I Let You Go (13 page)

‘Did the gannet fly okay?’

Patrick nods. ‘He’ll be fine. It happens fairly often. You’re not local, are you? I remember you saying you’d not long arrived in Penfach when you brought Beau in. Where did you live before?’

Before I can think of an answer, a phone rings, its tinny tune sounding out of place out here on the beach. Inwardly I sigh with relief, although I have a well-worn story now, trotted out for Iestyn and Bethan, and the occasional walker who heads my way in search of conversation. I am an artist by trade, but I injured my hand in an accident and cannot work, so have taken up photography. It’s not so far from the truth, after all. I haven’t been asked about children, and I wonder if I carry the answer so visibly about me.

‘Sorry,’ says Patrick. He searches in his pockets and brings out a small pager, buried in a handful of pony nuts and bits of straw, that drop on to the sand. ‘I have to have it on its loudest setting otherwise I don’t hear it.’ He glances at the screen. ‘I must dash, I’m afraid. I volunteer at the lifeboat station at Port Ellis. I’m on call a couple of times a month, and it looks like we’re needed now.’ He pushes the phone back into his pocket. ‘It was lovely seeing you again, Jenna. Really lovely.’

Raising an arm to bid me farewell, he runs across the beach and up the sandy path, and is gone before I can agree with him.

Back at the cottage, Beau flops into his basket, exhausted. I load the morning’s images on to the computer while I wait for the kettle to boil. They are better than I expected, given the interruption: the letters stand out against the drying sand, and my driftwood heart makes the perfect frame. I leave the best image on the screen to look at again later, and take my coffee upstairs. I will regret this, I know, but I can’t help myself.

Sitting on the floor, I put my mug down on the bare floorboards and reach under the bed for the box I haven’t touched since arriving in Penfach. I pull it towards me and sit cross-legged to open the lid, breathing in memories along with the dust. It starts to hurt almost immediately, and I know I should close the box without delving further. But like an addict seeking a fix, I am resolute.

I take out the small photo album lying on top of a sheaf of legal documents. One by one, I stroke my fingers across snapshots of a time so removed it is like looking through a stranger’s photographs. There I am standing in the garden; there again in the kitchen, cooking. And there I am pregnant, proudly showing off my bump and grinning at the camera. The knot in my throat tightens and I feel the familiar prickle at the back of my eyes. I blink them away. I was so happy, that summer, certain that this new life was going to change everything, and we would be able to start again. I thought it would be a new beginning for us. I stroke the photograph, tracing the outline of my bump and imagining where his head would have been; his curled limbs; his barely formed toes.

Gently, as though it might disturb my unborn child, I close the photo album and place it back in the box. I should go downstairs now, while I am still in control. But it is like worrying at a sore tooth or picking at a scab. I feel around until my fingers touch the soft fabric of the rabbit I slept with every night when I was pregnant, so that I could give it to my son and it would smell of me. Now I hold it to my face and inhale, desperate for a trace of him. I let out a stifled wail and Beau pads quietly upstairs and into my bedroom.

‘Downstairs, Beau,’ I tell him.

The dog ignores me.

‘Get out!’ I scream at him, a madwoman clutching a baby’s toy. I scream and I can’t stop, even though it’s not Beau I’m seeing, but the man who took my baby from me; the man who ended my life when he ended my son’s. ‘Get out! Get out! Get out!’

Beau drops to the floor, his body tensed and his ears flattened against his head. But he doesn’t give up. Slowly, inch by inch, he moves towards me, never taking his eyes off me.

The fight leaves me as fast as it arrived.

Beau stops next to me, still crouched close to the floorboards, and rests his head on my lap. He closes his eyes and I feel the weight and the warmth of him through my jeans. Unbidden, my hand reaches out to stroke him, and my tears begin to fall.

Ray had put together his team for Operation Break. He had given Kate the role of exhibits officer, which was a big ask for someone who had only been on the team for eighteen months, but he was certain she could handle it.

‘Of course I can!’ she said, when he mentioned his concerns. ‘And I can always come to you if I have any issues, can’t I?’

‘Any time,’ Ray said. ‘Drink after work?’

‘Just try stopping me.’

They had taken to meeting two or three times a week after work to go over the hit-and-run. As the outstanding enquiries petered out, they spent less time talking about the case, and more time talking about their lives outside of work. Ray had been surprised to discover that Kate was as passionate a Bristol City supporter as he was himself, and they had spent many a pleasant evening mourning their recent relegation. For the first time in years he felt as though he wasn’t only a husband, or a father, or even a police officer. He was Ray.

Ray had been careful not to work on the hit-and-run during his normal working hours. He was directly contravening the chief’s order, but as long as he wasn’t doing it on job time, he reasoned she couldn’t have an issue with it. And if they came up with a strong lead that resulted in an arrest – well, she’d be singing a different tune then.

The need to conceal their work from the rest of the CID team meant Ray and Kate had taken to meeting in a pub further away than the usual police haunts. The Horse and Jockey was quiet, with high-backed booths where they could spread out paperwork without fear of being overlooked, and the landlord never glanced up from his crossword. It was an enjoyable way to round off the day and de-stress before going home, and Ray found himself watching the clock until it was time to leave the office.

Typically, a phone call at five delayed him, and by the time he reached the pub, Kate was halfway through her drink. The unspoken arrangement was that whoever got there first got in the drinks, and his pint of Pride was waiting on the table.

‘What kept you?’ Kate asked, pushing it towards him. ‘Anything interesting?’

Ray took a gulp of his pint. ‘Some intelligence that might end up coming our way,’ he said. ‘There’s a drug dealer on the Creston estate using six or seven smaller pushers to do his dirty work – it’s looking like it’ll shape up into a nice little job.’ A particularly vocal Labour MP had taken to using the drug problem as a basis to pontificate as publicly as possible about the threat to society posed by ‘lawless estates’, and Ray knew that the chief was keen that they be seen to be taking a proactive stance. Ray was hopeful that if Operation Break went well, he might be sufficiently in the chief’s good books to lead on this one, too.

‘The Domestic Abuse team has had contact with Dominica Letts,’ he told Kate, ‘the girlfriend of one of the dealers, and they’re trying to convince her to press charges against him. Obviously we don’t want to spook him by bringing the police in for that when we’re trying to put together a job, but at the same time we’ve got a duty of care to his girlfriend.’

‘Is she in danger?’

Ray paused before answering. ‘I don’t know. DA have graded her high risk, but she’s adamant she won’t give evidence against him and at the moment she isn’t cooperating with the unit at all.’

‘How long before we can move?’

‘It could be weeks,’ Ray said. ‘Too long. We’ll need to look at getting her into a refuge – assuming she’ll go – and holding the assault allegations until we get him in for the drugs job.’

‘Hobson’s choice,’ Kate said thoughtfully. ‘What’s more important: drug-dealing or domestic violence?’

‘It’s not as simple as that though, is it? What about the violence caused by drug abuse? The robberies committed by addicts looking for their next fix? The effects of dealing might not be as immediate as a punch to the face, but they’re far-reaching and just as painful.’ Ray realised he was speaking louder than normal, and he stopped abruptly.

Kate put a calming hand over his. ‘Hey, I’m playing devil’s advocate. It’s not an easy decision.’

Ray gave a sheepish grin. ‘Sorry, I’d forgotten how wound up I can get about this sort of thing.’ In fact, it had been a while since he had thought about it at all. He had been in the job for so many years, his reasons for doing it had become buried beneath paperwork and personnel issues. It was good to be reminded of what really mattered.

His eyes met Kate’s for a moment, and Ray felt the heat of her skin against his. A second later she pulled her hand away, laughing awkwardly.

‘One for the road?’ Ray said. By the time he returned to the table, the moment had passed, and he wondered if he had imagined it. He put down the drinks and tore open a packet of crisps so it lay flat between them.

‘I’ve got nothing new on the Jacob job,’ he said.

‘Me neither,’ Kate sighed. ‘We’re going to have to give up, aren’t we?’

He nodded. ‘It looks that way. I’m sorry.’

‘Thank you for letting me carry on for as long as you did.’

‘You were right not to give up,’ Ray said, ‘and I’m glad we kept working on it.’

‘Even though we’re not any further forward?’

‘Yes, because now it feels right to stop, doesn’t it? We’ve done everything we possibly could have done.’

Kate nodded slowly. ‘It does feel different, yes.’ She looked at Ray appraisingly.

‘What?’

‘I guess you’re not the chief’s yes-man, after all.’ She grinned, and Ray laughed. He was glad to have gone up in her estimation.

They ate the crisps in companionable silence, and Ray checked his phone in case Mags had sent a text message.

‘How are things at home?’

‘Same old,’ Ray said, tucking his phone back in his pocket. ‘Tom still grunts his way through meal-times, and Mags and I still argue about what we should do about it.’ He gave a short laugh, but Kate didn’t join in.

‘When are you next seeing his teacher?’

‘We were at the school again yesterday,’ Ray said grimly. ‘Barely six weeks into the new school year and it seems Tom’s been skipping lessons.’ He drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘I don’t understand that kid. He was fine over the summer, but as soon as he went back it was the same old Tom: uncommunicative, surly, uncooperative.’

‘Do you still think he’s being bullied?’

‘The school says not, but then they would, wouldn’t they?’ Ray didn’t hold a particularly high opinion of Tom’s head teacher, who had been quick to place the blame on Mags and Ray for not presenting a ‘united front’ at parents’ evenings. Mags had threatened to come to Ray’s office and forcibly drag him to the next meeting, and Ray had been so worried he would forget that he had worked from home all day, so he could drive to the appointment with Mags. Not that it had made a blind bit of difference.

‘Tom’s teacher says he’s a bad influence on the rest of the class,’ Ray said. ‘Apparently he’s “subversive”.’ He gave a derisive snort. ‘At his age!’ It’s bloody ridiculous. If they can’t deal with uncooperative kids they shouldn’t have gone into teaching. Tom’s not subversive, he’s just bloody-minded.’

‘I wonder where he gets that from,’ Kate said, suppressing a smile.

‘Watch it, DC Evans! Or do you want to end up back in uniform?’ He grinned.

Kate’s laugh turned into a yawn. ‘Sorry, I’m knackered. I think I’m going to call it a night. My car’s in the garage, so I need to check what time the buses run.’

‘I’ll give you a lift.’

‘Are you sure? It’s not exactly on your way.’

‘It’s no trouble. Come on – you can show me what the posh end of town’s like.’

Kate’s apartment was in a smart block of flats in the centre of Clifton, where prices were, in Ray’s view, vastly inflated.

‘My parents helped me out with a deposit,’ Kate explained. ‘I’d never have afforded it otherwise. Plus it’s tiny; technically two bedrooms, but only if you don’t actually want to put a bed in the second one.’

‘Surely you’d have got far more for your money if you’d bought elsewhere?’

‘Probably, but Clifton has everything!’ Kate waved an arm expansively. ‘I mean, where else can you get falafel at three in the morning?’

As the only thing Ray ever wanted at three in the morning was a pee, he failed to see the attraction.

Kate unclipped her seat belt and stopped, her hand on the door handle. ‘Do you want to come up and see the flat?’ Her tone was casual, but the air was suddenly thick with anticipation, and at that instant Ray knew he was crossing a line he had been refusing to acknowledge for months.

‘I’d like that,’ he said.

Kate’s apartment was on the top floor, with a swanky lift that arrived in seconds. When the doors opened they were on a small carpeted landing with a cream-painted front door immediately opposite them. Ray followed Kate out of the lift, and they stood in silence as the doors slid shut. She was looking directly at him, her chin lifted a little, and a strand of hair falling across her forehead. Ray suddenly found he was in no hurry to leave.

‘This is me,’ Kate said, without taking her eyes off him.

He nodded, reaching out to tuck the errant strand of hair behind her ear. Then, before he could question what was happening, he was kissing her.

Beau pushes his nose into the crook of my leg and I reach down to fuss his ears. I haven’t been able to prevent myself from loving him, and so he sleeps on my bed as he has wanted to do from the start. When the nightmares come, and I wake screaming, he’s there to lick my hand and reassure me. Gradually, without my noticing, my grief has changed shape; from a raw, jagged pain, that won’t be silenced, to a dull, rounded ache I’m able to lock away at the back of my mind. If it is left there, quiet and undisturbed, I find I’m able to pretend that everything is quite all right. That I never had another life.

‘Come on, then.’ I reach out to switch off the bedside light, which can’t compete with the sunlight streaming through the window. I know the seasons of the bay now, and there is a pleasing satisfaction in having seen almost a full year here. The bay is never the same from one day to the next. Changing tides, unpredictable weather, even the rubbish thrown up on the beach alters it hourly. Today the sea is swollen from a night’s rain, the sand grey and waterlogged beneath heavy clouds. There are no tents at the caravan park now, only Bethan’s static caravans and a handful of motorhomes owned by holiday-makers taking advantage of the late-season discounts. Before too long the park will close, and the bay will be mine again.