happened? What the fuck happened to her?’ Ava finally gasped out the words, pain and terror ripping through her chest, making it hard to talk. ‘Did you call an ambulance?’
It was Huw who detached himself from the shadowy group and explained. Ava had been ‘out of it’, he said, omitting any mention of a blow to her head, and Ellen had decided to do the zip line dare. She had washed down some pills with a couple of swigs of vodka, and seemed steady enough. But she had fallen from about halfway along and landed awkwardly. When they ran to her she wasn’t moving. There was nothing anyone could do, but now they needed to make sure they didn’t get blamed for her death. The police would say it was their fault, their game, and she was mixing alcohol and drugs! What would their families say? School? The paper would get hold of it too…
If they hid the body, Leo added, nobody would ever know.
* * *
Ava stood doubled over, fighting away the voices that scolded her, breathing slowly and deeply. It was over. She couldn’t take it back, but she supposed, with her career choice, she had been doing her best to atone for her sins, as Mrs Birtley would have said. But if he discovered the truth, Stephen would never forgive her. Not just an appalling mother, but a coward who had helped bury her best friend too. It seemed an age before the sour taste of nausea and regret passed, and she was able to continue her journey. Her world narrowed to a line of yellow torch beam, whilst all around the hills were wrapped in suffocating blackness.
Cursing the extra jumper now, she arrived on the front porch breathing heavily from the last climb. Someone must have been watching out for her, because the door was flung open even as she raised her hand to knock.
The two women stared at one another, a whole world of shared history pulsing between them, before Penny gave a tight-lipped smile. ‘Hallo, Ava.’
‘Penny.’ Ava smiled back, mechanically, awkwardly. This was going to be horrible and there was no way out. She was a coward not to have faced it long before this.
‘Come in and take your boots off then. We’ll go in there in a minute, but I wanted to talk to you first.’ She indicated an oak door leading off the wide, immaculate, stone-flagged hallway, before fixing Ava with a hard, curious stare. ‘I suppose you must have got some sleep this morning. Paul said your flight landed early. Did you manage to hire a car or did you get the bus?’
‘Oh, I hired a car, because the bus didn’t leave until the evening, and it was cheaper than a taxi. I need to drop it off in Cadrington tomorrow sometime. I remembered what the roads were like round here, and it only just made it up the hill to the Birtleys’.’ She was gabbling, words tumbling without meaning or thought, and she forced herself to shut up. The silence hung tense and sharp.
Clumsily, avoiding Penny’s curious gaze, Ava tugged off her boots. She refrained from commenting on her movements of the day, and she certainly wasn’t going to tell this woman how long it had taken her to cross the bridge back into Wales. Jetlag or no, there had been plenty to deal with as soon as she landed into Heathrow. She’d actually had to pull over, before she managed to gather enough courage to cross the bridge. All too easily, the dark panic she associated with crossing in the opposite direction, all those years ago, had come stealing back into her mind. But she’d been prepared for it, and that was the real reason for not taking a taxi from the airport. The last thing she needed was the driver thinking he’d picked up some lunatic.
Penny had always been a pretty, sharp-faced imp of a girl, popular and fun. Despite being in the same year at school, she was almost a whole year younger than the other members of the little Aberdyth gang. Physically, she often couldn’t keep up with Ava and Ellen, but the boys let her hang around because she was cute and amusing. Once Ellen was gone, Penny had become a confidante and close friend. Whilst the boys avoided the subject, Penny and Ava would spend long hours talking about Ellen, about their terror that someone would find her grave, and about how much they missed her.
‘How is he?’ Ava asked hesitantly.
Penny shrugged. ‘As well as you would expect. I think he’s pretending it’s not happening. The pain is bad at times, but we’ve got drugs to control it. When he’s going through a good patch, you wouldn’t even know he was ill, but other times he’s like an old man just going through the motions. It’s horribly cruel, when he’s still so young. How could this happen?’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Ava said softly. She was going to be saying it a lot, but it was heartfelt this time.
‘Before we do go in’ – Penny raised a hand, too close to Ava’s chest, but she didn’t touch her – ‘I’ve always wanted to ask, but it isn’t something I can say by email, or even on the phone. I needed to see you for real. Ava, why did you never tell me you were going? You could have trusted me…’
‘I couldn’t tell you. I’m sorry, Penny. I couldn’t tell anyone in case Paul tried to stop me. You know how he was. Once I got home to the States, it seemed better to make a clean break. Look, I know I fucked up, and I haven’t just come back to try and pick up where I left off.’
The other woman nodded, her pale green eyes softening, ‘Good. I know you wouldn’t expect to anyway. You’re too clever for that…’
Ava smiled properly, and surprisingly Penny leaned in for a clumsy hug.
‘I’m about to lose my husband, so anything else really seems pretty insignificant. I don’t want to fight with you, Ava. I loved you, you know, when we were kids, and I love Stephen like my own.’
Despite the hug, Ava noticed the warning, even as Penny looked up with bright eyes, and flushed cheeks. Her shiny blonde ponytail was draped over one slim shoulder, and she had clearly made an effort tonight, with lots of make-up and delicate silver earrings. Or maybe she was just a lot more glamorous than Ava.
‘Thanks for understanding,’ Ava said, still slightly shocked by the pace of the conversation, and the unexpected show of affection. ‘You know, I can’t think of anyone better to be Stephen’s mum. I was a teenage fuck-up, but you always had everything totally together. I did see the wedding photos, and I was happy for you. My aunt sent them over. She sent photos of Stephen, too, but Paul said he didn’t want to know me, so it seemed better to stay right out of your lives.’ It was something she had repeated to herself over and over, covering the pain with a plaster of flabby lies. Later, she might tell Penny of Paul’s threats, but this was not the time to slag off her husband. Perhaps Penny even knew, and had been happy to keep Ava away from her stepson? It was something Ava had agonised over for years, opting for the cowardly route of not untangling her former life, even if it meant she couldn’t see her own son until he had grown up.
Penny was glowing, her icy manner softening slightly, and her expression animated. ‘Stephen has been very happy with us. Paul said you felt he was better off in Aberdyth with a stable family, and you have your career of course…’ An edge to her voice, that was quickly covered by a change of subject. ‘Your aunt was always lovely to me, and I was sad when she moved away. Perhaps when you’ve rested, we can get together tomorrow? It would be just like old times.’ The words, despite their warmth, were almost mechanical.
It was the last thing Ava wanted, but if an olive branch was being offered, she should take it. She forced herself to accept Penny’s invitation. ‘I’d really like that. I need to hear about your bakery business too. I missed you Pen, I really did.’
‘Do you remember when we bunked off school and hitched to Cardiff that time?’
She did, and it was a rare untainted memory, so she seized it. ‘You had that pink Lycra body suit, and plastic cowboy boots.’
‘And you had sequins and stars on your face, and denim hot pants. Christ, we were lucky nobody took us for a pair of prossies!’
Ava smiled, but a little twist of sadness for that lost innocence caught in her chest. Pen, despite her sweetness, had always had a sense of fun, and had always been the one to suggest the wildest childhood adventures.
‘Penny? Is she here then?’ Paul was calling from behind the closed door, and the