Abri remains unlikely to be inhabited for a very long time to come, if ever. The Japanese consortium AKEKO backed away from any plans to resurrect the island faster than the speed of light after Robin was arrested. They have launched proceedings to sue him for every penny they paid him to lease the island. I am advised that they are likely to get it, and they are merely heading the queue of victims and victim’s families who are now suing Robin for damages.
My sister Clem called me a few weeks ago. I think Julia may have told her of the part we both played in Robin’s arrest. I was overjoyed to hear from her, particularly as I had deliberately held back from contacting her.
‘Now do you understand how I feel?’ she asked.
I told her that I did. I always had, as it happened, even when I firmly believed that Robin was in no way to blame for the death of little Luke and all the others.
My mother has somehow managed to persuade her long-suffering New Zealand cousin to allow her to stay on there – it has been almost a year now – and apparently went into full Hyacinth Bucket mode when she telephoned Clem to tell her that she couldn’t possibly come home because of the scandal.
Clem and I almost managed a chuckle about that. I just about dared to hope that maybe one day we might be real sisters again, but it’s going to take time. And I do know that things can never be the same.
Poor Jason Tucker has been released from his secure mental hospital and gone home to live with his parents in the council house they have been allocated in Bideford. I keep wondering what it must be like for them to have lost the home I know they loved as well as everything else, and I want very much to tell Jason how sorry I am. But I haven’t the courage to contact him or his father at the moment.
Maude is still virtually comatose. There is a television in her room. Roger says he switches off all the news bulletins because he isn’t sure how much Maude understands. He is a kind man. I haven’t told him of my suspicion that Maude had always understood much more about Robin and what he was up to than I like to think about.
The Clifton house is on the market. I still have some cash in the bank from the sale of my flat – Robin never wanted any of it – which is just as well as it looks as if all of his money is going to go in legal fees and damages.
I don’t know what I’m going to do next. I will have to earn a living somehow, and I must find a new home. I’m tempted to leave Bristol and indeed to go as far away as I can – maybe even to the other side of the world. But I have learned some things in my life as a police officer – and one certainty is that running rarely helps.
Julia has invited me to stay with her for a while. I probably won’t, because I’m inclined to think I have caused her enough trouble for one lifetime.
There’s an obscure picture I can’t get out of my mind. Whenever I shut my eyes I see Robin, handsome, windswept, untroubled, standing tall on Abri, silhouetted against the true blue of a sea the same colour as his eyes, telling me with such pride all about his island. I can still feel his excitement, his love of the place, wrapping itself around me.
And most of all I can hear him, clear as the sound of the waves breaking against the cliffs, explaining to me the meaning of the name.
‘Abri – place of refuge.’
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First published in the United Kingdom in 1999 by William Heinemann
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