by Chris Vick
Hannah shook her head.
‘I can’t forgive him, Mum. Jake almost died. What he did, with those men, it was wrong.’
‘I can’t blame you for feeling that way. But what Jake did, or tried to do. That was wrong too. Wasn’t it?’
‘Well, yes, but … Can you forgive him, Mum?’ said Hannah.
‘Not if I lose you,’ said Mum, with a weak smile. ‘He’s a fool, Hannah. A foolish man, and now a very poor one. But I still love him and I know you do too. Is there any chance you could come home?’
Hannah wavered, looking for hardness in her heart and not finding it. Mum continued.
‘I guess I’m like that whale’s mother, calling her. She couldn’t leave her daughter, could she? I’ve dreaded this, Hann. The time when our girl grows up and leaves. Every mum does. You going to Hawaii was the end, in a way. But this is far worse. He’ll be in prison. And with you gone …’ Mum shook her head, as if she couldn’t imagine the future. Hannah saw it, though. The painful emptiness in that house, till it was sold. And then what?
‘Oh, Mum.’ She reached out and hugged her.
‘Maybe you could come and see us?’ said Mum. Hannah thought of how she’d left. The badly packed bags, filled with shaking hands. Dad drinking whisky in the lounge. His heavy presence like a brooding monster in its lair. How she’d wanted, needed, to get away from that. Had he changed since then? She’d believe it when she saw it.
But there was Mum. And she needed Hannah.
‘Yes, I’ll come and see you,’ said Hannah. ‘Then we’ll see. I guess.’ She looked back at the house. April was there, in the shadow of the door.
‘Come in,’ she said. ‘Have some tea.’
‘No, thank you,’ said Mum. ‘I have to go.’
She looked down the lane at the Range Rover, parked on the side. A figure was sitting in the driving seat, hunched in shadow.
‘Is that Dad?’
Mum nodded. The car was facing away, but he would be able to see her in the mirror. Hannah took one step, then another, her legs moving by themselves.
She stopped, and Dad got out. He looked worse than Mum, stooping and broken.
They stared at each other. A while.
Then she ran to him, and hugged him. She couldn’t help herself.
‘This is going to be hard, Hannah,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in prison. For quite a while.’
‘It will be hard, Dad. But … we’ll get there.’
He kissed the top of her head.
‘Yes, we’ll get there. Will you ever forgive me?’
‘I don’t know, Dad,’ she said. She didn’t. But she did know she loved him, whether she wanted to or not.
He gently lifted her arms from his shoulders.
April and Mum came up behind her. Hannah stood aside.
They all looked at each other. Not knowing what to do, or say.
‘We should get off,’ said Dad when the silence got too long, too awkward.
‘Really?’ said April. ‘Because I think we could all use a drink, don’t you?’
Hannah grabbed her parents by the hand, and pulled them into Jake’s house.
Jake
TWO DAYS LATER Jake had an appointment with the police.
‘You okay?’ said Hannah, when he left her at the desk.
‘Yes,’ said Jake. A lie.
Sergeant Junkett led him to the interview room. He limped through, using his crutch. The room was square and simple. Empty, apart from the recording equipment, two chairs and a table. With a file and a notebook and pen on it. All the kit you needed for a confession.
‘Thanks for coming in,’ said Junkett. ‘Have a seat.’ He opened the file and read what was inside, then picked up his notebook and pen. ‘This is entirely voluntary. This is all we’ll need you for. At this stage, anyway. You’ll probably be called as a witness. We’ll need your account of what happened on the islands. Your brother will need to make a statement too, but I don’t think he’ll be required to attend court. Is that all clear?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Why don’t you start at the beginning?’ Junkett sounded serious, but kind too.
‘I … I don’t know where to begin,’ said Jake. He sat in silence, looking at the notepad and Junkett’s pen.
After a while, Junkett put the pen down. He leant forward.
‘Don’t look so worried. This –’ he pointed at the recording machine – ‘isn’t on. You’re not in any trouble. We just want to put the pieces of the jigsaw together. These men, you see: one of them’s wanted up London way for all sorts of nasty stuff. They’re quite a catch for us. So anything that will help the case against them is going to be incredibly useful.’ Junkett paused while he opened the file and read.
‘This … Gavin Jones. Who says he found the boat and the drugs. The men were after him to try and recover the drugs. You and your brother were engaged in some kind of whale rescue when the men caught up with you. Is that right?’
‘Yeah … I guess so.’
‘You guess so?’ Junkett frowned at him. ‘Why don’t we start with Gavin? And please, please, don’t worry. Like I say, we just want to put the picture together so we can nail the bad guys.’
‘What about Goof … I mean Gavin? What will happen to him?’
‘Oh, well. Let’s just say he’ll need a lawyer. If we ever find him.’
‘You won’t find him.’
‘Do you know his whereabouts?’
‘No.’
‘Well, if he does get in touch with you, the best advice you could give him would be to hand himself in. I’m, er, assuming he didn’t involve you, or let you know what was going on?’ Junkett gave Jake a knowing look.
Jake took a breath and had a good look around the room, preparing himself. There was another chair, in the corner. It reminded him of the one at home, in the kitchen.
He’d already decided what to say. He hadn’t told anyone, he’d just made a promise to himself when he’d sat at the kitchen table, looking at the empty chair.
‘I knew all about it,’ said Jake.
Junkett picked up his pen. ‘Go on.’
Jake paused. This was harder than he’d thought it would be.
‘Look,’ said Junkett, trying to reassure him again. ‘We just want the truth.’
‘Then that’s what you’ll get,’ said Jake. ‘Because I’ve told enough lies to last a lifetime. Goofy … sorry, Gavin, didn’t find the stuff. I did. I was the one who tried to sell it.’
Junkett put his pen down and his hand up. A stop sign.
‘Er, okay, Jake. Before you say anything further, I should tell you, you might be liable for prosecution. You might give me reason to arrest you. I’d advise we bring in your lawyer before you say anything else.’
‘There’s no point. I won’t say anything different to what I’m going to tell you now.
‘I’m going to tell you everything. The boat, the deal, how we got rid of it. All of it, apart from one thing. There was one other guy involved, and a girl. And I’m not going to tell you who they are, no matter what. Other than that, I’ll tell you the lot. It was me, you see, not Goofy. So, yeah, get a lawyer later, arrest me if you have to. Whatever. But for now, please, just listen.’
*
The truth came off Jake in waves.
It was a weight he was tired of carrying.
Junkett looked at him evenly the whole time without judgement, without pressure.
*
When he was done, Jake said: ‘What now?’
‘You’re going to tell me again. With your lawyer present. We’ll prepare your statement.’
‘I mean what will happen … to me?’
‘With your full cooperation and no previous? Hmmm. Maybe a suspended sentence. But maybe not. I don’t know. It’s possible you could do a deal for your testimony. Like I say, these guys are serious. They are who we’re after. Not a surfer so starry-eyed in love that he did the most monumentally stupid thing he’s ever done.’ Junkett smiled. His
eyes twinkled.
*
Two days later, Jake received a text from a number he didn’t recognise.
Having a great holiday, it said. Hawaii’s off the scale. I’ll catch one for you.
Jake hit the palm of his hand on his head. Of course, he thought. The weed! Goofy must have sold it … And gone travelling.
Come home, he texted back. It’s safe … ‘Gavin!’
Then, a minute later, he sent another.
Come home, mate. Just come home.
Hannah and Jake, Jake and Hannah
HANNAH CONTINUED WITH her work. It required collecting samples of water and seaweed, every day, at intervals along the coast, wherever it was accessible. That meant a lot of climbing and scrambling. Beano loved it, and Jake too. He couldn’t always follow Hannah because of his leg, but he was happy to sit on rocks and cliff tops, and wait.
One day, after Goofy had dropped them at Whitesands, Hannah stood thigh-deep in the sea, cutting seaweed off a rock. Jake sat with Beano, high on the rocks.
He fished her phone out of her bag when it rang, and took the message.
‘Hannah!’ he shouted, waving. ‘That was Steve. They’ve been seen.’
‘What, who?’
‘Orcas. Killer whales. Off the cliffs near Penford, by one of your research mob. I told you what Goofy said about Little One was true. She’s alive.’
She told herself not to get excited: there was no way anyone could know Little One was alive, even if orcas had been seen.
‘When? How many? What direction were they travelling in?’
‘Don’t know. Apparently the guy saw black whales, a long way offshore.’
Hannah looked out to sea, as if she might see them, if they were there. She took hold of her heart and calmed it.
‘They probably saw basking sharks, or maybe dolphins,’ she said. It happened a lot. People saw one thing, and thought they saw another.
She waded back to the rocks.
‘Shall we go and check?’ said Jake. ‘Just in case?’
‘Sure.’
They went to the cliffs near Penford. The point there gave them a good view up and down the coast, and a long, far sight over the ocean.
They sat for a long time, scanning the deep green for black fins. The storms were gone and the water looked calm, although darker, under the autumn sky.
They didn’t see whales. There were no jagged waves or coal-black birds to trick her. Just endless sea.
Word got round that whales had been sighted. There were rumours. Reports. Sightings. Calls.
But they only ever found out hours or days later. They always arrived too late. The sightings of dark fins were always a way offshore. The glimpses were brief and the details vague.
The two of them agreed: the rescue had been on the news, and now the community was seeing shadows, desperate for proof the rescue had been a success.
They stopped searching. There was too much else to do; to sort out.
*
On the day she finished the project, they took a walk up to the cliffs. It wasn’t more than a mile, and Jake could handle that.
The plan was to have a picnic and talk about the future. About work, money, where they were going to live. Even about Hawaii, though it’d be at least a year before they could go.
After hot pasties and chilled beer, they left Beano snuffling scraps off the rug and went and sat at the cliff top.
They didn’t talk about the future. They watched the sea. Long swells were rolling in, gulls riding air streams, and slate clouds creeping across the sky.
Hannah breathed the sea-cooled air and leant against Jake as if he was a rock. The vastness of sea and sky made her dizzy.
‘Strange, isn’t it?’ said Hannah.
‘What?’
‘The sea. It’s always the same, but always different.’
‘That makes no sense.’ He poked her in the ribs with his elbow.
‘It does,’ she said. ‘The sea was there before the mines were built.’ She pointed along the cliff to the grey ruins. Granite blocks littered the ground. Some of them had split in two after falling in the storms. Older ones were coated in moss and grass. ‘Look, Jake. The rocks are crumbling back into the land they came from. It’ll take hundreds of years. Thousands. Then there’ll be no sign they were ever here. The sea was there before, it’ll be there when they’re gone.
‘Doesn’t it blow your mind that all that’s going on, churning away, even when we’re … I dunno, in town, shopping or something? It’s always the same. But always different too. Currents and tides and swells and wind and weather change. Every day, every second.’
‘You’re a bit deep, Hannah Lancaster. And weird. Anyway, I kind of get what you’re saying. The sea is a weird place, a mystery.’
‘It’s not a place, it’s not a mystery. Mysteries can be explained. The sea is … I don’t know what it is … I’ll never know. It is not a thing that can be known. It can only be experienced. I think that’s true. At least it’s what I feel. I’ve been thinking a lot, after everything that’s happened. With you, with the whales. There’s a lot that can’t be understood, or explained. Maybe you just have to experience it. You can’t know everything. Like us looking for Little One. She’s gone, Jake. She might be dead at the bottom of the sea, or she might be chasing fish off the Scillies. We don’t know. We’ll never know. All we know is, we did the right thing at the time. But even that … it might have been the wrong thing. She might have died. I mean … there’s things you can’t control, things you can’t understand. Am I making any sense, Jake? Tell me.’
‘No. You are definitely weird.’ He tapped his head. She laughed, and shoved him with her hand.
‘But you know what I mean?’
‘Yeah. Life throws stuff at you. Storms, like. All you can do is hold on.
‘Anyways, thought we were meant to talk about our future? Money and stuff.’
‘I don’t feel like it today. You?’
‘Nah.’
He gave her a peck on the cheek, then took her hand and squeezed it. Their lips locked, their arms snaking around each other’s bodies. His hands began exploring and undoing. She pushed them down and away, once and then twice. But soon her hands were not pretending to fight any more, and they were finding his skin. Her breath was hot and quick.
‘Not here,’ she said.
‘Why not?’ he replied. But she stood up and refastened her jeans and shirt – buttons and zips that had magically come undone.
Hannah returned to the rug and started throwing things into the basket. She wanted to get to the car. To the house. To somewhere. Quickly.
She was bent over on her hands and knees as she worked, her hair hanging loose around her neck. She was teasing him with the sight of her, waiting for him to grab her. Then she’d wriggle from his grasp and run to the car, or some hidden den in the mines.
She looked back. Jake was standing, pointing at the sea.
‘What is it?’ she said.
‘Come and see.’
Straight below, a hundred metres out, a fin broke the surface. A plume of misty breath shot into the air, then the orca sank back into the dark. Hannah held her breath.
Another fin broke the oil-green. And another.
Three whales, travelling fast. Big fins. Adults. They were shallow enough that she could just about see their bodies. Shadows in the water.
They came up every twenty seconds as they moved down the coast. Then the fins all broke the water at the same time, curved, and returned, following the cliff.
‘Why are they coming back?’ said Jake.
Some hundred metres down the coast, in the direction the whales had come from, a smaller shadow was gliding through the shallows, moving slowly. Its dorsal fin broke the surface. It breathed, and dived.
The older whales came back, circled the younger one, then went on ahead of her again. They repeated the pattern. Moving ahead, coming back, moving ahead, coming back. Waiting for the younger whale each
time.
‘Do you think that’s her?’ said Jake.
‘Yes,’ said Hannah. ‘Yes, I do.’
They watched, till the whales had journeyed far down the coast, and they couldn’t see them any more.
Acknowledgements
This footnote to a book is usually called ‘acknowledgements’. But that’s a dry word. For me it’s about saying a very big and heartfelt ‘thank you’.
So … thank you to Nick Lake, my editor, and Catherine Clarke, my agent. If I said, ‘They know their stuff,’ I’d be making a very big understatement. They’re also both whip-smart and really, really nice people to work with. I could go on …
Thanks also to Julia, Lucy et al at the Bath Spa MA, and the gang of writer friends I made there. It’s a while since I left, but the MA continues to shape my writing. If you think you have a book in you, and you need some help getting it out, there’s nowhere better to go, in my opinion.
I have worked for the charity Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) for a while. (Find out more at www.whales.org.) I’m lucky enough to have seen whales and dolphins in the wild, many times, and to have worked with some amazing ‘whale-heads’. As you can imagine, this influenced Hannah’s story quite a lot. I have tried to be as realistic as possible in the descriptions of whales, and the details of the rescue, but if there are any inaccuracies or mistakes in the text they are entirely mine.
As for Jake’s story: some years ago, after a spell of savagely violent storms, WDC had reports of dolphins washing ashore in Cornwall. We duly sent two researchers to assess the scale of the problem, and to find out the cause (illegal pair trawlers, it turned out). The researchers spent a lot of time patrolling beaches and hard-to-get-to coves. And guess what they found?
The police reckoned the haul had a street value ‘running into millions of pounds’.
You can see the local BBC report here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/7235851.stm