Falk sipped his drink and wondered if that were true.
Gretchen was hysterical. Her color was high, and her blond hair was damp with sweat. Falk realized she was drunker than she’d seemed. His own head was spinning. He kept creeping up and looking down at the drop, yelling Luke’s name.
“Will you keep back from there?” Ellie called as he nearly lost his footing for a third time. “If you go over, there really will be something to worry about.”
Aaron wished he could be as calm as she was. At first he’d felt a spark of hope she might be right—Luke could be faking it. But as the minutes ticked on, he became less and less sure. Luke knew his way around, but the cliffs were notoriously unstable. They’d been told that, warned to keep away. More than once. And the booze they’d shared was already rolling around in his stomach. Maybe Ellie was right, but what if…? Gerry’s and Barb’s faces sprang into his mind, and he couldn’t complete the thought.
“We have to—for God’s sake, Gretchen, shut up for a second—we have to go and get help,” he said.
Ellie merely shrugged. She walked to the cliff and lined up the toes of her boots right on the edge. She looked over for a long moment, then took a step back. She lifted her chin slightly.
“You hear that, Luke?” she called in a clear voice that echoed and bounced off the rock face. “We’re heading down. Everyone’s shitting themselves. Last chance.”
It felt to Aaron like nothing moved while he held his breath and waited. The lookout remained silent.
“All right,” Ellie called. She sounded sad rather than angry. “You’ve made your choice. I hope you’re happy.”
The accusatory inflection rolled through the valley below.
Aaron stared at her for a moment, right into her cold gaze, then grabbed Gretchen’s hand and started running down the trail.
“Sometimes it feels like you were the only person Luke was loyal to,” Gretchen said. “The way he stood by you around Ellie’s death. He copped a load of grief for that after you left. All kinds of people were leaning on him to change his story, give you up.” She drained her wineglass and peered at Falk over the rim. “He never would.”
Falk took a breath. Now was the time to tell her. Luke lied. You lied. “Listen, Gretch, about that—”
“You were lucky really,” she cut him off. Her voice had lowered a notch. “Lucky you were with him, for starters. But the amount of flak he got round here, it would’ve been far easier for him to roll over and change his story. Without Luke, I reckon the Clyde cops would have pinned that on you, no question.”
“Yeah. I know. But listen, Gretch—”
She glanced around the bar. More than one or two watching faces hastily turned away.
“Look, Luke stuck to his guns—stuck by you, really—for twenty years,” she said, quieter now. “That’s more or less the only thing standing between you and a whole lot of problems round here. So a word to the wise, I’d be making sure I was singing pretty loud and long from the same song sheet.”
As they rounded the corner at the bottom of the hill, Aaron couldn’t believe it, then immediately could believe it. Luke was lounging on a rock, in perfect health, with a grin on his face and a cigarette in one hand.
“Hey,” he laughed. “What took you guys so long, you—”
Aaron lunged at him.
“Jesus, Gretchen, I am,” Falk said, trying to keep his tone light. But her message was clear. Don’t ask, don’t tell. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
They stared at each other for a moment. Then Gretchen sat back in her seat and smiled at him, properly. “Good. No reason at all. I just want to make sure you’re being sensible. Better safe than sorry.” She lifted her wineglass, realized it was empty, and put it down. Falk drained his own and went to the bar for two more.
“If everyone was so sure about me,” he said, when he returned, “I’m surprised they didn’t run Luke out of town as well.”
Gretchen took the glass, her smile fading.
“Some tried, you know. At first,” she said. “Pretty hard. But you know how Luke was; he brazened it out. He didn’t wobble, didn’t waver. Eventually, they kind of accepted it. They pretty much had to.”
She glanced around the pub again. Fewer faces were watching now.
“Look, if they’re honest with themselves, most people know Ellie killed herself. She was a sixteen-year-old girl who needed support that she obviously didn’t get, and yeah, we should all feel guilty about that. But people don’t generally like feeling guilty, and ultimately it was your name on the note. There never really was an explanation for that—” She paused and raised her eyebrows slightly.
Falk gave a tiny shake of his head. He couldn’t explain it then; he couldn’t explain it now. He had racked his brain over the years. Reliving his last conversations with Ellie, trying to decipher a message or a meaning. To her, he had been Aaron, not Falk. What had been going through her mind when she wrote it? Sometimes he wasn’t sure what disturbed him more: the trouble it had caused or the fact he’d never know the reason why.
“Well,” Gretchen said. “It doesn’t really matter. She was thinking about you in some way around the time she died, and for anyone looking to point the finger, it was enough. Like it or not, Luke was a big character. He was involved in the community. He became a bit of a leader in this town, and we couldn’t afford to lose many of them. I think by and large people just chose to put it out of their minds.”
She shrugged. “It’s the same reason everyone round here puts up with morons like Dow and Deacon. It’s Kiewarra. It’s tough. But we’re all in it together. You were gone; Luke stayed. You got the blame.”
Aaron lunged at him, and Luke stepped back.
“Watch it,” he said as Aaron grabbed his shoulders. They stumbled, falling backward to the ground. They landed with a thud, and Luke’s cigarette rolled out of his fingers. Ellie stepped over and ground it out.
“Watch the sparks, will you? You’ve already managed to scare them. Try not to burn us all to death as well.”
Aaron, pinning Luke under his own weight, felt him bristle at her tone. It was one he’d heard her use on farm animals.
“Jesus, Ellie, what’s crawled up your arse? You can’t take a joke all of a sudden?” Luke aimed for lighthearted bravado, fell short. Aaron could smell the alcohol in his sweat.
“Did no one tell you?” Ellie snapped. “A joke’s supposed to be funny.”
“Christ, what the hell’s wrong with you these days? You don’t like a drink, don’t like a laugh. You hardly come out, you’re always working at that stupid shop. You’re so boring now, Ellie. Maybe you and Aaron should just get together and be done with it. Perfectly bloody suited.”