Sun Damage Read online

  About the Author

  Sabine Durrant is the author of five psychological thrillers, Under Your Skin, Remember Me This Way, Lie With Me, a Richard & Judy Bookclub selection and Sunday Times paperback bestseller, Take Me In and Finders, Keepers. Her previous novels are Having It and Eating It and The Great Indoors, and two books for teenage girls, Cross Your Heart, Connie Pickles and Ooh La La! Connie Pickles. She is a former features editor of the Guardian and a former literary editor at the Sunday Times, and her writing has appeared in many national newspapers and magazines. She lives in south London with her partner and their three children.

  Also by Sabine Durrant

  Having It and Eating It

  The Great Indoors

  Under Your Skin

  Remember Me This Way

  Lie With Me

  Take Me In

  Finders, Keepers

  Children’s Fiction

  Cross Your Heart, Connie Pickles

  Ooh La La! Connie Pickles

  Sun Damage

  Sabine Durrant

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2022 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Sabine Durrant 2022

  The right of Sabine Durrant to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Extract from MARNIE by Winston Graham.

  Copyright © 1961 by Winston Graham.

  Reproduced with permission of the Licensor through PLSclear.

  Extract from THE GRIFTERS by Jim Thompson.

  Copyright © 1963 by Jim Thompson.

  Reproduced with permission of the Licensor through PLSclear.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  eBook ISBN 978 1 473 68171 2

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.hodder.co.uk

  For Mabel

  There was little glory in whipping a fool – hell, fools were made to be whipped. But to take a professional, even if it cost you in the long run, ah, that was something to polish your pride.

  Jim Thompson, The Grifters

  I suppose you’d have seen her as a quiet girl.

  Winston Graham, Marnie

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  It was the English voice that caught our attention – the sub schoolgirl French, grappling with an order for a demi-carafe. We were close to the bar as usual: you tend to pick up most there. She was at a table in full sun – rookie mistake, one of her shoulders already going red. Fresh off the plane, always a bonus. A British Airways tag hung from the leather straps of her powder blue Longchamp bag (genuine logo, I’d checked), and the paperback in front of her, spine unbroken, was part of a 3-for-2 airport deal.

  What other tells? New mani-pedi – the neon pink all the posh Brits were wearing that year – and on the sand next to her, a brand-new sarong, still furled in its store-packaged ribbon. Also present: signs of the mild agitation people display on the first day of a holiday, an eagerness coupled with a daunting sense of vacancy, of a big hole waiting to be filled. When Sean went to the bathroom, I kept her in my line of vision as she scrolled through her phone, then held it up, small lips pursed, for a selfie.

  ‘Debit card: L Fletcher Davies,’ Sean murmured, his chair sinking a little into the sand as he slipped back into his seat. ‘Address on luggage: 11a Stanley Terrace, W11.’

  ‘Lulu,’ I countered. I couldn’t help myself. The four letters were strung in gold on a chain around her neck.

  He smiled, pleased with me, then jerked his chin at my phone, saying time to get trawling.

  I looked at him: Really?

  I wish I could say it was conscience that initially held me back, or at the very least foreboding. But I’d be lying. We shouldn’t even have been there. The ‘Picasso’ napkin ploy had gone to plan, and Sainte-Cécile-sur-Mer would have been two days behind us. Except I’d got ill – some kind of virus that left me wasted and bed-bound in the hotel. It was searingly hot. Music, a soft jazz, swam against the murmur and shuffle of waves. Sand slid silkily between my bare toes. I wrinkled my nose, one shoulder raised in a reluctant shrug. But I’d got the mood wrong. His smile had gone. ‘Ali,’ he said, and I could feel the cold of him like steel across my cheek.

  It wasn’t the money. There was enough in the hotel safe to get us where we wanted, even – a new, dangerous thought – go our separate ways. No, my hesitation was the problem; he’d taken it personally. He liked us to be in synch. Two parts of the same smoothly functioning machine.

  And, maybe, he was right. She was the perfect mark. Tourists usually are. The south of France may not be India, where eighty rupees pass through a person’s fingers as easily as eight, and where you could say I’d become who I was. But a fish out of water is a fish out of water whatever water it’s out of. Isolation makes mugs of us all. We all make our worst decisions when we have a lot on our mind.

  I adjusted the strings on my bikini top, pulling the knot so tight it bit at my neck. I’d been for a bathe, and the towel between me and the wooden seat was damp. I tasted salt on my lips, felt the loss of the heat-heavy afternoon. It was me who’d begged for one last day on the beach. I’d been holed up in the hotel room. I wanted to be out in the sun. Maybe I’d blag a jet ski. Maybe even get to read the book I’d found on a train: the Trojan siege told from the perspective of the women. I forced myself to smile, hold his gaze. It was one of his tests. After a few long seconds, his jaw relaxed and he gave a small nod. Was that even a wink? I felt a flood of relief. My hands I realised were shaking.

  I picked up my phone and got to work. Facebook, Insta. Didn’t take long to find what we needed. A double-barrelled surname is a gift.

  Sean flapped open his newspaper – a four-day-old Sunday Times. I could feel his eyes on me above the pages as I got to my feet.

  Raoul’s was one of several casual bars that fringed this small crescent bay – sand under foot, director’s chairs, parasols, a bustling trade of goat’s cheese salad and steak haché carried aloft on oval trays. It was drawing close to lunchtime and the tables were filling up, sun-dazed adults wandering up from the beach, trailing towels and small kids. Boats were moored out on the buoys now,
their occupants swimming or bobbing ashore, pushing their dry clothes ahead of them in inflatable tenders. All these shiny happy people, all these creatures from another planet. This was the rush, the razzle-dazzle hour. It’d be quiet again by four.

  I screwed up my eyes as I walked from shade into brightness, worked my way through the tables towards her. When I reached the back of her chair, I crouched down. The sole of one of her striped espadrilles still bore the price tag. Heat rose up from the sand. I could smell the coconut of her suncream.

  ‘Mademoiselle?’ I straightened up. ‘Je viens de trouver . . .’ I dangled a sliver of cotton decorated with glass beads and metal charms. ‘Mademoiselle, est-ce que c’est à vous?’

  She turned to face me then and, seeing her close up, I felt the stirrings of recognition.

  ‘Oh God.’ She blushed. ‘I don’t understand.’

  Her voice was unknown to me. But the shape and position of her features, the essence of her face, were familiar. We looked alike, that was it: the same nebulous green/grey/blue eyes, the same pale skin, the same fine, straight hair.

  ‘I don’t speak French,’ she said.

  She hadn’t noticed anything. But then I’m never really noticed. It’s why Sean chose me: the way I edge through the world unremarked, unwanted.

  ‘Oh, you’re English!’ I let out a small, exhausted exhalation of relief. ‘Me too. I just found this – did you drop it?’

  She looked at the bracelet and at her wrist.

  ‘Er, I don’t . . .’

  She looked again, more thoughtfully, at the bracelet.

  ‘Oh . . . yes!’

  She extended her hand.

  ‘Thank you!’

  I hardened towards her then. It’s not true you can’t con an honest person, but it’s easier emotionally when they’re not. Hell, Sean was right. It would have been a mistake to pass her up. She was just like the rest of them: out for themselves.

  ‘Let me,’ I said, pulling back the tiny clasp with my fingers and holding it so as to attach it to her wrist.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, and I bent over her, feeling her eyes skate over my head as I secured it. I studied her hands. Mine were steady again now I was working. A pebble-shaped burn on the pulse point, quite recent, still red. Calluses on the back of the knuckles, a tiny ladder of white scars on her left index.

  Don’t look; observe. Sean taught me that.

  ‘There,’ I said when I was done. ‘Don’t lose it again.’

  She swung her wrist to admire the flash of tat. ‘I won’t.’

  I straightened, tensing as his footsteps drew closer, small shivers of movement in the sand.

  ‘Lulu?’ His tone was both surprised and cautious, as one might gently admonish a small child. ‘It is Lulu, isn’t it?’

  I turned then in time to see him loom into view, the full force of him. His dark hair was still damp, tousled, and his tan brought out the sharp blue of his eyes. He was sporting just the right amount of stubble (too much, and he can look a bit shady), and the careless lope of his walk gave you the impression he was both taller and broader than he really was. He was secretive about his age. I guessed him to be about forty, but he could pass for ten years younger. Ray-Ban Aviators attached to the top of his white T-shirt, revealing a triangle of muscular, smooth skin.

  ‘Or—’ He took a step back now. ‘Am I wrong? Sorry. I thought I recognised you.’

  He looked at me, and then back to her. His smile was lopsided, boyish, diffident.

  She had twisted around completely in her seat to fix him, her fingers toying with the letters on her necklace. The strap of her meshy pink bra slipped out from under her vest top.

  ‘No. No. Yes. I am Lulu . . . Who are you? Do we . . . ?’

  I wondered if he’d noticed our resemblance. Probably. The more similar someone is to you, the less objectively you weigh them up. Perhaps he knew we’d have a head start.

  His teeth dug into his lower lip.

  ‘Val d’Isère?’ he said, tentatively. ‘I’m John Downe.’

  ‘Val d’Isère?’ Her eyes were searching his face. ‘Were you a guest at the chalet? No. I’d remember. The Bar d’Alpine? Um. Oh God. Le Petit Danois! Carrie Bowman’s last-night party?’

  He tapped his forehead, a small dramatic movement, a magician producing a bunch of flowers from his sleeve. ‘Carrie Bowman’s last-night party!’

  ‘Oh my God. That’s so weird. Yes. How do you know Carrie? Were you part of the Marlborough crowd?’

  ‘Yeah. I adore Carrie.’

  He had moved around so she no longer had to strain to see him. His smile was full now, interested, engaged. He still had those manners he was brought up with. But it was more than that. In the full beam of his attention, you felt warm; like you were loved.

  ‘John Downe.’ She was gazing at his face as if restoring it to memory. ‘Of course. God. Sorry, it was the end of a long season. I was wrecked that night.’

  ‘Weren’t we all!’ he said.

  I rolled my eyes. ‘John. Honestly!’

  She looked from him to me, and back again. A pause and she said, ‘So, you two here on holiday?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you could call it a holiday.’ He hooked his arm around my neck, squeezed it. ‘Ellie’s on her way home from a course in Florence, and I’ve come out to join her for some R & R.’ He poked me in the ribs. ‘She’s totally gassed to have the chance to spend time with her big embarrassing brother.’

  I watched the twitch in her zygomaticus major, the muscle on the side of the mouth that’s impossible to control. The involuntary movement caused a tiny quiver in her lower lip. She was pleased, but also satisfied at being proved right. He was older than me, yes, but in her judgement, way out of my league. I leaned into him sideways, feeling the support of his chest. He reached his arm across my shoulder. My big brother. I felt suspended for a moment, safe.

  ‘So, what kind of course?’ she asked.

  I felt Sean tense. I knew, fresh from the Picasso sting, he was thinking history of art. But I’d seen her Instagram feed – the bread stretching from bowls of fondue, the ceremonial racks of sacrificial lamb, the totteringly flamboyant meringues. And I’d run my thumb over the scars.

  ‘Cookery,’ I said. ‘Italian pasta.’

  ‘Not Mansaro’s?’ she asked.

  Sean’s breath brushed across my neck.

  I shook my head. ‘I wish. Nothing so grand. Nonna’s Kitchen?’ I'd plucked the name from the ether. ‘Basically, home-made pasta.’

  ‘How wonderful.’ She looked amused. ‘It makes me hungry just thinking of it. Wouldn’t one just love to tuck into a bowl of Nonna’s home-made pasta?’

  ‘Come on then, we should probably . . .’ Sean hooked one thumb back at our table. ‘Order food before the rush.’ He reached his hand out to shake hers. ‘Lovely to see you again, Lulu.’ The way he said her name; it lingered in his mouth.

  We began to move away. Our bare feet sank into the sand. The waiter with the lazy eye, the one who had snuck me a free croissant with my morning coffee, was standing aside to let us pass. A small boy had run up, his splayed feet sending little cascades. Disembodied sounds reached us from the beach like the chatter of birds. A woman somewhere screamed.

  ‘Unless . . .’ I wish I hadn’t turned so quickly because I caught the eagerness in her eyes, the vulnerability. My jaw slackened – in appeal or warning. But it was too late. Sean’s hand was pressing into my back, his thumbnail sharp against my skin. He released me, and she gestured, fingers fluttering, at the empty seats to either side of her.

  ‘. . . you’d like to join me?’

  Sean always said the secret of a good con is working out what someone wants and delivering on that desire, but it’s not as easy as it looks. I mean, for starters, it’s not like people always know what they want. And sometimes they don’t want what they think they want, or don’t think they want what they do. You often have to wade through wishes and hopes, regrets and self-delusions, even to get near.
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  Take Lulu Fletcher Davies. At this stage in the game it wasn’t what she could give us but what we could give her. She was on her own, bored, hoping for an experience Sainte-Cécile-sur-Mer had so far failed to deliver. Handsome, friendly John Downe was here to provide it. The artistry was in the details. Human beings are hard-wired for self-protection. If he’d simply approached, claiming to know her, he’d have activated her defences. Which is why a little sister was vital to the act. The business with the bracelet wasn’t just an excuse for an ‘in’. It proved our honesty. I was trustworthy, so was he. We’d leapfrogged her guard. When he moved towards her, she was already willing him to be part of her social circle; she was meeting him halfway.

  The best grifters always work in pairs.

  As soon as we sat down, she started rabbiting away – keen, now she’d caught us, to entertain. I memorised the details. She was an actor really – she’d had a small part in Downton Abbey; and had we seen that ad for Argos? – but it was so hard to get auditions, and cooking paid the bills. She was addicted to Instagram; she was trying to cut down, feel more centred, you know, in herself. In two days’ time, she was starting a job as a private chef in Provence. She’d worked in the same house the year before, only for different people – a really cool young couple, Olly Wilson, the guy who started the food delivery service, and his wife Katya, the fashion designer? Did we know them? Heard of them? No? Maybe?

  ‘Anyway, so Katya told the owner about me, and somehow I’ve got roped in to doing it for the people who are renting the Domaine this year. I said yes because I wanted to get away – life can be so samey; I needed a change. They’re in publishing, and I’ve always quite wanted to write a novel, so . . . and I’ve scored a couple of nights with the house to myself at the end. But, I mean, the money’s nothing. It’s loose change. And I’m missing a party I really want to be at – Boo Watson's? Do you know her? She was at St Mary’s with me, but her brother Will was at Marlborough . . .’