Clare Mackintosh - I Let You Go

‘I knew there was something odd about Terry Snowden,’ he said, finally looking at Mags. ‘I should have fought harder to have him arrested as soon as she went missing.’

‘There was no evidence,’ said Mags. ‘Copper’s instinct is all very well, but you can’t run an investigation on hunches.’ Gently, she closed Jacob’s file. ‘Different job,’ she said. ‘Different people.’

‘Still a child,’ Ray said.

Mags took his hands. ‘But he’s already dead, Ray. You can work all the hours God sends and you won’t change that. Let it go.’

Ray didn’t answer. He turned back to his desk and opened up the file again, hardly noticing as Mags left the room and went to bed. When he logged into his email there was a new message from Kate, sent a couple of minutes previously. He typed a quick reply.

You still up?

The response came seconds later.

Checking to see if Jacob’s mum is on Facebook. And watching an eBay bid. You?

Looking through the reports of burned-out vehicles in neighbouring forces. Here for a while.

Great, you can keep me awake!

Ray imagined Kate curled up on the sofa, her laptop to one side and a pile of snacks to the other.

Ben and Jerry’s? he typed.

How did you know?!

Ray grinned. He dragged the email window to a corner of the screen where he could keep an eye on new messages, and began reading through the faxed hospital reports.

Didn’t you promise Mags you’d take the weekend off?

I AM taking the weekend off! I’m just doing a bit of work now that the kids are asleep. Someone’s got to keep you company …

I’m honoured. What better way to spend a Saturday night?

Ray laughed. Any joy on Facebook? he typed.

A couple of possibles, but they don’t have profile pics. Hang on, phone’s ringing. Back in a mo.

Reluctantly, Ray closed down his email and turned his attention to the pile of hospital records. It had been months since Jacob died, and there was a nagging voice in Ray’s head that told him all this extra work was a fruitless exercise. The piece of Volvo fog light had turned out to belong to a housewife who had skidded on ice and hit one of the trees lining the road. All those hours of work for nothing, and still they carried on. Ray was playing with fire, going against the chief’s wishes, not to mention letting Kate do the same. But he was in too deep now – he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to.

12

It’ll be warmer later in the day, but for now the air is still cool, and I pull my shoulders up to my ears.

‘It’s chilly today,’ I say out loud.

I’ve started talking to myself, like the old woman who used to walk along the Clifton Suspension Bridge, laden down with carrier bags stuffed with newspapers. I wonder if she’s still there; if she still crosses the bridge every morning, and crosses back again each night. When you leave a place it’s easy to imagine life going on there the same way as before, even though nothing really stays the same for long. My life in Bristol could have belonged to someone else.

I shake the thought away and pull on my boots, wrapping a scarf around my neck. I have my daily battle with the lock, which grips on to the key and refuses to let it turn. Eventually I manage to secure the door, and I drop the key into my pocket. Beau trots at my heels. He follows me like a shadow, unwilling to let me out of his sight. When he first came home he cried all night, asking to come and sleep on my bed with me. I hated myself for it, but I held a pillow over my ears and ignored his cries, knowing that if I let myself get close to him, I would regret it. Several days went by before he stopped crying, and even now he sleeps at the bottom of the stairs, awake as soon as he hears the creak of the bedroom floorboards.

I check I have today’s list of orders – I can remember them all, but it wouldn’t do to make a mistake. Bethan continues to promote my pictures to her holiday-makers, and although I can hardly believe it, I am busy. Not in the same way as before, with exhibitions and commissions, but nevertheless busy. I have twice restocked the caravan shop with postcards and a trickle of orders has come through my home-made website. It’s far from the smart web-presence I used to have, but every time I look at it I feel a flash of pride that I made it myself, without help. It is a small thing, but I am slowly beginning to think that perhaps I am not as useless as I once believed.

I haven’t put my name on the website: just a gallery of photos, a rather clumsy and basic ordering system, and the name of my new business: ‘Written in the Sand’. Bethan helped me choose it, over a bottle of wine in the cottage one evening, when she talked about my business with such enthusiasm I couldn’t help but go along with it. ‘What do you think?’ she kept asking. I hadn’t been asked for my opinion for a very long time.

August is the busiest month for the caravan park and although I still see Bethan at least once a week, I miss the quiet of the winter, when we would talk for an hour or more, feet pressed against the oil-filled radiator in the corner of the shop. The beaches are busy too, and I have to get up soon after sunrise to ensure a smooth stretch of sand for my photos.

A gull calls out to us and Beau races across the sand, barking as the bird taunts him from the safety of the sky. I kick through the debris on the beach and pick up a long stick. The tide is on its way out, but the sand is warm, and it is already drying. I will write today’s messages close to the sea. I pull a piece of paper from my pocket and remind myself of the first order. ‘Julia,’ I say. ‘Well, that’s straightforward enough.’ Beau looks at me enquiringly. He thinks I am talking to him. Perhaps I am, although I mustn’t let myself become reliant on him. I see him as I imagine Iestyn sees his sheep dogs: tools of the trade; there to perform a function. Beau is my guard dog. I haven’t needed protection yet, but I might.

I lean forward and draw a large J, standing back to check the size, before writing the rest of the name. Happy with it, I discard the stick and take up my camera. The sun has risen properly now, and the low light casts a pink glow across the sand. I take a dozen shots, crouching down to look through my viewfinder, until the writing is iced with the sea’s white froth.

For the next order I look for a clean stretch of beach. I work quickly, gathering armfuls of sticks from the piles thrown up by the sea. When the last piece of driftwood is in place I cast a critical eye over my creation. Strands of still-glistening seaweed soften the edges of the sticks and pebbles I have used to frame the message. The driftwood heart is six feet across: large enough to house the swirling script in which I have written ‘Forgive me, Alice’. As I reach over to move a piece of wood, Beau hurtles out of the sea, barking excitedly.

‘Steady!’ I call. I put a protective arm over the camera slung across my body, in case he should jump up at me. But the dog ignores me, racing past in a spray of wet sand, to the other side of the beach, where he bounds around a man walking across the sand. At first I think it’s the dog-walker who spoke to me once before, but then he pushes his hands into the pockets of his waxed jacket and I take a sharp intake of breath because the movement is familiar to me. How can that be? I know no one here, save Bethan and Iestyn, yet this man, who must be barely a hundred metres away now, is walking purposefully towards me. I can see his face. I know him, yet I don’t know him, and my inability to place him makes me vulnerable. I feel a bubble of panic rising in my throat and I call to Beau.

‘It’s Jenna, isn’t it?’

I want to run, but my feet are rooted to the spot. I’m mentally scrolling through everyone I knew in Bristol. I know I’ve met him somewhere before.