Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Tabitha Suzuma
Copyright
About the Book
At seventeen, Mathèo Walsh is Britain’s most promising diving champion. He is wealthy, popular – and there’s Lola, the girlfriend of his dreams.
But then there was that weekend. A weekend he cannot bring himself to remember. All he knows is that what happened has changed him.
Mathèo is faced with the most devastating choice of his life. Keep his secret, and put those closest to him in terrible danger. Or confess, and lose Lola for ever . . .
In loving memory of my kind, funny and loyal friend
Camille Lloyd-Davis
28th November 1974 – 29th October 2012
Forever missed . . . Never forgotten
Sins cannot be undone, only forgiven.
Igor Stravinsky
PROLOGUE
He opens his eyes and knows instantly that something is terribly wrong. He senses it through his skin, his nerves, his synapses, even though, spread-eagled on his back, all he can see is the frosted light-fitting on his bedroom ceiling. The room is white, violently bright, and he knows that it is a sunny day and he forgot to close the curtains, just as he knows, from the belt cutting into his side, the denim against his legs, the clammy cotton sticking to his chest, that he slept in his clothes. Arching his foot and finding it weighted down, he lifts his head just high enough to see that he even failed to take off his shoes. And then, slowly, his eyes focus beyond his mud-caked trainers and begin to take in the rest of the room. For a moment he holds his breath, convinced he must still be dreaming. Then, with a gasp of horror, he snaps upright as if from a nightmare.
The walls around him immediately begin to sway, colours bleeding together, fraying at the edges. He screws his eyes tight shut and then opens them again, hoping not just to clear his head but to rid himself of the vision – the chaos of his wrecked bedroom around him. But sunlight is pouring in through the windows, illuminating the anarchy of this usually immaculate space. Fractured furniture, crippled objects, torn clothes and smashed glass are all that remain. The room looks like a scene from a crime show. The breath is wrung from his lungs. Things are beginning to take on a particularly tactile, vivid, saturated look. He puts his hand to his mouth and tears at a hangnail, and then just sits there, stuck like an old vinyl record with no more play.
Beyond the windows, the day is still. The branches of the trees don’t move; the sky is a deep, impossible blue. The sun appears to blaze brighter for a few seconds. He seems to be in some kind of trance, staring around with a kind of guardedness, a horrified fascination. From the wall hangs a brutally twisted picture frame, like something salvaged from a furnace. On his desk, pieces of a smashed mug catch and reflect the late-morning light like scraps of glass adrift in a pool of coffee, the surface shimmering with oily iridescence. Spread out beneath his bookshelves is a tapestry of splayed books, pages ripped from their spines and scattered like leaves. Broken diving trophies, splintered and ragged, lie nearby like the contents of a suitcase lost at sea. There isn’t a single surface or stretch of carpet that isn’t covered with the flotsam and jetsam of the night.
Slowly he slides himself down to the end of the bed and levers himself onto his feet, a time-consuming manoeuvre which requires great orchestration and willpower. His muscles are stiff and sore and unyielding. A sharp scorch of pain rips through his leg – he looks down to find that his jeans have a tear just above the left knee, threads darkened with blood sticking to his skin. Prickles down his arms reveal a multitude of scrapes and scratches. Pain corrodes his body – his head, his neck, all the way down his spine and into the backs of his legs. He focuses on the humming in his skull, the maelstrom in his head. Below him, his body hovers, unattached. Then, all of a sudden, the breath is kicked out of him and he is shoved onto the cold hard concrete floor of his life.
He takes a step forward in the ransacked room. Abject horror slides under his skin, burrowing into his body without asking: his hands are its hands, and its hands are filled with an otherworldly strength. Fear, like a pinball, bounces against his heart, his head, his throat, until finally settling in his gut, hard and cold. His chest churns with unspecified, wretched thoughts. He wants to hurt someone for all the hurt he is feeling right now. He wants something that will knock him flat and keep him there until the world goes away.
His first thought goes to his brother. He wrenches open the bedroom door, skids across the marble landing, and halts in the doorway of the adjacent bedroom, staring at the perfectly made bed, vacuum paths still fresh on the carpet. He continues through to the other rooms, the empty, hollow house seeming suddenly sinister and ghostly, like a mausoleum. But nothing is out of place, everything is in its usual immaculate state. The front door, the back door, the windows – all locked. No sign of anything missing – stolen. No sign of forced entry.
Back in his room it is as if he is looking through a shattered windscreen. His mind is running on several planes at once. Everything he sees seems freighted with significance but he cannot put the pieces together to create a comprehensible whole. His mind races back to the previous night and chases it, failing, scenes stuttering, disappearing. Memories pull and bend, mixing and blending like watercolours on an abstract canvas. He is on a carnival ride, being sucked to the wall, glimpsing faces, colours, lights. His life is disintegrating, bits and pieces of it flying off into the dark. His mind hits the self-preservation button and turns blank, like a ream of unmarked paper. He can remember the diving competition in Brighton, the day before. He can remember leaving the Aquatic Centre after the press conference. But after that, nothing.
He lays out the facts the room has provided him with, side by side, in his head. Nothing of value seems to have been taken; in fact at first glance he can detect nothing missing at all. His desktop, his PlayStation, his laptop – all smashed beyond repair but present all the same, mashed gruesomely into the carpet. Muddy footprints crisscross the floor but, on inspection, perfectly match the soles of his trainers. The windows are locked from the inside.
Slowly, painfully, he begins to pick through the remnants of his belongings. He tries to avoid his reflection in the mirror but finds himself glancing at it periodically even so, like a motorist peeking at the gruesome remains of a roadside accident. Suddenly he can take it no more, and straightens up to face the stranger before him. He barely recognizes himself. Running his fingers through his tangled hair, he watches in stupefaction as twigs and dead leaves fall at his feet. His face is pinched and bleached – violet staining the skin beneath his eyes. There is a cut on his cheek and dark shadow beneath it. The corner of his mouth is encrusted with blood, and what appears to be the beginnings of a bruise blooms purple across his forehead. He looks shocked and thin and insubstantial, his collarbone visible through his cotton sweater, his cuff torn and his jeans streaked with mud.
What the hell happened?
His mind refuses to answer. Silence fills the room, as fragile and intricate as frost; so much silence, refusing to be stirred. His world suddenly appears be
fore him as an unmarked road, with visibility down to almost zero. His headache persists, a heavy pounding that refuses to let go of his temples. Then, abruptly, fear is replaced by rage, fanning through his veins, his own fury seeming to spike the very air around him. What if he suddenly just goes crazy and starts to scream? It scares him because he feels that is exactly what he is about to do – any second now.
He is filled with a deep, black desire to fall to his knees and weep. It’s as if he knows that he will never recover. He senses himself desperately trying to cling to the person he once was, hanging on with both hands while spinning away from the real world.
His life is over . . . His life has just begun.
1
Just one week earlier he was lying in the long grass with his friends. Such a short time ago, but it might as well be a whole lifetime. Another life. He was a different person. One who knew how to laugh, how to crack jokes, how to have fun. He was just an ordinary teenager back then, although he didn’t know it. He thought he was amazing; everyone thought he was amazing. School had just finished for the day and the long weekend beckoned – three whole days of turbulent freedom, off with his coach to the south coast to compete in the National Diving Championships. A-levels were finally behind him, the final weeks of school were just a formality now, and all those painstakingly stacked stale hours of closeted revision had led to this: lying back against the soft, pulpy earth, the grass tickling his ears, staring up at a violently blue expanse of sky, while movement and general conversation buzzed around him – a pleasantly dim hum, like the noise of a badly tuned radio.
Here in the park is where most of the sixth formers hang out during free periods. In the shallow dip between the two hills, far enough from the lake not to be bothered by squawking geese but close enough to see the sequined light dancing off the water. The sun is a pure, transparent gold, stroking the local hangout with light and filling it with delirium. It’s a particularly warm day in June, and today feels like the first proper day of summer – the kind of weather where you can kick off your shoes and enjoy the feel of the soft, cool ground beneath your soles. Where ties are scattered in the grass and blazers are bunched together to prop up heads. Where shirt-sleeves are rolled up, exposing anaemic white arms, and collars flap loose, buttons undone down to the curve of breasts or the tops of bras. Where guys like him with six packs wear their shirts hanging open, or shed them completely to engage in a raucous game of football.
All around, Greystone pupils sit in pairs or in groups: guys with their arms slung proprietarily round their girlfriends’ shoulders, amoeba-like clusters picnicking from pizza boxes or swigging bottles of Coke. A gaggle of girls is drawing on each other’s bare arms with thick black felt-tips – hearts, messages, cartoons with speech bubbles. Someone has organized a piggy-back race: girls clambering onto guys’ backs, shrieks echoing through the park as they wobble precariously or go tumbling into the grass. The sun, approving their languor, is making its way lazily down the sky, in no hurry to end the day. He can almost taste the freedom and release in the air – summer, like an infection, spreading across the park.
‘Are you playing, Matt?’
Mathéo considers for a moment, then decides to let them wait, his eyes squinting in the needling brightness of the sun.
‘Matt?’ Hugo sounds irritated and prods him with his foot. ‘We need you on our team.’
‘I think he’s asleep,’ he hears Isabel say, and realizes his eyes are half closed against the blinding white light, amorphous silhouettes blurring and fading around him. ‘As I was saying, my parents are away that weekend,’ she continues eagerly, ‘so we can all come home after the Leavers’ Ball and have our own party—’
‘He’s faking!’ Hugo’s voice cuts through. ‘Lola, will you tell your lazy sod of a boyfriend to get up?’
Whispers. A muffled giggle. Mathéo presses his lids tightly closed as he becomes aware of Lola shuffling over towards him on her knees.
Trying desperately to relax, he inhales deeply, fighting to keep his lips from twitching upwards. Her breath is on his cheek – what the hell is she up to this time? He tenses his muscles, ordering them not to move. Her theatrical snort cues the sound of laughter exploding from all around him. Something tickles his nostrils. A blade of grass? He bites down on his tongue, his chest tightening, lungs contracting, threatening to explode. The feathery wisp brushes back and forth.
‘Maybe he really is asleep,’ Isabel says again, clearly keen to turn the conversation back to her end-of-year party. ‘So I was thinking we should have the barbecue by the pool—’
‘He moved!’ Hugo declares triumphantly.
Silence. Hugo is imagining things. Then Isabel’s voice: ‘Lola, what are you doing?’
Mathéo braces himself and is suddenly aware of an intense itch – a blade of grass, up one of his nostrils. His eyes fly open and he rolls over to sneeze violently into the grass. ‘You! That’s not even funny!’ He kicks out at her but she dodges his bare feet with ease.
‘I respectfully disagree! Missed. Missed again. Your flies are undone, Walsh.’
Mathéo jack-knifes up. ‘Liar!’ His attempt to grab Lola fails spectacularly as she bounds lithely to her feet and runs over to the muddy edge of the water. Grabbing a long, sturdy stick, he follows her, the grass prickly against his soles, determined to get his revenge. Lola backs away, giggling, as he advances menacingly, stick held out like a sabre. Hugo joins them at the lip of the pool as, ducking his fencing moves, Lola splashes into the turbid water, luring them in.
‘Push her over! Push her over!’ Hugo urges him, his voice rising with glee as he scrambles in the grass for a weapon of his own.
‘Isabel, get over here, I’m outnumbered!’ Lola implores as they both start prodding her with sticks.
Isabel jogs over reluctantly, collar flapping open, sunglasses crowning her head. ‘Guys, I thought we were going to finish planning the—’
But she doesn’t get a chance to continue as Hugo runs up behind her and gives her a good shove, which almost sends her tumbling in.
‘Bastard!’ Isabel spins round, splashing water all over his school uniform.
Soon, the four of them are wrestling at the water’s edge. Mathéo grabs Lola round the waist and lifts her up, swinging her towards the murky depths. Her screams turn heads and draw amused looks and envious stares from pupils close by, but as one of the most revered cliques at school they are used to it, even play up to it slightly: the higher their pitch, the more they feel they are enjoying themselves. The four of them have been friends for nearly two years now. It started out with just Mathéo and Hugo, best friends since starting secondary school. Then, two years ago, Hugo started dating Isabel; six weeks after that Mathéo hooked up with Lola.
Hugo has always been the embodiment of the archetypal private school alpha male, a young Prince Harry: closely cropped ginger hair, rosy skin, a compact, muscular build. Captain of the rugby team, vice-captain of the cricket team, keen rower – obsequiously British to a fault. At times he can be a bit of a narcissist, delighted by the sound of his own voice and the humour of his own jokes, but still manages to exude the smooth charm and make the kind of flirtatious overtures that girls find hard to resist. Isabel has an elongated feline grace about her, abundant dark hair, playful eyes and a classical refinement to her porcelain features.
Mathéo, like Hugo, has always taken for granted that he should be part of the elite clique. Taken for granted the other guys’ looks of envy whenever he slung his arm casually over Lola’s shoulders as they walked the school corridors or high-fived Hugo after some spectacular sporting win. At times he even feels smug for constantly having beautiful Lola by his side, thrives on Hugo’s pranks and dirty jokes, basks in the cacophonous, cosy comfort of all four of them giggling and laughing at others, satisfied in their insular, privileged existence.
‘Lola, come here, I want to show you something!’ Mathéo reaches out to Lola from where he stands, ankle deep in green weed,
trousers sopping from the knee down.
She flashes him a look. ‘You really think I’m that gullible?’
He stares intently at something down in the brown water. ‘Oh, cute, a baby frog . . .’
She inches towards him to get a closer look – and suddenly he has her by the arm and is yanking her through wet leaves and muck. She squeals and clings to him, about to topple over, their feet slowly sinking into the soft mud. Hugo splashes over and tries to grab Lola’s legs while Isabel watches in hysterics from the safety of the shore. Suddenly finding herself horizontally suspended in mid-air, Hugo gripping her ankles and Mathéo hooking his hands beneath her arms, Lola begins to panic, and on the third swing screams in anticipation of the inevitable launch into the water. But Isabel has come to her rescue, dragging Hugo backwards, and suddenly everyone is flailing about in the mud and the wet, yells and shrieks piercing the somnolence of the afternoon.
Brushing the tousled hair back from his face and rolling up the clammy sleeves of his drenched shirt, Mathéo climbs the bank. He sits down in the shade of a large tree, its long branches heavy with thick green leaves, creating shadows across his body, dancing to the trilling of birds’ joyous disharmonies. Leaning back on his hands and stretching out his mud-streaked legs, he looks back at the others tussling at the pond’s rim, splashing and screaming and laughing, their voices echoing in the trees. But mostly he watches Lola, her long brown hair glinting in the sun.
It’s hard to believe that it was nearly two years ago that he met her. Here, in this park, after the first day of the new school year. Hugo and Isabel were locked in a friendly argument about the merits of Dexter versus Homeland – a conversation that as usual he had no part in, his intensive training rarely giving him a chance to watch TV. As he leaned comfortably back on his hands, blinking rapidly while his eyes slowly grew accustomed to the sun hanging low in the sky and casting a golden glow across the grass, he allowed his gaze to travel casually across the few remaining clusters of pupils, past the game of Frisbee and beyond, to the grassy slope. And there she was, sitting slightly apart from the other pupils, close to the foot of the hill. Her head was turned away, legs pulled up, arms resting on her knees, torso limp as she gazed at an indefinable point on the horizon.