At the top of the cliff was a stone wall, and set into it was a faded blue gate with a twisted iron handle. He hesitated for a moment before pushing it open. Inside was a tiny graveyard, belonging to the church at Higher Mariscombe. It looked out across the ocean towards infinity, the grass between the stones rustling in the breeze. For some, it would be too exposed, a cold, harsh resting place. But for others, with its magnificent view, its oneness with the elements, it was the perfect place to be laid to rest. And for visitors, it was the ideal spot to contemplate one’s mortality, with the vastness of the sea and the sky, the gorse-covered cliffs, the mighty rocks beneath and the clouds scudding overhead.
Bruno and Hector wandered amongst the stones, Hector sniffing curiously, Bruno feeling the heavy dread he always did. It was at this point that he hoped he would arrive at the plot in the far right-hand corner and find that the huge granite slab was not there after all, that the whole thing had been a terrible dream. But no, as ever, there it was, standing square and tall and proudly proclaiming the reason for its presence in bold white letters: ‘In loving memory of Joseph Mark Thorne [Joe]. A much loved son and brother. Sadly missed.’
How bald and insufficient those words still seemed.
Bruno stood for a moment, fists clenched. Hector somehow sensed his angst and sat down by his master’s feet, nudging his calf gently with his nose as if to remind him he was there for him. Bruno had been hoping, naively perhaps, that the supposed great healer had done its job, and that this time his despair might have abated. Every time he was confronted by the stone, he was filled with rage and anger, incensed by his impotence. Furious that he couldn’t express how he felt – for even if he could have analysed his feelings, Joe wasn’t there to listen. Two years later, the urge to justify his actions was still as strong as ever.
He touched the stone gently.
‘OK, mate?’ he muttered, feeling foolish, for he knew Joe couldn’t hear. Yet there was a part of him that hoped perhaps he could. It provided him with a crumb of comfort, the infinitesimal chance that Joe knew how much he had cared after all. The wind whipped, making Bruno’s eyes water as he looked out to sea, trying to measure his pain. Was it his imagination, or was the knot in his stomach slightly less sharp than usual? It was three months since he’d last been here – had the suffocating tightness in his chest subsided? He took a shaky breath in and decided that perhaps it had.
And then, of course, felt guilty. He didn’t deserve to recover. He deserved to suffer for the rest of his days. What right did he have for a reprieve, when Joe wasn’t going to get one? Joe, after all, was six foot under, worm fodder, and unless you believed in reincarnation, which Bruno was fairly certain he didn’t, had no hope of a second chance . . .
Growing up in Mariscombe had been idyllic for Bruno. His parents had a small farm, twenty-five acres of rolling fields that butted right up to the cliff’s edge, overlooking Mariscombe one side and the wild Atlantic the other. They had a dairy herd, which gave the air a sweetness, and a flock of sheep. The farm, with its cream Devon longhouse, had been in the Thorne family for generations, and provided a lifestyle more than a living. There might not have been much spare cash, but there was good food aplenty, beautiful surroundings, a social life and, as the area filled up with incomers looking for a new life, they were afforded a certain respect for being genuine locals.
In the seventies, Bruno’s parents made a decision to supplement their meagre income by letting out their fields for camping, which, given the spectacular location, had proved more lucrative and less responsibility than sheep and cows. Initially, all they provided was a single tap for water, but as the site became more and more popular through word of mouth, they gradually improved the facilities. By the eighties, they had converted one of the barns into a washroom, had hook-ups for electricity and had opened a small farm shop selling the very basics. Bruno spent his teens helping out on the site, mowing the fields, keeping the washrooms scrupulously clean, bringing round milk and eggs and fresh bread to each pitch in the morning. He also gave guests surfing lessons – his guarantee was that he could get anybody standing up on a board after half a day, and he generally succeeded. And all the time he built up a rapport with the customers, making sure they booked in for a return visit the following year before they left the site.
By the time Bruno was eighteen, he had a vision. The building of a new dual carriageway linking the North Devon coast to the motorway was imminent. He could see that the caravan site had enormous potential, and they had to strike quickly, before other developments overtook them and grabbed their market share of the tourists who would come down in their hordes once at least an hour was cut off their travelling time from Birmingham or Liverpool or London.
The expansion Bruno had in mind involved a significant sum of money for investment, but he had done his projections. It was a sound business plan. But his father was stubborn. He’d never borrowed any money in his life and he wasn’t going to start now. No matter how many charts and graphs and diagrams Bruno thrust under his nose, outlining the potential for growth and profit, his father steadfastly refused to budge. And Bruno didn’t have any experience or any track record to convince the bank by himself. In the end, he did a deal with his dad. If he could raise the initial sum over the next five years, his dad would hand the business over to him.
Bruno decided that going to university was only going to delay his ability to earn money. So he went off to London, where he invested in a smart suit and a good pair of shoes, and had his mop of wild black curls tamed by a Jermyn Street barber. He looked as stunning suited and booted and clean-shaven as he did stripped to the waist in his board shorts. He soon learned to lose his soft Devon burr and the quaint idiosyncrasies of the local speech. He understood figures: money didn’t frighten him. To him, the world of high finance was no different to working a market stall, there were just more noughts involved. Looking back now at the risks he took, he shuddered. But maybe ignorance was bliss.
By the end of five years, he had enough cash accrued. His London friends had never understood why he chose to live so modestly, why he didn’t have a flash car and a flash pad to go with it, but Bruno hadn’t seen the point in conspicuous spending, preferring to invest wisely and quietly.
His father couldn’t argue with his bank balance and his revised business plan. By now he had seen the light and agreed it was madness to stand still. In the intervening five years he had been approached countless times to sell the site, and had been rather shaken by the sums of money he’d been offered.
Over the next two years, they bought twenty static caravans, built a timber-framed club house and a swimming pool, a children’s adventure playground, a new shower block and toilet facilities, and a designated barbecue and picnic area. Business boomed, for the site was large enough to have extensive facilities yet still retained an air of individuality and, thanks to Bruno’s parents, a sense of being family run – some of the other sites were ruthlessly commercial and suffered from a lack of identity as a result.
Eventually, Bruno had enough money to buy his parents out, keeping his father on as manager. This gave them not only capital but a regular wage, which meant they had enough in the kitty to build themselves a new bungalow on the edge of the village. Living on the site was becoming too much of a hassle for them, so instead the old longhouse was divided up into self-catering apartments. With the business now officially his, Bruno had more than enough equity to borrow and increase his portfolio. In the next five years he added a chip shop and amusement arcade, both of which he immediately leased out. His
pièce de résistance
was purchasing the Mariscombe Hotel. By the time he was twenty-eight, he owned more freeholds than anyone else in the village. Not that he ever advertised this fact. Bruno was the soul of discretion, as were his secretly proud parents. He didn’t come down and swank around. He knew he had to keep his trading job until he’d earned enough money to pay off a substantial amount of the loans that were propping up his deck of cards. By the time he was thirty-two, he had got his borrowings down to thirty per cent of his portfolio, a ratio he felt comfortable with.
It was at this point Bruno felt that the time had come to be more hands on in Mariscombe. The original leases on the arcade and the chip shop were coming to an end and he would have to decide whether to renegotiate or find new tenants. The manageress at the Mariscombe Hotel was leaving to have a baby, and despite her protests that she would return as soon as was humanly possible, Bruno suspected it was unlikely. He left his job on the floor, setting up as an independent financial advisor working from home, with a view to an eventual three-day London, four-day Devon week.
That June, he gave himself some time off to put an offer in on one of the much-coveted Art Deco houses perched on the dunes, appoint a new manager for the hotel and decide what to do with his other interests. It was only then, on spending more time than usual with his family, he realized that his younger brother had turned into something of a tearaway. Joe had been born when Bruno was ten – a late and unexpected arrival, but a most welcome one. Bruno was never jealous. By the time the baby arrived he had his own life – he was at school and had his friends – so he never resented him. By the time Joe was eleven, and starting senior school, Bruno had left home for London. Over the years, his mother had occasionally hinted at Joe’s high spirits and lack of responsibility, but Bruno hadn’t realized to what extent. Privately, he felt that Joe had been spoilt and indulged, never made to toe the line. Perhaps their mother feared an empty nest so much that she had clung on to Joe and made his life too comfortable, with the result that she’d spawned a monster.
Joe hadn’t done particularly well at school. The lure of the beach was too great, and there was little discipline at the community college in Tawcombe where he had ended up. And his parents didn’t push him. Besides, he was too useful on the site. He was good with his hands, was Joe, in more ways than one. At sixteen, his father put him in charge of maintenance – painting and decorating, mowing the fields, doing the little repair jobs that were inevitable with the amount of human traffic that passed through. And the work suited him. He got up early, spending the first four hours of the day working before the sun was too high. He had energy. He could do more in that time than most people achieved in a full day. By midday, he was done, ready for the pub or the beach, depending on the condition of the waves.
He became a familiar sight, in his baggy combat shorts and baseball boots, hair covered with a bandana pirate-style, his stepladder over one shoulder and a pot of paint in the other. He was always whistling, as well he might, for he was blessed with looks that casting directors and model scouts sought the world over. Light brown almond-shaped eyes, with dark lashes and brows. Lethal bone structure. A wide, full mouth, with a wicked smile that showed perfect, even white teeth. His hair was long, tousled, bleached by the sea and the sun. He was slight, but his chest and arms were toned from surfing and working. Even when he was in his scruffiest clothes, his hands smothered in paint, eyes followed him hungrily.
He should have come with a health warning. Girls who knew no better were warned not to fall under his spell, for it would only end in tears. But they never heeded the warning. He was utterly irresistible. For as long as his attentions lasted, his victims seemed to glow from within, radiating happiness, convinced that they would be the one to tame him, because at the time he made them seem so special, like the centre of his universe. But suddenly, without warning, his attention would wander, his eyes would fix on someone else, he would become infatuated. And then he would move on, leaving behind heartbreak and devastation. Yet he couldn’t be criticized, for he never made anyone any promises. He was totally hands up about his inability to maintain a relationship or stay faithful. So there was rarely any sympathy for his victims. They had repeated warnings, not least from Joe himself.
The summer in question, nearly two years ago now, was glorious. The sea shimmered for weeks on end, its metallic surface almost too bright to look at with the naked eye. Mariscombe was a mini paradise, bathed in a permanent golden glow, a slight breeze keeping the temperature from being insufferable. The aura became sensual, sleepy, languid. The air hung heavy with the sweet scent of marijuana – the atmosphere was so chilled that people were smoking openly – and the sound of reggae. Skin turned gold, dark hair became streaked with blond, blond hair turned white. There was a gentle rhythm to the days. Rain seemed impossible: a distant memory from a far-off time.
Joe held court outside the Jolly Roger, the pub just off the main drag in Mariscombe. The landlord had him as well as the sun to thank for his meteoric rise in profits, as legions of girls hung around buying Reef after Reef, waiting for Joe to appear with his surfboard, wetsuit unzipped to the waist. And although no other male stood a chance with Joe around, he was popular with the blokes. They didn’t seem to hold it against him; they were happy enough with his cast-offs. He reigned supreme, with no pretender to the throne.
The only person immune to his charms was Bruno. Mariscombe was small. There was gossip. Rumours. Plenty of people ready to stir things up. It wasn’t long before Bruno was putting together a picture of his younger brother that he found disturbing. It seemed that he was something of a ringleader. There was a spate of impromptu raves on the beach, attracting an undesirable element – cars with booming bass zoomed up and down the hills, litter was left behind, there were camper vans in the car park overnight that disgorged unwashed, unkempt bodies who were off-putting to families pottering down to the beach. This was exactly what Mariscombe didn’t want to become – a playground for decadent youth. Joe seemed to be at the centre of it. And it was generally acknowledged that if you wanted a bit of skunk for the weekend, or a couple of Es, then he was the person to ask.