Dig Two Graves by James Harper (important books to read .txt) 📗

cry of the gulls overhead. It was fresh and clean and invigorating and made him glad to be alive, made him thankful it didn’t carry with it the horrors that it clearly did for her.

She took a deep breath, started talking. He didn’t know if her eyes were open or closed because he wasn’t looking at her. But he knew it was going to be bad from the way it started.

‘I’ve only ever been here once before. My family used to have a big house on the main island. We came out here every summer. That picture in Bella’s wallet that you found of the two of us standing in the water was taken here.’

He pointed downwards at the sand.

‘Not here?’

‘Not this actual spot, no.’

No, he thought to himself, something very different happened where we’re sitting now.

‘It was on South Shore Beach, not far from where we had the house.’ She smiled sadly, a gesture that he guessed marked the end of the good memories. ‘Anyway, until thirty years ago, I’d never been to Dike Bridge. I was born in 1970, the year after the Kennedy incident. You’re not interested in boring political scandals when you’re a kid and then when you get a bit older, you’re more interested in boys. So I’d never actually come to see it until I was twenty. Then somebody said, come on, I’ll take you, show you the exact spot where it happened.’

He didn’t interrupt even though he had a very good idea of who that somebody was. And what had happened. A life ruined. A tragedy equal in every way to the more famous events of 1969 apart from its political ramifications.

She pushed herself to her feet, slapped at the sand sticking to her butt. Then walked down to the water’s edge. He followed her, stood beside her looking out over the ocean as she bared her soul to him.

‘It was a week before I got married that my future father-in-law, Gerald Bloodwell, brought me here. He showed me the bridge, where the car went into the water. Then we carried on walking like today. We stopped at this exact same spot where we were sitting a minute ago . . .’

He didn’t want to hear any more. He wanted to run into the sea, stick his head under the water, pay a dog walker to hold it under, anything so that he didn’t have to listen to the next words she said.

‘That’s where he raped me.’

It took his breath away even though he’d seen it coming from a long way off, felt the crushing weight bearing down on him as the shameful words slipped from her bloodless lips, fouling the freshness of the sea air itself.

He knew why they’d come here today. She’d come to prepare herself for what would follow, forced herself back to the scene of the crime for the first time since it had happened in order to fortify her resolve. He could forgive her for the lies and half-truths, the stories she’d fabricated on her journey to this point of no return.

He was happy to help in any way possible.

And if what she’d already told him wasn’t bad enough, she told him the rest of it.

15

Hiding under the blanket didn’t seem so silly on the return trip back to Edgartown. From there, instead of heading north back the way they’d come to Oak Bluffs, they went due west across the island towards West Tisbury, took a left heading south again on Oyster Pond Road. After three-quarters of a mile she told him to pull off the road into the trees lining it.

Then they waited.

‘I’m sorry I lied to you,’ she said.

‘Don’t worry about it. At least now I understand why Bella reacted as violently as she did. I’m only surprised she didn’t kill him. I would have.’

She put her hand on his knee, squeezed.

‘I think you would have, too.’ Then she cocked her head, buzzed the window down. ‘There he is now.’

He listened, heard the sound of a helicopter in the distance, coming their way.

‘My father sold our beach house not long after it happened,’ she said. ‘Bella had disappeared and although I never told anybody apart from her what had happened, my father knew something was wrong. I always had an excuse for not coming here. So he sold the house. But Gerald Bloodwell didn’t sell his.’ She pointed at a smaller road on the right fifty yards away. ‘His house is down there on the edge of Oyster Pond.’

‘And he’s there now?’

She pointed at the sky, the sound of the approaching helicopter louder now.

‘He will be soon. My son Merritt has been spoiled all his life. He’s had two rich grandfathers fighting over him, trying to buy his love. That’s his latest toy you can hear. It’s a Robinson R22 Mariner. It’s fitted with floats instead of skids so that he can land it on the pond next to Bloodwell’s private jetty.’

‘What did he do to persuade Bloodwell to come here?’

He knew the answer as he asked the question, gave her a stern look. She did her best to look embarrassed.

‘Showed him some photographs. One of them was of a man lying senseless in a toilet stall with his front teeth missing. And another man was half drowned in his pond last night by a notorious contract killer while he was asleep upstairs.’

‘A notorious contract killer?’

She couldn’t keep the smile off her face any longer.

‘Uh-huh. Apparently, my family hired him to kill Bloodwell before Bloodwell’s men killed Bella.’

‘I hope he’s an anonymous contract killer.’

‘Oh yes. Nobody knows his name.’

‘And Merritt was happy to be involved in this?’

‘He was after I told him the truth.’

Suddenly the time for light-hearted banter was over. They’d been joking about killers but there was nothing funny about the implications of why he’d smuggled her onto the island. If they’d wanted to continue with the joke, they might have added that the killer was rumored to be a middle-aged woman.

She got