Olly and Karen are the only people in the bar at the Traders. Tea lights flicker on the table between them as they discuss Jack Marshall.
‘What is it then, Sea Brigade?’ she asks. She’s got a vision of little boys in sailor suits with blue collars.
‘Pretty much Scouts with added boats…’ begins Olly, then falls silent. There is an apparition at their table; Maggie Radcliffe, glass in hand.
‘Don’t mind if I join, do you?’ she says, sitting between them. She gives Karen a long look. ‘I had your boss on the phone to me. Saying he’d been trying you with no joy. But he had a hunch you’d make contact with the local press. Apparently you’ve gone AWOL.’
Karen thinks fast: lie to them now and she’ll lose them for ever. ‘OK, you’ve got me,’ she says, palms up in conciliation. ‘I took leave, I’m here off my own bat. You know I used to write crime for the broadsheets? Well, I thought moving to the Herald would be a step in the right direction, more readers, but there’s no money for reporting, it’s all been cut, no specialisms, we all just regurgitate press releases. I should never have moved.’
‘But why’d you come here?’ asks Olly. ‘There can’t be any shortage of crime to cover in London.’
She swills her drink around in her glass. In for a penny… ‘Alec Hardy. I followed him, profiled him, on his last case.’ They look blank. ‘Sandbrook.’
Maggie claps a hand to her forehead. ‘Of course,’ she says.
‘He’d had this amazing career and then he all but vanished after the trial.’ It’s a relief to say it out loud to someone who she knows will get it. ‘Now suddenly he’s here. I was in court when it all fell apart. He failed those families. I saw it happen. And I’m worried he’s going to do it again here.’
Maggie nods grimly. Karen finishes her gin and tonic so fast that the ice hurts her teeth. ‘Same again?’
Becca Fisher is behind the bar but she’s lost in the screen of her mobile. Even though there are no other patrons, Karen has to shout twice to get service. With trade so slow, you’d think she’d be falling over herself to look after the few customers she has. What’s Becca looking at that’s more important than her business?
Liz has gone home, Pete has finally gone off shift and Chloe is asleep in her bedroom, knocked out by a half-dose of her mother’s prescription sedative.
Beth is alone for the first time since losing Danny. She eyeballs an uncapped bottle of red. Obviously she knows she shouldn’t drink. The flipside of oblivion is the loss of what fragile control she still has. And of course there’s the baby to consider. Not that anyone knows yet, not that anyone will judge her. But it’s getting dark now, Mark remains in custody and the unanswered questions swarm vaguely in her head. She needs something. She pours and drinks. It is strong but not sweet: is it guilt or hormones that sour the grape?
When the doorbell rings, she takes the glass with her to answer it, and there under the porch light is Reverend Paul, the one person in the world who knows she shouldn’t be drinking.
‘Am I intruding?’ he says. His eyes flick from her belly to her hand but he’s clever, or kind, enough to hide any judgement. ‘Thought I’d see how you were.’
She has to wonder about that. ‘How am I? I think, numb.’ She waves him into the sitting room. ‘I never said thank you. You were nice the other day. Want some wine?’
‘No,’ he says quickly. ‘So. I was thinking about Danny. I know a funeral isn’t possible until the police have finished their investigation. But we could hold a memorial service. For his life. A celebration, here. For you. For the town. For Danny.’ He’s using Danny’s name and not talking in euphemism; he isn’t scared of her grief and she appreciates it. But is she ready for what he’s suggesting? ‘There’s a wider community, which you’re part of. And which loves you, and is hurting with you.’ She’s getting a bit sick of this, the idea that Danny’s death is a community tragedy. She doesn’t notice anyone else with a kid in the mortuary. It is the Latimers’ loss and no one else’s. Sometimes Beth feels that it is hers alone. ‘Communal memorial can help.’ It occurs to Beth that a memorial service might get everyone off their backs and leave them to grieve in peace.
‘Maybe. Let me talk to Mark.’ She’s not sure he has forgiven Reverend Paul for talking to the reporters the day after it happened, for muscling in on the tragedy. And then there’s the God issue.
‘How… religious would it be?’
‘Whatever you like.’ It’s not the answer she was expecting. ‘We can plan it so it reflects who you are, who Danny was.’
The use of the past tense is like opening a vein. ‘I just want to feel him close to me. I want to hear his voice. I want to know how he is.’
‘He’s with God now.’
‘Tell God, give me a signal, something, let me know he’s OK.’ But she knows it doesn’t work like that, if it works at all. She wishes she could believe in God if only to rage at him for taking her baby away.
When Paul has gone, Beth wonders if she ought to pray, but she can’t find it in herself. What’s the point? There’s only one thing she wants and she doesn’t think God still does miracles. Instead, she spends an hour or so slumped in front of the television, flicking from one news channel to another, her miserable trance broken only by the rattle of the letterbox. She checks the time in the corner of the news: three minutes past ten. The trickle of sympathy cards from well-meaning strangers is constant and this late, it feels intrusive. But in place of the expected stiff white rectangle on the doormat, she finds a folded scrap of paper. She opens it to reveal neat round handwriting.
I didn’t mean to scare you. Danny wants to contact you. Please call.
STEVE
There’s a mobile number carefully printed overleaf.
Beth holds the note in shaking hands, remembering her words to Paul Coates: Tell God, give me a sign. She doesn’t believe in this sort of thing. Never has. But what if? What if?