Kitabı oku: «Remember Me»

Chapter 2

There was no marker on the grave. Not an impressive carved headstone, nor even a crude nailed cross.

Even the swathes of early wildflowers avoided the leafy mound. Ava knelt, ignoring the damp that seeped through her jeans, the icy wisps of April breeze slicing through the quiet woodland. Her comfort was not important. Ellen, in her lonely bed of leaves and soil, could feel nothing now.

The earth was cold and gritty under her palms, and she stirred the faded leaves with the toe of her boot. An overgrown holly branch scraped glossy fingers across the grave, and overhead the larger trees creaked and moaned. The sour smell of winter death and decay fought with the delicate sweetness of the first bluebells.

Fifteen years of self-imposed exile, and she was finally back in Wales, huddled in a thick jacket and oversized boots, crying over her best friend’s grave. Not back home, but just back.

Awkwardly, slowly, she stood, wiping the tears away with her sleeve. It didn’t take long to find the vast, triple-trunked oak, and the gnarled bark still bore the scars. Just their initials and two scrawled words:

‘Cofiwch fi.’

Remember me.

A sudden glimmer of red and gold, lighting the wood with the last rays of a winter sun, softened the path of early darkness. Ava left the grave and headed west, stamping through the twists of dead bramble cables, blowing on her hands to warm them again. As the trees thinned, she found a path winding steeply towards the village.

Ellen’s bungalow had a light in her bedroom window. Her parents would have gone into her room, turned the immaculate bed covers down, laid a flower on her pillow, and turned on her nightlight. Just as they had done every evening since her death, Ava caught herself remembering. Or maybe not. Perhaps they had finally moved on, and all traces of Ellen had been removed. They might even have a lodger in her old bed. Tomorrow, Ava thought grimly, she would have to go and see them. Everything had changed, and she wasn’t back by choice. But since she was here, she needed to make her peace with Ellen and her family. She told herself it was respectful and courteous, but the pain that burned on the inside was conjured from both fear and shame. Trying to make amends, she had always fallen back on cheap promises. If I can just get this grade, solve this case, take out this drug dealer… The list went on and on, and she had only ever done it for two people – her best friend and her son.

She crested the hill, panting slightly from the climb, and then spun around as the noise of someone else stamping through the wood penetrated her thoughts. It was a man, his face in shadow, shoulders hunched under his own bulky jacket. He was moving fast, along the same winding path she had just climbed. As she strained to see, the last of the light disappeared and the raw chill of darkness fell across the woodland.

Common sense told her to call out a greeting, to be adult and begin as she meant to go on. But she was still drifting, jolted out of her usual efficiency, lost in the past – her past and Ellen’s. In her mind, back in the valleys, she was no longer a successful detective working the streets of Los Angeles, but a teenage screw-up returning to the scene of the crime. Returning fifteen years too late. The man was coming swiftly now, his breath twisting smoky clouds into the darkness. As he came close enough for her to make out his face, he looked up, deliberately searching out her gaze. He was smiling.

Ava squared her shoulders, fists clenched and chin up. Still in fighting stance, she walked towards him, determined to gain the upper hand. Two long strides before her boot caught in a tussock of grass. She was down, sprawled like a helpless child, while he laughed. Time spun back, and embarrassment trailed burning tendrils along her spine, flushing her face. Their lives had been hopelessly entwined throughout her childhood. Every new experience, every memory, was filled with his laughter, his energy. Until that last night, when she’d fled towards the bridge, passport and cash stuffed in her jeans pocket, crouched low over the motorbike, praying to every angel in Wales that she would make it to the other side. He belonged to the drug-drenched memories of adolescence, not the gritty reality of her carefully constructed, and very grown-up, world.

‘Hallo, Ava. Remember me?’ Leo Evans was still laughing, still charming. Even in the shadows, he was all carved cheekbones and piercing blue eyes. He ran a gloved hand through his messy crop of dark hair as she climbed slowly to her feet.

‘Don’t be stupid, Leo. I’m not in the mood for games.’ She was not fourteen years old again, and it pissed her off that he was still a good-looking bastard. A successful bastard too, from what she had heard. Embarrassed at her primitive reaction to his appearance, she was snappy and defensive. Her legs were shaky and her stupid heart was pounding far too fast. She licked her dry lips and rubbed a bruised elbow.

‘Well, that’s a welcome. Shame. You used to love them.’ The blue eyes glinted with mischief and two dimples appeared in the stubbly cheeks. The darkness wiped away any signs of ageing, and his face was that of the manipulative, charming boy who shared his sandwiches with her on her first day at school.

‘It really doesn’t bother you, does it?’ Ava indicated the wood below them with a vague wave of her hand. The hand was shaking, a fact which he couldn’t fail to miss, even in the semi-darkness.

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand, ‘Should it? We were stupid kids. It’s over and done with, Ava. I think we’ve all moved on. Who would have thought you’d turn out to be a copper? LAPD no less. I gather you’re Detective Ava Cole, now. And you specialise in narcotics investigations? Narcotics! That is an absolute classic, darling, don’t you think? I also heard you were involved in the John Wayland case last year as well. Triple homicide, wasn’t it? Clever old you.’

So he kept tabs on her. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that, except to take it that he had never outgrown that urge to control everyone, to have power over his friends and enemies alike. Anger bubbled in her chest, but she shrugged with forced nonchalance, ‘Quite. I’m only back because of Stephen, and then I’ll be going home. We don’t have to run into one another, Leo. Paul said you turned your nana’s old place into a holiday home…’

‘Holiday home sounds like a grotty caravan – no offence, darling. I only come back for business, but luckily your visit has coincided with one of my stays in the village.’ He smiled at her, a swift upward look from under his lashes, all charm and sincerity. It was an adult version of his teenage smoulder, and without doubt an important part of his rise to fame.

‘Lucky me.’ God, she really had to stop reverting to pissed-off teenager. She was an adult now. Ava took a deep, steadying breath, and studied her ex-boyfriend as he continued. The strong Welsh accent of his boyhood was now a mere lilt dancing across some of his words, and she knew hers was long gone.

‘I know Paul hasn’t got long, and I know that he might have been a bit brusque when he asked you to come home, but he needs you, Ava. Penny went crazy when they found out he only had a few months to live. I’ve never seen her lose it, but she was crying like he was already gone. She needs you too. I’m sorry you had to come back for this,’ he added gently. To anyone else, he would have been an old friend offering condolences. But to Ava, struggling to knit past and present, the mischief was still there, despite the apparent sincerity of his words.

Ava shrugged. ‘I’m sorry too. But he’s your friend before he’s my ex-husband anyway. Shit happens. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, but the fact that it’s Paul dying of cancer doesn’t make it any worse or any better.’

‘You’ve changed. Not just your accent, and your hair, but something else… you’re a hard woman now, Ava Cole.’

‘I’m impressed you could deduce that after a few minutes, and no, I’m not – I’ve just grown up. I found a way out a long time ago, and now I’m just here to tie up loose ends.’ She could smell his sweat, disturbingly familiar, nudging other memories to the forefront of her mind. Ava deliberately turned her head away and took a gulp of the night air.

He scuffed a boot on the wet grass, staring down as though it was the most interesting thing in the world. ‘Actually, we probably will run into each other. As you say, Paul is still a friend, and I’m filming the new series of my show this month.’ Leo looked up now, a glimmer of a smile tugging at his lips. ‘I’m sure you must know about my show. Unless the weather’s really bad we film up near Cochran Hill. Or at Big Water.’

‘Yeah, I heard about it. Clever old you.’ Big Water was an eerie place – a huge sheet of shining water that concealed a drowned village. The reservoir had flooded the bones of a rural civilisation and in the summer months, it was a magnet for the bored teenagers of Aberdyth and nearby Cadrington.

‘Touché.’ Leo sighed, and took out a packet of cigarettes, seemingly in no hurry to move on.

He didn’t offer one to Ava, and she ignored the tantalising aroma of smoke as it curled into the darkness. She had quit smoking four years ago, and she wasn’t about to start again.

‘Tough Love has the highest ratings of any reality show in the last five years. It is the ultimate blend of sex and survival.’ Leo sounded as if he was reciting a press release or a well-rehearsed publicity line. ‘You really should watch it, Ava. It was inspired by our childhood.’

‘I’m not some investor, or your producer. You don’t have to pitch it to me,’ she snapped. Of course, she had seen Leo’s handsome face on magazine covers, caught him being interviewed on television, and she had even watched an episode of Tough Love, because her friends loved it. But she was damned if she was going to admit that it was a bloody clever concept, and one that had clearly had huge financial rewards for those involved, if the media was to be believed.

Whilst she had been burying her head in studies, graduating second in her class, and then fighting for promotion in the NYPD, Leo had risen to fame on a reality show about Welsh teenagers. His stunning good looks and fiery outbursts had guaranteed his popularity. Unlike many reality stars, though, Leo had built a thriving business empire from simply appearing on TV. ‘Leo, have you been sending me text messages?’

His cigarette end glowed orange in the shadows. ‘I don’t even have your number, Ava. How could I possibly do that?’

‘I just wondered…’ She studied his face for a moment longer. As always, it was impossible to tell when Leo was lying. The whispers that lay below the surface of her mind grew louder for a moment, but she forced them away. ‘I thought Paul might have given it to you. Or Penny?’

‘No. They haven’t really mentioned you in ages – I thought you all communicated strictly by email, and only then when absolutely essential. Just another happy Aberdyth family. Until we knew about Paul, of course.’

The note of sarcasm was so subtle it might have been lost on someone who didn’t know him, but Ava caught it. Happy families. She swung away, abruptly ending their conversation. ‘I need to go.’

He didn’t try to stop her, and she didn’t look around. But she knew he was standing in the shadows, watching her all the way back to the village. It had happened so many times before. Well, this time was different.

The main street was deserted, even so early in the evening, and her boots echoed hollowly on the tarmac. The neat, ugly rows of pebbledash houses were decorated with yellow-lit windows, and the pub doors were flung open despite the cold. The roar of laughter and clink of glasses mingled with luscious scents of fish and chips and roast lamb. Ava’s stomach growled, but she could just imagine the sensation if she marched up to the bar and demanded dinner and a beer. She’d probably get a punch in the face – and she probably deserved one.

Ava pushed on past the lights and the company, turning instead up a dirt track to her left. A few rusty car wrecks decorated the roadside, and she forced her cold, aching legs faster up the hill. She was fit enough, and back home in LA she hiked in the hills, did spin classes and kickboxing. But she’d lost that innate childhood toughness and grit required to tackle the countryside around Aberdyth. That, and the fact she was jetlagged up to her eyeballs, and sick with worry about her imminent first meeting with her now-teenage son.

Despite her good intentions, her mind was flickering back over the events of the past week. Fuck, she couldn’t wait to get back to LA. Here in Wales, the sickly mix of emotions was like a box of dead weights lodged in her heart. Guilt about Ellen, guilt about her son, Stephen. But most of all a nagging fear that by trying to make things right she might tear apart the years of hard work. She would have to tread carefully, but it was far too late to confess to teenage crimes. Too many lives would be irrevocably broken apart, and any precious thread that might remain between her and Stephen would be gone forever. Ava dredged in her pockets and produced her phone. She scrolled down with numb fingers, reaching her folder of photos. Every picture she had managed to scrape from Stephen’s social media sites, every photo she had begged from Paul, was there. Stephen had been told his mother didn’t care about him, and she knew Paul had made her out to be a hard bitch, who cared only for her job.

When she recovered from the trauma of her teenage years, her counsellor had urged her to build bridges with her son. But Paul was having none of it, and resorted to threats that could have ruined her career. Although she never truly believed he would tell the police about Ellen and their drug-addled childhood, it was the final fence he needed to keep her out of Stephen’s life. If someone told you long and hard enough what a crap mother you were, and that you didn’t deserve a child, eventually you believed it. She sighed, flicking back to her emails, looking for the message that had ripped everything apart.

Although she was trudging up the hill in the darkness, instantly she was hundreds of miles away, about to start her night shift in LA.

* * *

‘Dear Ava,

This is a tough thing to write, but Penny feels you need to be told. I’m dying. I expect you are wondering why the hell you should care? Obviously you don’t, but it isn’t all bad news – I will be leaving this earth a bit sooner than I ever thought. The doctors reckon I have two months at the most. Time for you to take on a few responsibilities. Much as I hate to tell you, Penny says our son will need you, and I want her to have some kind of support that doesn’t come from the village, or her uncle. I’m sure you understand that, at least, as you are aware of her situation. Let us know when you will be arriving. I suggest the Birtleys’ for your accommodation.

Paul’

‘Fuck!’ Perching on someone else’s desk, Ava automatically scrolled down to check the rest of her emails, before returning to Paul’s message. He had always written to her in this slightly over-formal, stilted style. It was as though they had never shared a bed, or a life, together. Just like that, her delicately balanced world was being pulled apart.

He was wrong, she did care – about her son and her ex-husband. It was just buried so deep that the love for them had gotten entwined with other memories. Like barbed wire twisted round a baby’s hand.

From the control room she heard the clicking of keyboards, and the repetitive murmur of voices as the emergency dispatchers dealt efficiently with incoming 911 calls, their trained responses smooth and calm. There was a buzz of chatter from the crowd round the coffee machine, and through the open door she could see an elderly cleaner in a blue overall pushing a mop round the reception area.

But even the yells and crashes of the drunks in the cells couldn’t pierce the sudden mist that engulfed her mind. A male voice came from miles away, but the hand on her backside was much too close.

‘Hey, Ava, much as I welcome your cute bum on my desk at any time, I need to get this paperwork, so if you wouldn’t mind, honey…’

Fighting her way back to reality as the cop grinned before snatching up the pile of printed notes and heading back to the conference room, Ava walked over to her own neatly organised desk. She grabbed her now lukewarm coffee and downed it in one gulp. The Los Angeles sun slashed a golden knife blade through the dirty blinds, picking out the empty takeaway cartons, piles of paperwork, blinking computers, and jumbled family photos that cluttered the other desks. Ava had one photograph, framed in white wood, of her with her parents at graduation. No boyfriends or kids watched her as she worked, or distracted her with ‘I love you, please come home’ phone calls. Usually she didn’t mind; this was her and this was the life she had finally chosen. But today, she would have given a lot to get one of those phone calls. Occasionally, in unguarded moments, she would drift off to sleep imagining an email or text from Stephen that began, ‘Dear Mum…’

* * *

The sound of singing snapped her out of her memories. Soft, lilting and slightly disturbing, the voice reached out through the icy air. The track had widened and she was passing the old garage – ‘Mick’s Place’, it had always been called. But now the sign was hanging by one nail, and the petrol pumps were surrounded by a tide of rusty vehicles in various stages of disintegration. The smell of fuel was still strong, and it mingled alarmingly with the smoke from a fire.

Ava paused, straining her eyes in the darkness, peering past the crackling flames. The fire, in an old oil drum, was bright and pure against the sullen winter evening. The warmth reached out to her. The soft chant continued, but whilst she was drawn by the brightness and promise of defrosting her numb hands, she was repelled by the words.

‘From starlight, to flame-bright,

Who will be burning tonight?’

The song floated like smoke dancing on the cold air, and the crunch of boots on gravel stamped out the beat. A few moments later a guitar joined the song, its melancholy thrum adding to the menace of the words.

‘Burning to the death,

Until a last dying breath,

Brings redemption to us all.’

The singer halted abruptly but carried on strumming his guitar. The fire crackled and spattered a handful of glittering sparks onto the dirty concrete of the yard.

‘Oi! You… didn’t you used to be Ava Cole?’

‘I… oh, Christ, it’s Rhodri, isn’t it?’ Close up, his mop of red hair was unmistakable, even if his shadowed, weather-beaten face and slumped shoulders were that of a much older man.

Rhodri stopped playing and set his guitar down. She could see that there were several small animals roasting on a spit over the flames. Or to be more exact they were being burned to charcoal.

‘Your dinner’s burning,’ Ava told him, walking across to his side of the fire. The heat scorched her cheeks, and she stretched icy hands to the blaze.

He spluttered with laughter, ‘That’s not my dinner, love, that’s just a few rabbits from number four. The kids got bored of them.’

‘Right.’ Apparently, Rhodri was a long way from the cheeky, freckle-faced boy she had known at school, or even the wayward flame-haired teenager who would sit playing his guitar next to Big Water. Always on the edge of Leo’s group, he would smile vaguely at them, lost in his music, but good-naturedly taking requests for all the latest hits.

‘They were still alive you know, when I skewered them. I like it when they turn to black, and then tomorrow they’ll be just soft little flakes that blow in the wind.’ His voice was low, husky, and his strongly accented words seemed to hang in the darkness. He could have been an actor on a darkened stage, revelling in the drama, his audience hanging on to every word.

Ava narrowed her eyes, studying his face by the light of the flickering orange flames. Clearly, Rhodri had taken something, and was flying high over the valleys tonight. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time. They had all taken pills back in the day – hell, for a while pills had meant everything – but Rhodri had been more than fond of a smoke. It used to make him mellow, not a murderer of small creatures, though.

‘Don’t try and freak me out, Rhodri, because it never worked. I don’t give a shit if you roast the entire rabbit population of Aberdyth.’

‘I suppose not, but it was always fun trying to play games with you. So why are you back? Because of Paul, I suppose. I heard he asked you to come back, but I never thought you would. Is it strange, being the angel of death riding in to kiss your ex goodbye before he drops down to the fires of hell? Why bother to bring Ava back, when she probably wants to kill you anyway, I told him. Nobody could fight like the two of you, could they?’

‘I’m sure that went down well. I have never wanted to kill Paul, and I certainly haven’t come back to argue with him. Bit of sympathy for a condemned man, Rhodri.’

‘Paul knows I’ve got his back, and I don’t give him all the shit the others do. They carry on with this “I’m sure you’ll pull through” crap. Like Penny, she keeps chirruping on about miracle cancer patients, who just get better and nobody knows why. Well, he won’t. I’ve seen it before and when you’ve got that death sentence you just have to deal with it in any way you can.’

Ava vaguely remembered that Rhodri had a close family member he had lost to cancer when they were at primary school. His aunt, maybe? She didn’t want to probe what was obviously still a painful, bitter memory. He was entitled to his opinions. ‘I’m back because of Stephen, not for Paul. He’s got Penny,’ she corrected.

Rhodri shrugged, reached down and grabbed a bottle of beer from a crate. ‘You never cared about the kid all these years, so why now? You know, you sound like an American. That’s crap, cariad. Your Welsh has all gone. Want a drink, love?’

She barely hesitated, lifting a beer quickly from the crate. ‘Thanks. I always cared about Stephen, I was just screwed up and he was better off without me.’

‘You left him in Aberdyth, love. How is that better? You should’ve taken him with you. Paul was pissed off when you went to America. He thought you’d come back.’

‘I know.’ She was fighting the painful coils of guilt that wormed their way through her chest. Rhodri have never been one to skirt around a subject. Why hadn’t she taken her baby? Because at the time she was blinded by her feelings of inadequacy. At one point she had become sure she would kill her own child, checking him constantly night and day, fussing over formula milk and sterilising bottles over and over again until Paul yelled that she was a crazy cow.

‘You seen Leo yet?’ His glance was sly now.

‘Yes.’

‘You gonna fuck him while you’re here?’ Rhodri screwed up his eyes, peering at her in the firelight, his mouth wet with drink. He dragged a sleeve across his face, waiting for her answer.

Surprised, she lowered the bottle from her own lips. ‘No. Not that it’s any of your business, but Leo and I were over a long time before I married Paul. It’s ancient history.’

He studied her face, eyes knowing, smirking like he knew something she didn’t. ‘Aw don’t get mad, love, I remember the two of you when we were at school. Everyone knew you were Leo’s girl, and he never looked at anyone else. Although Penny and Ellen wouldn’t have said no, would they? Especially Ellen, she was always trying to get with him.’

It was a challenge, and she brushed it neatly aside, sidestepping his words. ‘Is your dad still here?’

‘Died a few years ago.’ Rhodri waved an unsteady hand, allowing himself to be diverted. ‘All this is mine now, love. Mine to burn to a crispy fucking cinder if I want to. You got any pills?’

Clearly Leo was the only one in Aberdyth who kept up with her life. On second thoughts, maybe Rhodri did know about her job, and that was a cutting little reminder of their shared past. ‘I’m not a teenager any more, Rhodri.’ Ava finished her beer and stood up. He started strumming his guitar again. His fingers were gentle and rhythmic on the strings, but he watched her with wild, haunted eyes. His ‘musician look’, she remembered suddenly.

‘See you around.’

‘Nos da, Ava.’

She hesitated at that, drawn into tasting the language again. The moment passed, and she forced herself to ignore it. It was over and done with. Any thread of pleasure at finding an unthreatening, familiar face had vanished, and she was now shivering. The yard, full of the skeletons of dead vehicles, and now this half-recognisable face from her childhood, stirred unwelcome memories. But the darkness of the road, broken only by a few lonely houses, welcomed her like an old friend, and she took a deep breath of the raw, freezing air. How many times had she and Ellen made this journey, giggling hysterically with the after-effects of illicit alcohol, sharing a cigarette, hand in hand? Rhodri’s softly spoken words followed her, whispering on the cold night air.

‘From starlight, to flame-bright,

Who will be burning tonight?’