Page 44 of Someone in the Water
‘We need to go and look for him.’ I push up to standing. The world shifts left and right and I swallow a wave of nausea.
‘No way.’ Izzy shakes her head. ‘We all have work tomorrow, and Jack and Archie are big boys now. They can look after themselves.’
‘But you said that Jack was …’
‘Shut up, Frankie.’ Izzy gives me a warning glare.
‘I’ll help you look,’ Harriet says. ‘Give me a sec to get my torch.’ She pushes on her own bedroom door and disappears for a moment.
‘Have you told Archie what I said about Jack?’ Izzy whispers, her voice low but intense.
‘No, of course not,’ I lie, a tremor building in my spine. ‘I promised I wouldn’t.’
Izzy nods, satisfied, I think.
‘Ready to go?’ Harriet says, emerging from her room. ‘Oh, and I thought you could use a jumper.’
I catch the Helly Hansen hoodie that Harriet throws at me and pull it over my T-shirt. It feels like a hug. ‘Are you coming?’ I ask, turning to Izzy.
‘Of course.’ She unfurls from the floor, and we set off, Harriet leading with her torch. We retrace my steps slowly, with Harriet constantly casting light across the beach, from the sea to the trees. Eventually we reach the indent in the sand where I slept.
‘What now?’ Harriet asks.
‘I still think that Archie’s with Jack somewhere,’ Izzy says. ‘It’s the only thing that makes sense. Otherwise, where’s Jack?’
‘Maybe you’re right,’ I say. Archie was broken after his conversation with Jack, traumatised. But perhaps he was also drunk enough to go looking for him. ‘There’s no footprints in the wet sand, thank God, but can we walk home through the woodland? It’s only up there.’ I gesture towards the black mass at the top of the beach. ‘Just in case he stumbled in there and fell over a tree root or whatever.’
Izzy rolls her eyes, but turns away from the sea, and we walk up the beach to the treeline. Harriet shines her torch into the dark woodland, and the spooky glow reminds me of that terrifying filmThe Blair Witch Project. I take a step closer to Izzy.
We walk through the woodland, close together, heads twisting over shoulders whenever we hear a noise. After ten or fifteen minutes, I start to relax a little. But then something in the trees lights up.
Harriet screams, drops the torch, stumbles backwards, falls on her backside.
My heart booms. What was it? I pick the torch out of the scrub, lift it with quivering fingers. The image stutters and shakes, but not enough to ease the horror of what I’m seeing.
Archie’s limp body. Hanging from a branch by his belt.
Frankie
30th July
I haven’t slept in over twenty-four hours. Have barely eaten. My body feels broken. But how can I possibly sleep now? When every time I close my eyes, I see Archie?
Izzy and Harriet handled everything. Got me back to the accommodation block. Woke up Raphael and Anna. Told Dom. Izzy eventually found Jack in the staffroom, asleep on one of the sofas. He told her that he’d been at a bar in town, hadn’t seen Archie all night. Apparently, he broke down when Izzy told him the news, sobbed on her shoulder. I can’t believe she let him – she’s supposed to hate him and might even know what he did to his family – but maybe the suicide of a loved one transcends all that.
Suicide. That’s what the police said. And it makes sense in a way. Archie was drunk, emotional. He’d just found out something terrible about the man he loved.
But choosing to end his life? He was only twenty-two. He’d just graduated from university. He was funny, kind, thoughtful, clever. A brilliant windsurfer and an even better friend. Wasn’t that enough? Didn’t all that cancel out the one mistake of falling for the wrong guy?
If Izzy knew what drove Archie to it, Jack’s confession yesterday, I bet she wouldn’t have offered her shoulder. But do I tell her the truth? Or has enough harm been done already?
And why didn’t I do more to keep him alive?
I strip off my clothes and pull on a swimsuit. Then I grab a towel and walk out of my room. I head for the sea. The water sports hut has a sign outside –due to unforeseen circumstances, there will be no water sports today– in Anna’s handwriting. While Raphael deals with the police, Anna is in crisis-management mode, working hard to keep the guests happy. I didn’t think she had it in her.
I don’t stop when I reach the shoreline, and soon I’m chest-deep in water. I pick up my feet and let my head drop under. I want the cold water to calm the burning grief inside me, but it has no impact. I reach forward with my arms and start swimming.
Why did I get so drunk? Archie was upset. He needed a friend, someone to look after him. But instead, I took his bottle and drank until I passed out. Of course he would feel abandoned after that. Lonely. The man he loved had just admitted to the attempted murder of his own family, and I’d left Archie to deal with that all by himself.
