‘Silly girl, getting so plastered,’ Huw said then. ‘You see it all the time, don’t you? They get the beer goggles on, then the next day they regret it.’
Not now, Ffion thought. I won’t tell him now.
Not ever, as it turned out. And without knowing she’d been raped, without knowing about Seren, was it any wonder Huw couldn’t understand why Ffion wouldn’t start a family? She didn’t deserve a baby, not when she’d given her first away.
Leo knows all of this, now. And more. He knows what Ffion is afraid of, and what she loves. How she feels about the lake, and the mountains, and the village she once couldn’t wait to leave.
‘I suppose—’ she says.
‘Maybe we—’ Leo starts speaking at the same time. ‘You first.’
‘No, you go.’
Leo takes a breath. ‘I was thinking about when we met.’
‘Right.’
‘Seeing you at the mortuary. It was . . .’
‘Awkward?’
‘Very.’ Leo says. ‘But then . . . Well, I just wanted to say it’s been great working with you. And not awkward.’ He stares over the steering wheel, suddenly quiet, as though he’s run out of steam.
It’s a goodbye, Ffion knows. Her secondment to Cheshire Major Crime will be over soon and she’ll return to her own patch. She and Leo might exchange a few emails, perhaps see each other at court in a few months’ time, but that will be it.
She mirrors Leo’s brusque tone. ‘You too.’
‘What were you going to say?’
Ffion had been going to suggest they gave it a shot. She wanted to say she’d never felt so comfortable with someone, and that when he’d put his arms around her and they’d stood looking out over the lake, she’d never felt so safe.
‘Same.’
Something has happened to The Shore. It isn’t just that the twinkly lights are no longer lit, or the champagne isn’t flowing. The resort seems somehow tarnished, a place no longer coveted, but feared. Avoided. Even the sky seems a little darker on this side of the lake, the clouds a little greyer.
As they get out of the car, the door of the Staffords’ lodge opens and a couple appear, their arms so entwined they have to walk sideways, crab-like.
‘That’s not Ashleigh Stafford,’ Leo says.
‘Your powers of observation are remarkable.’ Ffion watches as the couple stop to kiss, Bobby cupping the woman’s face and then picking her up and whirling her around. ‘Get a room,’ she mutters.
‘Alright?’ Bobby says, when he realises they have an audience. His grin’s so wide it makes Ffion’s cheeks hurt. ‘This is the future Mrs Stafford.’ The woman blushes.
‘S’mae, Mia,’ Ffion says. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’
‘No need for introductions, then, eh?’ Bobby pulls Mia to him. ‘She’s a cracker, isn’t she?’
‘Is that why you pulled me?’ Mia nudges him and they kiss again. Leo and Ffion exchange glances.
‘What happened to Ashleigh?’ Leo says.
‘Not under the patio, if that’s what you’re wondering.’ Bobby laughs, then stops. ‘Sorry. Bit close to the knuckle given the current sitch, right?’
‘Just a bit.’ Ffion can’t stop looking at Mia. She’s still dressed in her usual jeans and fleece, a pair of ratty old trainers on her feet, but her skin is glowing and she looks . . . radiant. There’s no other word for it.
‘Ashleigh left me,’ Bobby says.
‘I’m sorry,’ Leo says.
Bobby winks at him. ‘I’m not. The whole thing was a sham.’
‘We’ve all been there, mate,’ Leo says.
‘No, I mean it was an actual sham. Turns out Ashleigh wanted the headlines more than she wanted me. Once I realised, I said we should jack the whole thing in, but she said she’d get more coverage if we kept it going a bit longer. She had this big plan to leak some stories to the tabloids – arguments over having a baby, that sort of thing.’ He grimaces. ‘I should never have gone along with it. I just want a quiet life, you know?’
Next door, at number four, Clemmie Northcote’s door opens. Ffion gives Bobby a tight smile. ‘I’m not entirely sure you chose the best place for that.’
They wait until they’re inside before they arrest Clemmie. Out on the deck, a pair of wellies lies next to a chair over which a wetsuit drips on to the deck.
‘You told me you’d been to the village swim,’ Leo says later, the interview tapes rolling. ‘But that was a lie, wasn’t it?’