Ben saw Jenny and Timothy walking across the grass towards him, hand in hand. The sight made him smile.
He had his sister’s painting in one hand and the green file in the other. He was on his way back to the house but had stopped by the drawbridge for a moment. From where he stood, he could see where Zoë had sat down to paint the picture. Close his eyes and he could imagine she was there at that very moment, tongue out, brush in hand, the sun high in the sky above her.
Back when he’d been in primary school, Zoë had been the only one who’d been able to stop Alex from bullying him. It was strange to think how much things changed in a few short years. When he was thirteen, he was in a fight with Alex, the first proper fight they’d had in a while. It was outside the Portacabins that served as extra classrooms. The school had expanded beyond it’s ability to house all the pupils enrolled. About twenty years earlier, Portacabins had been built on the edge of the field, the plan being for them to serve while money was raised for new school buildings to be constructed.
The money was never found and the Portacabins had lasted long beyond their supposed five year lifespan. By the time Ben was there, they were damp and mouldy. They also had dead space between them, dead space where Ben would try and hide during break times, keeping away from Alex as best he could.
He was there on his own when Alex found him. “All right, Billy no mates,” Alex said, walking towards him with a grin on his face, giving him a shove backwards into the splintery wooden wall behind him.
Ben saw red. He had no idea why after so long of putting up with the abuse. But that day, for whatever reason, something inside him snapped and he lunged at Alex, lashing out with one ineffectual punch after another. None of the blows were particularly strong but Alex was surprised enough to stagger back, tripping over the paving slab behind him as he reached the path. He fell back just as Zoë appeared from the door of the canteen, walking up the steps towards them.
Ben could picture the sequence of events as if they had just happened yesterday. Him and Alex trading blows, his sister coming running up, telling them to stop, getting caught in between them. Then time slowing down as one of Alex’s fists caught her on the jaw. She spun away, skidding back down the steps, landing on her side.
Then events sped up again. The memories blurring. Alex told everyone who’d listen that Ben had hit his own sister. He had expected her to tell the truth, to correct the lies, to back him up when he tried to explain what had really happened.
But of course she was dating Alex by then. She never even thought about it. Never hesitated, defended her love, not her sibling. From that day on, everyone thought he’d punched his own sister, sent her sprawling down a flight of stairs, given her a swollen jaw. Their parents were furious, choosing to believe Zoë over him.
He sometimes thought that was why they considered him responsible for what happened on the night that she died. That he was enacting some kind of bizarre revenge for getting a temporary exclusion five years earlier, as if he was capable of that level of spite, as if he could ignore his own sister while she was drowning. He loved her. Despite her lies, despite her dating his mortal enemy, the boy who made his life a misery. He still loved her.
True, he had been there the night she died. But he was doing what he thought was best. She had rung him from Alex’s house, telling him she needed picking up, that she’d been in an argument.
He’d set off straight away, telling her he’d wait at the edge of Alex’s estate. Or his father’s estate as it was then. He’d sat in his car and waited for her. And waited.
It was just after eleven o’clock at night, pitch black. It had stopped raining an hour before and the ground was still soaking wet. She had a torch on her phone but either she hadn’t used it or she’d forgotten about it.
He was able to piece together what happened from the inquest afterwards. She’d walked out of the back of Alex’s house, drunk as a skunk. She’d staggered around the side of the house and then instead of getting onto the drive, she’d taken the track to the left by mistake. After a minute or two of walking, she’d slipped on the wet grass and slid down the side of a ditch that had recently been dug to sort out the drainage problems towards the edge of the estate. She’d hit the bottom of the ditch and blacked out, her head under water, tangled in a mess of weeds. She was found the next morning. She was dead within minutes of hitting the water.
All the while he was sitting in the car, wondering where the hell she was. If only he’d gone to look for her, if only he’d not been so petty as to refuse to set foot on Alex’s land. But if only if only would not bring her back.
Her death had destroyed the family. For his father to blame him, to even hint that he might have let her die, it was too much to bear. Was it all his fault though? If he’d driven up to the house, she might still be alive. But he’d just assumed she had made up with Alex and after an hour of waiting, he’d rung, got no answer, then left a message cursing her for mucking him about before going home and going to bed, waking up the next morning to two police officers in the house, his mother in floods of tears, his father glaring at him as he came downstairs.
Watching Jenny and Timothy holding hands brought it all back to him, how the family had been when he was young versus how it was now. Broken forever. Never to be healed again.
He began walking again, heading into the visitor centre and finding Joanne behind the counter, telling Jenny and Timothy where the nearest cafes were. Once they’d headed out, she turned to him.
“Find what you were looking for?” she asked.
He waved the file. “I’ll leave the key with you if you like.”
“That’s fine, I’ll pass it on to Martha.” She smiled. “So how long have we got the pleasure of our company for?”
“Probably another day or two.”
“Then where are you headed? Where’s home for Mr Benjamin Robertson?”
“Back up to Scotland.”
“Oh, whereabouts in Scotland?”
“Jude Island.”
“I don’t know that one.”
“Not many people do.”
She glanced around her, as if making sure the visitor centre was empty. “Between me and you,” she said, her voice low. “You’re probably doing the right thing.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah. I don’t know how much your Dad’s told you but this place is losing a lot of money. I’d hate for you to see it get closed down.”
“Right, well I better get back. Speak to you in a bit.”
Ben couldn’t get out of there fast enough. There was no reason for her to tell him that. She’d shoehorned it into the conversation. For the life of him, he couldn’t work out why but then it hit him. Was she working for Alex? It would make sense. Was she getting paid to spy on the place?
The easiest way to find out was to see just how much money the place was making. But to do that he’d need his father’s permission to look at the accounts. Or maybe not. Maybe he could talk to Martha instead.
The thought of an excuse to talk to her made him strangely excited. He had completely forgotten about the black knight in his pocket.