by Rachael Blok
‘Oh, but that’s sad.’ Ana thinks of Maisie and how lost she’d be without her. ‘Has she been in long?’
‘A bit. She’s used to hospitals. She was a midwife for years. She might have brought you into the world, you never know. She’s done her time in Ayot and St Albans.’
Ana grins. ‘Bet she has some stories!’
Jess rolls her eyes. ‘Liked her drama, did Aggie.’ Jess shrugs. ‘Some real sadness though, among all them happy mums. She entered one of those charity races for suicide ten years ago with someone’s name on her back – Caitlin, I think – she’s buried in the graveyard here. Hung herself.’
Hanged, Ana thinks. Hanged herself. She remembers something about that. A girl at her school had been found hanging in the woods She hadn’t known the girl well, but she had heard afterwards that it had been Andy Miller’s sister. She feels a sudden wrench of pity for him, but bats it away. He of all people doesn’t deserve her pity.
‘No doubting Aggie has courage, and could be kind. Walked that five k, in some heat. Never forget it.’
Ana hears the crack in Jess’s voice. She moves quickly to the older lady, putting her arm around her shoulder. ‘Here, come and sit down. Let me get you a cup of tea. You’ve been working for hours. You must be exhausted.’
Bringing a plate with biscuits and tea, Ana watches Jess shrink before her when she sits.
A dark male head appears at the window and there is a knock. Ana opens the door. ‘Charlie?’
‘Yep. Just come for Mum,’ he says, nodding.
‘Come in, she’s just finishing her tea. Can I get you one?’
‘No. Thanks.’ He stands in the doorframe. Glances around the pub.
Ana tries again. ‘Maisie, my sister, said we were at school together?’
He nods. ‘Yep. You don’t remember me, I suppose. I remember you. You were best mates with Leo Fenton – I heard he’d died. Sad case.’
Offering nothing else, he holds his hand out to Jess as she rises. ‘You’ll come back and collect some bags from here in an hour or so, for the tip, Charlie?’
He nods and her pride at him beams like a beacon. She’s such a powerhouse when she’s cleaning but she looks tiny as she smiles a goodbye.
This rapid life. Speeding by.
This fragile life.
44
Thursday 21st June
MAARTEN
‘DCI Jansen, I was hoping you’d call. Any news?’
Maarten sketches around his list of notes as he hears Harper’s voice. He’d been on hold for a few minutes. The interview had been exhausting. They’d all emerged like ghosts – Sunny had done a double take, asked for an update.
The idea of the coast this afternoon is both necessary and so appealing.
‘Some news. Yes. We have a possible sighting, or possible evidence, of Leo Fenton. He might be alive.’
He waits for some reaction, but Carroll bypasses that and moves swiftly into details. ‘Where was this? Could you email me through the report?’
‘I was thinking,’ Maarten says, ‘of one better than that. How about I come up with it? I’d like to see the original site. I feel I need to get a grasp on the whole of this case.’
‘Good plan.’ This time there is a pause. ‘I never thought it was him, you know. Ben Fenton. I would have sworn blind on anything you handed me that he didn’t do it. But everything pointed that way. It was my first case. In the end, I was a part of the machine – it wasn’t up to me. If you think you can compile a case to get him out, then I’m on board.’
Maarten looks out of the window. He sees Adrika pulling the car round to the front. She’d said she’d come, that she’d be able to do her job. Adrika is excellent police.
Harper speaks again. ‘I watched him. I knew he wasn’t lying. More than that – I knew he was telling the truth; the two things aren’t necessarily the same. But the weight of evidence…
‘My team were convinced he was guilty, and in the end the Super called me in. Asked me what I was waiting for, Christmas? Fenton sat there. White-faced. The charge sounded convincing: he woke, that morning, to find his brother gone, but his blood all over the tent, all over him. The sheer volume of blood implied severe trauma, some kind of fight, assault. He saw no one, didn’t wake up. They were both alone and nothing was missing. He was asking us to believe they both went to sleep and the assault occurred in their tent from a random stranger, in the middle of the night – so secretive as to disguise any prints, any clue that there was anybody else there at all…
‘No sign of Leo; he hadn’t touched credit cards, bank accounts – a life departed.’
Maarten listens. He’d been in situations like this before. As police, they were there to investigate the evidence. You didn’t always like the outcome.
‘I charged him. I knew he would go down. Even without the body, the barrister was like a steamroller. But if Leo Fenton is alive. If he’s been alive all along…’
‘See you in a few hours,’ Maarten says. ‘We’ll leave now.’
‘Great. Bring walking shoes.’
*
The flats of Blakeney stretch out to the distant sea. It’s hazy on the horizon – boats sit like dots. The harbour is quiet mid-week. When they’d bought a ticket from the guy in the parking van, he’d said that the weekend had been busy, would be once the summer holidays started.
There are boats everywhere, and the harbour is at low tide. Mudflats rise like tiny islands. Children slide down the mud banks straight into the water. They look like seals, slicked with the thick, oily mud.
‘Morning!’ Harper strides over. Her red hair is twisted up in a knot and she wears sunglasses, and running shoes on her feet.
‘Adrika.’ Harper smiles warmly at Adrika, nods to Maarten. ‘It’s quite a walk along the coastal path. I thought we could do that first. I’ll get someone to pick us up on the other side of the site. They can bring us back. It’s worth walking the whole stretch, to get a feel of how isolated it would be at night.’
Maarten welcomes the breeze that arrives as they walk the path leading out of the harbour car park. It’s narrow, but he can see it widening as it leaves the village and bends round to the right, curving an arc through the flats.
Harper gestures. ‘The beach lies up that way. We’ve got just under an hour’s walk to get there. That’s the pub up on the high street.’ She looks out, the heat on the sea, the salt in the air. ‘It’s so quiet it feels unlikely it was a random act of violence. Yet I’m sure he didn’t do it.’
They walk past an old abandoned rowing boat, lying in what must once have been a pool of water. A couple approaches with a dog trailing, and they nod. ‘Morning.’
Maarten nods and Harper remarks on the day.
He notices how she and Adrika fall into step. They speak of the weather, of the case. They speak on first-name terms quickly.
He thinks of Liv as he walks, how she would love the space up here. She gives him space. They had been planning a break. The girls would love this too. They could run. He’d grown up on a farm, just outside Rotterdam: its ports sailed out to the world. He could handle a boat. The peace up here – he breathes deeply.
He thinks of his parents. They flash and blink in his brain. Their loss had been an enormity – just waking each day had stirred a numbness in him. He’d become quiet at school, come home to work on the farm. Avoided parties. Cafés. The numbness had slicked itself over his skin – like an oil. Impenetrable. Liv had peeled its edges, seeped underneath.
He misses Liv. Dizzy from the lack of her. The crunch of the car metal, pinging amid all the noises of the day. He doesn’t know if it’s her car or his parents’, thinking of him as they closed their eyes.
*
Drifting out of his reverie, he finds the walk has been like a drug. He feels lifted. It’s been almost an hour and Carroll stops.
‘Up there, that’s where they pitched the tent.’
They have arrived at a point where the coastal path has risen up;
close to the sea on high ground, peering down on the blue.
All three of them look up at a flat-ish patch of land, tent-sized. A small cluster of trees mark a path upwards, and a gate into the trees highlights that there’s private land behind there, with notices there should be no camping in the woods, no dogs, no fires.
They scramble off the coastal path. Standing at the site, Maarten looks out at the sea, still before them. So calm, mirrored, you’d be tempted to walk across it. Its horizon seems limitless.
‘Perfect spot for camping. It’s so quiet,’ Adrika says. ‘Like private grounds.’
‘Yes, not many people, and the kind you do see are walkers, cyclists. It’s too far to head out just to get drunk if you’re a group, and no one would come here to try to mug someone. It’s very unlikely someone just randomly came across the tent, and you can’t see it from the main path. It all pointed to Ben Fenton.’
Maarten makes his way up to the gate, which lies hidden in the trees.
‘This is locked,’ he says. ‘Who owns the land?’
‘A family who live in London. We looked into it, but there was no one home at the time. It’s rented out every now and again, but the management company who run it said it was empty that week.’
‘And how far to the road from here?’ Adrika asks.
‘From this coastal path, if you’re walking, about half an hour. It’s faster through the property, as there’s a private driveway that leads down from the road. The nearest car park to here is about a twenty-minute walk. We’ve come this way to retrace the last steps from the pub to the camping spot, but we’ll head home from the car park.’
Maarten, still standing by the gate, looks out over the sea. It’s stunning. There’s shade by the trees, and he suddenly feels tired. The heat is setting in. It’s close to three.
‘Tell you what, I’d like to look at the house. Why don’t we head out to get some lunch? Could you speak to the management company and see if we can have a look around the grounds of the property afterwards?’
‘Of course. I’ll phone and get a car to meet us at the car park.’
The sun is bright on the sea, reflecting back the heat, which has become sticky and thick. Maarten wishes he’d brought more water.
Adrika is standing facing the sea, her hands on her hips and her arms akimbo. He can see the sweat on her neck. Carroll finishes a call and smiles at her, taking a step towards her, holding out the last of the water from her bottle.
45
Thursday 21st June
ANA
‘Yes, sure. Give me a call later.’
She knows the voice. Standing still, as if in an ice bath, she sees Fabian leaning on the fence, finishing his call. It’s almost lunchtime, and the gnawing hunger she’d started to feel turns to nerves. She couldn’t eat now if she tried.
The earth is hard, she is hardening. Everywhere needs rain. There must be some respite soon. She is lambasted by heat. And the threat of Fabian.
‘Ana!’ He sees her, smiling and walking over. ‘So good to see you before I head off.’
She wonders what he is thinking behind those eyes of his; what is he calculating? She is in no doubt he’s been waiting for her.
Ana feels his hand on her wrist. He leans in to pull her towards him.
‘Ana, let’s talk. Please…’
She knows him. She knows this feeling. She feels herself wanting to calm him, and it floods back to her, why she had stayed. It was because it had always been the easiest option. Baby steps. Micromanaging each situation.
‘Ana. You and me.’ He smiles, stepping closer. ‘You know there’ll never be another one like you. I don’t know what happened to us. I’m with someone, but really, if you said the word.’ He smiles, his head comes closer and his hand tightens on her wrist. ‘My flat in New York, you’d love it…’
His breath hot. His smell familiar. His touch makes her skin crawl.
But losing Ben – the grief of that had been the worst thing she’d ever endured. What can Fabian do? What power does Fabian Irvine have over her?
His hand has risen up her arm and his fingers trace under the strap of her dress. Just his fingers. They travel lightly, tapping gently.
‘Fabian.’ Despite his size, he’s such a little man. Why has she never noticed it before?
‘Ana?’ His fingers feel like gorillas’ digits might feel. Thick. They tighten slightly at the base of her neck. His eyes are brown and they smile at her. Dark.
‘Enough, Fabian. Enough.’
She can feel the pull on her neck. His hand now a vice and his grip steel.
‘Ana, you don’t mean that.’ Whether it’s a statement, question, threat, she has no idea. But, she realises, she no longer cares.
‘Oh, but I do.’ She pulls away from him.
He’s not what scares her now. Once, she would have been sure it was him, following her in the dark. Now, she knows it is not. What a relief to find he’s lost his hold over her.
The thought that it could be Leo…
She turns to him, drops her tone, stares him in the eye. ‘It’s done. If you ever speak to me again, I will go to the police and I will sing loudly about you.’ She hasn’t raised her voice but she drips scorn. ‘It’s a crime, you know. Emotional abuse. And I don’t care if they don’t convict you. But I’ll sing. I’ll sing loudly, and you—’ She speaks clearly. ‘—you wouldn’t survive the shame.’
‘Ana.’ This time it’s smaller. She turns, lifts her chin as she speaks. His eyes have narrowed. Like raisins.
‘Ana, you don’t mean that. You and I… you can’t avoid it – us.’
Stepping forward, she can see her mum and Maisie up ahead, loading the van ready for the tip. The clear-out has been cathartic. Clothes, old coats her mum had kept for years that she’d never wear again. Maisie had boxes of saved comics, yellowed and curled at the edges.
Women are good at adjusting, she thinks. We can tread water and stay afloat. We don’t always swim for shore.
He’s still talking.
‘Bye, Fabian,’ she says, walking forward. Turning her back.
‘Ana Seabrook!’ His voice carries down the road and she sees Maisie glance up, with a box in her arms.
She doesn’t need to look back.
Charlie is up ahead too. He’s been round a bit lately, helping Jess, looking after his mum. It had been kind of him to offer to help them. Offer to help Maisie.
He scowls at Fabian, or at the sun in his eyes, turning back to Maisie, helping her with the bags.
46
Thursday 21st June
MAARTEN
The house is old and painted white, but he can see there are patches that need a retouch. The management firm have sent someone to meet them.
‘Hello,’ says a tall, dark-haired man. He walks towards them, his hand outstretched. Maarten sees him do a double take when he looks at Carroll. He offers her his hand first. ‘John Jablowski.’
‘I’m Harper Carroll. Thanks for coming out. We’re interested in the grounds, as well as the house. Could we start there?’ Carroll says. She glances around, gesturing to the woods that lead down to the sea. ‘Maarten, shall we start at the bottom and work up?’
‘Good plan,’ Maarten says. He smiles as he watches John Jablowski forget to shake his hand, or Adrika’s, instead smiling at them and trotting eagerly off behind DI Carroll, who strides over the bumpy field. They’d given the dates of the week two years ago when they’d called but Jablowski hasn’t mentioned it.
The ground is uneven. There is a track that runs along the field edge, and they pass a cluster of play equipment: an old red slide, faded to pink by the sun. There’re some swings and a football goalpost.
‘This rents out quickly during the summer. It’s a great space for families,’ Jablowski says, panting to keep up with Carroll. ‘I can show you inside as well.’
‘Pretty remote,’ Adrika comments. ‘Lovely spot to get away from everything. To get up to something.’
‘Yes.’ Maarten and she walk side by side, following the scrabbling Jablowski.
Adrika calls to him, asking about the week of the murder.
‘It was empty that week. It had been booked out, but the customer was a no-show. Unusual, as it was all paid for.’
Maarten speaks to Adrika. ‘Interesting. Can you track down the booking? If someone did book it out, but apparently failed to arrive, it would be a good way to keep it empty.’
‘And easy access to the tent,’ Adrika says.
‘Hmm.’ Maarten imagines walking through this cluster of trees in the dark. Imagines creeping up to the tent.
‘The thing that really gets me is Ben Fenton not waking,’ Adrika says, swinging her arms as she walks. The sun flashes on her watch. ‘If he didn’t do it, and if it really was zolpidem that made him sleep, then at which point did an intruder drug him? This potential cyclist we haven’t managed to find. If he really exists, then surely it can only have been him who drugged him. Failing that, Ben Fenton must have given it to himself to cover his tracks. Or Leo Fenton is alive. And that is how he managed all of this.’
‘I know – if Ben’s innocent, someone’s planned very well. The zolpidem would explain him not waking, but it would take a while to work. It feels…’ He grasps for the words. ‘It feels like shards of different cases, thrown into one.’ He looks out through the trees. They have arrived at the other side of the gate they had stood at that morning, and the sea lies sleeping. It’s like a postcard. Nothing stirs.
‘The gate is always locked. Each family renting the house is given a key, but as we’ve said, no one was here the week you’ve asked about.’ Jablowski is chatting quickly, nodding at Maarten and Adrika every now and again, but his eyes return to Carroll. She spins, oblivious. ‘Could you take us to the house, please?’
‘Of course, this way.’