But her hand met only air.
Not one of us thought it would end the way it did. The sea – one moment, so alluring in its shimmering glory, and the next, dark, bottomless, and deadly. It was like it had been lying in wait, biding its time. Watching it all, unmoved by our screams.
71
Fen
Fen lurched to the edge of the cliff, falling to her knees. She dug her fingertips into the dusty earth as she stared over the edge.
A dark swathe of unbroken night.
She glared through empty space, which fell away towards the dark lip of the sea.
There was nothing there, only water, air.
Blood roared in her ears. The drag of her own breath.
At her shoulder, Robyn was deathly still. Her legs glowed white in the moonlight. Her face was wiped clean of any expression she could recognise. Winded by shock, Robyn stared back at Fen, eyes wide with terror.
And then she began to scream.
‘Bella!’ Robyn yelled, her voice fierce and heavy, as if she could yank Bella to the surface with a rope of sound.
Her name echoed off the cliff face, lonely and desolate, without an answer.
‘Bella! Bella!’ Robyn screamed, the sounds streaking together, knotted and broken. ‘I can’t see her! I can’t fucking see her! Bella!’
Her hands were moving, fast gestures cutting through the night, feet pacing on the spot, thoughts firing into words. ‘We need to get to her! How high are we? Eighty feet? More? Is it deep? God. Oh, God. We need help. To get help! The police! The coastguard! My phone – it’s in the villa.’
Fen couldn’t process the rush of words. She kept staring into the black water below, desperate to see something. Hear something. She forced herself to take a breath. ‘Run to the villa. Call the police. Then take out the rowing boat. There’s a torch in the lounge cupboard.’
Robyn nodded rapidly.
‘I’ll try and get down to Bella.’
‘How?’
‘That path to the hidden cove – it’s a couple of minutes away. I’ll climb down, swim out.’
‘It’s too dangerous! Even in daylight we—’
‘Go, Robyn! Now!’ Fen yelled, before turning on her heel and sprinting along the cliff edge, dirt loosening beneath her feet.
72
Eleanor
The sea washed against the hull of the rowing boat. The sound was soporific, the warm breeze brushing over Eleanor’s skin, as she drifted and drifted …
Far off in the distance, she heard a voice.
Let it wash away, too, she thought, concentrating on the slow rock of the boat, the sensation of being lulled to sleep.
But the voice was insistent. Shouting.
At the edge of her awareness, she caught the shape of the word. ‘Bella!’
She opened her eyes, looking up at the black sky pricked silver with stars.
A dream?
‘Bella!’ The name was shouted again.
This time, she sat up, head spinning. On the clifftop, she saw the distant outline of a person. Wait, two people. She rubbed her eyes, salt stinging at their edges. Then the people began to separate, move, running in opposite directions.
Dizzied by the strangeness of the night, she looked around, uncertain. Moonlight bathed the sea silver, but her rowing boat drifted in the cliff’s shadow, dark and unseen.
She caught the distant sound of splashing.
Her gaze swung across the water. Was someone out here?
She grabbed the oars, hauling them deep, head turned over her shoulder, searching.
There was more splashing, like something flapping on the surface of the sea. Then a voice. Definitely a voice. ‘Help!’
There! She saw something raised from the water. A hand! A silver bangle caught in the moonlight.
‘I’m coming!’ she called, rowing hard.
Someone was clawing at the surface. Dark hair slicked to a scalp, head scarcely above the waterline, eyes panicked.
‘Bella Rossi.’
‘Help me!’
For a moment, she was unsure: real, or dream? Was this simply an imagined scenario, like the ones she toyed with during sleepless nights, planning all the ways she could make Bella suffer?
Eleanor tightened her grip on the wooden oars, while all around her the sea and night wavered, distorting.
Then there was Bella’s voice again, barely more than a gurgle, pleading for help.
Did Sam beg for his life? she wondered.
Did he gasp for breath?
Huh.
She sat very still as she watched Nurse Rossi slip right beneath the surface.
Eleanor closed her eyes. As the boat rocked gently, her thoughts felt muffled by alcohol.
Strangely, she heard Sam’s voice. It was so warm and familiar, as if he were in the rowing boat, talking to her. She remained still, wanting to catch every word. She waited to hear his casual tone – as if life were only a ride, a bit of a pleasing joke and he was in on it, and if she stuck with him, she would be, too.