I’ve been thinking about everything, trying to decide what to do. I’m going out in the boat for a bit. It always helps me to see things clearly. All the stuff you told me last night about those appalling shits planning a drugs deal in the Blue Peter has horrified me. There’s no way I’m going to stand by and watch those evil bastards involve you in something so utterly vile. Anyway, I think the whole idea of landing drugs on Looe Island is absurd. There are no bloody caves there. This isn’t Treasure Island, you know. I’m going to take the boat out there and find out if, as I suspect, the whole scheme is a load of old bollocks. I don’t want you going out there and risking your life for those bastards. I’m going to prove once and for all they are a bunch of brainless idiots way out of their depth.
I’ll meet you in the Blue Peter at lunchtime. If those sods are there, we’ll leave immediately. I think we should probably tell the police, but we’ll talk about it later.
Ben, you are my oldest friend. I care about you deeply. I’m sorry it’s not the way you care about me; I had no idea, and it’s been a shock. But we’ll get over it. You’ll always be my best mate. Don’t worry about anything, and look after yourself. See you later.
Joey
Adam reached out to take the letter from me, but I wouldn’t let it go. I turned away from him, trying to keep myself under control, but I was hyperventilating. I thought I’d faint. My son’s last letter; the last words my beautiful, kind-hearted son ever wrote. Seeing the anguish on my husband’s face, I reluctantly passed the note to him.
Ben was openly weeping now.
‘For him to care about me,’ he muttered brokenly, ‘for him to tell me to look after myself after I’d been such a fool, was so typical of Joe. I realised he was right about the drugs deal. I couldn’t get in any deeper with these guys, but because they knew me and were from my home town I was scared they’d beat me up, or worse, if I went to the police. I didn’t know what to do. I turned up at the Blue Peter at lunchtime, and waited for Joey. But he… he never came back.’
Adam finished reading our son’s last note and stood up.
‘Right,’ he said tersely. ‘We’re going to ring the police right now.’
I stood up too. ‘No, Adam. Don’t you see? There never was a drug deal. It didn’t happen, did it Ben?’
He shrugged. ‘I doubt it. Once I’d told the harbourmaster that Joey was missing, all hell broke loose. There were coastguards and lifeboat dinghies everywhere, and local fishermen, all searching for his boat. When they found it, wrecked on the rocks near Looe, it turned into a hunt for Joey. You must remember, it went on for days. I never did that recce, and I never saw those men again either. They just disappeared.’
‘Wren told me they hung around, on and off, for most of the summer,’ I said.
‘Well, I never saw them. But of course I went back to Manchester when you both did. I suppose they might have hung around for a while to see if they could save the deal, but the coast was heaving with searchers for weeks. I’m sure they called it off. They wouldn’t have taken the risk when there was so much activity around the island.’
I stiffened. ‘Ben, Joey’s note said he was going to the island. I think he wanted to show you how dangerous this deal could be. He said he didn’t want you risking your life. Joey may have got to Lammana.’
‘Lammana?’ Ben was confused.
‘Looe Island. It used to be called Lammana years ago. Joey may be there. I know his boat wasn’t anywhere near, but maybe Joey swam there or something.’
Adam looked at me pityingly. ‘Molly, don’t you remember they searched the island? Fishermen, coastguards and police swarmed all over it. Joey wasn’t there, love.’
‘Yes, they combed Looe Island, the searchers,’ added Ben. ‘That’s why I’m sure those Manchester guys wouldn’t have closed their deal. They must have known it would look very suspicious if they were spotted hanging around there after Joey disappeared.’ Ben looked at me sadly. ‘I’m sorry, Molly. If Joey had somehow made it to the island, he would have been found. The Wildlife Trust has people there, only a few, but Joey would have reached them. It’s a really small place; and anyway, he would have wanted to be found. He must have been pretty traumatised if he’d lost his boat.’
‘How would he lose his boat?’ I asked.
It was Adam who replied. ‘He must have been knocked overboard. It happens. He could have been caught by the boom and it knocked him in. Or maybe he lost his balance when the storm blew up. A really big wave could have thrown him over. And if the boat was on automatic pilot, it would just have gone on without him. There was no way he could have caught up with it.’
‘So?’ I said. ‘He could have swum to the island.’
Adam shook his head. ‘Molly, they searched the island,’ he repeated patiently. ‘He wasn’t there. It’s not a desert island, Moll. People, not many, but a few, work on it every day, for the Wildlife Trust. They would have found him.’
‘Not if he was injured,’ I said.
‘Yes, Molly. Even if he was injured they would have found him. They combed every inch.’
‘What about the caves?’
There was silence. I repeated my question: ‘What about the caves? Did anyone search them?’
Ben said hesitantly, ‘I’m not sure they even exist.’
‘And yet those drug dealers wanted to use them?’
‘Well, yeah; but that’s why they wanted me to do a recce, to make sure they actually exist. It’s all folklore. Nobody really knows.’
Adam interceded. ‘But people work on the island every day. Surely these men would have been seen if they’d tried to land drugs there?’
Ben shook his head. ‘That’s just it. They were going to land on the southern side of the island. There’s no proper foreshore there and it’s very dangerous, but that’s where smugglers used to get onto the island in the old days. It’s completely invisible from the mainland. And then they’d hide the stuff in the caves–if they exist.’
‘And you never did the recce, but Joey said he was going to, didn’t he? Well, suppose he did. Suppose he found the caves, and then he…’ I couldn’t finish the sentence. I made a supreme effort and carried on. ‘Suppose he found the caves but was injured somehow? Suppose he couldn’t come back? Suppose he’s still.. there?’
Adam and Ben sat down suddenly. Poor Danny; he had been pacing round the garden since Ben finished his account of Joe’s last evening. Now he was reading his brother’s letter, running his hands through his hair, tears pouring down his cheeks. Lola had taken Edie inside; the poor mite had looked worried enough when Ben started crying. She would have been terrified if she’d seen her daddy’s tears as well.
Now Danny looked up, and stared at his father. ‘I think Mum’s right,’ he said. ‘I think we need to search the island caves. We should talk to the coastguard and the police. Now.’
Chapter Forty-Nine
Afterwards I remembered standing on Hannafore Point, the island sparkling and sunny before us. I can still see in my mind the three orange dinghies speeding towards Lammana, bearing Lifeboat volunteers and coastguards. Behind them were half a dozen fishing boats. Wren and his friends had joined their fathers in the search for my son. I remember feeling anxious, but also terribly grateful. None of them had laughed at me when I told them that I knew where Joey was. They had looked thoughtful and serious, and now, as I watched, they were on their way to find him.
I remember Adam beckoning me to follow him back to Looe Harbour. That’s where the boats had set off from, and that’s where they would return with whatever news they had gathered from their subterranean search.
I remember we bought tea at the harbour and sat on a bench. Adam, Ben and Danny had wanted to go with the searchers, but accepted that their lack of knowledge of the terrain might hinder the others. Lola and Edie had stayed behind at Coombe.
I remember the long wait, the hours we sat there with hope and dread in our hearts. I remember Adam’s start when he saw the dinghies c
oming back.
I remember he told me to stay on the bench while he walked over to greet the boats as they reached harbour. I remember Danny squeezing my hand so hard it hurt. I was glad of the crunching pain. It took my mind off the agony in my heart.
I remember the look on Adam’s face as he turned back to me after talking to the grave-faced coastguards. I remember Wren jumping off his father’s boat and walking slowly towards me.
I knew they’d found him.
Chapter Fifty
They’d found Joey in a cave not far from the foreshore of the island. Later, after I’d recovered from the horror caused by the sight of the body bag on the leading dinghy, after Adam and Danny had taken me back to Coombe, they told me he must have managed to swim ashore after he was knocked out of the boat. How he had stumbled into the cave no one knew, but his body had been hidden. They found him at the bottom of a crevasse, his pelvis shattered. He had fallen into a deep ditch, probably stumbling around in the dark, disorientated and soaked to the skin after he fell off the boat.
They brought him back to the mainland. There was little left of him except for his lovely bones. They found his watch, engraved with a message from us on his eighteenth birthday, and a signet ring etched with his initials, a Christmas present I gave him after his first term at university. They found his sailing jacket, still wrapped around his body. And they found, zipped in a pocket and wrapped tightly in a waterproof sealed plastic bag, a copy of the Tide Times, and an old biro.
He had written on the little yellow book, the bible of Cornish sailors. He had scrawled a message across the tide tables, barely legible. But I could decipher it. He wrote it for me.
Mum, it began.
Mum, I don’t know how long I’ve been here but I’m very weak. I fell into this crevasse, and my leg’s broken. There’s a small amount of fresh water seeping through into this hole, there must be a spring nearby. I keep licking the walls, and I’ve been taking some paracetamol I found in my jacket pocket, but the pain is awful. Please find me soon, Mum.
The next few lines, the last he wrote, were heartbreaking.
Mum, I keep passing out. I’m falling asleep and I want to. The pain’s not so bad when I’m sleeping. Soon I don’t think I’ll wake up again, and I hope for that. Mum, I love you and Dad so much. I hope you find me here, because I can’t imagine what it will be like for you if you never see me again. Please give my watch to Danny and my signet ring to Rowan.
Mum, Mum, find me. Please find me. I want to feel your arms around me. I love you. Please find me and hold me.
That was it. I heard his voice again, the voice which had reached after his death as I sat in the garden at Coombe, the voice that had pulled me to the island again and again after he disappeared. ‘Mother, please find me. Please hold me.’
Chapter Fifty-One
Some time after we arrived back at Coombe, while Adam was on the phone arranging Joey’s funeral at Talland church, Lola brought a cup of tea up to my bedroom and gently asked if I was up to seeing visitors. I shook my head, but Lola said she thought I would like to see one of them, who had introduced herself to my daughter-in-law as Hope’s mother. She had brought my things back from the cottage. I hadn’t been back there since they found Joey; I had come straight to Coombe.
Josie told Lola she wanted to help me as I had helped her. I went down to the living room. Josie stood by the fireside, another, older, woman beside her. My friend walked over immediately and embraced me. I cried on her shoulder as she had cried on mine. The other woman stood patiently by.
Eventually I got myself under some kind of control, and Josie beckoned to the older woman.
‘Molly, this is Thelma Brookes. She’s a bereavement counsellor.’
Thelma. The woman Jamie Torrance had suggested I see when I was ill at Coombe.
Thelma Brookes nodded at me and said slowly, ‘Molly, do forgive me if I’m intruding. I’ve been working with Josie about Hope’s death. She asked me if I’d come and see you. I understand about losing children, you see. I’ve lost one myself.’
Josie squeezed my shoulder. ‘I thought you might like to talk. Thelma has made such a difference to me, made me feel stronger. I just wanted you to meet her, so you can decide if you want to see her again, perhaps later, if not now.’
Thelma had a kind face; but even so, I knew I didn’t want to talk to a therapist. Not now. Joey had been my therapist. He had come to me when I most needed him.
I remembered my dream when I went to Lammana with Len, when I saw first Hope and then Joey in that golden grotto of soft warm light. I remembered they had both looked serene, radiant, had said they were at peace. Hope said I should tell Josie that. Joey said I should always remember it; his spirit intended me to take comfort from his words. Suffering and death are inevitable, but afterwards comes peace.
And, as if she read my mind, Thelma said, ‘You must embrace your release from suffering, Molly. It’s been five years. Enough now. Enough.’
There was a slight noise from the French window behind me. I turned. Edie stumbled in from the garden, her wide eyes huge and curious. She looked around, saw me and immediately ran towards me with her arms outstretched, chortling happily. ‘Nanamoll,’ she laughed. I scooped her up, held her close and closed my eyes. ‘When we first got here,’ I said to Thelma, ‘I thought she was the key to my future. I thought she would point me towards finding Joey. I was so wrong.’ I kissed Edie and rocked her in my arms.
‘What makes you think you were wrong?’ asked Thelma.
‘Because she wasn’t the key at all. I didn’t find Joey through her. I found him through Ben, and all I found was his dead body. I seemed to see a false dawn when I looked at my grandchild. I suppose I was a fool to think so much rested on her tiny shoulders.’ I nuzzled Edie, loving the feel of her soft cheeks against my face.
‘But of course she’s the key. She is absolutely the key to your future, your happiness. What you saw in Edie is your path back to love. You’ve found Joey now, and naturally you’re grief-stricken; but you will walk forward, and you will have Edie’s hand to hold. Believe me, Molly. I know.’
I held the baby. As if she sensed my need, she didn’t wriggle. Instead she rested her little curly head on my shoulder, and crooned softly to herself.
Adam came in. He looked at me gravely and told me the funeral would be in two days’ time at Talland. ‘The vicar said that could be arranged, and I didn’t think it was sensible to wait any longer,’ he said. ‘We’ve waited long enough, Molly. So has Joey. Let’s get him into the ground where he will be safe.’
I nodded. Yes, that was the right thing to do.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Joey’s casket lay in front of the altar at Talland church. The ancient building was packed, but I was too focused with grief and pride to look at anything but the coffin, only half aware of the crowds of people who had flocked here to say a final farewell to my son. I was, though, deeply conscious of Adam, Danny and Lola by my side. We’d left Edie in the care of the deeply kind owners of the Talland Bay Hotel, playing happily among the elves and fairies, scrambling up to sit on the giant snail and the winged horse.
I listened to the prayers and hymns with rapt attention, but taking little in. All I knew was that I was at an event too momentous even to describe. I focused on the coffin before me, and what it contained. I stroked the soft silk pouch on my lap, feeling the small objects inside, Joey’s watch and his signet ring. The pouch was where I kept all my most precious things: the hospital identity bracelets both my babies wore when they were born; tiny, fluffy locks of hair clipped from their heads when they were only weeks old; the first milk teeth they had lost, hidden away by the maternal tooth fairy so she could treasure them for ever more.
As we left the church to lay Joey in his freshly dug grave, I was overcome by the memory of the graveyard dream I had had in the night garden at Coombe. Just as in my vision, the priest led the procession, Joey’s casket carried by Adam, Danny, Ben and Wren. I w
atched in wonderment, remembering how in my prescient fantasy I’d seen Len, whom I’d never met at that point; the man and woman holding hands with the grown girl with red hair.
The moonlit memories of that strange night filled my head with gauze; hazy thoughts as I watched the actual funeral of my son. This was real; what I’d seen while I slept in the garden of our rented farmhouse was a haunted dream, but extraordinarily emotionally accurate. All the tremulous signs I’d seen engulfing the principal figures of my vision had come to pass.
Len, now but not then dead, surrounded by twinkling golden rays which touched his face as if to cheer him up. Josie and Tony, holding onto flame-haired Hope, about to succumb to the fate that had dogged her all her life, but nevertheless caressed by the same teasing, playful shimmering dots, bidding her welcome to the light.
I forced myself to come back, to watch the ceremony unfolding before me. I had no further need of visions. This was my son’s burial; this was truly the end, and yet I had my child at last. Here in Talland churchyard, Joey at last existed for me. I had his body to bury. I would have his headstone to mark his passing; a place to sit and talk with my poor dead boy.
I threw my single red rose tenderly into Joey’s grave, and stood back to watch his friends cast their white ones after mine. Only two days’ notice, yet so many of those who knew and loved him at school and university had come to his funeral to witness his burial at last, to see him found and loved, and laid into sacred ground.
I looked fondly at all of them; but all I could think about was the children who played among them; always, always, the children.
Chapter Fifty-Three
We held the wake at the Talland Bay Hotel; wine and sandwiches for the throngs who had come to say goodbye to our son.
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