3

It was the smell of his own body that drove Adrian from the sofa. He hadn’t the energy to wash in the caravan’s narrow shower cubicle, gripping the side of the sink as he swilled water around his teeth, spat it out. Four cheap toothbrushes hung from a rack bought at the supermarket. The electric toothbrushes had been left behind in the family bathroom in Blackthorn, where tiles started falling from the walls the week he moved his family in. He gagged at the chemical stink of the caravan’s toilet but it was no worse than the stink of his own skin; he hadn’t washed in days. He rubbed a water stain from the mirror, avoiding his reflection. Shame was a bad taste in his mouth, gritty like the sand from the site where they’d left a dozen houses half-built.

Blackthorn Ashes would always be half-built now, until they tore it all down. Their house would be gone, the bedroom with the sea view reduced to rubble. Christie’s room with the cupboards and cabinets Adrian built – rubble. His daughter’s room, earmarked as an office until Agnes came home, the kitchen he’d been so proud of – rubble.

‘No choice,’ that’s what he’d kept repeating to himself, what he muttered now as he dodged his reflection in the caravan’s bathroom. He’d had no choice, none of them had. In the end, it was the police who ordered them to leave everything and go, abandoning Blackthorn Ashes to the gulls and crows, and the investigators who would pick around in search of answers.

‘Could’ve been worse,’ Trevor kept saying. ‘Could’ve been Christie in a body bag like those other kids, like Dearman’s wife could’ve been Ruth.’

Trevor never mentioned Agnes when he was roll-calling their good fortune but he kept roll-calling, wanting Adrian to see the silver lining in six deaths over a single summer.

The sun was out, making the caravan’s walls pop as they shook off last night’s rain. Adrian had listened to the rain all night, its percussion a special sort of torture.

The caravan was temporary, Ruth insisted, they wouldn’t be here for ever. She left each morning in search of work in the scrubby little town they’d intended to avoid when they moved out here. The kids left too (not that Agnes was a kid), leaving him alone, a rat in a trap. He rubbed his thumb at the stubborn water stain, making the mirror squeak. Outside, he could smell the sun heating mud under the duckboards. Indigo Park was built on fudge, as far as he could tell, but not one of the caravans was sliding towards the sea. Between bouts of rain, when the mud dried, it didn’t crack into trenches deep enough to break your feet in. Somewhere, Luke Dearman was shaking his crutches at Adrian, telling him he’d told him so, hoping they hung him out to dry for what he’d done.

All summer, the sun had kept shining, leeching every last useful drop of moisture from the lawns. That’s what Adrian saw when he shut his eyes: sun baking the roofs and roasting gardens, softening tarmac in driveways. Plenty of rain fell during the building of Blackthorn Ashes but by the time the first families moved in, summer was in full force, blazing through every window, setting light to the chrome finishes; better even than the promises or posters, proper paradise sunshine. But then it didn’t stop, didn’t even slack off. Week after week of heat scorching frail new flower beds, paint flaking from everything in scabs. Ruth had closed all the curtains to keep the heat out. If they’d kept the curtains open, they might’ve seen what was happening before it was too late. Barry Mason’s house was next door to Blackthorn. His kids were taken away in body bags. Even the baby, in a body bag. From Maythorn, where Adrian had planted the first brick for luck, the one with Christie’s name on it. Trevor had warned him, ‘Mate, you can’t afford to be sentimental in this game,’ but Adrian had touched the walls for luck and polished the fake diamonds with a sick sort of pride, going from room to room grinning like an idiot.

Rain shook from the caravan’s roof.

He dropped his hand to his side, riding a fresh wave of shame that left him shivering as if from shock. He made himself think of the other families, the lives he might have lived or lost.

If he’d bought Hawthorn, the show house, where the problems didn’t end with falling tiles and ruined lawns, where those were just the beginning of the nightmare.

If Agnes hadn’t come home, with her acute hearing, her hyper-vigilance.

It didn’t bear thinking about. But he forced himself to think, hammering the pictures into his head, the way they’d be in Barry Mason’s head, for ever.

The caravan’s plastic sink pressed into the bony part of his pelvis.

He could’ve lost them, Ruth and the kids. The thought reached into his chest to twist his heart. Agnes had only just come home to them, and he couldn’t look at Christie without thinking of Trevor – ‘Could’ve been Christie in a body bag.’ But his hands shook like his legs because he could have lost them. Still could. They were lucky to have the caravan, he knew. Thanks to Bette Argall’s quick thinking. And it was only temporary, for him anyway, until the police worked their way around to arresting him. That’s what Ruth didn’t understand. She kept saying, ‘When this is over,’ but it had ended back in Blackthorn Ashes, the day they took Barry’s kids away.

Those little body bags. The sound of Janis screaming.

He left the bathroom, walking to the kitchen on legs that buckled as if he were on a boat. Wind rattled the front door. Then the sound changed, coming inside, snaking through the sitting room and kitchen to sit at his feet. He gripped the counter, blinking at the jug where knives were kept, redness pricking his vision.

‘Adrian?’ Ruth. It was Ruth.

He pulled his fingers free of the counter, wiping them on the leg of his trousers. ‘In here.’ It came out as a squawk, the words trapped in his throat, his heart beating everywhere in his chest.

His wife came into the caravan’s kitchen, squall jacket zipped to her chin, car keys in her hand. Her face was small inside the purple hood of the jacket but her eyes were huge as headlights. He swerved his stare from her path, turning to busy himself at the sink.

‘Did you forget something?’

‘Charger. My phone won’t last the morning without it.’

He nodded, running the hot tap into one of the cups Agnes had already cleaned.

‘What’s happened?’ Ruth asked in the carefully neutral voice she used now, the voice you might use if you were carrying a very full basin of water across a carpeted room. Because Adrian was unpredictable, brim-full of emotions which might spill without warning, drown the pair of them.

‘Nothing’s happened.’ He rinsed the cup, stood it to drain. ‘Just slow getting started today.’

‘Didn’t Agnes do the washing-up? I asked her to.’

‘Yes. I’m just clearing up my own mess.’

He winced as he said it, hoping she wouldn’t notice. His weakness made her furious. He didn’t even know why. It was such a small thing, after all the rest. She was quiet now, watching him with her eyes heavy on the back of his neck.

‘Adrian,’ she said finally. ‘Where is Christie, do you know?’

She waited.

‘Do you know where Agnes is, or our son?’

Each word was loaded with accusation. He knew nothing. He was their father and he knew nothing.

‘Because they’re not here. Your children. Do you even know where they are?’