Soul Beach

the bit where love means you get to be as miserable as me?’
    I feel tears prick the back of my eyes. ‘Don’t! Don’t turn it into something awful . . .’
    He’s about to say something even more sensible when he notices my face. ‘Oh, Alice, I’m sorry.’
    ‘S’OK.’
    ‘I wish I could do something, but obviously . . .’ he holds out his arms in a gesture that makes me want to cry even more.
    ‘I know.’
    Then he smiles again, and it’s like the sun’s come out. ‘Does that count as our first argument?’
    I nod, laughing despite the tears that had already started.
    ‘That’s better.’
    ‘I’ll write it in my diary. Fell out with Danny. Made up with Danny.’
    We gaze out to sea. We could almost be the last two people on earth.
    ‘This could be our place, Alice. I’ll come here every day and wait till you show.’
    ‘Maybe I can just stay here till one of us falls asleep . . .’
    Somewhere, a phone is ringing. My phone.
    I grope in my schoolbag for the handset. ‘Hold on, Danny, I’ll just get rid of this call—’
    ADRIAN flashes on the screen.
    Adrian . . . or Tim?
    I can’t leave the Beach now.
    Yet what’s more important? This fantasy guy who can only ever stay just that – a fantasy? Or the sister who needs me more than ever? I need to remember what my priorities are.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I tell Danny. ‘I wouldn’t go if this wasn’t life or death, but . . . well, it might be. Sweet Dreams .’ I raise my hand towards my heart, the way he did last time.
    He opens his mouth but he only gets as far as Sweet before his face twists and his body seems to be falling and the screen cuts out.
    I’m shivering as I answer the phone.

54
    ‘Tim? Is that you?’
    A sharp breath. Then: ‘No. It’s Adrian. It is my phone, after all.’ I hear just a trace of irritation in his voice.
    ‘Sorry.’
    ‘But Tim is right here next to me.’
    ‘Oh.’ The shiver turns into a violent shake. Come on , now, Alice. You talk to the dead every day; a live person on the end of a phone line is no big deal, surely. Even a live possible murderer . . .
    ‘Alice? Are you sure you’re OK with this?’
    Adrian’s voice calms me a little, but the dread, the absolute panic, is still there. It’s almost as though my body senses a threat, even down the phone. ‘Yeah. I’d like to speak to Tim now, please.’
    The microphone rustles and then I hear someone else’s breathing. ‘Tim?’
    ‘Alice.’ It comes out more like a sigh than a name. ‘Oh, Alice, Jesus, I am so sorry. What a mess.’
    Is that a confession? Does he expect me to say, That’s OK, Tim. These things happen . ‘It’s a mess all right.’
    ‘I can’t talk for long. I’m being followed.’ His voice is high-pitched, on the edge of hysteria. He used to speak in a rumbling whisper, like a brainy brown bear.
    ‘Where are you now?’
    ‘In the library. We . . . we got ourselves locked in, on purpose. They post a plain clothes guy outside when I work here. When the place closed and they realised I hadn’t come out, they’ll have thought I’ve given them the slip for a change. But they’ve still got triangulation. They can work out I’m here if they think I might be using Ade’s phone.’
    My own heart sounds deafeningly loud: it’s like I’m caught up in one of the Bourne movies. ‘Won’t you set off the alarms?’
    ‘We’re in a storeroom. We’ve got torches and some food and water and something stronger to drink later, too. The library opens again tomorrow at nine and then we’ll head straight for the reading rooms and no one will know.’
    I picture him now. Good Tim. Kind Tim. Those bright, sincere eyes with the rings around them from staying up too late reading or talking, and the sweet, cautious smile whenever he cracked a joke.
    ‘All this so you could talk to me?’
    ‘Of course. Look, Alice, I know this is even harder for you than it is for me. It means a lot to me that you’re even speaking to me now.’
    I interrupt him. ‘It doesn’t mean anything one way or the other,’ I say, though of course it does . ‘I need to know what really happened that night.’
    ‘Oh.’ There’s a pause. ‘I didn’t kill her. I don’t really care what happens to me, so long as you believe me, Alice.’ For the first time he sounds like the old Tim, not this hyped up SAS wannabe.
    ‘You promise?’
    ‘I couldn’t kill anything, Alice. What the hell would give me the right to take life from someone?’
    The