How to Fall (18 page)

‘
If
she was killed.’

‘That’s what you believe, though, isn’t it?’

‘And what do you believe?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘No one knows anything. But I do know that I’ve learned a lot just by hanging around up here.’

‘Stubborn.’

‘Determined,’ I countered. ‘I’m going to find out the truth.’

‘And you have every confidence in your abilities,’ Will said sarcastically, and somehow I couldn’t lie to him.

‘If you really want to know the truth, I don’t have a clue.’

He raised his eyebrows, looking amused more than angry. ‘Really?’

‘I’m just getting more and more confused.’ I laughed. ‘I need to get all my suspects to come up here and explain themselves.’

‘You’ve got as far as having suspects? That’s a start. Who’s on the list?’

‘Natasha, with or without her friends.’ I was thinking about Coco’s pallor, and her fear. ‘Darcy’s not off the hook. Ryan, obviously. Then there’s the guy Ryan said she said she liked, if I knew who he was. And—’ I broke off.

‘Go on.’

There was no way out of it. I took a deep breath. ‘Well, since you ask . . . there’s you.’

11

AS SOON AS
I’d said it I regretted it; I’d have taken the words back if I could. But it was the truth. I risked a look at Suspect Number Six, who didn’t look remotely perturbed.

‘I thought so.’

‘Is that it? That’s all you’ve got to say?’

Will shrugged. ‘What should I say?’

‘What about trying to persuade me I’m wrong?’ I pulled my feet up onto the bench and turned to face him, my arms wrapped around my knees. ‘What about asking me why I put you on the list in the first place?’

‘Actually, I
would
like to know.’ He wouldn’t meet my eyes, staring at a completely uninteresting bit of ground instead.

‘You’re obviously feeling guilty about something to do with Freya – you said so yourself. And you were
close
to her at one time.’ I was getting into potentially awkward territory but I carried on, focused on finding out what had happened between them. ‘You could have been jealous of her and Ryan, or her and the mystery boyfriend. If it wasn’t you.’

‘Not me. I suppose it’s possible I might have been jealous.’ From Will’s tone of voice the idea amused him and I couldn’t tell why.

‘You got shut out, didn’t you? That’s why you stopped coming to the house. You couldn’t be around her any more.’

He slid down with his back against the bench, his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He looked completely relaxed, and only the rapid rhythm he was tapping with one foot told me he was in any way bothered by the turn our conversation had taken.

‘I did stop coming to Sandhayes before Freya died, and it
was
to do with her. But it wasn’t that she’d turned me down.’

‘Let me guess. It was the other way round.’

He glanced at me. ‘You wouldn’t believe that?’

‘No. I would. I mean – obviously. Of course.’ Of course he was handsome enough to have anyone fall for him, and from a height. And the emotional damage would be roughly similar to what would happen to your body if you stepped off the cliff, I thought.

‘I don’t like talking about it because Freya’s not here to tell her side of the story and my side sounds—’ Will broke off and shook his head.

‘I’ll give you a pass on being big-headed, if you like. Just tell me what she said and what you said.’

‘No.’

I raised my eyebrows.

‘Not in detail, anyway,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to betray her trust.’

‘I get the picture. You’re a gentleman. That’s fair enough.’ But it wasn’t enough to make me drop the subject. ‘Paraphrase it.’

He took a deep breath. ‘Right. Well, a few months before she died, Freya made it clear to me that she liked me.’

‘She told you?’

‘Not in so many words. And I’m not going into detail about it.’

And if I pushed him, he would leave. ‘What happened next?’

‘I . . . didn’t feel the same way.’

‘Did you tell her that?’

‘Of course.’

‘Was she upset?’

‘Yes. Initially. And a bit embarrassed, even though I didn’t think she should mind. It didn’t really change
things
between us, as far as I was concerned.’

‘Come off it. You must know it doesn’t work that way. Once something like that is out in the open, you can’t ignore it.’

Will raised his eyebrows. ‘Speaking from personal experience?’

‘Speaking realistically.’

‘Well, I disagree. I don’t think it would have made a difference. It didn’t bother me that she liked me – I was flattered, if anything. I just didn’t feel the same way. She was more like a sister than a potential girlfriend.’

I winced. ‘Did you say that to her?’

‘Might have.’

‘Ouch.’

‘It was true.’ He sounded defensive for the first time.

‘Yeah, but it’s not exactly good news if you like someone. A lot, presumably, or she wouldn’t have risked the humiliation of being turned down.’

‘I didn’t take it lightly. I just couldn’t pretend I felt the same way. And it was kinder to tell her that, I thought, so everyone knew where they stood.’

‘Sometimes people don’t want to know where they stand, though. Living in hope is a lot less brutal than knowing you don’t have a chance.’

‘Again, personal experience?’

‘None of your business,’ I said firmly.

‘Yeah, well, being honest didn’t work out as I’d planned, so maybe you’re right.’

‘Presumably that’s when you stopped going round to the house.’

‘Nope. Though maybe I should have.’ Will saw the look of surprise on my face. ‘It was a bit awkward at first, but Freya was more upset about that than she was about me turning her down. She said her mum would never forgive her if she was responsible for pushing me out.’

‘Tilly has basically adopted you, hasn’t she? Why is that?’

He shook his head. ‘That’s another conversation.’

‘The man of mystery strikes again. You see why you ended up on the list of suspects? You never give me a straight answer.’

‘I’m not going to tell you about it now because it’s got nothing to do with Freya and I don’t want to get sidetracked. As for straight answers, I’m being honest with you, I promise.’ His eyes were steady and I looked away before he did.

‘Get back to Freya, then. You did stay away, so something else must have happened.’

‘It was a couple of weeks before she died. Freya
asked
me if I was the one who’d been sending her messages – the mystery man you’re trying to track down too. Freya didn’t know who it was either. At least, not at first. But she didn’t spend too much time thinking about it because she assumed it was me.’

‘Why did she think that?’

‘I don’t know. The things he said and the way he said them, according to her. I thought at the time it was just that she read what he sent her as if it had come from me because she still hoped we might get together.’

I didn’t say anything – too busy considering what he’d said – and he shifted uneasily beside me.

‘I knew I was going to end up sounding like an arrogant twat.’

‘Don’t be silly. You’re just telling me what happened. If that’s the truth of it, that’s what you’ve got to say. She still liked you and the messages made her think you were starting to feel the same way.’

‘I had to tell her again that I didn’t fancy her, which was worse than the first time – weird, that, because you’d have thought it would be easier second time round.’

‘Oh no,’ I said seriously. ‘Much worse. You can’t let someone down gently twice in a row. It’s kicking her when she’s down but you’re wearing steel-capped
boots
. And you stepped in dog dirt just before you started kicking.’

‘That’s more or less how it felt.’

‘Why wouldn’t you just have told her you’d changed your mind? Why would you bother with anonymous messages?’

‘No idea. Maybe she thought I was shy.’

‘Yeah, but you’re not.’

‘I don’t know . . .’ Will said slowly. ‘It’s difficult, sometimes – getting up the nerve to tell someone how you feel about them. Especially if you’re not sure what they’ll say.’

‘But you knew she liked you.’

‘I wouldn’t have been worried about telling Freya, if I’d liked her. It would be different with . . . someone else.’

I blushed, aware that he was looking at me. It was very quiet up there on the headland, apart from the birds singing in the trees behind us and the waves rushing against the rocks below. Quiet enough that I could hear my heart thumping. Had he almost said ‘you’ before he broke off?
Wishful thinking
, I told myself firmly, and struggled to find something intelligent to say.

‘So you’re saying it definitely wasn’t you because you wouldn’t have made a production out of telling her you liked her.’

‘Got it in one.’

‘And the reason you couldn’t go to Sandhayes any more was because you were too embarrassed.’

‘No, the reason I couldn’t go to Sandhayes any more was because I wasn’t welcome.’

‘After turning her down again?’

‘After I put my foot in it.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I told her not to waste her time with someone who wasn’t willing to tell her who they were.’

‘Sensible,’ I observed.

‘You might think that. Freya didn’t.’ Will looked grim. ‘She thought I was being condescending.
Patronizing
was the word she used, actually.’

‘I can sort of see where she was coming from. I wouldn’t have enjoyed being warned I was in danger of making a fool of myself.’

‘Yes, but she wasn’t like you. She didn’t have a cynical bone in her body.’

‘Whereas I’m a registered card-carrying sceptic.’

‘Exactly. She needed to be told. You’d have had more sense. You’d have been entitled to be peeved about getting a warning from me.’

‘Move on,’ I ordered. ‘Less about me. More about Freya. What did she tell you about the mystery boy?’

‘Just that she’d had messages from him.’

‘Messages? As in emails or texts or what?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t see them.’

‘What did he say in them?’

‘I don’t know exactly. It was someone who knew her, she said. Someone who saw her regularly, because he mentioned things that had happened that he wouldn’t have known about otherwise. She said he said he was in love with her and he was just waiting for the right moment to tell her. She said he was articulate and intelligent.’

‘And like you.’

‘Supposedly.’

‘So she wasn’t impressed with your warning and . . . what? You had a fight?’

‘She told me to stay away from her and the house so the guy, whoever he was, wouldn’t be put off.’

‘In spite of Tilly.’

‘She was too cross with me to care about what her mum thought.’

‘And you just did what she asked?’

‘I didn’t know what else to do.’ Will looked troubled. ‘The thing is, I had the feeling something was off with this person who was sending her messages. It was too perfect. The only reason he had for not talking to her face to face was that it was
complicated
, apparently, and that made me think something weird was going on.’

‘Did you try to work out who it was who was contacting her? There can’t have been that many possible candidates, and everyone seems to know everyone else in this place so you could have narrowed it down quite easily.’

‘No.’ He was looking uneasy again. ‘It was none of my business, as Freya made very clear. Besides, I know this is going to sound mean, but I couldn’t shake the idea that she was making it all up as a way of making me jealous.’

I sat back, surprised. ‘Was she like that?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe not. Don’t say anything about it to Tilly. Or Hugo. They’d hate to think she’d have done anything like that. Especially given how it turned out.’

‘So what makes you say that she might have?’

‘Because whoever he was, the guy never made an appearance. Not before she died, and not after. If he existed, he kept his grief to himself.’

‘Didn’t Freya meet him?’

‘I wouldn’t know. You could ask Darcy, I suppose.’ Will sounded deeply unenthusiastic.

‘I might do that. If she knows, she’ll tell me.’

‘You sound very confident about that.’

‘She’s incapable of keeping a secret. The girl talks and talks.’

‘Doesn’t mean she’s telling you the truth.’

‘Honestly, you should really get to know her better. She’s not as bad as you seem to think she is.’

‘She’s a herd animal. Everything she does is motivated by the desire to fit in. Even if she was willing to get to know me, I wouldn’t bother.’ Will got up and walked a few paces away, suddenly restless. Over his shoulder he said, ‘You know she wouldn’t talk to me anyway. Not in public, like this.’

‘Because there are so many people to see us sitting here.’

‘You wait. You’ll be surprised. Everyone down there will know about it by sunset.’

‘Know about what? We’re just talking.’

‘Yeah. That’ll do.’

‘God. Not enough happens around here if that counts as news.’

Will turned round to face me, his hands buried in his pockets. ‘Well, first of all, you’re involved and you’re interesting on two counts: your mum is a local but you’re new in town. Then there’s the fact that you’re talking to me. No one talks to me.’ He said it without self-pity but the sadness of it cut me to the bone.

‘Because of your dad’s job.’

‘Who told you that? Darcy?’

I nodded.

‘It’s a bit because of that. And a bit because of other things.’

‘Darcy was vague on the details too.’

‘You were asking for the details and you’re being rude about what passes for news around here?’

‘I was interested,’ I said, willing myself not to look embarrassed. ‘And I still am. What did you do?’

‘Originally?’ He sighed. ‘It was a long time ago.’

‘But no one’s willing to forget about it so it must have been a big deal.’

‘Yeah. You’re going to be disappointed.’ Will stretched, then came back to sit down again. This time he sat on the back of the bench with his feet on the seat. I turned round and tucked my legs under me, looking up at him. Yes, he was incredibly handsome from that angle too. What a surprise. I made myself focus on what he was saying. ‘It’s one of those things that’s been turned into a big scandal but it wasn’t, really. And now it’s just a rule.
Don’t talk to Will Henderson because he can’t be trusted
. I bet no one remembers the details, not just Darcy.’