A Single Breath: A gripping, twist-filled thriller that will have you hooked. Lucy Clarke
The jetty is built on thick wooden stilts, and a few fishing boats are moored to its side. She sits in the car for several minutes, but even with the windows down, it’s too hot to stay in for long.
Climbing out, she crosses the car park onto a white sand beach that is peppered with dried shreds of seaweed. The afternoon is clear and still, the smell of fish hanging in the warm air. She slips off her flip-flops and wades into the water. It’s deliciously cool around her ankles and she stays there, lolling in the shallows for some time.
Looking down at the sea around her feet, she tries not to think about the body washed up in Plymouth that is now lying in an autopsy lab waiting to be identified.
Now and then boats drift up to the jetty and people get out to unload their catch, but none of the men seem young enough to be Saul.
She remembers lying beside Jackson one morning, tracing the weave of his chest hair with a fingertip as she’d asked, ‘Tell me about your brother.’
She’d caught the change in rhythm of Jackson’s breathing as he’d answered, ‘Nothing to tell.’
His eyes had darkened and he’d rolled away from her, climbing from the bed.
‘Jackson?’
He’d paused, his posture rigid. When he spoke there was a grave edge to his tone. ‘You can’t trust him. He’s a liar. That’s all you need to know.’
There were other conversations about Saul, including one where she finally managed to get him to tell her why they’d not spoken a word for four years. But after a time, she stopped mentioning Saul’s name, hating to see the way Jackson’s face clouded with hurt.
Feeling light headed from either the heat or the lingering residue of jet lag, Eva pads through the warm sand in search of shade. Her phone rings in her pocket and she slips it out, squinting at the screen in the sunlight. Seeing her mother’s name, Eva freezes. She’ll be calling with news of Jackson’s body.
She stands there, blinking at the phone, heart racing. Eva’s not sure that she wants this news, wants to live with the absolute finality of it.
Finally she answers, pressing the phone close to her ear. ‘Is it him?’
She hears her mother draw a breath. ‘Sorry, sweetheart. It wasn’t Jackson. It’s not his body.’
She blinks.
Her mother says something about the results coming in last night and that she only just saw the light flashing on the answering machine when she woke.
Eva remains silent, trying to absorb what she’s being told.
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything before we knew for certain. I just didn’t want you hearing about it on the news, or something dreadful like that.’
‘Whose was it?’
‘What?’
‘The body. Whose was it?’
‘Oh. Yes. It was a man from Worthing. A 45-year-old. Married. He jumped from a bridge six weeks ago.’
Eva swallows. She wonders how his wife must feel right now. Would there be some sense of closure now that there was a body to bury? Perhaps that’s how she herself might have felt. Or maybe what Dirk had said was right: Jackson’s body is better left in the sea.
‘Eva? Are you still there?’
The sun beats down on her head and she feels exhausted, buffeted by her emotions. Her mouth is dry and she can’t remember drinking anything today. She moistens her lips, tries to swallow.
‘Sweetheart? Talk to me, please.’
‘I’m here,’ she says weakly, a feeling of nausea rising up through her stomach. She lifts her gaze to try and focus on something. A blue boat is drifting towards the jetty.
She stares at it unblinking. Then a strangled sound escapes her lips.
There is a man on board who looks so much like Jackson that, for a moment, Eva lets herself believe it is him.
*
‘Eva? Eva?’ her mother repeats with rising panic.
But Eva isn’t listening. She is stepping forward, narrowing her gaze.
The way he stands, one hand slung in his pocket, his shoulders loose, is exactly like Jackson. Dark hair curls down over his ears and he wears a grey T-shirt with shorts, and sunglasses that hide his eyes.
Saul, she thinks. It must be.
There is a second man on the boat, bare-chested and wiry, who leaps onto the jetty and jogs along it towards the parked vehicles. He jumps into a truck and reverses the attached boat trailer down the ramp.
‘Eva? Are you still there?’ her mother is saying. ‘Please, Evie, you’re scaring me.’
‘I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.’
Once the boat is dragged from the water, Eva watches Saul push his sunglasses onto his head and shake hands with the other man. Then he hauls a large cool-box from the boat and walks down the beach in her direction. He stops at the fish-gutting station and sets down the box. He can only be 20 feet from her.
She doesn’t move; her legs feel weak and she tries to steady her breathing, which is coming too fast.
From the cool-box he grabs two silver fish by their tails and lays them on the bench. He takes a knife from his pocket and slices through their pale bellies, then scoops out their guts with his fingers. He works through three more fish and a couple of squid. Eva is used to the sight of blood, yet the dispassionate movement of his hands through the guts makes her uncomfortable.
She goes to turn away, but as she does, Saul looks up.
Eva’s lips part in surprise. His eyes are nothing like Jackson’s. They are dark and intense, not the pale blue of Jackson’s irises, which she’d always loved.
‘You’re Saul,’ she finds herself saying. She steps forward. ‘I’m Eva, Jackson’s wife.’
He stares, his dark gaze pinned to her face. She reads no warmth in his expression. Then he bends down and scoops another fish from the cool-box, slaps it on the bench, and continues gutting.
‘You’ve been fishing?’ she asks ludicrously.
‘Yeah.’
‘Catch much?’
‘Enough.’
She can feel herself sweating beneath her dress. She takes a deep breath. ‘I hoped we could talk.’
‘Oh, yeah?’
‘About Jackson.’
He glances at her through the corners of his eyes. Doesn’t say anything.
‘I’ve come a long way.’
He sighs, putting down the knife. ‘Look, I don’t wanna be rude, but Jackson and I hadn’t spoken in a while.’
‘I know that,’ she says, failing to hide the anger in her voice. ‘I just wanted to meet you. You’re his brother.’
He looks directly at her, but doesn’t speak.
‘I thought you might want to hear about his life in England. Know what he’s been doing since you last saw him.’
‘Then you thought wrong.’
She shakes her head, astounded. The heat of the sun pounds down and her entire body feels too hot. She should leave now, return to the car, and blast out the air conditioning. But she’s too angry to stop herself from saying, ‘He was your brother. And he’s dead. Is this conversation all he’s worth to you?’
She wants him to have to witness the horror of Jackson’s drowning, make him stand on that wind-stormed