by Jane Jesmond
I thought about going back to London, to the flat I no longer needed to sell, but I didn’t. I stopped watching TV and I went for longer and longer walks. I found a park with swings and took Rosa every day while Kit and Sofija oversaw the final work on Tregonna. We started to talk in the evenings and Sofija helped me find a lawyer to fight for Eisha and Farid and the others to stay in the country.
The infection in my fingers went and the cuts healed. I walked past Nick’s cottage and peered in through the windows. It was empty. I wondered if he’d emptied it or if there was a police department devoted to clearing up after undercover officers. I asked Rachel where he’d gone and she said family commitments had called him away urgently. She wasn’t bothered as he’d paid up to the end of the tenancy.
A few weeks later, around the time when my fingers were finally healed, the police came again. They were going to charge Kelly with attempted murder. They knew she’d fired the gun. They’d swabbed her fingers and found the residue. And Kelly was going to plead guilty.
It should have been the closing of the circle she’d opened when she tried to kill me on the lighthouse. But it was a circle within a bigger circle. One that my passion for risk had begun, that had swept Grid and Seb up into its arc. It had swept up Kelly, too. And it didn’t feel finished.
I should have been happy but I wasn’t. I was stuck.
I forced myself to go back to the mine, hoping that I might undo some strands of the web holding me tight to Tregonna and Cornwall. I didn’t go in. The entrances were shut and locked, with remnants of police tape blowing in the breeze. I hoped it would stay closed.
Then I went onto the moors and retraced my mad escape with Nick. I climbed down into the gully and collected my equipment, then sat at the bottom and thought for a long time. Mainly about climbing, which was somehow also about myself. Afterwards, I followed the path down to the sea where I’d said goodbye to Nick.
Something in me hadn’t thought the goodbye was final. I’d thought he’d get in touch. It might be forbidden, against all regulations and so on, but the Nick Crawford I’d run across the moors with wouldn’t have cared about that. I felt there was something between us. A connection. Something worth exploring. But he must have felt differently.
It was a long walk and I was starving when I got back to Tregonna. I made myself a stack of sandwiches – peanut butter, crisp lettuce and a dab of marmite on granary bread – and ate the lot, sitting at the kitchen table and tracing the lines and dents that pockmarked its surface with my fingers. I could feel every ridge and hollow. The doctor had stitched the cuts on my hand and only narrow seams of scar tissue showed where they had been. I was rubbing Ma’s herbal oils and creams into them and I knew that with time, they’d fade into nothing. The nerves and skin had healed but climbing down the ridge again had shown me how weak the muscles had become.
I went to the door between the kitchen and the hall, reached up and planted my fingers on the top of the frame. It was covered with greasy dust but I didn’t care. I pulled myself up and hung using the front three fingers of both hands. Breathe, I thought. Breathe and count ten seconds. Except I couldn’t. Five was the most I could do before my fingers screamed with pain. Still, it wasn’t bad. I ran through a series of exercises using my fingers to support my weight in different crimps and holds.
Kit opened the door and ran into my hanging body. I crumpled to the floor. Kit laughed, then creased his eyes and looked at my hands.
‘How are they?’
‘They’re good. Or bad. Months of not exercising, you know. But the strength will come back.’
‘Go carefully.’
‘When I start climbing again, you mean.’ It wasn’t a question.
He nodded.
‘I will be careful.’
We smiled at each other.
‘I might have to clean that door frame though,’ I said.
He reached under the sink and threw me a cloth.
‘About time you earned your keep.’
‘Knock it off the money you owe me.’ I threw the cloth back at him.
The stress and worry had rolled off him since Pa had ridden to his rescue. It had, I thought, mended something in him that had been broken for a while. He was back to being the brother I remembered. Well, almost.
‘About the money,’ he said. ‘The sale of the land will complete in a couple of weeks. And then I’ll pay you back.’
‘There’s no need, Kit.’
‘No, listen. I want to tell you what’s happening. The debts will be paid off first, including the money I owe you, and Tregonna will be finished. There’ll be some left over. Pa wanted to give it to Ma but she’s refused.’
‘She’s been in touch?’
‘Her solicitors wrote to his.’
Ma had come back to Tregonna and packed the morning I’d got out of the mine. By the time Kit and I had returned from the police station, she’d left again. We’d had nothing but a postcard from her since, saying she was fine and not coming back. That was all.
‘You keep the money, Kit. It’ll help you get the centre started.’
‘I’m not sure if we’re going to do it.’
I looked at him rinsing the cloth in the sink.
‘Pa’s giving me some money. He wants you to have the same. The rest he’s put aside in case Ma changes her mind. I’m going to take the money because it’ll buy me time. After everything that’s happened, I’m not sure I want to stay here. It was a dream I had but maybe it should have stayed a dream. Sofija thinks I should stick with it. She says I don’t see things through and maybe she’s right, but I’m still not sure if running Tregonna is what I want to do.’
He got up and paced around the kitchen restlessly, fiddling with things, lining up the pots on the shelf above the sink. I took pity on him and changed the subject.
‘Where have you been?’ I asked.
‘Just at Gregory’s.’
‘How is he?’
‘Quiet. Missing Ma, I think, and cut up about Pip, although he doesn’t say much. We told him Pip was dead before they threw him down the shaft. We’re going to bury his ashes. Will you come? Gregory would like to see you.’
‘Of course.’
I went to Seb’s grave where I tried to find the words to tell him how I felt but he’d been the one with magic in his tongue and all I could dredge up was I’m sorry, truly sorry.
I packed the rest of Ma’s stuff up to wait until she sent for it and using account details from an old bank statement, I sent her ten thousand pounds from the money Kit had paid me back. In the box for the payment reference, I wrote For your friend’s voyage, XXX. I figured no one but Ma and a computer would read it.
So that was that. I’d been everywhere except the lighthouse. I knew I should go back there but I couldn’t. Mainly because I no longer wanted to remember what had happened between me and Kelly. Funny really. After all that time desperately chasing after memories that floated in the far corners of my mind and burst as soon as I reached out for them.
In the end, I had to go. Kit got Pip’s ashes back from the crematorium and I could think of no reason to let him and Sofija take them to Gregory without me. We went on a watercolour sort of day. The kind that Ma had painted for a while, using so much water the colours ran into each other and lost definition. There was no wind. Everything was still and a light mist coated the sky, the sea, the cliffs and the grass. Even the white of the lighthouse seemed dulled and I walked past it without a flicker of emotion.
‘We’ve brought you Pip’s ashes,’ Kit said when Gregory came out of his cottage. He held out the plain cardboard box that had seemed more appropriate than the undertaker’s range of cardboard tubes decorated with flowers and birds. Pip was a plain sort of dog. Gregory didn’t take the box.
‘Do you want us to bury them for you?’ This was Sofija. ‘Kit’s got a spade in the car.�
��
Gregory looked doubtful.
‘We could throw them into the sea.’ I said.
Gregory looked even more doubtful.
‘Yer ma would know best.’
This was true. Ma would have come up with some mad scheme and justified it with an overlay of mythology, then carried us all along with her enthusiasm. I realised I missed her.
‘She’d have told you to give him back to the earth, Gregory,’ I said. ‘What’s in the box is nothing but the remnants of his body. His spirit is already running along his favourite paths. This is only our way of saying goodbye to him.’
I felt a bit of a fool saying all that but I did sort of believe it. Kit squeezed my arm and I felt less stupid.
‘We should let him go in his favourite place,’ Sofija said. ‘Where would you say that was, Gregory?’
Gregory thought for an age. ‘He went everywhere.’
‘Well, maybe we should all take a bit and…’ Sofija looked at us both for support as a breeze rippled in from the sea. She laughed. ‘There you go. The wind will help.’
‘He liked the lighthouse, Pip did. Often came up with me.’
‘Perfect! We’ll let his ashes go up there.’
I trudged up after the others but once I came out onto the viewing platform, I was surprisingly fine. The lighthouse had been there for too long and seen too many violent storms to retain anything of that Friday night when Kelly tried to kill me. The wind and rain scoured every corner clean of moss, spider webs and memories. It was just bricks and cement and a fabulous view.
Afterwards, I went back to Gregory’s cottage while Kit and Sofija locked the new door. I put the kettle on and found myself staring once again at the strange collection of things hanging from the row of hooks above his sink; things most people would have thrown away. I reached up for a spare mug and dislodged one of the postcards of lighthouses. It fluttered to the ground and Gregory caught it.
‘That reminds me. This came for you,’ he said. He rummaged among the pile of local newspapers by his chair and held out a postcard to me.
On the front was a picture of the inside of a bar. Old-fashioned. Wood and raffia bar stools and brick walls hung with glazed plates and bowls. But it was the ceiling that caught my eye. It was golden-brown like freshly baked bread and as intricate as layers of lace on a wedding dress. The description on the front said simply The Cork Bar at Alajar and when I looked at the back, the print said the same and added the information that Alajar was in Andalusia. There were only four other words – handwritten. Not many, even for a postcard, although the angular writing filled the space. Wish you were here, it said. Wish you were here.
There was no address so it must have been delivered by hand or sent in an envelope. I went to ask Gregory but stopped. There was a reason for all this secrecy. Nick’s safety depended on it. No one must know who he really was.
Why had he sent it? I thought I knew. I thought it was an invitation and the thought made me smile inside. I wondered if I was going to accept it.
Acknowledgements
I started writing On the Edge before I really knew how to write a book and came close to giving up several times as I slowly acquired the necessary skills to create something that a reader might enjoy. However, two things kept me going. First, there was something about Jen and her exploits that wouldn’t let me abandon the book and, second, the help of so many people.
Huge thanks to all my writer friends who have encouraged and supported me over the years, who have picked me up and dried my tears during the difficult times, who have rejoiced with me when I’ve had good news, who have been ever willing to help with research, who have beta-read and offered wise and tactful advice. I couldn’t have done it without you all: William Angelo, Shell Bromley, Thea Burgess, Sandra Davies, Philippa East, Fiona Erskine, Martin Gilbert, Karen Ginnane, Katherine Hetzel, Jules Ironside, Arabella Murray, Janette Owen, Matthew Willis, Lorraine Wilson and all the other wonderful writers who hang out at the Den of Writers (https://www.denofwriters.com). Big thank you to Alex Cotter for holding my hand during the worst of my stressful moments.
I was lucky enough to meet Debi Alper and Emma Darwin via their Self-Editing Course early on in my writing adventure. I will always be grateful for their eye-opening course which, besides knocking a lot of writing fundamentals into my head, also introduced me to the fabulous resource for writers that is Emma’s blog, The Itch of Writing. A massive thank you to Debi Alper for her editing, her guidance and her wisdom but mainly for being a very special person.
Thank you to my publisher Verve Books, not only for plucking me out of the slush pile and for loving On the Edge but also for being unfailingly supportive as I navigate my voyage to publication. Thank you Claire Watts, Lisa Gooding, Paru Rai and the rest of the team. A particular thank you to Jenna Gordon for making my day back in October 2020 and for understanding On the Edge so well. Thank you to Jennie for your insightful editorial suggestions and to Elsa for the glorious cover. Hopefully I might get to meet you all in real life soon!
Thank you to Jon Garside of The British Mountaineering Council for reading the climbing sections of On the Edge and correcting my mistakes. Any remaining errors are entirely my own fault.
A big thank you to all my friends and family for your love and support. Thank you Rosina, Tara, Dorcas, Jonathan, Madeleine and Stephen for reading On the Edge and being so encouraging. Thank you to Oliver for helping me with everything technical. And thank you to my mum, Cilla, for getting me started in the first place. I only wish you had been along for the ride. I know you would have loved it.
A very, very special thank you to my sister, Nikki, who has read every single word I’ve written (and some of them more than once) and found something positive to say about everything. I couldn’t have done it without you.
Finally to my husband, Alex. There are times in everybody’s life when they need a hero. I’m lucky enough to have one around all the time.
Author’s Note
Although many of the places in On the Edge exist in real life, readers who are familiar with the area around St Austell and Fowey will have noticed that many of them don’t. They are instead amalgamations of places I have visited and loved in Cornwall that insisted on being included.
About the author
On The Edge is Jane Jesmond’s debut novel and the first in a series featuring dynamic, daredevil protagonist Jen Shaw. Although she was born in Newcastle Upon Tyne, raised in Liverpool and considers herself northern through and through, Jane’s family comes from Cornwall. Her lifelong love of the Cornish landscape and culture inspired the setting of On The Edge. Jane has spent the last thirty years living and working in France. She began writing steadily six or seven years ago and writes every morning in between staring out at the sea and making cups of tea. She also enjoys reading, walking and amateur dramatics and, unlike her daredevil protagonist, is terrified of heights!
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Copyright
This eBook edition first published
in the UK in 2021
by Verve Books, an imprint of
The Crime and Mystery Club Ltd,
Harpenden, UK
vervebooks.co.uk
@verve_books
All rights reserved
© 2021 Jane Jesmond
The right of Jane Jesmond to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writ
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN
978-0-85730-816-0 (Paperback)
978-0-85730-817-7 (eBook)
Ebook and typesetting by Avocet Typeset Bideford, Devon, EX39 2BP