A flash of lightning lit up the room. I woke with a start, my phone blaring and bouncing off my hangover headache in sickening waves. Enormously hot and sweaty, muzzy with sleep, I snatched up my mobile, took a look. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. Zach,” I hollered, thick-tongued. With no response, I hurtled downstairs.
Zach was on his way out of the living room. He looked remarkably awake and bright-eyed, unusually so. If I weren’t so rattled, I’d have quizzed him about what he’d taken. “Problem?” he said, with the kind of lucidity induced by a finely tuned dose of amphetamines.
“The alarm’s gone on the shop.” Cursing, I glanced outside. The wind had picked up and fat drops of rain slammed against the windows. “What time is it?”
Zach reached over and took my arm. “Your watch says midnight.” Somehow, I’d lost several hours, exhaustion finally catching up with me. “Clock on the cooker says eleven.”
I turned around to see the control flashing. With an electrical storm in prospect, a power outage had tripped the switch. “Damn it.” Dry-mouthed, nauseous, I felt absolutely dreadful.
“You all right? Your face looks green.”
“I shouldn’t have drunk centuries’ old Retsina on an empty stomach.” As if in response, acid from my gut tunnelled up towards my throat. At any second, I’d throw up over my feet.
“Won’t the police deal with the shop alarm?” Zach said.
“Gotta be joking.” I cursed myself for not spending the money on a remote system. “Oh hell,” diving into the cloakroom, I made it just in time to chuck up into the toilet bowl. Shakily, I flushed the loo, ran cold water and rinsed out my mouth. My head still banged, but there was no time to waste. Emerging shamefaced and sheepish, I rifled through the jackets hanging on the coat stand. “I’ve got a waterproof somewhere.”
“Stop.”
It had been a couple of decades since I’d heard my brother speak with such authority. I looked up.
“Go back to bed.”
“I can’t,” I said rattily. “Sometimes burglars trip an alarm to see if the owner shows up. If I don’t get there pronto, I could lose half my stock.”
“Which is why I’ll go. What’s the code?”
“Zach, no.”
“Why not. Don’t you trust me?” His eyes bored into mine. I knew what he was thinking. Someone could have deliberately targeted the shop so that I’d turn up in the dark on my own.
“But what if someone’s there, for fuck’s sake?” I couldn’t bear the thought of him alone in the night, with God knew who. “What if —”
“Keys,” he said, hand out. He burnt with a determination that I found concerning, yet also hard to resist. If it was important for Zach to prove himself, how could I deny him?
“If you’re sure.” I really did feel giddy and unable to drive.
“Positive.”
I handed them over, rattled off the code and gave him instructions about how to disarm the alarm. “You’ll come straight back, yeah?”
“See you in a bit.” He stepped out as the first clap of thunder bellowed long and loud above our heads and spectacular drops of rain fell and bounced off the earth. Embarrassed, I slunk back to bed
*
Wake up, wake up.
At the sound of Scarlet’s voice in my dream, I opened my eyes. I called her name, but she didn’t answer.
A thin blade of pain penetrated deep inside my brain. It was still dark. Howling wind and driving rain battered the Velux above my head. My phone, which I’d left downstairs, was the only thing silent.
I fumbled for the glass of water Zach must have put on my bedside table and took a long deep swallow. Zach, I thought, was he back?
I rubbed at my face, struggled to sit more upright and wished I hadn’t. Nausea returned mob handed. I had a dry mouth, acid stomach and aching bones. Despite the sudden drop in room temperature, I boiled. Didn’t help that I was still in my skirt and top. Every inch of my skin glistened with perspiration, ethanol stewing and leaking out of my pores.
I gaped into the darkness, expecting Scarlet to manifest in ghostly form. Would she appear with broken limbs and a smashed in face, like an extra from a Zombie movie?
One hand flew to my temple; the other pulled the sheet up over my head. Then I remembered Zach and glanced at my watch. “Dammit,” I cursed through an expanse of Egyptian cotton. He’d been gone for over an hour. Where the hell was he?
Panic streaming through me, I sprang out of bed and lurched towards the door. Sly and tricky, the walls of the bedroom winked and shifted. Another bout of sickness threatened to derail me but fear for my brother won out. I slammed my feet into flip-flops and, grabbing my keys and the small torch Lenny had given me, hauled myself downstairs.
My phone was on the work surface in the kitchen, next to the microwave. Swooping it up, I called Zach. No reply. Went straight to his voicemail. I sent him a text and prised open the back door. A great gale of wind slapped me straight across the face. Rolling my collar up, head down, I crossed the garden. By the time I reached the carport, I was soaked through and my hair stuck to my scalp.
Over the limit, I shouldn’t be driving. God help me. In desperation, I closed my ears to good sense and ignored the grumbling complaint of my conscience.
Windscreen wipers at full belt, front and back, the car slalomed down the street, across roads wet and oily from weeks of dry weather. The noisy banging in my heart was only matched by the sound of rain tattooing a beat against the roof of my little car.
The shop emerged out of a blur of streetlights. Several alarms had gone off along the row, although ‘Flotsam’ was obviously closed and curiously quiet. Craning my head, narrowing my eyes against driving wind and intermittent flashes of lightning, I could see no sign of Zach’s camper van. Perhaps, he’d gone home. Vaguely comforted, the pressure in my heart abated.
I parked on double yellow lines and stepped out of the Fiat, straight into a puddle that splashed dirty water up the backs of my legs. Cursing, I let myself into the shop.
There’s something spooky about an empty building at night, even one as familiar as this. Cruel illumination, that made my eyes hurt, told me that Zach had re-set the alarm like I told him to. Nothing was nicked, nothing moved, as far as I could tell.
“Zach,” I cried out. “You there?”
Silence ticking, I was alone. But I couldn’t shake off the thought that something was off.
Fear brewing inside me, I walked nervously through to the back office to check the shop’s computer. It had an in-built camera for viewing each room. Empty space announced it had gone walkabout, which meant the security video was missing. Alarmed, I picked up the phone. Still working. I checked the till, which hadn’t been forced, and went upstairs. To be on the safe side, I liberated a vintage golf iron, a brass headed Hickory shafted putter, lethal if someone jumped me from the shadows.
But nobody did.
I prowled the upper storey, examined glass cabinets stuffed with jewellery and other people’s ancient keepsakes, and then returned downstairs. About to lock up, my mobile rang. Adrenalin dumped its dirty great payload. Combined with a hangover, it almost did for me. Getting a grip, I realised that it was probably Zach informing me he’d gone back to mud and mess.
“Hello?”
The voice at the other end screamed my name so loud I jumped.
“Edie?” I said, in astonishment.
“Thank God you’re there. You’ve got to get to the quarry. Now. Before it’s too late.”
“Edie, you’re not making sense. It’s—” I broke off and stared at my watch. “After two in the morning. What the hell are you on about?”
“Shut up. Shut up. Listen, for God’s sake. It’s Zach.” Her voice was bent out of shape with hysteria.
“What about him?” I ignored the clammy sensation in my stomach.
“He sent me a text.”
“You?” I couldn’t get my head around that. Instantly, my bullshit detector sounded. No, not sounded, clanged. “Why?” I might as well have said I don’t believe you.
“Zach sent it by mistake,” she answered, raging with frustration. “It was meant for Tris. He’s at the quarry. He’s in a real state.”
“Tris is at which quarry?”
“No,” Edie wailed, beside herself. “Zach is at Gullet quarry. I think he’s going to do something stupid. He texted that it was all his fault and he was sorry, although I don’t have a clue what he means.”
Except I did. Oh God. Oh no. “Did you phone him?”
“He’s not picking up.”
“How long ago?” I stuttered.
“I don’t know. Ten minutes, maybe less.”
In one bound I was out of the shop, my phone welded to my ear. “Edie, call the emergency services. I’m on my way. Have you told Tris?”
“I phoned him straightaway. He might get there before you. Shall I come too? I could leave the kids with my folks.”
“No, do exactly as I say and, for God’s sake, hurry.”