Page 43 of Serenity Falls

Lockhart takes a sip of water, dabs at his lips and regards Sadie with a little less bonhomie. ‘Like I said … every town has its ghosts.’

12

By the time we’ve finished eating and Lockhart has settled the bill, it’s late afternoon. We say our goodbyes and walk slowly back home. Home. Still feels weird. On the way, we call into the store for some beer, soft drinks and fresh bread, cheese and ham. I resolve to do a proper grocery shop in the morning.

Once we’re back, Sadie immediately disappears up to her room. She was a little rude at lunch. Unlike her. But I don’t want to make a big deal of it right now. I grab a can of beer and settle outside on a chair by the pool. Jules has finished his clean and in the sun’s mellow glow it’s almost possible to forget that twenty-four hours ago a corpse was floating in it. The aquamarine water looks cool and inviting. But I’m not ready for a swim just yet. Baby steps. Right now, the only liquid I’m interested in is ice-cold and amber.

I take a couple of swigs and ponder on what Lockhart told me about the school’s policy on fiction. I don’t like it, but it’s too soon to start rocking the boat. Maybe once I’m more settled we can revisit exactly how ‘constructive and positive’ my students’ reading material needs to be.

I’m halfway down my second beer when Sadie returns. She’s changed into shorts and a loose vest. She pulls up a chair next to me and pops a can of Diet Coke.

‘How you feeling?’ I ask.

‘Full, tired,’ she says with a yawn.

‘You don’t want any dinner?’

‘Maybe I’ll make a sandwich later.’

There’s a pause, a silence, almost companionable. But I know Sadie. I can sense her body language. She’s gearing up to say something.

‘We didn’t go to the fairground today.’

‘No shit.’

‘We went to the cemetery.’

‘Any particular reason or just your usual teenage morbidity?’

‘Hah … actually, I wanted to look for Davey Junior’s grave.’

‘The little boy who drowned? Why?’

A long pause. Then she takes a piece of folded paper out of her shorts pocket. ‘Okay. So, yesterday I saw this old woman, and she was handing out these leaflets.’

‘When was this?’

‘When you were … you know … with the body, in the pool.’

‘Oh, right.’ I glance at the pool, which glints in the twilight, and quickly take another swig of beer.

Sadie unfolds the piece of paper and hands it to me. I stare at it. Davey Junior. Missing. If you see me, please help.

A chill snakes down my spine. Davey Junior. And there’s something about the photo that’s got me. The yellow T-shirt, shorts, cowboy hat. It looks uncannily like the little kid I spotted near the lake today.

‘Don’t you think it’s weird?’ Sadie says.

I do but I don’t want Sadie to see my unease. ‘Which bit, exactly?’

‘A woman is handing out missing leaflets for a kid that died almost thirty years ago?’

I continue to stare at the photo. ‘Well, I mean, maybe it’s not the same kid. Maybe another kid is missing?’

‘With the same name? And no one mentioned it at lunch today. Surely if a kid was missing people would be talking about it?’

‘Okay. Well, maybe the woman is disturbed or confused. I don’t know.’

There’s a pause, and then Sadie says: ‘There are no flowers on his grave. All the other graves have fresh flowers, but not his.’