by John Harvey
Ruth's mouth was dry.
She took the bottle of water from her bag and drank before continuing.
A couple of hikers travelling in the opposite direction, serious, the full gear, stepped aside to let her pass.
Blocked by a fall where some of the old mine workings had caved in, the path wound back on itself and climbed again. There were farm buildings, grey roofed, in a small dip where the land levelled out. Fields divided by stone walls. The path between them was dotted with rabbit droppings, lined with cow parsley and nettles, straight as a die: however much she might try to tell herself later she took it by accident as much as design, she would know it was a lie.
Alan Efford lay on a blanket outside the tent, face down, head resting easily on folded arms, legs slightly parted below blue trunks, muscular thighs, the brush of hair growing across the top of his shoulders startlingly blond in the light.
By the time she'd decided to turn away it was too late.
'Ruth?'
'Yes, hello, I...'
'Felt someone was there.' He pivoted into a sitting position, legs loosely crossed, peering into the sun.
'I thought Pauline might be here. I thought ...'
'No. She's gone into town with the little 'un to see Kelly at the hospital. Took the van.'
'And Lee?'
'Off somewhere. Since—you know ...' Efford shook his head. 'Wasn't what you'd call sociable before, but now, get a word out of him between breakfast and lights out an' you're doin' well.'
'He'll get over it.'
'You think so?'
'He feels responsible. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that he is, just that ...'
'I know. I know.' He looked away.
Ruth made a small pattern in the ground with the toe of her sandal. 'I should go.'
'No. Why?' He moved sideways across the blanket, making space. 'Here. Take the weight off your feet. Sit down.'
'No, it's okay ...'
'You're sure?'
'Sure.'
A trio of teenage boys, sun-bleached hair, freckles, went past them in wetsuits, laughing, surfboards under their arms.
'Simon,' Ruth said abruptly, 'those things he was saying, blaming you for what happened, all those wild accusations, it was just the heat of the moment, you shouldn't let it ...'
'No,' Efford said. 'He was right. His place I'd've felt the same. It was my responsibility. My fault.'
'But you weren't to know ...'
'I'd already told them they couldn't go. It was too late, too close to getting dark.'
'But the fog ...'
'No. I told them and then I let them change my mind.'
'Children do.'
'I know. But we're' s'posed to know better, right?'
For a brief moment, Ruth closed her eyes. 'I never said, not to you—I spoke to Pauline, but I never said, about Kelly, I'm so pleased she's going to be all right. Pleased ...' She touched a hand to her face, her skin seemed to be burning up. '... It's such a inadequate word. It's wonderful, that's what I mean, wonderful that she's okay. If only they'd both ... if they'd both ...'
She turned her face away, shaken by tears.
'Ruth ...'
The tears became sobs and her body shook.
Efford pushed himself to his feet and hesitated, uncertain, before moving closer. When he touched her, a hand consolingly on her shoulder, she jumped and he stepped away, but she turned towards him, body trembling, her face pressed close against his chest.
Without thinking he kissed the top of her head. 'Let's go inside.'
She stumbled against him and he caught hold of her arm.
The interior was shaded, cooler, busy with rolled bundles of clothes, mattresses, sleeping bags, plastic cups and plates, things for the beach.
'I'm sorry,' she said, wiping her eyes. Her nose had run and she rubbed at her cheek.
He reached out both hands towards her.
'No,' she managed. 'That's not ...'
His mouth brushed past the side of her face, her neck slippery with sweat, his teeth and tongue on her skin; the pair of them losing their balance, falling back, his hand reaching up inside her skirt.
'Oh, God!'
Legs wide, with thumb and finger he opened her like a shell.
'God!'
She wanted him inside her, his weight against her, fucking her hard.
'God!'
When she came it was like the tide, shuddering against him time after time, heels hooked fast behind his legs, fingers locked behind his neck, holding him down.
Released, ragged and wet, they lay side by side, her head angled sideways, resting on his chest, his breathing slowly merging with hers. Against all the odds, she slept.
After a while, he slid carefully out from underneath her, found a towel and rubbed it over his belly and between his legs, went outside and lit a cigarette.
He was still sitting there when Ruth emerged some forty minutes later, face flushed, unable to look him in the eye. The force of the sun had lessened, the sky streaked with cloud.
'You okay?'
She nodded, uncertain.
'Sit yourself down. I'll make a cup of tea.'
'No, it's all right ...'
'Yeah, come on. Bit of time before the kids get back and all hell breaks loose.'
Ruth sat and waited; if she could have trusted herself to reach the other side of the field without stumbling, she might have walked away.
'You want sugar?'
'No, thanks.'
'Cigarette?'
She shook her head. For a short while neither of them spoke. Kids played around some of the other tents; adults walked down towards the shop holding toddlers by the hand.
'Kelly,' Ruth said quietly, 'she's starting to feel better?'
'Yeah. Yes, she's fine. Cries a lot still, off by herself. Won't talk about it, what happened. Gonna take a while. The hospital reckon she should maybe see someone when she gets back, some kind of psychiatrist, a shrink.'
'I think it's me,' Ruth said, 'needs to see the shrink.'
Efford grinned and shook his head. 'Not you.' He reached across and ran his fingers down the inside of her arm. 'Don't have to worry. Not goin' to tell anyone. Okay?'
She nodded. 'Okay.'
Not so many minutes later, tea finished, she was ready to go. A clumsy hug and quick goodbye, Ruth's legs threatening to buckle beneath her as she walked.
20
The temperature next day had dropped by two or three degrees, the atmosphere more biddable, a breeze drifting in off the sea to the south-west. One glance up at the sky and Cordon reached for his old waterproof in case; that part of the coast, the saying went, more changes to the weather than a whore's underthings.
Quaint word, Cordon thought, underthings, conjuring up something complicated and old-fashioned; frills and furbelows.
The path down off the cliff was no stranger to him now, the goats still there or thereabouts, heads down, cropping at sea beat and bracken, tips of gorse. The same cat, ginger and white, that he had seen before, sprang away when he approached and regarded him reproachfully from a distance.
At first Cordon thought Gibbens wasn't there, but he was only slow in coming to the door.
'Mr Gibbens ...'
Taking off a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, a crack across one lens, Gibbens blinked towards the light.
'I wonder if I could take up a little more of your time?'
There were another two cats inside, one tabby and a black, feigning sleep on an old rag rug in front of a paraffin stove, unlit. The tabby raised its head enough to squint at Cordon with one yellow eye.
Gibbens lifted away the tattered paperback he'd been reading from the chair opposite his own and set it carefully on the floor. Crime and Punishment. Another of those classics of world literature Cordon had been saving against a rainy day.
His eye caught the beginning of the blurb: A troubled man commits the perfect crime. Maybe he should read it sooner rather than later: research.
> 'Bit of a hobby?' Cordon asked, with a nod towards the book.
'Crime or punishment?' Gibbens said with an uneasy smile.
'Reading.'
'Off and on.'
'You remember when we met, I knew your name. Rang bells, somewhere in here.' Cordon tapped one side of his head. 'I've realised why.'
Gibbens looked at him, saying nothing, fingers spidering the edge of his spectacles.
'You had a son. Took his own life. Six, close to seven years back.'
Gibbens blinked and held his breath.
'Hanged himself, wasn't it? One of the struts beneath the fish quay over by Newlyn.'
Gibbens nodded, the smallest of movements, barely perceptible.
'I'm sorry,' Cordon said.
Gibbens breathed on to the lenses of his spectacles and polished them against the soft front of his shirt.
'You got any boys?' he asked Cordon, a few slow moments later.
'One.'
'Still living?'
How the hell did he know? 'Travelling. Central America somewhere, last I heard.' He didn't say that was nine months ago. Gap year, Cordon thought, that was what it meant.
'See the world,' Gibbens said.
'Something like that.'
The black cat stretched and yawned, extending its claws.
'The night you went out and found the girl—Kelly—I'd like to run over what happened.'
'Thought I did that already.'
'Humour me. Tell it again.'
Gibbens told his story, more or less exactly as before.
'And the other girl, Heather...'
'What about her?'
'When you stumbled over Kelly, brought her back, you didn't see anything of her?'
Gibbens shook his head.
'Or look for her? You didn't go out later and look for her?'
'How could I? I didn't know she was there.'
'Kelly didn't say?'
'Kelly didn't say a thing.'
'So as far as you knew, she'd been on her own?'
Gibbens nodded.
Cordon sat tall, straightening the muscles of his back. 'According to what I've been told, when you went into the lifeboat station the following morning you spoke of the missing girls.'
'That's wrong?'
'Missing girls. Not girl. How come?'
'Heard it on the radio that morning, local news. Stand on that chair there and keep hold the aerial, you can just about pick up a signal.'
Cordon rose, uncomfortably. 'Let you get back to your book.'
Gibbens watched him to the door. Outside, one of the goats was taking a dump on the stones, each offering perfectly formed.
He was told there was a good chance he'd find Ann Dyer in the Midshipman Ready, saloon bar as was. He looked right past her at first, silver jacket, jeans, dark hair pulled back and piled high, held in place with a silver comb. She was sitting up to the bar, half an ear cocked to the barman's line of chat, what looked like a gin and tonic close by, lime rather than lemon, plenty of ice, condensation on the outside of the glass.
When Cordon went to sit on the stool beside her, she rounded on him sharply, ready to tell him to piss off and leave her alone.
'Oh, it's you.'
'Sorry.'
She had the grace to smile; a senior officer, after all.
'Alan Efford,' he said, small talk not his forte, 'what d'you think of him?'
'How d'you mean?'
'Impressions.'
She thought a little, sipped her G&T. 'Physical, short-tempered maybe; useful to have on your side in a fight.'
'Violent, then?'
'Not necessarily, no. Not without reason.' She told him about the incident with Simon Pierce, which he'd already read in her report.
'Never see him step out of line with the other kids?'
'What way?'
Cordon shrugged. 'Any.'
'Can't say that I did. Sorry.'
'Why sorry?'
'Thought you wanted me to say something else.'
'Wanted? Interesting choice of word.'
'You're looking for homicide, that's the talk.'
'Doing my job.'
'No matter what?'
'No matter what.' Cordon eased himself down from the stool.
'Why don't you stay?' Dyer said. 'Have a drink.'
He gave it due consideration for longer than he should. 'Some other time, perhaps.'
'Yes, sir.'
By the time he had reached the door, she was back in conversation with the young man behind the bar.
21
Ruth had done her best to shut what had happened with Alan Efford out of her mind, an aberration. Concerned at how long it was taking before the inquest into her daughter's death could be reopened, she asked Ann Dyer, who told her she thought it was something to do with forensics; nothing out of the ordinary, unfortunately, just the pressure of work on the service. But why didn't she talk to Detective Inspector Cordon? He could set her straight.
Cordon met her in St Just, the park behind the war memorial, a bench, tastefully engraved by the local youth, in the shade.
'What the liaison officer said is right. Till we get the results back from the FSS—the Forensic Science Service—I'm afraid everything's on hold.'
'And this is what? Heather's clothes?'
'Yes, as I explained to you before.'
'But what happened to Heather, it was an accident.'
'Almost certainly.'
'Almost?'
'Mrs Pierce, I'm sure you can understand. We have to rule out any other possibility. Having the clothing examined is simply part of that process. As I said, a matter of routine.'
'I still don't see what they're expecting to find?'
'It depends. Blood, certainly. There might be hair, saliva ...' He gestured into the air. 'Everything has to be tested and checked to make sure nothing comes from a third party.'
'A third...?'
'We have to make sure no one else was involved.'
'Involved? Involved how? You think somebody might have pushed her? Is that what you think? Heather might have been pushed? It wasn't an accident at all?'
'No, no, that's not what I'm saying.'
'But you did. You said ...'
'Mrs Pierce, all I said, we have to be sure. As sure as is possible. At the inquest, the coroner will want to know that all the appropriate inquiries were made. It's his duty, and ours. And until the results are in we have to keep an open mind.' Shifting his position on the bench, he smiled. 'Another day or two, that's all it will be.'
'And if there is anything, anything untoward, you'd let us know?'
'Of course. First thing. You have my word.'
'Thank you,' Ruth said, relieved. Cordon, as ever, amazed at how easy it was to lie.
They had to wait not two days but three. When it came, the report was clear: no significant traces of a third party were found on the clothes of the deceased.
Lambert lorded it as if his lottery ticket had just come home. No other winners. Jackpot. Cordon kept his head down, took his ribbing as best he could.
Lambert then opted to make the police report to the inquest himself, not quite trusting Cordon to toe the party line.
'Did the police, at any stage,' the coroner asked, 'consider the possibility of homicide?'
'We did,' Lambert said.
'And did you come to any conclusions?'
'After a thorough investigation, we found no evidence of third-party involvement whatsoever.'
'And the injuries to the body, Superintendent?'
'As the pathologist's report has made clear, they were entirely consistent with the deceased having fallen into the engine house where the body was found.'
'The scratches to the face and arms...?'
'Sustained, we believe, after the deceased had become disorientated due to a sudden and severe fog coming in off the sea, and had lost her footing amongst the gorse and bracken close to the coast path.'
The coroner looked at the papers
before him.
'When the engine house was searched earlier, the body of the deceased was apparently not present, yet when the building was searched again two days later, the body was discovered—do you have any satisfactory explanation for this?'
'Other than the possibility that the earlier search wasn't carried out as thoroughly as it should have been?'
'Other than that.'
'No, I'm afraid not.'
During recess Lambert paced up and down, smoking one cigarette after another—how much more open and shut does it bloody have to be? It didn't take long to find out.
'Having considered the pathologist's report,' the coroner said, 'and after listening carefully to all of the evidence presented—the police evidence in particular—I am led to the conclusion that the most likely cause of death in this unfortunate case was a serious blow—or blows—to the head, sustained when the deceased fell into the disused engine house where her body was found.
'Since, however, after all the evidence put before me, I am unable to determine with any degree of certainty exactly what did occur, I see no alternative than to record an open verdict in this case.'
'Fuck!' Lambert said beneath his breath.
Ruth bent sharply forward, eyes closed, and, close alongside, Simon, who had returned to Cornwall for the inquiry, reached for her hand.
Only when he was outside the court did Cordon allow himself the merest of smiles.
Every exhibit, each item of clothing had been separately bagged and labelled, showing the names of all those who had seen or handled them and in what circumstances; all of the witness statements, together with photographs and any other material evidence, were similarly labelled and secured. Cordon himself took care to supervise the process by which everything was boxed and sealed before being taken to the property store and handed over to the officer in charge.
'I know, don't tell me,' the officer said.
'What's that?'
'Guard it with my life.'
'You'd best do better than that.'
Cordon waited while the officer signed in the box, lifted it from the counter—'What you got in here, a body?'—and carried it back into the store.
Outside, the weather showed little sign of change; still warm, a scattering of high cloud but little wind, nothing so far presaging rain. People were going about their business with the same haste or ease. In their room above the pub, Ruth and Simon were packing their things, ready to take them down to the car. Ever since the verdict, Ruth had felt she was sleepwalking, unable to focus, unresolved; Simon resorted to small outbursts of anger, attempts to engage in conversation that broke down all too soon.