Amelia remembers that day on the island with that strange, bright-eyed, watchful girl. The comic books, the talk of Star Trek and all the futuristic powers that George was going to harness. And then the old man. The wild-haired, desperate old man on the cliff.
She looks away, her eyes moving slowly around the room, watching the staff carry out their duties. Clearing up.
Not the food and drinks. Not the upturned chairs and the smashed glasses.
Bodies.
James’s head is still turned towards her at an unnatural angle, his eyes wide open. His mouth set forever in a silent scream. She’d thought he was a friend. An ally. He’d been part of this? But then he’d tried to help her? She still doesn’t understand.
Did all these people really die because of her? All because of one stupid mistake she’d made such a long time ago? An accident.
‘Tell me, Anne,’ this madwoman says. ‘Did you think about me much over the years? Because I thought about you. I thought about you all the time. On the days when I had to kneel for hours at a time, with bare knees on rough hessian sacks, repeating the prayers. Begging Father . . . atoning for my sins – I thought about you.’
‘My name is Amelia!’ She shakes her head. ‘But . . . but what are you talking about? What have I got to do with your praying, or your weird bloody father? It was me who pushed that old man . . .’ She pauses, wipes away a tear. ‘But we could have saved him. There was time.’
‘There was no time.’
‘Of course there was! You brought me up that winding path to see your den and to show me the lighthouse over here, but the main path was quicker – I got to the bottom and I ran to the shop, but . . . I was too scared to tell anyone.’
‘It doesn’t matter now anyway,’ Merryn says. ‘I told you about this island, and the lighthouse – and how Father said we shouldn’t come here. The island is cursed, he said. Father was damaged . . . tainted . . . but he wasn’t wrong. If it hadn’t been that man with his broken boat, and if it hadn’t been you – something would’ve happened eventually.’ Her face falls, and she looks almost genuinely sad. ‘I could’ve coped with it all, if you’d stayed my friend. But you ran . . . just like all the other children did. No one wanted to be around me. Not with me living there with Father. Even Jago was bloody useless.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who is Jago?’
Merryn nods towards James’s body. ‘Your best friend there. Bloody useless. When he came to us after his mother died, I thought – at last, company! A little brother. Well, half-brother. But a companion, at least. A partner, maybe. Or at least someone other than just me and Father. But no, none of that. All I got was Jago skulking around, snapping his infernal pictures.’
‘Jago?’
A flash of annoyance at her obtuseness. More than that – rage. But Amelia watches her rein it in. ‘He was there that day, you know,’ Merryn says. ‘Hiding in the bushes. He saw everything – as you’ve just seen, from his memory feed that I spliced with my own. He ran off down the hill back to the village shortly after you did. I’m surprised you didn’t see him. Maybe you did and just didn’t know it.’
‘I still don’t get it,’ Amelia says. ‘Who is Jago?’
Merryn flaps a hand in front of her face. ‘Jago . . . James . . . whatever. He took on the anglicised version of his name when he moved to the mainland. Disappeared down to London. He was no use to me, but then he got himself into a mess and he needed my help. So I helped him . . . and then he was meant to help me today. Help facilitate this little “adventure”. I was hoping he might’ve helped you . . . to stop hiding from everything. Face up to it. Face up to what you’ve done.’ She pauses. ‘If you’d admitted to it all earlier on in the day, I might’ve spared the others, you know.’ She’s grinning now. ‘But it turned out to be quite fun, setting everyone against each other. Pawns. That’s all they were. You’re the queen, Amelia. My queen. You always were.’
Amelia wants to ignore all this. Wants to beg to be taken home. But is there any point? This woman – Merryn or George or The Host, as she likes to call herself – is completely mad. Aren’t all geniuses mad in some way? But this level of mad . . . She sighs. ‘Tell me then. About Father. What did he do to you?’
Merryn shakes her head. ‘I told you the stories. That day. I’m not sure I can tell you them again.’
‘Why not? Because you made them up and you’re not sure you’ll stay consistent?’
Merryn laughs, but there’s no humour in it. ‘I only wish I could forget. Everything he did to me – to us all – it’s imprinted in my brain. Why do you think I’m so fascinated by memory? It’s the most powerful thing. It can be manipulated so easily. To help draw you here, I picked those people based on their profiles, which I had my staff dredge through. They searched keywords, millions of names in thousands of databases. I have access to them all. I watched hours upon endless hours of CCTV feeds, looking for things to use. Why do you think I create things for others? Because then I have them all. I have everything, and I can do what the hell I want with it. You think each social media platform controls its own algorithms? Each search engine? Cookies? All of that is mine. Those paranoids who think that Big Brother is watching them through their machines and their feeds – they’re not wrong. I am watching. I see everything. And believe me, there’s no glory in it. People are disgusting. I make people’s choices for them, since none of them deserve to make their own.’
Amelia says nothing. The woman is a megalomaniac as well as a psychopath. From what she remembers, ‘Father’ was deeply religious and deeply controlling. What Merryn is suffering from is PTSD.
‘All I want to do is stop the memories,’ she says. ‘I thought I’d have to implant false ones via the trackers, but those people you spent the day with – they had plenty of big secrets. Huge suppressed memories. As do you . . .’
‘So why not give me the tracker? You could’ve made this a whole lot simpler for yourself.’
She shakes her head. ‘What would have been the point in that? You’d obviously suppressed your memories of that summer so deeply there was a chance they might never resurface. I needed you to remember it for yourself. I needed you to remember me.’
Amelia swallows and a lump sticks in her throat. This is exactly what she’d thought earlier, in the cave. This is what she’d told James as they’d walked together to the big house. But he’d told her not to tell the others, so she hadn’t – and now they’re dead and it’s all her fault. Everything is her fault.
‘What happened that day . . . it was an accident.’
Merryn slams her hand down on the table and the plates and glasses jump. A couple of them fall over, rolling across the table. ‘It doesn’t matter. That’s not the point! It was something we shared. Something we should’ve dealt with together. I never got over what happened – and you were long gone. I needed you, Anne.’
‘I keep telling you . . . I’m not Anne.’ A glass rolls off the table, smashing on the floor. ‘You’ve got some twisted idea that we were friends. But we were never friends—’