She could remember that first day so well. The musty smells, the cobwebs, the rotting timbers, the ancient range in the kitchen. The view to die for out across the softly rolling South Downs. Mal putting his strong arm around her shoulders and squeezing her, discussing all the things he could do himself to fix it up, with her help. A big project, but their project. Their home. Their piece of paradise.
And she could imagine, standing there then, what it would be like in winter, the sharp cold smells, the burning firewood, rotting leaves, wet grass. The place felt so safe, so secure.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Every time Caitlin brought it up, it made her sad. And it made her even sadder that still, over seven years after they had moved out, when Caitlin was just eight, she referred to Winter Cottage – and in particular its little Wendy house – as her
home
. And not the house they lived in now. That hurt.
But she could understand. Those eight years at Winter Cottage were Caitlin’s healthy years. The time in her life that she had been carefree. Her illness had begun a year later, and at the time Lynn had wondered whether the stress of seeing her parents’ marriage break up had been a contributing factor. She always would.
They were passing the IKEA chimneys again. Lynn was starting to feel they were becoming a symbol in her life. Or some kind of new marker posts. Old, normal life south of those chimney stacks. New, strange, unknown, reborn life north of them.
On the CD, Justin Timberlake began singing ‘What Goes Around Comes Around’.
‘Hey, Mum,’ Caitlin said, suddenly sounding as if she was perking up. ‘Do you think that’s the case, you know, what he’s singing, right?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘What goes around, comes around. Do you believe in that?’
‘You mean do I believe in karma?’
Caitlin thought for some moments. ‘I’m saying, like, I’m taking advantage of someone who’s died. Is that right?’
Someone who had died in a motorcycle accident, Lynn had been told by the hospital, but she had not given that detail to Caitlin, and did not want to, fearing it would distress her. ‘Maybe you need to take a different perspective. Perhaps that person has loved ones who will get comfort from knowing that some good will come out of their loss.’
‘It’s just so weird, isn’t it? That we don’t, like, even know who it is. Do you think I could ever – meet – the family?’
‘Would you want to?’
Caitlin was silent for a while, then she said, ‘Maybe. I don’t know.’
They drove on in silence again for a couple of minutes.
‘You know what Luke said?’
Lynn had to take a deep breath to restrain herself from retorting, No, and I don’t want to know what that sodding moron said. Through gritted teeth, sounding a lot more cheery and interested than she felt, she replied, ‘Tell me.’
‘Well, he said that some people who have transplants inherit stuff from the donors. Characteristics – or changes in their tastes. So, if the donor had a craving for Mars Bars, you might get that. Or liked a particular kind of music. Or was good at football. Sort of from their genes.’
‘Where did Luke get that gem from?’
‘The Internet. There’s loads of sites. We looked at some of them. You can inherit their dislikes too!’
‘Really?’ Suddenly Lynn perked up. Maybe this liver would come from someone who disliked dickheads with stupid hair.
‘There are verified case histories,’ Caitlin said, brightening up even more. ‘There are, really! OK, right, you know I’m frightened of heights?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Well, there’s this woman I read about in America who was terrified of heights, and she had a transplant and got the lungs of a mountain climber, and now she’s a fanatical climber!’
‘You don’t think that was simply because she felt better, having lungs that worked properly?’
‘No.’
‘It sounds amazing,’ Lynn said, not wanting to appear sceptical, and keen to keep her daughter’s enthusiasm up.
‘And there’s this one, right, Mum? There was a man in Los Angeles who received a woman’s heart, and before he hated shopping – and now he wants to go shopping all the time!’
Lynn grinned. ‘So, what characteristic would you most like to inherit?’
‘Well, I’ve been thinking about this! I’m rubbish at drawing. Maybe I’ll get the liver from someone who was a brilliant artist!’
Lynn laughed. ‘Yep, there’s all kinds of possible bonuses! See, you’re going to be fine!’
Caitlin nodded. ‘With a cadaverous liver inside me. Yeah. I’ll be fine, just a bit liverish.’
Lynn laughed again, and was pleased to see her daughter break into a smile. She squeezed her hand tightly and they drove on companionably for some minutes, listening to the music, and the knocking rattle of the exhaust pipe beneath them.
Then, as her laughter faded, she felt a tightening band, like cold steel, inside her. There were risks with this operation which had been spelled out to both of them. Things could and did go wrong. There was a realistic possibility that Caitlin could die on the operating table.
But without the transplant, there was no realistic possibility that Caitlin would live longer than a few months.
Lynn had never been a churchgoer, but since earliest childhood, for much of her life, she had said her prayers every night. Five years ago, in the week immediately after her sister had died, she had stopped praying. Just recently, since Caitlin became seriously ill, she had started again, but only half-heartedly. She wished, sometimes, that she could trust God, and surrender all her concerns to Him. How much simpler that would make everything.
She squeezed her daughter’s hand again. Her living, beautiful hand that she and Mal had created, maybe in God’s image, maybe not. But certainly in her image. God could strut his stuff, but it was she who was going to be there for Caitlin in the coming hours, and if the Lord wanted to play Mr Nice Guy then she would welcome that with open arms. But if he wanted to screw around with her mind and her emotions and her daughter’s life, he could go take a hike.
Even so, at the next traffic lights she briefly closed her eyes and said a silent prayer.
46
Roy Grace was gripped with panic. He was running across grass, running at the edge of the cliff, with its sheer drop of a thousand feet, with a howling wind blowing in his face, almost pushing him to a standstill, so that he was just running on the spot.
Meanwhile a man was running towards the edge of the cliff, holding the baby in his arms. His baby.
Grace threw himself forward, grabbing the man’s waist in a rugby tackle, bringing him down. The man broke free and rolled, determinedly, cradling the baby like a ball he was not going to lose, rolling over and over towards the cliff edge.
Grace gripped his ankles, jerking him back. Then suddenly the earth beneath him gave way, with a crack like thunder, a huge chunk of the cliff breaking off like a crumbling piece of stale cake, and he was plunging, plunging with this man and his child, plunging down towards the jagged rocks and the boiling sea.
‘Roy! Darling! Roy! Darling!’
Cleo.
Cleo’s voice.
‘Roy, it’s OK, darling. It’s OK!’
He opened his eyes. Saw the light on. Felt his heart hammering. He was drenched in sweat, as if he was lying in a stream.
‘Shit,’ he whispered. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Falling again?’ Cleo said tenderly, looking at him with concerned eyes.
‘Beachy Head.’
It was a recurring dream he had been having for weeks. But it wasn’t just about an incident he’d been involved with there. It was also about a human monster he’d arrested a few months ago.
A sick monster who had murdered two women in the city, and had tried to kill Cleo as well. The man was behind bars, with bail refused, but even so, Grace felt suddenly nervous. Above the thudding of his heart and the roar of the blood coursing in his ears, he listened to the silence of the city at night.
The clock radio panel showed 3.10 a.m.
Nothing stirred in the house. Rain was falling outside.
Pregnant with his child, Cleo seemed more vulnerable than ever to him now. It had been a while since he had checked on the man, although he had recently dealt with some of the pre-trial paperwork. He made a mental note to make a call to ensure that he was still safely in custody and had not been released by some woolly-minded judge doing his bit to ease the overcrowding in England’s prisons.
Cleo stroked his brow. He felt her warm breath on his face. It smelled sweet, faintly minted, as if she had just brushed her teeth.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his voice low, barely above a whisper, as if that would be less intrusive.
‘You poor darling. You have so many nightmares, don’t you?’
He lay there, the sheet below him sodden and cold with his perspiration. She was right. A couple of times a week, at least.
‘Why was it you stopped going to therapy?’ she asked him, then kissed each of his eyes, softly, in turn.
‘Because…’ He shrugged. ‘It wasn’t helping me to move on.’ He eased himself up in bed a little, staring around.
He liked this room, which Cleo had decorated mostly in white – with a thick white rug on the bare oak floor, white linen curtains, white walls, and a few pieces of elegant black furniture, including a black lacquered dressing table – still damaged from the attack on her.
‘You’re the only thing that’s helped me to move on. You know that?’
She smiled at him. ‘Time is the best healer,’ she said.
‘No, you are. I love you. I love you so much. I love you in a way I never thought it would be possible to love anyone again.’
She stared at him, smiling, blinking slowly, for some moments.
‘I love you too. Even more than you love me.’
‘Impossible!’
She pulled a face at him. ‘Calling me a liar?’
He kissed her.
47
Glenn Branson lay wide awake in the spare room of Roy Grace’s house, which had now become his second home – or, more accurately at the moment, his main residence.
It was the same every night. He drank heavily, trying to knock himself out, but neither the booze nor the pills the doctor had prescribed seemed to have any effect. And his body, which he normally kept in shape by working out relentlessly at home or in the gym, was starting to lose muscle tone.
I’m bloody falling apart, he reflected gloomily.
The room had been decorated by Sandy in the same Zen minimalistic style as the rest of this house. The bed was a low, futon-style affair, with an uncomfortable slatted headboard that, because of his tall frame, he constantly bashed his skull on as he tried to stop his feet sticking out the other end. The mattress was as hard as cement and the frame of the bed felt loose, wobbling precariously and creaking every time he moved. He kept meaning to sort it out with a spanner, tightening the nuts, but away from work he was so despondent he didn’t feel like doing anything. Half his clothes, still in their zipped plastic covers, lay across the armchair in the small room – some of them had been there for weeks and he still had not got round to hanging them up in the almost empty wardrobe.
Roy was quite right when he told him he was turning the house into a tip.
It was 3.50 a.m. His mobile phone lay beside the bed and he hoped, as he hoped every night, that Ari might suddenly ring, to tell him she’d had a change of heart, that she’d been thinking it over and realized she did still love him, deeply, and wanted to find a way to make the marriage work.
But it stayed silent, tonight and every damn night.
And they’d had another row earlier. Ari was angry that he couldn’t collect the kids from school tomorrow afternoon, because there was a lecture she wanted to go to in London. That sounded suspicious to him, rang alarm bells. She never went to lectures in London. Was it a guy?
Was she seeing someone?
It was bad enough coping with being apart from her. But the thought that she might be seeing someone, start another relationship, introduce that person to his kids, was more than he could bear.
And he had work to think about. Had to focus somehow.
Two cats, fighting, yowled outside. And somewhere in the distance a siren shrieked. A response unit from Brighton and Hove Division. Or an ambulance.
He rolled over, suddenly craving Ari’s body. Tempted to call her. Maybe she was-
Was what?
Oh, God almighty, how much they used to love each other.
He tried to switch his mind to his work. To his phone conversation yesterday evening, with the wife of the missing skipper of the
Scoob-Eee
. A very distraught Janet Towers. Friday night had been their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. They had a table booked at the Meadows restaurant in Hove. But her husband had never come home. She had not heard from him since.
She was absolutely certain he’d had an accident.
All she could tell Glenn was that she had contacted the coastguard on Saturday morning, who had reported back to her that the
Scoob-Eee
had been seen going through the lock at Shoreham Harbour at nine on Friday night, along with an Algerian-registered freighter. It was common for local fishing boats to enter the lock behind a commercial cargo vessel, enabling them to skip the locking fees. No one had paid any attention to the vessel.
Neither the boat nor Jim Towers had been seen since.
No accidents at sea had been logged by the coastguard, she had told Glenn. Jim and his boat had literally disappeared into thin air.
Suddenly, in his sleepless state, he remembered something. It might be nothing. But Roy Grace had taught him many important lessons about being a good detective and one of them was going around in his head now. Clear the ground under your feet.
He was thinking back to Friday morning, when he had been standing on the quay at Arlington Basin, waiting to board the
Scoob-Eee
. To a glint of light he had seen as they cast off, on the far side of the harbour, beside a cluster of refinery tanks.