Enough.
No doubt the others think she’s done him in . . . and right now, she wishes she had.
She scrambles up a jutting section of rocks onto the cliff path, heading towards the shingled inlet. She hauls herself up the final few steps, away from the cliff edge. Loose stones skitter across the narrow path, and she slides in closer still, hugging the bank. There are boulders up ahead, and as she heads towards them something moves in the corner of her eye, her peripheral vision just picking it up. Something in the shingled inlet below, washing in with the incoming tide. She stops walking and peers down. It’s either a plastic bag wrapped around seaweed or a dead fish. A big dead fish. A flash of turquoise and a flash of red under the clear water at the shore.
She keeps staring at it, even after she’s realised what it is. She can’t peel her eyes away from it. There’s a heavy feeling deep in her stomach, and her heart starts to beat a little too fast, bringing a wave of nausea as she catches a strong briny smell from the seaweed below, and that strange off scent that comes from slimy algae around rocks. And something else, although it could be her imagination. A coppery tang, with a sour, rotten undertone. Slithering its way in and out of the inlet, until an incoming wave forces it further. And further. And then it is there, washed up on the rocks.
His face swims into her vision. Beautiful eyes, sensual mouth. Desperate for her, ready to drink her up. Strong arms, pinning her down – now slapping weakly at the shoreline.
‘Giles,’ she says. To herself, because the others are still too far behind, and there’s no way Giles can hear her from down there.
‘Giles.’ She says it again. Then she starts to scream.
Summer 2000
George sits in the den alone, sad that Anne has gone. Hopefully she went straight back to her grandparents’ cottage, and she won’t tell – but you never know what someone is going to do. George always tries to be good. To be friendly and kind and do all the chores as requested. But still Father isn’t happy.
Father wasn’t always so bad.
But as he’s got older, and many of his loyal flock have deserted him – too tired of his old ways – he’s become angry.
Disappointed.
‘Why do they choose the word of the Devil over mine?’ he says. ‘Why do they choose to live their unfulfilled, sinful lives?’
Sometimes he takes the bellows from the fire and beats Mother. Sometimes he goes off for days on end, to stay with another of the mothers. Sometimes he forbids the siblings from playing together, leaving them all alone in their own rooms.
Not that most of them are much use. Most of them are weak – it’s too easy to just go along with the rules.
But George doesn’t like the rules.
Sometimes Father tells George that if they aren’t careful, he will row them all over to the island and lock them in the lighthouse with a madman, just like Grand-Father did to Father, all those years ago.
As Father gets older, he becomes more and more like Grand-Father, and everyone is scared now . . . and everyone wants to leave – even if they’ll never admit it. And sometimes some of the mothers whisper together, while washing the clothes or beating the rugs, ‘One of these days he’s going to kill us, you know.’
And George sits quietly, helping with the chores, and thinks: Not if I kill him first.
Amelia
‘Oh God, what now?’ Amelia starts to run and James follows. ‘Lucy, please can you stay with the others?’ she calls over her shoulder.
She can see Tiggy beyond the rocks, but she has no idea why she is screaming. Her heart thumps as she clambers up the rocks, using her hands for balance, then feeling James’s palms on her back, guiding her. She pulls away and climbs faster, her breath coming out in ragged gasps.
Tiggy is standing still, her hands clutching the sides of her head. She’s screaming so loudly Amelia can almost feel the vibrations of the sound in her own chest. Something guttural and terrifying. Something that has made every nerve ending in her body start to tingle.
‘What is it, Tiggy? What’s happened?’ She reaches the cliff path and bolts up the hill, hardly daring to look down at the harsh drop to the inlet. It’s smaller than the bay they’ve just left, and with shingle instead of sand – and a dank smell that makes her want to turn back and get as far away from this place as she can. She keeps Tiggy in her sights, because Tiggy is standing too close to the edge. As she gets closer, a small flurry of stones tumbles off the side of the hill and down the deep drop below. She hears James close behind, the sound of his trainers hitting the loose dirt of the path.
As she reaches her, Tiggy stops screaming. Instead she starts to shake uncontrollably before collapsing to her knees, sending more stones skittering over the side.
James moves past Amelia and throws an arm around Tiggy, pulling her gently back from danger. ‘Tiggy! What—’
Amelia sees it at the same time as James does. There’s no mistaking it’s a body, face down and trapped among the rocks in the inlet. Even from their vantage point high up on the hill, it’s obvious that it’s Giles, his T-shirt ripped across the back, a dark, open wound visible through the billowing fabric.
Is Giles . . . dead?
Tiggy starts to make a high-pitched keening sound as she rocks back and forth on her knees. ‘Oh my God,’ she wails. ‘No! We need to get down there . . .’
James tries to pull her back to the side of the hill. She’s still too close to the edge.
He turns to Amelia, his face ashen. ‘We need to call someone.’
‘I . . . I don’t have my phone. It’s in my bag. On the plane.’ Amelia takes a few careful steps back in the direction she came from, checking on the others. They are halfway up the rocks. Lucy is guiding Brenda by the elbow. Scott is slightly in front, his face pink with exertion. He’s practically on all fours, dragging his bad foot behind him.
She turns back to Tiggy and James. ‘Tiggy, do you have your phone? You said you had Wi-Fi earlier. Can we—’
‘Jesus, Amelia!’ James’s moment of calm has been replaced with panic. ‘Who can we call? We don’t have an emergency contact for this damn place.’
Amelia glances around. ‘There are probably cameras here, right? They can see us. Surely they’ll send help for us now. They can’t leave us like this. They can’t leave Giles—’
‘Aww, hell.’ Scott has made it over the last cluster of rocks and onto the cliff path, and he’s seen it straight away. ‘Is that . . . ?’ He doesn’t bother to finish. Just shakes his head. Then turns away, stretching out an arm and leaning towards the rocks, taking Brenda’s hand to help her make the last push onto the path beside him.
Lucy is right behind her. ‘What’s all the commotion here then?’ She makes the final scramble by herself. ‘Has Tiggy broken a nail?’
Amelia tips her head towards the inlet. ‘We, uh . . .’ She pauses. ‘We found Giles.’
Lucy casts her gaze down to where Amelia is gesturing, holding a hand up to her forehead to block the sun, which has sunk lower now. The day is running away from them faster than they can reach their destination.
‘Oh, shit,’ she says. ‘Now what?’