Simon Beckett - Stone Bruises

So what do I do with it?

The loft is close and humid, too airless for me to think. I go to the open window. Beyond the grapevines and woods, I can just make out the lake, silver against the darkness. Seeing it gives me a sudden sense of purpose. Mathilde won’t be here for a while yet, and I promised myself I’d swim in it once the stitches came out.

This is my last chance.

I don’t bother with the lamp as I descend from the loft, trusting to familiarity to negotiate the wooden steps. Moonlight floods through the open barn doors, illuminating the crumbling concrete I became so paranoid about. I barely give it a thought as I pass by on my way outside.

The drizzle has stopped. The night smells unbelievably sweet, a fresh breeze stirring the vine leaves. There’s a full moon, but the torn clouds that pass over it cast scurrying shadows on the field. There’s a constant rustle of movement as I enter the woods. Water drips from the branches, darkening the statues hidden among the trees. The white flowers that Gretchen hung around the nymph’s neck seem luminescent when the moonlight touches them, but fade away as another cloud crosses the moon.

Then I’ve left the stone figures behind and ahead of me is the lake. There’s an iron tang to the air, and the black water is shivered by the breeze. A sudden movement makes me start, but it’s only a duck ruffling its feathers. As the moon re-emerges I see there are more of them, dotted around the bank like stones. I make my way to the patch of shingle and strip off. My bare feet look mismatched, one of them unmarked and familiar, the other thin and white, criss-crossed with angry weals.

The frigid water takes away my breath when I walk out into the lake. I reflexively rise onto tiptoe as it laps up to my groin, then wade further out. I pause when the bottom abruptly shelves away, bracing myself before plunging in.

It’s like diving into ice. Cold stabs into my ears as the water closes over my head, then I break into a clumsy crawl. I thrash out towards the centre of the lake, forcing blood into my sluggish limbs. Gasping, I tread water and look around. My wake has left a ragged tear across the surface. Everything seems different out here, strange and still. The water feels bottomless and deep. Below me there’s a flicker of silver as a fish catches the moonlight. Looking down, I see my body suspended in blackness, so pale it looks bloodless.

God, it feels good. I start swimming again, this time in an easy breaststroke. The bluff where I’ve spent so many afternoons rises up in front of me, the sweeping branches of the chestnut tree spread like wings against the sky. Seeing it brings home that I’ve been there for the last time, and as quickly as that any pleasure is snuffed out.

I wanted to swim in the lake, and now I have. There’s no point staying out any longer. I turn to head back, but as I kick out my foot touches something hard. I jerk away before realizing it’s only the submerged rock I’ve seen from the bluff. Tentatively, I stretch out a foot again.

And quickly recoil.

The rock is smooth. Not with the expected slime of algae or weed, but a hard, polished smoothness. I lower one foot, then the other, until I’m standing on it. The water comes up to my chin. The surface below me is flat and slightly convex, pitted with tiny blisters of corrosion. But I don’t need those to tell me it isn’t rock I’m standing on.

It’s a car roof.

I probe around with my toes, mapping its shape. One foot slips off the edge and suddenly there’s nothing beneath me but water. I flail around as the lake closes over my head, coughing and choking as I stand on the roof again. At least I’ve established that it isn’t a car. The roof’s too narrow and truncated for that.

More like the cab of a truck.

Shivering, I look at the lake’s banks. They’re a long way off and too soft and muddy to drive across anyway. No, the only way anything could end up here is if it came off the bluff. I stare up at the overhanging edge, trying to imagine a truck rolling off by accident. It’s too far away, though. For whatever I’m standing on to have got this far out it must have been driven off deliberately.

I badly want to swim back and get dressed. But I can’t do that, not yet. Taking a deep breath, I dive down. The water slips ice-picks into my ears. Everything’s dark. I can’t see a thing, but then the moon comes out from behind a cloud and suddenly an otherworldly light filters down from the surface. The looming hulk of the truck takes form below me. My vision’s blurred but I can see it’s a pick-up. The open flatbed behind the cab is exposed and empty. I kick deeper as my chest starts to heave. Too many cigarettes. Fighting my body’s buoyancy, I grab for the door handle and almost let go when it swings open in slow motion.

My heart’s begun a timpani beat as I pull myself nearer. The interior of the cab is hazy and full of shadows. I peer inside for two or three heartbeats, and then the moon is covered and it’s dark again. Letting go of the door, I push for the surface. I burst into the night air, gulping in breaths as the banging in my temples begins to subside.

Nothing.

The murky water made it hard to be certain, but I didn’t see anything inside the cab; no bulky shadow or slow wave of limbs. I contemplate taking another look to make sure, but the thought makes my flesh crawl. I can’t bring myself to dive down again.

Teeth chattering, I start swimming back. I force myself to go steadily, fighting the urge to rush. Then something – a trailing weed or twig – brushes against my ankle and my restraint shatters. I thrash towards the shore, splashing through the shallows until I’m back on the shingle. Shivering, I rub my arms and stare back at the lake. The ripples from my wake are already settling, leaving the water still and black once more. There’s nothing to suggest what’s hidden below its surface.

I begin dragging on my clothes. There’s no doubt in my mind who the truck belongs to. It was impossible to see its colour, but I’m guessing it’ll be dark green. The same as the one in the photograph Jean-Claude showed me. The last known sighting of Louis was in Lyon, so I’d assumed that whatever happened to him must have happened there. I was wrong.

He came back.

I struggle to pull my jeans over my wet skin. Try as I might, I can’t think of an innocent explanation for why his pick-up is in the lake. Jean-Claude tried to tell me that Arnaud was responsible for his brother’s disappearance and I wouldn’t listen. I didn’t want to. I can’t believe even now that Mathilde knows anything about this, but I’m not going to stay and find out. The farm’s been hiding at least one secret.

I don’t want to become another.

My boots won’t go on. The wood seems threatening and watchful as I struggle to force my feet into them. I keep looking around, half-expecting to see Arnaud materialize from the shadows with his rifle. But except for a lone statue in the trees, I’m alone. I’m reaching down to pull on my boot before I remember there aren’t any statues this close to the lake, and at that same moment it steps out of the woods.

Gretchen is alabaster pale in the moonlight, skin bleached white as stone. She stares at me without coming any closer.

‘I went to the loft. You weren’t there.’

I find my voice. ‘No, I, uh… I needed some air.’

‘I saw your rucksack. All your things are packed.’

I don’t know what to say to that. Gretchen looks out at the water. Her earlier anger has been replaced by an eerie calm that’s even more unsettling.

‘You’ve been in the lake.’

‘I was hot. I wanted to cool down.’

‘You were underwater for a long time. What were you doing?’