Chapter 5
He walked back along the shoreline, the sudden rush of mental energy burnt out by the run. He never should have come. Jerry—his own private Jerry—belonged inside his skull, as a memory. It was more simple that way. Far better than the complicated, mysterious woman she had become.
He realised now why he was so confused: in almost everything she did he saw the girl he had once known, but in reality she had turned into the kind of person he found it very difficult to like. He could be sympathetic towards her, he could try to understand what it was that made her behave in this way, but he found himself unable to actually like her any more.
As he walked, across sand and hard mud, he decided that he would be up before anyone else and he would go quietly to his car and drive away. He had left a few things at his digs, but nothing he valued. Leave them for old Jim McClennan.
He had his leather jacket, his good running shoes. The open road awaited, no destination in mind. For a few moments he was there in his car, the road falling away behind, and he knew how good it was going to feel. A freedom that most people, with their mortgages and their jobs and their families weighing them down, could never truly experience.
Lanterns burned in both chalets. Nick was going to sleep on a rug in the living area, with Ronnie in his own bedroom and Betsy and Caroline in the other. Jerry was sharing the neighbouring cabin with Trev and Mandy. Nick would be lying within feet of the door onto the deck. It would be easy to slip away at dawn, when he always woke.
"We located some blankets for you," said Betsy, as Nick entered the cabin. "I expect it'll get cold on the floor. Some cushions, too. Jesus H, I wish I wasn't so pissed, Nick. It's been too long."
Caroline came in, from one of the bedrooms, wearing a night-shirt that ended halfway down her pipe-cleaner thighs. She gave Nick one look and said, "Pardon my French, but you look like shit." She was even more drunk than Betsy, Nick realised, with a degree of satisfaction.
Now, her husband narrowed his eyes, leaned towards Nick and said, "She's correct, you know. You okay, Nick? Look like something the cat threw up."
Ronnie appeared in the doorway of his bedroom and glowered at the three of them. "D'you give the bitch one then?" he said. "I saw you going off, holding hands like fucking school kids." There was a hard edge to his words, and Nick wondered if he blamed his presence for spoiling the evening. He was the outsider. He always was.
"That's nobody's business," he said, arranging his bedding neatly on the floor. He didn't want to fight with Ronnie, partly because he knew he would beat him easily and that would be another of his childhood memories shattered: the invincibility of Ronnie Deller. "We went for a walk. She wanted to talk."
"That's why you look so bad, eh?" Betsy had missed the tension, the fight narrowly averted. He was in the mood to tease. "Look," he continued, "you've even got blood on your head."
Nick rubbed at his forehead. "A branch scratched me," he said. "We had a disagreement, that's all. Look, I'm tired. I don't care if you all want to stay up talking, but I'm going to sleep right here on these rugs. Okay?"
~
He didn't manage to sleep. After a few minutes there was a soft rap at the glass doors. Stripped down to his jeans, Nick opened up, letting Mandy Kemp in from the deck.
"Is Jerry here?" she asked. She was wearing a track-suit, and without her make-up she looked like a different woman.
Nick spread his hands. "Not unless she slipped in the back way," he said. "Why's that?"
Mandy looked cross. "She hasn't come in yet," she said. "And we want to lock up before we go to bed. You've got to be safe these days, haven't you?"
Caroline had come back out now. "Not back?" she said. She looked at Nick. "Didn't she come back with you?"
He shook his head. "Like I said: we had a disagreement. Went our separate ways."
"How long ago was that?" asked Caroline.
Nick shrugged. "I didn't time it," he said. "Maybe half an hour or so. I don't know for sure."
"Maybe we'd better look," said Mandy. "You never know who's out there, do you?"
Nick was beginning to get concerned. "She was drunk," he said. "Maybe she's lost."
"She's always drunk or smashed," said Caroline. "But you're right: she was worse than ever tonight. She could be lost. She might have fallen into a ditch somewhere."
"Probably just asleep in a field," said Ronnie, emerging from his room. "Suppose we'd better find her though, hadn't we? Hey, Betsy! Come on out of there you lazy swine!" He hammered on the flimsy door, laughing and cursing.
Nick looked around. Nobody seemed to be in any state to go out searching—they'd probably all get lost, all end up sleeping it off in some ditch or field.
"Mandy," said Caroline. "Go and fetch Trevor. Nick. Tell us when you last saw her. What state was she in? How long ago was it?"
"Along the path to the woods," he said, struggling to focus. "She was laughing ... laughing at me. I ran away, couldn't take it. She was laughing at me."
~
They split up into four search parties, all hollering and waving the lanterns Ronnie had re-lit. Trev and Mandy went east along the shore, Ronnie west towards the mud cliffs where sand martins chattered all summer. Betsy and Caroline took the path into the woods, where Jerry had last been seen, while Nick wandered slowly up the Strand Lane.
Nick didn't know what he was looking for. If she had fallen into a ditch, then he would never spot her. If she was somewhere along the Lane then she could not be lost—the Lane would lead her right back to the Strand, or to the level crossing, in which case she would just have to turn back. Either way he was wasting his time.
"Jerry," he called, every few paces. If she was wandering somewhere nearby in the woods, maybe she would follow the sound of his voice. He suspected she was playing another of her drunken games. The spoilt brat in her hadn't got what she wanted so this was her revenge.
"Jerry, are you there?" He would be out of it tomorrow. Free. He paused in an opening to relieve himself. It looked like this was another parking area, presumably for the summer when the Strand was busier.
"Jerry," he called again, tired, fed up. In the distance he heard the others calling. If she was genuinely lost, then she must hear somebody. Why didn't she call back, at least? He began to think that something had happened to her: she must be asleep, or lying somewhere in a drunken stupor.
And then he heard a scream. It was a harsh cry, suddenly choked off, followed by one or two sobbing sounds.
It had come from the woods, but such a sound could never have come from Jerry. In the time it took him to work that out, he realised that it had been Caroline screaming, and that they must have found Jerry.
He guessed the direction and plunged into the dark woods. There was a track here, or at least a consistent gap through the trees and undergrowth.
He heard voices, now. Betsy's—low, insistent—and then Caroline's sharp reply. "I'm okay, now," she said. "Will you leave me alone?"
"Betsy!" Nick shouted. "Where are you?"
"Here! Over here!"
Nick spotted a flashing light, a lantern being waved from side to side, its light interrupted by the trees. He scrambled through the woods, and a few seconds later he emerged on the path he knew from earlier.
It was close to where Jerry had hugged her tree trunk, close to where they had argued.
Caroline was standing stiff, upright, Betsy resting an awkward hand on her arm.
"What...?"
Betsy withdrew his hand and pointed towards a dark shape, slumped just off the track. Nick took a step forward, crouched. He held his lantern up so that he could see.
The dark shape was Jerry. Her right cheek was pressed into the compacted leafmould of the woodland floor, eyes still open, lips parted. The back of her head was a mess, blood matting her hair, a great dark cavity where she had been struck with something heavy. He looked down her body. Her jeans had been undone, pulled down part of the way to reveal brief white knickers.
Someone came crashing through the undergrowth. Trevor Carr. "We heard the scream," he said, struggling for breath. "Came to the lights."
Then he saw Jerry and fell silent.
A few seconds later Mandy had joined them. "Is she okay?" she asked, a mad, panicking edge to her voice. "Let me see. I know first aid."
Trev tried to hold her back, but she shook him off. She squatted by Jerry, pushed her over onto her back, checked her neck for a pulse and then immediately lowered her face to try resuscitating her.
"Come on, Mandy," said Trev, trying to pull her free. "It's no good. Can't you see? She's dead."
"No," said Mandy, but she stopped trying to revive her. "She can't be."
"Ahoy there!" came a shout from down the path. Ronnie. "What's all the noise then? You found the dumb bitch yet?"
~
"What do we do?" asked somebody, back in Ronnie's chalet.
"Call the police," said Nick. His head was throbbing again, from the alcohol and the madness all around him. "We have to call the police."
"No blowers," said Ronnie. "Unless any of us has a car-phone. Anybody?"
They hadn't.
"We'll have to find one then," said Nick. "Any farms nearby?"
They decided it would be quicker to head for a call box than to try to find their way to a farm in the dark. "Come on, we have to do something," said Nick. "There's a frigging psycho out there. Who's going to the 'phone?"
Nobody seemed interested in going out again into the unknown night. They were all too drunk to keep a car on the road, he realised.
"Look," he said, "I've drunk less than anyone here. I'll go. Where's the nearest 'phone?"
"No," said Ronnie. "It's my place, here. It's my responsibility. I'll do it." He reached into his pocket and produced some keys.
"Don't be stupid," snapped Caroline. "Nick will go. He's right. We'll all stay here and lock the doors and Nick will go."
He didn't understand the look she was giving him until much later, when she pointed him out to DS Cooper. She wanted to lock every door in the chalet, with Nick on one side and her on the other. She was remembering that he had argued with Jerry, that he had come back looking awful, with a graze on his forehead from that damned branch. What else had he said or done?