He needed more time…
Lucas was woken by the sound of his mobile buzzing on the bedside table. Grace had taken herself off to her own bed a couple of hours ago, leaving him to fall asleep with a weird mixture of sexual satisfaction and frustration. Grace “shagging him senseless” as she’d elegantly put it, really had done him the power of good. He didn’t get enough physical release these days. But it had also woken up those repressed feelings about someone he really shouldn’t be thinking of.
That someone had been stretched out next to him in bed — a sensual phantom — when the buzz of his phone had made her evaporate. He stared blearily at the small, bright screen, trying to work out what it meant, getting a call at 3.55am. It was number withheld.
He sat up, suddenly very awake, and answered. Again there was a click and a hiss and… nothing. He decided to stay silent; just wait. It might yet be one of those automated sales calls. The skin began to prickle on his neck and shoulders as he waited for the caller to speak. He heard a sigh. He definitely heard a sigh. He was just about to give in and ask who was there when the call cut off again.
He stared at the screen and then dropped the phone back on his bedside table with a curse. A second later it gave three short burrs and a text arrived. He snatched it up, seeing a number this time, but not one he recognised. Who the hell would be texting him at this hour?
He thumbed it open and then sucked in a sharp breath.
What were you doing at Buntin’s?
He thumbed back: Who is this?
He’d barely sent it before the call came through, the mobile vibrating in his hand as if it was nervous about what it was channelling. He accepted the call, holding the phone slightly away from him.
‘I know you were here. I saw you in the bar,’ said Kate Sparrow.
A surge of adrenaline shot though him and he slammed the mobile to his ear.
‘Oh god,’ he said. ‘Not again.’
‘What do you mean, not again? I’m not the one stalking you!’
‘Nobody’s stalking anybody,’ he said, affronted. ‘Seeing you there was just a weird, freaky, fucking annoying coincidence.’
‘Oh really? I’m meant to believe that?’
‘Believe what you like,’ he said. ‘I had no idea you would be there. I was checking something out for a friend, that’s all.’
‘Lucas… here’s the thing… whenever you show up in my life, someone ends up dead.’
‘I think you’ve got that wrong,’ he said, grabbing a fistful of quilt in a bid to get a grip on his surging pulse. ‘Whenever you show up in my life, someone ends up dead! Do I need to remind you that you were the one who came to me last year? I didn’t ask for any of it. I never applied for a season ticket to Sparrow World!’
There were a few beats of silence, as if she was acknowledging this. ‘Tell me why you were here,’ she said, at length, in a more reasonable tone.
‘I’m working up the road, at the Stokeley Lodge Estate, just over the border into Norfolk,’ he said, settling back against the bedstead and realising, perversely, that he was glad to be talking to her; glad to hear her voice. ‘I’ve been dowsing for the water table so they can decide where best to build some holiday lodges.’
‘OK,’ she said. ‘And..?’
‘There’s girl who works here — her boyfriend killed himself, or so they say, over at the Buntin’s Holiday Village. He was the lifeguard, apparently. He was found dead in the pool last week, with his throat cut.’
There was a moment of silence at the end of the phone, but he felt a pulse of connection. Oh here we go again, some part of him groaned.
‘Go on,’ said Kate.
‘Anyway, she was very upset about it… said she didn’t believe he’d killed himself. She was wearing his shirt and his patterns were still in it. I picked them up. They were telling me she was right to be suspicious… so I got on my bike and let Sid guide me to the spot where this Martin guy had died. I got there, told the guy on the gate I was dropping in to meet a friend, because, seriously, dropping in to check out a suicide location is a bit too Goth for me to carry off at my age.’
She snorted with dry amusement and he felt a wave of warmth; it was back. Their connection was fully back, as if he’d floated through space in a shuttle and just completed a successful dock at the Henry & Sparrow ISS.
‘So… did you pick anything up?’ she asked.
‘I did. I got into the pool complex just before it was locked up for the night. I found the spot, under some fake palm trees, in the shallow bit. I picked up his… his final moments.’
‘And?’ she said, and there was a strangled sound to her voice. He realised at once that she had known the dead man.
‘They weren’t desperation… hopelessness… resignation; the emotions you would expect from someone who wanted to end it all.’
‘What were they?’ she asked, quietly.
‘Agitation… fear… and then shock.’
‘Are you saying he was murdered?’
‘I’m sorry, Kate… I’m getting that he was your friend. But yes… he didn’t end his own life — someone else did.’
She took a long breath. ‘There’s been another murder,’ she said. ‘Another one of our party. Martin was one of seven of us who worked here as Bluecoats seven years ago. We came up to meet him for a reunion weekend… and now there are only five of us left.’
‘Shit,’ murmured Lucas, fear creeping through him. ‘You think someone’s targeting
