Page 38 of The Quarterlands (Dark Water #4)

Josiah put the holopad away and drove further along the road, stopping at the bend where the accident had happened. Alex started humming loudly, a song that Josiah was all too familiar with.

“What’s going on, Alex?” he asked gently. “Why do you need your song right now? ”

“Because you brought me here to this place where my mum died. I didn’t think you could be so cruel, Joe.”

Josiah glanced around. “After you swapped places, Charles drove – too fast – around that bend back there. He lost control and the duck tumbled over and over and then smashed into this little group of trees. He was thrown out along the way and the paramedics found him here.” Josiah climbed out of the duck, leaving the door open, and pointed at the spot.

“You crawled out of the duck when you came to and called for an ambulance. It took twenty-three minutes to arrive, plenty of time for you and Charles to have a conversation.”

He walked back to the duck and leaned through the open door.

“I don’t know if he asked you to lie, or if you volunteered, but you had to know that whoever was driving would have their blood tested for banned substances.

A lot of duck accidents were – and still are – caused by croc, or sable, or good old-fashioned ketamine or cocaine.

However, Flex is also tested for, because it can cause risk-taking behaviour and adrenaline surges.

Charles relied on those surges to win races. ”

“None of this is true,” Alex said tightly. His humming was repetitive and high-pitched now. “ I was driving. The accident was my fault.”

“I think you believe the second statement, if not the first,” Josiah said gently.

He walked around the duck and opened the passenger door, crouching down next to Alex.

“Is that why you’ve consistently taken the blame all these years?

” he asked, gazing at him intently. “Partly to protect your brother, but also because you blame yourself? You promised your father you’d give up croc.

You’d been expelled from school for taking it only a few months previously.

But something triggered you to renege on that promise.

Something happened at that pub to make you take it again.

What was it, Alex? What was the trigger? ”

“Nothing. This didn’t happen!”

“You blame yourself because if you hadn’t taken the croc you’d have been driving, not Charles. Now, Charles is, by nature, a mild-tempered kind of man. Flex didn’t have a noticeable effect on him except in that one respect – he became more of a risk-taker, souped up on the drug in his system. ”

“He drove all the time,” Alex protested. “Why would Mum allow him to take over the driving if she thought he was high on Flex?”

“She didn’t have much choice. You were clearly even higher on croc, and she’d never learned how to drive.

I’m guessing that was because she grew up in a work camp and after she married she had servants to drive her everywhere.

Besides, Flex was normal to them; neither of them thought it made Charles a dangerous driver, and for the most part it didn’t.

Flex magnifies the adrenaline in your system.

It gave him a surge when he needed it most, when he was racing and already in a heightened state because of that. ”

“No.” Alex gazed straight ahead, refusing to look at him.

Josiah ploughed on regardless. “On the day of the accident, you were doing a victory lap around the area where you grew up, and Charles was showing off his medal to everyone you saw along the way. He was wearing it, for fuck’s sake.

He was hyped up on the adoration he was getting, and Flex took that adrenaline surge and tripled it.

He was on a massive high at the time of the accident. ”

“You don’t know any of this. You’re reaching,” Alex accused. He began humming his song again, still rocking in his seat.

Josiah put a gentle hand on his arm. “I’m a good investigator, Alex.

I know that is what happened. Charles was taking Flex when he won that gold medal.

If he was tested and found positive, they’d have taken his medal away.

You already knew your mother was dead, and Charles was badly injured.

You couldn’t bear the thought that he’d lose the one thing that had given his life meaning.

Besides, you’d been brought up to believe that Charles and his rowing career must be protected at all costs.

You and your life weren’t anywhere near as important. ”

“That’s not true. Mum and Dad loved us both,” Alex whispered.

“I know, and I’m sure they didn’t mean to make you feel second best, but look at you – taking drugs, being expelled… You felt unworthy and neglected, and that was how it manifested. You were the problem child, and you never felt good enough next to the bright, shining golden boy, Charles.”

“That’s all bollocks. Cod psychology. You’re better than that, Joe,” Alex spat viciously.

“I don’t believe your father knew that Charles was taking a banned substance,” Josiah continued, getting up and pacing around the outside of the duck again.

“Your mother started her affair with Tyler because she needed the money to buy Flex. It’s not cheap, and she had to account for every penny to Noah.

You know what that’s like. He made you do the same thing when you went to university. ”

Alex shook his head mutely, humming loudly again.

“But you weren’t aware of her affair with Tyler at this point. You hadn’t been to Charles’s training sessions and seen them together. Only Charles knew about their affair.”

“Charles knew?” Alex’s head snapped around to look at him.

“Yes, they were in on it together. He knew she needed money to afford the drug. I suspect, also, that she spent some of Tyler’s money on bribes. She was an adept flirt, who made it her business to become close to the WADO officials, but there would have been some money changing hands, too.”

“No, that’s not true,” Alex protested. “Charles was tested on the morning of the crash. His blood test was clean.”

“Oh, Alex. Don’t make me spell it out.” Josiah crouched down beside the duck again, leaning against the open door. Alex turned slowly to look at him. His face was white, his skin clammy, and he was shaking uncontrollably now.

“I went to visit Adrian Buzzard yesterday – the doping official who took Charles’s blood on the morning of the accident.

He didn’t like your mother, and the feeling was mutual, so he was immune to her flirting, unlike some of the other officials who tested Charles over the years.

He also wasn’t the kind of man to take a bribe.

However, he does have one weakness – beautiful young men – and given how unattractive he is, they never looked twice at him.

Did your mother ask you to distract him that day, or did you offer? ”

Alex shook his head mutely, but his humming went up a notch in volume.

“Isobel kept clean blood samples in the fridge, didn’t she?

All you had to do was distract Buzzard for long enough for her to make the swap.

Buzzard said he used the toilet when visiting The Orchard, and that you showed him the way.

I’m guessing you went in with him. Did you suck him off in there, Alex?

Or maybe it was a hand job. But you certainly had sex with him in there. ”

Alex was now humming so loudly that Josiah had to shout to make himself heard.

“Was that how you distracted him while your mother or Charles made the swap? He says he took the medibot containing the sample into the toilet with him, and he probably did, but he’d hardly admit he didn’t have eyes on it the whole time because you distracted him with sex, would he?

I don’t think he realised until yesterday that the Lytton family had played him.

He was convinced that blood test was clean, but then the realisation hit him like a ton of bricks when I questioned him. ”

Alex suddenly flung himself out of his seat and shoved past him, causing Josiah to fall onto his side, and then he ran towards the bushes and threw up. Josiah got to his feet and went after him, stroking his back as he heaved up into the bushes.

“You were only seventeen,” he said softly.

“Was it your first real sexual experience? I suspect it was. You were quite a late developer and always struggled to form relationships, and you didn’t have any friends.

I don’t think you’d found a sexual partner before then.

Did your mother know that? You’d come out to her, hadn’t you?

I suspect she was pleased. Isobel strikes me as someone who’d have enjoyed having a gay or at least bisexual son.

Your father, though, was a Floodite. You both knew it wasn’t a good idea to tell him, not while he was still so angry with you for being expelled. ”

Alex finished throwing up and stood there, his chest heaving.

Josiah returned to the duck and retrieved a bottle of water for him.

Alex took it wordlessly and gulped it down.

Then he slumped on the grassy verge by the side of the road, looking as if all the life had been forcibly sucked out of him.

He lay there, doubled over, for a long time.

When he finally looked up, the sense of betrayal in his eyes hit Josiah like a fist in the gut.

“You’ve been investigating me.”

“You know I’ve been investigating you.”

“No. This wasn’t for Tyler or Elliot, this was for you .

You were investigating me because you can’t help yourself.

Any more than you can stop yourself beating the crap out of people at that gym you go to.

” Alex grabbed Josiah’s bruised fist and held it up.

“You didn’t need to do this – any of it – but you just couldn’t let it go. You had to know, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Josiah said bluntly. “I asked you, Alex. I asked you if there were any more secrets, and you said no. You lied to me, and I knew it was a lie.”