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Listen to chapters 43-48 narrated by Jack Holden, or scroll down to read the text.
Chapter Forty-Three
MARY FORD HADN’T EXPECTED to see her father that day. She thought he had his own life to lead and she didn’t want to make too many demands. Besides, she was embarrassed. Should she tell him about her letters to Rosco and let him know that they’d been found by the police? What would he make of her foolishness?
When he turned up at her house just before lunch, she felt ridiculously awkward. He didn’t knock – he had his own key and never wanted her to leave work in the studio to let him in – but he shouted as soon as he got into the house, always respecting her privacy, not wanting to surprise her. Always hoping, she suspected, that there might be a man in the house. A suitable man. His marriage had been very happy, even at the end when his wife was slipping away from him, and he wanted the same for her.
She came down from the attic to make coffee for them.
‘Don’t stop!’ he said, when he saw her appearing at the top of the narrow stairs. ‘I was going to bring one up for you.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m finding it hard to concentrate.’
She’d found it difficult to focus for months, since Arthur’s diagnosis, even on days like this when he was well enough to be in school. Recently work had become more of an escape than a struggle, but now, the discovery of Rosco’s body had thrown her again, the image of the dead man worming its way into her mind so she could see little else.
‘I thought I’d stay over.’ He was carrying his overnight bag. ‘You could have a night in the pub with your friends. A bit of a break.’
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She shook her head. The last thing she needed was to be surrounded by the gossip and speculation about two deaths in Scully Cove. Gossip about Jeremy Rosco. ‘I might put myself down as available for the lifeboat, though. If that’s okay with you?’
‘You sure? You don’t want a break? A few drinks with your mates?’
‘Nah!’ She gave his arm a squeeze. ‘But a bit of adult company tonight is just what I need, so thanks for coming along.’
+++
They went for a walk after lunch, out onto the headland, a strong breeze in their faces. Alan pointed out seabirds, and she pretended to recognize them, as she had throughout her childhood. She loved his enthusiasm, but couldn’t share his passion. She loved the glory of the scenery, not the minute details of the natural history of the place.
‘So that’s where they found Rosco?’ He was looking down into the bay.
‘Yeah.’ A pause. ‘I had a bit of a crush on him when I was younger.’
‘I know you did! Posters of the Nelly Wren on your bedroom wall.’
‘I wrote to him a few times.’
But the wind seemed to blow her words away, and she didn’t try to talk to him about it again.
+++
On the way back, they picked up the children from school. Alan had offered to go for them alone: ‘Go home, put your feet up and enjoy a few minutes’ peace.’ But in the end, Mary had decided she’d like to be there too. Alan waited in the playground with Isla, while Mary went in to get Arthur from Tilly Gregory. The teacher seemed drained, exhausted, unusually quiet.
‘Are you okay?’ Mary had never been close to Matilda, though they were of an age. The whole religion thing got in the way. The certainty and the way the Brethren stuck together. Sammy Barton’s mistrust of Mary as lifeboat helm wasn’t only that she was a woman and an outsider. It was because she was a non-believer. Matilda had been brilliant with Arthur, though, patient and kind even before his illness had been diagnosed and he’d just been considered awkward by other adults. Mary would always be grateful for that.
The teacher gave a wry smile. ‘It’s stress, I think. Living in a community now where bad things have happened. Not quite knowing who to trust.’
Mary wondered if Matilda had anyone specific in mind. Had a close friend triggered suspicion? One of the Brethren? Surely not Davy! Despite the difference in age, Matilda and Davy were as close as any couple Mary knew. Sometimes other people’s relationships made her jealous. She wanted what they had. She’d always seen the Gregorys as one of those envied couples. They lit up when they saw each other. She was trying to form a response to Matilda’s comment when the teacher walked away back into the school.
Back at home, Alan found snacks for the kids and she made an early supper for them all. The call from Sammy Barton came on her pager just as she was taking her first mouthful. A lifeboat call-out. Could she helm? She was straight on her feet, experiencing the usual surge of adrenaline, of excitement. The high. Almost immediately afterwards, her mood shifted, dropped. There was the irrational feeling that had haunted her since the last time she was out in the lifeboat, that Rosco’s death was her fault and that she could have done something to prevent it. She hesitated for a moment before responding.
Sod it! Of course, I’ll go.
After all, it might be good to have another call so quickly. To be forced to take responsibility for another incident. It might erase the memory of finding Rosco’s body. It would be like getting on a horse after a fall or driving a car after a crash.
She turned to her father. ‘This is okay?’
There was a moment’s pause when she thought he might object and ask her to stay at home, but he just smiled. ‘Sure.’ Another hesitation. ‘But take care, yeah?’
By the time he’d finished speaking, she’d picked up her gear and was at the door.
+++
This was different from the last time, of course. There was daylight and the weather wasn’t quite so wild. The shout seemed to have come from a reputable source: a member of the public walking along the coastal path had called it in to the coastguard. But the location was the same. The vessel had been seen at the mouth of Scully Cove, just off the headland.
If we’d stayed a little longer on our walk, Mary thought, we’d have seen the boat in trouble. We could have called it in ourselves. But then, I wouldn’t have been home in time to get the shout. Someone else would have been helm.
The monster tractor had them pushed into the water in seconds, the huge wheels crunching the shingle, the sound deafening. This time, Mary took the wheel. She knew exactly where she was going and she wanted control, to be at the front of the RIB with the spray on her face. They bounced over the waves breaking on the beach, the lifeboat bucking and twisting as if it were alive, and headed out for open sea.
Even before they rounded the headland, she became aware of the murmurs behind her. They were low and unsettling. More a vibration than a sound, felt through her body, not heard with her ears. They were muttered under the breath, barely audible over the noise of the engine, but Mary knew what the men were saying: Skulls and bones and the white, white light. The words running into each other, so they sounded like a hummed familiar tune. Reassuring, but somehow menacing at the same time. She didn’t turn round.
Like her, the men were thinking of the last time they were here, and even the most rational young crew member was turning to the old superstition. Just in case. She wondered if they considered her part of the problem, part of the place’s curse. She found herself repeating the line in her head too, a feeble attempt to appease them or the power they were calling to. To make herself part of the team.
The boat was there just where they’d been told. It was small enough for an experienced person to manage single-handed. The message had said that they were to expect only one casualty.
Mary tried shouting, but there was no response. In this weather it shouldn’t be too hard to get alongside, and she slowed the RIB until it was sliding towards the smaller boat, until the hulls were touching. There was no sign of the sailor. The sails had been lowered but not furled. Then Mary realized that like the tender where they’d found Rosco, this boat too had been anchored. The silence and the lack of life made her jumpy. She reached for a line and tied it to the lifeboat to steady it. There was an outboard motor, but presumably that had failed too. Otherwise, there would have been no reason for the mayday. But where was the sailor? The sea was choppy, but not rough enough to send a person overboard.
Behind her, she sensed the crew becoming restless. Tense. They didn’t want to be here. She needed to act quickly if she were to hold on to any authority.
‘Go in.’ The words were directed to the man behind her. ‘There might be someone sick below.’
Or a body, white as wax, drained of blood.
Daniel was young, just out of his teens, fit and he’d climbed across in seconds.
There was a small cabin, below the level of the deck, and for a moment he disappeared from sight. His head emerged. Mary held her breath.
‘Nothing here.’ He looked across at her, raising his voice above the sound of the lifeboat’s engine. She thought that he’d been expecting the worst too and could hardly believe it. ‘No sign of an accident. I’ve checked everywhere. It’s empty.’
Again, she heard a murmur behind her. A release of tension, but also perhaps a sense of disappointment. The empty boat was an anticlimax. Scully Cove had promised more drama.
‘We’ll tow it back with us.’ Mary turned to the rest of the crew. ‘Anyone recognize her?’
‘I do.’ Daniel again. He was a member of Morrisham Yacht Club, had been since he’d been a child. ‘She’s the Scully Maid.’ A pause. ‘She belonged to the commodore, Mr Lawson. I don’t know how she got out here. I was at the club last night – working a shift in the bar – and I noticed that she was still in the marina then.’
Chapter Forty-Four
VENN WAITED FOR NEWS from the Greystone lifeboat in Eleanor Lawson’s grand house, restless and distracted. His team thought him unnaturally patient, but he hated waiting. He’d once told Jonathan that hours of boredom in Brethren meetings was perfect preparation for being a cop. I can be as impatient as any of my colleagues, but I’ve learned to hide it.
He’d sent Roxy home, and she’d taken the dog with her. ‘Just until Eleanor comes back and can look after her again.’
He didn’t like to say that Eleanor could be dead in the boat, or at the bottom of the sea.
The call came in the evening, just as the light was starting to fade. Sammy Barton again phoned with the news.
‘There was nobody there. No sign of a struggle. They towed the boat into Greystone and I checked it myself. It was anchored, just like the Moon Crest tender.’ The operations manager paused. ‘It belonged to Bartholomew Lawson.’
Then Venn demanded information from Rainston. ‘One of the lifeboat crew recognized Bartholomew’s boat. He’s a student but he works part-time in the sailing club bar. He reckons it was definitely still in the marina last night. Can you check? I need to know if it was there this morning, if anyone saw it leave.’
‘Sure. Want me to head over to Morrisham now?’
‘Yes.’ Venn paused briefly and tried to order his thoughts. ‘Make a start on canvassing there. And ask if Eleanor Lawson was seen at all. Her car’s still here, so we know she didn’t drive there to take the boat out herself.’
It was too much of a coincidence, Venn thought, to believe that the discovery of Barty’s boat and the disappearance of his wife were unconnected. He was still talking, putting his thoughts into words, sharing them with the team:
‘But she could have a got a lift there if she wanted to go for a sail in her husband’s boat. A taxi.’ A thought occurred to him. ‘Do we know that her car’s working? It hasn’t just run out of petrol or failed to start?’ Because that could have been the logical explanation for her disappearance that he’d been seeking all day.
‘Roxy tried it first thing,’ Ross said. ‘She found the keys on a hook in the kitchen. It started fine.’
Venn nodded. He sent Jen back to Greystone. ‘Talk to Mary Ford. There might be something about the state of the boat which could give us an idea what happened there.’
‘Sure.’
Rainston was making his way out of the room, had the door half open, when Venn shouted across to him. ‘What’s the name of Lawson’s boat? Do you know?’
‘Scully Maid,’ Rainston said. ‘That’s what Sammy Barton, the lifeboat operations manager called her.’
Everything takes us back to Scully.
But now it was dark. Venn was tempted to get everyone out to the cove with torches and headlamps, but that wouldn’t have been safe and a search would have to wait until the following day.
He sent Ross home. He thought of Jonathan, troubled, it seemed, by some dilemma that he wasn’t ready to share. Matthew knew he should go back to him, should offer his support. It wasn’t late and Jonathan would still be up, a glass of red wine in his hand, the fire lit. It was tempting, and certainly, Matthew had no desire to go back to Greystone and the Maiden’s Prayer.
Instead, he stayed where he was, dozing in front of the kitchen range, just in case Eleanor should return, just in case there was news of her.
Chapter Forty-Five
MARY WAS FEELING FLAT. After the drama of yesterday’s lifeboat call-out, there was a sense of anticlimax, and the everyday anxieties were crowding back. Her father had gone home, and she missed him. She missed the adult company and the optimism he carried with him. He still thought that Artie would be saved by a miracle cure, and she’d always been too realistic to put her faith in that. Even if the Illinois doctor peddling a new life wasn’t some sort of quack, the sale of knitted toy animals and traybakes would hardly raise the cash needed to get him treatment. Her father had offered to sell his house to fund the trip to the US, but he’d remortgaged it already when he’d given up work to care for her mother, and even if he could get a buyer, the resulting profit wouldn’t scratch the surface.
It was time to be practical. Perhaps she should sell this house in Greystone and move in with her father. His place was bigger and there’d be space to extend. They could perhaps provide a ground floor adapted for her son’s needs and there’d be the garden. But no view of the sea. And she needed the sea at times of darkness. She needed the ebb and flow of it to feel alive.
She was thinking of this as she took the children to school. She was a little early for the bell and the parents were in small groups chatting. If she’d attached herself and joined in one of the conversations, they’d have tried to make her a part of it, but it would have been an effort. She always felt awkward butting in, as if she were intruding. Rarely did anyone else make the first move.
Today, though, Ruth Smale, the doctor’s wife, did notice her and waved her over. Mary was moving through the yard to be close to the door when the kids were let in. As always, she skirted past the groups of gossiping parents as if magnetically repelled by them, not wanting to be pulled in by their pity. It was as if she were some sort of alien planet in the playground universe. Ruth was chatting to one other woman, but now she pushed her pram in Mary’s direction.
‘I heard you were out in the lifeboat again yesterday.’
Mary was surprised by the approach. Ruth Smale was always polite enough, but usually in the playground she stayed with the other Brethren mums.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was a busy day. No drama, though, this time. Just an empty boat.’
‘Oh.’
The word was almost a question, but Mary didn’t respond. ‘How’s Arthur?’ Ruth put on the sympathetic face of a parent with perfectly healthy children. Not understanding in the slightest how hard it was, and not really wanting to hear. Just wanting to show that she cared.
Mary replied as she always did on these occasions, with a smile and a brisk no-nonsense voice. ‘Oh, you know. There are good days and bad days.’
‘We’re all praying for you.’
Mary might have let loose then and said that she didn’t need their prayers. She needed a scientist who wasn’t a fraud to discover a cure. Backed by immediate proper peer-reviewed research. After all, if they could come up with cures for other diseases, shouldn’t it be possible? But Arthur was one small boy, with no power or influence. Mary had even opened her mouth to speak, but the words were covered by the noise of the bell, and the school door opened and the kids streamed in.
Mary waited for Matilda Gregory to arrive to collect Arthur. That was what happened every morning. The yard had cleared except for a few last-minute stragglers, like Isla, who were still playing. Ruth Smale shouted that she had to get the baby home and it would be great to catch up another time. That complacent expression still on her face. As if Mary had done something to cause Arthur’s illness and if she’d been happily married and devout like Ruth, he’d still be well and strong.
Not if I see you first, lady.
But Mary waved and smiled, before turning back to her son.
When Matilda appeared, Mary thought the teacher seemed distracted this morning. Usually there was time for proper feedback about Arthur’s condition, how he’d been overnight and any problems he might have during the day. But the handover was perfunctory, and added to Mary’s frustration, her sense that she was the only person to care about him. Isla still hadn’t gone into the building and was swinging on the climbing frame with one of her friends. Mary shouted to her to get in, that class was about to start, that Mrs Gregory was taking Arthur in now. Taking out her fury on her daughter.
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