honestly, there’s no need for you to be sorry.” She looked down at her bottle, a thoughtful expression on her face. “She was sick for a long time. That’s why I came back to the island: to look after her. Maybe I didn’t come back soon enough, which is what I meant about blaming yourself. But I didn’t know how sick she was. And obviously, who wants to come back here, right?”

“Right.”

Sarah told me that she’d worked her way through various jobs after finishing university, but for the last few years had been settled at a charity for animals. I wanted to smile at that, remembering how she’d been able to identify tracks in the woods as a kid. She’d always had a passion for wildlife. It felt right.

“But when Mum got sick, I took compassionate leave,” she said. “And they were good people there, honestly. There was an expectation that my position would be waiting for me, as and when I could go back. But then some things went south for them, financially, and they had to make a few difficult decisions, and one of them was me. Things were tight for me by then too. My mother had a lot of debt. And so here I am.”

She took a mouthful of her own drink. The expression on her face suggested it tasted bitter.

“Here I am,” she said again quietly. “Back where I fucking started.”

I was about to reply, but a memory hit me: the last time I had seen her in person before now. Here on the island, the night before we both left for different universities. The gathering was a traditional one that happened every year: kids heading to a spot on the beach far away from the tourist areas, the police turning a blind eye as we all drank, played music, and danced around a bonfire so bright that it made everything around it seem pitch black and invisible, a small spot of light in the infinite dark.

Most people brought something to put on that fire. Notes they’d taken in hated classes; old school uniforms too worn to be passed down; report cards and detention slips. The symbolism was clear. We were all about to move forward into the various futures that awaited us, and so that night we would leave some of our past behind in ash on one of the island’s beaches.

I had brought a book with me. It was called The Man Made of Smoke , the definitive account of the Pied Piper murders, and I had read it so many times that the pages were worn and feathery. I remembered sitting on the rocks, away from the others, turning it around in my hands. And at one point, I looked up and saw Sarah.

It was a cold evening, but she was wearing a bikini top and jeans, dancing barefoot at the side of the fire with a few other people. She was drunk and carefree, and she seemed so happy . The sight of her unraveled me. Everyone looks beautiful by firelight, of course, but she transcended that, and in that moment I knew that I loved her.

The loss ached inside me. There were so many things I could have said and done over the last few years. But my feelings for her were bound up in the horror of my encounter with the Pied Piper at the rest area. It had become impossible to look at her without reliving the fear and shame and guilt I’d felt that day. Safer not to look at all.

But it meant I’d missed so much.

So stand up , I thought.

I looked down at the book in my hands.

Put this stupid fucking thing on the fire and go and talk to her.

But I didn’t. I just watched her dance, throwing her head back and laughing, the warm light of the fire playing across her face. The book had gone home with me at the end of the night, a weight in my coat pocket that it seemed I wasn’t yet ready to leave behind. And as I lay in bed, I told myself that it was enough to know she was escaping from the island. That her life would be a good one, and better for not having someone like me in it.

Here I am.

Back where I fucking started.

“Not forever,” I said.

“Yeah, we’ll see.”

I turned my bottle slowly on the table. Considering.

“I saw Liam earlier. He said you two are together now.”

She grimaced.

“He told you that?”

“It’s not true?”

“It’s complicated.” She put her drink down. “I mean, honestly. Complicated. If I was on Facebook, that would have been my relationship status for the last twenty years. But yeah, Liam and I were together for a while.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t judge me, Dan.” She gave me a pointed look. “Your options are pretty limited here on the island. And he does have some good qualities.”

“I’m not judging you at all.”

“But things are a little more… shall we say nebulous these days?” She sighed. “Look: can we leave it at that? I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

“Of course. ”

And I had no intention of probing further. But I couldn’t help my mind going back to the conversation I’d had with Fleming earlier. He’d made a point of mentioning his relationship with Sarah to me, and he hadn’t made it sound complicated or nebulous at all.

I wondered why. Did he see me as some kind of threat? That seemed ridiculous, given the reason I was back here, but I was also aware that he was the kind of man who viewed life in terms of dominance and territory. And in my experience, the weaker that type of man had a grip on what they thought was theirs, the more they felt a need to tighten it.

“I—”

But whatever I might have been about to say was interrupted by a sudden commotion by the door. I looked down the bar to see a large group of young men stumbling in, arms around each other. Already drunk; already rowdy.

Sarah slapped the table decisively.

“Ah,” she said. “The evening begins. I’d better get back to the bar.”

“Of course.”

My drink was nearly finished, and things were clearly about to get lively, so I figured it was probably time for me to leave too. But as Sarah stood up, I found myself thinking about the questions that had bothered me back at my father’s house.

“You told me he was good to you,” I said quickly.

Sarah turned back.

“My father, I mean.”

“Oh,” she said. “Yes. Always.”

“Did you see much of him recently? I was just wondering…”

I trailed off, unable to say it out loud.

Sarah knew what I was asking.

“I didn’t see him all that much recently,” she said. “But I did from time to time. And he seemed fine , Dan. His usual self. So if you’re beating yourself up for not noticing that something was wrong, then trust me. I was here, and I saw him, and I didn’t realize either.”

“Okay,” I said, relieved despite myself. “Thank you.”

“And if what your father found bothered him… he didn’t show it. ”

I started to say thank you again, ending the conversation on autopilot, but then caught what she’d just said.

“What he found,” I repeated. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I imagine it shook him up a little.” She hesitated. “And I think it was pretty bad, from what I understand. But your dad was police for a long time. Even here on the island, he’d seen worse—he told me that himself. He even said it was a good job that it was him who found her, rather than a tourist or someone.”

I shook my head. I had no idea what Sarah was talking about.

“Found who?” I said.

She looked down at me for a second, confused, as though my question made as little sense to her as what she was saying did to me.

“The dead woman in the woods,” she said.