The Survivors(43)

The words were vague enough to be meaningless but Kieran could read them perfectly. He knows about us.

She was looking at him now. He nodded. Got it.

‘Anyway –’ Olivia’s phone beeped again and she frowned. ‘Oh, for God’s sake. Julian again. I’d better go. It was good seeing you.’

‘You too, Liv.’

With a wave, Olivia turned and walked down the path. Kieran watched until she was out of sight, twelve years ago suddenly feeling both very distant and very near.





Chapter 16


Kieran stopped when he reached the lookout, catching his breath. Audrey squirmed against his chest, irritated. She liked the comforting rhythm of a brisk pace and Kieran had obliged, all the way uphill from the cemetery to the peak of the path. Beyond the cliffs, the tide lay calm under the weak morning sun. Out on the water, the Nautilus Blue was anchored but Kieran could see no movement on board.

So Ash knew about him and Olivia. That was interesting, if only for the fact that he’d never mentioned it. That alone was proof of change as far as Kieran was concerned. The old Ash wouldn’t have had the self-discipline to keep quiet.

Mia knew.

Kieran had told her six months after they’d met, on the night of what would have been Finn’s thirty-first birthday. He’d battled through a frustrating phone call with Verity, where they had spoken for thirty minutes without really saying anything. At least his mum had come to the phone, though, which was more than could be said for Brian. Verity had said he was out. Kieran doubted it. That didn’t sound like Brian. Not on his dead son’s birthday.

Kieran and Mia had been lying in bed and he’d started talking and the whole story had come out.

‘You and Liv,’ she’d said, when he’d finished speaking.

He’d lain there, listening to her breathing and feeling the warmth across the bedsheets.

‘Is it a problem?’ He rolled over and looked at her, already a little afraid of the answer.

‘No.’ He’d gone slack with relief. She was still quiet, though.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah. But –’ Mia turned her face towards him on the pillow. ‘Gabby had guessed.’

‘Really?’

‘I think so. She told me she thought there was something going on between you two. I told her I thought she was wrong.’

‘Does it matter, though?’ Kieran had asked again. ‘It was so long ago. It doesn’t matter, does it?’

‘Not now. Not to me. It’s just – ’ Mia put a hand under her head and stared at the ceiling. ‘I didn’t believe her. So that might have mattered to Gabby.’

Kieran looked back out to sea now, and ran a hand over the wooden safety barrier. It had been put up within a month of the drownings and it was surprising what a difference it had made to the lookout.

The place was as isolated as it had ever been, but the sturdy bench and waist-high railing and the printed plastic information panels made the whole thing feel monitored. It wasn’t, Kieran knew. Sergeant Mallott and Constable Renn had enforced the trespassing fine for just long enough to break the local habit and send teenagers seeking a quiet spot away from the caves and towards the forested hinterland instead. Psychologically, the barrier was a good deterrent. Nothing to see beyond here, it said. Stay on the right side of the line.

It was a complete illusion, though. The trail down to the beach and the caves might be overgrown, but it was still visible. Kieran looked at it, then took a step out. He didn’t even need to climb over the barrier, he simply moved around the edge of the railing, brushed aside an overgrown bush and there he was, at the top of the path.

Audrey began to whine in her sling, twisting her head back and forth and urging him to get moving again. Kieran could hear the surf below and see a thin strip of sand. The caves were hidden from sight.

He had been up to the lookout dozens of times since Finn died, but didn’t often go beyond the boundary. Never when Mia was with him. But every once in a while on his own. When he found himself thinking about that day years earlier when he’d stepped out onto this same track, with The Survivors already deeper than they should have been and storm clouds already gathering on the horizon.

Kieran steadied Audrey with one hand and began to make his way down the path now. He started slowly, but muscle memory quickly took over. As he walked he tried – the way he had a lot over the years – to think about that day differently. There were factors in his defence. He knew that. He could recite them as he walked down this trail he also knew by heart.

He had only been eighteen years old.

The tight bend at the jagged rock.

He hadn’t realised how bad the storm was going to be.

The smooth rock followed by a dip.

No-one had realised how bad the storm was going to be.

The first view of the caves.

He had really liked Olivia and had only wanted to see her.

The final narrow steps as the trail came to an end.

Finn and Toby were experienced enough to make their own decisions on the water.

The sand.

It had been an accident.

None of that mattered, though.

Kieran stood now on that familiar strip of beach. Out on the water, The Survivors were knee-deep. The caves were yawning black holes behind him. Maybe that was why he hadn’t felt anything much at Finn’s grave. Because whatever he told himself, or however many times he said it would be the last time, he always somehow ended up down here. Back in the same place. Where Finn was still dead, and it was still Kieran’s fault.