Clare Mackintosh - I Let You Go

The ground floor is barely twelve feet long; an uneven wooden table separating the living space from where the galley kitchen squats beneath a great oak beam.

Upstairs, the space is split between the bedroom and a tiny bathroom with a half-sized tub. The mirror is spotted with age; the mottled crazing distorting my face. I have the pale complexion common to redheads, but the poor lighting makes my skin seem even more translucent, starkly white against the dark-red hair that falls past my shoulders. I go back downstairs, to find Iestyn stacking wood next to the fire. He finishes the pile and crosses the room to stand against the range.

‘She’s a bit temperamental, so she is,’ he says. He pulls open the warming drawer with a bang that makes me jump.

‘Can I take the cottage?’ I say. ‘Please?’ There is a note of desperation in my voice, and I wonder what he must make of me.

Iestyn eyes me suspiciously. ‘You can pay, can you?’

‘Yes,’ I say firmly, although I have no idea how long my savings will last, or what I will do when they run out.

He is unconvinced. ‘Do you have a job?’

I think of my studio with its carpet of clay. The pain in my hand is no longer as intense, but I have so little sensation in my fingers I’m frightened I won’t be able to work. If I am no longer a sculptor, what am I?

‘I’m an artist,’ I say eventually.

Iestyn grunts as though that explains everything.

We settle on a rent which, though ridiculously low, will soon race through the money I have been putting aside. But the tiny stone cottage is mine for the next few months, and I breathe a sigh of relief that I have found somewhere.

Iestyn scrawls a mobile number on the back of a receipt he pulls from his pocket. ‘Drop this month’s rent into Bethan’s, if you like.’ He nods to me and strides out to the quad bike, starting it up with a roar.

I watch him leave, then I lock the door and drag across the stubborn bolt. Despite the winter sun, I run upstairs to draw the bedroom curtains, shutting the bathroom window, which has been left ajar. Downstairs, the drapes stick on the metal curtain pole as if unused to being closed, and I tug at them, releasing a cloud of dust from their folds. The windows rattle in the wind and the curtains do little to stop the icy chill that creeps around the loose-fitting frames.

I sit on the sofa and listen to the sound of my own breathing. I can’t hear the sea, but the plaintive call of a lone gull sounds like a baby crying, and I put my hands over my ears.

Exhaustion overtakes me and I curl up in a ball, wrapping my arms around my knees, and pressing my face against the rough denim of my jeans. Although I know it’s coming, the wave of emotion engulfs me, bursting from me with such force I can barely breathe. The grief I feel is so physical it seems impossible that I am still living; that my heart continues to beat when it has been wrenched apart. I want to fix an image of him in my head, but all I can see when I close my eyes is his body, still and lifeless in my arms. I let him go, and I will never forgive myself for that.

5

‘Have you got time for a chat about the hit-and-run, boss?’ Stumpy stuck his head round Ray’s door, Kate hovering behind him.

Ray looked up. Over the last three months the investigation had gradually been scaled back, making way for other, more pressing jobs. Ray still went over the actions a couple of times a week with Stumpy and his team, but the calls had dried up, and there had been no fresh intelligence in weeks.

‘Sure.’

They came in and sat down. ‘We can’t get hold of Jacob’s mother,’ Stumpy said, getting straight to the point.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Just that. Her phone’s dead and the house is empty. She’s disappeared.’

Ray looked at Stumpy and then at Kate, who was looking uncomfortable. ‘Please tell me that’s a joke.’

‘If it is, we don’t know what the punchline is,’ Kate said.

‘She’s our only witness!’ Ray exploded. ‘Not to mention the victim’s mother! How on earth could you lose her?’

Kate flushed, and he forced himself to calm down.

‘Tell me exactly what happened.’

Kate looked at Stumpy, who nodded for her to explain. ‘After the press conference we didn’t have much to do with her,’ she said. ‘We had her statement and she’d been debriefed, so we left her in the hands of the Family Liaison Officer.’

‘Who was the FLO?’ Ray asked.

‘PC Diana Heath,’ Kate said, after a pause, ‘from Roads Policing.’

Ray made a note in his blue daybook and waited for Kate to continue.

‘Diana went round the other day to see how Jacob’s mum was doing, only to find the house empty. She’d cleared off.’

‘What do the neighbours say?’

‘Not a lot,’ said Kate. ‘She didn’t know any of them well enough to leave a forwarding address, and no one saw her go. It’s like she’s vanished into thin air.’

She glanced at Stumpy, and Ray narrowed his eyes. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

There was a pause before Stumpy spoke.

‘Apparently there was a bit of backlash on a local web-forum – someone stirring up trouble, suggesting she was an unfit mother, that sort of thing.’

‘Anything libellous?’

‘Potentially. It’s all been deleted now, but I’ve asked ICT to try and retrieve the cached files. That’s not all, though, boss. By all accounts, when she was interviewed by uniform immediately after the accident, they might have pushed a bit too hard. Been a bit insensitive. It seems Jacob’s mum thought we held her responsible, and consequently decided we wouldn’t be making much effort to find the driver.’

‘Oh God,’ Ray groaned. He wondered if it was too much to hope for that the chief might not have picked up on any of this. ‘Did she give any indication at the time she wasn’t happy with police action?’

‘This is the first we’ve heard of it from the FLO,’ Stumpy said.

‘Speak to the school,’ Ray said. ‘Someone must have stayed in contact with her. And ask at the GP surgeries. There can’t be more than two or three in her local area, and with a child, she’s bound to have been registered at one of them. If we can find out which one, they might have sent her records on to her new surgery.’

‘Will do, boss.’

‘And for God’s sake, don’t let the Post know we’ve lost her.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘Suzy French will have a field day.’

No one laughed.

‘The loss of key witnesses aside,’ Ray said, ‘is there anything else I need to know?’

‘I’ve drawn a blank with cross-border enquiries,’ Kate said. ‘There were a couple of stolen cars that came on to our patch, but they’re all accounted for. I’ve eliminated the list of vehicles that triggered speed cameras that night, and I’ve been to every garage and body shop in Bristol. No one remembers anything suspicious – at least, not that they’ll tell me.’

‘How are Brian and Pat getting on with the CCTV?’

‘Getting square eyes,’ Stumpy said. ‘They’ve been through the police and council footage, and now they’re working on the petrol stations. They’ve picked up what they think is the same car on three different cameras, coming from the Enfield Avenue direction just a few minutes after the hit-and-run. It makes a couple of dangerous attempts to overtake, then it goes out of shot and we haven’t managed to pick it up again. They’re trying to work out what make it is, although there’s nothing to say it’s involved at all.’

‘Great, thanks for the update.’ Ray looked at his watch to hide his disappointment at the lack of progress. ‘Why don’t you two head off to the pub? I’ve got to call the superintendent, but I’ll be with you in half an hour or so.’