I Let You Go (17 page)

Mags glanced at Lucy, who was absorbed in arranging the food on the plates. ‘Have breakfast first. Please.’

Reluctantly, Ray pressed the red button to reject the call and divert it to voicemail. He had no sooner loaded a fork with bacon and eggs when the house phone rang. Mags picked it up.

‘Oh, hello, Kate. Is it urgent? We’re in the middle of breakfast.’

Ray felt suddenly uncomfortable. He scrolled through the emails on his BlackBerry to give himself something to do, glancing quickly up at Mags, who managed to convey through rigid shoulders alone that she was not happy at the intrusion. Why was Kate phoning him at home? And on a Sunday? He strained to try and hear Kate’s voice over the line, but couldn’t make anything out. The familiar feeling of nausea that had plagued him in the last few days returned, and he looked at his bacon and eggs without enthusiasm.

Mags passed Ray the phone wordlessly.

‘Hi, Ray,’ Kate was cheerful, unaware of his internal conflict. ‘What are you up to?’

‘Just family stuff. What is it?’ He felt Mags’ eyes on him and knew he was being uncharacteristically curt.

‘I’m so sorry to disturb you,’ Kate said drily, ‘but I didn’t think you’d want to wait till tomorrow.’

‘What is it?’

‘A response to the hit-and-run anniversary appeal. We’ve got a witness.’

Ray was in his office within half an hour.

‘So what have we got?’

Kate scanned the printed email that had come through from the Police Enquiry Centre.

‘A guy who said he’d been cut up by a red car driving erratically about the time the accident took place,’ she said. ‘He meant to report it, but never did.’

Ray felt a surge of adrenalin. ‘Why didn’t he get in touch when the first lot of witness appeals went out?’

‘He isn’t local,’ Kate said. ‘He was up visiting his sister for her birthday – that’s how he can be certain about the date – but he went back down to Bournemouth the same day and didn’t hear anything about the hit-and-run. Anyway, he only put two and two together when his sister mentioned the appeal to him on the phone last night.’

‘Is he credible?’ Ray asked. Witnesses were an unpredictable breed. Some people had great memories for detail – others couldn’t tell you what colour shirt they had on without checking first; and even then they got it wrong.

‘Don’t know – we’ve not spoken to him yet.’

‘Why the hell not?’

‘It’s half past nine,’ Kate said, defensiveness making her snap. ‘We only got the information about five minutes before I rang you, and I thought you’d want to speak to him yourself.’

‘Sorry.’

Kate shrugged off the apology.

‘And I apologise if I sounded off when you rang. It felt a bit, you know, awkward.’

‘Is everything okay?’

The question was loaded. Ray nodded.

‘It’s fine. I felt uncomfortable, that’s all.’

They looked at each other for a moment, before Ray broke away.

‘Right, well, let’s get him in. I want every last detail he can give us about that car. The make, colour, index – anything at all about who was driving it. Looks like we’ve got another shot at this one; let’s do it right this time.’

‘Not a fucking clue!’ Ray paced in front of the window in his office, making no attempt to mask his frustration. ‘Can’t tell us how old the driver was, whether they were black or white – Jesus! He doesn’t even know if it was a man or a woman!’ He rubbed his head vigorously, as though the stimulation might spark an idea.

‘Visibility was bad,’ Kate reminded him, ‘and he was concentrating on keeping control of his own vehicle.’

Ray wasn’t in the mood to be generous. ‘The bloke shouldn’t be on the road if a bit of rain’s going to affect him that much.’ He sat down heavily and took a slurp of coffee, wincing as he realised it was stone cold. ‘One of these days, I’ll actually get to drink a whole cup of coffee,’ he muttered.

‘A J-reg Ford,’ Kate said, reading from her notes, ‘with a cracked windscreen. Possibly a Fiesta or a Focus. It’s something, at least.’

‘Well, it’s better than nothing,’ Ray said. ‘Let’s get going. I’d like you to prioritise finding Jacob’s mother. If – when – we get someone in the traps for this, I want her to see we didn’t give up on her son.’

‘Understood,’ said Kate. ‘I got on well with the head teacher at the school when I rang about the appeal. I’ll call again now and do some more digging. Someone must have stayed in touch with her.’

‘I’ll get Malcolm to work on the car. We’ll get a PNC check on all the Bristol-registered Fiestas and Focuses, and I’ll stand you lunch while we go through the printout.’

Pushing aside the remains of what Moira had optimistically offered as paella, Ray rested a hand on the pile of paperwork in front of him. ‘Nine hundred and forty-two.’ He whistled.

‘And that’s just in this area,’ Kate said. ‘What if it was just passing through?’

‘Let’s see if we can narrow it down a bit.’ He folded the printout and handed it to Kate. ‘Check this list against the ANPR: say half an hour before the hit-and-run until half an hour after it. We’ll see how many of them were on the road during that time, and start eliminating them from there.’

‘We’re getting close,’ Kate said, her eyes shining. ‘I can feel it.’

Ray grinned. ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. What other work have you got on at the moment?’

She counted jobs off on her fingers. ‘The Londis robbery, series of assaults on Asian taxi-drivers, and a possible sexual assault coming our way from shift. Oh, and I’ve got a two-day Diversity course next week.’

Ray snorted. ‘Consider yourself off the Diversity hook,’ he said. ‘And pass your other jobs to me to reallocate. I want you working full-time on the hit-and-run.’

‘Officially, this time?’ Kate said, raising an eyebrow.

‘Totally above board,’ Ray said, grinning. ‘But go easy on the overtime.’

As the bus arrives in Port Ellis, Patrick is already waiting for me. We’ve met on the beach every morning for the last fortnight, and when he suggested we spend his afternoon off together, I only hesitated for a moment. I can’t spend my whole life afraid.

‘Where are we going?’ I ask, looking around for clues. His house is in the opposite direction, and we pass the village pub without stopping.

‘You’ll see.’

We leave the village and follow the road that drops down towards the sea. As we walk, our hands touch and his fingers lace between mine. I feel a jolt of electricity and I let my hand relax into his.

The news that I have been spending time with Patrick has spread through Penfach at an astonishing rate. Yesterday I ran into Iestyn at the village shop.

‘I hear you’ve been seeing Alun Mathews’ boy,’ he said, with a lop-sided smile. ‘He’s a good lad, Patrick, you could do a lot worse for yourself.’ I felt myself redden.

‘When will you be able to look at my front door?’ I asked him, changing the subject. ‘It’s no better: the lock sticks so badly the key sometimes won’t turn at all.’

‘You don’t need to be worrying about that,’ Iestyn replied. ‘There’s no one would be stealing anything around here.’

I had to take a breath before answering, knowing he found me strange for locking the door at all. ‘All the same,’ I said to him, ‘I’d feel better if it were fixed.’

Once again Iestyn promised to come up to the cottage to sort it out, but when I left at lunchtime there had been no sign of him, and it took me a full ten minutes to force the door shut.

The road continues to narrow, and I can see the swell of the ocean at the end of the lane. The water is grey and unforgiving, white spray bursting into the air from the wrestling waves. The gulls sweep in dizzying circles, buffeted by the winds that wrap themselves around the bay. Finally I realise where Patrick is taking me.

‘The lifeboat station! Can we go in?’

‘That’s the idea,’ he says. ‘You’ve seen the vet’s surgery; I thought you might like to see this place – I seem to spend almost as much time here.’

Port Ellis Lifeboat Station is an odd, squat building, which could be mistaken for industrial premises, were it not for the lookout tower perched on top; its four glass windows reminding me of an aircraft control tower.

We walk past a huge pair of blue sliding doors at the front of the building, and Patrick presses an entry-code into a grey box next to a smaller door to one side.

‘Come on, I’ll show you around.’

Inside, the station smells of sweat and the sea; of the sharp tang of salt that lingers on clothing. The boathouse is dominated by what Patrick tells me is called ‘the Craft’; a bright orange rigid inflatable boat.

‘We’re clipped on,’ he says, ‘but when the weather’s bad, sometimes it’s all you can do to stay in the boat.’

I wander around the boathouse, taking in the notices pinned to the door, the equipment lists carefully ticked off with each daily check. On the wall is a plaque, commemorating three volunteers who lost their lives in 1916.

‘Coxswain P. Grant and Crew Members Harry Ellis and Glyn Barry,’ I read aloud. ‘How awful.’

‘They were responding to a steamship in distress off the Gower peninsula,’ Patrick says, joining me and putting an arm around my shoulder. He must see my face, because he adds, ‘It was very different then – they didn’t have half the kit we have now.’

He takes my hand and leads me out of the boathouse into a small room where a man in a blue fleece is making coffee. His face has the leathery complexion of someone who has spent a lifetime outside.

‘All right, David?’ Patrick says. ‘This is Jenna.’

‘Showing you the ropes, is he?’ David winks at me, and I smile at what is clearly a well-worn joke.

‘I never gave much thought to lifeboats before,’ I say. ‘I just took for granted the fact they were there.’

‘They won’t be here for much longer if we don’t keep fighting for them,’ David says, stirring a heaped spoon of sugar into syrupy coffee. ‘Our running costs are paid by the RNLI, not the government, so we’re forever trying to raise money, not to mention looking for volunteers.’

‘David is our operations manager,’ says Patrick. ‘He runs the station – keeps us all in check.’

David laughs. ‘He’s not far wrong.’

A telephone rings, the sound shrill in the empty crewroom, and David excuses himself. Seconds later he is back, unzipping his fleece and running into the boat room.

‘Canoe capsized off Rhossili Bay,’ he shouts to Patrick. ‘Father and son missing. Helen’s called Gary and Aled.’

Patrick opens a locker and pulls out a tangle of yellow rubber, a red life vest and a dark blue oilskin. ‘I’m sorry, Jenna, I have to go.’ He tugs the waterproofs over his jeans and sweatshirt. ‘Take the keys and wait at my house. I’ll be back before you know it.’ He moves quickly and before I can reply he runs into the boat room, just as two men rush in through the sliding door, pulled wide open in readiness. Within minutes, the four men are dragging the craft down to the water, leaping effortlessly aboard. One of the crew – I can’t tell which – pulls the cord to start the outboard motor, and the boat shoots away from the beach, bouncing over the choppy waves.

I stand there, watching the speck of orange get smaller, until it is swallowed up by grey.

‘Fast, aren’t they?’

I turn to see a woman leaning against the door to the crewroom. She is well into her fifties, with streaks of grey through her dark hair, and she wears a patterned blouse with an RNLI badge pinned to one side.

‘I’m Helen,’ she says. ‘I answer the phone, show visitors around, that sort of thing. You must be Patrick’s girl.’

I redden at the familiarity. ‘I’m Jenna. My head’s spinning: that can’t have taken more than fifteen minutes from start to finish.’

‘Twelve minutes, thirty-five seconds,’ Helen says. She smiles at my obvious surprise. ‘We have to keep a record of all shouts and our response times. All our volunteers live just a few minutes away. Gary’s up the road, and Aled has the butcher’s in the high street.’

‘What happens to the shop when he’s called out?’

‘He hangs a sign in the door. The locals are used to it – he’s been doing it for twenty years.’

I turn back to watch the water, empty of boats now, save for a huge vessel far out to sea. Heavy clouds have sunk so low the horizon has disappeared, the sky and the ocean a single mass of swirling grey.

‘They’ll be okay,’ Helen says, softly. ‘You never quite stop worrying, but you get used to it.’

I look at her, curious.

‘David’s my husband,’ Helen explains. ‘After he retired he was spending more time at the station than at home, so eventually I thought: if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. I hated it the first time I saw him head off on a shout. It was one thing waving him off at home, but to actually see them get in the boat … and when the weather’s like this – well…’ She gives a shiver. ‘But they come back. They always come back.’

She puts a hand on my arm, and I am grateful for the older woman’s understanding.

‘It makes you realise, doesn’t it?’ I say. ‘How much…’ I stop, unable to admit it, even to myself.

‘How much you need them to come home?’ Helen says quietly.

I nod. ‘Yes.’

‘Do you want me to show you around the rest of the station?’

‘No, thank you,’ I say. ‘I think I’ll go back to Patrick’s house and wait for him there.’

‘He’s a good man.’

I wonder if she’s right. I wonder how she knows. I walk up the hill, turning every few paces in the hope of seeing the orange boat again. But I can’t see anything, and my stomach is gripped with anxiety. Something bad is going to happen, I just know it.

It feels strange to be at Patrick’s house without him, and I resist the temptation to go upstairs and look around. For want of anything to do, I tune the radio to a local station, and do the washing-up, which is piled high in the sink.

‘A man and his teenage son are missing, after their canoe capsized a mile from Rhossili Bay.’

The radio crackles with static and I fiddle with the tuning button in an attempt to find a better signal.

‘Port Ellis lifeboat was launched after locals raised the alarm, but so far they have been unable to recover the two missing men. We’ll have more on this story later.’