Witch(16)

“I know you’re tearing yourself up inside over what happened, but it was an accident, Sydney. Take a couple of weeks off from work – get a different perspective on things and you’ll feel better for it, I promise.”

“I’m not due any leave until...” I started.

“I’m not just your father, I’m your sergeant, and I’m telling you to take some time off,” he said. “Get your bearings, clear your head, and come back when all of this has died down.”

“Okay,” I said, wondering if I couldn’t book myself a cheap flight and go visit with my mother in Spain. Then again, the last time I’d visited, I felt as if I were just in the way. Julio had those smarmy-looking friends who hung about all the time, leering at the English girls. They made my flesh crawl. Maybe I would just stay at home, read a few books, go walking along the shore. I could find plenty to do if I really thought about it. Maybe go and max out the credit card in Penzance? That would be reckless – but fun. There was nothing like a good bit of retail therapy.

Taking his hand from my shoulder and heading for the door, my father looked back at me and said, “If I were you, I’d keep away from work. You know what some of them can be like – real gossips. Anything you say will only get bent all out of shape, and we need to keep our stories straight. The less you say about this to anyone, the better. I’ll keep out of your way, too, until you get yourself sorted out. Give me a call when you feel like coming back.”

He opened the door, and just as he was about to disappear, I said, “Thanks, dad.”

He looked back at me. “Just keep a low profile for the next week or two until this whole thing blows over.”

“Okay,” I said.

“And promise me, no more screw-ups.”

“I promise,” I whispered as he shut the door, leaving me alone in my apartment.





Chapter Eight



I drank straight from the bottle of milk in the fridge. Wiping away the white moustache from my upper lip, I went back into the living room in search of my iPod. I’d decided to go for a walk along the beach. I found the whole exercise thing easier if I was listening to music. The scenery nearby was beautiful, but perhaps I didn’t appreciate it as much as I should. I’d grown accustomed to it over the years. It was wasted on me, I guess, not like the visitors who came from the overcrowded cities in the summer months. They acted as if they’d never seen a freaking hill, the sea, or sand before. Perhaps they hadn’t.

After searching beneath the pillows on the sofa and in the armchairs, I checked my bedroom but couldn’t find my iPod anywhere. I’d have to go for a walk without it. The morning was moving closer to lunchtime, and I wanted to get some fresh air before I spent the afternoon curled up on the sofa reading the rest of my book called Blood, Bullets and Blue Stratos by Tom Graham, which I recently downloaded to my iPad Mini. I hoped that it would take my mind off recent events. I had frozen pizza in the freezer, which I could cook for my dinner. There was a couple of bottles of red wine, too, somewhere.

I put on a pair of jeans, a coat, and a pair of boots. I left my apartment and made the short walk down to the shore. The beach was empty, apart from a couple of dog-walkers way off in the distance. I turned my back on them and began walking in the opposite direction, towards the massive black cliffs which loomed in the distance like giant ogres. Waves crashed up the beach, then retreated again. The sea was a dark green and looked uninviting. Pieces of dirty wood wrapped in black seaweed floated in the foamy waves. The wind was cold and it made my lips taste salty. With my long, blond hair down, it blew about my face like a mask. I liked that, I wanted to be hidden. I wanted time to clear my head, just like my father had suggested. I didn’t want to dwell on what had happened, I’d done enough of that in my nightmares, and part of me feared falling to sleep that night. Would my dreams be haunted by those dead people again? I guessed I had a few more nights of disturbed sleep before I’d truly come to terms with what I had done – before the accident.

Bent against the bitter wind, I headed along the shore, a set of footprints trailing away behind me. I’d been walking for about ten minutes or so, when I thought I heard someone calling my name. At first I wondered if it wasn’t my imagination, or a trick being played by the howling wind. I looked back in the direction I had come, but all I could see was the tiny black outlines of those dog-walkers way off in the distance.

“Sydney!” the voice came again.

I looked to my left to see someone running down the grassy sand dunes towards me. It was Michael.