Soul Beach

1
    The first email from my sister arrives on the morning of her funeral.
    I know. What kind of sick freak checks her email before she goes to see her sister being buried? But sometimes it hurts so much I feel like I’ve got acid in my veins instead of blood, and that’s when I go online.
    Online, everything’s normal . No inquests, no detectives, no TV cameras. Just Facebook updates about who’s dating who. And junk emails from African princes offering me a share of their fortunes. Oh, yeah, and emails from dead people. Not quite so normal.
    I almost miss the message, and as soon as I do see it, I know it can’t be real. It’s a sick coincidence or someone’s hacked her account, the one she used to send me college gossip and drunken photos.
    But even though I know it’s a hoax, my finger locks onto the mouse and I can’t breathe as I wait for the message to load . . .
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Date: September 15 2009
Time: 10:05:09
Subject:
[THIS MESSAGE HAS BEEN LEFT BLANK]
To report this message as a phishing attempt, click here.
    The white screen makes my eyes hurt, but I don’t dare to blink in case the message disappears.
    ‘Alice. What are you doing up there, sweetheart? The car’s here.’
    I can’t speak.
    It’s got to be a glitch. A ghost in the machine. The email version of those newspaper stories about someone suddenly getting a Christmas card that was posted in 1952 by a long-dead granny.
    And surely it’s nothing but a fluke that my sister’s long lost email appears one hour before her final . . . performance.
    ‘Alice?’
    I jump, even though Mum is still outside my door. ‘Nearly ready,’ I shout.
    But I don’t move. I can’t. I feel like there’s something there. Something I’m not seeing.
    Maybe I really have lost it now. ‘You’re not real,’ I hiss at the screen. ‘You’re not.’
    The longer I stare, the more I know I’m missing something.
    I stand up. My legs are like lead, and I can’t look away from the screen. What is it I’m not seeing?
    ‘Alice? Come on, now.’ Mum sounds ratty. I guess today isn’t going to go down as the best day of her life, either. I should try harder. Be a better daughter , now I’m an only child.
    Up. Towards the door. One foot in front of the other. Keep going.
    And then I turn back to the screen and I see it. The time.
    10:05:09
    Either just past ten o’clock on the morning of Meggie’s funeral.
    Or 10/05/09.
    The date of my sixteenth birthday. And the date Meggie was murdered.

2
    We’re supposed to be yesterday’s news. Or, more accurately, four months ago’s news. The tragic Forster family.
    There’ve been hundreds more murders since Meggie’s. Stabbings, shootings, crashes. But then my sister’s death would have been headline-grabbing even if she hadn’t been a reality TV star. According to my media studies teacher, Mr Bryant, newspapers prefer their murder victims female, pretty and white, even though most kids who die are male, spotty and black.
    Though he hasn’t given that particular lesson since Meggie died.
    As the car pulls away I recognise two of the local TV journos standing outside our house. I used to watch them on the portable telly in my bedroom, as they reported live underneath my window. If I muted the sound, I could hear their voices through the glass.
    I close my eyes, to shut everything out. Except it doesn’t work, because now I can see tha t screen, and that date. It can’t be chance, can it?
    ‘I hope no one spots your cufflinks, Glen.’
    My father sighs. ‘Why?’
    ‘They’re too shiny. Too cheerful. Appearances matter today.’
    Mum’s appearance is spot on, in her brand new grey silk dress. Before Meggie died, she’d have been gutted to be a size fourteen. O ld Mum did yoga and Pilates and Body Combat. New Mum does Grief Counselling instead. Her body is flabbier but her spirit is honed. Monday night is Group, Wednesday afternoon is One-to-One with her therapist, Olav, Thursday is social, and then at the weekends she’s online the whole time, sharing . She’s a big celebrity on the grief forums.
    Dad’s gone the other way. He won’t join the Group, even though it’d shut Mum up, and he looks like a tramp in his funeral suit, it’s so loose. His diet now is peanuts and whisky. He’s the strong, silent type, like a cowboy in an ancient Western. Well, a cowboy who moonlights as a solicitor.
    I am piggy in the middle. And don’t I feel