Page 77

SOLSTICE

“EDDIE,” MICHELLE SAYS, FROWNING AT me. “What were you doing under the table?”

“Oh,” I say. “I was just... checking supplies.” I silently beg Lila to stay put beneath the tablecloth. “I think we’re nearly out of cider,” I say. “I could head to the wine store...” And have a look for Nathan at the same time.

“I’ll deal with that,” Michelle says, sharply. “Perhaps you could—” She scans the scene. “That guest just there. She looks like she needs looking after. See what she wants?”

I turn and see Bella watching from a few feet away, a strange expression on her face.

Now she’s striding toward me, her eyes not leaving mine.

“Hi,” I say. “Can I help you with anything?” It sounds a bit formal, after everything that happened in the woods last night, and everything before, but I’m not really sure how to play it with her.

“Eddie,” she says, “can I talk to you?”

“Er, I’m on duty,” I say. “I’ve got to—”

She reaches out and puts a hand on my arm. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. You look so like your brother.”

What?My heart starts beating very fast. Why is this stranger talking about my brother? No one talks about him. Not my family. Not people around here, either—at least not to our faces. Not unless they want to make my mum cry.

I try to take a step back but she’s still holding my arm. “I knew him, Eddie,” she says.

“Jake?” I say, eventually, voice hoarse as I speak his name. It’s so long since I’ve said it out loud.

“Yes. I was sixteen. He was two or three years older, I think... about nineteen.”

Nineteen. That was when it happened. What is this?

Her grip on my arm gets a little tighter.

“Please, Eddie. I need to speak to you, somewhere private.”

I look over my shoulder, trying to think of some excuse to get myself out of here. “I dunno,” I say, “it can’t make any difference now—”

“It’s why I’m here,” she says, urgently. “What happened back then. I want to tell you...” She closes her eyes. “Look, this sounds dramatic. But I know what she’s capable of. Francesca. She’s doing it again. Covering her tracks.” She plows on, “I want you to know all of it... in case something happens to me.”

I picture Jake’s empty room, kept just how it was. The photographs in the albums I’ve looked at so many times. Trying to understand. Trying to remember who my brother was, coming up blank. Not being able to ask my parents because of the pain it would cause them.

Maybe I do need to hear this, after all. Maybe the woman is standing here holding a missing piece of the puzzle.

I think about all the stuff I’m meant to be doing out on the lawns. Of Lila, pleading for me to keep an eye out for Nathan Tate. But all of that can wait.

“OK,” I say.

“Somewhere quiet.” She looks around, points to one of the clifftop private dining cabins. “One of those.”

I follow Bella into the cabin. I’ve never been in one of them before. They’re circular, with panoramic windows the whole way around. I dimly register how you can see all the way along the coast to Poole, the houses lit up like Christmas lights. It feels like we’re floating in mid-air, caught somewhere between the sea and the land. An amazing view, I guess. But right now it just makes me feel kind of light-headed. I grip hold of the doorframe to steady myself.

Bella sits down at the big round table; I take a chair opposite her. It’s pretty dark but even so I can see she looks pale and scared. She starts talking as soon as I close the door. Fast, almost a whisper.

“I made the connection when I saw you coming out of the farm this morning,” she says. “Jake told me how he was meant to take over from his—your—dad.”

“Yeah.” I swallow. “That was what was meant to happen.”

Bella meets my gaze, then her eyes slide away. She looks... guilty.

Then she reaches into her bag and takes out a ratty old notebook. I notice her hands are shaking. She fumbles her way through the pages and then grips it for a second, staring at whatever’s written in front of her, knuckles tight and white like she can’t let go. Then she takes a long, shaky breath, puts it on the table, and slides it across to me.

“Here,” she says, tapping the page. “Read from here.”