Page 63 of Unalive On Air

“Did you have any enemies? Can you think of anyone who’d want to kill you?” I ask.

“Gary,” Pixie sounds as exhausted as Peter. “I was the lead vocalist of an international band whose songs were largely about dismantling the patriarchy. I was a woman. Those things are reason enough for some people. Off the top of my head, I had at least seven stalkers that were known to me and the FBI. It honestly could have been anyone.”

My shoulders slump. I really hate it when the pool of suspects grows rather than shrinks.

“Okay, Trystan.” I want to move on. I already know a few details from his death, but I’m not about to pass up the opportunity to hear his voice at length.

“Yeeeww?”

“You weren’t asleep, were you? But you definitely were drowned. Can you think of anyone who’d want to hurt you?”

“Only Gabriel, who was basically my arch‑rival. We practically grew up together, learned the waves together, then when I got Amped sponsorship, Gabe pretended I no longer existed.”

I scribble the name down on my paper. “Could Gabriel have killed you?”

“No chance.”

“How come?”

“He was at Big Sur when I died.”

I raise a questioning brow.

“California,” Trystan clarifies. “There was a surf competition. I didn’t go because I needed to help set up the Wipeout festival here.”

“Okay.” Not helpful in any way, but I press on. “What’s Gabriel’s surname?”

“Cobbledick.”

Oh, my sweet baby Jesus. “Cobbledick, as in the undertaker Kelsey Cobbledick?”

“Angel’s Gabe’s uncle,” Trystan says.

I keep my features neutral, but internally I’m either about to have an apoplexy or an orgasm at the onslaught of all this new information.

That gives Angel an enormous motive for killing Trystan, especially if his nephew was also due to compete in the local championship.

“What did your body look like when you found it?” I asked.

“I never saw it. I was . . .” Trystan looks away, through the knots of brambles into nothing at all. Silence falls between the ghosts while we wait for him to elaborate. Waves crash rhythmically against the shore, sounding closer than I know they are.

Jeanie fills in. “Death can be a very distressing time for some. Especially . . .” She looks at Trystan with worry etched into her features. Perhaps anxious about how triggering her next words could be. “Especially if you had a lot to live for.”

“I woke up in the hut. Didn’t realise I was dead for ages . . . Thought I’d been stung by a Portuguese man o’war or something and that I was tripping balls, and that’s why I couldn’t touch anything or make myself heard. I tried to sleep it off, but the next thing I knew Dave Davies was packing up all of my stuff into bags, and then Jeanie was there and I could talk to her. Last time I saw Jeanie was about three years earlier at Wipeout, and since she was officially a missing person, that was the moment I knew I was fucked.”

I feel like I want to hug him, and I’m not someone who ever uses physical touch to comfort another. I don’t hug him, though. Instead, I wait until Pixie puts her arm around his waist and pulls him tighter, whilst I quietly reprimand myself for not getting in there first. After all, it was my question that made him so vulnerable, placing him directly in the firing line of hug-reception.

“I saw it,” Peter says, slightly more sober than he was moments ago. “Can I?”

Trystan shrug-nods, like he’s given up all fight.

“Blue lips, bloodshot eyes, wet hair. Obviously drowned. But, and here’s the crucial thing . . . Trystan’s hair was only wet at the front, but the rest of his body was dry. Also, remember that man who drowned in the sea about eight years ago?” Peter turns to me.

My immediate thought is to say, “No, I don’t remember. I wasn’t here.” But then I realise this is all part of his performance.

“There was this couple swimming, and they’d gone too far out and got stuck in a . . . thingy . . .”

“Rip tide,” Trystan helpfully fills in.