27

A tear dribbled down Alex’s cheek as he stared up at the ceiling of the narrow-boat. Unable to sleep, he lay rigid, listening to the sound of Maggie’s soft, rhythmic breathing. Exhausted, yet wired, he had gone to see her as suggested after he had finished his shift at the restaurant. They’d had several drinks up on deck, gazing at the moon and the stars while he tried to explain what was wrong. He told her about the police, about Paul, about Ashleigh Grange and the party. He also told her about finding the girl’s body in the lake. It was more or less the same version he had given the police earlier. She had been warmly sympathetic and reassuring, but however much he wanted to, he couldn’t bring himself to tell her what he had done to the girl. The words just wouldn’t come. What woman would want him after knowing that? It was at the back of his mind as he described what had happened and he had broken down again, just as he had done at the police station. It was all still so vivid. He might as well have been guilty of holding the girl under the water with his bare hands. Maybe he had actually killed her and, if not, he was guilty of something almost as bad.

Maggie had comforted him, anaesthetised him with more alcohol, then taken him downstairs to her bed. For a short while he had managed to blot out the image of the girl, but when he closed his eyes, he saw her again. He remembered the taste of her, the touch, the cold, gritty wateriness of her. The vision stopped him dead in his tracks and he couldn’t go on after that. Maggie had put her arms around him and said that it didn’t matter. He would get over it, she reassured him. Time was a great healer. But he wasn’t so sure.

He heard the strange, rasping bark of a fox somewhere outside in the street. It was pointless trying to force things any longer. Sleep just wouldn’t come. He sat up and carefully swung his legs onto the floor. As he did so, Maggie stirred beside him and he felt her hand reach out and caress the small of his back.

‘Don’t go yet, Alex,’ she said drowsily. ‘Please stay.’

‘I can’t sleep. I need to stretch my legs, but I won’t be long.’

He quickly put on his trousers and shirt, slipped on his shoes and went upstairs. Out on deck, the air was fresh and heavy with damp, permeated with a faint rotting smell from the canal. He shivered and held his breath for a moment, but the taste in his mouth was sour. His glass was where he had left it on the deck beside a large pot of pink geraniums. It was still half full and he picked it up and took a gulp. The ice had melted and the tonic was flat, but the vodka still had a bit of a kick. Everything was quiet. The boats and houses along the canal were dark, curtains and blinds tightly closed. Although the streetlamps were still on, it would be light in another hour or so. Taking his glass, he stepped onto the towpath and walked along until he came to Joe’s boat. He climbed over the police tape strung across the entrance and sat down at the small table where he and Joe had last had a drink. If anybody saw him, he was past caring. He put his feet up on the edge of the boat, jammed his hands in his pockets for warmth and stared unfocused down the line of boats into the distance, as he thought again about what had happened at the lake. He thought back to the conversation he had had there with Joe the other evening, trying to pin down in his mind exactly what Joe had said.

‘Where were you that night?’ he had asked Joe.

‘I was well out of it, don’t you remember?’

Alex nodded. At least that bit was clear. He’d seen him sitting under one of the trees, getting stoned with a couple of mates, although he couldn’t remember who they were.

‘What about Paul and Danny?’

‘Off somewhere shagging for Britain, no doubt,’ Joe had said, with a sideways glance and a little ironic smile. ‘You and I were always crap at pulling. That’s why I hated those effing parties, they made me feel so bloody useless.’

Me too, Alex thought, wondering again if Paul had got lucky with the little first year, although she looked barely out of school. After all those years it was amazing how it still niggled. ‘What about the girl in the lake?’ he had asked Joe. ‘Do you remember her?’

‘No, but then I was pretty wasted.’ Us both, Alex thought. ‘I’ll bet she was with Paul or Danny at some point,’ Joe had said thoughtfully. ‘One of them must have asked her.’

‘But they said they didn’t know her.’

Joe had shaken his head. ‘C’mon Alex. Call me cynical, but sometimes you’re just too bloody naive for words. They couldn’t get enough of the girls, particularly Paul. I told you, it’s an addiction thing. He needs therapy, although he won’t admit it. Anyway, they’d both lie like hell to save their skins.’

‘Whose idea was it to get rid of her? Do you remember?’

‘Good question, Alex. I know it wasn’t me or you. We just listened to the others. I could barely speak, I was so shattered. You didn’t say much either, I remember. You were in a right state, in shock, I guess. You just kept staring at her, as though she’d landed from Mars, and I made you sit down on the grass while the others took a look. I can still hear them bickering about what to do. In the end, maybe it was Tim who took charge and worked things out as he always did. But whoever initially suggested putting her back in the lake, Paul was pretty quick to run with it, like she was something dirty that should be swept quickly under the carpet. He went on and on about his effing uncle not finding out, like that was the worst thing that could happen.’

You were right, Joe, Alex thought, sipping some more of the diluted vodka. Memory was a funny thing and he’d forgotten some of the details until now. God, how he wished Joe was still sitting there with him. Questions multiplied in his head and he felt so alone. How could she have been there that evening and not one of them even noticed her? It was inconceivable. Why had she left her clothes in the boathouse? How had she got into the lake? She was naked, so she must have been swimming, but surely she wouldn’t have gone there alone in the dark. And Tim . . . Where had Tim been? Safely with Milly somewhere, he supposed. The two of them were inseparable.

Try as he might to force them, the answers wouldn’t come and he shook his head. The detective had made him doubt his own recall, such as it was, but at least he had stirred things up. Maybe when everything settled again, the fragments perhaps falling into a new and different pattern, Alex would be able finally to make sense of it all. He was sure he had missed something important that night, something that was probably staring him in the face if only he could see it.

He drained his glass and was still sitting, half nodding off as it all swilled pointlessly around in his head, when he heard someone softly call his name. He looked up and saw Maggie walking along the towpath towards him. She was barefoot, a blue silk dressing gown wrapped around her.

She smiled. ‘I thought I’d find you here. Why don’t you come back to bed? You need some sleep, you know. Don’t think about things now.’

He nodded, then yawned, and suddenly realised how tired he was. He struggled to his feet, but as he tried to climb over the tape, he stumbled. She caught his arm and helped him over.

‘It will all be fine in the morning, you’ll see,’ she said, linking her arm through his and slowly walking him back along the towpath towards her boat.