The retreat, p.15
The Retreat, page 15
“I know what you mean,” Hana says slowly. “That is strange, especially when you don’t know a place well. A massive risk.”
An odd expression flickers across Jo’s face. Embarrassment?
“What is it?” Hana asks.
Jo drags her eyes up to meet Hana’s. “I was going to tell you anyway. Seth does know the island. It wasn’t his first time here. His father . . . he owns it.”
“We know. The detective told us,” Caleb mutters.
“Oh.” Jo nods, a strange expression on her face. As she leans back against the wall, the movement reveals her scar from the fire. The one vulnerability of her strong body.
“So why didn’t you tell us before? Some big reveal for Instagram?”
“No, actually,” she says quietly. “Like I said—”
Hana cuts her off. “Stop lying.” She shakes her head, incredulous. “Even now, with Seth dead, you’re lying, Jo, and if I’m being honest, I’m struggling to believe anything that comes out of your mouth.” As she says the words she experiences a liberating sense of release—in not caring anymore what people think of her, not having to conceal how she really feels. Maybe she should have done it before, she thinks, slightly drunk on the sensation.
Jo’s eyes widen, taken aback, but she quickly rallies. “If I’m a liar, then I’m not the only one.”
Her voice gives Hana a chill, the cold precision in her diction. “I don’t get it,” she says, faltering. “Who else is lying?”
“That’s what I want to know. Seth’s been getting anonymous emails the past few months. Nasty stuff. Threats. Accusations about him, his father. Seems pretty strange that he gets those, and now this happens.” Jo’s gaze shifts to Maya, and it’s then Hana realizes what the last few minutes have been building up to—something Jo has been trying to say ever since she started pacing around the room.
“And?” Maya’s voice is hard. “What’s that got to do with us?” Her hand comes up to the necklace nestled in the hollow at the base of her neck.
“Well, I’d say it’s got more to do with you, Maya.”
“Me?” Shrinking backward, her dark eyes are liquid, unreadable.
“Yes.” Jo nods, a sudden sharpness to her features; an animal, going in for the kill: “How pissed off you were with Seth, after the whole job thing.”
Maya hesitates. “I was,” she says slowly, “but that doesn’t make me a liar. You more or less promised me the job and then Seth reneged on it. Of course I was pissed off.”
“But it’s not just that, is it? I know what you did.”
“Know what?” Maya’s voice wavers.
Jo tips her head slightly. “I know it was you, Maya, the rumors about his business doing the rounds on social media.”
Maya stiffens beside Hana. Silence. All she can hear is the faint whir of the air conditioner.
A visible swallow. “But . . .” She stutters. “How did you find out?”
“Your ex. Sol bumped into Seth one night, spilled his guts.”
“Sol told him?”
“Yes. All the grubby little details.” Jo gives a small, bitter laugh. “I have to say, I’d never have thought it: you, a keyboard warrior. I didn’t tell the detective, but it’s making me wonder. If you’d do something like that, then exactly what else are you capable of?”
Maya seems to get smaller as Jo speaks, her shoulders drawing together as if her body is contracting in on itself at the core. Hana realizes that this is the perfect example of what Jo does—makes people feel small in order to make herself feel big.
Even cornered, she’s capable, and Hana knows why she’s doing it now; Jo’s deflecting. It’s her who’s lied—about Bea, Seth’s link to the island, and so much more besides—yet she’s picking up on something Maya’s done to shift the focus from her.
Hana stands, turns to face Jo. “Before you start accusing Maya, I think you’ve got some explaining to do. Talk about deceiving people—the day we arrived, a note fell out of your bag on the jetty. You’d started writing to me, apologizing for something—I still haven’t heard what that is.”
A beat of silence. “Oh, that . . . ,” Jo says quickly. “I wrote it a few months ago. Like I said, I was feeling bad about not being there for you after Liam died. I thought about writing to you, but then we arranged this holiday. I was going to talk to you about it here, a proper conversation, face-to-face.”
Hana listens as Jo continues, her expression contrite. While she’s saying all the right words, laced with all the right emotion—she is somehow not quite hitting the right note.
She’s lying again. She’s just found out her boyfriend’s dead and she’s lying.
46
It’s only when the boulder is a few feet above her that her body finally jerks into action, a clumsy flailing of limbs as she propels herself sideways. Elin twists and lands half on her palm, half on her breastbone, the jolt pushing the breath from her lungs in one gasping exhalation.
Elin clamps her hands around her head, bracing for impact, but nothing comes. She doesn’t see the rock land, only hears the dull crack of the impact followed by skittish sounds of smaller pieces scattering.
She tips her head, her eyes darting upward, but no other rocks follow. All that’s visible is the looming expanse of cliff, a stripe of blazing blue sky above it.
The thud of her heart in her chest seems out of time with her gasps.
If she hadn’t been able to move when she had . . .
Once her breathing settles, she slowly pulls herself to standing.
Her eyes come to rest on the boulder lying a few feet away. It’s larger than she thought, roughly split in two by the fall, fresh cleave marks revealing the darker, smoother stone of the interior. Her first instinct is to step back, to try to see where the boulder has come from, but there are no obvious signs of fresh rockfall.
A cliff fall, she tells herself. A piece of rock that’s come loose after expanding and contracting in the heat. But as she walks away, Elin glances up at Reaper’s Rock. Despite her earlier dismissal, for a moment she can’t help imagining that the rock was responsible; as if it had thrown a piece of itself down in anger.
Once again, the island is letting her know, loud and clear.
We don’t want you here.
47
Back on the beach, Elin’s phone is loudly trilling.
She’s half expecting it to be Will, wondering why she hasn’t gotten back to him, but it’s a number she hasn’t seen since before her career break.
Mieke, one of the forensic pathologists. “I’m finishing up Bea Leger’s PM. Wounds are consistent with a fall from that height and cause of death is from the head injury, as you’d probably guessed, but there are a few things that might be of interest. I’ve found something a little odd: a trace residue of a powdery substance in her mouth; it’s collected around her gumline, very small amounts on some of her teeth.”
A powder.
Elin tenses. There’s no way of knowing if it’s the same substance she saw near Seth’s mouth, but if it is, then it definitively links his death with Bea’s. “Any idea what it is?”
“Can’t say until we get the analysis back from the lab, but it looks to me like limestone powder. I’ve seen it before, a quarry worker. His machinery tipped over and took him with it. We found something similar on him.”
“Could she have picked it up in the fall?”
There’s a pause. “I’d say no. The powder is specific to the quarrying process, working directly with the limestone itself. It implies it hasn’t been processed, so it can’t be from a post-production environment, such as a factory.”
“Right,” Elin says, and as Mieke speaks, something occurs to her, something she hadn’t given a thought to until now.
The quarry on the island.
Will had referenced it a few times, described how the old school had been constructed from limestone quarried on the island. He’d repurposed some for the build—in the interiors, the reception and communal areas.
Mieke continues: “I suspect she picked the powder up from somewhere or someone. Some kind of transfer.”
Elin mulls it over, Seth’s potential involvement in Bea’s death.
It’s possible that he could have transferred the powder somehow. But if that’s the case, why would he have been in the quarry? Somewhere to stash the drugs?
“Anything else?”
“Yes. Hard to see probably, initially, given the lividity, but I’m pretty sure we’ve got some bruising on her arms. The pattern is faint, but it looks to me like fingermarks. I need to take a proper look, but . . .”
Elin pulls in her breath: fingermarks that might have resulted from pulling Bea Leger over that balustrade.
“I’m taking from the pause that this makes things more complicated,” Mieke says softly.
“A little. Let me know if you find anything else.”
Saying goodbye, Elin thinks it through, a chill working up her spine. The evidence is overwhelmingly pulling her in one direction: Bea Leger didn’t simply fall. She, too, was murdered.
If that’s the case, then Mieke’s observations might be one of the few leads Elin has to understand what and who is behind these deaths. Once she’s spoken to Will, they need to go to the quarry.
Despite what had happened with the rock a few moments ago, her unease with the island, the thought gives her a sharp frisson of excitement, the same she’d had on the beach.
Every fiber in her body is jangling with energy. She feels alive. Vibrantly alive.
48
The wanderer returns . . . I’d given up on you.” Will pulls out a chair for her.
Elin glances around. The restaurant is quiet—empty tables, only a few staff milling about near the bar. “Sorry. I was going to call again, but things have become a little more complex.”
His forehead is beaded with perspiration and he roughly wipes it with the back of his hand. “The missing guest?”
“Actually, no. False alarm. He’d gone snorkeling.”
“Good news.”
“Not exactly.” Elin’s voice sounds strained. She doesn’t want to tell him. Knows that the minute she does, any hope he had of it not affecting the award, LUMEN itself, is gone. “But we’ve found a body in the water. A different guest.”
Will blanches, leaning forward in his chair. “Another accident?”
“Can’t say, not yet.” Her words are vague, but she can tell he isn’t fooled.
“Well, not sure the keep it quiet approach is working. Farrah’s told me that we’re bleeding guests. People have got wind that something’s going on.” He makes an incoherent sound.
“People are leaving?”
“Who’d have thought it, eh? They don’t like a few random deaths pissing on their holiday.” Will gestures around; one big swooping arm movement. “Can’t you tell? Not exactly buzzing, is it?”
Elin turns. He’s right, the retreat has emptied out: the holiday acoustics distilled down from a vibrant hum to a single shout, a sudden, solitary burst of laughter. The beach is empty, and though there are a few people in the pool, the daybeds surrounding it are deserted.
“The boat hasn’t stopped going backward and forward. Some people have taken their own water taxis.” He bites down on his lip. “It’s been picked up on social media too.”
Elin shakes her head, dismayed. The last thing they need.
A sigh. “I think I’m going to cut the weekend short. I’ve got loads of work anyway. Should have known it wouldn’t be straightforward. Our trips together never are.” Will’s eyes meet hers, a shared awareness passing between them. For a moment, there’s a closeness between them, but as quickly as it appeared, it’s gone. He looks away. “If I’m being honest, I’m too involved. A shitty thing to say after what’s happened, but . . .”
“I understand. It’s personal for you.”
“Yeah. It’s like watching something precious blow up in your face in slow motion.” His voice splinters. “Everything I’ve worked so hard to do with this place, changing people’s perceptions—it’ll all be for nothing. Once the press gets hold of it, they’ll trawl it all up. The Creacher murders, the school. LUMEN will be a footnote.”
A horrible sense of impotence grips her as she feels the situation slipping from her control. She wants to do something, anything, to make it right for him, but she can’t. “Look, we don’t know what’s happened, not yet. There’s still a chance—”
Will looks at her, an odd, stiff expression on his face. “You don’t have to do that, you know. I’m not a kid.”
“Do what?”
“Plaster over it. I know by your face that this isn’t good.” He forces a smile. “I think I’ve finally heard your bad news voice. All this time together, but only now I hear it.”
As Will speaks, Elin senses something that she hadn’t picked up on before, something passive-aggressive in his body language, his tone—almost resentful. And while she might be reading into it, she can’t help but wonder if he’s blaming her for what’s happening, by fault of simply being involved.
“I’m just trying to be positive.”
He gives a tight nod. “And you’re happy staying?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, now that the situation’s escalated . . .”
“Yes . . .” Elin scrutinizes his face, expression, not sure where he’s going with this.
“But this morning in bed you said you were worried about whether you could cope, if you might trip up if things got tough.”
“A doubt, yes,” she says carefully, “but it doesn’t mean I don’t want to carry on.”
“But what if you do feel like that at some point? Would you be honest with Anna?”
“Yes.”
He meets her gaze. “Did you tell her about the thing on Twitter?”
Elin hesitates, knowing what this question is: a test. “I did. She said they’d look into it if it happens again.” She reaches for his hand. “Really, you don’t have to worry.”
A heavy sigh. “But you here, alone, I don’t like it.”
“I’m not alone. I’ve got Steed.” As soon as she says the words, she knows they’re not right, but she doesn’t know what to do. From the get-go this conversation has felt like a minefield, as if anything she says will be the wrong thing.
“Steed,” Will echoes, shrugging her hand loose. “Well, that’s okay then. You’re close enough to be able to tell him, if it gets too much?”
Another mine.
Elin fumbles for her words. “Well, yes, I think I can. We’ve got to know each other a bit more since we’ve been here.”
Wrong answer. Will’s face closes. She’s not sure how they’ve gotten to this point—this strange sense that they’re dancing to difference tunes.
Spotting a white smudge of sunscreen by his ear, she reaches up to rub it away, but he flinches, an obvious recoil. Elin flushes, stung, and it’s only then that she has a moment of self-reflection, horribly aware of why he’s behaving like this.
It’s her, isn’t it? She’s made him react like this because of her mercurial behavior.
At home, these past few weeks, she’s been spiky and distant, but out here, she’s someone different. Energized. Dynamic.
He gets the worst of her and how must he interpret that?
Elin feels a wave of sadness at the sudden chasm that’s opened up in their relationship.
“Well, I have to go,” she says, doing what she always does. Delay tactics. Pushing things under the carpet. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“Call me later.”
“Will do.” Leaning in, Elin lightly kisses him. There’s no recoil this time, but maybe something worse: a reticence on his part, a sense he’s simply going through the motions.
49
Maya, you awake?” Hana’s body casts a shadow over Maya’s prostrate form on the daybed. She’s in jean shorts paired with a tan bikini top almost the same shade as her skin, the wide brim of her panama hat pulled low over her eyes.
No response.
“Maya?” she repeats, louder this time, a little note of fear creeping in. After everything that’s happened . . . Reaching over, she shakes Maya’s arm. “Maya, wake up!”
Finally, she stirs, roused from her slumber. Sitting up, she grips the side of the daybed, the veins in her hand standing out.
“Sorry.” Her words are slightly slurred. “Didn’t even know I’d fallen asleep.”
Hana perches sideways on the other daybed, but it’s uncomfortable, the frame digging into her thighs, so she swings her legs up to lie against it properly. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?” she says softly. “About the job?”
Maya sits up straighter on the lounger, rubs her eyes. A line of sunscreen is caught in the crease of her stomach, a flash of white amid the brown. “I was embarrassed. The whole thing—it was humiliating. Jo meant well, but you know what she’s like. I’d assumed she’d cleared it with Seth but turns out she hadn’t even mentioned it.” She circles one of the rings on her finger. “Seth pulled it, all apologies, of course, gave me all the I’ll keep an eye out, pass your CV to a mate, but that was it. Game over.”
“You hadn’t signed a contract?”
“It was supposed to be finalized that week. All I had was Jo’s word.” Maya shakes her head. “I was gutted, relying on it to make the rent, and because I thought it was definite, I wasted weeks I could have spent looking for another job.”
“Did Seth say why he wasn’t keen on you working there?”
