Speechlessly they sit and watch. A picture of Obadiah – the financial mastermind, they call him – and then there’s Daniel, along with Hannah, being led away by a policewoman. Daniel’s head is bowed, but Hannah smiles at the camera, blinks and holds her thumb.
Now the screen is filled with a picture of Martha, taken years ago when her hair was still brown. ‘This woman, Martha Woods, also known as Melanie Anna Woods, is wanted by the authorities to be questioned on several counts.’
‘Turn it off,’ Dodie says.
‘What?’ Seth is gripped, leaning towards the screen.
‘Please,’ Dodie says.
‘But I want to watch.’
‘Me too.’ Rebecca sloshes wine into glasses.
‘I’ll be outside then,’ Dodie says. She steps out, shuts the door against the news, humming to try and block her own scrambling thoughts. She carries Jake down the wooden steps onto the beach. The darkening sea roars, though it isn’t rough. Jake squeals and struggles to be let down. As soon as his feet touch the ground, he’s off, sand puffing up behind his feet. Dodie removes her boots and socks, leaves them by the steps and follows Jake, relishing the emptiness of the beach and the cool sensation of shifting sand under her soles, between her toes. And then she catches sight of a woman standing at the edge of the sea. The waves sweep over the woman’s feet and run away again, surf hissing. She appears to have seen Dodie, but stands frozen, except for the flapping of her skirt. And then, tentatively, she raises her hand.
Dodie will go and say hello, say what else, she doesn’t know. But first she takes a deep lungful of fresh salty air and tips back her head to see, floating high above her in the inky sky, a single star.
Acknowledgements
With thanks for their help to Bill Hamilton, Andrew Greig, Shirley Henderson and all at Tindal Street Press.
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