Soul Beach

Naval College buildings and the bright green lawns seem tainted now. How could they not?
    I’m not alone out here. Most of the other drinkers are male smokers: not just students, but tourists and office workers. Last time I was here, I thought the guys who were smoking looked sexy. Now I think they’re stupid for wasting what life they have. Don’t they know what happened to my sister?
    The students, the tourists, the barman. It could be any one of them who killed Meggie, couldn’t it? Maybe I’m turning into a man hater. After all, if I can’t trust a man as gentle as Tim . . .
    I shiver.
    A couple of guys check me out, and I look away. They’re not ugly – Meggie always joked she chose Greenwich because it had the cutest selection of guys on her open day – but I’m not interested in this life. I want the airbrushed loveliness of Soul Beach.
    I shake my head, like a dog trying to clear water from its ears. This is madness. Soul Beach isn’t real.
    For the first time, it hits me: the Beach is changing me, just as Meggie’s death did. Spending time there might be making things worse.
    No! No way. Giving up on the Beach isn’t an option, and not just for Meggie’s sake. It’s all that’s keeping me going right now.
    I finish my drink. I’m more awake, from the bubbles or the wine or both. It’s time to go. If I don’t go and find Tim this minute, I’ll lose my nerve. I put the glass down, take out my map, work out the fastest way to the halls.
    That’s if he still lives there . . .
    How stupid am I? I haven’t thought this through properly. Is it likely he’ll still be in halls, two floors from where Meggie died, after what happened? And if he’s not, then what do I do? Knock on doors until I find him? And when I do, all I have to protect myself is a schoolbag full of Media Studies textbooks.
    I shiver again. I shouldn’t be here. This is crazy.
    And that’s when I feel a hand grip my shoulder.
    ‘Alice Forster? What the hell are you doing here?’

34
    I jump about a metre in the air, before I register that the low growl belongs to a woman.
    I turn round. ‘Sahara!’
    ‘Hello, Alice,’ she says, her voice heavy with sadness. ‘Oh, Alice.’
    Sahara opens up her muscular arms and holds me too tightly against her chest. She’s one of those sporty, Amazonian women. We used to joke that she could be Meggie’s bodyguard.
    Yet right now there’s something so needy about her that I feel like I’m the one comforting her.
    Finally she pulls away and there are tears in her eyes, catching in her impossibly long lashes. ‘Oh, God, when I saw you just then, Alice, it was like her ghost.’ She blinks, and two teardrops bridge the eyelash dam, to tumble down her slightly pitted cheeks.
    ‘But I don’t look anything like her, Sahara.’
    ‘You do. Honestly.’ She looks at me again. ‘OK, maybe you don’t. It might have been the way you were sitting. Or where . You know this is her place, don’t you?’
    I feel irritated by the ominous way she says it. ‘This is everyone’s favourite pub, isn’t it?’
    ‘No. I mean this is her place . Her bench . She always sat exactly where you are, leaning forwards like you were doing.’
    ‘Really? I guess I must have sat here with her that time I visited and then I just sat here again out of habit.’ But my skin feels as though a million ants are marching across it, because I remember that the night I visited it was pouring with rain, and we took refuge indoors, watching the smokers through the window.
    ‘You drinking?’ she says, eyeing my glass. ‘You’re only sixteen.’
    I tut. ‘I bet you never drank underage, Sahara?’
    She thinks about it. ‘No, actually, I didn’t. I was a goody-two shoes.’
    So was I , I think, and suddenly I see myself as she must see me, sixteen, sitting on a bench, drinking alone. ‘People change.’
    Sahara gives me an odd look. Then she says, ‘Do you want to join us?’ She nods back towards the pub, and I see a group of students at the far end, sprawled on sofas. Why didn’t I notice them before? ‘Everyone here knew Meggie, if that helps.’
    I hesitate.
    ‘Though Tim’s not there, of course,’ she adds.
    No, I think, but one of them might know something about how I can find him.
    Or – and this makes me shiver – one of them might be the killer.

35
    ‘OK.’ My voice trembles as I agree.
    Sahara takes my arm, and leads me inside again. ‘Look who I found outside,’ she says, and there’s