Mark Mills - Amagansett

‘He still lied to me.’

That Rollo placed his father’s betrayal above his own brush with death came as little surprise to Conrad. It was the way Rollo’s mind worked. It also offered an opportunity. Conrad tried not to think too hard about what he was about to do.

‘It’s true,’ he said, ‘he lied to you.’

‘He did.’

‘And now I need you to do the same for me, Rollo. I need you to lie for me—to your father.’

Rollo frowned.

‘It’s not for ever, just till I can work this all out.’

‘Lie?’

A cardinal sin in Rollo’s book, one for which he’d have to account to God himself.

‘It’s not even a lie,’ said Conrad. ‘I just need you to keep quiet about this for a couple of days. Can you do that for me?’

‘I…’

‘They killed my friend, Rollo. I think that man there killed her. But I need to know a bit more, I need a bit more time. Only you can give that to me.’

Rollo nodded gravely. ‘I won’t tell no one,’ he said. ‘No one.’

‘Let’s get you cleaned up.’

Conrad led Rollo towards the doors, stopping to gather up his clothes and his boots as he went.

The man came round slowly to find the fisherman seated on the floor in front of him, dressed now and smoking a cigarette. A gun rested in his lap.

It felt like someone had cleaved away the right side of his body. Then he remembered and he looked down.

‘Christ,’ he said. ‘Christ.’

‘You’ll live,’ said the fisherman.

‘There’s a fucking pole in me!’

‘It’s a killing lance—for whales.’

‘Whales!?’

‘Shut up.’

‘I need a doctor.’

‘Shut up and listen. I’m going to say this once. I’ve got some questions. If you lie to me, I’ll kill you. There are no second chances. Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘Look at me. I said look at me.’

He looked up into the two pockets of shadow cast by the overhead light.

‘I want you to know that I hope you lie to me.’

‘I won’t.’

‘When did you first meet Manfred Wallace?’

‘Never heard of him. It’s the truth, I swear it.’

‘Who are you working for?’

‘I don’t know his name. He calls me with jobs, I don’t know who he is.’

‘What were you going to do, kill me after you’d got the document?’

‘Yes.’

‘How?’

‘Make it look like a suicide.’

‘Then what?’

‘Then nothing. You’re dead, I get my money.’

‘How?’

‘How what?’

‘How do you get your money?’

‘He leaves it. In places. Hotels usually.’

‘How much did he pay you to kill Lillian Wallace?’

He was too slow. He’d hesitated just that little bit too long for it to be convincing.

‘I want to know,’ insisted the fisherman. ‘How much was her life worth to you?’

He realized then that he had the answer to his riddle, written in the fisherman’s face, buried in his voice. It was suddenly clear to him that he was sitting across from the dead girl’s lover. And for one of the few times in his life he felt the cold touch of fear on his heart.

‘Eight hundred dollars,’ he said.

It took a while for the fisherman to absorb the news. ‘The price of a second-hand car?’

‘That’s what I got. I don’t know what the guy who did it got.’

He congratulated himself. He’d slipped it in nicely, naturally.

‘There were two of you?’

‘I was only there to help move the body. I didn’t do it. He did. I swear to God, it’s the truth.’

‘He drowned her in the swimming pool?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you both put her in the ocean?’

‘Yes.’

How the hell did he know so much?

‘Where?’ asked the fisherman.

‘Wiborg’s Beach. It’s—’

‘I know where it is.’

The fisherman tossed his cigarette aside, then used the workbench to help himself to his feet, his left knee stiff and straightened out.

‘Where’s your car, the black sedan?’

‘Why?’

‘Where’s the car?’

‘Down the highway. There’s a track.’

‘Where are you staying?’

‘The Sea Spray Inn.’

‘Room number?’

‘It’s a cottage—number four. Why?’

‘Is this the key?’

He recognized the signs; the fisherman was making plans for his disappearance.

‘Look, I’ve been straight with you, I can help you, I can finger the guy who did it.’

‘Is this the key?’

‘Yes, it’s the key.’

The fisherman took a couple of steps towards him. ‘I was at Wiborg’s Beach,’ he said. ‘You carried her through the bushes on the right and up the dune. You stopped for a rest then you dragged her backwards down on to the beach.’

How in the hell did he know so much? Flattery suddenly seemed like a good idea.

‘I’m impressed.’

‘I’m not,’ said the fisherman. ‘There was only one set of footprints in the sand.’

It took the man a moment to realize that he’d been led by the hand to his own doom, that there was never going to be any other outcome.

‘Fuck you and fuck your half-wit friend,’ he said.

The fisherman stepped on the end of the pole. The dull pain in the man’s side exploded into life and he screamed.

‘Go on, do it,’ he spat. ‘You’re no better than me, you just don’t know it.’

‘You’re wrong,’ said the fisherman as the gun came up. ‘I do know it.’

Thirty-Five

Gayle Wallace rose late. She pulled on her swimsuit and a pair of sandals, slipped a loose cotton gown around her shoulders and headed downstairs.

She could hear voices in the study, her father discussing the business of the past week with Manfred and Richard, bringing them up to speed. He was excited about a new idea, something to do with water; she hadn’t been paying too much attention during the drive up the previous evening.

Rosa had cleared the breakfast things away, but had left the coffee percolator primed beside the stove.

Gayle made her way across the lawn to the pool. Cup of coffee, cigarettes, lighter and a towel—the same trappings, the same routine every Saturday of the summer.

She was thinking about Justin, and about what dress to wear to dinner at the Maidstone Club that evening, when she reached the poolside.

She didn’t scream. But she did drop the cup. And she did run.

Manfred had to concede it; it was a damned good idea of his father’s. Two years of low rainfall had placed the city’s water supply under enormous strain. An obvious way to combat the shortage was by introducing water meters, which meant only one thing—someone had to manufacture them.

They were discussing the relative merits of taking a stake in the Buffalo Meter Company or the Pittsburgh Equitable Meter Company when Gayle burst in on them, dressed for a swim.

‘There’s a man in the pool,’ she gasped.

‘We can’t have that,’ said his father. ‘Go and deal with it, will you, Richard.’

‘He’s dead!’

Gayle pointed towards the garden, clamping a hand over her mouth, and for a moment Manfred thought she was going to empty her stomach all over the Aubusson rug. But she didn’t.

Richard led her over to a chair and sat her down. ‘Wait here,’ he said.

The man was wearing a dark suit and brown shoes. He lay face down in the deep end of the pool, and he appeared to be hovering just a few inches off the bottom.

Any doubts as to who he might be vanished when Manfred spotted something dangling from a length of string attached to a sun shade. It was the silver-and-jadeite hair clip he had given Lillian on her twenty-first birthday.

They all stared at the body in silence.

‘Richard, go call the police.’