by Gytha Lodge
42
The sun had showed up for Aurora, and it seemed appropriate somehow to Topaz. She often remembered her sister haloed by sun, a dreamy expression on her face. And so Topaz had dressed for her sister, too, in a gauzy floral dress that buttoned down the front, all white and red and green. No black for her today.
Connor took her hand as they walked from the church to the grave. They followed her parents, and the coffin that was being carried by four professional bearers. It must have been feather-light, with so little left of her now. Topaz tried not to think about that.
She squeezed her husband’s hand, and after a pause he squeezed back. She wondered whether they would ever be like they had been, before it had all been dug up and she had come to doubt the one person she had always trusted. And whether Connor could ever forget that it had been Aurora’s killer that she had chosen to sleep with instead of him.
She glanced over her shoulder at the trio behind them. Jojo and Daniel were either side of Anna, almost supporting her as she walked. There were tears cascading down her face. She wouldn’t have been here at all if Jojo hadn’t driven to her house and told her they wouldn’t hold the funeral without her.
How the hell they were all going to deal with Brett’s funeral was a question for another day.
Jojo looked so strong as she held Anna and soothed her. Topaz found herself envying Jojo’s strength, and then decided that she would just have to imitate it.
Behind the trio came Mary and Polly Benham, who were arm in arm and talking in low voices, flanked by Aurora’s only real friend, Becky, who was as round and as shy as she had ever been at school, and whose eyes were raw and red.
And half hidden behind all of them was Coralie. Her head was bowed under a small black hat, but Topaz could see dark smudges of mascara underneath her eyes.
“Wait,” she said to Connor suddenly, and moved aside to let the others past.
As Coralie drew level, Topaz let go of Connor’s hand, and reached out to her oldest friend. “Coralie,” she said. “Here.”
Coralie stepped toward her, and Topaz wrapped her in a fierce hug. Her friend’s silent tears became all-out sobbing. Topaz held her and swayed, knowing that Coralie was crying as much for the loss of the man she had thought loved her, who had carried on a long-distance affair with her for thirty years in order to control her, as she was for Aurora or anyone else.
“He’s gone now, but that means there’s nobody in the way of us,” Topaz said.
And to her surprise and intense gratitude, Connor came to join the hug, putting an arm round each of them and rubbing Coralie’s back gently.
So the three of them had been the last to arrive at the graveside, as strange a trio as Anna and Daniel and Jojo were. The minister had nodded to her, and then began to consign Aurora to the earth.
The earth had had her for a long time, Topaz thought. It didn’t have any right to have her again. She should have been with all of them. With her family, and maybe with children of her own. She imagined how Aurora would have been as a mother, and knew that she would have been wonderful.
There was a tightness in her throat as Aurora was lowered back into the ground, a bare two weeks after she’d been lifted out of it. Topaz looked up and away, and then, in her turn, lifted a handful of earth from beside the grave, and held it over the chestnut coffin.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and let it go.
To Ma and Pa Lodge, who not only read and gave feedback but have been there, supporting, for the roughly twenty years since I wrote a truly awful first book. You’ve got some stickability.
Acknowledgments
A debut is always going to be the result of an awful lot of help from an awful lot of people. I have so many to thank, but some have been total, shining stars in the process.
First and foremost amongst those is my loveliest agent, Felicity Blunt, who recognized something to champion early on and then stood by me through all of the difficult and the fun times, and whose wonderful eye for editing made this book ten times better than it would have been.
And the amazing Joel Richardson, kick-ass editor, who is probably responsible for most of the other good stuff you see in here and to whom I owe being able to devote myself to writing.
To Rufus and Paul, who have been amazingly supportive and understanding at least some of the time when their mummy/girlfriend was busy writing, and who have also been massive procrastination aids in fun ways. And one of whom even error-checked for me at a crucial time.
To Kyn, who proofread and pointed out anytime I’d been profoundly confusing.
To the Penguin editorial team for all their hugely valuable help, and to the rights team for getting the book out to countries I never would have dreamed of.
And then there are all the others who helped in various ways. I discovered so many resources that were invaluable in researching this book, and I should have been better at recording them all. It’s been utterly fascinating to get to know the world of policing, even a little, and to realize how different it can be from some fictional versions. I can cite Clare Mackintosh’s fantastic (and heartfelt) threads on what annoys her about fictional presentations of policing as one very eye-opening source. And thanks must go to those officers of Cambridgeshire Constabulary who were patient enough to answer some very stupid questions from me. I just hope I haven’t let any of you down.
Finally, I have to apologize to Hampshire Constabulary for inserting Jonah’s team into Southampton Central Station and for structuring my own CID there. I hope I can be forgiven for that, and for all other crimes of invention on top of reality.
About the Author
GYTHA LODGE is a multi-award-winning playwright based in Cambridge, UK. She is also a single parent and has spent ten years as a professional copywriter on the side. She is a profound tea addict, cryptic crossword enthusiast, rower, and rowing coach. She studied at Cambridge University, where she spent too much time rowing and putting on plays, and later took the UEA MA in Creative Writing, where she managed to focus on the degree a little more.
imperfectsingleparent.blog
Facebook.com/GythaLodge
Twitter: @thegyth
Wattpad: @gythalodge
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