Stonemouth

‘Okay. Forget the motivations. Just tell me: is it true? Did you set up the thing with the cameras?’

‘No. And don’t be ridiculous.’

‘That your final answer?’

‘Yes. You’re fantasising.’

‘I don’t think I am.’

‘Well, I don’t believe I care what you think any more, Stewart. So, we done here? That your moment over? I’m sure I have better things to do.’

‘Sorry to have wasted your time.’

‘Yeah, sure you are.’ There’s a pause. ‘But, actually, no. No. If I can join in on this open-mike fantasy session you’ve got going here, why not think about it being about me trying to stop Ellie being happy, because I just didn’t like her? Didn’t like her easy way with everything, the way everybody said she was the pretty one, the way she could just do what she wanted and have who she wanted and never, ever realise how lucky she was, how privileged, how spoiled? Maybe it was all about teaching her a lesson. Maybe it had nothing to do with you at all, Stewart. Maybe you were just, like, collateral damage? Maybe you were just used. Maybe you were just a tool.’

I hear her take a breath, waiting for me to answer, but I keep quiet.

‘Yes? No? Plausible to you? Or not ego-massaging enough? Or it could have been Ellie, you know? Maybe she just got tired of you and wanted a plausible way out where she’d look like the victim? Maybe Jel was just doing her a favour, or El had something over her. No? That not acceptable either? Okay, here’s another thought. Maybe it wasn’t my idea in the first place; maybe I only helped a little, did what I was asked to do and was proud to be part of the family team for once, just following orders? Maybe it was Don. Maybe he set you up because he didn’t trust you, because he didn’t want somebody like you marrying into the family, somebody he didn’t understand who wanted to be a fucking artist

and talked all this weird hippie bullshit about worshipping truth or whatever the fuck? Maybe you just failed the audition, Stu, and this was Don’s way of getting you out of the picture, even if it broke Ellie’s heart. Maybe all that, Stu. Maybe you should think of all that, if we’re entertaining all the possibilities, even the crazy ones. Getting caught with your pants down in a toilet stall by a little kid too fucking inglorious for you? Has to be a conspiracy, yeah? Fucking grow up, Stu.’

The phone goes dead. Then, a few seconds later, the screen lights up again, and it’s Grier’s number.

I put the phone to my ear and draw in a breath but she gets there first. ‘And don’t call me back!’

Dead again. Properly dead, too; no battery left. Oh well.

There’s a bit on the beach that’s just right for a swim, Ellie says, casting a knowing eye over the way the breakers are falling across low sandbanks and shallow channels, fifty metres out. To me, it looks just the same as all the other bits of beach and sea.

‘This where you usually swim?’ I ask her.

‘There’s no usually,’ she tells me. ‘Just wherever the waves are right. Changes every tide with how the sand lies. Today, here’s good.’

We take her word for it and hunker down on the dry sand with some blankets and towels and two cooler boxes full of soft drinks, wine and beer.

We’re about thirty or forty metres down the beach, more or less level with the broad, shallow slipway that marks the end of the Promenade; Olness golf course starts a little further on. Yarlscliff and Stoun Point are visible to the south through the slight remaining haze. Vatton forest, an hour’s brisk walk away in the opposite direction, remains invisible in the greyness; it would be only a dark line smudged across the northern horizon even on a clear day. The roll of cloud offshore seems to have dissipated into the pervading mistiness still covering beach and town.

Ellie drops the towels, looks at us all sitting on the blankets. ‘Really? Nobody else coming in?’

The onshore breeze might have slackened a little, but it still fills the air with the sound of the surf breaking all along the great multikilometre reach of this wide east coast, making everything that everybody says seem somehow distant, submerged within the vast white-noise shush of the sea.

‘Think you’re on your own,’ I tell her. I pick up the towels, drape them over the arm already carrying her jacket.

‘Looks a bit cold,’ Jel says. She appears tiny in a big green waxed jacket she picked up in the back porch; one of her dad’s.

Ryan looks like he’d happily volunteer to go in with Ellie, skinny-dipping if necessary, but can’t bring himself to say it.

‘We’ll just watch you,’ Phelpie says, with what might be a leer. He pulls the tab on a can of Irn Bru.

‘Yes. Do try not to drown,’ Ferg tells her, rummaging through one of the cool boxes, probably looking for the drink with the highest ABV.

Ellie is putting on a Day-Glo-yellow bathing cap, tucking her hair up into it. ‘I’ll try,’ she says.