‘Help me get him in the boat,’ Clemmie says. ‘I can’t manage on my own.’ She’s struggling to make her limbs comply, the cold enveloping her so completely she can’t remember what it is to feel warm. Together, the two women heave Rhys into the hull of the boat.
As they leave The Shore behind, Clemmie rummages in the locker beside her and throws a lifejacket to Glynis. ‘Put that on.’ She doesn’t know if Glynis can swim, and she can’t risk the woman falling in. There’s a short length of rope in the locker, and she throws that too. ‘Tie the trophy to his ankle.’
‘This is wrong. We have to go to the police. I’ll explain—’
‘They’ll put you in prison, Glynis!’ Clemmie shouts, the wind whipping the words from her mouth. She holds Glynis’s gaze until the older woman looks away, defeated, and begins knotting the rope.
If there’s no body, thinks Clemmie, trying to still her whirring mind, there’s no evidence. She doesn’t know how much they’ve already left – fingerprints, fibres, DNA – and how much of that will be washed away, and she’s panicking, now, about what they’ve left at the Lloyds’ lodge. Has Glynis done enough? Did Clemmie leave anything incriminating at the scene, anything which can’t be explained away?
‘It’s done.’ Glynis’s voice breaks. She cradles her son’s head against her chest.
Clemmie kills the engine. She nods. Moves to Rhys’s body and grips both his wrists. ‘Take his feet.’
Glynis looks at her, her eyes pleading.
‘Prison,’ Clemmie says. ‘A life sentence – you’ll die behind bars. Is that what you want?’
‘I could explain, tell them it was an accident.’
‘And what about me? I didn’t ask to be dragged into this – I’m here to protect you.’
‘I know and I’m grateful, I really am, but—’
‘What will happen to Caleb, when they lock me up? I got him back on the right side of the tracks, but do you think he’ll stay there, with a mother in prison? If you won’t do this for me, do it for Caleb.’
The clouds shift and, for a second, moonlight illuminates the boat. Glynis looks at Rhys’s corpse. She takes his legs. Clemmie has a sudden, incongruous memory of giving Caleb the bumps at a birthday party, flinging him into the air once for each year he’d been alive. Three, four, five.
‘After three,’ Clemmie says. ‘One, two, three—’
Above the village, the sky lights up in reds and blues, electric rain pouring down on to the water. A rocket shoots for the moon, exploding in a cascade of silver.
And Rhys Lloyd plunges into the lake.
SIXTY
JANUARY 9TH | FFION
‘I need to go and check something out,’ Ffion says, after they’ve returned Clemmie to her cell to wait for the duty solicitor.
‘Check what out?’ Leo holds open the door, and they leave the custody block.
‘Just stuff.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘One of us needs to be here when Clemmie’s ready to go back into interview.’ She flashes a smile. ‘Anyway, I’m the Lone Ranger, remember?’
For once, the Triumph eats up the miles between Chester and Cwm Coed all too quickly. Soon, Ffion is dropping down towards the serpentine glimmer of silver in the valley. She pauses by the turn-off for The Shore, the huge letters seeming more of a warning, now, than an invitation. What will become of them all? Of the five owners, only Dee Huxley’s life is unchanged by what’s happened, and Ffion wonders what the old lady has made of it all.
But Ffion isn’t going to The Shore today. She drives on, into Cwm Coed and down the high street, where last night’s blizzard has left sludgy snow on the sides of the road. She parks the car and feels the familiar sense of dread as she walks towards Glynis Lloyd’s shop.
It takes a while for Glynis to open the door. When she does, she steps back in silent invitation, and Ffion doesn’t want to go inside, but they can’t have this conversation on the doorstep.
‘Go on up,’ Glynis says, when they’re standing in the narrow hallway. She gestures to the stairs which lead up to the flat, but Ffion walks straight on, towards the back door. Blood sings in her ears and she sees it all over again, that summer’s evening walk, her hand in Rhys’s. She feels it all again.
Glynis follows her into the back garden. Ffion looks at the summer house, now full of junk and stock for the shop. She remembers the sofabed, the piano, the music stand. She remembers the feel of the woollen blanket, scratchy against her bare skin.