‘How do you fancy helping me bring in a key suspect? It’s a long shot. Might be a wild goose chase, but if it comes off, you’ll get all the brownie points from the DI. She’ll probably stop talking about charging you for obstructing the inquiry.’
‘She can’t charge me. Don’t be ridiculous. I haven’t done anything.’
‘You failed to tell us that Gemma Hartley was key in one of your marital cases. DI Sanders is not happy.’
Wendy narrows her eyes and then turns to him. ‘OK. I might help.’
‘Good. But first tell me again about what you passed on to Lily.’
Wendy talks him through it. How Lily Blake was sick of rumours about her husband and wanted to know one way or the other. She hired Wendy to find out. It didn’t take long.
Wendy discovered he was seeing two students: Gemma Hartley, and more recently a mature student, late twenties, studying politics. That’s why she was back at the campus – updating on the latest affair. She supplied picture evidence to the wife weekly, got paid and thought no more of it until Gemma Hartley was shot. She said, even then, she was sure it couldn’t be anything to do with Lily. A timid personality. Also heavily pregnant. Matthew remains shocked that Wendy didn’t contact the police.
He turns briefly to her but parks his outrage. Needs must. She’d better be as good as he’s heard.
‘Right. This long shot. I should be completely transparent here.’ He pauses. ‘I’ll request backup but we may not get it and there’s a small chance our target could be armed.’
CHAPTER 57
THE DAUGHTER – NOW
She’s tired of it all. This strange place. This unending sleep – stuck by the ocean.
She wants so badly to wake in her bedroom at home with the fairy lights wound around the bedhead and all the books on their shelves on the opposite wall. Colour-coded. Spines aligned. She can picture the room so clearly in her head but she can’t make it there; can’t even make herself dream about it.
Instead she ‘wakes’ always to the sound of the sea. Soft and whispering. But she’s not awake, is she? That’s the cruelty of it here. Every time she opens her eyes, she’s trapped in the same limbo. The same dream? The only new thing is that sometimes now there are distant voices too, as if coming from the sky.
One time, it was like an audio book playing on the breeze. When she listened more closely, it sounded like her mother’s voice as the narrator. Strange. Impossible. She felt her ears for earbuds and her pocket for a phone to turn up the volume but there was no phone. So where was it coming from?
She called out – turn it up; I can’t quite hear – but no one answered so she closed her eyes and strained to keep very, very still to listen. Familiar words. Familiar names. Maggie Tulliver. The Mill on the Floss. It took her back to school, reading in the library at lunchtime, and she felt a shiver, remembering how the story ends so badly. So sadly.
She thinks again of the sea, always stretching so far in front of her in these dreams. Waves rolling in the distance. Sometimes she wonders if she’s supposed to swim. Is that it? But she’s afraid of the currents and the rip tides. She remembers her mother at the beach when she was little – watch the flags; there are rip tides. And she thinks again of Maggie Tulliver. The water. Sinking down, down.
She wants so badly to go home but she just can’t work out how. She still can’t feel one of her legs properly, as if she’s slept on it awkwardly. She waits for the feeling to return but how can she swim meantime? Will her arms alone be strong enough?
In the last dream or waking, or whatever this is, when she opened her eyes there was this huge flash of light in the sky. Not blue. No clouds. Just this huge expanse of blinding light. She must, by mistake, have looked straight into the sun. It hurt and so she closed her eyes.
And then, in the darkness, she felt that lovely thing again. Warmth on her skin. Like the soft spray from the sea on to her forehead. Only somehow she knows that it isn’t the sea mist . . .
Suddenly she aches for her mother. For the voice on the breeze. And she misses her so very, very badly that it physically hurts deep inside her. She wants to cry but can never find any tears.
CHAPTER 58
THE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR
Nearing the cathedral, Matthew pulls into a parking space as his phone rings. Mel.
‘I’ve got a uniformed team there but no armed response. I’m not happy. Think we should leave it to the locals. They can liaise with the cathedral.’
‘Wendy and I have a plan. We can do this, Mel.’